At Breitenbush Hotsprings, they hold a few extra spots for us for lodging and meals for the last-minute panic I-really-need-to-be-there sign-ups. Since it’s a big conference center with many little cabins, tent platform options, a campground, and dorm rooms in the great lodge (or cabin style dorms), they hold back just a few in case we have people dying to come to our retreat last minute.
Those secret hold-out spots (in beautiful cabins with all linens and towels included, some on the tent platforms where you bring your sleeping bags, or camping spots)….are about to be released to the public. This will happen in 2 days.
After that, the whole place will be sold out in the shake of a lamb’s tail. Call Breitenbush to find out the full cost for yourself based on your sleeping options. Three amazing organic meals provided each day, no cell or internet service, fresh pristine air and old growth woods, gorgeous hikes, a wild ice cold river, The Work of Byron Katie, companionship in inquiry, and silence. Call 503.854.3320.
I know Tom Compton and I are both so excited to welcome you to a true retreat from daily life, to investigate our minds and perspectives that feel troubling, worrisome, stressful, or very painful. No issue too great, or small, for The Work.
Really, you might say?
No issue too great, or small, for The Work?
Yes.
I once did The Work with one of my ongoing partners in inquiry for several years. Her “work” was on her kitchen drawer.
“It should open”.
It was a fairly new remodel. The drawer was supposed to open.
We laughed, she brushed it off almost, saying “what a ridiculous thing to do The Work on, I’m not even that upset!”
It was a profound hour in The Work, for both of us.
With the thought….images of poor contractors, hassles, making people come back and fix things, money honesty, hissy fits about design, irritability.
Without the thought….laughter, handling the issue, making a quick call, enjoying the contractor’s assistant who came to fix it, being clear about the charges and money exchanges.
Turned around: my mind won’t open in that very split second when the drawer won’t open
Another TurnAround: the drawer SHOULD NOT open (she found some interesting reasons why not, one of them learning how to adjust drawers, and how fascinating drawers actually are)
TA: the drawer shouldn’t open! How fun! How interesting! What do I get to turn towards, since it won’t open?
TA: I don’t open to myself, I sometimes flare up at myself when something doesn’t go “right”, I hit myself with critical thinking and rattle and jam and pull at myself….especially when I believe drawers (or anything) should behave differently. I think of myself as disabled, or unable, like the drawer.
Laughter followed this inquiry, which lasted an hour. I never saw the drawer myself (except in my own mind), but it made a huge impression on my own inquiry work.
I could understand the knife the mind slashes with, when one smallish thing happens that I think shouldn’t be happening.
And no issue is also “too big” for The Work.
This also continues over and over again to be true.
What do we see as the “big” stressful experiences of our lives?
Someone has died tragically, you are sick with a terminal illness, your house has burned down, you’ve lost all your possessions, you’ve been abandoned, you’re hurt.
We can still sit with a profoundly difficult situation in this present moment, and wonder.
Is what I think and believe entirely true about this?
Who would I be without this story?
Just one concept at a time.
This shouldn’t be happening, or shouldn’t have happened….
Turned Around: my thinking about this situation shouldn’t be happening (all the believing and images and panic I’m having isn’t based on absolute reality in this moment)
TA: What is OK, even though this is happening? Am I breathing? Yes. I am surviving, I am still alive, I am here right now.
TA: This situation SHOULD BE happening. There are advantages. Have I missed them? Can I find one, two, three?
I’ll never forget sitting in the audience of a man doing The Work on cancer, after I myself had a cancerous tumor on my leg removed. His tumor, in the brain, was still there despite surgery and treatment.
HE could find advantages for having cancer.
I sat and cried while I listened to him. He found that everything had dropped away that he previously thought of as important, and only love and connection with others, and with himself, remaining.
He found courage where he never thought it existed.
He found appreciation for cancer, instead of battling it endlessly with self-pity and aggression.
He had awareness of the temporariness of life, which we ALL have, cancer or not.
If you find you can’t seem to make the time, or you don’t do The Work unless you’re with other people….you might love dipping your toe in the water of inquiry through Summer Camp for The Mind.
We meet online, Monday through Friday starting Friday, July 5th with Opening Day (2 hours for this first Opening Day call). Every call is 60 minutes, and at different times so something fits your schedule. Come to one call, or all of them.
This program is the offering I do each year by donation (suggested donation $150-$400 depending on how many calls you plan on attending–and all the calls are also recorded).
We share in an online slack forum, no one has to talk, and you learn so much by listening. I can’t believe it, but we start in only a month. A great way to see if Year of Inquiry is also for you, or not.
Sign up here: Summer Camp for The Mind Online Inquiry. Together we question.
“In so far as one denies what is, one is possessed by what is not; the compulsions, the fantasies, the terrors that flock to fill the void.” ~ Ursula K.LeGuin
Let’s not deny what is and scare ourselves, or irritate ourselves, with closed drawers and cancerous thinking.
Let’s do The Work, for peace which passes beyond all understanding.
Exciting.
Much love,
Grace