I got a wonderful email from an inquirer yesterday. I read it as the wind shook the huge banana leaves hanging above me, and thunder rolled in the distance, ready for a tropical Balinese storm.
The inquirer mentioned something that I could definitely relate to, agonizingly so in the past.
Why sign up for a retreat, workshop, training, even an educational degree when your experience so far with other programs is disappointing?
Why sign up when the thing you enrolled in was dang expensive, or required many hours of time, or involved boring homework…and then you weren’t sure it was worth it?
Such a great question. What makes something worth it?
When I think about the answer, and study building programs myself, and watch how other people do it…I come up with three important reasons why I’ve ever signed up for something:
- I wanted some kind of change, a result…maybe even desperately. I’ve signed up for programs to make more money, heal my relationship with food, feel healthier physically, learn how to make a website, change my stressful thinking.
- I was thrilled for the information, fascinated, learning about an entirely new human perspective, having an experience (this is the kind of “program” foreign travel offers—like visiting Bali)
- I knew the process itself would feel good and/or transformational, and I could even let go of the outcome (or I might even forget about it) because participating all by itself would be fun, enlightening, powerful.
The things that I have thought of as “worth it” most often have had all three parts present.
I remember when I was in graduate school for Applied Behavioral Science (it sounds a bit stuffy but basically, it was the study of human behavior and psychology).
The tuition was ginormous for me. I think the most money I had ever needed to come up with for anything in my entire life.
But I thought that the program would give me the result of a better and higher paying job, a better career life….more job responsibility, more money, more expertise.
I took loans, I received some gift funds from family, I put tuition on my credit card.
Part way through the first year, I knew that it was OK if I never used my degree, I was still so happy I had signed up. Because the people I met, the group-processing we did together, the lectures, the professors, the books, the coffee-house conversations…they were all fantastic right in that present moment.
I look back at the work involved in getting that degree, and I still think “that was worth it”. Even though for a couple of years, I DIDN’T “do” anything with the degree.
Everyone knows already that I think Byron Katie’s School for The Work was worth it. It was completely life-changing for me, coming at just the right time, with just what I needed to grow and expand myself in spirit.
But no one needs any programs. Except the ones they wind up signing up for!
The thing is, some courses or trainings, jobs, workshops, relationships, activities…they aren’t going to feel “worth it” in some ways. There may be gap in one of those three pieces I listed above that feels like its missing.
You might even feel like “that relationship was so NOT WORTH IT” or “that job was a waste of time” or “that educational program taught me nothing” or “I don’t have any more money now than I had before”….but I know there is something that we receive from everything we do.
“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”~Eckhart Tolle
Last year I participated in a one year program with Stephan Bodian, the wonderful spiritual teacher who was also a psychologist for 30 years. I had never met him before, but I liked his book “Wake Up Now”.
His program is called The School for Awakening, which made me laugh (knowing you can’t ever guarantee awakening for anything or anyone). I knew he also thought that was funny, and I liked his sense of humor.
I let my thoughts bubble on it, for about a month, before I contacted Stephan and signed up. It was very strange, because I did not feel like I needed it, I did not feel like I must change, and I had no expectations in particular.
I also knew that if I did NOT like the other people, I would have work to do. If I did not like the format, or the schedule, or the flying, or the fee…I would write down my thoughts and question them and inquire. I would also speak up, if I thought it could go better or I had a suggestion (thank goodness I’ve learned this one over time).
My decision, that seemed more to make me than for me to make it, came more from #3 in the list above: just participating in the process, and seeing what happened.
To join with others, for me, makes it easier (and harder), more fun (sometimes less fun), an adventure, and I don’t float away and forget the divine grace that is present. I keep showing up.
I enjoyed our group so much, and Stephan, that I signed up to repeat it again. We were all investigators together, and the investigation continues.
Maybe that’s why humankind has made religious practice and ritual and ceremony and showing up in groups something vital for life, for thousands of years.
And that’s why I created the teleclasses and programs I facilitate, by the way. Because its so very fun, and there is so much learning, for me personally…and such a wonderful journey.
I love working with you, with the ones who are called at just this right timing, so we can all look together at stopping resistance, war, need, desperation, craving, grabbing, grasping, longing, wishing, worrying….
“Without even knowing it I started to investigate, in a quiet and very deep way, what it would be like not to be at war with my own mind, with what I felt, with my whole human experience.” ~ Adyashanti
Love, Grace
P.S. Several spaces left in the 8 week teleclass starting 6/13 Earning Money, exploring what we think and feel about money, business, our work, our jobs that brings on suffering, lack, anxiety and worry about the future. We start Thursdays 5:15 – 6:45 Pacific time.