David Welch is the founder and CEO of Awaken Global Media and Chief Editor of AWAKEN.com.

He is a Producer of the award-winning movie “Peaceful Warrior” and a member of the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America. David has an extensive background in front of and behind the camera in production of Film, TV, and Commercials as an Actor, Stuntman, Award Winning Assistant Director, Casting Director and Award-Winning Producer.

Play interview here. Sister Jenna starts with a guided meditation and David’s interview starts about 7 and 1/2 minutes in.

SISTER JENNA: I’m your host, Sister Jenna, and it always brings me great delight for you to take, you know, 30 minutes out of your day to listen to something good…something conscious, something that awakens you, and as a result, awakens humanity. We are such powerful individuals and sometimes we get distracted from that power. And even sometimes,we’re afraid of the power that we are actually are gifted with. And so, we put it on pause. We put it on the side table, we hand it over to somebody else, by allowing them to sort of dictate how we are supposed to be feeling. You’ve been there, right?

It has been a unique journey, has it not? We’ve had our best days…we’ve had our good days, and we’ve had days that were the greatest teachers to us. And as a result of those days, of which you personally wouldn’t intentionally write that scene into your script and life…you found that when you looked back into your life review, you grew from it…something emerged from it. The story moved in another direction that you wouldn’t have been very clear about…that maybe wouldn’t have been the way that I would have gotten to where I am today.

Today, we have the wonderful David Welch. He is the founder and CEO of Awaken Global Media, and chief editor of Awaken.com. He is also a producer of the award-winning movie Peaceful Warrior, and a member of the Directors Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild. Now David has an extensive background in front of and behind the camera, in production of film, TV and commercials, as an actor, stuntman, award-winning assistant director, casting director, and award-winning producer. David is also a master practitioner have Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a certified Kundalini Yoga instructor, and has a continuous, committed, daily yoga routine and meditation practice. Visit awaken.com.

Today we’re honored to welcome David Welch to the America Meditating radio. David, I’m so glad that you could join us to keep us awakened!

DAVID: Well thank you, Sister Jenna!

SISTER JENNA: Mmm, and I hope your day is startin’off right.

DAVID: Oh it always does. It’s just perfect.

SISTER JENNA: It’s just perfect. That’s wonderful. So then, when things are perfect,we don’t have to make too much effort, you’re saying?

DAVID: That’s absolutely true!

SISTER JENNA: So you have a very perfect, spiritual life…

DAVID: It’s all about awareness.

SISTER JENNA: There you go, there you go. Now your focus on life is very spiritual, and it’s a pretty strong spiritual life, and a committed Yoga and meditation practice. Were you born in a family that was just naturally inclined, or was there something that inspired you to move to a more awakened state of living?

DAVID: Well my mother was very awake, and very present. And I was actually born and my father was over at war, and it was just my mother and I for the first 17 months of my life. And then my dad came back and he tried to put me back in the box. And there was a battle between me and my dad, and slowly I became this ego. And at a very early age, I realized that I had lost touch with my true authentic self and that I was an image of myself. And for a while, I could realize that. And finally, I just lost it. I was just this ego. And then, so my life became about trying to reconnect with my true authentic self. So, I studied, and I went to many different teachers, and…The purpose of life is to be fully in life, and to wake up to the fact that we are infinite, eternal beings having a human experience. But that we are asleep, and that’s why we need to wake up. This planet is full of Buddhas and Christs that are asleep.

SISTER JENNA: Mmm, and it’s interesting because we are seeing the light illuminating and we are also seeing the dark illuminating more. And I’ve been meeting lot of Buddhas, a lot of Christs, and a lot of brahmas, babas waking up and I’ve also seen a lot of them going to deep, deep sleep. And I get concerned. Will there be a return for their lives? What would you say David? This is your interpretation of this specific time that we are now a part of?

