Waiting for the Mental Cleanse with Byron Katie to begin, the chairs of inquirers for peace
Sitting at an event, listening, drinking in what’s going on is so incredibly sweet.
Day 2 of the Mental Cleanse in Los Angeles.
The day is mapped out and scheduled, there’s a huge conference room with many chairs all lined up for the audience, and on stage two big comfy chairs for Byron Katie and whomever is sitting with her investigating something troubling about the human condition.
Yesterday, five different people shared, and some were the kind of situations I thought, when I first encountered The Work….
….you can’t really question THAT situation and find peace….
….can you?
A teenager hearing horrible voices, a drunk husband who peed in the hallway, a young woman who had been sexually molested by a step father, terror of the huge earthquake coming to the west coast of the US, and the impending death of aging parents.
These are some of what we think of as the greatest difficulties of life.
At least I’ve thought it.
Relationships are maybe one thing, or being annoyed at your job, or not having enough money, or running out of gas in your car, or missing a flight, or a family feud….
….but death? Earthquakes? Abuse?
Is it possible to come to peace with very frightening events?
Yes.
That’s what I know and remember as I sit listening, hearing these brave people do their work, and doing my own.
Every time someone goes up into the chair to work on stage, it’s really an investigation for all of us. We’re all here sharing the questioning of these stories that appears tragic in the human condition.
We’re doing it together.
Katie said to the audience….
….“you can un-do 1000 years of suffering this morning.”
By getting very still and inquiring.
By asking, is it true, that thought you’re thinking? That image you’re seeing?
Isn’t it just a memory? Is a memory reality?
Can you be in this present moment, looking around, feeling what is here, seeing, hearing….
….without being so sure bad stuff could happen any minute?
Are you sure those things are as insurmountable, impossible, sick, violent, horrible, and debilitating as you’ve believed?
Are you OK in this moment? Did you make it through?
I keep noticing…..yes.
I’m right here.
What is this that’s right here? Who is this? What is this life I’m living? What is suffering? What is peace?
“Every time we do this work, we’re answering the question: who am I?” ~ Byron Katie yesterday at the Cleanse
And that’s the most exciting thing to wonder about, ever.
I’m in Los Angeles for the annual event called the Mental Cleanse with Byron Katie.
Once again, I am touched deeply by what it’s like to do The Work in a group.
And this is a big group–several hundred people in a giant convention room in a hotel near the airport.
There’s an empty chair up on the stage next to Katie, and who knows who will be the next person in the chair.
We get to hear that person’s situation they’re wanting to investigate, the moment in their lives when they felt irritation, sadness, anxiety, or immense frustration.
Yesterday we listened to four brave peeps.
The thing I absolutely love about doing The Work in a huge group like this, is that after the process of inquiry–taking each concept through the four questions and turnarounds–Katie turns out to everyone else and asks….
….what’s your takeaway? Your feedback?
What did you learn from your own life situation?
I love that as I listen, I don’t have to even try to find situations to work on or look at. The other people in the chair are doing it for me!
I can simply trust the process of sitting, being present in the room, hearing a human situation that brings stress, or agony, and suffering through the way it has been perceived.
A woman did The Work on a psychic who told her she would die at age 72.
Another woman did The Work on her boyfriend who keeps suggesting she get a job rather than try to run a private practice.
A man did The Work on a friend who argues too much about dumb things like which app is better, or which car model.
As the people describe their situations, we picture the scenario.
It’s like I’m right there….and I don’t even know these people!
The mind is amazing like that. It creates a movie instantly and fills in the details the more it hears the scene described.
The problem enters when we begin to believe what we see is absolutely true. Taking it very seriously. Holding it as threatening. Chalking it up to a moment on earth that’s dangerous.
Isn’t it amazing, I thought yesterday, that in any of these situations we’ve experienced in life, whether we’re thinking about death or an annoying loved one….
….it’s because we’re threatened in some small or big way.
What is threatened?
Our sense of “me” being here, in tact, living it’s own life.
My identity.
Me, me, me and my survival and success here.
Katie chuckled, looked down a moment, and commented on something so simple, so automatic, so universal, and the source of our anxiety, fear, suffering, emotional pain.
Our thoughts.
The ego mind tries so hard to protect its identity, she said, to keep the identity of the self in place….
….and it will work so very hard to do it, maybe extra hard when it’s particularly threatened, because secretly it knows….
….it doesn’t actually exist.
All that work for nothing!
Ha ha.
The mind is so funny.
So today, I’m enjoying watching the images, memories, and thoughts float by of what I’ve thought to be “bad” or “good” about “my” life….
….seeing how it’s only a movie.
Right now, what’s happening in “my” world is a quiet and beautiful expansive hotel lobby with swirly feathery greenish carpet, screens playing in the distance with people talking about the news and football players running, music on the speakers, murmurs of voices of people in the distance in clumps, and this writing coming out.
And of course, none of it is “mine”.
It was just a flash of life from this perspective for a moment in time.
If I had six figures….I’d be successful….are you sure?
I’m sending this out as I take off from the Seattle airport to Los Angeles, heading for my first New Year’s Mental Cleanse event in a few years with Byron Katie.
I can’t wait to hear the people who get up on stage and so bravely share themselves vulnerably with a room full of about 300-500 people.
Wow.
That’s a lot!
And many of these folks who get to do The Work with Katie will be filmed and recorded, and the conversations they have with Katie will go on youtube and head out onto the internet, inspiring others to also investigate suffering.
It’s a pretty courageous act to be willing to expose oneself in this way.
A very long time ago, when I was in the hospital inpatient treatment program for eating disorders, I got to write my autobiography.
