Still some space in the May retreat for commuters only. We’re almost full, but if you’re considering, there’s still room. 26 CEUs for mental health professionals through Washington State Society for Clinical Social Work. May 11-14.
Breitenbush is starting to fill and this is one where the choice housing sells out fast (little gorgeous private cabins). Read about it HERE. Only one more month for early bird rate. (27 CEUs). June 21-25.
Being With Byron Katie July 8-11 on north Capitol Hill heart-of-Seattle private little home. 4 bedrooms, big kitchen, and simple large living room with excellent seating. Bedrooms available for those who wish to stay overnight (very low price compared to alternatives). Total silence for 4 days onsite, with two 3-hour sessions of streaming Byron Katie live to us from Switzerland. Only $185, probably the most inexpensive way possible to spend time with Byron Katie. 24 CEs for Certification Candidates in Institute for The Work. “The highlight of my entire year” ~ Summer 2016 participant.
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Do you see yourself as the victim of a circumstance or situation or an interaction with someone?
Even the teensiest tiniest bit?
Because I’ve found, when I feel this way even just a wee smidgeon, the mind will take off so fast on how that person, or reality and life itself, Done Me Wrong.
Seriously, did you hear what she said? Oh, and that’s nothing. One time a man I know hurt me by….And then there was the time I broke my leg, hurt my back, got yelled at….Oh and also she betrayed me, it was terrible.
The mind kicks in with a story (or now that you’re asking, 100 stories) and goes from zero to 260 miles per hour in 4 seconds flat on how terrible, awful, horrible it was and I’m still getting over it today. It sets records with stories of being a victim and that person doing you wrong.
At least, that’s how my mind has run.
It’s not easy. And it can be incredibly frightening.
You see how you were hurt. Maybe over and over again, like some kind of weird recording loop getting stuck and playing repeatedly. A haunted house.
We’ll say to ourselves DO NOT THINK ABOUT THAT…MOVE ON!!
But no.
It’s right here in my consciousness, in my psyche. I’m thinking about it when awake at night.
I’ve received a few emails and had some individual sessions lately with beautiful inquirers who were really, really afraid and have experienced some pretty intense trauma in the past.
Can you do The Work on these dreadful situations? But they’re so frightening! How could asking four questions handle that heart-wrenching experience?
The astonishing thing is….I’ve found The Work CAN handle these experiences.
I mean, what else really is the problem except my thinking about it?
Because the event, the person, the situation, the circumstance….
….is actually over right now, in this present moment.
If you have trouble even thinking about going back to the difficulty, the pain, the terror, the trauma….here’s one thought you can question right now:
“I can’t handle this!”
People come with this thought in the eating peace program about a moment of compulsion all the time, but really it arises for many in all kinds of situations.
I can’t handle this feeling, this memory, this awareness, this incident, this image, this experience. I seriously Can’t Handle It. Don’t make me!
So before we even start questioning the thoughts about who did it and what happened and what you believe about what happened, if you notice great fear rising up about even doing The Work on something….let’s do The Work on this first thought, OK?
You can’t handle it.
Is it true?
Yes. This ruins my whole day. I just want to be over it, and never think about it again. I’m making myself sick about this. I HATE this memory. I want it to turn OFF. PLEASE. I’m getting tortured here. I really can’t handle it!!!!!!!!!
(Lots of exclamation points).
But can you absolutely know this is true that you can’t handle it?
Look around.
Where are you?
Are you being held up by the ground, the floor, a chair, a bed perhaps? Are you breathing, even if you think you can’t breathe?
I can’t know it’s absolutely true. I notice I’m handling it, even if it barely feels like it. Even if I’m scared to death.
How do you react when you believe you can’t handle it?
Totally freaking out.
Body full of resistance and tightness. Resentful. Defensive. Anxious.
So who would you be without the belief you can’t handle this?
Here you are in this situation: human remembering a painful event. Full of feelings. Flooded. Paralyzed (you think). But entirely without the thought you can’t handle it.
I know it isn’t comfortable.
This isn’t the blissful experience of being without thought.
Notice what’s actually true, though. Even if you have a nervous breakdown (or you could call it a huge crack and shift of consciousness). What I notice is you CAN handle it.
You already ARE handling it. You HAVE handled it.
Here’s a way that’s worked for me, to be with this wondering of who you are without your belief you can’t handle it: imagine your left elbow or your pinkie finger, or your skin.
These parts of you as a living entity handled it. You weren’t running, or needing to control, or being the manager of your pinkie finger and whether or not it could handle it. Maybe you aren’t running your mind either, as it dives off the diving board into fear. It’s just being itself, trying to protect and make sense of something.
The same mind can answer questions….it LOVES questions. It loves getting simpler, and finding answers.
You CAN handle your feelings.
What if they are here to help out? What if they’re suggesting you have some brilliantly powerful work to do?
Turning it around:
It can’t handle me.
How could this be as true, or truer?
“We perceive something as an enemy, when all we need to do is be present with it. It’s just love arising in form that we haven’t understood yet. And questioning the mind allows beliefs to simply arise. The quiet mind realizes that no belief is true, it is immovable in that, so there’s no belief it can attach to. It’s comfortable with them all….Projection would have us see reality as a ‘them’ and a ‘me’, but reality is much kinder….If there’s anything I’m afraid of losing, I have created a world where enemies are possible, and in such a world there’s no way to understand that whatever I lose I am better off without.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy pg. 230
That thing I perceive as so traumatic? It can’t handle whatever this “me” is. This me is vast and expansive. This me is mind and thought, life force, presence, awareness. This me is consciousness, being human. Undefinable really. Mysterious.
The thoughts are puffs of smoke like those little exploding mushrooms in nature. Poof.
If I looked into a basket of my thoughts about that terrible trauma, I’d see air. Nothing. It’s all flashing images of a magnificent creative mind, re-member-ing. Attempting to tie things together, that aren’t actually together.
It’s OK that this mind tries to make sense. The mind itself is also not the enemy. It is a friend, bringing an offering, for inquiry.
It can’t handle you.
That’s truer.
Much love,
Grace