Two cancellations in the past month (both of them weddings)!
Two rooms still available if you want to stay in the beautiful retreat house.
This is a time for those of us who, well…hate retreats. Seriously.
I’m not joking around.
Part of me is that person who hates retreats.
It was the me full of despair.
The one who would leave and ditch anyone (including myself) because….who cares?
The one who loved departure. The one who loved saying “I’m outta here”. The one who loved to leave.
The one who didn’t want any pep talks or dealing with difficult people.
This spring retreat may be small.
And when I consider this, I get sort of fascinated after inquiring that it should be any different than it is.
What could possibly happen? What will this be like? How marvelous!
These days, the sense of zest or excitement is practically immediate with whatever appears to be happening.
I have the thought “there’s room for 16” and then the thought “but 10 is going to be perfect”.
There’s something so connected, shared, perfectly wonderful about a small group for 4 days. I tend to tap into everyone’s energy with such a depth of curiosity and joy. I learn so much. We’re like a team of people bringing peace to one small part of the world.
Regular people, joining with one another, under the guidance of inquiry using The Work of Byron Katie.
For someone who tended to isolate, and still I can go for days without contact quite happily….
….something about the gentleness of retreat and the dawning of awareness in us all is thrilling.
Who would we be without our beliefs about THAT TERRIBLE THING THAT HAPPENED?!
I’d be in retreat, questioning my perspective. Finding grace at the center of it all.
Finding that only my own answers really matter.
Finding myself without despair. The part of me with the Don’t Know mind.
Our retreat is honesty. It is a moment in time of sharing and questioning. It is gathering a sense of empowerment about seeing what we believe without a guru or a teacher.
“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.” ~ Jelaluddin Rumi
If you have a painful experience, a stressful belief, an anxious orientation, a desperate idea about life that doesn’t feel so good….
….then welcome.
You’ll fit right in.
And the surprise is: ours is a caravan of no despair. You are welcome, with all your worrying, agonizing, hand-wringing, fear and anger.
You are welcome with it all.
Let’s do question what our minds are saying is true.
“All of the sudden, one day you wake up and you say ‘I’m done’….What you already know starts to wake up. What you already know.” ~ Adyashanti
Last Saturday morning I so enjoyed offering the last live Eating Peace webinar on mental beliefs that get in the way of our peace with food, eating or our body image.
Get out a pen and paper and listen to the replay right here.
It means so much to me to receive all the comments and emails about the help given from this webinar to those who are suffering with either a wee bit of food and eating trouble, or a big lot of eating pain.
I shared some of my story on the webinar….but it was brutal.
Almost daily, I experienced agony around eating. I hardly ever had a normal, peaceful meal. I hunted for food, I overate, then under-ate. I binged then purged.
I really needed help. It was a nightmare.
In my history I saw almost twenty therapists if you count them all, I went into a six-week in-patient program for people with disordered eating, I did Course in Miracles, Twelve Steps, Living Binge Free, and quite a few programs for self-improvement like est, TM, a 9-month program called People House and even got a master’s degree in Applied Behavioral Science to understand the mind and emotions better.
It was a group therapy program that helped most of all.
That was where I found freedom from the more extreme behavior….and then The Work of Byron Katie.
Those two components were what saved my life, literally, from having my head in the toilet forcing myself to vomit, or constantly dieting, or feeling fear in the presence of good foods, or feeling disgust in the presence of mirrors.
Group work and self-inquiry. What a powerful combination.
My mind felt like a very bad neighborhood, and like I just could not find my way out.
My thinking was violent, fearful, dramatic and desperate when it came to my views of the body I lived in, eating, and ultimately relating to the world with a need to eat.
Ugh, that was rough, to say the least.
Now, I’m dedicated to continually looking at mind, thinking, beliefs and how they pile together to form fear and an urge to grab, worry or isolate.
In today’s video I share more about how these both worked, and why.
And meanwhile, if this sounds like an adventure you’d like to take with me and our eating peace group right now….I’d love to have you join me. Our first live call is Thursday, but live calls are only a part of the program.
This program is the only one I offer where there is content material pre-recorded, personal exercises, journaling, meditating, watching video lessons and webinars, and inviting you to follow on your own and do it in a way that works for you.
Most of the work I do with people is live: solo, retreat, and meetings where we all do The Work of Byron Katie. I consider myself having little to teach, but that the true work is about identifying your stressful thoughts, and then applying the four questions and finding turnarounds.
However, in this work, with such desperation, angst, and anger (like I had myself) I began in 2015 to put together offerings around eating and mindset to help people find a second of peace, then another second, then another.
So many people who contacted me to work on eating issues said “I don’t know what I’m thinking!!!! Please help!!! I just FEEL HORRIBLE!!!!”
So I started developing a program they could follow that would help get relaxed enough in the first place to settle into self-inquiry and not panic about the food or weight.
As it turns out, that first program I offered to a lovely group of 14 people. Then, after receiving fantastic feedback, I rewrote it, and I offered it again….then I offered it again after rewriting it again, and then repeated the overhaul yet again and offered it again.