At first, I was soooooo grossed out.
Write down the horrible details of my addictive and painful process?
For other people to read?
Please no. Not that.
The eating, bingeing, drinking, smoking, shop-lifting, boyfriends, scarcity, quitting jobs, frequent moving, dropping out of college, vicious judgments towards myself and others.
I had what they call a huge in-to-me-see problem.
An intimacy problem.
Which I’ve heard said is the root of all addictive processes.
Nowadays, I appear to write about whatever comes to mind about myself and share what it is like to both believe, and un-believe, these thoughts.
It’s pretty intimate, I guess.
And sometimes, I still feel shame, or the urge to keep something to myself.
Like about money, for example.
Not long ago, I received a one-time individual mentoring session for being a part of a class (I love learning all kinds of things, and often sign up for classes–one at a time is my only rule).
This class was for small business owners and learning how to connect with other people to support business growth.
Only a handful of people “won” the opportunity to have a one-on-one session with the teacher, who had an MBA and was successful at starting several businesses, even though she was a bit younger than me.
I wasn’t sure what to ask her, we only had 30 minutes.
When I sat still and wondered what my biggest question was about running my little business, the answer came to mind “What is my next step to make more money?”
Another part of me immediately responded with…..
…..“OH COME ON!! Still? Can’t you get over the whole I-Am-Not-There-Yet thing when it comes to MONEY??!!”
When we got on the phone together, I blurted out the shameful truth.
“I haven’t made 6 figures yet!”
Honestly, it’s almost embarrassing to write this in Grace Notes, because of all the “six figure” rhetoric.
I was embarrassed to tell her I had not yet made six figures in my business, and embarrassed to tell you I cared.
Six figures means, in case you don’t know, that in Canadian or US dollars you are making 100,000 (count the digits–it is SIX) per year. Maybe for euros this little saying also works. But you get the picture.
It’s a milestone marker in business growth. Six figures kinda means you’re cruising along, getting to a basic operational stage with running a successful small business.
Except.
I thought “I have to keep it a secret that I don’t make six figures”….
AND at the very same time….
….with this business mentor, I felt embarrassed about not making six figures.
Jeez.
What inquiry to even investigate?
I should have more money / I shouldn’t / I want more money / I don’t want / I need more money / I don’t need / I care about money / I don’t care.
This would require a more subtle examination of the stories present.
The world could judge me!
My business mentor could judge me!
Oh….one at a time!
Right!!
In This Situation (with the business mentor and our session)….
….she’ll think I’m a loser, small potatoes, insignificant, unorganized, bag-lady potential, and a dork when she learns I make less than six figures.
And this would be bad because……why?
Because I want her to like me, to believe in me, to help me, to teach me, to support me into riches.
Is that true?
Well, yes!
Such an impulse to say “yes” if I’m looking at money, money, money, just money.
And yet….let’s get more specific.
She is more successful than I am, she makes more money. She knows now (because of my confession) what I make. I am not as good as she is, because of this number.
Is that absolutely true?
No.
How do I react when I believe in comparing numbers, in amounts of money, in this woman being more successful than me because she makes more money than me?
Yikes, it’s a bummer.
Images flash through my head of people and the amount of money they “make”.
Even though, I actually do not know how much they make. (Interesting point).
I’m sure they make a lot, because of their excitement, the way they speak, what they do, what they buy, the clothes they wear….
….that they are totally making a ton of money.
I read my mentor’s words if she writes, I hear what she says if she speaks, I deduct that if she has four full-time employees she’s rocking it, she’s inventing a ten-year plan, she’s succeeding, she’s successful, she’s already succeeded.
Who would I be without this comparison?
Without this belief that she is more successful than I am since she makes more money?
Wow.
Without the belief that the amount of money someone makes means they are succeeding, or succeeded, or will succeed in the future?
Holy smokes.
It’s hilarious.
Huh. Pause. Wait. (Silence).
Turning the thought around: she is NOT more successful than I am.
I’m far more successful at being Grace, at being the person who struggled massively with self-hate and addiction and depression and confusion and quitting jobs and treating money rudely….
…..and then found balance, and steadiness, and contact with reality, and money, in just the right way for me.
I have enough money.
I know nothing about her daily life, really.
Examples also float through of all the very wealthy people I’ve known who report that they are unhappy, who are the same as me only with a lot of money, or who spend money but feel no grounding or peace or joy or rest.
Turning it around again: I am more successful than her (with money). How could this be just as true?
Well, I’ve lived about 15 years longer, so my hands may have touched more money over time. I’ve known what it’s like to live with nothing and be eligible for food stamps and survive. It’s kind of a fun, dramatic story.
I have NO IDEA what she considers. I am more successful at being myself than her. That’s 100% truer.
Turning it around one more time: I am more successful than my thinking, especially when it comes to money.
Ha ha ha!
When I even start to think about money, I enter comparisons, I judge, I analyze, I wonder, I get scared, I see other people as better or worse off, I’m like a Comparison Machine with money flying hither and yon in all directions.
I see riches, and wealth, and poverty, and lack….
….just like we all do.
And what is here, right now, without a thought about money?
Air. Space. Quiet. Images. Stories. Fantasies. Joy. Laughter. Not Knowing. Fun. Truth.
Intimacy.
If you notice your mind getting turned on by money and comparing who makes what and who doesn’t make what and who has it and who doesn’t have it and who uses it best and who doesn’t use it well and who makes it easily and who doesn’t make it easily and who is lucky and who is unlucky and who is successful and who is failing…..
…..no matter how much money you have…..
