The other day I got a wonderful letter, full of a really interesting core question, from an inquirer.
She said she felt more confused right now after doing The Work.
More lost, stuck and unable to move.
I had to find out more….and this news wasn’t that surprising.
About two years into my own process of doing The Work something happened inside me around this very idea of feeling trapped and passive when I turned my thoughts around into opposites.
One day, after doing The Work on a really, really, really difficult relationship I was in, I recognized a place inside me that was frightened and doing The Work with a motive.
What I mean by “motive” here is that I had an agenda, a plan for the outcome. I had thought I would do The Work, un-do my stress, and skip down the road happily with never a care in the world.
That person would no longer bother me, or frighten me, or hurt me.
But ah ha.
I have no idea why it happened, but I very suddenly “got” that I was acting like the battered women I used to puzzle over.
Why did they return, time and again, to the man who beat them up or almost killed them?
I went to a lecture once on domestic violence, and as the very wise and experienced psychotherapist spoke it occurred to me that the people who were battered and abused repeatedly were living in “hope” reality mixed with a cup or two of “I-must-be-positive-and-forgiving” inner dictatorship.
It wasn’t conscious, but it was deep.
It was believed so deeply because, without the belief that someone might change, without “hope”, the believer could be devastated, lost, crushed with the weight of the depressing truth.
I will smile and spread sunshine and lollipops and rainbows instead. And my boyfriend will get better and change.
Byron Katie herself helped me immensely on this. I told her I was doing The Work over and over again on the same very difficult, mad person.
She said….”How do you know you’re supposed to be angry?! YOU ARE!”
Oh.
Jeez.
I am ANGRY. I am STUCK. I am FRUSTRATED.
Duh!
Who would I be without the secret inner belief that I should be different, have different happy, detached feelings, and keep trying to “fix” myself or my environment or others when doing The Work?
I could have quit doing The Work right then. I could have given up and thought that questioning my mind was a waste of time, and didn’t lead me to the place I really wanted to be.
But instead it dawned on me that I could keep asking myself what was real, what was true (in fact I couldn’t have given up, I couldn’t have stopped asking).
I could find out what beliefs kept me feeling trapped, what prevented me from acting (if I was drawn to take action) or what prevented me from dropping the need to spend time with an addict boyfriend?
Why not break up and drop those conversations?
Why not find a new career and start earning money?
Why not get married?
Why not raise your hand and share in front of an entire audience?
Why not start your own business?
Why not start a free-form crazy dance-however-you-want event in Seattle and keep holding it even if at the beginning, only a few people show up?
Why not quit the daily rigid meditation routine (it served for a very, very long time) if there is no right or wrong, and I’m free?
Why not say NO?
What is freedom?
I started to refine, without trying so hard to do it, the thoughts I was questioning….to find out what was actually true for me.
That is, in the end, what doing The Work is for.
You.
If there are turnarounds that don’t feel right, if there are turnarounds that create depression, unhappiness, more confusion…then find out what’s right for you.
No need to dump everything you’ve ever done so far, unless you do.
“What is this inner revolution? To begin with, revolution is not static; it is alive, ongoing, and continuous. It cannot be grasped or made to fit into any conceptual model. Nor is there any path to this inner revolution, for it is neither predictable nor controllable and has a life all its own. This revolution is a breaking away from the old, repetitive, dead structures of thought and perception that humanity finds itself trapped in…Such a revolution requires an ongoing emptying out of the old structures of consciousness and the birth of a living and fluid intelligence. This intelligence restructures your entire being-body, mind, and perception. This intelligence cuts the mind free of its old structures that are rooted within the totality of human consciousness. If one cannot become free of the old conditioned structures of human consciousness, then one is still in a prison.” ~ Adyashanti
This is an ongoing process.
What I notice is I return to The Work continuously. I love the question “is it true?” and I love trying on turnarounds.
I love realizing I am the only one who can answer these questions, even if I love hearing from others what they get, what they have found, what they notice.
There is no ultimate guru….except you.
Much love, Grace