Gavin Whyte's Blog, page 23
June 2, 2017
Change the Way You Look for “The One” and Find The One
What if your notion of “the one” is actually preventing you from finding the one?
Personally, I think the whole concept of finding “our one and only” is romantic nonsense.
Having said that, hopefully, by the end of the next 700 words or so, you will be well on your way to truly finding what you seek.
Let’s jump right in…
1 – If you are with someone, he or she is “the one”.
After all, they are the one making you reflect on yourself. They are bringing the issues to the table; issues that contain the potential for you to grow. If they don’t live up to your notion of “the one”, stop being a romantic and get to work on yourself, not them.
You might end up outgrowing them, and you might feel that there’s nothing else left to do but walk away. Yes, it’s scary, but if you’re serious about your own happiness and wellbeing, you won’t delay for long.
Remember: Freeing yourself is also freeing them.
2 – If you are single, let go of your idea of “the one” and watch what happens.
Something remarkable happens when you stop looking for the perfect partner. The possibilities open up for you to meet someone authentic and genuine, because you have stopped judging potential partners by how they don’t live up to your image of “the one”.
Your image of a perfect partner is erroneous, unless of course it includes all imperfections.
3 – If you really want to find the one (the one without inverted quotation marks) then do this one thing.
Look in the mirror.
NEWSFLASH: You are the one you are looking for.
Learn to love yourself.
[image error]
Stop moaning about your so-called imperfections, and see them as aspects of your unique perfection.
You are amazing.
Fill your own cup with adoration and love for yourself, and see how you begin to emit attractive qualities, such as:
Confidence
Joy
Warmth
Humour
Patience
Forgiveness
Acceptance
Like ripples, they will come back to you in the form of people and circumstances.
Jim Rohn, the late American author and motivational speaker, always used to say, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”
Let’s change it:
Work harder on yourself than you do on another.
Be kind to yourself.
Watch those self-sabotaging thoughts we all have.
Catch them, like wasps – for they do sting – and replace them with butterflies and song birds.
Repeat to yourself the following affirmations when you first wake up in the morning, and when you’re dozing at night:
I love myself.
I am perfect the way I am.
I deserve the best.
I am loving and I am loved.
I forgive myself.
You might not believe yourself at first, but just keep doing it. Say them with a smile.
Notice the difference in how you breathe, and how you hold yourself.
You might suddenly feel a need to dress differently, to wear brighter colours to match your new outlook. Your posture might change. You might stop slouching and stand up straight, with your shoulders back, and your chin up.
[image error]
Get rid of the notion of “the one” once and for all.
It has the power to not only hold you back, by prohibiting your potential for finding someone real to love and be loved by. But it can so easily crumple existing relationships.
It’s a romantic ideology, inspired by poems, literature, songs lyrics, movies, and everything else.
You might be saying, “Hold on a second, there, Gav. I’ve found “the one”.”
What if “the one” has an affair? What if they die?
Are you not going to open yourself up to love again?
And if and when you do finally brave loving another again, are they instantly demoted to number two?
What if you feel like you actually love them more than your initial number one? (You know, the one who an affair or died.)
What then?
You can’t have two ones; one of those must be a two.
Which one will you pick to be your number two?
It’s romantic BS.
I’m telling you, you are the one you are looking for.
[image error]
Learn to be your own best friend; you don’t need a partner to be a happy, but being happy and content being single is the perfect way to attract your ideal partner.
Smile at being single. Revel in it. Be comfortable spending time with yourself; smile at how wonderful you are; go to the cinema by yourself; go and have a coffee by yourself, and just watch what happens.
It really can feel like magic.
**
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
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May 31, 2017
The Healing Power of Space
I recently heard of a friend’s sudden loss, and cannot imagine the pain she must be going through.
What are we supposed to say to someone whose wounds are still fresh? “I’m sorry”?
I can’t see how that helps, and personally I try to avoid saying it.
Do we offer words of comfort?
We can try, but if our efforts fail to reach their mark, we have to be careful not to end up suffering ourselves.
I’m going to take a gamble, and say that it is our presence that is paramount to another in times of pain.
It’s what we all inherently have, but not all of us dish it out quite so freely.
We don’t always have to be in the vicinity of someone for them to feel our presence. Our presence can break the barriers of time and space. That’s the power of intent, thought – love.
I feel that more of us are becoming more sensitive to such an unconventional way of communication. Sometimes it’s just a feeling that, regardless of the chaos surrounding us, everything is going to be okay.