…..you might want to join the 8 week MONEY teleclass coming up on Thursdays starting January 14th from 2-3:30 pm Pacific Time.
We deeply look at situations, and share ourselves honestly, and grow up into greater wisdom about money.
And get this.
It’s by donation (suggested $150 – $395).
Only 4 spaces left.
What have you got to lose?
(Ooooh, great question. We’ll be looking at that one).
Special retreat to do The Work and inquiry on Everything Money is March 25-27, 2016 in Seattle. Come celebrate the exploration of money, making it, losing it, keeping it, playing with it here on planet earth. We will have so much fun.
“Isn’t it for safety, or you would be beyond pain, beyond suffering [if you got more money]? Isn’t it about finally being safe? Finally being secure? But aren’t you safe right now? Skip the trip! Everything you ever wanted is here, safe, now. Is money really hard to make? God is everything….but not THAT. Except for my beliefs, it’s a very simple thing. I know where to go, what to do, when to do it. It can look like a billion dollars, or ten dollars, I’m wealthy. I had something to do with making the money….is that true? That’s why we have people born in poverty, in wealth, so we can see that we have nothing to do with it.”
~ Byron Katie in 1990s during weekend on money and business.
Meetup today! 2-4 pm at Goldilocks Cottage in northeast Seattle.
**************
But I really have to do that RIGHT NOW….are you sure?
I was pregnant with my son (he is now 21 years old).
It was the beginning of the sixth month.
I looked down in amazement, for the hundredth time, at the way the belly stretched out in a round smooth balloon shape.
I was observing the process of a life coming into form, and simply….
….move itself along.
I still frequently remember this moment vividly.
Because, even though I continuously was fascinated, almost in awe of having this experience…..
….something that day was different.
Suddenly, I realized it was not “my” belly.
I was looking at “a” human belly that was doing it’s own thing and was being run by the universe, or God, or Life (whatever you like calling the great mystery of it all).
It was like there was something watching the whole thing, being stunned and amazed at having no idea how this all happens, or why, or wherefore, and awareness of not being in charge whatsoever.
And then a voice inside said to me like hearing someone talk out loud practically…..
…..remember how great it is to stretch?
The feeling of stretching like a cat to the ceiling and sucking in as the stomach flattens.
The sensation of languidly reaching.
The sensation of breathing deeply, then raising arms over a head, and feeling the back bone and stomach come much closer together, all the organs and guts and everything inside the torso moving with a slight back bend and a melting in and up.
I used to do gymnastics, but it had been a long time since a back bend or a walkover.
Except right NOW….
….I can’t do that. I’m pregnant.
Then, an inner voice, yelling.
DON’T THINK ABOUT WANTING THAT!!
You can’t have it!!!!!
A little wave of fear coursed through me.
This body can’t do that move in this condition. It will be a long time, many many weeks, until stretching like that is possible.
I know this sounds really melodramatic, right?
Oh My God what a TERRIBLE thought……
……to want to stretch and not be able to!
But it was weirdly serious, strangely full of warning. Do not go beyond this point.
You are in a course of events that are unknown, and all you can do is go along for the ride.
Do NOT wish for something right now that is not possible in reality.
Including the simple act of stretching.
That would be painful.
Now, when I think about how vivid and clear that moment was, it’s like a foggy window got completely wiped free, or a round circle got popped out with those fancy and brilliant glass cutters.
But it’s kind of weird to talk about it, because who has such a moment of insight about not being able to stretch during pregnancy!
Not being able to stretch is so no big deal. What a weirdo.
But I STILL remember that moment, and some unexplained wisdom appearing from within that KNEW that spending anything more than the split second I did of longing for something different….
….was a way to create suffering for myself.
Actually to create it out of thin air.
Wanting something that wasn’t possible.
Wow.
I could wait until later.
I would HAVE to, in fact.
I knew right then that going with the flow of what was happening was far, far, far easier than complaining internally about what was happening in my body and what I couldn’t do at the moment.
What I didn’t see at the time, was the wisdom of how this applied to absolutely everything about reality.
I had no idea.
If I argue with what is going on in my life, the natural trajectory I am not controlling….
….then I will lose the argument.
The arguing itself will give me nothing but angst and suffering, frustration, wishing, longing, sadness, annoyance.
“Am I better off making up an alternate reality in my mind and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the same forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me?” ~ Michael Singer in The Surrender Experiment
Today, I love that right in this moment (I just did it) I stood up and stretched to the ceiling.
Now, it turns out, is good for stretching in this body.
But that hasn’t always been the case, and there will be a time again in the future when it isn’t again.
If you find your mind is upset about what you can’t do, have, achieve, accomplish….
….question your need to do that right NOW.
It’s not about giving up dreams or visions, or falling into an uncaring depressed apathy.
Just noticing who you would be without the belief you need to stretch, when you absolutely can’t in this moment?
“Perfection is another name for reality. The only way you can see anything as imperfect is if you believe a thought about it. ‘It’s inadequate, it’s ugly, it’s unfair, it’s flawed’—is that true? This chipped coffee cup on the table: how beautiful it is when you simply look at it, without any thought of what it should be.” ~ Byron Katie
Are you truly interested in ending my way of thinking that results in suffering?
I enter a coffee shop with my laptop in my bag, ready to write.
Ready to inquire into something interesting, and commonly stressful.
Not sure what will come to mind to investigate, I buy my Rooibos tea and find a seat in the long, fairly full cafe.
There are empty tables spotted throughout the large space.
I do that thing where I place myself just about evenly between other groups, or tables where people are sitting, glancing slightly at the environment, placing my laptop facing away from a guy in the corner who has a….busy….energy, for want of a better word.