DAVID: Well, we are part of an incredibly amazing period of time where the planet is waking up. And as the planet wakes up and becomes more conscious and more aware, it causes a lot of tension and friction and chaos on the outer edges of it. And if we’re focused on the outer edges of it, the world seems like it is in big, big trouble. If we are focused on the center of our awakening and our oneness with God…and when I say God, I mean Mother-Father God, then we are in a state of presence, we are in a state of oneness, we are in a state of peace, and quiet, and stillness. So, that is the center core of us and that is the center core of this planet and what’s going on on the planet. So, it’s very exciting and also, if you look at it a certain way, very dangerous times.

SISTER JENNA: Mmm, right. So you’ve got Awaken Global Media, and I do believe we do become what we ingest, what we eat, what we say, what we do. And for there to be a media company that is focusing on our awakening, and our sustenance of our awakening…must be quite an interesting undertaking. Could you tell us a little bit about how you started it, and what it offers through a global community?

DAVID: Well, one of my close friends is Tony Robbins and I started with him on his second fire walk many, many, many years ago. And in going through a Date With Destiny with Tony, I focused in on my mission in life. And my mission is to awaken the world through enlightened media. And I was working in the film business then, so I read an incredible book called The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, and I went wow, this is got to be made into a movie. So, I worked for a long period of time to get that made into a movie. And once that was out there, I started working on a second movie.

And then I got stage four throat and neck cancer, and all of a sudden, I was back in the present moment. I wasn’t in the future, where I was going to do something, and the past, where I was remembering what I did, so I could do something in the future. Boy, I was in the present moment, and as Carlos Casteñeda said, “I had Death sitting on my left shoulder.”And so, I was looking at my life and the fact that I might be dead in two or three years. So, my life became about healing myself.

Now, I knew already I had deep experiences of myself as an infinite, eternal being, so I knew that I was gonna be okay. My body and my mind were freaked out and they said, well okay, so you’re not gonna die, but we’re going to die, so what can we do? I said, well, what I think you need to do, is pray. So, I started off with a very elaborate prayer which was more of a positive affirmation…but a very close friend of mine, who is Jewish, said, “In Judaism, the shorter the prayer, the better.”I don’t know if that is true, but I said, oh, okay, “Lord God, heal me.”

So, while I’m having chemo for eight hours, “Lord God, heal me, Lord God, heal me, Lord God, heal me, Lord God, heal me,”while I’m strapped to the radiation machine, which is spinning around me. “Lord God, heal me, Lord God, heal me, Lord God, heal me.”A third of the way through my treatment, it changed. Not from my intellect, but from my root chakra, from my core, the prayer changed. And it became, “God is, I am. I am, God is. God is, I am.”There’s only God and me. The doctor is God, the chemo is God, the radiation is God, and me. And then, as I got deeper and deeper into that, what I realized was that there isn’t anything but God. So, I’m God too, but I’m a special aspect of God, that is separate from God, so that I can know God, and worship God, and be aware of God.

So that went on, and then two thirds of the way through, I’m strapped to this radiation machine, and this thing spinning around and I’m going, “God is, I am. I am, God is. I am healed.”And it didn’t come from my intellect, it just came up and at that moment, I knew I was healed. And if I hadn’t been strapped to the table, I would’ve jumped up and said, “I’m healed! I’m healed!”And of course, by the time the radiation thing got done spinning, my ego had popped up again and goes, “Well, what if you’re not healed?” So anyway, I just decided to finish the two weeks of chemo and radiation…and then I knew at that moment, that I…was healed.

So, coming out of that, I realized that what I needed to do was to create a resource for those people that are in the process of awakening. So, I thought that what I would do, is gather together all the teachers that I knew of that had helped me in my process of awakening and I would have each one of them have a section on Awaken, with a bio and with videos and articles that they had written, so that you could learn about these different teachers…a way to contact them. At the time, I was with Amazon’s books. I was selling everybody’s books and tapes and everything. Now, they had quit that, so I can’t do that anymore, but I was really only selling books, so that people could learn about the teachers.

