INTRODUCTION to Emptiness:
Click here for introduction: Emptiness: A Great Frontier of Mystery
LESSON ONE: Longing, Boredom, Hunger
Click here to watch Lesson One.
ACTION STEPS FOR LESSON ONE:
- Journaling/Noticing exercise: How is it useful, interesting, or helpful to feel empty–physically or emotionally? Is there something you want to do, say, be that you aren’t?
- What are the gifts of emptiness, boredom, indifference, restlessness? Is there something calling you? Do you have any fear about following that calling?
- What is wrong with this empty moment? COMPLAIN ABOUT IT! I have some complaints: __________. What should this moment be like instead? What do you believe you should be doing, or not doing? What do you believe others should or shouldn’t be doing? Make a list.
- Bring a stressful belief you find to inquiry: on your own, with a partner, on the HelpLine, in our group call.
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Two powerful questions about empty or boring moments: Is anything being avoided here? What is longing to be made conscious?
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LESSON TWO: Healing shame and guilt with food, eating or our bodies
Watch Lesson Two: Healing Shame and Guilt here. Pause the video while watching, if you like, to complete the following action steps.
ACTION STEPS FOR LESSON TWO:
- What I’m most ashamed of in my life is___________
- What I’m most ashamed of when it comes to eating, food or my body is_______________.
- What does it mean about me? Pick just one. For this program, we choose what we feel most ashamed of when it comes to eating, food, our bodies.
- Take one of these concepts through the four questions and find your turnarounds.
- Living Turnaround: consider a name, word, short phrase, simple “feeling” state can be your resource as a living turnaround. If you haven’t listened to the last meditation in our Feelings Module 2 on finding your living turnaround, listen to it and choose a powerful word to save and keep to live your turnaround, even though you experienced shame.
- Download emotions_and_reactions lists for The Work self-inquiry Question 3 and Question 4 to use in your work.
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LESSON THREE: Relaxing around PLEASURE
Watch Lesson 3, the Pleasure Presentation here.
Notice thoughts you may have that you’d like to take to inquiry. Have you ever thought of pleasure as dangerous? Have you been unwilling to change your beliefs about pleasure, and what is possible? Could you experience pleasure with joy and gratitude, instead of worry?
ACTION STEPS FOR LESSON THREE:
- Questions to consider: What did you learn about pleasure that wasn’t comfortable, particularly when it comes to food and eating? Were you told it was dangerous in some way? What happens to people who experience great pleasure in eating food? What is stressful about eating food with pleasure, passion, mmmmm? If someone were to see you eating (when you eat in secret, or eat something you feel ashamed of) what’s the worst that could happen?
- Common stressful thoughts that appear in emptiness and pleasure, and fear of letting go of control:
- I am not enough
- something else is not enough
- I am abandoned
- I’m disappointed…I thought there would be more
- I should…
- I need to fill up
- Hungry Ghosts: What wandering part of you, or what ancestors of yours who may be seeking satisfaction, would you be willing to honor or nourish?
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LESSON FOUR: Romance, couples and eating
Watch the following couple do The Work and notice. Is there anyone in your life where you’ve felt the same? What have you noticed about eating together, or providing or offering food, or sharing food with someone close? Did anyone ever tell you what to do (to eat)? Have you ever told yourself what to do (to eat)?