The very last day of the Cleanse only lasts until 11:30 am.
Except Katie kept answer questions to the rapt audience until 12:39 when one of her staff crouched on the floor in front of her and said “Time!”
That morning, only one final courageous inquirer got up in the chair to do her work on her lost relationship, the one that got away, the heartbreak she still felt when she was reminded of that guy.
You could tell, she had already done a whole lot of work on this relationship.
She had made it past the sad and desperate part, past the time of finding stable ground again, past the part where she cried every night, past the part where she felt she couldn’t go on.
But she had heard a song on the airplane on her way to the Cleanse, this event.
A song she used to sing to her man about love….
….and boom.
The pain was back.
The most powerful part of this inquiry, for me, was at the very, very end when the woman in the chair had completed most of her worksheet, and already found great insight into living daily with the awareness that she alone was her one true partner.
Yes, that’s pretty amazing to sink into the sense of you being your truest partner.
Your best partner, your best friend, your greatest romance, your most exciting lover….you.
Amazing, in fact.
But that’s not where my heart had a twang of awareness for myself, and a movement of bitter-sweetness.
At the very end of this woman’s worksheet, she wrote on statement number six her stressful belief “I don’t ever want to be abandoned again.”
Now if you’re super familiar with The Work, you know that statement # 6 is a little different than all the previous concepts and thoughts and judgments you write down about the situation you find stressful.
This is the grand statement of them all.
What do you never, ever want to experience again in that situation?
She didn’t want to be abandoned again.
She had already found how this former partner had given her one of the greatest life lessons she could have ever dreamed of: strength, love for herself, standing on her own two feet, a sense of being rooted and and open heart to herself.
We were all right there with her, every step of the way through the inquiry process as Katie asked her the four questions.
But after you read that big final grand finale statement, instead of asking the four questions and turning it around, you do something different to open your mind up to other options.
At the end, you turn that big grand statement around.
Like this:
I am willing to be abandoned again.
I look forward to being abandoned again.
As this woman made these statements to hold them considerately, to find peace inside these possibilities….
….a different woman began to wail from the audience.
I couldn’t see who, because I was lying on the floor on my stomach taking notes, listening intently.
The cry and sobbing was so loud, Katie and the woman in the chair had to stop speaking a moment.
The sobbing softened, and Katie resumed.
And Katie turned towards the weeping woman and said “thank you for your authentic, honest tears.”
In that moment, I felt the incredible suffering I’ve experienced myself…..
…..and the love fire that comes out of a broken heart when you really find your own love for yourself rather than needing a partner to fulfill, help, save, or protect you.
I remember that pain of abandonment, and another old chunk of please-don’t-abandon-me plaster dropped away, hearing the wailing cries of a woman in the audience.
It was OK with me that she was crying.
I didn’t wish she would stop.
I didn’t need to know the details of what was going on.
I just knew how unbelievably magnificently heart-breaking it is to be aware of what it means to really say: I am willing to be abandoned again. I look forward to being abandoned again.
And I know that between a totally free me, and the thought that I’m being abandoned, are four questions called The Work.
Grace