SELF Wellbeing

Home - Messages From The Road Gayle Yewell on Living as a Real Christian: Love Over AppearanceFebruary 15, 2026Very good article. Thank you for all you do 😊

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I don’t write because I am brimming with sunshine. I write because I naturally run dark.

And those of us who run dark, who love hard, who feel and see everything; must work at that disposition in order to survive.

I write to remind myself that living with kindness as my lead changes everything, quite like magic. And if there is magic in this life, that is surely it.

I write to remind myself that the only way, the only way, to combat the losses of this life, is to love harder.

And by reminding myself. it seems to remind you too. And for that I am so grateful because I have found myself a place in this world that is born solely of the fact that for almost 5 decades I have been ‘too much’, ‘too sensitive’ and ‘difficult’.

So, if you are any of these things and you are trying to change. Perhaps you need to harness them instead of nail them shut in a box in your heart.

Perhaps these things are not that bad after all. But society convinced you they are, much like we are told we mustn’t age, or grow, or take up space.

Maybe these parts of you will save someone else one day.
Or maybe they already have… and you didn’t stop to see how amazing that truly is because we must keep running on that treadmill.

I don’t write because I am sunshine in human form.
I write to save the dark from taking over.

That war must always be managed - it’s never won,

but it’s never, EVER, lost either.

And that is enough.

Because whilst my bleeding heart has suffered along the way, it also feels such beauty. And feels it so deeply that the joy of it can feel like pain.

And I’ve learned to love that too. Just like I’ve learned to love myself for all the things they told me to change.

I hope you learn to love something ‘bad’ about yourself today. I think they can be your finest traits.

💛

(This is a reshare for my new followers and an insight into why I have written my next book (the art of being easily pleased). I know many of you will relate)

Sometimes, we want to offer our sincerity.

But the other person is not yet ready to receive it.

We want to listen.

They only want to be proven right.

We want to love.

Yet they are still too guarded, too afraid, to open their hearts.

Not because what we offer has no value.

But because each of us can only receive what we are ready to receive.
..

Not every gift is opened the moment it is given.

Some seeds must wait for the right season before they can grow.

Some words must wait for the right moment before they can be heard.

Some springs continue to flow, even when no one stops to drink.

Perhaps this is what Khalil Gibran wanted to remind us.

The worth of a spring is not measured by how many people drink from it.

It remains a spring.

It continues to flow, quietly carrying its living water.

Because that is simply its nature.

And perhaps, the most beautiful thing is not how many people pause to drink.

But that the spring never stops flowing.

There are moments when

a flower doesn't need to be called a "flower."

A piece of music doesn't need to be analyzed.

A hug doesn't need to be explained.

A sunset doesn't need to be judged as "beautiful" or "ordinary."

It only needs to be experienced.

When you stop constantly naming,

categorizing,

judging,

and interpreting,

you begin to encounter life more directly.

You are no longer living primarily through concepts about reality.

You begin living in reality itself.
..

Because life is always greater than anything the mind can describe.

Sometimes,

the deepest thing you can do

is not to understand more about this moment,

but to stop turning it into an idea

and simply be with it exactly as it is.

- Reading To Heal

As you read these words,

perhaps you are a Buddhist,

a Christian,

a Muslim,

a Hindu.

Or perhaps,

you do not belong to any religion at all.

You may call the sacred by a different name than I do.

Or perhaps,

you do not give it any name at all.

But if your heart still knows how to love,

how to be humble,

and continues to seek what is good,

then perhaps,

we have already met in the same place.
..

We may not agree.

We may not share the same beliefs,

the same way of praying,

or even the same way of seeing life.

And yet,

we can still love and respect one another.

Because what truly connects us

is not whether we think alike.

Sometimes,

it is the way we treat one another.
..

We may look very different on the outside.

But if we choose to live

with sincerity,

compassion,

and respect,

then perhaps,

we already share the same spirit.
..

Perhaps,

this is what Khalil Gibran wanted to remind us.

Beyond every difference,

every name,

and every belief,

there is still something quietly connecting us all.

It is our capacity to love.

And perhaps,

that is where all paths truly meet.

Eckhart Tolle describes his awakening at age 29:

"For many years I had been deeply identified with thinking
and the painful, heavy emotions that had accumulated inside.

My thought activity was mostly negative,
and my sense of identity was also mostly negative-
although I tried hard to prove to myself and to the world
that I was good enough by working very hard academically.