No Eating Peace Process has ever been the same. I keep taking what works, and leaving out what doesn’t.
Eating Peace Process is something I hope you can follow on your own step by step, and also find answers to your questions by being in a group of people who share the same thinking, who have suffered from these thoughts.
These are people who are devoted to finding the truth for themselves through the process of inquiry, slowing down, awareness.
Eating Peace is not a program about dieting or food plans. You can be on any food plan or way-of-eating you want.
This work is about the internal disruption that results in our reaching for food, or resisting food, or hating our bodies.
People who are perfectly normal in weight or even thin, people with athletic bodies, people with twenty pounds to lose, people with a whole lot of weight to lose….all benefit from this mindful work.
It’s about our bodies, but it’s NOT about our bodies. We must start with where we are and what we have, with this body we’re in, and this mind we’re using….
….and begin to treat it with kindness.
In eating peace process, we start with Foundational work to help us commit to a return to kindness, even if it doesn’t feel natural or normal for us.
It is our true nature to be accepting, joyful with food, compassionate with other people and ultimately with ourselves.
How do I know?
Because of how “right” and easy it feels when I’m there.
If you’d like to join me on a group program of sharing, inquiry, learning, and awareness….I’d love to have you in Eating Peace starting this week.
Read about it and sign up here. Everyone who joins has lifetime access. You can join any future live session, you will have updates and new lessons as they get developed and added.
This is a process in motion….always blossoming with what is now and what is next.
Like life.
“We human beings can be addicted to anything. Anything to distract from present pain, discomfort, dissatisfaction, the notion that something is incomplete. There’s a sense of lack, a sense of something’s missing. That’s where it begins. Then our lives become a search for what’s missing…The basic disillusion is that something [food, eating, exercising, getting thin] will complete me and make me whole. It will take away the pain of being human.” ~ Jeff Foster
If you’ve had this experience about food, eating, compulsive eating, emotional eating, a body that isn’t right, cravings that are wrong….
….and you’d like to explore it on a deep internal level (not a technical fix, like a diet)….
….then I’d love to have you join me in the Eating Peace Process. A journey in understanding, and no longer waiting for happiness in the future and such unhappiness with food, eating and your body as it is right now, but instead to explore mind and questioning all the difficult oppositional thoughts we have about eating.
Joy of Inquiry on Eating
“I feel like I could do the work on the exercises and images that came up for the rest of my life. I actually watched it in two sittings, stopping between writing the turn-arounds to the actions that undermine peaceful eating and investigating the worst things. Thank you, thank you.” ~ EPP Participant 2017
A Combo of Gratitude and Fear
“In intending to watch the videos, even now I have the familiar feeling of being sooo scared. I feel tears coming to my eyes. I am so grateful for your work…which has put into words what I am, and what I have experienced. Tears of gratitude for your open and honest sharing.”
The Why Behind Eating
“I have read CBT books and worked with nutritionists but neither of these methods addressed in detail the intense emotions and intricate thought processes that your videos mention – and which resonate with my personal experience. Thank you for trying to help people like myself as we navigate the why behind what is happening.”
Reality has some funny plans sometimes…and one thing I know is that arguing with it really doesn’t work well.
So I knew not to believe the thought “this is urgent” the other day when during the live webinar, things went wonky.
Worry, urgency, running away, anxiety, nerves.
These feelings and images accompanying them used to always lead to eating for me. Really, almost 100% of the time.
Rolling with reality is so much better. Surprisingly, even magnificently better.
So, here’s what happened with the Eating Peace webinar:
Right in the middle of it, construction outside caused all the electric power to blow in my entire home.
Which means no internet, no computer, no lights…and no more webinar.
(Working at home can have a few drawbacks, but not many. This is pretty unusual. We’re building a small-almost-tiny home in our back yard).
Today, five trucks are parked outside and machines are sounding loud, men are literally calling loudly to one another, so I’m switching the plans here and we won’t be meeting today either.
Instead, we’ll meet for the final time for this free live webinar on this Saturday morning April 27th at 7:30 am PT. This time might work even better for some of you…who knows?
I trust the Way of It now. Even when I don’t….I know what to do. I inquire.
To question worry, nervousness and the horrors in our minds is one of the most profound reliefs I’ve ever experienced.
Questioning this thought that something, anything (including the urge to get that sugary food or take another bite) is an emergency is a huge step in becoming binge-free and obsession-free.
In my video today, I share about how to question this concept (it’s actually the first of the seven stories I suggest questioning in the eating peace webinar): THIS IS URGENT!!
Have you noticed the unrest, the worry, the anxiousness when you have a craving for food? Or the trance you fall into when you eat? Or the images flashing through you of food, weight, self-criticism?
The mind screams “This has to happen NOW! You have to pull it together NOW!” or “You have to eat it NOW!”
Who would you be without that story?
Without my own story of “this webinar has to happen right now, today, since that is when it was scheduled”….I get a new idea to offer it on Saturday morning for the last time.
