Author: Grace

Grace Bell is author of Grace Notes and facilitates individuals, groups, retreats and courses in The Work of Byron Katie. She supports people with eating issues, divorce, difficult feelings and relationship trouble to find peace.
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Shortie on Money

This is a shortie today!

Money & Your Biz teleclass starts in two days. Email me today if you’re ready to join, gracebell@comcast.net.

There is nothing so wonderful as feeling deep happiness about the exact place I am in right now, today.

No need to push, pull, change, switch, fix, attack, adjust while feeling stress.

There is no emergency about my business and money.

This does not mean lying down on the carpet and doing nothing, taking no action, or giving up.

Doing The Work on anything that causes frustration, fear, anxiety, worry, anger….it brings out that place inside that knows all is well, and from that who knows what wonderful
things can happen in the world of business and money!

Much love,
Grace

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Vaccuuming Truth Comes Out

People often ask me what kind of changes have occurred in my life from using The Work and questioning my thoughts.

One of the most powerful first steps for me, which took about two years to really register inside myself and sink in, was asking the question “IS IT TRUE?!”

In the past, there were quite a few things that weren’t “right” and could be “improved”. Some days there were only a few things that needed improvement, like the weather. Other days, my life was in shambles and I needed more time, more money, more attention, more success, and while we’re at it if someone could just vacuum my living room, things would be better.

Enter the question “is it true?”

When I first learned this question my inner voice didn’t even get it. I didn’t even know that if I thought something, I could question it.

I would see that there was dirt and dust on the floor. My mind would think “that needs to be cleaned up”. I would feel angry, annoyed, there is no time, why didn’t someone else do it, I need a housecleaner, but I don’t want to pay a housecleaner, and I don’t have enough money anyway…..it would gallop wildly along like a stagecoach gone wild, horses flying down the trail. And it all started with a little thought about vacuuming. I would feel STRESS.

If someone had asked in that moment of stress “is it really true that the floor needs to be vaccuumed right now?” I would have looked at them with a big puzzled look on my face.

What do you mean: Is it true? I just got through saying “my floor needs to be vaccuumed” and the reason I said that is because IT IS TRUE.

Look at it! It’s dirty! What kind of person doesn’t see how dirty the floor is right now?! What’s wrong with you, are you blind??!

The difference in my life now is this kind of moment doesn’t have much fuel or life. My mind still loves to come up with an improvement plan. It seems to enjoy ideas about how to have a better future.

But it fizzles out quickly. I have the question “is it true?” inside me. If I don’t remember to ask myself the question, I have a most incredible, wise and loving fiance who asks me if I want to do The Work.

I have sisters who are really thoughtful, who have all done The Work. My mother does The Work (she’s even taken two of my teleclasses).

If I have a stressful reaction to something or someone…I’m surrounded by wisdom, everywhere.

That first question is amazing. If you really get to answer, without any outside authority of any kind, only YOU, what an incredible question IS IT TRUE? Can you absolutely know, 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt if what you’re believing in a stressful moment is TRUE?

I can keep talking about the changes I’ve experienced just from this first Question 1. Now I’m surrounded with powerful people all of whom love that question and help me remember it every day.

Now if I see the floor, and see the dust and dirt, I simply go get the vacuum and I notice I love vacuuming, it’s one of my favorite house-cleaning jobs. It doesn’t have to mean  anything about my finances, my energy level, whether I could afford to hire a house cleaner, and whether someone ELSE in the household should have noticed before me and already vacuumed.

I noticed first, so I get to do it first. I follow the simple directions.

The freedom is incredible….find out what is really true for you.

When you need the help of a group, other people around you who know you need to answer that question for yourself….join us in a teleclass.

With love and your own person truth,

Grace

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Evil Violent Other People

Today in my sexuality teleclass we looked at some of the most painful, violent, gruesome, horrifying judgments we can have about some of the things we hear about, or have experienced, while living on this earth.

These are the judgments we have about the darkness, the real human “hell” of violence, rape, murder. This would be the dark side of sexuality…..

Those “worst people” out there who are evil, destructive, and terrifying. The ones who do unspeakable things and cause awful pain.

We’d rather not even think about them. We wish they would go away and not exist. That they would be destroyed. And we feel really, really separate and different from them. This is a true moment of “duality”. I can totally separate myself from those other terrible people.

But who would I be without the thought that that evil perpetrator deserves to die, that he should not exist, that I could never understand him or her?