I take off my coat and place it on the opposite chair to the one I’ll be taking, and sit with my back to that guy.
I open my laptop, and I hear the guy say something.
“Can I open my mouth? Hey! I’m talking to you. Can I open my mouth? You! The one with the hat. Can I open my mouth?”
It’s an angry, haunted kind of question that doesn’t make sense.
I don’t have on a hat.
I don’t think he’s talking to me.
Although I did just have a hat on as I came in, and I placed it inside my bag. Was he looking at me before, when I entered the cafe?
Wait, is he on the phone maybe?
I look carefully.
“Can I open my mouth? Can I?”
He’s got weird eyes, rather intense.
I get up for a glass of water before starting to write in earnest, and he’s staring straight at me and still saying the same words. Like super sarcastic and creepy.
I get the water. My phone lights up as my good friend is calling me and I pretend to answer her call even though I know she’s just leaving me an important message and it’s not necessary for me to pick up.
I actually fake that I’m saying “hello” while gathering my stuff and I move to the front of the cafe, the opposite end from this quiet back area. I carry my full cup of tea in one hand, and the phone in the other, with coat and laptop and sweater tucked under my arms.
I sit by the big street window near the very front of the cafe instead.
No big deal.
But I notice a pretty stressful belief come through.
I stop the other writing I’m doing, on something completely different, and decide to write on this instead.
I’m creeped out.
Inside I’m saying “this place always is weird. It’s a strange coffee shop. There are weirdos in it every time, or just a weird feeling. It’s too dark. The music is sort of horror movie-ish. I shouldn’t come in here alone. This place is like the Devil’s Triangle.”
I kind of chuckle, though.
Not true.
Who would I be without these thoughts?
I’m being a little extreme, right?
I just happen to look up at movement out on the sidewalk after someone has left the cafe and I felt the cold air from several feet away from the door opening and closing. A person is walking by right outside the window I’m sitting next to now.
I catch the eyes of the same man, directly through the glass, looking in at me.
The guy who kept saying “Can I open my mouth?” like he was furious, and insane.
I look down and start to type, looking in a nonchalant way at the screen of my laptop.
I can see him standing there out of the corner of my eyes, maybe staring back at me. Not moving. Body still there.
Still there.
All of this through my peripheral vision.
I’m typing this.
Then I see him turn, and head down the dark, night time, wet street in the rain.
I don’t look up for a long time.
A moment like this can happen to anyone, anywhere.
What actually occurred?
Nothing much.
A man was acting angry, and sarcastic, and talking to someone, or himself out loud. Maybe talking to me.
I guess I knew to move away, to not engage.
But I want to inquire into the creeper energy, the one that says “it’s ALWAYS like this in this coffee shop. It’s dangerous.”
It shouldn’t be dangerous. He shouldn’t have been in here. He was too weird. Typical, for this coffee shop.
Is that true?
Yes.
I’d like to be able to come up here, buy tea, and not be worried about who or what is in this place! Jeez!!
I want to come and go as I please…..everywhere I please.
No weirdos!
Really?
Well.
No.
Something seems very unrealistic and a little off about that idea.
It really does not appear to be true.
How do you react when you think the thought that this place shouldn’t be dangerous, and I shouldn’t encounter a man talking angrily out loud or staring at me through the window?
Deciding I am never coming here again.
Freaked out.
Writing this.
Cold. Shivering even.
Checking the time until the dance class down the street begins.
Who would I be without the belief this place shouldn’t be dangerous and creepy?
I look up at a painting on the wall. It’s the body of a bride in a white satin dress, holding pale purple flowers, with a completely black body and black face full of dots of stars, no face at all, and geometric black hexagon shapes for hair that blend into a fully black background.
I notice, for some people, this might not be creepy at all. Lots of people are here, in fact.
But what if it is creepy, for me?
No need to fight anything.
Am I safe in this moment?
Very.
Without the thought, I notice I’m physically very, very safe….and I may not come hang out here any time soon.
Without the thought that it shouldn’t be dangerous, I notice I have fun noticing when something is, but not in a furious, deep, or defiant way.
It’s like the way I also know not to cross the freeway on foot, or jump out of an airplane, or contact that one friend right now, or climb Mt. Everest. People can do those things, and I find I’m not interested or drawn.
Maybe I don’t like when really angry-sounding people are talking around me, or staring at me. It’s OK not to like that.
Turning the thoughts around: it should be dangerous.
Well, it’s bringing this kind of “creeped out” feeling to my attention and giving me this wonderful opportunity to inquire into when these kinds of movements happen, without malice or anger or big fear myself.
In fact, I hardly feel any fear at all in my body.
I’m sitting, enjoying the typing flow, listening to the murmur of other voices, seeing the lights are on and people are drinking coffee and tea. I notice I’m not leaving yet and I’ll be a little late for the dance class and it’s fine with me.
Turning it around again: my thinking shouldn’t be dangerous, I shouldn’t be dangerous, especially in this situation.
For all I know, that guy thought I was.
I have no idea what he was concerned about, but it was important to him.
My thinking began to remember proof of moments being creeped out here before, but honestly, I can’t really remember anything specifically that ever happened.
I just notice, I don’t like the atmosphere. It’s dark and eerie and the art and music creates an ambiance of the macabre.
So maybe I’ll go dance class now.
And I’ll be on alert as I walk down the street, noticing movements and people and shadows. It’s the wise, interesting thing to do.
Nothing wrong with it.
My mind is a great story-teller. Creating images, and nervousness and spooky ideas about the man in the corner.
Turn Around: it shouldn’t be safe.
Oh. Got it.
