bad things can happen if you say “no”….are you sure?
Wow, another meetup! Saturday, November 21st 2-4 pm in Seattle at Goldilocks Cottage.
Good time of year to do The Work even more, right?
Also, last chance to join Eating Peace the powerful online program that begins tomorrow to address inner angst and lack of peace when it comes to consuming. Eating Peace is 12 weeks of Tuesday Presentations and Wednesdays in The Work. We always meet from 9-10:30 am Pacific Time (both days). Everything is recorded if you need to miss.
This is the last time I’ll offer Eating Peace at this fee. When you join, you get access to Eating Peace for life, every time I offer it. Yes, you read that correctly.
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Yesterday I was talking with a dear friend.
About his need to say “no” to his parents.
He’s a young adult in his mid-twenties, but as I spoke with him, I thought….
….his age probably doesn’t really matter, not really.
His parents were asking him lots of questions about his life, his career, his goals, his intentions, his direction.
But I’ve talked with plenty of older adults who still thought their parents were nosey, or asked too much, or requested too much information.
If it’s not parents, you might still relate to someone in your life peppering you with questions, or inviting you over, or wanting to spend time, or suggesting you see this movie, or buy that good deal, or get a job at their place of employment.
I once had someone in a class I offered come up at every single break and ask me questions.
I started wanting to duck out the back door.
She should leave me alone!
This is what the young man thought about his parents.
We laugh in the movies about this kind of character who doesn’t get the hint and comes over at awkward hours, or calls at the crack of dawn, or barges into our office when the door was shut with a Do Not Disturb hanging in broad daylight.
What is UP with that person?
Can’t they see I’m trying to have some silence, take a break, get some down time?
What is wrong with them that they would have so many questions?
(I love how the mind will decide something is wrong…with them…because they have questions you don’t want to answer).
What if you could hold on to yourself, as couples therapist David Schnarch so famously puts it….
….no matter WHAT that person is doing, saying, asking, or acting like?
One way to get to your truth, is to see why it is you don’t want to tell it.
So….why don’t you want to tell the truth?
The truth that you don’t feel like talking right now, you don’t want to have a conversation until later, you don’t want to go to that movie, your answer is “no”?
I can’t say “no”! They’ll get hurt, disappointed! They’ll call me two-faced, or someone who isn’t clear. They’ll be upset. They’ll say I led them on. They’ll criticize me for changing my mind. They’ll be so disappointed!
A great way to work with this kind of anxious thinking, about what will happen if you simply tell the truth and tell them your answer, is to imagine it really happens.
Ugh.
They ARE hurt.
They ARE mad.
They HATE you.
Is it true?
Are you sure it’s true?
How do you react when you believe you MUST avoid hurting someone’s feelings in any way possible, or disappointing them, or concerning them?
How do you react when you believe you CAN hurt their feelings?
Careful.
So careful, you might not even know how you feel about something anymore, yourself.
So careful you might feel you have no preferences, you’re completely easy-going, and it’s a terrible risk to reveal you disagree or want to say no to someone you love.
Terrified of the results, the rejection.
I used to be like this.
Honestly, I still get surprised by peoples’ requests sometimes. I don’t have an answer right away all the time.
But it used to take me so long, I would feel stuck in a vice of indecision.
All to avoid that terrible “no” which would then “hurt” this other person.
Who would you be without the belief that the person who has asked you for something will be upset if you say “no”?
Who would you be without the belief that if they DO act upset, you were wrong, bad or a horrible person? Or that you’ll be rejected?
Wow.
You mean….not knowing what the outcome would be, just going with my honest answer?
Holy moly.
It’s so much freedom, and as I said, so different from the way I lived in the past, I still find it odd at times.
Not trying to manipulate any outcome…..including the outcome that seems “kind” which is that they are happy, not disappointed, not hurt, and comfortable?
Wow again.
I turn the thought around: I can’t hurt their feelings with my answer. I can hurt my own feelings, by believing I have the power to hurt theirs. They can hurt my feelings with their responses (when I believe they need to like me, or be happy).
The young man I was speaking with reminded me of a poem.
What if freedom is the greatest movement of all, inside yourself, inside others?
Free to be exactly as you are, without dreading what will happen next.
Give it a try.
“…The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn
It was the first night of our support group for people who wanted to investigate the emotional suffering of cancer.
Members of the group could be in remission, or any phase or stage of cancer. Maybe in treatment currently, maybe in treatment in the past.
The important thing, is they were interested in finding support for their beliefs about life and cancer.
Their thoughts, their feelings.
The doctors and medical professionals were the treatment experts.
In this group, we were treating our minds.
Me too.
I will never forget the day I heard when visiting the doctor and she said with a concerned look on her face, like someone trying to be calm…..
…..”Why don’t you go ahead and get fully dressed first. Then we can discuss the biopsy results.”
What??!
Oh no.
I knew. Before she even came back in the room.
“You have cancer.”
It’s not as if it hadn’t crossed my mind, as I felt this weird bump on my right thigh get bigger, and bigger over an entire year.
It met my fingers at my shorts line. I would feel it at the gym, or out running.
It had a hue like the color of my skin, only a little bit darker. The bump grew, outward, as if a pencil eraser was poking up out of my right thigh from deep inside, slowly.
But the doctor had assured me, when she first looked…..”no, that looks like so many funny bumps and spots people have when they begin to age like you, in their 40s. Come back in a year and we’ll check it again.”
Now, it was a year later.
She had biopsied this strange bump a week ago, and needed to put in four stitches.
It looked like the whole thing was gone.
But nope.
Since it was positive for a sarcoma, a tumor in the interstices of the skin, I would need surgery.
A much bigger area needed to be removed, to take out all possible cells surrounding the bump that might also be cancer.
Adrenaline shot through my body, and my mind filled with the sound of the words cancer.
Cancer.
Remembering it so clearly, like it was yesterday, our new group was gathered in a circle for the purpose of exploring and deeply investigating stress and cancer, using The Work of Byron Katie.
