Month: June 2015

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Room For 2 More Plus Raccoons

Would you like to come do The Work of Byron Katie tomorrow afternoon? You get to work on a problem, person or issue in your life that’s stressing you out. I’ll be there every step of the way from start to finish and help you find your own answers.

(No one has to share their work, by the way). Mental health counselors can receive 4 CEUs.

We’re meeting 1:30-5:30 pm in northeast Seattle in Goldilocks Cottage.

(You might get to meet a raccoon….keep reading to see why).

Room now for two more because of a cancellation last night. Hit reply to this email and I’ll send you all the details.

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I was preparing for the mini retreat this weekend partly by picking Rainier cherries from the two luscious trees in the front yard of the cottage.

I thought I’d include them in our snacks and provisions for the inward journey.

Oh….and I also wanted to get as many off the tree as possible before that raccoon tried to eat them, again!

Greedy varmit! My cherries! Not yours!

yosemite_sam

Oh. Hi, didn’t see you there. I was busy having a hissy fit about a raccoon for a second.

Have you ever found yourself flippin’ out because you forgot something at home, or your kid left a mess on the kitchen counter, or your car broke down, or the traffic is thick?

That auto-pilot response…..OH DRAT…..and an shot of irritated energy zings out. Maybe you curse.

Or you say “rrrrrrr!” like a growl.

Well….self-inquiry can be amazing for very painful investigations into thought, but also this kind of small-potatoes investigation as well. The things that aren’t so troubling, and yet, you notice you’re building a case for how you’re a victim of circumstances, a victim of the situation.

Let’s call that a Raccoon Situation.

This past weekend, the days were sunny and beautiful during the Year of Inquiry retreat. We had the front door of the cottage propped open, as well as the two back French doors, so a light breeze could blow through the house. Birds were tweeting, people went by on their bicycles, and we were all gathered in a big circle in the pretty living room.

In the middle of someone’s sharing, I suddenly glimpsed a large dark shape moving. A big thick moving creature in one of the cherry trees in the front yard.

What??!! A raccoon out during the day?!

Arrrrrrgh! Get outta my tree! My cherries! Shoo! Scat!

Bang Bang!

I jumped up and clapped at the animal, which stared at me a second and sauntered slowly down the tree trunk and off across the street under a tall laurel bush.

A participant in the retreat said “oh, so cute!”

I think someone took a picture.

But I was thinking of building an electric shock fence around the base of my cherry trees, or sitting up that night with a stick ready to swat.

Not that I’d actually want to fight the raccoon but I wanted it gone and to never come back and never eat any of my cherries.

EVER!

But I composed myself and we reassembled.

Now where were we….

The following day, again in circle during the afternoon session, again in the beauty of the thoughtful inquiry and people sharing very powerful personal work….

….I see the tree shaking and a movement reflected in the door glass.

I get up and lean out the front door and clap at it. GIT!

I had to laugh upon returning to my chair.

No one at the retreat complained a peep about my impulse to Get The Raccoon Out.

Someone even offered to spray it, if I had a hose.

But I was laughing because I could see the mind creating an instant story.

MY cherries, MY trees, MY yard! Enemy raccoon!

Who would I be without the belief I had to chase that thing away?

Who would I be without the belief it was taking something of MINE?

Who would you be without the thought that you’ve be done wrong, or something is in opposition to you—like traffic, or something spilling, or the customer service dude not getting your issue, or not being able to find your keys?

I know for me….I’m laughing.

Life is hi-la-rious! Raccoons show up!

“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher 

If you find you get jolted by day-to-day activities….

….commuting, traffic, house chores, meetings, laundry, wildlife….

….who would you be without your tension?

Yippeeeeee!!!

Much love, Grace

P.S. A couple more spots only at Breitenbush Hot Springs in 3 weeks. We have the most spectacular time soaking in inquiry Weds through Sunday 6/24-6/28. Call 503-854-3320 with questions or to register. 26 CEUs for mental health counselors. 24 CEs for Byron Katie Facilitators.

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Do You Want Out, At Any Cost?

Not everyone knows that I spent about 10 years of my life….

….as a smoker.

Yep.

I had my first cigarette sometime around age 17 thinking this was just a casual funny thing to do when gathered with friends pretending you were a real grown up.

That turned into heading off to college very soon afterwards and noticing the students who smoked and the students who didn’t smoke, and joining in with the crowd who did.

Then I had a boyfriend who smoked. Every day.

The frequency just kept increasing over time, until I had to realize….

….I was a smoker.