I’d love to have you join me live if you have special questions about the power of self-inquiry and The Work of Byron Katie when it comes to this whole eating thing, or any questions about the Eating Peace Process (which I’ll share how the program works at the end of the webinar).
The last live webinar will be Saturday, April 27th 7:30 am PT. Set aside 90 minutes. Join me live right here. No opting in required.
And for more about the urgent story and how to question it, no matter what’s bothering you (even very frightening memories, or gigantic cravings to eat) then watch here:
Read more about Spring Retreat. Just a few spots open now. Love to have you if you’re ready to spring clean on the inside May15-19 here in blossoming Seattle.
All those stories, beliefs, ideas, perspectives that feel harsh, sad, disappointing, frightening, ugly….what a tremendous way to work with them by questioning their “truth” clearly for yourself.
I spoke about this power of self-inquiry recently with the wonderful Tom Compton, a facilitator of The Work and someone who has been practicing his inquiry for 20+ years. The video of our conversation is below, but if you’d like to listen on podcast, you can click here (also on itunes episode 146).
(Tom and I will be offering a retreat at Breitenbush June 12-16, 2019–call them soon to reserve a spot, early bird rate is almost over).
One of my favorite observations Tom shared was a conversation he had with Byron Katie many years ago. She told him the only difference between her and him was she had questioned more of her stressful beliefs.
That’s it. So simple.
What is a belief you notice today?
Maybe you notice one, or maybe ten, or a thousand. It seems like they swirl in, like voices clamoring for attention. I see them ticker-tape across the mind still, sometimes in collections or bunches.
Just yesterday, for example, in the middle of giving a webinar on eating peace in preparation for the upcoming program starting next week, and had the thought I forgot to advance through my slides, and spoke too long about one part, and that the volume of information is still too large even though it’s cut in half.
Then yesterday, on same Eating Peace webinar live with people there attending, construction workers outside blew a fuse and all power was lost at my house. Webinar over.
Not Good Enough.
What a persistent thought this has been throughout my life. The thing isn’t good enough. My body isn’t good enough. The job isn’t good enough. The effort isn’t good enough. That person isn’t good enough. This place isn’t good enough.
Even my self-inquiry isn’t good enough. Yikes.
I should be….I want….I need to….
There would never be enough time in the day, or even in any lifetime, to accomplish this “good enough” quality that seems so elusive.
How do we react when we believe we aren’t good enough, or the thing, person, place isn’t good enough, or the outcome isn’t good enough?
I see comparison rearing up, like it’s on fire. What is over there is better. This here isn’t quite right.
The other day, I was working with a beautiful inquirer who found her long-awaited vacation with her spouse wasn’t as wonderful as she had hoped. It wasn’t good enough.
Another inquirer worked on her connection with her young adult children and missing being closer to them. Not good enough.
Someone else did The Work on not getting promoted and the surprise promotion of someone else instead. Not good enough.
I should have found The Work 20 years ago (LOL). I should be devoting at least an hour every day to meditation, inquiry, physical fitness, re-reading sacred texts, listening to teachers, learning. Not good enough.
Find an area, just one, where you’re not good enough.
Is it true?
No.
How do you react when you believe what’s happening, including the way YOU are, isn’t good enough?
Sinking feeling. Disappointment. Closed. Angry.
Who would you be without that thought?
Feeling the life force run through me, hearing the whirr of the heater this morning and sun beams coming through the window slats. Remembering many conversations yesterday.
Noticing how the thought “not good enough” is a strange orientation, a way of looking, a funny and anxiety-producing pair of glasses. Perhaps survival-based. There it is, doing its thing, being that way. Feeling compassion for whatever that energy is.
Without the thought, I notice something does feel very mysterious, uncertain. It’s not completely easy.
The Don’t Know mind isn’t all lace and baubles, joy and peace necessarily….it’s like falling in space without a bottom below at times. Nervous.
Turning the thought around: This is good enough. I am good enough. What’s happening is good enough. Only in my thoughts is it not good enough. The image in the mind of that perfect alternative doesn’t even exist except in imagination.
The mind is a superpower of speed and imagery, isn’t it?
Can I just feel “good enough” about this moment, right now?
Yes. I can do that.
Perhaps that’s all that’s ever required for peace. This right now. Good enough.
Spring Retreat is coming. Book a room if you like (two king size bedrooms left) and stay onsite with gorgeous spring blooming gardens, full kitchen with fridge for your groceries, laundry room, hot tub, outdoor meditation spaces and an old-fashioned claw foot bathtub with epsom salts for indoor soaking.
Everything supported in the physical world so you can do your work.
I am so happy for another retreat.
Because. It’s as much for me as for anyone else.
Life appears to be full of tasks, doing, attention pulled to the various things: helping extensively with rental house inherited by my kids (fielding lots of questions), answering questions about eating peace process starting soon in 10 days (!), learning the technology behind membership sites, sorting out the various retreat locations for next year, daily clients, laundry, recycling, grocery shopping, post office, gym, emails, family easter thing.