I could find it!
My kind and knowledgeable co-leader Anil smiled and shared his introduction. We all went around and said what drew us to be there.
But ultimately, I thought, what brings us together is being touched by cancer.
And thinking….I’m afraid. Cancer is bad. This is a terrible situation. Cancer must be avoided. I did something wrong, if I got it.
Everyone received a clipboard and a blank piece of paper, and a pen.
And we went there.
I guided people to write their answers, in silence, to six questions (known as the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet).
But instead of directing their writing towards a person they had trouble with, they would hold in their minds the very worst moment, the most frightening, when it came to cancer.
Was it the moment they learned they had it?
Was it sitting in a chair receiving chemotherapy?
Was it feeling the sickest they’ve ever felt in their whole life?
Was it on the operation table?
They picked one moment, like the one I remembered so vividly, and held it close while answering these questions.
Somehow, as I guided them along through the meditation of capturing thoughts on blank paper, something told me to be truly thorough. To look around that situation and explore what was difficult, in the memory.
Why are you upset?
How do you want this situation to change?
What should happen instead? What shouldn’t?
What do you need, in order to be happy in that moment?
Describe what you’re looking at which is most frightening in that situation. Describe cancer for you, in your situation.
What is it that you never want to experience again, in this situation?
Then one by one, everyone read this incredibly powerful, vulnerable, honest situation, and the thinking about it, in their lives.
This is the first step in The Work.
Clearly identifying the thoughts, the beliefs, about a situation you dislike, or hate. A terrifying situation.
The four questions come next.
But you can’t move with the four questions without contemplating the belief in your head in the first place.
Now, our group has been meeting for over a month, and everyone’s so inspired to continue.
Can you imagine an entire group of people, all of whom have experienced the fear of cancer…..
…..able to find sharing, love and connection because of cancer?
All I can say is….wow.
Much love, Grace
P.S. This group has space for one more person who would like to join for four weeks beginning on Wednesday 11/18 (no group 11/25). We’ll also begin again in January. We meet in Seattle.
I received a powerful question the other day about ending eating arguments.
These would be those ones inside your own head.
Eat it! Don’t eat it! I’ll eat it! You shouldn’t eat it! Stop eating it! You ate it! You’re wrong! This sucks! You’re fat! You’ll GET fat! You’ll die of a disease! I can’t! I can! I need more! I need less! Too much! Not enough!
Those eating wars, fights, arguments, concerns, worries that happen on the inside of you.
The person asked me….
….”If I’ve tried everything, and I mean EVERYTHING under the sun known to humankind, to stop being out of balance with eating, food, my weight, my obsessive thoughts….
….what could I possibly have missed?
Why would I want to take any of your programs?”
She went on to tell me she is 52 years old, and spent a lifetime working on this issue.
She began at age 8 when her mom and a doctor put her on a diet (taking a pill and restricting her food).
Like so many of us smart, educated, well-read people, she also knew practically enough to have a degree in nutritional science (no offense to those who actually have it, I know it’s expert work).
She had been to Overeater’s Anonymous and Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig, and Fat Camps, and done low carb and raw diet (she actually enjoyed it quite a bit, but went off it one day).
She had studied the 12 steps deeply enough to attend AA meetings without feeling like an outsider even though she didn’t think of herself as an alcoholic. She could relate to “addict”.
She had also engaged in therapy with someone she trusted, to study her own emotional experience around eating.
But she still ate too much, and ate the “wrong” things.
She always failed.
What else was there left to do?
She asked me.
So.
What’s my honest answer?
Just Stop…..and get mega tons of support as you do it.
Stop trying to know, or find the answer, or do it all alone….and make THAT a practice in itself.
Then I shared with her a turning point for me that occurred with two things colliding together around the same time.
A commitment to no longer hurt myself. And if I did, I would keep walking the path of Not Hurting Myself. This was stoppingfor me.
If I thought I couldn’t stand it, or my love for myself was threatened (by over-eating, or under-eating) I would be absolutely and completely vulnerable and honest. I would reveal my humanness. I would reveal my shame (if I had it). I would ask for help, if that’s what was required. I would do my part. I would hold still, all alone, and wait for someone to come help, if that was required.
I know these are two pretty huge and gigantic, profound stands.
But they aren’t really.
The short versions could look like this:
Stop before you break the dish
Cry out for help (knowing it’s there) and shout, “I’m wanting to break the dish, help me!”
Notice.
There is no plan for what the outcome is, in either one of these energies.
No set idea for which way it will go.
No ideal weight, no special result, no serious rules to follow.
Except:
Stop hurting yourself,
See what’s really true.
To get to that inner place of what I like to call Open Hands (no fighting) feels very hard.
At least it appears to be hard.
It appears to require some kind of intention, or ability to achieve it.
But is that true?
Are you sure?
Are you sure you need to find these things, and you’ve lost them? Or you came into this world with them missing?
Are you sure you’ve tried absolutely everything, and it’s completely hopeless?
Because I felt that way hundreds of times, as I look back on my experience of raging eating pain…..
…..but I’m still here.
I’m not only here, I’m writing about healing from eating. I’m living in my 25th year since the last binge-eating episode. I am not destroying anything with eating, or trying to destroy or change something.
My life, however, looks very normal and not that exciting or unusual, when it comes to food and eating.
For example, the other day, I felt like eating ice cream and it was pretty late at night.
We had some kind of chocolate chip flavor in our freezer. I took a bite after dishing it out in a pretty little crystal bowl.
I tasted it.
Not that good.
I opened up the fridge and found chocolate syrup in a container on the door, I didn’t even know we had it in there.
I put it on the ice cream, remembering childhood days of this same canned syrup and ice cream and peanut butter.
But it still didn’t taste that great.
So I ate another bite, as if checking, but then rinsed it into the sink.
Slowly.
It wasn’t a sudden smack of “NO! I won’t! OMG!”
It was just….oh. Ha ha.
Almost like a little mini attempt for something, then discovery of the truth.
