- First Friday 8/3 was quite profound. Both the sweetness of the newcomers and people’s questions about doing The Work, plus the inquiry that followed. We’ll return to regular 7:45 am PT next month (and be sticking with that time for awhile). Join First Friday call.
- Live webinar! Ten Barriers to The Work and How to Dissolve Them. This in-depth online workshop is open to anyone feeling stuck or curious or interested in common bumps in the inquiry road I’ve seen rise up in myself and others that can be questioned. I’ll be offering it twice: Tues, August 21 8:00 am PT and Thurs, August 23 4:00 pm PT. To save your seat, sign up HERE. It’s completely free and I’ll share about Year of Inquiry at the end.
There’s a lot going on this time of year in the Work With Grace cottage.
The days are long and bright, there’s an excitement and energy about gatherings both for The Work, and for connection and celebration in general.
Last night, I had a conversation with someone I met at a big dinner party full of friends and family.
This man had years and years (he told me he was eighty years old with a fabulous chuckle) of experience working with people as a therapist.
We were sharing our joy of understanding the human condition, and what healing feels like or looks like, and he made an interesting comment: Even the most brilliant, genuis thinkers just want connection.
He was commenting about really, really smart people, after he had shared with me some of his experiences with professors and scientists and researchers he had worked with as a therapist.
The thing is, this yearning for connection might come from any one of us (even those of us who are just average in the smart department). People often want to feel like they belong somewhere and are somehow related or connected to their surroundings and others.
Like the feeling of “this is home”.
It feels elusive sometimes. At least is has for me.
The mind is just so good at saying the following kinds of phrases about our condition or place in the world, or wherever we happen to be in the prevailing moment:
- This is not it
- I don’t fit in
- I can’t be comfortable here
- Love, success, contact, connection is somewhere else, not here
- I’m not happy in this situation, location, building, life
- It must be more exciting somewhere else
- It must be more successful somewhere else
- It must be more accepting or loving somewhere else
- This is close, but not hitting the mark
- Maybe the feeling of “home” for me is in (insert name of town, country, province, region, planet)
Oh my.
How many times did I start thinking; I know. I’ll move. If I just changed up my environment, I’d calm down, feel safe, be OK, have more fun, be successful, be entertained.
In the Twelve Step programs they sometimes refer to the concept “Geographical Cure”.
I moved something like 28 times before I was 30, and then even after I purchased a home (so privileged to be able to) with my first husband, I couldn’t stop imagining Other Places to move to.
Which we did. After 8 years, we moved. Then after 5, we moved. Then 3, we moved.
Now, I’ve lived in one cute little cottage for 12 years. This is a world record in my life.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with moving, striving to find “home”, trying on different places, hunting, looking, searching and re-searching.
I still sometimes imagine creating an adventure, taking trips, getting into motion, ‘going on an explore’ as Winnie The Pooh says.
But. The low-level sense of being restlessly on the move and hunting for home (not here), however, seems to have fallen away. What a relief.
It’s because of questioning my thinking. Seriously.
So let’s do The Work. Because the other day, I had the thought “this place is too small and crowded”. Followed by laughter, then me filling two bags with clothing and other stuff and taking it all to Goodwill donation center.
Someplace else is home. This isn’t “it”.
Is that true?
Yes. Will you look at this place? When anyone comes over, we’re squeezed. It’s not right because of (fill in the blanks, you can make your list).
Can you absolutely know it’s true that where you are is not home? That it’s not possible to settle in, and rest in this moment?
No.
How do you react when you believe “this isn’t it”?
OMG.
I am engrossed in gathering information about Other Places like a crazy person. If only I had x passport, if only my husband had different work, if only I had x money, if only I was younger/older, if only my kids were x, if only the neighbors were y, if only my roommates were z, if only I could go live in the monastery….
In the past, I’d set to work on Project Go.
So who would you be without the thought “this isn’t it?”
“Enjoy the changing scenery around you. Reality improves when you’re rooted in the timeless within. It improves because you no longer place demands on it that it cannot meet, the demand being ‘you should satisfy me. Things should be the way I want them to be.’ When you don’t place demands anymore on what a place or person or circumstance should give you, you can enjoy them much more. The little birds chirping outside don’t have a problem.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Without the thought “this isn’t it” I pause, I wait. I wonder. I move more slowly. I don’t have the feeling “RUNNNNNN!!!!” (LOL).
I don’t feel compulsively like an addict imagining the future constantly, with pictures of how it will be. Later.
I look around more closely, with curiosity, at what’s presenting itself in this environment I seem to be surrounded by. These people. These circumstances. This place.
Turning the thought around: This IS it.
How could that be just as true, or truer?
Look around. Can you find what you appreciate about your situation–whether it’s the environment, the people, the place?
Being here in this moment now, I always notice is rather exciting. There’s no future. There’s no past. Or if there is, they are both flashes of memory or images in the mind, and here is vibrant and alive.
It’s safer, kinder, more colorful than I expected.
I notice what I thought was crowded and small (and loud) is now entirely silent except for the tap tap of my fingers on a keyboard. No one is here, but me. There’s all kinds of space in this living room. All the stuff that was piled here before is gone.
It’s just so fun to notice what’s actually true. And that at one moment, my judgment of a situation passing through changes completely.
How is this situation wonderful for you? How are you supported? What’s working for you, in this situation you thought wasn’t “it”?
Turning it around again: My thinking isn’t it.
Haha. Enough said.
“The Work wakes us up to reality. When we take it on as a practice, it leaves us as flawless, innocent, a figment of pure imagination. Practicing inquiry takes a Buddha-mind, where everything, without exception, is realized as good. It leads to total freedom.” ~ Byron Katie in A Mind At Home With Itself
Much love,
Grace
P.S. If you’d like regular practice with like-minded friends all interested in questioning our thinking as a way of life, you might love enrolling in Year of Inquiry. Join one of the upcoming webinars (see above) or visit the page here to learn more. People have already started signing up. I can already tell, it will be a very good year.
Hi Grace! I love your posts, as always! I was intrigued by the 80 year old therapist. My mom is 80 and I’d love to introduce them if he’s single! Hope to see you again soon. Keep doing the work you do and changing lives for the better ~
He was not single! I got to meet his lovely wife who is also a therapist. Although I like to tell people who want to meet someone to go out into the world, or even sign up for an online service like match.com, and do things they LOVE. Plus there’s also The Work (LOL) “people need partners…is it true?” So much joy in singleness, too. Thanks for your comment here dearest. –Grace