Month: February 2020

First Friday of the Month (free for anyone on zoom) has been running for about five years. I love the group and the variety of people who appear. Everyone is welcome, any time. We record it and I share it with Grace Notes and Eating Peace readers. There is no fee. You can listen, or participate, as you wish.

This month of February we did some brilliant work on relationship conflict. First Friday from February 7th listen here.

Because I love the First Friday groups so much, I’m inspired to offer something valuable for people one-on-one that also has no charge but instead, another service that can help other people.

Here’s the brilliant idea (and it won’t be for everyone):

You come do The Work in a solo session on anything you find stressful in your life, and in exchange for no fees and no requirements of any kind (except coming with your open mind ready for self-inquiry) your session is recorded for Peace Talk podcast.

It’s OK to leave your name out, and to not use other peoples’ names either.

I know not everyone is willing to be recorded for public sharing….but for those who are willing and able, your work, shared, is service. You can choose audio-only or zoom conference call.

Currently the time slot set for this free session in The Work is Fridays at noon Pacific Time. If you feel enthusiastic about this and want to do this work and you can’t meet Fridays, hit reply and we’ll find another hour that works better. I hope to offer one every week.

Schedule your session here: Schedule NOW.

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Sometimes, the inquiry appearing before me through clients in solo sessions and the groups I facilitate have  themes-of-the-week, and they are all for me.

Well, only all of the time.

But there has been a theme recently. A sense of failure, terror, lack of safety. People felt very triggered and lost about an incident or situation in their lives. Deep regret, or a crushing sense of despair rose up–many times, one session after another.

People with many different stories. But with the very same thoughts. Brutal ones. (For my facebook live inquiry on “that person betrayed me” visit Work With Grace facebook here).

Someone’s friend died within two months from first learning about cancer to death, someone else had to give up a huge travel dream because of a husband’s Parkinson’s disease, someone else discovered a business partner was embezzling money, someone else lost a job.

I myself learned a very close loved one had an untold secret.

Shock. Surprise. Devastation. 

What happens when you discover a terminal diagnosis, get sacked, find out someone stole money from you, learn something that shocks you?

A huge NO rises up. Panic.

I got to sit in inquiry with these amazing, courageous people and listen, be there with them, follow the simple directions of asking and answering four questions.

First of all, is that story true?

Entirely, absolutely true?

When we believe the terrible story, what happens?

In one of our Eating Peace inquiry sessions, we worked the belief “I can’t bear it.”

This can be about an emotion, that horrible situation we’ve encountered, but also a craving, this body weight, the belief we need to diet or work harder.

When we’re shocked, or even mildly worried, we suffer.

Sleepless, our thoughts buzz all night.

In the situation where I learned of a troubling secret….I felt adrenaline run through me and later, tears.

In a Year of Inquiry a brilliant thought again arose “all the work I’ve done is for nothing!”

Wow. More discouragement. I could find it.

So who would we be without this terrible, shocking story?

Just for a moment, we pause the belief and look, feel, ponder, sit still.

As I imagine that person with the secret revealed, without my story of a future or a past or the I-KNOW mind….

….I gaze with a sort of open wonder. Looking, puzzling.

Fascinated. 

Noticing my own so called “shock” relax. Noticing an inner self or identity dissolve.

The identity that says “it should be different, NOT like this, for me to be happy.”

Is that really true?

No.

World does what it does. People do what they do, the best they can in that moment. Here in the center of this being is silence, space, patience, curiosity.

Curiosity always feels better than “NO!”

“The mind is prior to whatever it perceives. It is pure and lucid and completely open to everything: the apparent ugly just as much as the apparently beautiful, rejection as much as acceptance, disaster as much as success. It knows it’s always safe. It experiences life as an uninterrupted flow. It doesn’t land anywhere, because it doesn’t need to; besides, it sees that landing somewhere would be a limitation. It notices each thought it thinks, but it doesn’t believe any of them. It realizes that there is never any solid ground to stand on. What flows out of its realization is freedom. ‘No place to stand’ is where it stands; there’s where its delight is. When inquiry is alive inside you, every thought you think ends with a question mark, not a period.  And that is the end of suffering.” ~ Byron Katie

Turning the terrible horror story, unbearable story, secret story, betrayal story, all-for-nothing story, hurt story around:

My thinking is horrible. 

This situation is NOT horrible. 

This situation is OK, the way of it, even serves me. 

I find examples, whatever I can genuinely find. I don’t guess or make it more positive than I believe it really is, I notice the truth.

I’m breathing, I’ve survived, the sun rose this morning, I slept a few hours, I reached out to friends, inquiry was available to me over and over again and bubbled and popped in the background, I detached, I let an expectation go, I trust.

Are you OK? Have you noticed how you could bear it? How you made it through?

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you’d love to sit in inquiry for four days in May, I’m having retreat at my home in Seattle May 13-17, 2020. Come gather with me for Spring Cleaning of the Mind. A relief, a joy, a rest. Read more HERE. Limited to 12.