It’s not even good. I don’t like the taste in my mouth. Maybe I like the texture and the coolness and gooey-ness, but not the actual taste.
There was no willpower or controlling the ice cream necessary.
I realized I was quite thirsty, and very tired.
What I really wanted, was to drink a big huge glass of water, put away the project I had been working on, and go to sleep.
What I really wanted was to feel the absolute quiet of this moment, at 11:00 at night, at the end of a huge day with many clients and creativity and plans for an upcoming retreat on December 12th.
What I really knew was true, was that nothing was required, and I could have what I wanted instantly….now.
Silence.
Rest.
So how do we do it?
What would that even look like, in a program of study like Eating Peace?
What it looks like is practicing together, which is amazing, and enlightening, and supportive.
Just like people in the medical field practice first aid, or emergency procedures, by repeatedly having fire drills and role-playing.
Rehearsing.
When we’re joined in a group together we practice:
stopping what we’re doing that doesn’t work and loving ourselves as we already are, and
asking for help if we think we can’t, hearing what others think, sharing
I find, when gathered with one or more people other than myself who are intent upon understanding the joy of silence, of knowing the mystery of oneself (like on a meditation retreat)….
….then I can return to the “regular” world of life and I’m more aware than ever of the silence and peace in doing the laundry, working with others, typing, answering phone calls, shopping at the grocery store, playing music, picking up kids from school.
Or eating.
That’s what Eating Peace is all about.
It’s really Thinking Peace, Feeling Peace, Living Peace.
I know….we aren’t always in the middle of whatever this idea of pure “peace” actually looks like, right?
(Except we are).
So we’re making friends with every feeling, every thought, every encounter we have that doesn’t seem friendly and peaceful.
The ones where food becomes an enemy, or our own minds become our foes.
We’re practicing the feelings of safety, the thoughts of openness, the activities of gentleness and love, the awareness of feeling powerful and clear.
We’re wondering and practicing and rehearsing and feeling what it might be like to be people who are capable of landing and being at peace.
Even with eating.
Because we are capable of it.
Not all of us realize it yet.
We get to really see clearly what the barriers are to peace in our heads, the blocks to freely acting on our own behalf, or to opening up to the help from the universe on this topic.
I do not know how long it will take for anyone to truly discover eating peace.
But what I do know, is that anyone can.
I created Eating Peace as a 3 month program (and then a 3 day retreat as well) to support people who want to investigate eating wars once and for all, and see what’s happening internally that makes eating so troubling.
How do we end eating arguments?
You stop believing your thoughts, and your feelings that drive you to be weird with food.
How do we do that?
Love yourself enough to take a look at what is.
Stop eating out of emotions, feelings, desperation, anger, or sadness.
Share, be honest, tell the truth, slow down.
Amazingly…..it works.
Next week, we begin the very thorough Eating Peace Online program again.
As always, it’s updated and improved (how could it not be updated, as life continues to unfold).
It’s my deepest intention to inspire both myself and you as we remember how to return to experience peace with food.
If you’re wondering how the program actually works, here are the basics:
Tuesdays are Live Presentation Days. You listen, you watch a slide show I’ve put together on all the ways I’ve discovered to interrupt the pattern of thinking and feeling that leads to eating out of balance.
Presentations are 9-10:30 am Pacific Time, and you can just as easily watch the recording. If you participate live, there is no talking-you do it all via your computer and write to me during the live 90 minutes to share your responses, discoveries and feedback. You can ask questions, too.
Wednesdays are inquiry days. We do The Work of Byron Katie, a magnificent way to clearly identify the weird things we’ve learned about the religion of eating, and we dissolve these beliefs through questioning them.
Wednesday inquiry sessions are also 9-10:30 am Pacific Time. For these sessions, you CAN talk if you like (I love it if you do) but you can also listen without speaking.
The exact dates of this exploration of the world of eating are below.
We move through four powerful modules: Thoughts, Feelings, Body, Spirit.
Three sessions for every module, three weeks for every module.
Twelve weeks in total. It’s more than three whole months of support, learning, sharing, watching.
You’ll have exercises and practices that are fun, fascinating and full of curiosity as you live your days noticing and accessing your imagination around eating, food and your body image.
You can do them all, or not. Your choice.
You’ll also be invited to Stop.
Stop overeating, stop undereating, stop believing your thinking (question it instead), stop trying to change your feelings into something better all the time.
If you falter or fail, you’ll still be loved, included, accepted and congratulated for coming back. The only requirement for participating is your desire to participate, your desire for eating peace.
I’m sending out this email today because I realized something the other day, when the wonderful woman asked me why she should sign up for Eating Peace?
I have not shared what it’s really all about.
So now I’m sharing with you, so you get the opportunity at least to decide if you want to investigate in a deeper, more profound way than perhaps you ever have before, and to see what it’s like if you Just Stop.
(No matter how much that freaks you out).
If you don’t stop, you’re still welcome.
I’m in Seattle and I can’t keep you from eating, or not eating, but I can offer you the stepping stones through the darks woods, and what I found worked most beautifully.
Module One: Thinking. (We start with the mind).
ALWAYS 9-10:30 am Pacific Time (check your time zone HERE).
11/17 (Weds 11/18 The Work of Byron Katie)
11/24 (Weds 11/25 The Work of Byron Katie)
12/1 (Weds 12/2 The Work)
Module Two: Feelings (the power of feeling bad, or good)
12/15 (12/16 The Work)
12/22 (12/23 The Work)
12/28 Monday Presentation instead of Tuesday
Module Three: Body (loving this body, tending this body)
1/12 (1/13 The Work)
1/19 (1/20 The Work)
1/26 (1/27 The Work)
Module Four: Spirit (practicing being with your mystery)
2/2 (2/4 The Work)
2/9 (2/10 The Work)
2/16 (2/17 The Work)
Everyone in the program has my text, my email, and a 9-1-1 solo session to use any time between now and June 1, 2016. Plus a secret private facebook group for sharing insights.
