I have been asked similar questions so often in the past six months, it’s a little uncanny.
When I get asked a question many times, I finally listen (LOL). Some of us are a little thick.
The questions have been like this: “When are you going to have a month-to-month way to join Year of Inquiry?” or “Can I join right now, even though you already started?” or “Since I did Year of Inquiry before, how does repeating it work again?” or “Do you have a way to connect people for partnering in The Work?” (I get asked this last one a lot).
Seriously, I’m not sure why this has been the most asked year for these kinds of questions ever.
But it has made me go through the process of considering what many of us want, need, what brings us joy and what works money-wise and time-wise.
The current Year of Inquiry is Group #10! We just got underway in September. It feels like we’ve barely begun, and I love everyone already.
The inquiries have been profound: aging mothers, bored and stuck at work, family of origin, divorce, infertility, suicide.
So here’s what I have available right now if you’re seeking community in The Work and want to join with others to stay steady in your practice, learn to facilitate (yourself or others) better and better, and open to the ever-expanding road of questioning stressful thinking….
If you have already been a part of any Year Of Inquiry in the past at any time, you are invited and welcome to join the current program in either of the following ways:
a) Join the program starting November 2019 through August 2020, which includes Summer Camp for The Mind, in one discounted total.
A great way, and inexpensive way, to connect the whole rest of the year with others, visit all the monthly topics with new fresh eyes and situations, and have partners to work with who are a part of this community.
b) Join month-to-month for a minimum of three months. You decide when you need to pause or stop your participation.
If you are newer to The Work, or, totally new to Year of Inquiry and you’re really wanting to join, hit reply and write to me to see if it’s a good fit.
If you’ve never done YOI before start right away (November) through August for one fee or a monthly fee through August. If you’re new, we won’t have the coming-and-going option (yet) because my story is it’s tricky to jump into a group doing The Work without any experience doing it at all.
But I could question that.
I’m working on clarity for next year right now, so if you’re genuinely drawn, you feel like you can get what you need doing The Work through community and a shared journey.
I find, there’s nothing like doing this work in the company of others.
Which is a little funny.
Because, my story is I come out extreme on the introverted scale, so joining with others doesn’t really seem necessary.
Yes, I took that Myers Briggs test to score your level of introversion-extroversion and the other three personality arenas. At age 19 I came out INTP. Then age 33 or so I came out INFP. Then when my son was in high school psychology class he had me take a test online that I didn’t recognize (it was a newer version of the same thing). INFP again.
And always extreme on the introvert scale.
On all these scores, I was so “introverted” there was almost zero extraverted affirmative answers.
(I don’t get it either).
However, it doesn’t mean you don’t like people, groups, connection, or conversation if you’re introverted. I happen to adore people and find them and this world absolutely fascinating.
But isn’t self-inquiry a journey to ultimately take on your own in the end?
I mean, whose mind is being questioned? Mine.
This is “self” inquiry.
Right?
Well.
What is this “self” we’re speaking of? Is this mind, this thinking process….yours?
When I first came to do The Work, I was well aware of acute suffering within me. I knew the person sitting on the chair next to me in my first workshop with Katie did NOT have the same problems as me. Their life was unique to them.
I was there for MY problems. I wanted ME to be different. I wanted desperately to see things more positively, and not feel so horrible about myself.
I even ignored the directions to judge my neighbor–meaning someone else–because I “already knew” it was ME who needed to change.
Is that true, though?
Can we absolutely know it’s true?
Even if you say “yes” this is an amazing story to ponder.
It’s interesting to notice the huge argument I was having with reality, in thinking I should be different.
These are MY thoughts. This is MY personality. This is MY problem. This is MY way of thinking. I am messed up. I am in pain. I am NOT enlightened. Something is missing for ME. If only I could be different. I need to fix this suffering I am engaged in.
What happens when you believe you just need to get yourself sorted out, fix your own thinking, change your thoughts?
I tried to do it on my own. I felt ashamed of myself. I really didn’t want other people to hear my thinking (such bad, bad thinking). I was super embarrassed the first time I read a Judge Your Neighbor to another person.
Yikes.
Who would you be without this story?
What if it’s not YOUR story?
What if it’s simply a way the mind works; trying to survive, responding fearfully (which is not a crime), responding with worry about dis-connection or being banished from the tribe…Human. With emotions of all types and flavors.
Human needing support and contact with reality. Because self-critical thinking isn’t someone with a good handle on reality.
How do we know? It hurts.
Turning the belief around: This inquiry process is not personal. These are not my thoughts. This is not “my” personality. This is not only my problem. This is a common way of thinking. I am normal. I am in pain and will move out of pain. I am enlightened with every honest inquiry. Nothing is missing for me. If only I could be exactly the same as I am, without being against reality. I don’t need to fix this suffering I am engaged in.
Could all of this be just as true, or truer?
Without “my” story….I ask (or something asks) people to do this amazing inquiry process with me, and we look.
Together.
Finding out you’re not alone, through these questions, is exciting, brilliant, peaceful.
If you need help or support in doing The Work, one place in the world you can share it with others is this Year of Inquiry group. Some people just keep on signing up for it every year.
Apparently I’m a good candidate for the ten year plan….and beyond. I need you all. I love each and every person who joins me on this journey. You’re supporting me, just by being you.
And even if you never join a group program, you can do this without signing up for anything. Find a mate who can ask you the four questions and listen.
Connection is a most profound energy. We are not alone.
Something I read at the recent autumn retreat is very profound about this position we often take as “teacher”. I am being a “teacher” to myself in a very critical way when I believe I’m wrong. My ego is bursting with being sure I’m the awful, depressive, horrible, mean, messed up one–the one needing improvement.
Who would we all be without our stories of something being a problem, where you need to teach even yourself and your own mind the “right” way to be?
“The Work is wonderful, because it leaves you with the real thing, beyond all answers. t leaves you with no concept of who you should be. There are no models, no ideals; the goal isn’t to be wise or spiritual. You just notice what is. I like to say, ‘Don’t pretend yourself beyond your own evolution.’ What I mean by that is ‘Don’t be spiritual; be honest instead.’ It’s painful to pretend that you’re more evolved that you are, to be in the position of a teacher when it’s kinder to yourself to be in the position of a student. Inquiry is about the truth, which doesn’t necessarily look the way you think it’s supposed to look. Truth is no respecter of spirituality. It only respects itself, just as it appears now. And it’s not serious; it’s just God laughing at the cosmic joke” ~ Byron Katie in A Thousand Names For Joy, page 194
Hit reply and ask me about joining Year of Inquiry for the rest of the year (or for YOI alumni, at least 3 months any time between now and August). We’ll get you on board.
Much love, Grace
- December 5-8 I’m with the good Tom Compton as we co-facilitate a winter retreat at Breitenbush Hotsprings in Oregon (filling fast)
- Eating Peace Retreat January 15-20 in Seattle is a wonderful adventure in freedom from eating concerns, eating thoughts, consuming thoughts, worries about fatness or thinness–a few more spots (retreat house is full with the exception of a shared room for a woman–you would have a twin bed)
- Divorce/Breaking-Up/Separation Is Hell: Is It True? online course co-facilitated with the delightful Nadine Ferris France, begins again January 12-March 8 Sundays 11:00am-12:30pm PT.