Then I learned something about tobacco companies making millions and decided to buy a pouch of tobacco and roll my own (thinking this cut back on my contribution to those Big Corporations).

One day, I was rolling my cigarette in my apartment, all alone. I had been out biking almost all day, sweating and feeling joy in my athletic body.

I paused. I have no idea why.

I thought about what I was doing, looking at my fingers working with the rolling paper. I could no longer say “I’ll stop smoking when I graduate college”. I could no longer say “I’ll stop smoking when I break up with my boyfriend”. I could no longer say “I’ll stop smoking when I live in my own apartment”.

I was 26, I had broken up with the smoking boyfriend, I had graduated college, and now I lived in my own apartment. I kept passing all those points, and I didn’t stop.

This was going to be harder than I imagined.

I suddenly knew….I either keep going like this, thinking I’ll stop when….

….or I stop.

I don’t know why this particular thing struck me this way.

I had other experiences of addiction….primarily eating….

….that despite wanting to change or stop, I just couldn’t or didn’t until I had several important mentors, therapists and teachers help me with my overwhelming feelings.

But smoking?

It really came over me that day. I just have to stop.

So I did…..for about 6 months.

Then, through a series of transitions and events, I left my job and my apartment behind and returned to my parent’s house where I grew up to regroup for awhile and figure out what was next.

Staring out the window of my old childhood bedroom, at age 26, I felt like an abject failure.

I’m doomed, I thought. I’m such a loser. I can’t do anything right.

Now I have to find a job all over again, and my own place to live, and stop moving back in with my parents. Jeez.

The next thought?

I know! Go buy a pack of smokes! Yeah….do that next!

So I listened to that voice, and I left on foot for the corner store, and walked around the neighborhood at odd nighttime hours, smoking (since it wasn’t allowed in my parents’ house and I agreed it shouldn’t be, plus I was ashamed to be seen smoking by my parents).

I didn’t realize back then, it was my thoughts and feelings that were driving my urge to smoke.

I didn’t realize my own self-hate, being addicted to compulsively thinking there was something wrong with me and with the world, was the thing that fueled the fire of doing this activity called smoking.

Thoughts like….

….I’m unworthy, I can’t, I’m stupid, I’m slow, I’m too whatever.

But here’s the real kicker, as I look back at that time when I re-started smoking.

I’d smoke (or eat, or drink, or over-exercise) in order to not have to actually discover what it would be like to simply be myself.

I didn’t think I could be just me.

Raw, unaltered. Unfiltered (like the cigarettes I used to smoke).

Now, before you think that I “got” something and had a big Ah-Ha magic moment and stopped smoking because of a great lightening bolt of insight….I’ll tell you the end of the smoking story.

As I wandered the neighborhood in growing despair, I would sometimes have the thought “I’d rather be dead.”

Not exactly ready to commit suicide, but very dark and hopeless.

It was so dark and intense….

….I found myself sitting on top of my childhood built-in desk one night at 2 am, looking out at the roof tops of other houses into the night sky, with the window wide open.

God, I need help. I have no idea how to do this. Help.

A few days later, I accepted an invitation from an old friend to attend a party.

Who knows if I would actually go or not….I had no idea.

But I did.

At that party, a man came up to me as I sat under a tree with my lit cigarette and said “Is this your James Dean impression?”

I stared.

Did he just say what I think he said?

It was the most honest question I had been asked in months, and months.

The banter followed. He sat down near me. We talked for hours. We exchanged phone numbers.

A week later, no call from this man.

But I had been thinking about his bold question and the term “impression”.

I liked this awareness that the smoking was an impression, and not the real me. This is secretly what I knew already.

When I reached him on the phone, here’s what he said: Yeah, well, I agree it was awesome talking last week. But I’m serious about the whole smoking thing. I hate it. Smoke smells terrible to me, it kinda makes my head hurt. If you want to do it, OK….but we won’t be seeing each other.

Woah.

Smoking, or his company?

I got all the remaining cigarettes I had purchased, and crunched them into pieces and flushed them all down the toilet. The thing is, I had done this before. I knew what it was like to think “I’m DONE!” and then go back later.

But the next day, I learned I got a job I had interviewed for several weeks earlier at The American Lung Association.

You couldn’t smoke if you worked at the American Lung Association. In fact, I would be helping to educate people about quitting.

I never smoked again.

Not everyone gets an obvious set of choices like that. Maybe because I was such a knucklehead, I needed it to be really clear what choice to make.

But you still have one choice….do you want to see what it’s like to stop acting on the addictive pattern you’re in?

Because you can.