With this whole situation, I have no idea what any of it really was. I may have misunderstood (probably).
I have no idea of that man’s orientation, who he saw as he looked, who he was talking to, what he was meaning, or if he was crazy.
I’ve experienced that same confusion, about myself!
Maybe he was me, looking at me through a window, telling the story about a dark and stormy night and creepiness and the vital question about if he can open his mouth.
I notice nothing actually happened.
I was completely, absolutely “safe”.
It should be dangerous. He should have been in here and I shouldn’t have been. I was too weird. Typical, for this mind.
And it doesn’t mean that’s now my favorite coffee shop.
Upset with the noise? Listen to the sound of “shhhhh”.
A moment at the gym.
The guy in front of me answers his cell phone.
His voice is very loud. I can hear everything he says. He’s talking about finishing a deal of some kind, and it’s definitely work-ish-related.
“We need to get them to the table as soon as possible….blah blah blah…”
My eyes burrow into the back of his head.
Will. You. Be. Quiet.
What a disturbing, inconsiderate man.
He hangs up.
*Finally*
I can go back to my reading of the Tao Te Ching while pouring with sweat.
Two minutes pass.
Another man comes down the aisle-way behind me VACUUMING.
SOAB, doesn’t anyone know how to hush up around here?!!
He is actually vacuuming around the wheels of the machine I am riding.
Seriously?
My eyes bore into the page.
But somehow, at the very same time (that’s the amazing part) another place within is basically entirely undisturbed.
Rolling Stones are playing “I Miss You” on the gym speakers.
Who would I be without this thought that everything needs to be quiet?
Including my own mind?
I close my eyes.
I hear feet plopping on a running treadmill, to the beat of the song. I feel air from a nearby fan blowing gently across my right forearm. I feel the fabulous pounding of my heart, steady, happy. I hear these thoughts come and go. I hear a squeak from a machine needing WD40.
I open my eyes.
I see rain pattering in a puddle on the black asphalt through the window, and yellow lines someone painted “NO”….”LANE”.
I see a gray car wish windshield wipers going, turning right while facing my direction. I see cars 100 yards away moving back and forth along an arterial, navy blue, light blue, red, brown. Woman’s white coat in square shapes. Red stop sign. Green trees, unmoving, always in the same place just past the Jiffy Lube. Gray speckled carpet. Round speckled speaker in the ceiling.
Who am I without these thoughts?
What is it that needs to have everything get quiet?
Who actually needs to shut up?
I could say “I do”.
I could move into thoughts about what I need to do, where I should be, how I shouldn’t condemn what is around me, and how I need more practice.
But then….
….even that thought splashes down into the earth and fades away.
No improvement necessary.
Who wants the improvement?
Who demands something different?
What else is here, besides the noise outside and inside?
Right there on the bike, I stretch both arms out wide as wide can be and feel ecstasy of the space all around this body, and how far it extends.
In my mind I see an image of the green wicked witch of the west riding her bike in the middle of a Kansas tornado, cackling with glee in Dorothy’s dream.
Hear the music?
Everything pulsing in this magnificence of a moment on earth in apparently the Pacific Northwest, inside a gym, watching repetitive movement everywhere. Legs pumping, clock hand sweeping, other legs running, light shining through a window, rain pattering, music playing, heat generating, up and down, in and out, dark and light, hearing and silence.
Nothing wrong with this brain doing its thinking, joining in on the clamor and orchestra of the moment.
He should not be quiet. It should not be quiet. They should not be quiet. I should not be quiet.
But something holds it all.
Something is already quiet.
Glory, glory.
Oh, without thinking something needs to be done, or something is missing, or something is too big and loud…..
Thoughts about someone else doing unmentionable addictive things? Do The Work for freedom!
Do you have someone in your life who repeatedly acts a certain way, and you find it disturbing?
Almost funny to ask the question….because if you give yourself even a few minutes to consider it….you can probably find it.
Yeah, now that you mentioned it….
Amazing, though, how frightening it is for people to see this part of the mind that objects to someone else and what they’re doing, or saying, or feeling.
But give yourself the amazing gift of inquiry today, if you’ve noticed some small (or large) behavior in someone else you don’t appreciate or like.
It doesn’t mean you are a bad person, if you have something like this you notice, if you have something about another person that bothers you.
Not at all.
It means you’re a human being, with a brain.
Long ago I was dating someone who was very caustic, opinionated, intense, and hilarious, and in a great deal of pain–in both my opinion and his opinion.
I had The Work, so I knew to question my thoughts.
I did quite a few worksheets on this guy!
Because of the number of worksheets and stressful thoughts about him, there were a few times when I thought “I should give up!”
What good was this to repeat the same complaints over and over again about this individual?
The thing is, that’s a nice thought to have, EXCEPT….
….giving up doesn’t really work either.
“You either question your thoughts, or you believe them….there is no other choice.” ~ Byron Katie
Your thoughts don’t just decide to dissolve, diminish or go away never to reappear again if you think “it’s no use, I can’t get rid of these thoughts.”
Because you’re trying to get rid of them!
How do you feel when someone tries to get rid of you?
So let’s take a look at a situation when someone is doing that super irritating thing again, or that discouraging thing, and you feel upset about it.
The place I found it repeating itself for me?
He shouldn’t be addicted.
I know other humans suffer deeply with this belief about people they love.
She shouldn’t drink. He shouldn’t smoke. They shouldn’t use drugs. He shouldn’t engage in that activity. She should stop cleaning,trying to be perfect, exercising, working. He should stop watching TV, gambling, having affairs.