Of course, we are more adjusted and used to communicating through our physical selves, so we have to ask:
Can we be with someone who is suffering without adding anything other than our presence? (Which shouldn’t feel like anything has been added to the moment at all.)
Can we try being with their suffering without attempting to extinguish it?
It can be so easy to add to the flames without intending to. We want to help, but everything we do or say seems to make matters worse.
Sometimes it’s because we are in too deep, and their pain only reminds us of our own unresolved issues.
Many of us shy away from being silent. The radio is on, but we are not listening to it. The TV is on, but we are not watching it. They are doing their job, though – they are drowning out what we are trying to avoid.
The noise within.
Silence is the number-one amplifier of such noise.
Being silent with another is so rare. But when there’s suffering, silence can be the greatest healer.
Silence – true silence, not just not talking – accepts the suffering, the pain, the anguish, the shock, and gives it space.
And when we create space around our suffering, or around the suffering of another, without wanting it to go away (which would be resistance, resulting in more pain), we are saying yes to it.
Saying yes to suffering is saying yes to healing.
A moat of space is created around suffering when we accept it. It’s there for us to breathe in to, to smile in to, to cry in to it, and we continue to fill it up, knowing it can never be filled, overwhelmed or flooded.
Because it’s space.
Give any form of pain space, which is the opposite of clinging to it, and we begin the process of being free from it.
If letting go of your suffering gives rise to guilt (maybe because a part of you feels it is your duty to suffer) then create space around the guilt, too.
The more we spend time in that space, the more chance we’ll see and realise that life, actually, isn’t cruel.
Life just is.
Only when we cling to suffering, and add to it our stories (from the mind), does life appear unfair.
**
Love & Light to us all.
May 29, 2017
Life Lessons from Water
If you have read books on philosophy, especially eastern philosophy, like Bodhidharma, Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi (the guy who didn’t know whether he was a man dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it was a man), you will have no doubt come across insights that have come about by observing water.
You might be familiar with Bruce Lee, in the famous black and white interview, saying, “Be water, my friend.”
That, now, is one of his most well-known quotes. And Bruce Lee did have an enlightening experience, whilst on a boat by himself. He punched the water with force, and he observed how the water took that force and became it.
The reason I bring this up, is because I had a similar experience the other day.
After doing several laps at my local swimming pool, I went into the spa and got massaged by power showers, and the likes of.
Within five minutes it was beginning to get a little crowded, so I headed over to the Jacuzzi.
But that was full of elderly people.
The only thing left for me to stew in was a small, square pool. And it was completely empty. It had obviously been empty for some time, because the surface of the water mirrored the ceiling with ingenius precision. It was utterly calm.
I soon found out why this pool was being rejected; it was freezing.
After finding my breath again, I sat down with the water up to my chin.
The surface had lost its sereneness now. But I was determined for it to retrieve it, so I sat as still as a rock.
And it worked. The water calmed down and regained its mirror-like reflection of the ceiling.
Time to experiment.
I began moving my feet as if I was on a bike. It doesn’t take a genius to know what happened… small waves were formed.
What I found interesting, though, was that the waves didn’t just affect the water in my vicinity, but in the whole pool.
I stopped and observed them. They reached the poolsides, and then began a return trip to their source – me.
How interesting!
I pounded the water with my fist and began kicking my legs violently. I looked like a child having a blast in the bath.
The water responded to my movements by mirroring them. Sharp-looking waves crashed over the sides, and returned to me in equal force, splashing my face.
Then I stopped, but the waves continued, and I couldn’t, for the life in me, resist being moved by them. No matter how hard I tried to remain still, the energy and the momentum in the water – energy I created by my actions – was moving me, forcing me to lose my balance.
The analogy is simple: Our actions create ripples in consciousness. Our actions, most often than not, stem from our thoughts and feelings.
What are you emitting that you do not want to experience?
**
Before you go, it would be great if you could Like, Comment and/or Share
The ebook version of my uplifting and moving fable, The Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair, is now free. Please go and grab yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy it.
And let’s keep in touch. Click on this link to join my monthly newsletter. You will receive a free copy of Memento Mori: A Sneak Peek into a Seeker’s Diary as a thank you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
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May 26, 2017
Wee Words for the Weekend
Today I thought I would share with you an excerpt from one of my favourite books.
I’ve chosen a section from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.
I’ve bought several copies of this book over the years and gave them away to friends who said, “What’s it about?”