So full. Busy. Packed. Jammed. Tight schedule.
Lots of doing.
And hasn’t this been a statement I would make a year ago, too?
Um, right.
How about five years ago?
Yup.
So something changed for me within the past several months: an awareness of the need to deepen my own inquiry. The Work.
I know that might sound like a surprise, since my job apparently is facilitating the work.
That’s not really my job, though. My job is inquiring when I believe something stressful, and working with the busy mind.
I had stopped doing it full length, with all the steps, writing my thoughts out, sitting in silence with the questions either before or after writing.
I knew I needed a reboot.
Especially when I had a complete tormented internal meltdown one weekend in February about responsibilities, money, expenses, connection, mistakes, tax preparation, building permits.
All these things were rotating through reality, asking for attention, and then peaking around the same 3 day holiday weekend when I go away with my husband annually.
I couldn’t decide where to go, if we should go, what to do, what I wanted to do, how to stop thinking “I need to attend to the things (see list)!”
The fundamental underlying belief was 3 days away was not “worth it” or a good use of my time, and that somehow getting things done would be better and more important than breaking away for a 2 nights.
There’s not enough time. I have to get things done. It’s not possible to relax.
The scarcity was suddenly almost so thick I could cut it with a knife. Not enough time, blending to not enough money, to not enough knowledge to not enough planning (taxes) to not enough clarity to not enough capacity to rest.
Just Not Enough. Not Enough. Not Enough.
How do you react when you think there’s Not Enough of something?
People think this about love, attention, family, money, space, pleasure, respect, creativity, confidence, time.
Something happens, and Not Enough-ness comes to the forefront.
For me, it began that weekend to spread into all the crevasses of my life wherever I looked. Not only was there not enough time or money that weekend, but not enough time had been common in the past too. Never truly enough. So probably not enough time in the future, either.
Good lord. So stressful. The sensation was of the Titanic sinking, endings and grief and panic. So strange to have it all rise up all at once literally in a peaking three-day period.
Not enough time for WHAT?
I need to get all those things addressed, immediately. Is that true?
There isn’t enough time to do The Work, is it true?
Who would you be without that thought that there’s not enough time? (Or whatever your chosen item or quality in life that you think there isn’t enough of)?
The other day, as I sat quietly in The Work and silence (a renewed practice) I remembered something said by one of my favorite teachers who I’ve shared time in contemplation, quiet, and “retreating” from all the daily and usual tasks.
He would say, (and repeat), that inquiry and peace are NOT found only on the meditation cushion. They are NOT found only at the monastery. They are NOT found in the book, or only from the teacher, or only in a “spiritual” setting.
They are found in our daily lives. In the basic daily tasks. They are found in our trip to the store for dental floss. In our capacity to be away for 2 nights with our sweethearts (as in my case) and to appreciate the air, the room, the space we’re in without complaining.
Can I meditate and inquire here, in this regular simple life?
Because that’s my reality, that’s where it’s needed.
Here.
So I began sitting silently again every single morning for a longer period of time, and no matter what was going on.
I began carrying the questions with me on and off all day again–when I remembered– “who would I be without my Not Enough story?”
Who would I be without my belief “there isn’t enough time?”
I begin feeling my feet very solidly again, noticing my breath, hearing an inner voice chatter but aware I don’t have to believe it.
Nothing required.
No need to speed fast. No need to freak out. No need to panic or resist or “do”.
What a beautiful rest it is to retreat from the Do-Do-Do-Go-Go-Go mind.
So happy the time is coming soon to gather with others in a circle with the primary commitment we’re “doing” is that of awareness of the mind’s activity; looking, silence, wondering, answering the four questions, finding our turnarounds. Living and feeling our turnarounds.
I’ve never found anything more helpful for facing stress. Never.
I’ve been assured by others. I’ve been to the monastery. I’ve been to loud conferences to raise your confidence.
But answering four questions and knowing there actually isn’t anything other I really can do to access my own innate wisdom that would ever be more satisfying.
Turning the thought around: there is enough. There’s enough time. There’s enough love, clarity, recognition…whatever. The amount I have is what is enough. I am breathing, I am inquiring. I am alive. I am being.
Any more would be too much. Any less would be too little. This much of the quality, item, thing….is just right.
Can I find examples from that weekend where I was so sure we couldn’t leave town, that I couldn’t enjoy myself, that there were too many demands?
Yes. The ONLY THING that was a problem on that weekend away (we did go away) was my judgment, thinking, worry. The only thing that created difficult within was my mind. Physically I was completely comfortable.
The most important turnaround after my anxious experience: there’s not enough inquiring, there’s not enough clear thought about time, about money, about What Is.
In other words, the stories got blown a bit out of proportion. LOL.
So today, in my calendar is space for “inquiry” and “meditation” and on my calendar is time for 4 day spring retreat space for “inquiry” and “meditation” with a group of other people intending the same, and then a June retreat at Breitenbush with Tom Compton also for the very same….and every day in between responding to reality in this place always with the questions….as best I can.