The person I thought of over and over again who should not be addicted was troubled by his pornography use. He paid a lot of money for it, he went on binges with it, he swung from zero sexual contact to compulsive sexual contact with other people.
He was incredibly unhappy, he reported.
Yet, he couldn’t stop signing up for membership porn sites, and paying for sexual encounters, or even masturbating.
I know this may seem shameful to speak of, but replace this obsessive activity with eating, or drinking, or smoking. Just notice anything you feel the urge to hide.
It’s the same kind of shame.
Having the judgments feels shameful, too. I shouldn’t be judging him for this. I shouldn’t bring it up. Ew.
But there I was, dating someone with this kind of compulsion to do things that felt sexually stimulating.
I had a few thoughts.
He should control himself. He’s disgusting. He should have real relationships with people (with me) instead of using people to get off all the time. He should quit pushing for peak experiences and become interested in the valleys as-where most of us live. He should quit participating in the sick sex industry. He is immature, gross, inaccessible, unable to be intimate. I don’t ever want to date a man who uses porn again.
Phew.
See, I can still find the thoughts all right there, as I remember this relationship and how I saw him even though it was many, many years ago. The situation is still accessible to me.
Step #1: get all the vicious, mean, nasty, discouraged thoughts out on paper. Write it all down. All of it.
Step #2: One concept at a time, have someone walk you through inquiry–the four questions.
Like this.
Is it true that he should stop doing that behavior?
Yes. Dear God, yes.
Some mothers and fathers feel this way about their addicted kids. So much terror and angst, they might walk the streets at 2 am trying to find their kid. So much sadness.
Are you sure, are you absolutely positive this is true?
If you say yes again, no problem.
I understand.
I do see, from doing this work, that Reality appears to have addictive people living in it.
Reality includes a mind that believes, and gets so upset it thinks to escape with some activity or substance.
So for me, personally, I’m not really sure it’s absolutely true anymore. I also see how addiction brought me to my knees, and then to God/Reality/Source/Freedom.
How do you react when you believe he or she should not be operating the way they are operating, in the throes of addiction?
Screaming on the inside.
One huge “noooooo!”
Frightened half to death, enraged, wanting to hit something.
Who would you be without these thoughts?
Who would you be without the belief that this person you care about should stop that activity?
Who would you be in that same situation when they are doing it, or you learn about them doing it, and you aren’t hating it, or against it with all your might?
What if it was not personal?
Sometimes in this question, people think…..but….
….I would walk away, if I didn’t have this belief, and this would be terrible and even worse, and very sad.
I would quit fighting, and if I quit fighting I wouldn’t be there for them, or help them, and I’d be all alone. I would be the one who abandoned them. Oh no, I couldn’t do that, I have to keep the thought “they should stop” or else they (and I) will go to hell in a hand basket!
But are you sure THAT is true?
Do you really think everything is on YOU to be The One to turn that person around?
Are you the one in charge here?
I noticed, I wasn’t.
When I did this work in earnest, I suddenly realized, in this question four, that I had no idea how to be with my friend without the thought that he needed my help.
Wow.
Some might call that a big ego. Heh heh.
But I was willing to find out what it was like without being a “helper” or being someone who thought this other person needed to change.
Because, as mentioned, the way I was when I believed the thought also did not work. At all.
Instead of listening to long explanations of what, why or how this man I cared about entered his addictive behavior, I let it all rest.
(All those conversations were really incredible, by the way, and enlightening, and I saw how much I shared with him around wanting to escape the world).
Instead of having an End Goal to have this behavior stop, I stopped.
The relationship completely changed.
And then, ended in its current format.
No need for further communication.
No talking, no phone calls, no seeing each other….as it turned out.
Turning the thoughts around about this man and his pornography use:
I should control myself from being so addicted to helping him. He’s not disgusting. I should have real relationships with people (and with myself) instead of using helping people to get off all the time.
Wow.
I should quit pushing for peak experiences (bliss and happiness) and become interested in the valleys–where I usually live. I should quit participating in his sick sex industry by getting all freaked out about it.
I am immature, gross, inaccessible, unable to be intimate with him, or with myself (especially when I have a constant agenda of him not using).
And finally, I am willing to be in contact with people who are using porn again. I look forward to being in contact with them.
That’s 100% true.
Because I learned so much about compulsive sexual behavior from that amazing man, I have the ability to support people through inquiry and exploring their addictive process, without judgment.
I know it’s exactly the same as I was with food.
And it’s not like I haven’t had thoughts about sexuality and sexual experience–everyone has thoughts about this, all worthy of questioning if what you’re thinking is stressful.
It’s exactly the same as I’ve been over and over again with believing my stories are true.
“If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them.” ~ Tao Te Ching #66
Ahhhhh yes.
I had learned also that sexuality was shameful, and worthy of hiding, and never discussing. I’ve pretended I didn’t have huge desires and passions for ecstatic experience of all kinds. I’ve been pulled into craving and fantasy, and worried it was wrong.
No different.
Thank you inquiry, for leveling out the playing field.
without your stressful story, maybe all you have is a beautiful wishing rock
You might be able to tell, there’s a theme lately going on in Grace Notes or Eating Peace videos on youtube.
Retreat.
On the inside.
But you may not be so happy about that theme if you feel like you’re not doing it right.
If you feel like you’re completely pissed off, agitated, anxious or depressed. Or on attack mode (the opposite of retreat) running forward trying to get it handled, or fixed, or done forever.
I get it.
The other day I thought a stream of thoughts, all of which were along the same vein….
….like the way there are veins in the old granite rock up near Ross Lake in the wilderness, driving distance from my home.
Up near Ross Lake, huge slabs of rock are exposed, with a highway cutting through the edge that winds up through the mountains.