So then, my mission is to help awaken the world. So everyday, I go out and I find some outstanding article about the body, some outstanding article about the mind, some outstanding article about the earth. Where I focus on the fact that our environment is in trouble. And so, then what are the solutions for our environment to be in trouble? And then, something about spirit. And spirit is always featured on Awaken. So, what wonderful thing can I put up there about Eckhart Tolle today? Or, the Dalai Lama, or Deepak Chopra, or Marianne Williamson, or Byron Katie? And then I find something, and I put it up there so that everyday, someone has something that inspires them, spiritually.

Because…to wake up is to wake up to the fact that we are human beings, and human beings are this wonderful thing that is also spirit. So, the body is finite, but the spirit is infinite. So, Awaken is a resource for those who are in the process of awakening and it is also a website. I go out and find outstanding articles from 247 different websites and then I link back to all of them. So that, if you come to Awaken, you’re not only there on Awaken, but you have the ability to link out to all these other sites that I found, that I feel are helping me awaken and helping others to awaken.

SISTER JENNA: That’s fantastic! It’s fantastic, everyone…because as I look at your Awaken site, you’ve got people like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Beckwith, Robert Thurman…so many of them are my friends. How did you go about getting them? Was it easy for you to get or did you find that it was really effortless on your part?

DAVID: It was very effortless. First of all, all of these teachers are out there teaching because they want to make a difference in the world. So I went, okay I am going to help them. So I’m gonna have a platform which they can… where their teachings are available to the whole world. And if you go to Eckhart Tolle’s site, you get everything about Eckhart Tolle. But if you go to the Awaken site, you get everything about Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson, and Byron Katie. So, maybe Byron Katie and The Work really resonates with you better. So, that’s the teacher that you maybe want to focus on right now.

SISTER JENNA: Mmm…so, it’s like a one stop shop for awakening. It’s sort of like the Uber of awakening.

DAVID: That is correct. And what we are doing now is interviewing all of our teachers. And what I wanted to do was to ask all of them…start off with pretty much the same question. You know, “What…how would you describe awakening? Being awake and living an awakened life?”And here’s what one of my teachers, Guru Singh, said,“In the simplest terms, awakening is a spectoral process. There is a spectrum of being awake, being moderately awake, being quiet awake, being extremely awake, and being, you know, fully awake. Whether being fully awake in this moment will achieve the same result as the next moment is the key to the definition in that awakening is not a condition; it is a process. A replacement word is ‘enlightenment,’which has now become acliché. So, awakening and enlightenment are synonymous with each other.”

And then I asked Tony Robbins, “What does it mean to awaken and live an awakened life?”And Tony Robbins says, “I think it means to get outside of your history, outside of your conditioning, outside of your culture, and become present in this moment and see what’s real right now, without the filters. It’s the ability to witness the mind and be the master of the mind instead of having the mind master you. This mind is not going to cooperate and say, ‘Well, let’s do this thing together.’I found in my life that your heart, your soul and your spirit have to get together to direct that mind to take charge of it and use it, or it will use you. And so, I think awakening is learning how to step outside of the mind’s control and step more into heart’s control and to really experience the joy of whatever is happening in your moment.”

And that was Tony Robbins, so…and Byron Katie had something different, and Marianne Williamson had a different angle at it.

SISTER JENNA: It’s like ocean, or more like a river of wisdom of enlightenment. So,tell me, what have you learned the most about yourself, being surrounded by so many lightworkers, so many positive spiritual folks?

DAVID: Well, they all are an inspiration to me. And I have a daily sadhana. And sadhana is a spiritual practice. And today is the 1877 consecutive day of doing an hour, hour and a half, every morning, of Kundalini Yoga, meditation, chanting and Qigong practice. Just me as conscious awareness, my breathing body, and Mother-Father God. And in this, the breathing body, is one of the keys to awakening. And so, that’s why I chose Kundalini Yoga as my focus in morning meditation…because it deals with the body and it puts the body into different postures that are difficult, on purpose. And there’s a point where you are stretching into something and there’s resistance, and you need to push into that just a little bit, not too much that you would actually physically hurt yourself, but enough so that it’s uncomfortable. And so you’re holding this posture and it’s uncomfortable and you are doing different breathing…you may be doing breath of fire or long slow deep breathing. And your conscious awareness then is…oh I just got lost!