Even if you do NOT join this program, or any future program, you can begin to watch, take in, notice when you do NOT want to stop and when you do NOT want to share (and keep secrets).
You can try, just a wee little bit, to turn this around.
You can do it.
You have what it takes.
To sign up for the entire 12 week journey, including your choice between one of two Eating Peace in-person retreats (optional) then please click HERE.
“The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are. Renunciation is a teaching to inspire us to investigate what’s happening every time we grab something because we can’t stand to face what’s coming.” ~ Pema Chodron
I’m here to help inspire you to investigate, and share with you how I do it.
Join me, let’s do it together.
And by the way, anyone who joins, gets access for life. Yes.
Grace, you have a REMARKABLE ability to embrace anything that comes into our Work, and weave it in. I love your light-hearted but serious style, and that you can tell your own stories. Looking back at what I wanted to get out of the program, I can say that I got a lot more than I imagined. Thanks, so much. ~ Florida
Peace, Grace
P.S. This is probably the only time this year I will teach this 3 month course. There’s something amazing about doing it over the holiday season, no matter what your practice or religion.
Spared from the desire for love, approval and appreciation….you are the act of appreciation itself
Yesterday the Year of Inquiry group looked at a thought that is so repetitive within the human psyche, it’s rather stunning:
That person does not appreciate me.
How do you know?
There are so many ways we know….where to begin?!!
I see them hugging someone else, not me. I hear about them eating lunch with another friend, they’ve never invited me before. I overhear them talking about how brilliant someone is, and they’ve never said anything like this about me. I see them kissing someone else, and I thought we were in an exclusive romance.
I watch them leaning towards someone from across the room, and I think they don’t appear that interested when talking to me. They don’t call me back. They don’t ask my opinion. They say “no” to me. They don’t give me money. They stare at their screen, instead of me. They engage in addiction, even though I asked them to stop. I don’t get a raise.They don’t clean up. They don’t touch me. They don’t say they love me. They never reply to my emails.
I could go on and on with what I’ve thought or heard from others, or seen in the movies.
People get so disturbed by the evidence of non-appreciation.
It’s almost overwhelming, and infinite.
But let’s look a little closer at this belief, this feeling of not being appreciated.
I once was getting to know a man. He was a friend and a romantic interest.
We talked like friends. Many hours on the phone for several months.
One day he told me about his plans to go to a summer festival where he would stay in a cabin with old friends, some acquaintances. He lived very far away from me, and I was neither invited nor would I have been able to attend–it had not crossed my mind as something I even wanted to do, honestly.
I had been on the phone with him during his drive into the mountains of somewhere in sunny California, on his way to the festival.
As usual for this early, fun, get-to-know-you stage of the relationship, we were laughing and flirting and telling stories about ourselves. He described the landscape.
He said “I’m about to go into territory where I think there’s no cell service, so if I don’t……”
Cut.
Silence.
LOL.
I looked forward to the likely call we would have on Monday, when he got back home and back into cell zone.
Little did I know…..
“I have something to tell you about the weekend….it’s crazy!” he said like a friend who’s excited to tell some weird and interesting, and awesome news.
“I had sex with someone, and I don’t even know her name! Isn’t that so funny and wild?!?”
(Tires screeching in my head…..followed by a huge gigantic CRASH sound).
Pause. Pause. I was catching my breath, holding it.
I uttered a weak “oh, ha ha, yeah…..crazy.”
He then launched into the story of the noticing this woman, the meeting, the connection, and the path to actual sex and how that all unfolded.
Like a girlfriend telling me about her liaison with a man for the first time, in a way she might have felt as liberating and wild, and new, and fun.
But my stomach was sick.
“Ooops, I gotta go!” I hung up the phone, reeling.
Fortunately, I knew exactly what to do.
The Work.
I had asked for my world, as far as relationships went, to be turned upside down. My old stodgy stories from, oh probably the year 1705 (and a few centuries earlier) were so full of pain and stress, and ownership, and false expectations, and lack of clarity, power, or love….
….that on the heels of divorce, I knew I wanted these stories to dissolve.
I knew they weren’t true as ideas, but obviously not in my heart and body.
They provided only suffering, and they came from some weird history that no longer made any sense (or maybe never did).
I called all my friends who could facilitate the Work, and asked them for appointments for that entire Monday and Tuesday. I called in sick to my job. Because my mind WAS sick.
I believed that man, as a new interesting friend of MINE, should want to be sexual with me and only me.
How ridiculous.
Now, stay with me here. Because this does not mean I am not interested deeply in monogamy and care and attention of a primary relationship. I’m in one now, like that. So far, I love a whole lot about the current relationship I appear to be in, and it feels wonderful and easy and very kind.
But who would I be without that thought that when someone doesn’t want this, they’re not appreciating ME?
Without the belief that it means I am being rejected as they want what they want?
At first, all I could do was to see and imagine how I would be, in that very situation, without the belief.
I couldn’t really feel it.
I could imagine a different person, like the lady next door, who didn’t care about this guy and all the dreamy ideas of being together (sigh) and how SHE might feel.
She wouldn’t be feeling like she lost something, or recognized something awful. She wouldn’t feel rejected, disappointed, unworthy, alone.
As I contemplated my work, and felt the dagger punch in my stomach subside….
….I began to use my mind and my imagination for ease, for wondering
Rather than self-torture.
Who would I be without the belief that his behavior means anything about my behavior? Without the thought this means I am unappreciated?
Wow.
Wow.
Isn’t this what I actually asked for?
Isn’t this what I wanted…..to feel freedom to come and go as I pleased and want everyone else to do the same?
Don’t I want this in every kind of relationship, not just romantic love or sexual relationships?
Clients, family, children, parents, neighbors…..can I be in deep connection with them, no matter what they do or don’t do?
Wouldn’t I want everyone to follow their heart’s desire?
I mean….they have to appreciate ME….really?
I suddenly realized it wasn’t true.
At all.
Wow. The relaxation I felt at not needing to be appreciated, at not needing to be accepted, invited, wanted, hired, cared about…..