College and high school classes go there for the observation and learning about geology of the region, where the under-layers of earth pushed and cracked to the surface and became exposed.
Huge veins of deep or light color run through the rock.
Like the pebbles you see on beaches that have one line running through the pebble that’s different from the rest of the rock, making the pebble appear to have a ring around it.
Since I was little, the kids all said “pick up this kind of pebble, make a wish, and throw it over your left shoulder into the water….your wish will come true.”
Wishing rocks.
Who said so?
Maybe someone many generations back, or far, far back into so many years ago we don’t even remember.
That one thread running through the rock was so solid, so beautiful, so permanent, so colorful.
As I was noticing a thread of thinking running through my own mind, I suddenly had the vision of one of these pebbles….
….or a whole side of a mountain, like near Ross Lake, that had a thick vein of color running through it in massive proportion.
My thoughts were thick and tight and strong, and repetitive, like this vein.
Sigh.
They went like this:
Life is kind of dull, like the weather. I don’t feel like (fill in the blank). Maybe I should get a different regular normal job (I always love when this thought comes in). How about a cup of coffee? Yeah, that’s it. It’s not possible to be on retreat at all times. It’s too boring, too slow, and not practical. There are too many things I want to do in life, and I need to clean. And pay bills. My cottage is too small. The carpet needs vacuuming. Nothing ever works out perfectly.
Yeah.
It was that self-piteous. Piss. Moan.
It continued.
My clients and students who are angry right now, or having a hard time, especially those who experience a contentious relationship with eating?
There’s no solution. They’re right. Life is hard. Holidays are difficult. Family is troubling. People are complicated. Addiction is not easy to overcome. Compulsion is too strong to address. It’s too hard to change one’s story.
And while we’re at it, can I mention that I hate shopping?
BEEEEEEEPPPPPP.
Did you hear the loud horn?
It was the kind that is built to scare away bears in the wilderness.
You hear it?
It means “stop now”.
Because these kinds of thoughts are strong, compelling and they have babies faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
(Which, by the way, do you know where the saying comes from “faster than you can say Jack Robinson?” From the 1600s in England. Talk about passing along ancient impressive history and old stories through phrases, like the line in the hard rock lasting for generations into the future, even if we no longer know who Jack Robinson is anymore).
Pause.
Even though everything is happening.
Even though you are getting on and off airplanes, or wishing you could and you aren’t.
Even though you are upset with the weather, and worried about global warming, and its not snowing where you live anymore, or snowing too much.
Even though you were fired, or your love of you life divorced you. Even though you lost your hearing, or your health. Even though you can’t read every amazing classic book ever written. Even though you don’t know what to get your kid for Christmas. Even though you’re sick of decorations all around you when you do not even celebrate this holiday. Even though you ate too many cookies at the office party.
Just stop.
Do you notice how you react when you think it’s hopeless?
Do you notice what happens in your body when you believe the world is a dangerous place, or disappointing?
Ow.
When I believe these kinds of thoughts, there’s a crushing weight of self-criticism, responsibility, grief.
So who would you be without these thoughts?
Without beliefs that pack tightly together and create a line inside a rock?
What if you just caught that chatter that says “I’m sick of it” and wonder who you are without the belief?
Because there are already huge parts of you without the belief.
My pinky finger on my right hand, for example, doesn’t have any of these thoughts.
I also didn’t have these thoughts yesterday when curling up in bed to go to sleep after a productive day.
I didn’t have the thought when walking into the gym, or listening to one of my best friend’s messages about her own thoughts with love and acceptance.
Or when I noticed the beauty of red car tail lights filling the night streets. I’m not kidding.
You don’t even really have to work so incredibly hard to wonder what it would be like to not have these kinds of solid, ancient thoughts.
Because there is already a great part of you, far bigger than the energy of this thinking, that doesn’t have any of these thoughts.
Who are YOU anyway, who believes it has stressful thoughts?
Are you sure YOU have them?
Where are they?
I notice they are only an energy, zipping through.
I notice they only come into vein-formation if I begin to follow them, and believe them, and take them seriously.
The other day a student wrote to me “I feel like breaking something!”
“How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are!” ~ Byron Katie to me when asking her about my own anger and how to get rid of it.
Just because I think it, I feel it, doesn’t mean I AM IT.
Turning the thoughts around….
Life is full of movement, like the weather. I do feel like (fill in the blank). I am not the one in charge. Nothing is required. There are no solutions to “life”. It IS possible to be on retreat at all times, it’s already actually happening, I don’t have to try. My thoughts are profuse, and that’s fun. Only my mental noise and mind believes them, not the rest of me. I will never be “done”. My mind is too small, my mind needs vacuuming. Everything works out perfectly.
Pause a moment longer, now that you’ve been pausing to consider your thoughts, and not taking them seriously.
Take a very deep breath.
Relax your entire body. Hold still a moment.
Even if your mind yells and makes noise and comments and gestures and demands you get up and do something….
…..notice how you do not have to act like it’s true.
“Practice not doing, and everything will fall into place.” ~ Tao Te Ching #3
As I walk through life (and sometimes run, I admit) in the past couple of years, one thing has been very, very, very transformative and awe-inspiring for me.
The way I relate to money.
The way money appears to relate to me.
As in, we’re having more fun together than we used to. Almost a love affair….but let’s not get carried away.
Now many people might think….
…..oh. What? She’s making money now? That’s what’s happening?
That MUST be what she means by having a love affair with money, if that’s what’s going on!
But check your assumptions about what a “love affair” actually is.
