‘…no need to fear the storms of life …’

Busy with work just now, so this is a short blog entry, but I felt I could perhaps share with you an affirmation that presented itself to me in early 2013, when I happened to be going through a particularly difficult time in my life – a new (potentially very positive) venture being started by me was being knocked back by outside circumstances – I was trying to find a positive in all that was going on.

It happened about then that an unexpectedly bad storm was sweeping across where I live, and everything was getting battered by the windy, wet, weather – new, fresh leaves and plants were getting hammered to the ground just as they were starting to really show their potential. It made me think about my life and problems too, and my mind was drawn to set down these words. Enjoy!

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‘There is no need to fear the storms of life that sometimes attack our soul and threaten to break our spirit. It is merely part of the change we must go through to become more beautiful and more useful people. Take heart that even the mightiest mountain cannot withstand the rain and wind, the burning heat and bitter cold, for ever. Over time it is utterly shattered, cast down, and ground into smaller and smaller pieces until it emerges as the gentle sand of a beach, reflecting heat and light, and a joy for all who see it and warm their feet on its softness.’

            ~ Gaius Quinterus

To accomplish ‘extraordinary’ things……..

People – well, those who have known who the real Gaius is – have sometimes asked me where I get the inspiration from to crystalise my thoughts and put them down in writing. The answer is not a simple one, and I don’t fully understand how it happens myself but, in the interests of others perhaps being able to identify with what I say and maybe start to share their insights and thoughts too, here we go!

I find the sayings/quotes/affirmations just ‘come’ to me, at the oddest times – like a voice in my head…. come to think of it, maybe I really am cracking up! Specifically, I may have been toying with a particular thought I want to convey (some sort of experience or feeling I want to share), and then into my mind pops something completely different entirely, ready made and 90% finished as I think it…. bizarre…

I actually look on such ‘interventions’ as simply being receptive to the ‘collective consciousness’ (for want of a better phrase), and the simple fact that I am prepared to be open to the collective need of the moment. I firmly believe that we are all part of an integrated human consciousness, but the vast majority of people aren’t (seemingly, and sadly) even aware it exists, and certainly aren’t receptive enough to hear anything that it is trying to convey to them personally. I consider myself as someone who is being asked to listen and then pass on what I hear – I must sound nuts, but that is what it really feels like…

However, at a very profound level, I find it very comforting, mentally and emotionally, to feel I am part of a greater whole – part of something much, much, bigger than any of us can imagine, but yet an active/re-active part of it all the same. I don’t want to apply labels like God, Universe, Astral Plain, etc. – that would seem to restrict and constrain the flow, so, in my mind, I think of it as a vast surrounding, deep, invisible, ‘sea’ of knowledge, emotion, love, goodness, compassion, hope and wellbeing.

As for little old me, I am privileged to feel the words I write are like an occassional small splash at the edge of that sea’s vast expanse – a few drops of water that may impact on a bit of dry land and perhaps bring hope of new life and opportunity to one or two receptive folk.

Here is one such affirmation (from early 2012 actually) that may inspire you along your own Life’s Journey. I certainly hope you can continue with me on mine 🙂

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“To accomplish ‘extraordinary’ things, people need to stop being ‘ordinary’.

The desire to be ‘normal’ and the innate need, felt by so many, to conform to peer, media and social pressures, turns the majority of people away from their true potential and makes them ‘ordinary’ themselves – dragging many of them into drudgery, disappointment, sadness, despair, and dependence on living their lives through watching others live artificial ones. 

‘Ordinary’ people can never break free from the mundane, the acquiescent, the servile. It takes ‘extraordinary’ people to change the world and make exciting things happen, new, special, and innovative things.

To truly find your place in life, develop your mind, listen to your heart, act with kindness and care to those around you, and be the different person you were always meant to be.
Be ‘extraordinary’, and be all the happier for it!”

~ Gaius Quinterus

Loving all creation, including yourself!

This blog entry may seem to start off in a dark place, which it sort of does, actually, but I promise you there is light at the end!

As an Aspie, being bullied and picked on, year after year, for being ‘different’, I can tell you that one of the great problems of having too much time living in your own little world, along with an active (but seriously confused) mind, is that you tend to overthink things to the point of desperation at ever getting to grips with what people mean, what their real motives are, what they are trying to accomplish, how it impacts on you, why they are being so ‘horrible’, what do they hope to gain by being bullies?…. why?…. what for?….. how?…. etc., etc… ??

Until I discovered my true nature, I often felt defeated by people, angry and isolated, demeaned and belittled, and yet could find no way to reconcile these negative feelings with trying to be positive in my daily life and running my business, going to the shops, organising simple things…. and so on… I would find myself becoming judgemental about people very quickly – not those closest to me (I could normally understand their motives better), but people with whom I only had fleeting contact – the shop attendant who seemed brusque and rude to me, a person on the phone who didn’t seem to be listening to what I was saying, someone who had been arrogant or patronising in a comment on Facebook – things that I just couldn’t let go of in my mind – things that rankled with me, made me petulant and irritated, and therefore even less able to cope with the next apparent attack on me personally. This negativity was leading me, more and more, to become dissatisfied with myself, with who I was inside – the inner person with whom I was not having a  functioning discourse because I didn’t understand what was going on in my brain…

I knew I wasn’t ‘getting anywhere’ as a person, just bumbling along with negativity becoming the norm for me, far too often. Yes, my health was poor, and yes I had some obvious social difficulties, but I always felt I should be able to rise above these things, at least to some degree, and find a positive way to live and get to know myself as a friend, not as a problem which was living inside my own body!

