Let’s take a moment to audit your attention—your greatest asset in personal growth and learning.

Is your attention caught in the endless scroll? Be honest with yourself. How many minutes or hours a day?

Or is it ruminating on the past? Projecting into the future? Fixating on what you cannot control?

And maybe the more important question:

What is the quality of your attention?

Does it prefer depth or surface?
Does it linger and contemplate?
Or is it easily pulled, distracted, and fleeting?

Do you feel mentally exhausted?

Because attention is not passive.

It is active, directional, and powerful.

It shapes your nervous system.
It shapes your emotional state.
And over time, it shapes your identity and reality.

What I See in My Patients

Most people don’t come in saying:

“I have an attention problem.”

They come in saying:

“I’m anxious” or “I’m stressed.”

Those statements don’t offer much clarity, so we dig deeper and uncover what they really mean:

“I’m overwhelmed” and “I’m stuck.”

And when we look closer, a pattern emerges.

Their attention is constantly pulled toward what’s wrong.

Challenging relationships.
Internal dissatisfaction.
A steady loop of resentment, anxiety, powerlessness.

They are stewing in a particular emotional state.

And over time, that state becomes:

their identity,

their personality,

their reality.

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A Patient Story

I’m writing this between treatments.

My patient is resting on the table.

He represents an extreme case:

easily triggered into anger, blaming, frustration, and powerlessness.

I asked him a simple question:

“Are you able to notice beauty in anything right now?”

He told me he tries.

But he can’t stay there for long.

He goes to the beach almost daily and instead of noticing the ocean, the light, the sound of the waves, wagging tails, laughter—

he notices everything that’s wrong.

Trash. Noise. Disrespectful people.

Now, I live in the same town.

It’s really not that bad. In fact, it’s quite beautiful.

But that’s the reality he’s created for himself.

He’s broadcasting:

“Give me more reasons to be angry.”

And the world responds accordingly.

Changing the Channel

You can think of yourself like an antenna.

You are constantly broadcasting a signal.

Your attention and emotional state tune that signal.

If your attention is anchored in frustration, resentment, or anxiety…

you will find more of it.

But if you change the channel—
and yes, it is a choice, even when it doesn’t feel like one—

your experience begins to shift.

Not because the world suddenly changes.

But because you do.

What Attention Feels Like in the Body

Distraction isn’t neutral.

It has a physiological experience.

It feels like:

restlessness
fragmentation
chasing the next hit
never quite landing

Presence feels different.

Presence is:

grounded
focused
regulated
safe

When you’re present, your nervous system settles.

And your body registers:

“I am safe.”

From this place, you don’t just react.

You respond.

There is a pause—a moment of awareness, and then a choice.

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My Own Experiment

At some point, I had to take my own advice.

I noticed a low-grade anxiety constantly running in the background, but without any obvious life stressors. Work, family, community, home, health—all stable. Sources of joy, not tension.

But when I took an inventory of how I’m actually spending my time, I was checking all the boxes for a healthy and happy lifestyle- exercise, fulfilling work, connection, eating well, occasional journaling, meditation practices, etc.

But there was one thing quietly eroding my experience.

Social media and all the garbage that comes with it.

So I stepped away.

From social media and from podcasts—especially the political ones.

Not because they are inherently bad.

But because I needed to reclaim my attention. I didn’t want my attention—my entire inner world—to be curated by an algorithm.

And I shit you not… something shifted.

My attention span grew. I felt calmer. Clearer. I read several books back to back.

My sleep, (notoriously and historically terrible,) improved tremendously–and I have the Oura ring data to back that up!

And for the first time in a long time:

The anxiety was gone.

Like… gone.

Quieting the noise was more powerful than any herb, supplement, medication, or lifestyle adjustment.

Learning to Be With the Quiet

Through my training in Sa’am acupuncture, I was taught to ask:

“Are you uncomfortable with stillness?”

That question stayed with me.

And eventually—even though I had asked it a hundred times—I had to answer it honestly myself.

Yes, I was.

So I practiced.

I stopped filling every moment.

I started sitting in silence.

And over time, something changed.

What once felt uncomfortable…
became something I preferred.

Even my meditation practice shifted without much effort or control.

In my first year of practicing meditation, I relied heavily on guided meditation tracks–for which I am so grateful because they helped me build a habit and get results quickly. But once my attention expanded, I no longer needed another voice gently guiding it.

Silence wasn’t empty.

It was full.