“There might have been anger, frustration, terror, prayers (the kind that attempt to manipulate what cannot be manipulated). These are a few of the ways we react when we believe what we think. It’s what the war with reality often looks like, and it’s not only insane, it’s hopeless, and very painful. But when you question your mind, thoughts flow in and out and don’t cause any stress, because you don’t believe them. And you instantly realize that the opposites could be just as true. Reality shows you, in that peace of mind, that there are no problems, only solutions. You know to your very depths that whatever happens is what should be happening.” ~ Byron Katie
I want to sit in who I am without my story. That’s what I want to put my attention to. That is what connects me to the greatest love, home, God, kindness, compassion, trust, Reality.
A thought popped in around money (again); it’s lack, scarcity, limits, and how I was wrong and should have planned or been more aware….
Dang, that whole thought system is very persistent, isn’t it?
I decided to sit down and inquire, in writing, even though part of my mind said “you’ve done this before already”.
The circumstance?
This new rental house, formerly owned by my first husband and father of my children who died last June, is now up for rent. My kids are keeping it, and my son has moved into the basement apartment with separate entrance and his own cool parking spot.
Excitedly, we posted the photos of the brand new paint, gorgeous blue deck, cleaned fireplaces, pretty bathroom, brand new soothing gray carpet, even some new beautiful light fixtures. The place is shining.
Signs up, learning about landlord life, and I have put a lot of time and support into helping my son and daughter take this on–my son especially really loved the idea of moving into his own basement apartment and out of his college town.
We analyzed the prices of other homes, picked something appealing in the middle to low-ish by comparison, and….
….crickets.
Well, a handful of lovely people have inquired. Two people even applied to move in.
And then they found out the basement apartment is occupied.
I felt a little dumb. Lightbulb went on.
DING!
This is a shared home situation. Everyone lives in the same 4 big walls, even if they never see one another. There’s shared laundry between two units. The big, beautiful upstairs has this one not-as-attractive point.
OH NO!
My mind burst forth with images of recognizing this less-than-perfect issue of sharing a house, that the rent needs to be LOWER in price than you might normally think.
Internal thoughts: I did it wrong. I should have thought that through better. Now we’ve “wasted” two weeks and need to re-list. I have to change all the postings I’ve done–(can I remember all the places I posted)? It’s not as manageable for my son as expected. It’s going to be too much for him. Did we make a mistake? It’s not a good deal.
Jeez.
I sat with the inquiry, noticing when something unexpected happens with money where more is required than imagined….there’s fear.
What’s a deeper inquiry? I asked myself.
I’m believing this is dangerous, that there’s a threat. I’m believing in mistakes. I’m believing in suffering around support. I’m believing in “not enough”, or that soon there won’t be. I’m believing in lack of freedom.
Is any of that true? Seriously?
Is it better to have and keep money, get only what I expect, not ever have any surprises, or assume that if it doesn’t go as I thought it means a mistake has been made or it’s not a good deal?
REALLY? Do I want to keep believing this autopilot go-to thought when it comes to money that I can tell isn’t even true?
How do I react when I believe in danger of not having enough, later in the future (or my son or family not having enough)? How do I react when I believe it’s not a good deal anymore.
Afraid. Self-critical.
There’s the criticism zapping in again. “I” must be doing something wrong. “I” have to fix this ASAP.
When I believe the thought, it really, really matters what money is doing. It matters in that moment more than anything (I think).
It’s important enough to drop everything else (including my own peace) and focus on what to do to handle the situation well (change all the listings, lower the rent we’re asking, make a decision, worry).
So who would I be WITHOUT THIS BELIEF?
It’s immediate. But I’m also deeply committed to spending more time here in question four.
Who or what would I be? What would I notice? What is happening?
Here I am being, without my ideas about money coming and going and how it should behave, or that more is better than less. How does this feel? What is it like to sit here, without this ridiculous and stressful and worrisome belief?
If money were a romantic partner, I’d be instantly out of love with it with this recent discovery about the rent. I was criticizing it, ruminating, angry, pissy, panicking, considering myself abandoned (again), upset with me, upset with it.
Is that unconditional love?
Uh, No.
Did I ever love or appreciate the flow of money in the first place? Am I so self-concerned and all-about-me I’m willing to throw peace out the window in pursuit of “fixing” or “making” money do what I want it to do or provide what I expect it to provide?
Wow.
Talk about Control Central. Ego. Tight Fisted-ness. Insecurity.
Without the belief that money needs to be any different than it is being in this specific situation….I notice how secure I am.
I’m breathing, I’m here, I’m slightly amused, there’s no disaster.
Without the belief that money needs to be a certain way, it really doesn’t matter. I’m open. I relax.
Turning the thought around:
There is no problem here with money. There is no good deal or bad deal that ultimately matters to my life in any way. No disaster has occurred. No threat has entered my world. I’m breathing, sitting, noticing silence, watching images and pictures. There is no need for any money on any level in this precise moment now.
