Recently I received an email letter from someone that is not uncommon.
She wrote about how she tried to do The Work on her own, but somehow, she wound up going in circles or not staying right on track, getting lost in some of the stories and pictures formed in her mind around these constricting, stressful experiences.
It does appear difficult to do The Work with yourself at times. It’s like doing it in a vacuum, me-myself-and-I all here together making comments, and no WISE person in sight.
I remembered how when I first tried to do The Work. Even though I had read the book Loving What Is, which explains the entire process and even has examples of Byron Katie doing it with people on all kinds of topics…..
…..when I got to the very first question, I was slightly stumped.
Is it true?
Wait. What does that actually even mean?
It seems true.
What a crazy, unusual, bizarre, challenging question.
The other questions seemed even stranger.
Especially the fourth question….who would I be without my thought?
I could hardly imagine it!
At least that’s what I told myself.
What I didn’t realize, was that it would be much easier than I knew.
It is for you too!!
I thought I’d share an exercise you can try, if you find questioning your beliefs tricky, confusing, or you don’t experience much in the way of insight or a more open mind (not that we’re *trying* to get anywhere specific with this work).
It begins with dropping the belief that there is no wise person in sight, when it comes to your own investigation.
What if there was?
What if there is some incredibly wise, open, unattached voice inside of you, who can answer these questions?
Here’s how you can access that voice:
When a question is offered, get up a change the seat your sitting in, or move over from where you are standing, just make a shift.
Take on the voice of the one who can answer with a bigger view, an aware view.
Now answer from that perspective, like you are channeling that expanded voice.
Neal Donald Walsh did this when he had his conversations with God. I have participants do this exercise in retreats sometimes.
People become shocked, over and over again, that they can even do this exercise. They are surprised with their answers and how revealing, how loving, and how caring they are. These answers come out of them! They are accessing some different place, that moments ago they didn’t see!
Someplace different than their world of “little me” who is a victim, frightened, desperate, or angry.
You can do this.
It’s not as difficult as you think.
“It’s so easy not to pay attention to it, because it’s not noisy and it’s not clamoring for attention like all the other aspects of the human mind. Egoic consciousness is always pretending to be the most important thing that is happening…..And right in the midst of all that, there is a presence, there is an awareness, an unconditioned awareness, an unconditioned consciousness. Right in the middle of this conditioned mind, conditioned consciousness, is this shining, unconditioned essence. Essence doesn’t mean a little part hidden somewhere in us, the little teeny kernel of essence. Essence means the totality, the whole thing. Essence means the truth of you as opposed to the untruth of you.” ~ Adyashanti
You are all of this, incredible.
Much love, Grace