David Whyte

Essential Skills for a Full and Courageous Life When you think about personal transformation, do you have a picture of who you want to become? Many of us unconsciously create an idealized image of our “awakened” selves—and in doing so, reveals David Whyte, we undermine both the work and reward of genuine transformation. On What to Remember When Waking, this celebrated poet and teacher offers wisdom for building the essential disciplines that will see us through the difficulties of our human journey—skills of trust, vulnerability, momentum, and courage in the face of the unknown. Engage in the Great Conversation That Defines Your Life Our lives are defined by what David Whyte calls the “great conversation”—a give- and-take relationship between our vision of ourselves and the unfolding mystery of reality. Yet there are many conscious and unconscious ways that we often avoid living at this ever-moving frontier. Do you diminish life by attempting to assign names to everything instead of living more robustly with the unknown? Are you turning a blind eye to the invisible help that is all around you? With penetrating insight and gentle guidance, Whyte illuminates the core competencies that you must build in order to fully engage in the richness that life offers—and to express your true work in the world. What You Can Plan Is Too Small for You to Live “We do not always move forward because of the plans we make or the effort we expend,” teaches David Whyte. “The conversation itself more often does the true work of transformation.” Make sure the conversation is alive and everything takes its place. Combining a teacher’s ability to provide practical guidance with a poet’s insight into the depths of the human soul, he presents a powerful resource for anyone seeking growth and fulfillment on life’s journey with What to Remember When Waking. Highlights: Start where you are—ways of recognizing the first necessary steps to find your path • The gift of vulnerability—why lowering our defenses can enhance our perception, dedication, and joyfulness • Disciplines for cultivating the “fierce interior focus” that helps you maintain momentum in your life’s work • How embracing the feeling that you are out of place in the world can deepen your empathy and compassion for others • The art of knowing when to let your dreams mature in their own time • Beyond the "pursuit of happiness"—opening yourself to the deeper fulfillment available in the high and low points of life • Becoming an "apprentice to life"—how to approach new challenges with a sense of humility and wonder • Learning to delight in the unknown instead of trying to control it through labels and beliefs • Building a mature and welcoming relationship with death by embracing the richness that fragility brings to life • Over 5 1/2 hours of David Whyte's insights, poetry, and essential lessons for fully expressing your gifts in the world

A radical, "crystalline" ("Elle") approach to integrating our work, relationships, and inner selves from the bestselling author, poet, and speaker. The author of "Crossing the Unknown Sea" and "The Heart Aroused" encourages readers to reimagine how they inhabit the worlds of love, work, and self-understanding. Whyte suggests that separating these "marriages" in order to balance them is to destroy the fabric of happiness itself. Drawing from his own struggles and the lives of some of the world's great writers and artists-from Dante to Jane Austen to Robert Louis Stevenson-Whyte explores the ways these core commitments are connected. Only by understanding the journey involved in each of the three marriages and the stages of their maturation, he says, can we understand how to bring them together in one fulfilled life.

Crossing the Unknown Sea is about reuniting the imagination with our day to day lives. It shows how poetry and practicality, far from being mutually exclusive, reinforce each other to give every aspect of our lives meaning and direction. For anyone who wants to deepen their connection to their life's work--or find out what their life's work is--this book can help navigate the way.Whyte encourages readers to take risks at work that will enhance their personal growth, and shows how burnout can actually be beneficial and used to renew professional interest. He asserts that too many people blindly trudge through a mediocre work life because so many "busy" tasks prevent significant reflection and analysis of job satisfaction. People often turn to spiritual practice or religion to nurture their souls, but overlook how work can actually be our greatest opportunity for discovery and growth. Crossing the Unknown Sea combines poetry, gifted storytelling and Whyte's personal experience to reveal work's potential to fulfill us and bring us closer to ultimate freedom and happiness.

When The Heart Aroused appeared in hardcover in November 1994, it left readers clamoring for author David Whyte as he crisscrossed the country on the lecture circuit with bestselling authors Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run with the Wolves) and Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul). Now available in Currency paperback, The Heart Aroused is poised to reach a new wave of readers.In this peerless book, Whyte shows how the language of prophecy, poetry, and enlightenment give voice to the most creative--yet hidden--desires. He shows that the best way to respond to the current call for creativity in organizational life is to overcome habitual fear and reticence and bring full, passionate, creative human souls, with all their urgencies and unnamed longings, right inside the office. When Whyte, who often consults for corporate clients, walks into an organization, it is not just to advise, strategize, and make recommendations. Instead, he clarifies personal--not organizational--difficulties at work by placing them in the age-old context of poetry and story. To follow Whyte through his brilliant, soulful discussions is to raft the turbulent stream of conflicting currents that make up people's lives inside American organizations.Only a poet could produce such a provocative analysis of today's widespread disenchantment with business--or such a daring prescription for using the classics of poetry to revitalize the soul of corporate America.