….even though it feels tentative at times, don’t get me wrong (and then I do The Work, or ask for what I really want like a hug or a conversation).
I could see in that experience that what was truer, honestly truer, was that he should NOT appreciate me, when he’s busy appreciating someone else.
I should appreciate myself, always.
I should appreciate HIM (I did and still do, he taught me to let go and then ask for what I truly, deeply wanted and cared about at that time).
That experience led me to fading out on all those long-distance conversations that lasted hours….
….and come back to myself, in the present, without any thoughts about what would happen in the future.
Appreciation right now.
It’s worth giving up a dream for. In a very, very good way.
“If I had a prayer, it would be ‘God, spare me from seeking love, approval, or appreciation. Amen’. ” ~ Byron Katie
Recently someone wrote to share a stressful thought she has that I’ve heard before, in every variation possible.
I’m afraid I will fail. I already failed many times. I can’t seem to succeed. I will regret the outcome, later, in the future because it won’t be a success.
Being a human being, you’ve probably noticed a thought pattern like this, as your mind watches the memory of what you’ve been like, and then imagines what’s possible for you in the future, based on what you’ve been like so far.
That same mind will compare the failing you, to the possibly successful you, and see a gap.
Then it will say to you…..yep. See!
Something’s missing. You’re obviously not capable of doing this on your own. You need help.
A LOT of help.
Notice how stressful this is, to think you can’t do it, you won’t make it, you’ll not succeed, you can’t get there, you’ve screwed up many times already and failed over and over again.
Super stressful, discouraging, frightening, sad.
Here I share a little mantra I learned that made a big difference for me, a way to interrupt the pattern of reaching for unneeded food (or uncomfortable thoughts).
Don’t you hate when you mess up meeting arrangement, let someone down, screw up the plans?
Or when you have to cancel or disappoint, deliver bad news, you’re lost, you’re late, or….
….What about when you forget a date or you’re a No Show for an appointment you really care about?
I did that yesterday.
My morning was all set up for my presentation (Eating Peace, you can watch the replayhere), so no individual clients were scheduled all morning. The calendar was cleared so I could teach my awesome free introduction course on the movement from war to peace when it comes to eating, food or the body (or really any compulsive repetitive deal).
When I woke up yesterday morning, full of enthusiasm for my upcoming intro webinar and making some final touches on it, I had a small (not unheard of) glitch where I needed to reboot my whole computer, turn off and on the internet, and load up my webinar slides from scratch so it was live and ready to go at the appointed hour.
Sometimes, doing something like that unexpectedly makes me a little nervous.
I want to be ready for my presentation! It needs to work!
I don’t exactly love the technical disconnects–although, I’ve had my share and they can be CRAZY and almost funny, they’re sooooo absurd sometimes. (Like when on the very first day of a huge planned long-term course you have to drive to Starbucks to connect to the internet because there’s a windstorm….which happened to me last year on the first day of Eating Peace Online, but I digress).
So after all the getting stuff in order during the morning….just before my webinar started (phew, it looked like things were going to go OK) I opened up my calendar for the day to review my schedule.
Cool. Next appointment, 1:00 pm.
Without realizing, I’m looking at the wrong week, even though it’s a Tuesday.
Same hours blocked out for Eating Peace all morning. So that didn’t throw me off.
Except if I were looking at the CORRECT day, I would see I had a lovely client at noon.
And by the way, to make matters bigger, this client and I had already rescheduled once and taken care to make this Tuesday noon Pacific Time meeting work.
So there I am going along, thinking it’s a different Tuesday a week later, and after my morning Eating Peace presentation is over….
….I head for the gym.
A few minutes into my gym bike ride, I see a message float by on my phone out of the corner of my eye.
As I catch the name, I realize….
….I have just completely missed my client, who has been waiting for me on skype.
Now, while this may not be the biggest faux-pas in the world, or a total mess with egg on your face…..
…..it’s not that normal for me, and I didn’t like it.
The client didn’t either.
(I can soooo understand this).
Here’s the great thing about having The Work buzzing within, though.
I did not feel the shame, sick feeling or worry as I once would have felt.
In the past, this incident might have made me start to wonder what I was doing.
The voice might have kicked in: I’m in the wrong profession, why don’t you pay better attention, WTF, how could I be so disorganized, why don’t you hire an assistant, I’m too non-detail oriented, what’s WRONG with you, what an idiot.
What would it be like, for you, if you made an actual mistake (I raise my hand) but you didn’t hate yourself because you did that?
This is big.
This is a huge piece of opening your mind, with self-inquiry.
Who would you actually be without the belief that you’re the problem, the one who was at fault, the one who F*c#$d up the whole thing?
Many years ago, on November 11th, 1990, I got married.
I am no longer married to the man I was partnered with that wonderful day, which was full of celebration and some excitement, and happiness. He’s the father of my two amazing children I love so much. He’s an awesome person.
It seems like it would be cool to still be married, to have not had something go “wrong”, to have not made any mistakes, to have remained “together” and pool assets and share a life.
Except, not really.
I love that story, but it is not at all required.
It is truly just a fairy tale.
I did The Work on it, about a hundred times, and now I honestly never think about that alternative “perfect” parallel universe where something called marriage happens until the end of life.
In fact, what happened was the best thing ever, for my own spiritual growth and awareness, for my own freedom.
I grew so much confidence, generosity, experience, joy, surrender, acceptance, and openness…..
….it’s hard to remember who I once was before.
Maybe everything really does happen right on time.
Even a missed appointment.
“We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.” ~ Desmond Tutu
Today at 9 am Pacific Time. One more chance to join me in the Thinking Peace, Eating Peace webinar: Steps and Jewels you need for the journey home to peace.
We start at 9:00 am Pacific Time, and this is exactly the same time slot as the 3 month program which starts next week on Tuesday, November 17th.
We’re warming up for a great time of insights and practicing freedom around where we get stuck in our thoughts and our feelings that fuel feeling bad about eating (or living).
