A Brief Story of Bryan Reeves

At age 26, I was a Captain in the world’s most powerful military, the US Air Force.

… and I was completely miserable. 

I was dead inside. I could not really laugh. I surely could not cry. I could not feel my life.

In winter 2001, a few months before 9/11, I left the Air Force and – when all my military buddies were taking high-paying jobs with military contractors – I gave my things away and went walkabout into the world.

Just 3 weeks into my journey, late one evening while hitchhiking through northern Wales en route to wherever, I experienced a massive emotional meltdown in an old phone booth. My entire body shook heavily with deep tearful sobs as the pain I had buried so long beneath a mask of perfection ruptured like an earthquake from my core. I couldn’t go back to my old life, but I had no idea where else to go.

I felt utterly lost. I had no idea who I was.

Over the next few years, I would desperately seek to connect with my life as I backpacked across Europe and the Alps; I would meet a French woman, marry her 5 weeks later, and then experience her throwing me out of our quaint Bordeaux centre-ville apartment just 8 months after we got married. I would also make a solemn spiritual pilgrimage to the Holocaust camp, Auschwitz, in Poland, where a mysterious white ash fell gently upon me as I walked a lonely country road just 2 months after 9/11.

I roamed aimlessly across Australia, spending a week alone deep in dry crusted Outback under stars like glitter sprinkled on black silk.

I spent 3 months living with Egyptians in Cairo who adopted me into their lives as their own brother and son. And they would stuff me so full of breads and meat and surely-tainted water from their beloved Nile that I would eventually get dysentery and pray for a quick death. I would also get sexually accosted at the Pyramids in Egypt … twice. A short time later, I would live with a comically vain “holy man” in India who tried to have me committed to an Ayurveda Hospital in Coimbatore.

After a few years wandering the planet, surviving desert bugs, capricious French women and weirdly aggressive camel driving men at the Pyramids, I found myself back in the US, in Miami, FL.

Completely spent, I was finally ready to surrender my life to … well, something other than my own ego.

Shortly after I landed in Miami to lick my wounds, my family’s new company was just beginning. I joined the project and quickly became an executive and international PR spokesperson for a luxury timepiece that incorporated a unique mind-body science technology.

Oprah fell in love with it, and in 2005 I would spend a few minutes teaching her about mind-body science backstage at her show.

After helping to grow this company from $0 sales to $50 million within 5 years, I grew weary and left for a new adventure: Transformational Entertainment Artist Manager and Producer.

In August 2007, I made over $10,000 / month in my executive job; the next month, September, I started managing a spiritual music band … and made $25.

In 2009-2010, I took conscious pop artists, Here II Here, on a 12-month performance tour of the United States and Canada, performing over 200 concerts in 33 states.

As both Here II Here’s manager and a transformational entertainment event producer, I was blessed to work alongside worldwide luminaries like the Dalai Lama’s Spiritual Advisor, the Oracle of Tibet, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Byron Katie, Marianne Williamson, Don Miguel Ruiz, Michael Beckwith, Deva Premal, Snatam Kaur and many more brilliant visionary teachers reminding humanity of life’s true wonders.

Somewhere along my journey from military soldier to spiritual warrior, through the dank hells of heartbreak and despair – and with the help of a psychedelic experience or two – I rediscovered the thrill of being alive, and the beautiful life I came here to live. After triumphing through darkness and despair, I laugh more than I ever did as a child.

Today, I live in Los Angeles.

I’m Co-founder / Director for The Center for Mindful Education, where I’ve taught mindfulness to people with autism. I co-founded “Operation Mindful Warrior” to help bring mindfulness to military veterans who are currently committing suicide at a shocking rate (22 vets a day in 2013).

I serve on the Executive Board of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (G.A.T.E.). Founded by John Raatz, author Eckhart Tolle and actor Jim Carrey, GATE is an organization of entertainment and media companies and professionals – actors, producers, filmmakers, musicians and more – working to influence the entertainment and media industry to produce and distribute transformational content that inspires global audiences for the benefit of all.

I have a Masters Degree in Organizational Dynamics and Human Behavior (University of Oklahoma). 

I’m a regular contributor to various blogs worldwide, including The Daily Love, Elephant Journal, Good Men Project, Raw Attraction Magazine, and am finishing my first full-length book, Tell The Truth, Let The Peace Fall Where It May.

I live my dream by helping other people live theirs … as a transformational life and relationship coach.

Learn how coaching can turn your dreams into actual projects @ www.BryanReeves.com

Bryancito @ Burning Man 2013, Self-portrait at Sunrise