In life I have times when everything just cruises along. I’m in the flow, just floating down the river of life and enjoying the journey. I meet the people I need to meet, am always in the right place at the right time and all action I take result in something desirable.
Then it happens! As the saying goes “the other shoe falls”. Someone or something comes into my life and damns the river, stops the flow or just sinks the boat right there from under me.
When I first started searching for my Truth I spent a lot of time going to seminars, doing programs and learning from the masters. I applied much of what I had learnt and experienced a greater awareness along the way, however there was one question that kept bugging me….
Why is it, when Life seems to be going along nicely Sh&t Happens to stop it? Now over the years I have come up with many answers as to why this particular phenomenon happens. However not long after the celebration for finding the answer had finished, I would come across something that would literally blow it out of the water and I would be back to square one!
At one stage I was so frustrated with it that when I was at a particular happiness workshop I got over my phobia of looking like a complete goose in front of 500 people and asked the facilitator the following question:
“You have mentioned throughout the day, that in life you will meet challenges, and some of those challenges are really opportunities for you to grow and learn by pushing through, and others are blocks to stop you and point you in a different direction. So my question is, how do I know the difference?”
There was a pause and everybody waited expectantly (maybe I was not the only goose there) and then the answer came, “You just know!”. WTF!!! What the heck does that mean. However this single answer gave me the determination to find out for once and for all, what I was supposed to know, and didn’t – sigh.
Initially I came up with analysing techniques to determine the difference and spent so much time doing them that it didn’t matter in the end as nothing got done. Then I discovered Intuition, the wholly grail of knowing, only to find that it’s not really any help when you keep questioning whether what you are getting is either coming from the Ego or Higher Self. So in sheer frustration I went back to my original theory that in life Sh&t Happens for no reason, so get over it.
Yep with all that work done on myself, all those programs, all that experience I had done a full circle and was now back at the start, Sh&t Just Happens!
Now this could be the end to the story except for one little thing, I DID know that everything in life happens for a reason and that includes Sh&t! So unless this is just one big cosmic joke I must have missed something, and that something was yet to come into my awareness for whatever reason. So I gave up needing to have the answer and kept riding the river when it was flowing and having a rest when it didn’t.
I made decisions on what available information I had, either intuitive or physical, and took the next obvious action, regardless of whether I thought it was an opportunity, block or just Sh&t Happening.
Then an odd thing happened. I came to the realisation that life was flowing most of the time. The other shoe was not falling and while challenges still existed they were never an issue, as I would just take whatever obvious action was required.
Of course this led me to the question of what had changed, how had I discovered the elusive “Knowing” without really trying. Then it stuck me.
I had stopped labeling these life experiences, and just treated them as an experience. I was not trying to judge them and was just accepting that they were here to be experienced or not (which if you think about it is still an experience).
This also led me to another realization;
Life Is Always Flowing, unless I label/judge it differently. I am always in alignment with the Universal Bus Driver because I initially chose this bus. There really are no lessons to be learned, like the ego would love us to believe, just experiences to be had, and an ongoing growing awareness that I do actually KNOW, by not needing to know and just accepting and appreciating life as it arrives.
It’s an interesting experience which I highly recommend you give a try some time, you just might be as surprised as I was.
Travel Well
Gavin
_ Over the years I have been told to get out and do what makes me happy, and if I really wanted to find true joy I had to do what I love.
Every time I heard this I thought yea that’s nice for some, but I have responsibilities, family kids a lifestyle to maintain, a world to conquer. So after that, then I will get around to doing what I really wanted, or at least take the time to figure out what it actually was that I loved. Now as time passed and I became a little more aware of what life may be all about. I revisited the whole do what you love thing. I examined my Goals, Values, Self and Inner Self, and came to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe there might be something to it. I’m not sure when it happened but the following question kept popping back into my head:Is it possible, just possible, to do what I love to do, and keep, maintain and expand all that I have now?You see I had two schools of thought here. - On one side I had seen a lot of people doing what they loved and they appeared to be happy to an extent, however they also seemed to be sacrificing so much.
- On the other side I had also listened to a lot of the experts in the do what you love field, and they promised not only could I do what I loved, but also I would receive rewards far beyond what I could imagine now.