Join me today by clicking HERE (no opt-in required, 90 minute presentation).
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Yesterday, it was very dark, and rainy, and drippy. White whispy clouds hung low, hovering in the tree tops across the water in my neighborhood.
I had the thought….It’s still early November and we haven’t even hit the solstice yet.
Dark times ahead. Literally.
Sometimes in the distant past, this created some depressed feelings within me.
I smelled them for a second yesterday.
Uh oh….what’s that smell?
Depression, it whispered. Darkness.
I suddenly had the thought “this is going to be a terrible winter, I can’t stand it.”
A sinking feeling of sadness. Anxiety.
The word “anxiety” is as old as Latin when the roots of it meant choked, squeezed…..or to distress or trouble something.
It wasn’t used in psychological terms until 1904, only about 110 years ago.
Often, when people feel a foreboding, or sensitivity to encroaching darkness, or pictures in their head and the feeling of heaviness or adrenaline…..anxiety.
I jumped on my bike.
Well, OK, it was exactly “jumping” on my bike. It took me 45 minutes to leave the house, after getting my ipod charged and finishing replying to emails.
With my down coat, drizzling rain, wool skull cap, gloves, and headphones in, I hit the trail.
At first, I was freezing.
But as always, the body warmed up, the blood started pumping, the air felt so fresh and good in my nostrils and lungs, on my face.
And I listened to one of my favorite wise men, Michael Singer, speak about the nut-case mind….
….and how we’ll believe things so easily, take a thought so seriously, feel very grave about a vision or idea.
Haha. Gosh. Sounds kind of familiar somehow.
The mind goes wild, faster than a locomotive trying to order both ourselves, and the world, around, or avoid dangerous things.
OK OK!
I CONFESS!
My own dreary thoughts had kinda gotten under my skin a little. Reminding me about dark winters and having ideas like “what a boring world” and “what’s the point” and “this isn’t good”.
With just a little reminder, I was laughing.
Actually laughing, noticing how genius I was to ride my bike on such a Seattle Monday with zero people on the trail but me.
A heron swam in the river, geese flew high above in a V-formation, the rain stopped entirely, the wind blew threw the gorgeous taller-than-tall poplar trees lining the river.
The light was so incredible, I was in awe.
I took photos (the one above is one of them!)
Remembering that you don’t have to believe everything you think is so amazing, so enlightening, so freeing….
….the world seemed dazzling.
And what changed?
Only a person’s perception, apparently, riding along on a bicycle in some section of the big wide reality, not believing their thoughts in doom and gloom.
And then, the sharing of it here.
If I can do it, you can too.
Truly. You don’t have to have some massive assistance, or conscious-altering lightning bolt hit you.
You don’t need anything but the other side of that whisper that was full of warning about such things as darkness and discouragement….
….Just a few questions:
Is it true?
Are you sure?
How does that feel, what do you notice, what happens when you’re thinking that?
How about when you’re NOT thinking that? What’s that like?
What if this is exciting, awesome, loving, delicious, safe, temporary, wonderful?
And maybe a little encouragement, that wasn’t anything you could have planned, dropping in at just the right moment.
Or not.
“Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. True mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can’t be gained by interfering.” ~ Tao Te Ching #48
Much love, Grace
P.S. Peace Talk’s latest episode from yesterday is HERE.
I was so touched this morning in an Eating Peace webinar I presented (so jammed with information, of course, that we went for 2 hours….it was awesome to hang in there with you and your questions, thank you).
One participant in the webinar wrote in the Q & A, where I see people’s questions and comments underway during the program.
“I don’t have an eating problem but a drinking problem. I can relate to all of this though. Will this course apply to me?”
The thing is….most of us are indeed plagued by some kind of lack of peace, and it doesn’t really seem to matter how it presents itself in action or behavior.
We do all kinds of things to try to get away from that core angst, or urge to change what we feel, or escape from the difficulties in our lives.
Once when I was on a silent retreat with one of my favorite teachers, Adyashanti, a man came up to the microphone for the portion of the retreat where people can ask questions and have a conversation with Adya.
The man shared, with tears and deep discouragement, his journey with drugs and getting off them, not long ago.
He felt he had lost everything, destroyed his relationship with his kids and family, and had nothing but a bicycle and a room in a house. No job, nothing left of his former life, not even sure where to go or what to do next.
He described such shame and sadness, my heart went out to him
Not all of us have to go to such extremes to notice that inside the psyche, inside our thoughts about others and ourselves and the world, it isn’t super pleasant, peaceful or easy.
Adyashanti replied something to this man who was suffering so deeply that I found very loving and wise…..
…..”we’re all addicts.”
In other words, he explained, we’re all addicted to our identities, to listening to our thoughts, to believing what we think is super true.
The other day, I walked from my bedroom to the little study or office in the cottage I live in.
As I have before, I paused and looked at the dirty, ratty carpet.
All of the sudden, a sinking feeling of anxiety encompassed me.
Yes, even without eating as a behavior, I still feel anxiety and have stressful thoughts….just like so many of us do sometimes.
Images came into my head of the horrible project of having to replace old carpet. All that furniture moving, and the money it would cost to hire the help, to buy the new carpet, having to choose the new color.
It’s too much, I thought.
The images included shame at having not had my act together enough earlier in life to gather money and be responsible for a simple house.
I thought of all the lists of things I should spend money on, if I even get the money, instead of carpet-replacing.
Like school needs for my kids, or a safer, newer car to drive that runs on electricity instead of gas, or donating to charity.
The thing that’s interesting about that moment, walking and seeing worn, ratty carpet, was that I almost missed all these images.
All I had was a flash thought of the worn-outness of my home, then the feeling of discouragement, and the sudden urge to work harder on my business and programs, followed almost immediately by the thought….
….but NO, I don’t want to right now, I’ve been working all day already….
….so how about I watch a good movie?
Yeah. That’s it!
This idea of what to do happened in thirty seconds.
Urge to escape. Urge to be somewhere else, see something else.