What am I showing myself and showing the world if I am talking about those terrible people with hate and fear, with violent words, and keeping them so separate from me. What am I doing if I keep announcing that the terrible person over there is my enemy, is nothing like me, and I will never get close to them.

Loving what is does not mean I think that what humans do is always acceptable. It doesn’t mean I lie down on the floor and let people step on me or walk on top of me. Loving what is, I have discovered, means I don’t turn against the terrible rotten other people. I’m not AGAINST them, resisting them, wanting to kill them.

Katie said this once; “A teacher of  fear can’t bring peace on earth. We’ve been trying to do it that way for thousands of years. The person who turns inner violence around, the person who finds peace and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are waiting for just one teacher…you’re the one.”

YOU’RE THE ONE.

Today can you think of your enemy and ask only the simple question, “who would I be without this thought that this person is my enemy?”

I notice my shoulders relax, I stare out at the gray clouds, and I feel such compassion for all the people suffering….for anyone in the middle of a violent moment towards someone else or towards themselves.

We’ve all been violent, even if it’s only with our own thinking. What would it be like if I didn’t think “this shouldn’t exist and it should be crushed”.

I know I’d start with being much more open. Who knows what can happen from there. The most amazing stories of healing.

The power of the group doing this kind of intense work together, really exploring how we might work with our inner violence, is incredible. We give each other ideas, just by listening to each other’s work.

Thoughts we believed we would never let go of, stories we thought we would never forgive….start melting away.

You are the teacher you’ve been waiting for!

I can’t wait for the next teleclasses….and by the way, think about coming to Breitenbush in June. It will be amazing!

With love and appreciation, Grace

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Third Degree Burn

Many of us have been burned.

I mean literally. We know what it’s like to have this thing called “heat”
where something that is very hot meets with our skin or body
and it burns. The skin is altered, it changes, there is seering pain….
and we now know never to go near that hot thing again in the same way.

If someone gets severely sunburned once, they often put on 70 Sun Block
in the future…..but only when the sun is shining.  It would be crazy to
wake up every morning and put on 70 Sun Block when outside it was
winter time.

When someone has experienced a third degree burn, the most severe,
it’s pretty unlikely that they might be just walking down the street and run
into a huge firey explosion. That would be VERY RARE.

But our minds will return to images of terrible fires, meteors hitting the
earth, loud explosions, or the burning house over and over again, and fear can enter
the body just remembering the incident.

Often people write of emotional pain in the same way as getting a terrible
burn. We even say this…”I GOT SOOOOO BURNED”.

The ones that are third degree emotional burns feel so damaging, permanently
painful, devastating….like there is no recovery, no chance of feeling whole
and good again.

Without the Work, and the possibility of questioning whether or not your
story is absolutely true, you can run a painful experience in your mind
over and over and over again. And over and over. And over.

Enter The Work. When something is really scary and frightening that I’ve
gone through, the first thing I can ask is…am I safe right now? Am I getting
burned right in this very moment? Is there fire anywhere near me?

Well, ahem, clearing-throat…I guess the answer would be “NO”.

“But I feel so terrible! My life is ruined! I’ll never be the same!!!!”

Question #1: Is that actually true? Is your life actually entirely ruined?
Are you still breathing? Are you sure you feel terrible in every minute
of every hour? Are you positive that never being the same is the worst
thing that could happen?

I mean, do you want to be the SAME, really??

Wow, what if that thing that happened that was such a BURN was
something that GAVE ME NEW LIFE. Something that helped me
love more, something that helped me see how I was OK even though
I lost “everything”, something that helped me feel compassion, to
feel less afraid of my fellow humans, to feel more connected to
joy.

Every time I’ve been burned….healing has happened.

The power of the group to help question stories and find the joy again
is FANTASTIC. Come join a spring group to discover the truth about
all your stories of being burned.  You can leave your 70 Sun Block in
your first aid kit, you’ll be safe.

Grace

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I Have Enough Money

A man at the Cleanse was doing The Work on Money.

One of my favorite topics….

He was standing in the audience and raised his hand, and told about how he just wanted to feel really successful and have enough money.

Katie asked him to think about the WORST moment in his entire life where he had the least amount of money.

I have shared my worst moment before. What I say about that moment is that I had absolutely nothing left in my bank account. Maybe something like a few dollars and cents, so that the account still existed.

I had a stack of bills. One was for my mortgage which was due within the next few days.