It seemed to me at the time that the only way I was really going to find out was to go out and try it. Yep it has been my continual experience that if I want to really KNOW the True answer to any question I have to experience it, it just doesn’t come by thinking and intellectualising it. Additionally it has been my experience that wisdom is gained through both knowledge and experience. Anyway I digress, so back to the question above. The answer in my experience is an unequivocal NO! It is not possible to do what I love to do, and keep, maintain and expand all that I have now.I have found that in doing what I love to do and what I am drawn to do, the beginnings of peace and joy. However I have also lost, A LOT! Now for the kicker, I have also received rewards far beyond what I could have imagined, in ways I had never imagined.Now if I were reading this I would be saying WTF! And what’s more that is exactly what I was experiencing and at times still do, and the only way currently I have to explain it is this:For a long time I had built a world around what I thought I had to do, or what the external world, and people I loved and respected were telling me to do. I had amassed the toys, work life, family etc etc etc, then I got sick and over the years lost the lot. However after some years, experiences, challenges and lessons later I got better and started reclaiming all the things I had lost, except not with the same enthusiasm. Something had changed, the question had entered my awareness. So rather than looking outside for the answers I went inside, I really examined what I would love to do, then went about doing and experiencing it. I became open to living and engaging with life no matter what, and that is when I started to lose the stuff and things I was attached to, but hey this was an experiment, an experience, so letting go of a few things that obviously did not serve me was a good thing right?Nothing like letting go of the job and the security it provided, the apartment, the cars, the money and the list goes on, yep nothing like the feeling of waking most days and saying WTF is going on!It was about this time that I became aware that, yes my outer world was certainly changing, but so was my inner world, and in that I had a moment of clarity. What I was losing were the attachments to the things that were giving my ego the control and security it needed to keep me safe. To allow me to lead a comfortable, not fulfilling, but somewhat comfortable life. I also became aware of the fact that I no longer wanted that life, I wanted a life where I experience all that I have come to experience, I wanted to connect with my True Essence and live it.Yes I was starting to see the same world completely differently. A world that if I allow it, and let go enough, will give me all that I need to live and experience the true wonders it has to offer.Yes in doing what I love to do I have lost a lot, however what I have found is that as these things drop away my journey has become so much lighter and simpler.So when someone says go out and do what you love and receive riches beyond you wildest dreams, be prepared for the fact that you will lose – big time.Then jump anyway, because let’s face it what have you REALLY got to lose?Travel WellGavin
_Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a kid again?
Where every day brings a new adventure, and new experience to be had. NO, well I have and over the years have tried it a few times only to be dragged back into the same routine doing the same things because it was just to damn hard to do things differently.
Lets face it I like my comfort zones, they are safe and when set up don’t require a lot of time and effort to maintain. Yes they don’t provide the true happiness of soul experiences, but they do provide the safety and security my ego needs, without much disturbance to my daily life.
_However, yep there is that however again, what I have come to discover is that the times I breakout of the latest comfort zones I have created, are the times I have the greatest insights and direct experiences into what I consider is my True Self and life path, yep go figure!For anyone who has been following our experience here at Intuitive Travelling you will know that we are endeavoring to live a life that reflects what we feel is our True Nature and Purpose. In doing so, this has led us to many new insights, experiences and a closer connection to the universal bus driver. For both of us travelling is a way to see and experience new things as well as let a power greater than us direct the show, so we can just turn up on the day and really engage with life.The interesting thing I have found is that no matter where I am or what I do, I am always tending to either gravitate back to an old comfort zone, or get busy trying to create a new one. Now you might say that because we travel around a lot having different experiences, living a Soul Life would be easy and that’s what I expected, forgetting of course that wherever I go so does my ever loving ego trying to keep me safe and sound. So it has been my experience that if I don’t intentionally set to do things differently I find myself in a brand new comfort zone with little desire to move on and take the action the ever persistant bus driver is nudging me to take.You see I love new experiences. Having a direct experience of doing something new is exciting and allows me to really be in touch with life. It also frees me from expectations and judgments that so limit me, and I presume most people, from living and enjoying a life of freedom. My issue is all the effort it takes to do something new. It is so much easier to stick with what I know rather than go for something new. It is really a case for me of “The pain of staying the same has to be Bigger than the perceived pain of change” for me to move, and this is even when I know that by moving I get to experience the real me, my True essence so to speak.With that said I have been inspired to create myself a challenge for 2012. For me there is nothing like a good challenge and this one has been brewing for sometime, it just took till now to really know what it was and why on earth I would want to do it!So here is the challenge:To have a one (or more) new unique experience(s) every day of 2012.Now just to clarify for those who are interested, an Experience is anything that requires me to do (or be) something, and New means (for it to count) that I have not already done it in 2012, and the further out of whatever comfort zone I have created the better.Easy you may say, what’s the big deal, well have a think about it! What new things have you done over the past day, week, year or 10 years even.? At the end will you have had a lifetime of experiences or one year experienced over and again for a lifetime? If you think it will be easy then give it a go, if you think it will be hard then give it a go, really what have you got to lose, and if you think why bother then only you can answer that, for me I feel it will be challenging and hopefully fun.Anyway that’s it. I will post my progress on our facebook page here, and when the page is built on the website.If you do decide to take up the challenge and want to share what you have been up to, feel free to add your comments to the facebook page or website.I wish all of you a great New Years Eve and an exciting and new 2012, I know ours will be.Travel WellGavin.
