I’m absolutely thrilled to say that Tom Compton will join me again in December at Breitenbush this winter: Dec 5-8, 2019. Arrive Thursday evening, end Sunday lunch. Mark your calendar and call Breitenbush to reserve your spot tuition $295. Lodging and meals are separate (Breitenbush will explain it all when you call them). Read more and get the Breitenbush phone number here.
If you still want to join Summer Camp we have a month ahead of teleconference inquiry and a lively online forum where you can write your work and receive feedback, or answers to your questions about this powerful method called The Work. July 22-August 19 and it’s sliding scale. Daily inquiry for a whole month, a great experiment.
And oh so happy for autumn east coast retreat! We have a magnificent vacation house in the Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania. Private rooms available, along with many beds in lofts and open spaces. Sign up here to reserve your spot and write grace@workwithgrace.com to choose your sleeping space. We’ll share meals.
Oh so much stuff happening, right?
I love meeting everyone I get to share time with both online and in person. Both these ways of sharing The Work offer different benefits, and I’m so grateful for it all.
This week, I’m at a “family summer camp” in Seabeck, Washington on Hood Canal. There are about 250 people who have been coming together annually for years. The camp started in 1947, a part of the Unitarian church.
My children haven’t missed one single summer since they were 1 and 4 years old. They are now 22 and 25.
On the way here, my son said he was unable to go to sleep for awhile the night before, he was so excited about arriving at Seabeck and reconnecting, as he’s used to, every July with all his dear friends, and this beautiful place: lagoon, forest, trails, field.
I had an inner sense of mixed emotion as we got closer and closer to the old wooden bridge where when our car drives across into the camp over the lagoon, the clunk-clunk-clunk sound announcing we’re arriving at the great lodge, about to see many old familiar faces.
I have NOT been to 22 camps in a row.
There was a year when I wasn’t here.
And then another.
And another.
Divorce.
A wash of memories came through once again as we arrived here, as if an old familiar sad song started playing in the background along with the clunk-clunk of the bridge.
I was aware of loving it at this camp historically, then at the time of my first marriage falling apart, opting out because of heart-break and confusion and thinking “I don’t know how I can attend when my husband has just moved out!”
All the shame, imagining I would need to explain myself to everyone, or that people might be whispering about us or wondering what happened? And how could I sit at the family-style dining tables with my then-husband in the great dining hall? Would we sit at the same tables, or not? Could I handle it if he avoided me or sat at another table? Could I be friendly? How could this possibly work?
It seemed like it couldn’t. I just knew at the time during divorce not to come.
I had felt like the abandoned.
The father of my children, my former husband, kept coming to this camp with our kids, without me. I was sometimes so sad at hearing the stories my kids told after they attended camp.
I felt like I was missing so much.
I tried to find incredibly fun alternatives for myself during this week in July. I often did.
One year, my former husband suggested I attend camp with the kids instead of him the following summer so he could do something else.
I was STILL uncertain about going (although I did). What will everyone think? I’m the mom from the broken family, the family no one ever expected to break up. My former husband and I were once the Deans of the camp together, the volunteer staff leaders for Camp 2004.
My first year back in “divorce mode” I was so lonely and awkward at the camp. It seemed people weren’t engaging with me that much. I went on many long solo walks. I thought “I won’t ever come back. He can be the one who gets to attend camp, I’ll leave forever.” Sob.
As we parked and got out of the car just this past Saturday, there was a sad-ish uncomfortable nervous feeling within. Other people were running towards each other with huge screams and feet-off-the-ground hugs, but not me. In my mind I had the thought “I don’t belong” yet again.
I even had the words form in my mind “why did I come?”
EXCEPT.
I now have the question “is it true?”
Who would I be without this entire long drawn-out saga of a story?
Who would I be without my story of broken, divorce, can’t, don’t belong, shame, failure, abandonment?
Without this epic story, I notice peoples’ eyes saying hello. I notice smiling faces, and kind hands reaching for a hand shake. I hear someone ask “how has your year been?” and another person say “so good to see you”.
I watch my son and daughter joyfully meet their good friends.
I take in the days here going to lectures, small discussion group, walks, underneath a tree having a heart-to-heart talk with a very dear woman, attending evening performances. I even enter one night and sing a song. I observe faces I remember, and sit with others during meals to share conversation about meditation, housing in Seattle, how much sleep we’re getting, and changing life.
Who would I be without my story?
No longer complaining.
Not upset, sad, piteous, or abandoned.
Sure, I remember what a hard time it was to shift from one way of imagining life to a different way, but a thread of life ran through the entire switch from regular camp attendee and married woman, to unmarried woman who sometimes isn’t at camp, and now back to married woman again who has been at camp for 3 years in a row again.
And is any of that even who I am?
Haha. No.
Today, noticing a soft cool night, noticing I’m not attending the concert and the internet might just remain connected in this remote place so that this writing can be shared, noticing a deep, deep relaxation and the support of gravity, bed, quiet, humans, rain-fresh air coming through the open screened window, and inquiry.
Who would we be without our stories of those committed relationships, or un-committed relationships, or other people and what they think?
Present.
If you’ve got divorcing stories or divorced stories or what-other-people-think divorce stories…you may love joining the upcoming Sunday online live course
Divorce Is Hell: Is It True?“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.” ~ Pema Chodron
The basic realization that other people can’t possibly be your problem, that it’s your thoughts about them that are the problem-this realization is huge. This one insight will shake your whole world, from top to bottom.” ~ Byron Katie