Urge to Not Feel Stress. Urge to have a bedtime story told to me.
A good one, a distracting one.
This was a moment of addiction to a story, to an identity, the quicker-than-lightening impulse to get away from being The One Who Didn’t Get A Successful Career Earlier In Life and Now Must Replace Old Carpet.
And guess what?
I DID watch a movie.
So I actually took the bait (invented by my own thoughts), and went with it. I asked my husband if he also wanted to watch.
And guess what else?
It’s another day…..and the thoughts about ratty carpet or other peoples’ comfort in my cottage returned to be looked at again, because I had a meetup yesterday afternoon and before people came, I believed “it’s just not clean enough in this cottage….for example look at that carpet!”
Who would I be without that belief, though?
Who would I be without that story of having to have things look and present a certain way?
WHAT would I be without being against my feelings of angst or concern about my future life on planet earth, or other peoples’ ideas and perceptions, or what will ever happen?
I love looking at this question, and this answer.
WHAT would you be without your stressful story?
If you didn’t define yourself as a human who is supposed to be doing it a certain way, or that you need to escape your feelings?
Wow.
I’m not even sure what I would be.
I’d be something, a being, walking from one room to another, seeing images and thinking thoughts and feeling feelings and ultimately just being here.
Being.
If you didn’t think it was important to escape or change this place, this moment, this situation, who or what would you be?
Maybe you’d be pausing in the unknown, willing to wait and be still.
Willing to see what happens next, without you trying to direct the outcome or trying to control yourself, or trying to control the outside environment around you (including people).
Someone holding still.
“Who would you be right now, sitting in this chair without the thought? Sit there as the successful man. Sit there as the failure. Sit there as every man that you wanted to be, or woman or child or you. Sit there and experience who you would be sitting in this chair without your stressful thought…..Just feel the support. Feel the support of the chair. Allow it to support you–because that’s what it’s doing whether you’re aware of it or not. And experience the breath that’s breathing you and the ground that’s supporting the chair. Feel what’s supporting your arms and the support under your skin.” ~ Byron Katie in Who Would You Be Without Your Story?
Just like meditation, it’s a practice.
You don’t necessarily have a huge lightbulb go off and an explosion of awareness and from then on, everything’s free (unless you do, like Byron Katie or Eckhart Tolle, but these are the far outliers of the bell curve. For you, it unfolds your way, just right for you).
What I’ve noticed is the gap between thinking…..and wishing to change or move or follow a craving or fix something becomes smaller and smaller and smaller.
No thought necessary about where this is going, or what I should do.
Seeing thoughts arise, seeing them vanish (forgetting about them).
What or who would you be without the belief you can’t find peace, or you have to use something (substance, food, person, activity) to find it?
Awestruck.
Alive.
Here.
Thoughts and all, warts and all. You.
Much love, Grace
P.S. For the replay of yesterday’s Eating Peace/Thinking Peace webinar, click HERE.
Question your stressful thinking, the way you act will change (and expect nothing)
You may have heard the rumor, and it’s true.
I’m doing three webinars in 4 days on the journey into peace with eating.
The first one is Sunday, November 8th. 8:30 – 10:00 am. You can also get the chance to attend Tuesday, November 10th at 9:00 am AND Wednesday, November 11th at 9:00 am.
*******
Some people have told me, what I share applies to all addictive thinking (not just food) and I get it.
It’s pretty true.
The process of becoming peaceful within starts with looking at the inner disturbance, but it doesn’t really matter what the disturbance actually is or how it looks when acted out.
I happen to have years of experience both in my own journey, and working with others, to end the battle with eating…..
…..but humans do nutty and extreme behavior with just about anything.
My study of this for several decades has given me some insight on my own recovery, and how others enter eating peace as well.
But it’s really about ending the addiction to fearful thinking.
I know not everyone has eating woes (which is why I’m sending this note today to everyone, including the daily Grace Note family of readers, not just eaters).
Fearful thinking is quite incredible to consider dropping.
When you feel like you have to DO something (eat, drink, smoke, check your emails, stay on facebook, game, over-exercise, read, fix yourself)….
….are you afraid of what would happen if you didn’t ACT?
What’s the worst that could happen if you hold still?
Nooooo!!!!
When I first went on a meditation retreat I thought I was being tortured by 1000 tiny ants hammering on my head and inside my skin about 3/4s of the time.
I woke up every night at 2:30 or 3:00 am.
I was on a wooded wild mountaintop, with distant views of the Pacific ocean very far away.
At night, there were no lights, and lemme tell you, not one view.
I was sharing a room with a whole line-up of women all on cots, all sleeping. I would disturb them if I turned on any lights.
I realized, without a flashlight (and I probably would have been too creeped out if I had one to go walking in the dense old-growth forest all around) I could only sneak out to the foyer, maybe get a cup of tea in the wee hours, and sit there.
I was trapped!!! It was sheer torture!!!
I joke around, but we all know what was really disturbing me was not the silence, the stillness, or the lack of entertainment.
It was me facing my own inner life.
My thoughts, my feelings, my awareness of the world.
It wasn’t exactly….good.
Who would you be without your beliefs about the dangers of life, or the dangers of this world, or the dangers of eating compulsively, or the dangers of not eating compulsively?
Who would you be without your escape behavior?
Who would you be if you took a very deep breath, and paused, and noticed your body and your environment?
You might say: I don’t know.
But not knowing feels somehow much better than KNOWING you are totally in danger, or that you’re a bad person (and so are others) or that this world is somehow threatening.
So even though I don’t have all the answers, that’s for sure, I do notice something remarkable.
It’s OK to not know.
Right now, I’m entirely safe and quiet and peaceful, even while I’m typing these words.
You probably are too, if you’re reading this note.
Who might you be without the belief you’re in danger, or in trouble, or something’s wrong with you, or you’re very small and unworthy?
I keep discovering that who I’d be is Not Acting Violent anymore with my eating, or anything else.
I keep working on my thoughts, and my feelings, and everything else falls into place with balance.
