Month: March 2015

Plans, plans, plans.

A fabulous inquirer came to our session feeling overwhelmed with the need to make plans.

Travel, moving, children, dates, taxes, finishing that thing, negotiating a raise or improvement at work.

Plans appear to fall into a few different categories, I have found.

There are the daily to-do’s.

Laundry, taking out the garbage, going through your email Inbox, grocery shopping, gassing up the car, filling out the form for your kid’s field trip, passport application, paying bills, writing the daily blog post.

Then there are a little more wide, expansive to-do’s.

Making that doctor’s appointment, completing your taxes, researching places to stay in Scotland next August, writing job-hunt emails, setting up power-lunch dates, finishing the 2015 business growth plan.

Then maybe really, really big to-do’s.

Bucket list to-do’s or major project to-do’s.

Finish my book, repair the roof, complete landscaping of the yard, new car, colonoscopy, writing out 10 year plan, difficult conversation with sibling, prepare your will, attend the School for The Work with Byron Katie.

The thing is, no matter what time-line is underway….

….plans can be strangely stressful.

The thought pops in “I need to get that handled” and then more thoughts about how much work it is to get that handled, and the putting off of handling it.

An uncomfortable procrastination.

The inquirer I was working with read me her long to-do list. She reported that just in the reading of it, she felt calmer.

And then we looked at the question….would you be without the belief that the to-do list is a too-much list?

Without the thought that it’s sooooo hard, you can’t even begin, it’s too much pressure, that the short-term to-do’s take up all your time and the long-term to-do’s don’t ever happen?

You might get excited!

You might join with that list and say….OK, let’s prioritize.

Which thing first?

One of my favorite books is David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”. It rocks.

It’s how you might be, the next step you would take, if you think your to-do lists are too crazy long and too hard to manage.

You’d get some help, you’d organize which things really need to be on this list, and which can get kicked off, you’d start at the top. you’d put some stuff on your calendar.

And you wouldn’t be procrastinating anymore.

Last year, I said every so often “I need to clean out the shed.”

My mind would think of it, I’d feel anxious–yes, I should clean out the shed–but I’d pass it by and move to the next thing.

Until. I remembered to notice the anxiety.

Right! Time for the work!

Without the thought that cleaning the shed is a problem, I put it on my calendar to take up an entire weekend 5 months later, during the summer. I announced to family members it was happening. I arranged a truck to borrow all those months away.

Then….I NEVER thought about how I need to clean out the shed again, until the proclaimed weekend arrived in August and it was all energy, all the time, on cleaning that shed.

Have you noticed how negative thinking is getting a seriously bad rap sometimes?

Do you notice uncomfortable feelings or thoughts enter you….and have the speedy quick immediate NEXT thought be that you really need to fix this negative thinking thing happening in your own head?

Whew!

I MUST DELETE THESE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS!!

They are terrible, destructive, awful, twisted…..I must switch NOW and start thinking positive ASAP!!

Sometimes, when someone is new to the Work, they say to me…“

…but, I don’t want to give attention to those negative voices. I’m eliminating them. I’m working on favorable, feel-good thinking. I don’t want to judge.”

Stop right there.

You might be making a humongous mistake.

Get it, ha ha?!

You’re making a mistake regarding your beliefs?

Pokin’ a little fun at you. As a good friend used to say to me (my former husband) when teasing “just pullin’ your chain, just pullin’ your chain!”

But seriously, let’s take a look at this thing that happens around the thinking process and how it can be damaging, or make you get stuck in a loop of anxious thoughts without ever reducing your stress, and keep you imprisoned in a cycle of unsupportive thinking, like your trapped thoughts going around on a merry-go-round in a child’s playground.

You notice a worried, sad, frightened, irritated or rageful feeling. You have a thought. Maybe a whole cloud of thoughts, an entire system of beliefs.

Almost in the same moment that you’re afraid and you feel against what’s going on in your environment…you feel immediately against what your own mind is doing.

You’re against everything. You’re disturbed. You’re upset. You might be shouting at yourself on the inside.

OMG I can’t have this negative thought! This feeling is TERRIBLE!

You could be yelling at yourself to be more positive, relax, get a grip, pull yourself together.

Kind of like a parent might say to a kid who’s having a melt down, when they’re losing their temper, not feeling compassionate or patient: Come on! Snap out of it! Quit crying! Stop panicking! Quit thinking that way!! 

How do you think you’ll react if someone yells at you to pull yourself together and stop having a hissy fit and stop thinking the way you’re actually thinking?

Happy and supported? Ready to question your painful thinking?

Uh…..not really.

At least, I sure never felt much better. And nothing changed, either.

Kinda like going on a major diet, as a counter-attack to a big gigantic appetite. The end result is….flying off the diet in a huge pendulum swing the other way, a breaking out in to freedom. A binge.

A long time ago, I quit trying to do positive thinking on top of negative thinking. It was an enormous amount of work.

Instead, when I found The Work of Byron Katie….

….but even long before, when I entered support groups and other people and therapists with a deep sense of unconditional love….

….I could let down my guard, expose my most dark and bitter thinking, and discover I could be accepted even with those kinds of troubled thoughts.

What a relief.

What to do next?

Give the negative thoughts time, love and energy. It’s so much easier than being AGAINST them.

The best way to do it?

Write them down, let them out, and take them through self-inquiry.

Simply see if they’re true or not!

Who would you be without the belief that your “negative” thoughts are that big and powerful, and ruining your life (even if they are, ha ha)?

I notice my “negative” thoughts are here. They are a part of reality.

Maybe they have a message. Maybe they aren’t actually even “negative”. I mean, who made me boss of the universe who decides what should or should not be allowed to be thought?

This is a very subtle place of letting go.

Are these thoughts actually YOU? Are you sure they mean you are doing something wrong? That you’re not positive enough?

“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.” ~ Rumi

To question what you believe to be true, even about thoughts, is to enter an unknown, wide open, infinite space. You don’t have to analyze, control, be against or be for….anything.

The next time you feel a swarm of dread coming….try letting it stay. What does it have to say? What is being expressed? What does it want? Write this down.

Get to know your mind intimately.

Now ask….is it true?

When you get all the way to the turnarounds, you may feel appreciation, an openness to being the way you are, an acceptance to your mind running the way it does.

You may find a new joy about your turnarounds you didn’t expect, because you gave the vicious, mean, frightened thoughts their due respect.

Everything becomes OK. And much less work.

Slower, more relaxed, no need to defend or gather your energies so you can fight against your negative beliefs and quit being judgemental.

“To the extent that the fire of truth wipes out all fixated points of view, it wipes out inner contradictions as well, and we begin to move in a whole different way. The Way is the flow that comes from a place of non-contradiction—not from good and bad. Much less damage tends to be done from that place.” ~ Adyashanti 

See what happens if you relax, wait, inquire.

You might notice you have the same push-pull pro-con relationship with a person in your life, not just your own thoughts. If this is the case, and you want guided help with inquiry….join Relationship Hell To Heaven Teleclass starting March 24 5:15-6:45 pm for 8 weeks. Still a few more spots.

Love, Grace