While on retreat here with a beautiful assembly of those who have shown up to be together these three days, I’m struck by a thought someone mentioned our first day together.
I can’t eat whatever I want.
This tantrum shows up in so much more than food and eating.
I can’t DO whatever I want. I can’t BUY whatever I want. I can’t SEE whatever I want. I can’t TAKE whatever I want. I can’t HAVE whatever I want.
It’s like a deep cry of feeling limited, enraged, locked in by the circumstances of life or reality.
When we do it anyway, eat anyway, take anyway….even though there are consequences we don’t like….
….we may “win” just for a moment, but then we lose.
The frustration and fury and guilt gets ramped up even higher.
Yesterday, as our retreat group investigated together, someone became aware of a beautiful distinction I’ve heard before.
The body “can’t” eat everything….it’s the mind that wants to, and can.
What if you rested there?
What if, instead of following, like a zombie, the demands of mind saying you MUST eat, drink, do, have, see, take….even if there are horrible consequences (like being overweight, or going to jail, or harming something, or feeling ashamed)….
….you went ahead and let the mind have a hissy fit, and you let it run wild with imagination having everything it wants all by itself without dragging the body along?
Instead of saying “NO, don’t think about that!!” to yourself, in terror, what if you treated your thoughts like they were there for a reason, and doing the best they can (like a toddler)?
Everyone had a laugh imagining the mind getting to eat the entire box of cookies, or taking one bite of everything on display, or wolfing down the entire extra large chocolate bar.
Later as we walked around a nearby lake, in silence, as a part of a contemplative exercise during retreat, we took the question with us on our walk: who would you be, walking this path, without the belief you have an eating problem?
Who would we be, without the belief “I can’t have what I want, in this moment and it’s HORRIBLE!!?”
I notice, in this morning moment squares of bright sunlight shining through a curtain, on an avocado green wall. I hear the sound of air blowing through a vent. I see a dark magenta colored tassel hanging from a silver doorknob.
I feel the joy of the sweet day ahead in sharing with others the preciousness of inquiry, and my notes and curriculum on this little laptop.
Turning the thought around: I can have what I want, in this moment.
Could what is happening right now be good enough? Could what is present be supporting you? What if everything you ever thought you couldn’t get or have or eat or feel or be…..was available?
Is what I thought I wanted really the thing I want?
All I know is….all those times I ate and ate and ate actual food, it was never what I really wanted. I never felt satisfied, or happy, or thrilled, or joyful. It was never enough, it never hit the spot. It felt like “almost but not quite” or wildly far, to be honest, from what I really wanted.
What I really wanted was to feel “enough” and at the same time feel excited about what was unfolding….because life was indeed unfolding, constantly.
Even if this moment is filled with thoughts of “I can’t”….the body doesn’t have to take action.
I hear the words “Is It True?” and allow inquiry to fall into this moment, too.
What if I really did not know what I can or can’t have, or do, or say, or be? What if I have no clue? What if nothing is required, for this moment to be OK? What if “I can’t” is hilarious instead of hellish and frustrating? What if I can?
What if it doesn’t really ultimately matter, and I knew peace and joy were possible no matter what?
What if you left all your notions of what’s missing behind, if you left all your beliefs behind, like all these beautiful retreat attendees do at every meal, as we do The Work together on stressful beliefs like“I can’t….”?
Who would you BE without your story?
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the true shape of your own face…David Whyte
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Much love,
Grace