SISTER JENNA: That happens to me, sometimes too!

DAVID: Help, help get me back on track. What were we talking about?

SISTER JENNA: Well, it’s all about your personal thing, about what you have learned, being surrounded by so many enlightened people?

DAVID: So, what I’ve learned…that it’s really important to start everyday off with a spiritual practice. And that spiritual practice for me is being with my breathing body and God every morning for an hour and a half, where I just focus on that. And actually, I start every morning with a prayer before I get out of bed. And I say this prayer out loud, “Infinite God, Goddess, Mother-Father Creator, Creation Source of Us All, I ask that you, I, help me, my family, all of humanity, and this planet to always be aware of your infinite eternal presence. I ask that you, I, fill me, my family, all of humanity and this planet with divine grace and unconditional love. I ask that you, I, bless me, my family, all of humanity, and this planet. I ask that all my guides and teachers and angels and archangels, guardians and allies be with me today to help guide and protect me as you always are. I intend for this day to be for mine and everyone else’s higher good. We ask that you heal Mary, Herta and Sean, so that they can live long and productive and healthy lives. I am on a deep spiritual path into the present moment and a woman, best friend, partner and lover who is just as dedicated as I am, stands and walks beside me. We ask that you help Awaken raise the money it needs to successful, to be the premier site on the web for those who are in the process of awakening. With ten of thousands, hundred of thousands and millions of people coming to the site everyday.”

SISTER JENNA: Wow.

DAVID: So, I say that before I get out of bed. And then I get out of bed and I start my yoga practice and my meditation practice. And then after that, then I get on the internet and look for those outstanding articles to post on Awaken.

SISTER JENNA: Right, right. Fantastic. So now, cause you mentioned about bringing in the abundance, and when it comes to the whole industry of spirituality and wellness, it’s now become a mushroomed market. Which makes it quite difficult for individuals who are holding those portals to actually financially sustain themselves. So how does Awaken continue economically, financially?

DAVID: Well, I did have some early investors and we brought in some money, and right now, I’m self financing and we are also asking for donations. We just put a donation button on Awaken because we decided we didn’t want to go the route of doing commercial…I mean, doing advertising, and such. Although, I do want to start where we will have an affiliate program with our teachers, so we that can advertise the events that they have, and if somebody goes and signs up with that event, then we can get some money back. So, right now,we’re being funded by me and donations. There is a donation button on Awaken and I would really appreciate if anybody would hit that button. And you can donate as little as a dollar a month, or just a dollar as one donation, or whatever you feel is good for you.

SISTER JENNA: Yeah, we always believe that every penny counts and we are definitely going to donate when we hang up with you. So how often do you update some of the teachers? ‘Cause when we looked over the site, you have so many teachers! Are you still updating teachers? What if there’s a teacher listening in on the call today and they would like to find out more information about you? Is there a form or a place they go to to connect with you?

DAVID: Well, on the Awaken site, there’s a contact place where you click on that and you can send an email to me and directly communicate with me. I do update all of the teachers, some of them more than the others. Some of them are more my favorites than others, so I tend to, like, you know, have Marianne Williamson and Deepak and Eckhart a lot, and my teachers. But I do…I am in the process of learning how to update this system, myself, and I’m going to add a number of teachers and a number of Awaken people. I have about ten to twelve Awaken people that I need to add to the site. So, I’m going to keep adding teachers and keep adding, you know, when I find somebody…like I found you, now! So, I’m going to see about adding you to the site, as a resource for people that are in the process of awakening.