The copy I currently have was bought in a secondhand bookshop, here in Taipei. One of the things I like about buying used books is seeing the messages people write in them.
They seem to give a book a past, a history, and they end up feeling more precious than a new, unused copy.
Here’s what’s written in my copy of The Prophet.
[image error]How great is that!
So it’s not just me that feels the need to give away copies of this book.
And funnily enough, it’s the section on children that I was planning on sharing with you today. I won’t share with you the whole chapter, just a snippet.
**
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
**
Have a great weekend.
**
Before you go, it would be great if you could Like, Comment and/or Share
The ebook version of my uplifting and moving fable, The Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair , is now free. Please go and grab yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy it.
And let’s keep in touch. Click on this link to join my monthly newsletter. You will receive a free copy of Memento Mori: A Sneak Peek into a Seeker’s Diary as a thank you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
(Image info)
Can Terrorists Also Be Victims?
No doubt some of you will have heard about the recent suicide bomber, in the city of Manchester, England.
Manchester is less than an hour away from my hometown, so it feels very close to home.
Checking the news, like I do most mornings ever so briefly, sickens me.
And I don’t just mean the atrocities going on around the world. (It’s evident we humans really know how to make hell for ourselves.)
I mean how the media absolutely revels in it. The headlines they conjure up, the photos they choose to print, and how often they repeat the same stuff over and over again.
There’s nothing like good old-fashioned fear to drive the media into a chaotic frenzy.
Here would be the place to give you an example of what I’m talking about, but I’m not going to. You can do that yourself. Simply turn on your TV, or go on any major news network’s website.
As Caroline Myss says in this great talk, “I will not pass on my suffering, but my wisdom.”
So here’s the thing: I’m of the belief that every time there has been a suicide bomber, when the news headlines reveal the amount of people who have died as a result, the number is wrong.
They haven’t included the person who killed him or herself.
The news says, “X (amount of) victims”, and they miss out the person, or the people, who blew themselves up.
Surely those who carried out the attack are also victims, in some way.
Right?
Aren’t they a victim of hate, or ignorance, or an ideology?
They were a human being, just like you and I. When they were born, they no doubt were a tremendous gift to their parents; their families celebrated their arrival, and they were loved. They grew up getting to know the world, just like we all do.
But somewhere down the line, they came into contact with an unhealthy seed.
And that seed was watered with curiosity, and spurred on by the conditions of the world. It grew roots and thorns, until finally the day came when it drew the blood not only of themselves, but of others.
Please: Do not hate them for allowing this seed to grow.
The same fertile soil could have easily grown a rose.
If you do hate them, you will foster similar seeds in yourself, and it will ripple out into your world. You will live and breathe hate and ignorance, and it will blind you, and distort everything you see, think, and believe.
Can’t we see the effects of such seeds already, not only in the world at large but also in ourselves?
Isn’t it so much easier to hate them?
When such barbaric outbursts happen, the victims are naturally prayed for.
I’m asking you to also pray for those who committed the act, for they are also victims of the world we live in today.
I have never had a friend or family member affected by a malicious act of violence, so I do not have the experience of pushing through the kind of pain that arises as a result, but I urge us all to at least try our best to love those of us who are lost.
That’s right – love them.
Loving them is what we need to do.
This is about you and your world. The feelings and thoughts you foster within yourself ripple out, and when they come in touch with some resistance, they will find their way back to you.
Do you want to feel love or hate?
We do have a choice, believe it or not.
Do we want to foster (and feel) anger, and therefore suffer?
Or do we want to foster love and forgiveness, and grow through the suffering?
Before you decide, here’s a tip: It’s much easier to cultivate the latter when we choose not to allow ourselves to be influenced by external forces, such as the media, Facebook etc. This means we cannot be swayed by those who have succumbed to the former.
**
Before you go, it would be great if you could Like, Comment and Share
The ebook version of my uplifting and moving fable, The Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair, is now free. Please go and grab yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy it.
And let’s keep in touch. Click on this link to join my monthly newsletter. You will receive a free copy of Memento Mori: A Sneak Peek into a Seeker’s Diary as a thank you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
(Image info)
May 24, 2017
Following Your Heart Isn’t Easy, But…
She had made the decision to quit her job to follow her passion.
She undoubtedly felt good and relieved at finally following through with the decision to step into her own power. But then she had to confront the doubters around her.