You can tell other people, you can get support, you can call for help.

You can question your thoughts about yourself that you aren’t capable of stopping.

You can most of all question your thoughts of pain, suffering and unrest. All the disturbing thoughts you think that you’ve been believing are true, that contribute to your addictive fixations….

….whether you’re focused on smoking, or eating, or drinking, or using drugs, or having a massive weird crush on someone, or using sex or people as objects of addiction, or spending money and buying stuff, or achieving enlightenment.

Finding out what’s out there, beyond stopping, becomes more interesting and curious and draws you to it like a magnet.

“Eventually you’ll want out, at any cost. You will then realize that life is actually trying to help you. Life is surrounding you with people and situations that stimulate growth. You don’t have to decide who’s right or wrong. You don’t have to worry about other people’s issues. You only have to be willing to open your heart in the face of anything and everything….” ~ Michael Singer

Much love, Grace

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Eating Peace: Are You Terrified of Being Hungry?

About ten years ago, I was on an elective fast for only 48 hours that was set up to be very supportive.

It was the first fast I had done with loving intention, ever.

It was also the first fast I had been a part of in 20 years. I had put fasting or starving myself down. I had ended denying my hungers and stopped the swing between gorging desperately, and starving myself in punishment. I had vowed never to diet again, long ago.

My old beliefs when I was still living with eating wars rather than eating peace were these: being hungry is good, being full is bad.

I had stopped such black and white thinking….especially about feeding myself delicious, nourishing food.

But when I went on that fast, after so many years of making sure I didn’t enter the “fasting/denying/starving” zone….

….I discovered something surprising.

I was terrified. Sheer terror. I thought I was going to die!!

I saw what I could do with these beliefs….and found peace.

Much love, Grace

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Shine On Your Regular Mediocre You–It’s Brighter Than You Think

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Being your regular ol’ self…you shine, shine your light

One of my favorite comments during the 3-day Year of Inquiry retreat last weekend was when a participant said, about me….

….”the thing I love about Grace is, well, unlike other teachers, I just can’t put her on a pedestal.“

On the inside, I had a big wide smiling feeling.

Because, strangely, this is what I always wanted from leaders, facilitators, teachers, guides and mentors. I wanted to know they were regular people, like me, and that I fit in with them.

That the gap wasn’t so far-reaching and impossible. That we’re all in this together, connected, sharing.

I wanted them to be approachable, open and real. I wanted me to b this, too.

And I wanted to know that Reality….

….a word for the force far bigger than all of us (you might like to use different words like God, Source, Mystery, Universe)….

….is who we all are.

Don’t get me wrong.

Throughout life, I have loved hearing truly amazing stories of change and healing, and miraculous occurrences in human lives, shifts of consciousness, the brilliance of what is possible….

….but something deep inside told me that I wasn’t going to be one of those outliers.

Even though I had extreme experiences, and hurt myself and others, and was very confused, and felt very broken and crazy sometimes….

….I knew I wasn’t ever going to be on the front page of the New York Times or go completely crazy or have a massive influence like Jesus Christ.

Well, never say never, right? (Because it’s not really up to me, turns out).

But somewhere along the way, I realized, if I keep trying to be like other incredible humans who have walked the earth before me, I won’t be this one, here.

The one who is apparently me.

All This….is for everyone.

Freedom is for anyone. Love and Joy is for anyone.

And I mean anyone.

The thing is, I really wanted to wake up and understand this mind, discover freedom, contribute to the world, and look around with an inherent joy and gratitude for being here….

….even though I was a mediocre, regular, normal sort of human being, who was only here for a short time in the big scheme of things.

Like most of the people in the bell curve.

Nothing special.

Who would you be without the belief you need to be bigger, better, more special, more unique? Who would you be without the thought that who you are is not enough, or too boring or mediocre, or too much like everyone else?

Who would you be without the thought that you need to raise a raucous and stand out and be noticed in a big way, or hide your flaws or do it right or become enlightened like Byron Katie or Adyashanti?
(And I love those guys, sooooo much).
I began to notice who I would be, without images of needing to change or improve or hide.
Very strange.
But without the thought of being anything different, or more, than being this human, I’d be feeling a life force, heart beating, lungs breathing, alive in something called a body, fast mind on task trying to figure everything out, images, imagination, encounters all happening simultaneously….
….stunned at what’s actually going on around here.
Awed at the movement, activity, aliveness.
No idea what’s happening. Part of the Great Hum.
Laughing.

