Year of Inquiry (YOI) starts in September! Click HERE to read about it. (You can fill out the information form if you want to join).
Here are a few answers to your questions:
- you have sixty days to experience YOI and if you don’t like it or something changes for you, yes you can withdraw
- there are two men who are signing up so far (in other words, it’s not only women, although….majority women for sure)
- inquiry telecalls are Tuesdays 5 pm, Weds noon, and Thurs 9 am all Pacific time
- yes, you can make payments over the year (you get a pretty big break if you pay everything at the beginning)
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Every year, I learn so much about the YOI process and what works for people and what doesn’t.
I ask people for feedback regularly, I really love it.
I find out what works for them and what doesn’t work for them, I get a real sense of what works for me and what doesn’t.
Here’s an interesting thing that has appeared every year in YOI for the past three years:
Some people show up at every call, hardly ever missing a single one, and sharing their process online with others (we have a private google forum)….
….and some people stop joining the calls regularly, maybe they slowly dwindle over time, maybe they simply stop joining live and listen to the recordings instead (as two people began to do this year).
It’s good to know if you like telecalls in inquiry, but you can’t know absolutely everything, even about your own self!
You can’t really always know how something goes for you, until it’s over.
In fact, maybe you NEVER know how something is for you until it’s over.
A couple of years ago, I enrolled in a one-year program (I’ve taken a ton of classes in every kind of format you could imagine, I love learning).
There were three retreats planned in various parts of the country, and small group telecalls mostly Q and A in between.
This was not an inquiry or inner-work process, it was a program to work on your business.
It was the most money I had spent on learning in awhile, since graduate school actually.
I had great expectations.
I have done enough of my own work in life to know, I am the one who ultimately runs my own program.
If something’s not going the way I really want, I need to step up and ask for help, or research and explore what’s happening so I can understand it, or make changes, or brainstorm OR…..do The Work and question my thinking, my expectations, my “plans”.
But. I got all that.
And at the end of that year, I wasn’t satisfied.
I actually felt like the fee wasn’t worth it, I wasted my money, I wish I would have decided differently.
Except, maybe not really.
I notice, those are very stressful thoughts.
There’s no way I could have known what it would really be like, how it would play out, and where I’d be by the end of that year.
What a great experience to inquire into:
That experience wasn’t worth the price.
I had this same thought once about a fancy-pants dinner I took my husband out to. A five-star restaurant.
After the bill came, I was almost angry.
Seriously? $215? For two people to eat?
This was my idea, I made reservations, I planned the surprise….so I wasn’t going to say anything. (Although you guessed it, I eventually did, since I talk with my husband about everything. We laughed).
Who would I be without the thought that something needs to be “worth it”?
What does “worth it” look like anyway?
Joy, happiness, wealth, improvement, some kind of result?
What would that be like, to not have the belief that I need to get a specific result, or have a certain kind of experience, in order to appreciate the cost of something?
I notice, I love the actual practice and contact and experience and sharing going on.
I remember considering this about graduate school long ago.
What if I never use my degree?
For some reason, it didn’t matter. I loved the students, the professors, the environment, the things we were exploring, the information.
I knew it was “worth it” even if I got hit by a bus the day after graduating (which took an extra three years, by the way, since I had a baby).
Who am I without the belief that something I’ve already paid for in the past wasn’t “worth it”?
I’d notice that what I’ve always been doing when signing up for something, or enrolling in a program, or going out to dinner, or making a purchase….
….is seeking greater expansion, greater happiness and satisfaction.
And I learned soooooo much at that program I thought wasn’t worth it.
Even though I missed many of the telecalls.
I met incredible people, I listened and took notes, I noticed thoughts I could question and took them to inquiry, I connected with others and shared myself, I felt a huge amount of joy and happiness, adventure and caring.
It’s OK I didn’t sign up for another year, or take a program of equal price again.
I knew not to.
I relaxed, and stopped pushing myself so hard in business and work.
Turning the thought around: it WAS worth it, my THINKING wasn’t worth it, I wasn’t worth it to THEM (the people running the program).
I see, there is no way to measure the worth in dollars.
It’s trading this amazing energy called money for attention, time and expertise. I like that arrangement.
I appreciate all the staff and the awareness and history those people had, who were offering and running the program. There may still be ways I don’t even know yet that I am benefitting.
My thoughts about money and measuring things in worth were definitely not worth it.
Rejecting money, keeping money, being upset about paying money, thinking there’s not enough money or I have to be so careful and frightened about money….all very un-worth it.
And who is the decider here, anyway?
Who is the one chattering away about worth?
And yes, I can find examples of how I wasn’t worth it to all the people running that “expensive” program. I was shy and didn’t share and jump in as much as I could, I don’t talk it up much now, I hold them as separate and more active in their businesses than I am, bigger and more successful.
If there really are no mistakes, and I can find the great lighthearted joy in not focusing on worth then all that was, was an experience.
Who would I be without the belief that I know what “worth it” looks like or feels like?
I’d notice what I want, and trade money for it (if I have the money) and stay open to what happens. I’d notice what I don’t want, and say no.
It’s much lighter this way.
Money flowing in, out, here, there, up, down, towards and away and noticing like breath, it’s the same.
Just because I went out to dinner and did a program, doesn’t mean I “lost” anything.
All I see now, after questioning, is gaining.
“Where does your sanity, your sense of self, your peace of mind, really come from? What does it really depend on? Money’s not insignificant to that story. It’s right in the middle of it. All your stuff around money is learned, it’s learned. It comes from somewhere, and it’s very rarely that we chose it…..You didn’t choose your prejudice, you inherited it.” ~ Stephen Jenkinson in Money and The Soul’s Desires
“Nothing comes until she needs it, nothing goes until it’s no longer needed. She is very clear about this. Nothing is wasted; there’s never too much or too little. She doesn’t expect results, because she has no future. She realizes the efficiency, the necessity of the way of it, how full it is, how rich, beyond any concept she could have of what it should be.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace