Part 1: From the Mind’s Aliveness to Living Awake

This past month has been heavy. Overwhelm from work, the pull to numb out on weekends, and a sense of disconnection that lingered into every part of life. I was there physically - doing things with Grace, showing up for work, going through the motions - but I wasn’t actually there. It felt like I could only see a percentage of life, and even then, I couldn’t touch it.

Looking back, I can see so clearly what was happening: I was trying to sustain “aliveness” through the mind.

When I first awakened, my journey was so conceptual. Big ideas and insights were flowing through - about presence, about the mind, about awareness itself. Those concepts cracked me open and showed me what was possible. But somewhere along the way, the mind took hold of it. It started wearing the mask of “the awakened one with all the answers.” I didn’t realize it, but I was still trying to live life through the mind.

And that’s why nothing felt alive.

Of course, then came the numbing. It gave a false sense of aliveness, but it never lasted. It was like chasing sparks in the dark when all along the real light was already within me.

Then yesterday, something shifted. I sat down for a simple guided meditation - something the mind had quietly told me I didn’t need anymore. And in just minutes, the fog lifted. My body felt lighter, my breath deeper, my awareness clearer. I walked out of that meditation and felt alive again. I could feel playing a game of Go Fish with Grace. I could feel walking to get dinner. I could feel life moving through me again.

That contrast - from a month of heaviness to the sudden return of aliveness - was the teaching I needed. It showed me so clearly:

• You can only see a fraction of life through the mind.

• Aliveness isn’t conceptual - it’s felt in the body, in the breath, in presence.

• Tools like guided meditation aren’t merely techniques; they are bridges back into awareness.

• Numbing might mimic aliveness, but only presence reveals it.

I see now that I’ve been moving from conceptually being awake to living awake.

There’s a world of difference between the two. Conceptual awakening lives in the mind - it understands presence, it talks about aliveness, it holds ideas of what it means to be free. But no matter how clear the concepts, life can only ever be touched in the body, in the felt sense of this moment.

Living awake is different. It isn’t about holding onto the mind’s version of awakening, but about surrendering into what is alive here, now - the breath, the body, the simple sensations of being. It’s about playing cards with Grace and actually feeling the joy of it. It’s about walking to dinner and sensing the aliveness in every step. It’s about meeting life directly, not through the filter of thought.

And maybe one day, a single conscious breath will be enough to bring me home again and again. But for now, I’m grateful for the simple reminders - like a guided meditation - that guide me back within when the mind begins to take over.

Because the mind’s idea of awakening can only circle the edges of life. But living awake… that is touching the heart of it. That is aliveness itself. And yet, even in the month of heaviness, life was still moving seamlessly. The flow of alignment was carrying everything forward - which opened me to another realisation: the paradox of flow…