“You cannot be nonviolent if there is any part of yourself that you are in opposition to. You are not truly serving if there is any part of yourself to which you will not extend compassion. Your love will always be conditional as long as you are excluding any part of yourself from it. Suffering cannot be healed through self-hate. Only through compassionate acceptance can suffering be healed. If we accept, if we open ourselves, life will transform us.” ~ Cheri Huber in There Is Nothing Wrong With You
Whatever your addictive thing is, even if it’s telling your troubling story about the world, you can slowly, slowly unravel the knots that bind you.
We’re doing it together.
Question your thinking, change your actions (eating, or anything).
You really can.
I loved everything I learned in Grace’s Eating Peace class. I continue to learn from the deceptively simple tools and jewels. More and more I discover the Life Beyond the Suffering around food. And If I forget, there’s always another chance to remember. Like each time I choose to eat. I’m choosing peace more and more often. Thanks, Grace! ~ Oregon, US
Grace is like the fairy godmother who is objectively and lovingly looking at what’s going on in behavior, thoughts and feelings. The content of the class felt comprehensive and well thought out. I would certainly recommend the course. Thank you. ~ Toronto, CA
Much love, Grace
P.S. Eating Peace Online: Read about this awesome program I put my heart and soul into. This 12 Week Immersion addresses emotional eating and ending the suffering around obsessive thinking when it comes to food.
We start November 17th. Join now (before 11/10) for the huge 30% discount. Come to the webinar and receive a special surprise bonus.
She told me the story of her early life with her uncle….more like older brother because the age span was only 10 years older than she was.
Somewhere along the way, she lost regular contact with him.
Something happened.
Cards sent to him were not responded to.
Leaving messages or reaching out for contact left only…..
…..crickets.
I love that saying “crickets” about the silence of No Response from someone you care about.
It reminds me of my many summer days in Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle in the US.
They were actually cicadas, not crickets.
But the sound of insects chirping, a dark inky night, a very wide expansive endless sky, stars sparkling, a treeless horizon, and very hot, hot heat pulsing.
Almost too hot to talk, or to move.
If you shouted out into the dark hot night sky….Hello?
Hello? Hello?
Crickets.
The dear inquirer who wrote to me found out only a month ago that her uncle was dying, and then just the other day, she learned he died.
I’ve sometimes thought about a very dear friend of mine and what it would be like if I learned that she died.
Someone I cared about so much, and grew very close to. We shared our most embarrassing secrets, and listened, and psychoanalyzed, and offered suggestions, and laughed very hard.
It wasn’t a long friendship, only a few years.
But the same something happened.
My usual emails were not responded to.
No phone calls returned.
I remember that empty space.
Many days had gone by without any concern on my end. Hardly a thought about her, and what she was doing.
Until time passed long enough.
Hello? Hello?
Crickets.
The absence of that friend in my life began to become a focus, a wondering. A curiosity.
The lack of communication was a subtle form of “no”.
No longer neutral.
Where does the mind go, when someone says “no” to you, or you get zero response or feedback or attention and you’ve asked for it?
It may start quietly, but because you really do not know what’s going on, your thoughts begin to look for what went wrong.
And guess who’s the target?
You.
What did I do? Was it something I said?
Nothing. I can’t find anything.
So what else could it be?
Maybe it’s just the way I am.
Maybe….
….I’m not good enough.
That’s exactly where my mind went with that friend of mine.
She did confront me on my plans around my second marriage celebration.
She said I was being deceitful, because I might not get married on paper, only in ceremony. I had been through divorce once before, and didn’t think I could ever stand dissolution of possessions and money ever again.
Sharing assets was certainly not the purpose of marrying, for me. (I changed my mind, by the way, and got married on paper at literally the last minute, but that’s another story).
I remember sitting and doing The Work on her words to me.
Because of her sharing honestly, I became open to changing my plans. I never got to tell her I actually DID change my mind, and my plans, because she never spoke to me again.
But I went over that conversation many times.
Was that the problem?
She told me she didn’t feel comfortable with several of my other close friends, either.
Was that the problem?
And always, under the surface…..
….if I was handling this well, clearly, honestly, with integrity….
….then this rift in the relationship would not have happened.
I could have prevented this problem, had I been good enough, kind enough, attentive enough, loving enough, direct enough, knowledgeable enough, astute enough, sensitive enough.
Is that true?
Yes.
I was not direct with this friend for a long time before the “cut-off”.
Guess how?
I cut her off internally, in little tiny micro ways.
I didn’t share honestly.
I didn’t speak my true heart and mind. I didn’t say “no” when I meant it. I didn’t hang up the phone. I didn’t take care of myself in her presence very well. I didn’t feel free to say how I felt. I didn’t ask her why she wanted to hang out so much. I didn’t trust something about her, about myself.
I was careful.
But who would you be without the belief you are not good enough….
….even if you did all those childish, scaredy-cat, timid, careful things?
Yes, even with all those imperfections, and the Not Acting Right, and the internal judgments you had about them….(fine, I’m better off without her anyway, she’s too intense).
There’s a way of turning things around where you keep the original thought, but you say it with joy and zest.
I call it the Yahoo turnaround.
I wasn’t good enough.
Turned around: I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!!!!
YAHOO!!! RIDE ‘EM COWBOY!!!
(That’s what I yell for some reason since those panhandle days in Texas when I was a kid).
I was a human, doing the best I could at the time.
I was believing, then questioning, then believing again.
That’s what it’s like to be a human.
“Once a painful concept is met with understanding, the next time it appears you may find it interesting. What used to be the nightmare is now just interesting. The next time it appears, you may find it funny. The next time, you may not even notice it. This is the power of loving what is.” ~ Byron Katie
If you could trust the universe, and allow it to give you what you need and not give you what you don’t…..
…..what would that be like?
Maybe you’d notice how gorgeous that sound is.
It’s so beautiful, you forget about everything else but being….
….listening, breathing in air, smelling, seeing, feeling your skin, your body, the blood running through your veins, your knees on the ground.
