There was a time when I became aware, about two years into doing The Work, that sometimes the mind can hold up a belief very solidly in the background of a situation we’re investigating, and not let go.
I didn’t even know I had the belief. That’s the funny part.
I was dating in my forties.
I was also rather shocked to be dating as I had felt so married-for-life in my first marriage of 15 years.
I loved partnership and had mostly been with a partner for the majority of my life since age 16. It seemed easy and natural.
(And before that, I always had one close best friend).
So there I was, meeting men and dating.
There was one man I found incredibly funny and smart, but also quite troubled.
We’d go on a walk or have a meal and talk in depth, and all kinds of weird emotional conflict would appear.
I’d feel nervous, angry, or incredibly disgusted.
Fairly new in my experience of self-inquiry and The Work at that time, I’d write a worksheet on the moment of disruption and get all my thoughts on paper: “he shouldn’t have said that”, “I need him to be different”, “there’s something wrong with him”, “he’s too depressed”, “he’s an addict”.
I would take them through the four questions and find turnarounds and feel amazed with what I learned about myself.
And yet…the conflict persisted.
And so did the on-and-off dating, anxiety, and anger.
When suddenly one day, while sitting quietly in The Work, I heard the voice in my head ask this powerful question:
Why are you trying so, so hard to make this relationship work….when it just plain isn’t?
Why are you trying so hard to like red when you prefer blue?
And the hidden “agenda” appeared before my eyes.
This. Relationship. Must. Work.
Dreams of a future living with this person in bliss, enjoying the support of the money he had accumulated and his good taste, feeling that old natural feeling within me of having one best friend in my life, imagining easy conversations and someone to whom you could say “hey, did you see that?”
Some part of my mind didn’t like noticing this dynamic did NOT really work.
I scared him, he scared me.
Everyone confused and upset. Uneasy.
Ideas about what “success” or “love” looks like.
Is it true it had to work?
Is it true the images I had of “it working” were real? Or was it all imagination? (Um, I would say it was imagination, LOL).
What happened when I believed that relationship MUST work and turn into the relationship I dreamed of?
Well one thing that happened, is I did The Work itself on every tiny thing I did not like, in an effort to land on peace, enforce peace, arrive at peace.
Even my dreams of “peace” were false and guessed at. I said peace didn’t look like the present moment, it looked like a vision I had in the future.
I ignored my preferences, for “peace”. I turned everything around to myself “for peace”. I went places and ate food I didn’t like and said “yes” to invitations “for peace” or “for hope”.
I turned all my stressful thoughts around and then made an effort to keep myself directed narrowly to this goal of making the relationship work: “I shouldn’t have said that”, “I need me to be different”, “there’s something wrong with me”, “I’m too depressed”, “I’m an addict–especially about him”.
But who would I be without the belief “I’m going someplace BETTER in the future (this future relationship working the way I want and imagine)?
Who would I be without the belief “This Must Work”?
On that day I suddenly dropped below my hopes and motives to enforce happiness in the future, my attitude of “fighting” for happiness….
….and I noticed reality.
Reality didn’t look like my plan. Reality didn’t look like celebration and loving connection and beauty and two married people smiling at each other in that moment.
What was the reality?
Not that.
THIS.
And then…the questioning opened up and I became aware of a turnaround: This IS Working.
This is it. This is where this is going.
Right now.
Not in the future somewhere, where heaven awaits.
Heaven could be right here, despite the discord in relating and the difficult thinking and the tortured emotions and apparent confusion.
The sun still shines behind the sky, the world still moves, the breath still flows in and out of this body, the life force still pulses with joy–no matter what I’m ever doing, no matter what is happening, no matter what is being “thought” in any moment.
I could be cleaning dog poop off my shoe, and this is what is, in that moment.
Not the future cleaned up shoe.
Can I notice This. Is. Working.
The relationship may not involve future active connection (turns out it did not) but what a joy to flow with life instead of push against it.
I understood then what Byron Katie and others might be talking about when they spoke of doing The Work with a motive or agenda, how it can block the freedom and peace you have access to right in the middle of any condition, relationship or situation.
Could heaven be possible even with this?
Of course.
Who am I to say “this is not heaven”?
Good news.
It didn’t matter that I had been doing that when doing The Work with a motive of eventually getting to peace. Insight came when it came, at just the right time.
I explored, I stayed, and then I saw, and I broke up with him.
The joy of not knowing what will ever happen, the freedom from being dependent on things going a certain way in order for me to be happy….dissolving.
Who are you without the belief “this is not it”?
Turned Around: This is it. This is life, being lived. This is heaven. This is waking up.
Peace is possible now.
When this realization landed inside me, I knew to break up with this man and that I didn’t have to make myself Not Think of him.
I didn’t know my future and it was totally safe, totally OK. I felt gratitude, clarity, tears, empowerment. Life moved in its own direction.
I couldn’t have gotten there, experiencing that moment as peaceful and exciting, without The Work.
Wow.
“Eventually, through practice, you no longer impose your thinking onto reality, and you can experience everything as it really is, as pure grace.” ~ Byron Katie
If you’ve got beliefs about what is required for peace, for awakening, for love, for eliminating stuckness…you may want to come do The Work on retreat.
Winter retreat is a month away.
Read more here.
We meet for 2.5 hours in Pacific Time morning, then 2.5 hours later, with a nice 4 hour break in the middle of each day for partnering in The Work with someone else in the retreat, movement, your own time, rest.
Every session is recorded for those who will need to sleep during one or more sessions because of your time zone.
The immersion of sitting in The Work with others for six whole days and 30+ hours is, quite honestly, incredible.
And there are two of us to hold you in inquiry, both with our own joy of The Work as facilitators of this profound process.
Tuition is a sliding scale: $375-$895. You choose what works for you based on your resources.
No traveling–it’s all online. You’re in your own space and something supportive about doing it right where you are.
We’ve done online retreat before and it’s worked brilliantly.
We hope you’ll join us and bring the action and aliveness of loving what is into your present moment, without the burden of hoping endlessly for something else.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Not long after that time of realization about relationship and trusting reality on the topic of love, I met a wonderful man who happened to become a husband and live-in partner. Apparently life would have it this way, until it isn’t.