“If you knew how important you are–and without the story you come to know it–you would fragment into a billion pieces and just be light. That’s what these misunderstood concepts are for: to keep you from the awareness of that. You’d have to be the embodiment if you knew it—just a fool, blind with love.” ~ Byron Katie in Question Your Thinking, Change The World

We are all the same underneath, even if we’re all different.

Beautiful and shining.

Much love, Grace

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What To Do With NUTS (Negative Unconscious Thoughts)

mindfulinquiry
Are your NUTS driving you nuts?

Recently I was reading about ending depression through using mindfulness and awareness.

“Mindfulness” is a word that’s becoming quite popular and well-known. People are using mindfulness to not only end depression, but to heal addiction (like overeating, one of my favorite topics of healing) or work with anger, or heal anxiety.

When I first heard the word “mindfulness” I had images of a slow, thoughtful way of behaving or thinking….but I wasn’t really sure what else.

I thought a person being mindful was a person who was probably meditating with their eyes closed. Or someone moving very, very sloooooowly.

A “mindful” person would be someone considerate, not boisterous or loud, not surprising or sudden. And perhaps careful, serious, quiet.

It didn’t seem like being spontaneous, fast or funny fit into the “mindfulness” category exactly.

I almost felt like I was too much in my mind, truth be told. I wanted feel free, unfettered and alive.

It seemed like “mindfulness” would mean a whole lot of focus on…..well…..

…..the mind.

 

And we’re not always sure we like focusing on that thing, right?

Because the mind can be a bit whacky. Very fast, very busy. Not making much sense.

Even insane.

However, the funny thing is that as I look back on my experience of becoming a more and more peaceful person (wow, it’s really true) I see how giving the mind full attention changed my life experience entirely.

By actually looking at the nature of stressful thoughts, watching them, asking if they were true, and noticing the accompanying feelings, I began to have LESS activity in the mind.

It was awesome.

Who knew.

In his book Uncovering Happiness, Elisha Goldstein has a list of thoughts he calls NUTS.

Negative Unconscious Thoughts.

Another spiritual teacher Miranda McPherson calls them “egos greatest hits”.

These thoughts may be deep underlying thoughts that keep on repeating themselves in your head.

And it can be profound to question them, and imagine what it would be like to NOT have one. Or two. Or all of them.

Being mindful is giving your full attention to only one at a time. Just one is all that’s required.

And then asking the great questions:

Is it true? Are you 100% sure it’s true? How do you react when you’re thinking this kind of thought? Who would you be if you couldn’t even have this thought enter your mind? What if you turned the thought around to the exact opposite instead?

Now, before you read this list of NUTs….

….remember what you’re here for.

You’re here to be mindful of these sorts of thoughts.

You’re here to get the job done of investigating the truth of these kinds of thoughts. That’s probably why you’re reading this right now.

You’re interested in peace. Not war.

So see if any of these ring true for you, even sometimes.

If your answer is “yes” consider using your imagination to see what it might be like to not have these thoughts.

If you think this isn’t going to work and it’s stupid….

….this is another thought. 

This does work. It’s real. It’s not stupid.

You are far greater and more infinite and full of joy than any of this thinking stuff.

Here’s the NUTS list.

Now go forth, and question!

  • I feel as though I’m up against the world.
  • I’m no good.
  • Why can’t I ever succeed?
  • No one understands me.
  • I’ve let people down.
  • I don’t think I can go on.
  • I wish I were a better person.
  • I’m so weak.
  • My life’s not going the way I want it to.
  • I’m so disappointed in myself.
  • Nothing feels good.
  • I can’t stand this.
  • I can’t get started.
  • I wish I were somewhere else.
  • I’m worthless.
  • I made a mistake.
  • There is something wrong with me.
  • I’m a loser.
  • I’m a failure.
  • My future is bleak.
  • It’s just not worth it.
  • I can’t finish anything.
  • Turn the ones you think around to the opposite.

See what it feels like when you do this. See if you can find genuine examples of this new opposite thought being genuinely true.

  • The world is supporting me.
  • I’m good.
  • I have succeeded some places, in others failed….and it doesn’t matter (in a good way).
  • Someone understands me.
  • I’ve encouraged people.
  • I can always go on.
  • I’m just right as I am.
  • I’m so strong.
  • My life’s going just right.
  • I’m so proud of myself.
  • Some things feel good.
  • I can stand this.
  • I can get started.
  • Being here is perfect.
  • I’m worthy.
  • I made a correction.
  • There is something right with me.
  • I’m a winner.
  • I’m a success.
  • My future is bright.
  • It’s always worth it.
  • I can finish anything.

Much love, Grace