My friend and colleague Doug Foresta (creative, thoughtful and hilarious too) interviewed me on his Empower Radio show. Listen as we talk about peace and he asks me….what is peace and how do we access it anyway, and other cool questions that I usually ask other people.
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So I’m not sure how it happened…..
….(OK, OK I know I am actually the person who said “yes” to my own calendar schedule, why’d you have to remind me?)….
….but I’m starting TWO teleclasses in the next ten days followed by a 3 day retreat here in Seattle area where we’ll be doing The Work and focusing deeply on how we create, feel and live the turnarounds we find when we do The Work (very cool exercises to help facilitate this together).
(The three events starting soon are May 4th Weds 9 am Relationship Hell to Heaven, May 9th Mondays 5:30-7:00 pm Eating Peace Core Teleclass the 8 week version, and Spring Retreat May 13-15 space left for 2).
I seriously did not plan starting two teleclasses plus a retreat in such a condensed period of time on purpose.
I never would do that.
Except this statement appears to be untrue. As it turns out, I’m probably doing that.
Do you ever feel a time crunch scheduling conflict, and you’re a little stressed about the load?
Or, perhaps, it’s completely impossible to do what you think you wanted to do in the amount of time you had available to do it in?
Oy vey.
I need more time.
It’s sooooo true!
We’ve done similar inquiry before, but let’s see what happens today as we look more deeply at why we need more time, and what’s really going on with this belief “I need more time.”
This is one of those top-hit repeating thoughts. A stressful belief that appears and re-appears over and over.
So….why?
Why do you need more time?
Because I have special things to say about the Relationships Course and they need to be written, then shared, and special things to say about the Eating Peace course, and two different mailing lists of people interested in them, and I should tell them about what they’re like so they can decide if its a good time for them to take the plunge and do The Work in these areas.
Writing and making announcements takes time!
But I’m off in the hinterlands to hang out on the earth with a small tribe doing more non-writing-ish things. I won’t have my computer with me much. Although this hasn’t stopped me before.
Why do I need to write about my courses?
So people know about them, so they can opt-in and sign up. You can’t actually run a course or a retreat without people participating in it….right??!
(Not actually true, I realize. I can do The Work myself in quiet solitude and have a fabulous time being student and facilitator….although I’m pretty dang sure I wouldn’t sit as still, nor as quietly, nor as long, if on my own. But that’s another inquiry.)
Funny, though….having people enrolled seems important. It seems necessary. Maybe even critical for making this business of service in The Work to happen. How else do I join with others to do inquiry? How else do I earn a living?
This is VERY IMPORTANT!!
I do know, however, that creating offerings and sharing them with the world can be done stress-free (amazing, but true) and without the belief “I need more time!” screaming in my ears.
If you feel like you really need more time to complete something, or accomplish it the way you want, then this inquiry is for you.
This inquiry can happen when you’re on a freeway stuck in traffic and you’re late. It can happen if your biological clock is ticking and pretty soon it won’t be possible to have children. It can happen if you’re aging and you want to live to see more happen. It can happen if someone you love dearly is moving away, or terminally ill. It can happen if a buzzer just went off and you had to stop doing whatever you were doing.
I need more time….so I can savor what’s happening much longer, so I can not feel the loss, so I can feel filled up, so I can be satisfied, successful, achieve what I want, accomplish the dream, or live.
It’s a pretty big deal, this needing more time. A lot is hanging on it.
How do you react when you believe you need more time?
I make lists, sometimes physically but mostly in my head. I think since there’s pressure to get stuff done in a certain amount of time, I have to be hyper clear, on task, no “wasted” time. I feel a rushed energy within, tight and tense.
If someone interrupts you, and you’re believing you need more time, how do you treat that person? (Visions of telling my daughter NOT NOW when she burst through the door to my room).
Sometimes, with this belief, there’s sadness. Hand wringing. Fear. Pictures of what’s to come….like death, life over, time run out. I think about my dad dying long ago. I needed more time with him.
But who would you be without this thought that you need more time?
What if all those things you need more time for, can wait….or aren’t really necessary for happiness, right now?
Wait. What?
I don’t need more time with my dad, in order to be happy? I don’t need more time to wake up and get enlightened? I don’t need more time to make money?
Huh.
What if you stopped, in this moment, and noticed the space you’re in. Are you OK? What’s going on right now, no matter what the date, year, or hour on the clock says?
Ha ha, for me, I notice my body is ready to take a walk, not write. I put on my coat and slip my phone/camera into one pocket and my wallet in the other of my heavy down coat. I walk out on the street of this new city I’m in, where I’ve never been before. I stop in a little organic grocery mart and get some yummy food in a little bag, snack size. I step out again and begin to walk, having no mental idea of where I am, looking around at the buildings with fascination.
I stop sometimes and take a picture, I love buildings so much. I notice the odd arrangement of huge brick Victorian houses next to weird 1960s complexes. I walk and walk and breathe in the air and stare at the people, listen to the French and the English being spoken, and drink in the street.
And then, I turn a corner and before my eyes appears a massive gigantic building rising in the distance with a tall tower reminiscent of Big Ben in London, with gargoyles and flowery decor and massive windows, all across an expansive lawn. As I walk, I’m in the middle of a huge central square, and right near me a big beautiful flame burning as the sun sets in a sort of tureen in the middle of a wide stately walk.
Welcome to the Parliament of Canada, I read on the sign.
I had no idea this was here.
I do not need more time.
Could this opposite point of view be truer?
“Focus your attention on the now and tell me what problem you have at this moment….You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction, of time. You are getting out of the insane mind that is draining you of life energy, just as it is slowly poisoning and destroying the Earth. You are awakening out of the dream of time into the present.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Much love,
Grace
P.S. For either telecourse, or the retreat, you need no experience in self-inquiry. Come. Something in your mind produces stress when it comes to love, or that one particular relationship. Some thought in your mind produces agony when it comes to eating. Troubling thoughts about reality create a troubling reality. Come to teleclass, or to retreat in Seattle, and turn in the direction of peace.