Turning it around on the local level, the little personal story level, the whole experience is full of learning, giving a home a big dose of TLC, offering a beautiful place to other people (what a tremendous service), aligning the price, doing this fun project with my young adult kids. This is a dance with the unfolding of an offering. I feel involved, making a difference, joyful with my kids, like a big grown up.
On the wide open impersonal level, there is just no problem here whatsoever.
Except for a thought….NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. There was insight, more data coming in.
What if this was the absolutely perfect time and way it should all unfold? Not a moment sooner or later for each piece in this process of a project coming to life?
It gives me this amazing moment to do The Work again on a persistent fear of lack, not-enoughness, and sit quietly in question four.
Who would I be without the possibility of Not Enough?
Totally trying new things, amazed at creativity and possibility that’s happened with this house renting thing. Watching things come one day at a time, not too fast or too much. No planning or hand-wringing about the future needed, or regrets in the past.
Turning the thought around again: My thinking is a problem, in this situation (not money). My own thinking is threatening me (about the future especially), my thinking was a good deal, then became not a good deal. I haven’t been loving with my thinking, especially when it comes to money doing its dance.
…Begin to notice the laws of generosity, the laws of letting money go out fearlessly and come back fearlessly. You don’t ever need more money than you have. When you understand this, you begin to realize that you already have all the security you wanted money to give you in the first place. It’s a lot easier to make money from this position. ~ Byron Katie
Noticing this moment and how wonderful it is, how full and incredible….and what a gift.
Nothing more required.
If you’d like to sit in inquiry on beliefs that are especially persistent stress-inducers….then retreat is an amazing place to do The Work.
I find every retreat, the time spent allows the clarity to rise up.
We’re honoring our thinking, staying present, using the mind to wonder who we’d be without our thought, finding turnarounds, imagining living them. No distractions or avoiding.
Spring Retreat has room and it’s only a month away! Book a room if you like (two king size bedrooms left) and stay onsite. Everything supported so you can do your work.
Much love,
Grace
Other upcoming events:
Spring Retreat in The Work May 15-19, 2019. Meditate, Inquire, Dance, Walk, Silence, Sharing. Register here.
Eating Peace Process Online Brand New Version. Same principles, delivered better. Lifetime access. May 1-August 15, 2019
First, an announcement special for you who are an Eating Peace reader. In preparation for my upcoming Eating Peace Immersion starting again in May, I’ve created a new Eating Peace webinar:
Three lies we believe that keep us obsessing, managing our bodies and avoiding inquiry…instead of eating peace.
At the end of the webinar, I’ll share about the eating peace program and you’re welcome to ask questions to see if it’s right for you. If you want to receive alerts for the webinar right into your Inbox so you don’t forget it, you can sign up to receive those here.
We’ve believed it about food, eating, ways of eating, right food, wrong food, the size of our thighs, our weight.
The way I’ve eaten is WRONG WRONG WRONG. I have proof. Look at the evidence.
I was soooo “good” for awhile and then I “blew it” and ate through half the junk food in America.
We’ve been talking about shame lately….but it’s such a cycle of doom.
All our fears, dread, trauma, and difficulties appear, and the belief is “I can’t handle it” or “If I have fear, sadness or anger, I’m WRONG” or “I’ve committed a crime” (by what I’ve eaten)….
….and then “I might as well EAT!” (and we stuff ourselves).
And not only did I have judgments about what I was eating, and what really good perfect people eat, but I also had many judgments about emotions, and expressing them.
Having strong emotions them meant I was TOO EMOTIONAL! Something’s wrong with me!
Who would you be without the belief there’s something wrong with you because you’ve experienced compulsive behavior–with food, eating, exercise, following your emotions, or anything? How would you treat food without the belief that if you eat it, you’re wrong? How would you treat yourself?
Without this belief that something’s wrong with me because of how I’m eating, I’m curious.
Without the belief, I’m LESS fixated on food and eating, and more open to what else is going on.
A sudden sense of self-compassion enters my awareness.
Maybe it’s OK not to “know” all the answers when it comes to food, or to focus so acutely on every bite that enters my mouth in such a rigid way.
Turning the thought around: there’s something RIGHT with me because of how I’m eating. And yes, I mean the binge-eating or the junk-food eating or the desperate eating.
What is it expressing? What’s “right” about it?
Now that’s a fascinating and wonderful question.
It helps us be open to understand what’s going on….a first step.
If you’d like to learn more, join me for the webinar I’m offering, coming up 3 times next week (and 3 times the following week as well). Sign up for alerts for the webinars right here.
Eating Peace: Working With The Dread of Eating Wrong…and The Belief “I Might As Well Eat!”
This Sunday afternoon 2-6 pm….Mini Retreat in The Work. This is the last short gathering like this at my own home this year, and maybe forever.
I have gotten so very, very full on week days, and teaching longer retreats five times a year, it seems the natural way of it to reduce the little Sunday gatherings. (I’ll be at East West Books on Thursday, June 27th for a shorter thing 7-9 pm).
