Today I Choose to be Awakened: When Everyone Else Is Playing Pokemon Go in the Sacred Grove

The journey of learning how to be awakened often begins with a simple realization. After 118 self-help books and many Eckhart Tolle quotes later, I’ve discovered something: naming it makes it elusive.

But I’ll try anyway.

We were in Lady Bird Johnson Grove, walking among ancient redwoods in a preternatural quiet that made my skin shimmer with recognition. These trees had been reaching toward sky for centuries before I was even a possibility. The silence was otherworldly. I felt it – that knowing there was no possible set of coincidences that could lead to little ole me experiencing such a perfect place. I was a tiny cog in a huge universe but very much an integral part too.

Then Amy and the girls started playing Pokemon Go.

“Ahhhhgggg,” I thought (possibly out loud), and walked faster, trying to escape the Pokemon and refind the peace. Curtis was bored. Jesse was Jesse. Only Tyler got it. I was so disappointed that several days later, when we passed by again, I asked Curtis to please stop. Everyone had already seen it, so I walked it alone.

Could I refind what I’d experienced initially, before Pokemon invaded the sacred?

I could. I did. I was so happy.

That’s awakening in real life – not everyone floating in synchronized bliss, but you speed-walking away from augmented reality to find actual reality.

The Difference Between Thinking You’re Awakened and Being Awakened

When I was younger and devouring self-help books, I really thought I was quite the awakened human. I felt very woowoo, so surely I was awakened. I’d read the books, done the meditations, could quote the masters.

But the more I thought I knew, the less I actually did.

Now I truly know that I’m just brushing the surface, and that fills me with awe. As the Tao Te Ching suggests, it’s not cognitively knowing – it’s just KNOWING. And what I know now is how little I know.

That Wayne Dyer lecture where I thought I was enlightened until I realized I wasn’t? That was thinking I was awakened. The grove moment? The shimmer across my skin like warm goosebumps? That’s awakening.

The Guatemala Existential Crisis

We were driving three hours from the airport to the resort in a bullet-proof van. Smog lay over the valleys. Families of four on scooters – mama holding a baby – wove in and out of traffic. The homes were hovels.

At the resort, the surrounding town was impoverished. We approached armed guards at the door, everything covered in razor wire. The resort was beautiful, dinner lovely, until we heard: pop pop pop.

“Tell me that’s fireworks,” I said to Curtis.

My former SWAT officer husband replied, “No babe, that was gunfire. Three different guns, I think.”

That night as he lay sleeping, I realized I didn’t have a plan. What if armed gunmen traversed the wall? How could he sleep? The next day, on a beautiful fishing boat, the trip took two hours. Two hours to consider: How by the grace of God am I so fortunate? Why are these people so unfortunate? How can I enjoy this amazing gift knowing babies are on scooters weaving through traffic?

That’s awakening too – the brutal recognition of cosmic unfairness and your own unearned privilege.

What Actually Contributes to Awakening

You’d think bankruptcy would awaken you. It didn’t – it just developed my grit.

You’d think finding your birth daughter after 52 years would awaken you. It gave me a beautiful opportunity to forgive myself, but that’s different.

Awakening to me is knowing – really KNOWING – how interconnected we all are, what a beautiful part of the universe we are. It’s not about your title, your bank account, your makeup. Those illusions fall away when you’re looking into a friend’s eyes when they’ve lost their child, holding a loved one who’s hurting, seeing the grandeur of nature.

It’s feeling that shimmer, like warm goosebumps, spread across your chest and skin when truth touches you.

Staying Awake in a Doom-Scrolling World

Here’s the hard part: maintaining that glimmer of awakening when Al is texting “FML” at 6:47 AM and you’re managing 18 companies worth of chaos.

The glimmer helps – it’s a perspective shift that lets me process the FML, stay positive, and move forward. But I also know what pulls me back to sleep: trying to drown out the day with doom scrolling, TV, movies. They wrap you in cotton wool and keep you from truly being awake.

Sometimes after a stressful day, I’ll start to doom scroll. When I realize there’s no meat there, just elaborate schemes to get my attention, I wake up and put the phone down. The awakening isn’t permanent – it’s a practice of catching yourself going back to sleep.

The Hardest Truth About Awakening

The most difficult truth I’ve faced? Realizing how far I have to go and watching myself take two steps forward, one back. But here’s the thing: I don’t wish I could go back to sleep. I crave the connection awakening brings.

Even if it means walking alone through a grove while everyone else plays Pokemon Go.

Even if it means lying awake in Guatemala wondering about exit strategies while your husband sleeps peacefully.

Even if it means feeling the weight of unearned privilege on a fishing boat.

Your Awakening Won’t Look Like Mine

Maybe your grove moment happens in a subway station. Maybe your Guatemala is a conversation with a homeless person. Maybe your Pokemon Go is your family talking over your moment of recognition.

The point is: awakening isn’t what 118 self-help books tell you it should be. It’s not about feeling woowoo or quoting Eckhart Tolle. It’s about those moments when you KNOW – with a shimmer of warm goosebumps – that you’re both insignificant and integral.

It’s about speeding up to escape the Pokemon players to find the quiet.

It’s about going back alone later because you need to know if it was real.

It’s about lying awake with no plan while gunfire pops in the distance, suddenly understanding everything and nothing.

The Practice of Awakening

Start by noticing what pulls you into cotton wool sleep – the doom scrolling, the noise, the constant distraction. Notice what brings the shimmer – probably not what you expect.

Remember: the more you think you’re awakened, the less you probably are. The real awakening fills you with awe at how much you don’t know.

And when everyone else is playing Pokemon Go in your sacred grove? Walk faster. Come back alone if you have to.

The trees will wait. The knowing will return. The shimmer will spread across your skin like warm goosebumps, reminding you that you’re a tiny, integral part of this huge universe.

Even when Al texts “FML” at dawn.

Join our community of women who’ve found awakening in unexpected places – between Pokemon and redwoods, in bullet-proof vans, or in the glimmer that helps us process another FML text. Share your most honest awakening moment below.

P.S. To everyone playing Pokemon Go in sacred spaces: We love you, but we’re walking ahead. We’ll meet you at the car.