_You want to make yourself very unpopular at parties or self help groups? Just ask the question,
Is it possible, just possible that life has no purpose, and the only thing to do is just have the experience?
Then after asking be aware of the reactions and the justifications as to how that is not possible, could never be possible and how dare you even suggest it!
_When I first started asking I was amazed, at how even the suggestion was inconceivable to a large majority of the people, and especially severe in the people who had done some or a lot of personal, spiritual or self-development work. My feeling is that the reaction usually revolves around the defense of some version of an idea that if there is no purpose to life then what’s the point, why go on, why bother, and it’s these very fears that multiple industries, religions, spiritual organisations etc, have been spawned and profit from, to answer. All of which have a theory, promote that theory as truth and then sell it as such.
It is only now I have come to realize that we are defending the amount of money, time and effort we have invested in coming up with an answer to the simple question of what is my life about? Then when we think we have the answer we defend it with all we have, even to the point of defending it when we really know that our current life is not working for us, we are not really happy but hey, it’s what we know and our current situations are just probably a test of our resolve, even if its lasted for years!
My question is, and it’s one I invite you to consider, who came up with the idea that there had to be a purpose to life? I mean apart for all those who profit from giving the answers, or formulas etc, who actually said you have to have a purpose to your life, otherwise you will disappear in a puff a smoke and never be heard from again. Or worse still meander through life never making anything of it and at the end go, what a bloody great waste of time that was!
Now at this stage you may start to think I’m against life purpose, to be and achieve, to make the most out of myself and be a success, and I will tell you I’m neither for or against it. As I personally have experienced if you’re honest with yourself it does not make any difference. You see a real Truth does not require you to believe in it or not,it just IS. Take gravity for example, you can jump off a 100ft cliff and protest all you like about how you don’ believe it exists on the way down, but my guess is the end result will be the same.
The same goes for Life Purpose, is it the journey, is it the destination or does it actually matter?
It has been my experience that the minute I gave up looking for a life purpose, and started purposefully living, I started to experience my life.
I realized that I did not have to spend my life doing, nor did I have to spend my life being. All I had to do was show up and be prepared to engage in the life that was presented to me. Again in me experience there are no secret formulas or maps to be found or bought, programs to do, goals or visions to be set, I am already who I need to be to live the life I came here experience. I don’t need a purpose to life to justify why I am here or why I do what I do.
So you may ask if this is really what’s its about, if this is a truth of life, why is it that very few are promoting its existence and joyful results? My only answer to that is how would you charge people hundreds or even thousands of dollars to show them that they are searching for nothing, it does not exist, you have no purpose and really no path to find it! You are already all you need to be, or will ever be for that matter, and its only your fear that this may be true, that is holding you back from experiencing it?
If you take the time to become aware of life, it shows you the journey, the signs and the path.
In my experience through all that I have done and experienced, the courses, programs and such, the one thing that I have found is that they were signs on my path for a unique experience of life. My only issue was that I thought they were the answer in themselves, and I have great appreciating for all the teachers and masters I have found along the way, for they were the ones who have pointed me to the experience I am having today.
My suggestion is that there is no journey without a destination, and no destination without a journey so really the question is mute. Just as long as you keep looking at the moon, rather than the finger pointing at it, and turn up every day and engage in the experience then you could even call that a worthy purpose if you need one.
Currently on our travels we enjoy both the journey, the destination and really appreciate the signs along they way. So what’s the purpose you might ask, and the answer for me would have to be I don’t know, so then why did we do it?
Because we can and it’s an experience.