One of the things I’ve adored about a 4 hour gathering, is that when you’re familiar with The Work, there’s nothing like a time set aside to sit in inquiry and sort something out in your life that feels like a problem. It’s so precious to have the whole afternoon.
What’s amazing to so many of us, and still is to me honestly, is that this is ultimately all we need to begin to work out a pattern, an issue, a difficulty, some kind of trouble about life.
The mind says “Really? That’s it? Answer four questions? Seriously?”
Aren’t you just sitting with you-yourself-and-I? Don’t we need some kind of teacher, wisdom, friend or message from the heavens to help us figure out the answers to our problems?
Funny the mind will think it’s not enough.
It can’t be here, the answers I’m looking for. Oh no. It can’t be inside the very problem I’m looking to get rid of, right?
Can’t we just….do something fun like watch a movie or eat, drink, smoke, ignore What Is? If I have to sit down, with other people around especially, and look at my judgmental thoughts, it will be excruciating.
Sigh.
What’s funny is it seems the mind will do anything but open to sit with itself, and the thoughts it’s agonizing over, and answer four questions.
At least that’s the way it seems my mind has been, heh heh.
Just for today, though, let’s look at a global thought that’s very stressful and even frightening.
I can’t figure this out.
You know the thing you can’t figure out? That one.
Hold it in your mind. See the images of you not figuring it out. Maybe there’s another person who always drives you nuts. Or a habit you have of hurting yourself (like I did with eating and body image) or you don’t have enough time, money, success, patience.
You can’t figure it out.
Is it true?
Yes.
Are you absolutely 100% sure for all time that you can’t…right now in this moment?
No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. OK, no. I can’t absolutely know.
How do you react when you believe you can’t?
Hopeless. Screwed. Angry. Sad. Mad at myself, and the situation and confused about all the parts involved and what’s going on. I’m trying so hard! And not only can I not figure it out….there’s a list of other things I can’t figure out either.
Arrrrggggggghhhhh.
Pause. Breathe.
So, who would you be without your story of this “problem” that you can’t figure out, and the YOU that can’t do it?
In this moment, wherever you are as you read these words, feel your feet and notice the space around you. I hear the voice of Byron Katie saying “are you OK?” as she does with inquirers sometimes.
You’re alive. A non-verbal current of life.
I love this feeling of sinking into the body. Nothing to do, no problems to solve, nowhere to go, stillness. Something can possibly change right now, in this quiet stillness.
This sensation is often a first place to go with question four (who would you be without your thought you can’t figure it out) but then really considering reality:
What if you aren’t in charge, and you aren’t supposed to figure it out the way you assume you should? And what if figuring it out looks like relaxing and NOT exactly figuring it out the way you thought you were going to? What if you simply respond to what happens, and dance with it, and notice you’re aware? What if that is actually “figuring” it out?
Even if you’re dying of a disease supposedly. I know that’s dramatic. But even then. What if there was no future, no past, and only this moment here now? Could that have a quality of figuring something out to it?
Why not?
What if I am not supposed to figure out HOW, in this whole entire moment, to make enough money, clean the house, stop obsessing or thinking with drama, lose weight, talk to that friend, deal with my mother, run a marathon, fix the roof, fill the seats, help my child, sell my artwork, hire the handyman, save for retirement, get enlightened, apply for a job, get a raise, find a partner.
I mean, that’s such a relief, right? How could any of that, or even the one thing you’re wanting to resolve a particular way….get resolved in that exact particular way, with “figuring” going on?
Or, let the mind figure. It loves to figure.
Are you still OK, even if it’s busy figuring over there (up there)?
Turning the thought around: I CAN figure it out. “I” can figure it out. “I” doesn’t need to figure it out, actually. When “I” is a wide open life force, a space, a current of energy…..not the “I” who is “the one who needs to figure something out”. No figuring necessary.
Turning it around again: Figuring it out can “I”. I know that’s a bit weird. But it’s a reverse of the energy. Instead of “me” with my brain trying to hard to get somewhere, through figuring….what if it’s just as true or truer that this figuring thing can get absorbed into the mysterious “I”?
I can figure it out. Nothing more required. Nothing missing.
I love the movement of figuring can include the wisdom of simply being, the “I”, the unidentifiable sense of life force, the being here. Just here.
“This moment is not life waiting to happen, goals waiting to be achieved, words waiting to be spoken, connections waiting to be made, regrets waiting to evaporate, aliveness waiting to be felt, enlightenment waiting to be gained. No. Nothing is waiting. This is it. This moment is life.” ~ Jeff Foster
As the beginning of April arrives….my thoughts turn to spring.
We kick off inquiry each month, always, with a First Friday 90 minute telesession for anyone and everyone to do The Work. It’s completely free: Friday, April 5th 7:45-9:15 am Pacific Time. To join, click on this link here. About 15 mins before the time we begin, you’ll see 3 options for joining: phone, webcall (with your computer) or Broadcast (listen-only). If you want to speak by doing The Work OR giving feedback/asking a question, use phone or webcall.