I’ll Leave You With This

Pay attention to your attention.

Because every moment…

is an opportunity to change the channel.

And in doing so,

change your emotional state, your nervous system, and ultimately, your life.

Your experience of reality—

the reality of your own making.

Oh, and my patient on the table…

As I was getting him up, he said to me,

“I’m going to walk my dog on the beach and pay attention to all the beauty around me.”

He chose differently.

Powerful.

Beautiful.

And I’m so happy for him.

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I recently began a nine-month immersive mentorship in Taoist Death Medicine with Randine Lewis.

It already feels less like “continuing education” and more like a remembering.

The foundational premise is simple, but it rearranges everything:

Life and death are not opposites — they are part of the same birth-life-death-rebirth continuum.

In our culture, death is treated as a malfunction. A failure. A medical event to be managed, suppressed, sedated, and controlled.

In the Taoist tradition, as in most ancient traditions, death is a profound transition of consciousness. A rite of passage.

Not annihilation.
Not disappearance.
Transformation.

A return.

Death as Return

In classical Taoist cosmology, consciousness does not end. Like energy, consciousness cannot be created nor destroyed. It changes form.

Death is described as a passageway — a release of the spirit (shen) back into the greater field of being.

What looks like absence is expansion.

Across ancient traditions globally1, death has long been understood not as an end, but as a transition within an ongoing continuum of consciousness, where the soul moves, transforms, and remains in relationship with the greater whole.

Not an interruption of life. A cyclical continuation of consciousness.

That the real you does not die. The identity loosens. The story dissolves. But the deeper awareness — the original face — is not reduced by dying.

There’s a line I love:

“When was I ever made less by dying?” — Rumi

Death is not the opposite of life. It is part of life’s movement.

Hun, Po, and the Architecture of a Life

In Chinese medicine, we speak of the Hun and the Po spirits.

The Po is the embodied, animal soul. It governs physical presence, density, sensation. It anchors us into the body.

The Hun governs time, narrative, imagination, and the arc of becoming. It allows us to dream forward and make meaning.

Together, Hun and Po anchor us into what we call “a life” — our space-time experience.

Life itself is a curriculum. The Hun engages the Po. We encounter shadow. We integrate experience. We translate suffering into meaning.

At death, this bond loosens.

The five elements release one by one. Jing releases Shen– the physical body releases spirit. The Hun begins to disengage from linear time. The Po returns to the earth.

Not as loss.

As liberation.

Why Unfinished Business Matters

One of the most striking teachings so far is this:

Death is often stalled by unfinished business.

Not in a dramatic or moralistic way — but energetically.

The most common concerns at the end of life are not about wealth or status. They are questions of integrity:

• Did I live the life I was meant to live?

• Was I true to my nature?

• What did I avoid?

• What truths did I never speak?

• What healing did I postpone?

These questions belong to the Yi and Zhi — the aspects of spirit related to intention and will. If they remain unresolved, the dying process can feel harder. More conflicted. More painful.

Learning how to die is inseparable from learning how to live lucidly.

The greatest regret people report at the end of life is not being authentic.

What Happens at the Threshold

As death approaches, the body begins to unwind.

Warmth diminishes. Breath shifts. Muscles soften. The jaw may fall open. The eyes stop tracking in the same way.

Sometimes the dying begin to see or speak to loved ones who have already passed.

In hospital settings, these experiences are often medicated away as hallucinations.

In Taoist medicine, they are recognized as part of the Hun expanding beyond personal time — engaging the broader field of consciousness.

The body may show distress as the Po releases — restlessness, twitching, changes in tone. But these physical signs do not necessarily reflect inner suffering.

One of the most radical teachings in this medicine is this:

Silence and presence are often more supportive than reassurance.

We do not reorient the dying back into the physical world.
We do not contradict their visions.
We do not panic.

We become steady.

Medication and Consciousness

This is delicate territory.

Medication can absolutely be compassionate and necessary when physical pain cannot be relieved by other means.

But heavy sedation has become the default in end-of-life care — opioids, antipsychotics, sedatives.

Taoist death medicine asks us to discern carefully.

Consciousness matters at death.

If someone is in a pharmacologic stupor, it may delay their ability to orient through the stages of separation and return. Sometimes the medication eases the discomfort of those witnessing death more than it eases the experience of the dying.

The invitation is not to withhold comfort.

It is to distinguish bodily pain from soul pain.

Life & Death as a Spiritual Classroom

Another teaching that has stayed with me:

Life is a spiritual classroom.

