Doing The Work on the SAME THING over and over again,even if small, can sometimes feel discouraging.
I’ve worked with two lovely clients in the past week both of whom said: “I have looked at this over and over again, I have done The Work so many times on this same topic…..and nothing has changed!”
Some situations seem impossible. It seems like the stressful thoughts keep coming, the images, the memories, the trauma, the pain. “I have always been like this”.
I once had a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet that I had filled out on a person I was so angry with I felt like my head would explode. I almost couldn’t write what I needed or wanted, what should happen now, what shouldn’t have happened because I just wanted to scream “I hate him!”
But I had nowhere else to go. I had only me, and my painful thoughts, in the room. Drinking, smoking, eating, running, complaining, gossiping…these did not appear to work any more. If they did, I would still be doing them. I am not that spiritual and I have no control over any of it.
So I questioned every belief on that worksheet. I felt a little shift, and some insights, some little light bulbs lighting up (the size of those itty-bitty night light bulbs). But nothing BIG. Nothing dramatic or life-changing. The phone didn’t ring with the other person on the line apologizing for all their terrible mistakes, I didn’t feel happy.
But I did feel relief, and sort of empty. I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew before doing The Work.
Two weeks later I was writing the same worksheet. There were probably some of the same sentences written on it, at least it felt like it. I did the Work again. I was curious, there were some interesting moments in my thinking where I could answer the simple questions and find something different there.
Three weeks later, I was writing the same worksheet. That horrible person was at it again. I would just think of that person and feel fury! And great despair. I did the Work again. That time I felt light for a moment and went on to something else.
Then I had the privilege to be at an event with Katie herself and I raised my hand. I really needed to get to the bottom of this so I wasn’t enraged anymore. I didn’t want to think about this person for one more minute, I wanted them OUT of my mind.
“Katie, I am doing the same worksheet over and over on someone and my anger is NOT going AWAY.”
Katie said “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are.”
It felt like the lid was taken off the over-blown air mattress and all the air was swishing out with a big hiss. I was aware in that moment of how I had a motive to become UN-ANGRY. I didn’t hate that person, I hated my own anger. I hated my own emotions, my own thoughts. I hated my own way of relating to this person.
I was in resistance, in WAR. I was doing The Work with the strategy of making a chess move in order to WIN and skip down the road afterwards.
Deepak Chopra says “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return.”
I find that sitting with the most excruciating feelings and emotions; despair, rage, grief, terror….and starting to write, there is a way through the forest.
One of my most favorite spiritual teachers, Adyashanti, writes “Freedom is never freedom “from.” If it’s freedom “from” anything, it’s not freedom at all. It’s freedom “to.” Are you free enough to be afraid? Are you free enough to feel insecure? Are you free enough not to know? Are you free enough to know that you can’t know? Are you free enough to be totally comfortable, to know that you can’t know what’s around the next corner? How you will feel about it? How you will respond to it? That you literally can’t know? Are you free enough to be totally at ease and comfort with the way things actually are? That’s freedom. The other thing is the ego’s idea of freedom.”
I remember that person I did worksheets on once and I feel choked up with gratitude. That’s the kind of thing that happens with even stubborn people like me do The Work even when it seems like again and again the same topic. The War is over.
Much Love, Grace