If you’re drawn to a deeper mental “spring cleaning”, by taking a close look at the thoughts that bring us stress, angst, anger, worry or discouragement….then you may love coming to an in-person retreat if you’re anywhere near driving distance to the Pacific Northwest.
*Last one this year at Goldilocks Cottage: 4-hour afternoon mini retreat April 14th (up to 10 people only) at my home 2-6 pm $50. (June 27th is next one at East West Books 7-9 pm). *Spring retreat May 15-19, 2019 (commuting OK). Self-inquiry, connection, sharing and most important of all–you getting to question your thoughts with The Work step by step. *Breitenbush Retreat with my guest facilitator this year Tom Compton June 12-16 Weds eve through Sunday lunch. Read more here and to register CALL Breitenbush 503-854-3320.
There’s nothing like being in the presence of other people who are also committed to exposing their inner thinking, sharing it, being witnessed, and questioning it. Life. Changing.
But it’s really scary sometimes to do this kind of work in a group setting. Especially if it’s not the norm for you.
And sometimes, even if it is.
I speak for myself.
The last Grace Note was about a 3-day retreat in self-inquiry, only with a powerful dimension of attending to the emotional world and expressing feelings honestly without shame, with the thought, without the thought.
I used to do this all the time in my first therapeutic group. I was in that group for three years, every single week. We did not have “The Work of Byron Katie” as a methodology (it didn’t exist yet in the Katie format).
But in our therapy group we did have a history of psychologists, philosophers and change-agents who had studied and worked with the same unnecessary suffering we’re wanting relief from: the memories, stuckness and grief we hold in our bodies and in our mental files, the things we carry forward within.
Just like in The Work, in our life-changing group we were working with the after-effects, the anxiety, the unresolved trauma, the irritation and anger, the never-ending sadness, the lack of good communication skills with other humans.
Yes, suffering seems to happen. There’s life and death, illness, aging, loss. The way it gets endlessly triggered, or the way it affects our whole view of life….that’s what we’re dissolving.
We can’t change the past, but we can learn to live with our memories and experiences with gratitude.
(Did I just say gratitude? Seriously? But yah.)
I’m considering deeply the topic of shame lately. It appears to be showing up everywhere: with clients I work with, with some of my own memories that have come along, with people working on eating peace and other compulsions and addictions they want to quit, with people close to me.
Shame is sneaky because it will keep a cycle going of hiding, self-hatred, guilt and non-resolution.
Because we’re believing thoughts like “I don’t deserve to live” or “I’m a stupid person” or “I am bad” or “I’m disgusting” or “I don’t deserve love”.
So let’s do The Work today on this very powerful belief, that is also a lie. How do you know? You feel horrible when you believe it.
“I’m unlovable.”
Think about the reason you’re unlovable. You might have a list. Sometimes people have very long lists. Your proof that you don’t deserve love and there’s no hope for you.
Is it true, you’re unlovable?
According to yourself (which isn’t the most objective judge, right?) you might say “yes”.
Your anger, frustration and sadness might be speaking.
Can you absolutely know that it’s true, though?
No.
How do you react when you believe you’re unlovable?
It can be a terrible feeling. You want to stay inside, withdraw, not get together with anyone you know, move away, or of course, do something escapist and addictive.
Often, we want to hide. We feel sorry for ourselves but also resigned.
So who would you be without your thought that you’re unlovable?
Yes, even in that situation, with that person, or doing that activity (like for example your favorite addictive or compulsive activity)?
Who would you really be, if you couldn’t believe your thought–even in THAT situation?
A powerful question for anyone willing to imagine an answer.
I’d see a person who is confused, suffering, deeply troubled. Maybe even frightened. Someone feeling unsupported and tormented.
Someone believing a lie.
Let’s turn this thought around: I am lovable, to myself. I am lovable to the world. I am lovable to reality/God/Universe. I am lovable to other people. I am lovable as I overeat, or get angry, or react emotionally. I am a wave of energy, in motion, doing “human”. I’m someone feeling, sensing, being, alive.
What is love, anyway? A feeling? An energy?
I discover as I test and try on this turnaround that I am lovable, and sense a feeling of love within, that it’s a movement, an acceptance. There’s a sense of love surrounding any emotion, including self-criticism, apathy, or discouragement.
I’m sitting here, alive. The next minute is unknown. I’m not “going somewhere” and I don’t need to get somewhere else. I have everything supplied, apparently, as here I sit–awake and conscious.
Nothing more required.
Why wouldn’t the belief “I am lovable” with nothing to be ashamed of be just as true, or truer, than any other thought passing along this mind? And I notice, this belief is relaxing, spacious, kind. There’s curiosity, if I’ve done something upsetting to myself or anyone else. Not condemnation.
“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.” ~ Byron Katie
If you find a stuck point inside you that automatically moves to “I did it wrong” and “I am wrong” and therefor “I am unlovable” then you might want to question it.