I, too, had the same experience when I decided to turn my back on a recording contract. And what was said to me by friends and family was what I tried to capture when I wrote Happiness & Honey.
The excerpt I’m about to share with you is when the protagonist, Billy (a bee), finally plucks up the courage to tell his family he’s quitting his job to follow his dream.
“Once he had sat them down and laid out his plans, this is what they said:
‘We don’t understand. Why pursue something so idiotic? You’re going to end up hurting yourself. What are you th
nking! You’re going to fail. You’re going to make a fool of yourself – and us, for that matter. We thought you had grown out of all this irrational, dreaming malarkey. You’re too old to be chasing childhood fantasies. You’re going to bring shame to the family. What about all of your responsibilities? Don’t expect us to pick up the pieces after you. Why can’t you be like every other bee? Why do you always have to be different? We don’t understand. You’ve got so much honey and you’re still not satisfied. What’s wrong with you? You’re wrong in the head. We wish you would listen to us. We kno
w you and love you and know what’s best for you.’
“Billy just sat there, scared. But happy.”
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My friend, just like Billy the bee, found the courage to follow her heart. And just like Billy, she couldn’t hide her joy from others, to the extent that people commented on her smiling all the time.
This is what happens when we step out of the head and into the heart – we emanate joy!
So why does it take courage?
Because we can’t see the road laid out before us.
This is why our heart calls out for us to invest our faith in it.
All we can do is put one foot in front of the other and hope our feet are met with the comforting solidity of earth.
If you listen carefully, though, you will hear, with every step, your smiling heart saying, “You see? – You see? – You see?”
The way to live a life full of meaning is to learn to follow our heart, instead of our head.
It has been said thousands and thousands of times, for thousands of years.
It’s like an art, and just like any art, it takes practice.
To quote Happiness & Honey again: “A dreamer’s life is one of trials and errors. If the trials outnumber the errors, success is inevitable.
Many quit because the trials force them to be so overcome with doubt, that they feel they have no choice but to wave the white flag and surrender.
[image error]You cannot fail if you do not quit, for success is in the trying.
Now, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, that when you decide to follow the calling of our heart, you’ll have a smooth journey ahead of you.
You won’t.
I hear many teachers and speakers saying it’s easy. If it is, then I’ve been doing it wrong for over 20 years.
I believe they are just trying to promote false hope.
It’s not easy; it’s the hardest route to take – but if you are sensitive to the pleas of your heart, you really have no choice.
Why is it hard?
I can only theorize, but let’s say it’s because whatever we want wants to be fought for. Only then will we appreciate it once it’s within our grasp.
The struggle, doubt, and everything else I go through when I follow my heart, is nothing compared to the internal upheaval I experience when I follow my head.
Because every time I’ve followed my head, it has been through fear.
The heart forces us to grow and expand.
The head suppresses growth and promotes fear.
My friend asked me this question: Is it wrong to trust myself?
Wow!
Never-ever-ever-ever-ever is it wrong to trust yourself – your intuition – your heart. It’s the only legitimate guiding tool you have. In that one question of hers I could hear how much doubt was racing through her head.
There are two kinds of doubt:
Natural and unnatural.
The unnatural doubt arises when we listen to others, when we over-identify with our outdated self-image and inaccurate sense of self.
The natural kind of doubt is what we experience when we step out of our comfort zone. It’s unknown territory, so we doubt it naturally.
When you follow your heart, you become a leader. Not necessarily with hundreds and thousands of followers, but you become a leader of your own life.
And what could be more important than that?
**
Before you go, it would be great if you could Like, Comment and Share
The ebook version of my uplifting and moving fable, The Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair, is now free. Please go and grab yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy it.
And let’s keep in touch. Click on this link to join my monthly newsletter. You will receive a free copy of Memento Mori: A Sneak Peek into a Seeker’s Diary as a thank you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
Now
Check out my good friend’s blog. If you’re a fellow explorer of the inner-dimensions I think you’ll resonate with it.
The Inspirational Chapter of Life Continues Now
Nothing ever happened.
Nothing is happening.
Nothing ever will happen.
Sitting Still Searching Silently, Seeing Solace’s
Promise
That no matter what I do, I Am Forgiven.
Because Nothing has ever happened.
Here I Am, Free without needing to Heal.
May 21, 2017
Not Accepting the Inevitable Makes No Sense
Think about that for a second…
We don’t talk about what’s definitely going to happen.
Why?
Because we’re scared of it.