Longevity is not just about more years — it is about more opportunity for the soul to complete its curriculum.

Aging itself is a gradual withdrawal. Around the later decades of life, Lung qi weakens. The anchoring of spirit into the body softens. What we call dementia may, in part, reflect this loosening of identity and narrative.

We are meant to wither. To bend closer to the ground. To release our grip on personal storyline.

“Dying is a reward for a life well lived.”

That sentence lands differently when you sit with it.

Why This Work Feels Personal

Death has been a conscious part of my life since early childhood. I lost my only sibling when I was eight years old. I witnessed my parents’ suffering in the years that followed.

I have always been drawn toward the existential edges of medicine — mental health, shadow work, meaning-making.

Studying Taoist death medicine does not feel morbid.

It feels clarifying.

If death is a return, then how we live matters. If unresolved patterns shape the dying process, then integration matters now. If authenticity eases transition, then living awake is not optional — it’s preparation.

This work is teaching me that the greatest service we can offer the dying is not control.

It is our embodied presence.

And perhaps the greatest gift death offers the living is this:

Awareness of our mortality sharpens our sensitivity to life itself.

If we are all moving toward the great return, then the question becomes:

How will we spend the years between now and then?

Lucid or asleep?
Authentic or performing?
Avoiding or integrating?

Learning how to die may be the most honest way to learn how to live.

When I was a student of Chinese medicine—a “baby acupuncturist,” as I affectionately refer to my own students—I thought I was learning how to treat disease.

The first question on any medical intake form is always: Chief complaint.

Basically: Why are you here?

As baby acupuncturists in training, we learn what Chinese medicine can offer people seeking healing for a wide range of disorders that run the gamut of body and mind: pain, stress and anxiety, insomnia, digestive problems, perimenopausal symptoms, the occasional skin condition, and so on.

But in the ten years I’ve spent actually practicing Chinese medicine, what I discovered instead was something much bigger.

Chinese medicine isn’t just a medical system.

It’s a way of understanding the entire universe.

It’s a philosophy about how life works, how consciousness moves through the body, and how human beings fit into the larger intelligence of nature.

At the center of this worldview is something called the Tao.

The Tao is often translated as “the Way,” but it’s not really something you can define.

After all, the very first line of the Tao Te Ching says:

“The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”

And yet, in my determination to connect with you about something I find really f*cking important—like crucial to a life well lived, which is what I want for you—I’m going to do my best to describe it anyway.

The Tao is the underlying intelligence that organizes everything: the cycles of nature, the rhythm of the seasons, the movement of emotions, the rise and fall of life itself.

According to Taoist philosophy, health happens when we live in alignment with this movement, and disease happens when we lose touch with it.

Over the last ten years of practicing and teaching Chinese medicine, I’ve watched this truth play out again and again in clinic.

People rarely come in with just a physical symptom. They come in with a story.

A breakup that never fully healed.

A job that drains their spirit.

A lifetime of anxiety they can’t seem to shake.

What Chinese medicine understands—often better than modern medicine—is that the body is not separate from our emotional and spiritual lives.

Our bodies are expressions of our consciousness.

Which means healing isn’t just about fixing symptoms.

Healing is about becoming conscious.

Conscious of our emotions.

Conscious of our patterns.

Conscious of the choices we make every damn day that either bring us closer to alignment… or pull us further away from it.

In this space, I want to explore that process with you.

I’ll be sharing things I’ve learned from ten years in clinical practice, from teaching, from exploring consciousness, Taoist philosophy, meditation, manifestation, and from the thousands of conversations I’ve had with patients trying to understand their own lives.

We’ll talk about things like:

• How emotions shapes our physical reality

• Why we repeat the same old patterns

• Tools for your nervous system and neural reprogramming

• How Chinese medicine maps consciousness through the Five Elements

• How herbal medicine and flower essences can shift emotional states

This work is about the whole arc of existence- a full-spectrum philosophy. It’s about life, death, and how we navigate the space in between.

We’ll also expand our understanding of Chinese medicine beyond the narrow path of treating symptoms into something much bigger:

symptoms → healing → awareness → consciousness → Tao → purpose → manifestation → death

Chinese medicine opened a door for me into a much deeper understanding of life.

My hope is that it might open that door for you, too.

So welcome to The Tao of Conscious Living where every moment is an opportunity to become conscious.

Bibliography

Mitchell, Steven, Tao Te Ching, Harper Collins, 1992

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