Hi Jon!
I want to tell you about a moment that stopped me cold.
I was a few days into a solo trip to the mountains near Julian, California. A small cabin on a quiet peak, no appointments, no noise — just some space to think and breathe and ask myself the questions I’d been too busy to sit with. The big ones. Where this practice is going. Where I’m going. What the next chapter of my life is supposed to look like when I’m being truly honest with myself.
I got my answers. But I also got something I wasn’t expecting.
The sunrises there are the kind that make you forget what you were thinking about. The sky opens up in layers of color so vivid and unhurried that your whole nervous system just… releases. And the nights were something else entirely. Pitch black. Completely silent. Thousands of stars burning so brightly overhead that it felt almost personal, like the universe had something it wanted to show you.
Standing there, I felt two things simultaneously — and I think this is worth sitting with. I felt profoundly small. And I felt profoundly alive.
That combination is powerful. Because when you are reminded of the sheer scale of existence — forces that have been at work since long before recorded history and will continue long after any of us are here — something shifts. The weight of whatever felt urgent that morning gets lighter. The noise that follows us everywhere gets quieter. And in that quiet, something opens up that doesn’t get much room in ordinary life: genuine gratitude. Not the kind you perform, but the kind that moves through you.
That is what awe does. It recalibrates us. It returns us to perspective. And perspective, I’ve come to believe, is one of the most underrated tools we have for living well.
You don’t need a mountain cabin to find it, though I won’t pretend that doesn’t help. Your version might be the ocean at dawn, a piece of music that has always moved you, a long walk somewhere green and unhurried, or a night sky far enough from the city to actually see it. Whatever pulls you out of the relentless loop of daily life and places you inside something larger — find it, protect it, and return to it often.
Not only when you’re struggling. Make it a practice before the struggle arrives.
We are alive during an extraordinary, complicated, fast-moving time. The antidote to that is not more productivity. It’s moments of genuine wonder. Moments that remind you that you are a part of something ancient and beautiful and far bigger than your to-do list.
Go find yours.
With warmth and gratitude,
Dr. Jon Deam Aveo Wellness™ | AveoWellness.com
P.S. These are real photos of one of those sunrises. It doesn’t come close to doing it justice — but maybe it will inspire you to find your own.
