How is your Shadow? by Keleigh August 24, 2015 I’ve always been drawn to ask people about the things we don’t normally talk about – our deepest fears and most farfetched dreams, the obsessions that keep us awake at night, the “confessions” that tumble out in darkness when everyone else has gone to sleep and it’s just two voices whispering fervently beneath the bedcovers. The meeting of the secret, ineffable realm and tangible, sensate...
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Wake Up To Your Life by Ellen May 4, 2015 I first came to a Level I workshop with the Awareness Institute (then known as the Aspire Foundation) on the advice of my meditation instructor in the Shambhala lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Although I didn’t know it at the time, and although it was not what I was “supposed” to be doing, I had for a long time been trying to use meditation as a tool for what spiritual teacher Michael Browne...
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Story Time by Colleen June 4, 2015 When I was a child, I lived for story time. I loved the chance to become immersed in the story, in the unknown- I loved the surprises that unfolded. I loved how, for a moment in time, I experienced whatever my imagination added to the words on the page. It was like a teleportation, from my little bed out into an infinite universe of possibility. As I got older, I realized I didn’t have to be read to...
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Who am I? by Shannon May 19, 2015 This account was written while on a 6 day silent retreat on Mount Shasta with the Awareness Institute in August of 2014. For years I’d known I had everything in the world to be grateful for: two healthy, amazing daughters, a devoted, loving husband, a lovely home, a purposeful teaching career, long-term sobriety… however, I had always lived with a persistent sense of unease, of impending doom....
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This Moment Will Never Happen Again by Rebekah May 4, 2015 What would you say if I told you that this moment would never happen again? Well, it’s true. There are no repeats, re-runs, re-dos. All you’ve got is this very moment, right now. I realized this fact (again) while driving home from work the other day. “I survived the week!” I thought, as if merely getting through was the goal. And yet, surely it can seem that way...
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Pickaxe by Annie Originally published on November 27, 2012 I don’t remember when I first heard about “enlightenment” or “awakening,” but I know that a force bigger than my self brought me to the Awareness Institute four years ago. On the recommendation of a friend, I showed up to a one-day workshop on “Conscious Relating” hoping to resolve some of my blocks to intimacy. What I experienced was my own vulnerability in a way I’d never...
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