I love how self-inquiry, answering questions internally, or with a companion or facilitator, or in an amazing group of inquirers….is entirely and completely SAFE.
You are sitting, or lying, or standing or walking, and you are talking, thinking, remembering, imagining, and answering questions.
This present moment, for anyone who is actually “doing” inquiry, is simple, pretty gentle, meditative, connecting. You are breathing, having emotions, your heart is beating. You are alive.
The only thing happening that is difficult….and I’m not dismissing how difficult it can be…is thinking and feeling. Having thoughts, followed by or preceded by feelings.
It feels so painful to believe in pain. To know, on auto-pilot, without questioning it, that you were hurt back then, that you were capable of hurting someone else. It feels painful to know it happened. Painful to imagine the possibility of it happening once again.
Here comes the memory. You see it, even if you don’t want to see it! And your stomach contracts, you feel nauseated, angry, terrified, you have images of your family dying, or you dying, or the world ending, of awful things happening that you are certain you couldn’t stand.
I forget sometimes when I am having a big, heavy, enormous feeling that it is just a feeling. I forget to look around and see that I am OK in this present moment.
Today I re-read one of the most profound stories, for me, that is in the book Loving What Is by Byron Katie. It is the story of a woman remembering the horrors she experienced being sexually abused as a child.
One of the worst, most hellish stories of humanity. This is right up there with war, violence, people doing things to other people with force.
Doing The Work is about looking profoundly at even this kind of experience.
Especially this kind.
When I first read the story in Katie’s book and thought about serious childhood abuse of this kind, I was pretty horrified. How could anyone ever get over that? How could someone stop walking around in their present life without wanting to protect themselves from ever having that kind of thing happen ever again?
There are a lot of distractions offered on the planet to manage these kinds of memories. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, shopping, moving, taking and quitting jobs, gambling, watching movies, getting into high-drama relationships with others, never getting into intimate relationships with anyone, working super crazy hard.
One of the biggest distractions, that keeps us from being with these terrible memories….is JUDGING.
At least this has been my greatest attempt of all to control “bad” people and “bad” situations from repeating themselves. I judge. I blame. I analyze. I collect information on that bad person and list their faults.
Often even in therapy, where I spent many hours with counselors, as I spoke about my painful experiences, I was listing, proving, making a good case that would explain my current behaviors, worries, and pain.
The mind’s job is to sort and figure out and protect. Have you noticed how much it loves to repeat the scenes you are most nervous about? It’s like it is saying “come on, let’s find the solution, let’s resolve this”!!
Amazing to sit in our judgments, then, and actually ask ourselves if they are 100% absolutely hands-down true?
- People can’t get over sexual abuse—is that true?
- If someone is really scary and creepy, you alone need to do everything in your power to stay away from them—really?
- That person, or those people, could hurt you permanently—is that absolutely true?
- How that person acted is unacceptable to you, and you could never ever interact with them or anyone like them again—how do you react when you believe this thought?
- I do not have enough patience, maturity, sanity, power, energy, or enough love to overcome these memories or this situation—who would you be WITHOUT this thought?
What I have seen in hundreds of hours of working with clients now, in having my own journey with violence, cancer, hate or abandonment, is that we humans are absolutely amazing. We heal from the most incredible experiences.
People are walking around everywhere finding happiness, joy and beauty in the world despite very painful experiences in the past.
So right in the present, as you question your beliefs, notice how you think you could be hurt, over-powered, controlled, abused, or neglected by someone else out there in the world. And notice that right now, abuse is not actually happening.
“After you’ve been doing inquiry for awhile, if you have the thought “she doesn’t love me,” you just get the immediate turnaround with a smile: “oh, I’m not loving myself in this moment.” “She doesn’t care about me”: “Oh, I’m not caring about myself in the moment I think that thought.” Feel it, feel what it’s like to think that thought, how unkind you’re being to yourself when you believe it. “~Byron Katie
I know for myself I am not free when I am thinking that something someone has done, or the way someone has behaved, is unforgivable. I am being a dictator.
I can also gently rock myself in my own arms, remembering that I am only having these painful thoughts because I am NOT REMEMBERING that I am a beautiful, loving, kind and powerful person that I get to hang around all the time, 24/7. Nothing could be better than this!
Thank you people who have apparently “hurt” me….for you have only shown me where I wasn’t believing that my own love was enough, where I was believing I was too small for all this, where I was believing I was damaged permanently.
These troubling people showed me where I might have done things I didn’t even want to do, just because I thought I was getting love, approval or appreciation. I didn’t say “no” because I thought I needed to be polite. I wanted something from them that I thought I didn’t have. I liked being adored, I liked getting attention. I mistakenly thought they had something that would benefit me.
The turnarounds are so much truer: I am not damaged permanently, I am not too small, my love is enough for me and for the world. I AM SAFE RIGHT NOW.
“Isn’t it marvelous to discover that you’re the one you’ve been waiting for? That you are your own freedom? You go with inquiry into the darkness and find only light.”~ Byron Katie
Now here’s the thing: If you’re not sure you can find that YOU are the best thing that ever happened to YOU, if you feel you’ve done it wrong, or that other person has been wrong, there is nothing wrong with even that. It’s OK.
You are sitting here right now, safe, watching your thoughts and reading this. That alone is enough.
Love, Grace
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