I’ll repeat that: We don’t talk about what’s definitely going to happen because what’s definitely going to happen scares us.
Talk about trying to ignore the elephant in the room!
Talk about suppression!
To be fair, we used to talk about it (I’ll get to what that is in a second).
It used to be closer to home.
We didn’t shy away from it as much (I’m talking more about the west here). It still brought about sadness and grief like nothing else, but we didn’t mask it like we do now.
I’m referring to death.
I purposely delayed telling you, just in case I put you off reading any further. Such are the precautions one needs to take when talking openly about this taboo topic.
How we talk about something plays a powerful role in how we perceive it.
That being said, look at how we’ve badmouthed death over thousands of years, what with social conditioning and religious beliefs and images. Look at how we’ve injected ourselves with fear and repulsion at the idea of it.
[image error]Image infoI’ve known people who couldn’t sleep through fear of not waking up.
And yet, we only know we’ve been asleep once we’ve woken up from sleep.
My sister’s friend died in his sleep. His parents went to wake him for football practice, and seeing the smile on his face thought he was fooling around.
How beautiful!
How wonderful that is.
Let me tell you: death is as organic and natural as the seasons.
And you are not separate from nature.
You have nothing to be afraid of.
[image error]Image infoHow can a snowman enjoy being a snowman if he forever concerns himself with the day he’s going to melt?
Because he will melt. That’s the nature of the substance he’s made of.
It’s time we altered the way we look at this process we’ve come to label as death.
For that’s all it is: It’s a process in life that we have separated from life.
Which is why we say life and death.
But can you see that there is only life?
Again, I will say: death is a process in life.
Life lives! That’s what it does.
The amazing book I Am That – Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, says on the front cover:
The real does not die, the unreal never lived.
Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment.
The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death. The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long.
THAT’S ON THE FRONT COVER!
I’m telling you, grasp only the first sentence and your world will be flipped upside down – in an unbelievably positive, life-affirming way.
It’s time we reexamined how we look at death, and that means we need to look at ourselves.
When you do, watch how magical life suddenly becomes.
**
If you liked this then please Like, Comment and Share.
The ebook version of my uplifting and moving fable, The Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair, is now free. Please go and grab yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy it.
And let’s keep in touch. Click on this link to join my monthly newsletter. You will receive a free copy of Memento Mori: A Sneak Peek into a Seeker’s Diary as a thank you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
(Image info)
Please visit: gavinwhyte.org
"Hi. I'm Gavin's dog, and this is me dressed as a frog - I think. He has told me to tell anyone who stops by to please visit gavinwhyte.org, because that's where he's writing now.Thanking you. F-Dog."May 19, 2017
The Blogger’s Dilemma
I am still unsure as to how often to post something new – maybe you can help me?
I’ve been posting a fresh post every day for around 50 days. But I don’t want to repel you, the reader.
So many of us are pushed for time. In the midst of working long hours, our inbox is forever being replenished.
Some of it will go straight into the bin; other stuff we save for a rainy day. We want to read it, but we just don’t have the time.
The pile grows and grows and we end up forgetting what we’ve saved.
[image error]Image info
Finally, the day comes when we sift through it all. But it’s too much to take in. Some of it we can’t remember why it’s even in the saved pile.
After a sigh of defeat, we press delete.
But it kind of feels good to have a spring clean.
Now, all those articles we knew we wanted to read someday have gone.
And the guilt and the pressure for not finding the time to read them has gone also.
But then the process starts again.
So as someone who’s potentially filling your inbox, what should I do?
I’m considering posting three times a week… with some inspirational fillers in between.
What do you think?
Is that too much?
Are you too busy to read everything you receive?
Would you prefer less?
More?
Or is it okay the way it is?
If you are a fellow blogger, what do you do? What works best for you?
Any advice you’d like to share?
*
By the way, I would just like to shout out to all of you who like, follow, share and subscribe. I haven’t been on WP long, so it’s great to have you on this journey with me.
Thank you.
I really appreciate it.
What’s a writer without a reader?
*
Have a great weekend.
Thanks again.
I will leave you with this simple reminder.
[image error]Image info
Before you go, it would be great if you could Like, Comment and Share
The ebook version of my uplifting and moving fable, The Girl with the Green-Tinted Hair, is now free. Please go and grab yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy it.
And let’s keep in touch. Click on this link to join my monthly newsletter. You will receive a free copy of Memento Mori: A Sneak Peek into a Seeker’s Diary as a thank you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings.
Gavin