Is it all I-get-what-I-want-and-I-am-comfortable-at-all-times easy-peasy non-confrontational never-asking-you-to-grow kinda deal?
If that’s what you want with a love affair, there’s nothing wrong with that.
And, that’s not what I’m talking about.
Somewhere along the way in my life, I discovered through extreme fear and suffering (it took some yelling to wake me up) that what a truly deep, wild, fantastical, growth-inspiring love affair looked like with money….
….was to lose my need for it to go MY way.
(Secret hint: this is true about romantic love, other people, your family, and everything else in your entire life).
My way involved money always directing its attention towards ME.
Staying with me, giving to me, calling on me at all the right moments, showering me with appreciation, bringing me gifts, making it fun-fun-fun pleasure ALL the time, growing before my eyes, asking nothing or very little of me.
How did I react when I believed the thoughts that money doesn’t care about me personally when it was not acting the way I wanted, and it should, that money should stay with me and never challenge me, ever?
Twisted up in knots.
Terrified.
Angry.
With those thoughts, I felt small, tiny, and inconsequential. Unloved. Left behind. Less than others who had more money than me.
Who would I be without the belief that when money moves away….
….it means I’m abandoned, or unloved by money, or incompatible, or undeserving, or bad?
Without the belief that money is acting unacceptable, frightening?
That money is not doing as I wish, that it’s leaving me unhappy and all alone?
Who would I really be without these beliefs?
Holy smokes.
That’s an amazing feeling.
The lightness of allowing money to be as it is, moving the way it does!
To not “need” anyone, including money, to do it the way I want in order to be happy…..laughter-inducing.
The freedom to not have to depend on money to come to me in times of trouble…..incredible.
Turning the belief system around about money:
I do not need it to survive. Never have.
Money needs more of me, pouring myself into the world and meeting the world with joy, instead of the other way around.
Turning thoughts about needing more money around to the opposite (I don’t need more of it than I ever have) I notice I have abundance all around me, and its free for the noticing.
Grass, trees, sidewalks, parking places, bicycles at the gym, daylight hours, conversations, videos, furniture, long slabs of wood creating a floor, pieces of furniture, art, air to breathe.
Abundance everywhere I look.
Including the direction “in”.
“The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done. If powerful men and women could center themselves in it, the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms. People would be content with their simple, everyday lives, in harmony, and free of desire. When there is no desire, all things are at peace.” ~ Tao Te Ching
Now don’t go off thinking this means you’re supposed to not have any desire for money, if you do.
That’d be pretending stuff that isn’t really true.
Just investigate the stress.
I keep seeing there’s nothing to fear, and money keeps asking me to grow. It invites me to create, to bring service and have a ball doing it.
And this is what I always so deeply wanted anyway.
So thank you, money, for being soooo challenging, and such an exciting, brilliant, wise, ingenious energy.
You’ve loved me so much that you want me to come out of my cave of introversion, shame and being small and insignificant….
….and turn up the volume on being here, on being myself, and connecting very honestly and intimately with the world.
“This is the beautiful thing about the truth: ever-present, always here, totally free, given freely.” ~ Adyashanti
Truth is free.
Truth about money is free.
All you need to do is inquire within.
Money Love Story 8 week telecourse Thursdays 2-3:30 pm beginning on January 14th. So much fun to watch it fill up with awesome people. We will have a great time investigating money with exercises, questions and prompts that allow you to see what you think, that’s hurting, and change your relationship with money.
I love how people enter The Work in all kinds of ways.
The other day someone who came to a meetup for the first time, knowing absolutely nothing about The Work, left with a delighted look in her eyes.
She had never read anything by Byron Katie, or tried The Work, before our meetup.
She simply trusted that her friend, who invited her, might be onto something interesting.
I love that some people dive in and follow the simple directions.
They write down their stressful thoughts about a person who’s bothering them, or a situation they find disturbing.
They take only one of the thoughts they’ve written, and apply the four questions.
There is no major motive to get somewhere else.
There is no vision about where they should be.
They know they feel pain about the relationship or concern, and they’re willing to try answering a few questions about it, slowing down, considering if what they’re assuming is actually true or not.
Today, if you’re not sure which way to go about something (or perhaps many things) that you find upsetting….
….instead of trying to analyze it further, or resolve it right now, or fix it, or feel better about it…..
….just ask these questions and see what happens, without any expectations whatsoever:
Is what you’re thinking actually true?
Is it absolutely true?
What happens, how do you react, when you’re thinking that thought, in that situation?
Who would you be without your thought, in that very same situation?
Then find turnarounds, or opposites, to your thought.
(Sometimes this is the tricky part, but even that’s OK….you’ll catch on).
Byron Katie suggested during an event once that I attended that if you felt stuck, but noticed you were talking to yourself and telling yourself stressful things in your own mind (things that made you sad, scared, or angry)….
….and you were too freaked out to sit down with a pen and paper and do The Work….
….why you could simply ask a stranger on the street to ask you the four questions (while handing them a card with the questions printed on it).
Katie has these little yellow cards called, well, the Little Yellow Card.
What I love about this idea is how simple it is.
It’s the simplest thing in the world to answer (or ask) four questions, and find turnarounds to what you’re thinking.
You don’t need something special to do The Work.
You can find someone nearby, and see if they’ll ask you the questions about something you find painful.
There’s really no right or wrong.
There’s just doing it.
“The future depends on what you do today.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Much love, Grace
P.S. Two things already filling I better tell you about: 1) Eating Peace 3 Day Retreat Jan 22-24 Seattle and 2) Money Love Story 8 week telecourse Thursdays 1/14-3/10 2-3:30 pm. More about them soon! xo