But even after I had achieved academic success,
I was happy for two weeks or three,
and then the depression and anxiety came back.

One night, I woke up in the early hours
with a feeling of absolute dread.

I had woken up with such a feeling many times before,
but this time it was more intense than it had ever been.

The silence of the night,
the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room,
the distant noise of a passing train-
everything felt so alien, so hostile,
and so utterly meaningless
that it created in me a deep loathing of the world.

The most loathsome thing of all, however,
was my own existence.

What was the point in continuing to live
with this burden of misery?

Why carry on with this continuous struggle?

I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation,
for nonexistence,
was now becoming much stronger
than the instinctive desire to continue to live.

"I cannot live with myself any longer."

This was the thought
that kept repeating itself in my mind.

Then suddenly I became aware
of what a peculiar thought it was.

'Am I one or two?

If I cannot live with myself,
there must be two of me:
the "I" and the "self" that "I" cannot live with.

Maybe,' I thought,
'only one of them is real.'

I was so stunned by this strange realization
that my mind stopped.

I was fully conscious,
but there were no more thoughts.

Then I felt drawn into
what seemed like a vortex of energy.

It was a slow movement at first
and then accelerated.

I was gripped by an intense fear,
and my body started to shake.

I heard the words
"resist nothing,"
as if spoken inside my chest.

I could feel myself
being sucked into a void.

It felt as if the void
was inside myself rather than outside.

Suddenly, there was no more fear,
and I let myself fall into that void.

I have no recollection
of what happened after that.

I was awakened
by the chirping of a bird outside the window.

I had never heard such a sound before.

My eyes were still closed,
and I saw the image of a precious diamond.

Yes-if a diamond could make a sound,
this is what it would be like.

I opened my eyes.

The first light of dawn
was filtering through the curtains.

Without any thought, I felt-
I knew-
that there is infinitely more to light
than we realize.

That soft luminosity
filtering through the curtains
was love itself.

Tears came into my eyes.

I got up and walked around the room.

I recognized the room,
and yet I knew
that I had never truly seen it before.

Everything was fresh and pristine,
as if it had just come into existence.

I picked up things-
a pencil, an empty bottle-
marveling at the beauty
and aliveness of it all.

That day I walked around the city
in utter amazement
at the miracle of life on earth,
as if I had just been born into this world.

For the next months,
I lived in a state of uninterrupted
deep peace and bliss.

After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity,
or perhaps it just seemed to
because it became my natural state.

I could still function in the world,
although I realized
that nothing I ever did
could possibly add anything
to what I already had.

I knew, of course,
that something profoundly significant
had happened to me,

but I didn't understand it at all.

It wasn't until several years later-
after I had read spiritual texts
and spent time with spiritual teachers-
that I understood

there was a disidentification
from this unpleasant dream of thinking
and the painful emotions.

I suddenly realized myself
as the I Am,

and that was deeply peaceful.

The intense pressure of suffering that night
must have forced my consciousness
to withdraw from its identification
with the unhappy and deeply fearful self-
which is ultimately a fiction of the mind.

This withdrawal must have been so complete
that this false, suffering self
immediately collapsed,

just as if a plug had been pulled out
of an inflatable toy.

What was left then
was my true nature
as the ever-present I am:

consciousness in its pure state
prior to identification with form.

Later, I also learned
to go into that inner timeless
and deathless realm
that I had originally perceived as a void-
and remain fully conscious.

I dwelt in states
of such indescribable bliss and sacredness
that even the original experience
I just described
pales in comparison.

A time came when, for a while,
I was left with nothing
on the physical plane.

No relationships.
No job.
No home.
No socially defined identity.

I spent almost two years
sitting on park benches
in a state of the most intense joy.

But even the most beautiful experiences
come and go.

More fundamental, perhaps,
than any experience
is the undercurrent of peace
that has never left me since then.

This peace had changed my perception
of the world of form too.

Without perceiving things
through the old filter
of past conditioning and conceptualization,
one can sense

the universe is intensely alive.

Even so-called inanimate objects-
I often pick up little objects
and just look at them
and sense that they are alive.

Physicists actually confirm
that what we perceive as dead matter
is not dead at all.

Everything
is an intensely alive energy field.

That aliveness
is only an aspect
of the aliveness
or life that I am."