David Jones has a 30-year career with the United States government. He encountered mindfulness in therapy for his endangered marriage (which had led to anxiety-based depression and dissociative disorder symptoms), and writes about the experience in his blog as well as articles in various publications. He started writing articles about mindfulness for Yahoo Voices under the brand: A Mindful Guy.
Floating in Meditation: My Experience in a Sensory Deprivation Tank
Now the idea of floating freely in water scares me. I don’t know how to swim, although I can tread water a bit for a minute or two. If I go overboard into the ocean I’m toast—very soggy toast.
Going Back to Beginner’s Mind and Writing for Joe
By David Jones I’m finally calling myself a writer. It felt weird at first, but it’s getting easier. I’m working on kicking Imposter Syndrome to the curb (kinda), and now that I’ve retired from my government job of 35 years I can finally write without...
The Reason I Talk to Animals (I’m Not Dr. Doolitle)
By David Jones We have two cats at home, a couple of dogs and a visiting dog who I call the Grand-dog because she feels just like a grandchild. I like dogs, but I'm much more of a cat person. I don't enjoy having my face licked or dealing with the boundless...
The Highly Sensitive Person: Finding the Middle Way
By David Jones Hi. I'm David, and I'm an HSP: a Highly-Sensitive Person. Hey, don't look at me with that tone of voice. HSP is the tag being used for those who are overly in-tune with their environment and the people who inhabit it. It's also been called...
Dharma Talk by John Brehm {Book Review}
John shows us in words how well poetry and mindfulness fit together with awareness and attention to the world around us.
An Alphabetic Primer of Mindfulness
By David Jones What is mindfulness? There are so many definitions, explanations, articles and books that it all just gets a bit much, doesn't it? People who were mindful before mindfulness was cool are 'mad about the fad' it became. And it's gone from an aspect...
Mindfulness and Cognitive Impairment: How Mindfulness Helps Me After a Stroke (or 10)
By David Jones On September 2nd, 2019 I had a migraine, and along with it a small stroke (a Transient Ischemic Attack or TIA) on the left side of my brain. I lost most of my vocabulary for a few hours which made answering questions in the ambulance and the...
The Need to be Right
By David Jones One of the biggest challenges in American Buddhism today is the need to be right. And few things can feed the need as strongly as the Noble Eightfold Path, all thanks to the word "Right." In the quest for Middle Way thinking, we're...
Mindful Parenting: Building Empathy at All Ages
By David Jones Empathy is a vital piece of any relationship puzzle. If we can't understand how a person feels, they can become something we simply aren't connected to. Then there are folks on the other end who get swamped by other people's feelings. I'm in that...
How to Recover after We Mess Up
By David Jones I feel awful when I mess up, but when there's collateral damage---when my failure impacts others, letting them down---man, I'm a mess. Those pernicious accusing voices that show up with anxiety or depressive episodes, those nagging self-doubts,...