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This past Saturday I had a most beautiful day facilitating a workshop of incredible inquirers all here to look at their painful thoughts about an important person or issue in their lives.
People are really amazing when they attend a workshop. They show up from many miles away, getting themselves from home all the way to strange and distant location, to be with other people they’ve never met before.
And bare their innermost thoughts and feelings to them.
We’ve probably all noticed how it feels like in being human, there’s an inner self and an outer self.
Inside the mind, there’s the one thinking, feeling, looking, sensing, and chattering away…which is all going on in this inside world. It’s a whole universe in here, and only YOU can see it. Only YOU can hear the voices, pick up the sensations.
And then there’s the outer world of where you stop and the rest of the universe starts, and it is doing it’s thing, filled with life and activity and events.
Have you ever wondered where the line is between inner world and outer world?
The body feels like a boundary area, perhaps, between both worlds. It seems to be close to the place this inner self lives. This thing called me is somehow involved in bringing life to the body and taking it here and there, moving it certain ways, putting clothes on it, resting it, feeding it.
But this seat of consciousness, the deepest inner world that feels so….INNER. Where is it exactly?
Even if we can’t define this inner world exactly and where the boundaries are, isn’t it so fascinating how INNER it seems to be? Like down inside this cave or secret world or separate realm or little hideaway place. Inner, inside, in the middle, the center of everything, at the core, bottom, or heart of it all.
And then, when people gather together in this powerful way in any kind of deeply personal work, intentionally….miracles can happen.
This does not mean lightening bolts come out of the sky, or magic wands are waved (although anything is possible, who knows) but by just the smallest revealing of this innermost world, something can shift, some energy can be moved.
Through this movement, change happens. Things get unstuck.
The first time I ever went to a gathering of people interested in revealing some part of their inner world was a 12 step meeting. I was 19.
I was so filled with suffering, I questioned all the time whether this life was worth living. This seemed like a mad, mad world and I felt equally as mad and VERY UPSET. It wasn’t funny. Full of despair.
I was absolutely amazed that people sat together in one large room and spoke out loud and shared some of the content of their hearts without trying to hide it or make it prettier than it was. They were telling on themselves. I felt like I was not alone in the way I had been thinking, not entirely.
One of the things I love about doing The Work is that the first step is simply identifying what we are actually believing and feeling that is most stressful. The really uncomfortable, mean, vicious, nasty, horrible thoughts we are thinking about someone else (or ourselves). Feelings put to words.
Most of us feel *HORRIBLE*, and I mean really, really horrible, about having these thoughts and feelings in the first place (I sure did).
But keeping a lid on them, locking them down and hoping they would go away never worked well for me. At all. I really tried!
Gathering together with others to reveal these innermost “secrets” and then take them into the light is what doing The Work is. Investigating these truly fascinating critical thoughts, terrified thoughts, sad thoughts.
That’s what our group got to do on Saturday together. So I know, some cracks were made in the inner-world boundaries and light got in.
“If you want to be free, you must first accept that there is pain in your heart. You have stored it there. And you’ve done everything you can think of to keep it there, deep inside, so that you never have to feel it….On the other side of the pain is ecstasy. On the other side is freedom.”~ Michael Singer in The Untethered Soul.
Being willing to reveal the painful thoughts is courageous, and worth it. How incredible are all the humans, who know that staying in what appears to be their inner comfort zone world isn’t going to really work in the end.
They desire freedom more than comfort.
Thank you to the group on Saturday, and every group that has gathered to learn, study, reveal, uncover, and face their inner pain.
Today, you can notice something that pulls you in, something that brings up a little fear (or maybe a lot). Catch it. You are an amazing observer of your own inner world!
Write it down. Take it to the Four Questions…explore it, whether with someone else or with your own wise self.
You only need to look at one thought at a time. No more than one. If there’s a whole stack of ’em, just take a look at the one on top.
“Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be lost but found; not to be seen but known.”~A Course In Miracles
Love, Grace
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. $215. To register write grace@workwithgrace.com now.