The man sharing at the Cleanse had a moment, too. He was standing on the street in New York City and had just taken his last $300 and purchased what he thought was a piece of fancy electronic equipment.

When he opened the box, there was nothing inside. He had been conned.

That kind of moment, when you feel revenge, anger, fury at someone because you are sure they are at fault…I can sum it up in just about one word…..”KILL!”

At that moment if I were a samurai, I would take out my sword, like in the famous zen story, and raise it over the person who insulted and conned me, the person who was to blame. KILL THAT PERSON!

In MY worst moment, I blamed myself, which was just as horrible, maybe even more horrible. The bitterness, despair, and thinking I should have prevented this terrible moment with no money in it….”ouch” is too small a word for that moment. It’s more like a huge loud howl of fear.

Then Katie asked the man at the Cleanse, “what happened next?”

The man said he went to stay with some friends. We all burst out laughing. The man had a huge smile on his face.

In my worst moment, all that happened was I sat in a chair and made some phone calls.

Seeing this kind of moment for what it really is, has been incredible.

Katie asks “have you ever really needed any more money than you have had?”

The man at the Cleanse could honestly answer “no”. So can I. And I don’t need any more money right now in this moment either.

Our teleclass on Money, Business, Marketing and all those apparently tricky topics starts next Wednesday!!

Love, Grace

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Primal Scream Group Shares and The Work

One thing I love about The Work, is that it’s not one thing.

What I mean, is that it seems to incorporate into just about all types of therapies and practices and makes them better.

When I was in graduate school studying psychology, I learned about many famous therapists and their ideas about how to help humans stop suffering.

I also tried just about everything that was put in front of me (no, I’m not  talking about food…although as you know from my food stories that on a binge, I did eat everything in front of me….

but I digress, that is not the topic today).

I tried every kind of retreat, workshop, lecture, book, method, exercise, plan, orientation, spiritual practice that might help me understand life and live a better one.

All the way from Arthur Janov’s “Primal Scream,” that was popular in the 1970s where clients cried their guts out and screamed and beat pillows with a tennis racket.

To Freudian three-times-a-week talk therapy with a psychoanalyst. Good ol’ Freud with his talk about “transference”and childhood trauma and “projections”.

Carl Rogers was one of my favorite authors and therapists, and learning about his life and what he called “unconditional positive regard” with clients,  really hearing them, was so sweet, so wonderful to hear that this alone helped people transform themselves.

I loved sitting in a “gestalt” workshop once where all the teachings were from Fritz Perls and we role played like actors….the way Katie works with people, acting the part of that very person who is driving us nuts.

And I’ve spent hours in meditation retreats, listening to the incredible teachings of thoughtful, beautiful individuals who have worked with their own minds and questioned them (in fact I’ll be sitting again with a teacher called Adyashanti next month who is one of my favorites, he’s such a dear and wise man).

And the sharing in 12 steps! Revealing all the darkness, bleakest, rock-bottom stories of extreme suffering to other supportive and honest people who have walked the same walk!

Everything has had its sweet, perfect place. In every room, group, therapist, retreat, or workshop there is wisdom, learning….and there are also PEOPLE! And if there’s not a disturbing, boring, annoying, broken, sad or difficult person….then there’s the weather, or the traffic or the poor quality of the hand-outs! Ha! Voila! The four questions!

Now that I have The Work I notice that asking the four questions enhances every single one of these theories or modalities I’ve encountered over the years. What an adventure!

I love how we humans are thirsty for knowledge, learning, understanding, seeking, reading, analyzing….thirsty for peace. I love how the Work can bring it.

Love, Grace

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Gimme More Right Now

Yesterday I was reviewing the thoughts many of you sent in
that were your Top Three stressful beliefs for 2011.

What a fun list! OK, “fun” is not exactly the word most would use.

So many of our painful beliefs have to do with what we’re
thinking about ourselves:

*I’m not doing enough
*I should be doing MORE
*I’m not good enough
*I’ll never get this right

Katie speaks often that to really do The Work we need to focus on that
other nasty, mean, troubled, sad, difficult person and judge the heck
outta THEM first. We need to write down all our thoughts about them that are
petty, childish, non-politically-correct, rude, nasty, mean…

But those beliefs about ourselves, they feel like a knife in the gut.

And sometimes, those painful thoughts are the ones that are there…it’s
just the way it is. Hateful, brutal, violent, nasty, mean thoughts about
ourselves. They really hurt.