So when I realised, at 50 years old, that my own brain was wired in a way that was actually causing me my own misery, I started to consider how, in fact, I was responsible for how I felt about people, just as much as they were responsible for their own actions which were causing me a problem (sometimes only a perceived problem, but real enough to me at the time). I have written down some of my thoughts on the matter, just after the picture, but the picture encapsulates the essence of the message.

(Picture is Loch Assynt, North West Scottish Highlands, and was taken by me)

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‘What other people say or do is very much their responsibility, but the way in which we react to the behaviour of others is entirely our responsibility. How we judge the actions of others has a direct effect on us as individuals, if we let it. So, while we have no control over other people, we do have control over ourselves and how we let our judgement of other people’s behaviour influence our thinking, emotions, actions and reactions. Be careful to establish your own solid principles and practices in life, and shape your mind with peace, positivity, kindness, compassion and understanding, so that when confronted with the actions of others you may deal with them sensitively, caringly and kindly. Be careful to not let yourself be angered, hurt, confused or diverted from the path of loving all of creation, including yourself. It is not helpful to be consumed with hate, anger, envy, despair, hurt, jealousy or any other negative emotion, because these things will only harm you.’
~ Gaius Quinterus

This is a subject we will come back to again – have no doubt about it, my friends!

PS: In my very first blog post (The ‘Awakening’) I give a bit of background about myself – partly setting the scene for the blog’s existence – you may find it interesting if you would like to know more HERE …

The ‘Awakening’

It seems only fair to you, the unsuspecting reader, that in this very first post I should try to explain why I am writing this blog. I will try to be brief, but I make no promises!

The story starts a few years ago now – not that many, but a few.

It is often felt that significant birthdays (20, 30, 40, etc.) are times at which our lives change – and for me being 50 years old was just such a moment. Not the actual birthday itself you understand (although I did have a very nice one), but during the months that followed I had a truly deep, meaningful and eye-opening ‘awakening’ – one that has had a profound effect on my life ever since.

Not a spiritual ‘awakening’ and maybe it is something that many would find a strange thing to celebrate, but when I was 50 (plus a few months), after struggling for much of my life with so many apparently ‘ordinary’ situations, I discovered I was deeply, very much, no mistaking it, an ‘Aspie’, by having what is pretentiously called ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’ – sounds awful – but it isn’t really.

Realising, without a shadow of a doubt, that I had Asperger’s was not actually a shock in itself, and neither was it anything that made me sad in any way – it was, and still is, a point of great satisfactory revelation – a true ‘awakening’ of self-realisation which has led to me to completely re-examine, overhaul, redirect and recalibrate my life from the ground up, since that day.

To set the scene, we need to go back to the mid 1950s…. Please bear with me – I promise the history lesson will be short…
All my life – even as a toddler, I ‘knew’ inside myself that I was ‘different’ – certainly my parents thought I was more than a bit ‘odd’ and, although I was academically bright, I struggled terribly with social events and any sort of peer interaction…

As a kid, and actually more so as a teenager and as an adult, it is difficult enough to know you are ‘different’ to your peers but for me it proved to be a very isolating and lonely experience, because I didn’t know why I was ‘different’, or in what way I could help myself not be ‘different’…
With the perfect placement that only the Universe seems to manage at times, I fortunately had a grandfather and a great-aunt who were truly wonderful and stood out head and shoulders above everyone else in my circle of friends/family by accepting me as I was, warts and all, and I forever owe them a huge debt of love and gratitude for helping keep me trusting in the innate decency of some people, while around me life was not a happy place at all in most ways. Dreadfully bullied at school, manipulated and bullied at home, and struggling with almost constant ill-health meant I had to retreat into myself, mentally and emotionally, to simply get through from one day to the next.

For me a true light came into my life when I was 20 – I met the woman to whom I have now been married for over 40 years – another of the very few people who has always accepted me as I am – and, thankfully, still does!

So, I made it to 50, and my ‘awakening’ was when I found out why I had been struggling for so long, in so many ways. Suddenly a great deal made sense, and immediately I knew I had to take stock and consider how best to proceed, building on what I had discovered and how my 50 years had been shaped up to that point.

And here I am – a lifetime of trying to figure out my existence, how others interact with each other, often studying the world from a third-party perspective and, for the last few years, jotting down thoughts, inner discussions and rules-of-thumb to help myself best deal with life from here on in – when suddenly other people wanted me to share these ideas, affirmations and analogies.

Given the nature of my past, I started using the name Gaius to distribute my writings – very gradually at first, but slightly more expansively as time has gone on. Having also been a photographer for part of my working life I often incorporate some of my images with the words at times.

I hope you will want to take this blogging journey with me, and I will start the process with the first step – one of Gaius’ writings from a few years ago that came to me as I was thinking of how my own life in the past could help me find direction for the future.

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‘By knowing, accepting and dealing with your weaknesses you will gain strength.
By knowing, accepting and dealing with your fears you will gain courage.
By knowing, accepting and dealing with your anxieties you will gain confidence.
By knowing, accepting and dealing with your failures you will find success.
Embrace life’s difficulties, because the sooner you do, the sooner you will reap life’s rewards.’
~ Gaius Quinterus