SISTER JENNA: That’s very sweet. Just to let you know, that our sister friend Marianne Williamson will be speaking at the California Vision 20/20 in Sacramento, on September 20th to the 22nd, and she’s going to be giving some serious stuff about what’s going on in the country. So, if you can happen to get out there, David, or all of you that are listening, please come out there and join us! ‘Cause we are going to be there with Marianne, Michael Beckwith, Louis Gossett Jr…. J. Ivy is going to do the spoken word…there’s so many amazing people. We’ll have Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and it’s going to be a time where we are looking at illuminating the world by seeing what California’s doing. Everyone you’ve been listening to on America Meditating Radio.

And I’ve been having an incredible conversation with the founder and CEO of Awaken Global Media, also the chief editor of Awaken.com, David Welch. David has been sharing with us his journey, from having throat and neck cancer, to actually becoming awakened and beginning this online movement where it’s basically an Uber to all the evolutionary leaders and thinkers of our time. So, I’ve been enjoying our conversation with David, and I won’t be able to send…finish the conversation with you David, until…you know, you share with me about…maybe share with me and my listeners…give us a few steps. You shared about your morning routine, your morning meditation, your morning Kundalini practice, which I think is fantastic. Also, you talk about the prayer that you do in the morning when you get up, that you know, let there be abundance, let there be health, let there be good people coming into your life…Is there anything else that you could share with our listeners who might be new to the path of awakening and isn’t quite sure who to listen to, who to turn to…you know, what to do?

DAVID: Well, I want to just say something about the world. Please know what your issues are, and why you should vote for particular people because those people will help move your issues forward. And I think it’s very, very, very important that we all vote this coming November. I also feel that it is very important for us to keep tuning in…to life…tuning into nature. When you see that tree, just stop for a moment and just be present with that tree. Just really experience that tree and the beauty of that tree. Or, that flower. Or, that other tree, over there, or that person. Everybody is an expression of God. Everything happens to us personally —even, and especially, all that we might call “bad stuff.” It all happens to awaken us. What’s happening on the planet right now, the turmoil, is all happening to help us all awaken.

SISTER JENNA: And why did it have to be this way?

DAVID: Boy, that’s a good question and the reason it has to be that way is because of free will and free choice. And unfortunately, some people are making selfish choices; they’re making ego choices. They don’t feel connected with God, anymore. They don’t feel any oneness. They just feel separateness. And it’s scary. It’s very scary to be separate, separate, separate, you know? And the more you get separated, the more you get into trouble.

SISTER JENNA: Right. That’s so true.

DAVID: That’s why meditation and all of these…Yoga and all of these practices, are so beneficial…because they bring us back to the truth of who we are.

SISTER JENNA: Can I tell you something, David? You know that word, separation, has been so huge for me, recently because I realized that the separation was my disconnect to my original sense of self…my highest self…the kind of personality that would just reveal the beauty of God’s personality. And I don’t mean a female God or male God, a Christ God, or Buddha God, or a Mohammad God…

DAVID: Right.

SISTER JENNA: I mean, the energy of beauty and I know you knew what I was saying. So, like, this separation is like the spirit…the soul in our body knows. Well, you know, where have you been spending most of your energy?…because this isn’t you. So, we are walking around separated from our true sense of self. And I do concur with what you shared today…that we really need to start to listen more to ourselves and begin to select the things that we choose to listen, watch, read, and even choose to do.

DAVID: Amen.

SISTER JENNA: Alright. So, leave us with a beautiful website and a quote that we cannot forget.

DAVID: You are…there isn’t anything, but God. God is love. There isn’t anything but love. We just need to wake up to that fact.

SISTER JENNA: Beautiful. David Welch, thank you so much for joining us on America Meditating Radio and may consistent, unlimited abundance find your Awakening Global Media.

DAVID: Thank you so much, Sister Jenna!

SISTER JENNA: Take care. Bye bye.

DAVID: Mmm, bye bye.

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