Travel Well
Gavin
_Come on you have had to wonder, it must have crossed you mind at some stage, who the heck is in charge of my life?It really is a question that should be put to every kid, in every school. A question that if they ponder, will lead them to question what path do I actually want to take, or even, do I have a choice?Well if you are like me, when I asked the question, you came up with the obvious answer. I have a choice and I am in control. I take total responsibility for my life and the choices I make. Then I went on to say, I am a grown up, I am not playing the victim to life, I know that I create, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I’m working on improving it. I have done the work, the workshops, the programs. I have so much invested in this way of thinking that I was in charge, and I am not going to give it up easily! _However, yes you knew their was going to be a however, as with every journey of self discovery, in my experience you have to keep asking questions, until there are no more to be asked. So the next question was: Could I accept the possibility, yes just the possibility, that I might not be in control, that I might not actually be driving this bus called my life, and if I answered yes then that begs the question of WHO IS Driving this frigging Bus?The EASY answer is, god, soul, a higher power, you know the sayings, get out of your head into you heart, love is the greater power, go for god and all that. But for me that was too easy, and I needed to go further, be it right or wrong, even if there is such a thing, I decided to try and explain the something that has happened in my life that as yet seems to be unexplainable! You see over the years that I have been experimenting with my life and having many direct and different experiences, and what I have found is that the moment I let go of control of a situation it resolves itself. One of the best examples of this in my life was when I had severe depression. For 5 years, virtually every morning I would wake up trying to decide if it was worth going through another day. Some days I would say yes, and on others I would decide no, which led to less than desirable results of stays in various hospitals and for lack of a better term NUT houses. Then one day I woke up and realised I had a choice. I could go on resisting this evil monster and try yet another type of medication, therapy, self help tape etc, and have some results, then only to have this monster return, or I could just accept that every morning I was going to wake up, feel like shit then appreciate the little things I could still do. So I chose the latter!It was my first real experience in letting go. My feeling at the time was that I had just condemned myself to a life of misery and sickness. I kept asking, had I just given up except in a different way? For the next 3 months I would wake feel like shit, and then just do what ever I could, appreciate it and deal with life as it was presented. Then one morning I woke up and didn’t feel as bad, and over the next week the black cloud that had followed me for 5 years gradually broke up. I was amazed and relieved. I had done nothing but let go of driving and trying to make things better. I had just accepted and appreciated life as it was presented, and lived it the best I could for the condition I was in.Looking back now, it was at that time I decided that I didn’t drive the bus. Now that is not to say that in the time to come I didn’t cry shotgun and jump in the drivers seat. It is to say however, it has been my experience that when I do, life on the bus ride seems to strike a lot of unmade and bumpy roads. So the obvious question is: Who, or what is driving when I don’t? Well at this point in time I can’t answer that. The only answer I can give is, I don’t, and as I keep letting go, I seem to be finding new roads and highways I didn’t even know existed, having experiences I could not even start to imagine and finding a true joy in life.Now I’m not saying this is the life for everybody, I’m only relating what I have experienced to now and expressing that in the insights I have gained. However what I do know, and can tell you, is that it is only through a direct experience of living it, do you ever know what it is like.If you want to give it a go, this is what works for me:- First, accept that you don’t drive the bus and that the life you are living at the moment is the exact life you are meant to be living, then breathe!!!
- Second, live life as it is presented to you. Accept and then appreciate all situations, let go of all thoughts and feelings about them, then from that place take the next obvious step presented, and I assure you it is presented, you just have to be aware of it.
- Third, know that whatever happens the universe is supporting you on your journey, and your choice is only how you would like to experience it.
With that said I will leave you with a song that’s been playing in my head while writing this and that is, “Hail to the bus driver, bus driver, bus driver, Hail to the bus driver, bus driver ……………………………………………..”Travel Well Gavin
I was about 15 years old when an evangelical pastor said to me “son do you know that god has a divine path for you”. My reaction was cool I’m glad someone knows where the heck I’m going because I have no clue. However when I asked for the map of this path he gave me a bible and said your destiny lies here! Well this little interaction set me on a quest for the next 35 years to find this elusive path that I kept hearing about. My quest has led me to masters in personal growth and self help, workshops, seminars and programs, the major religions and some not so major, countries and cultures across the world, spiritual organizations and some not so spiritual. It has taken me through marriage, kids, divorce and other relationships (its complicated), happiness, depression and attempted suicide (obviously failed). Yes it has been, and remains quite an adventure. The only thing that has remained constant in this whole quest is my intense desire is to find and live this True Path I was obviously put on this earth to live. You know the one, the path to joy, live the life you love, happiness and beyond etc. There are so many ways of expressing it, and if you search as I have, the same amount of people and organisations proclaiming to have the secret map. So it’s fair to ask after spending an incalculable amount of money and time on this quest, did I find the treasure map that leads to nirvana and never ending joy? Well I will get to that answer soon, in the mean time I would like to express some of the insights I experienced along the way. The only rule here is that they all start with: In my experience - - The truth you know and defend today will inevitability change tomorrow,
- Always question the real motives of people and organization's of all types, who have so much invested in their version of the truth that other possibilities are impossible,
- Remain open to the impossible, as it just may be possible tomorrow,
- Change is inevitable – acceptance and appreciation are optional,
- Knowledge combined with direct experience equals wisdom,
- The Being driving the bus of life may not be me,
- Always ask the questions you really don’t want to know the answers, to such as:
o Is there really a purpose to life? o Who am I? o Who is the I? o What is reality and what is illusion? o What is the truth?- The ego lives in a world of duality, the heart and soul live in oneness,
- And so much more, so for now I will just leave it as etc.
Ok so much for insights, here is what I have found so far about being on my path and living my truth, (insert drum role here), I was, I am, I have been. Yep during all that time, spending all that money and doing all that research I found I was on my path, was living my truth, was doing what I loved.There was only one issue, and that was I had not become aware of it! That is the difference now, I am aware of it and in doing so am having a very different direct experience of my life. As I have expressed previously “life and change happens” no matter what, and my path is to just turn up and enjoy it. That is why I could never find the damn map, I didn’t need it, as it is not my job to find my way, it is given to me one step at a time and my only task is to take the step. This is what I mean by living and traveling intuitively. We don’t have, or need a map, (except the van GPS, that helps sometimes). We accept and appreciate life as it comes and take the obvious action when the universal signs indicate, the only trick is to be quiet enough to see and hear them. Now if you have bothered to read this far, you may not feel that this is for you and my only suggestion is try it for yourself. Give it a go, what have you got to lose. You see when we come across an idea that challenges us, or we do not agree with, we tend to dismiss it out of hand because we have so much invested in what we believe already. However I have found that the only way I know what works for me is to try it on and have a direct experience of it.I will leave you with one question “Do you feel it is possible, that everybody is actually on their path, living the life that they were meant to have, with the only choice being in how they choose to experience it?”Travel well Gavin PS: If you feel inclined, drop us a comment below.
The one thing about living a lifestyle intuitively on the road is that it brings home the fact that “Change Is Inevitable”. Now it doesn’t matter if I want it or not or if I believe in it or not, the fact is “Change Happens”. If you disagree try a little experiment, do nothing for a week. Lock yourself in a space and just do absolutely nothing for a week and observe what happens! My feeling is change will happen, the world will go on and change, even if you feel you are the centre of the universe. However forget about the world, even when you do nothing you change, you will get hungry, if you don’t move you will get sore and if you do nothing but sit quietly with yourself for a week, then my guess is your mental state will change, however I don’t recommend doing this without consulting an expert in the field and top up your medical insurance for mental health cover. OK, if you still don’t feel “Change Happens”, then for the sake of this blog just take my word for it and dare I say for the moment just accept it. Which brings me to the question – If change is going to happen no matter what we do, then, what do we do? Well in my experience you have two choices: - You can either accept and appreciate it, or
- NOT accept and NOT appreciate it.
That’s it, yes you have free choice and these are your choices, and again in my experience both choices will give you a very different “direct experience” of life. Which brings me back to our current lifestyle, where this constant change is amplified. When travelling we stay at a place usually less than 4 days and house sitting less than 4 weeks. We are always in new places, with new people and animals, new experiences and generally with no plan of what is going to happen next. We very rarely operate on automatic as our environments change so rapidly there is no chance to get used to it. Typical examples are one minute we may have cats sleeping on the bed and then at the next house sit dogs snoring. We move from sleeping in Paris “Our Camper Van” with a king single bed to a house with Queen sized bed and inside toilets and showers.Yep that’s our life on the road, and we make the choice constantly to accept and appreciate the change. That is what I mean about it’s our choice. We can choose NOT to accept it, try and resist it, and in doing so have a direct experience of the suffering, pain and frustration that generates, or as we have done, accept and appreciate it and have a direct experience of the adventures, synchronicity and joy that generates. It really is that simple! However that’s not to say it easy, because in my experience its not, but, also in my experience it is a worthwhile pursuit because when you boil it all down it’s the only game in town and you all ready know the formula. - Change Happens
- Accept it
- Appreciate the difference
- And last but not least, let go of the stories we make around it.
So here is my challenge to you, rather than locking yourself away and doing nothing for a week, try consciously accepting and appreciating change for a week and see for yourself the difference (if any) it makes in your life. By the way if you feel moved to, feel free to leave a comment about your direct experience of change.
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