And they are so amazing to question.

Is it really, really absolutely true that you are not doing enough? Are
you absolutely sure that you are not good enough? Can you be positive
that you will NEVER get things “right” or that you aren’t doing the
best you can?

We’re sooooo sure that we could do better.

Yesterday I had the feeling pass through my whole body and mind that
if I said “no” to a dear friend of mine, he would be so unhappy he would
be crushed. He is feeling so depressed he is suicidal.

A toddler screams when you take away the pair of sharp scissors he’s picked
up and was going to put in his mouth. But parents are clear that the
scissors are not safe to chew on, the toddler is confused and doesn’t
know any better.

With adults I become less clear. The simplest requests become complicated.

Our co-workers say “can you work for me next month?” Our children
ask “can you give me some money?” Our parents say “can you come visit us?”
and we notice that we want to say “no” but don’t speak it directly and end up avoiding the person who was asking, or we get mad at them silently (or not-so-silently).

So there I am thinking about myself “I should be doing MORE”. This is really
no different from a good friend asking me for MORE (time, attention, advice).
I notice that I love that friend dearly, he is hurting, and I know that he will be OK. I don’t have to avoid or push him away in anger. He is just being honest, he is being himself, doing the best he can.

I am doing the best I can, too.

So is everyone else.

Who would I be without the thought that I should be doing more, or that I am
not good enough? Or that I need to say “yes” to everyone who asks me for
anything? Or pissed off at everyone who asks me for something?

Who would you be without the thought that all those people out there who are
so annoying, mean, rude or needy could do better than they are doing?

I’d be in a place that was really clear right in that moment. I’d take the scissors
out of the toddler’s hands and then hug the cute little two-year-old while he screamed his eyes out. I might even chuckle that he’s so upset. And he’d probably forget about the scissors in 30 seconds and move on to something else.

I would give to myself, too. I’d feel comfort for myself, feel kind towards myself,
and feel amused at my own mistaken thoughts of how much better I could be doing or how I’m not good enough and ought to be doing more.

Everything would relax….

That’s what doing The Work gives me nearly every time I do it. Freedom
from having to do MORE or be MORE than I actually am. Freedom to say
“no” and freedom to say “yes”.

The next class on Money and Business, such a great topic for clarity around
saying “no” or saying “yes” to others, starts in only 10 days, Wednesdays at 4:30 pm
Pacific time. Check your time zone and join us in exploring freedom!

Much love,
Grace

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Breaking Free From Food Laws

This morning I worked with a client who has had a very common
belief since she was a teenager;

“Crisps make me fat”.

(Can you tell she’s from the United Kingdom?) Of course here in the United States we have the same thought only we say “potato chips make me fat”. In France
they say it in French. Ha!

In countries all over the planet, people learn beliefs about food and
eating. This food is “good”, this food is “bad”, eat lots of vegetables,
quit eating big portions, never eat at night, count every calorie, be
free and eat whatever you like, leave food on your plate, avoid bread at
all times.

These beliefs can get pretty dramatic, like “Sugar will kill you”.

There is so much advice, so many books, and whole university programs
devoted to studying the “best” ways to eat. The anxiety, anguish, confusion,
and hopelessness many people feel who don’t know what to do is enormous.

I love answering question Number Four in The Work….Who would you
be WITHOUT that thought? What would I do, how would I feel, what
would my relationship be like with those potato chips if I didn’t
believe they make me fat?

What would it be like if I didn’t believe the thought that ANYTHING was
“bad” for me to eat or “good” for me to eat?

I might actually notice what I enjoyed. I might try everything. If my
doctor said “you have an illness called diabetes so you need to avoid
this list of foods” then I would stop eating those foods and notice how
many others were available.

If crisps don’t make me fat, like how I felt when I was a little kid about
all food, then perhaps I’d take a bite of them and savor and enjoy and clap
my hands with how yummy they are…..and then I might run outside to play hide-and-seek with all the kids in the neighborhood.

Who would you be without that painful, angry, hateful, sad thought
you have?

Food has so much connection in our minds with “fat”. The real crime,
the most dreadful state, the most horrible, hideous thing some of us think
we could be……is FAT.

But who would we be if we questioned the belief that food of any kind
makes us fat?

For me, I didn’t think that was possible. Of course food made me fat.
But then I remembered that I didn’t believe anything about food making me
fat from the moment I was born until around age 8.

It is possible to be your own personal authority on this subject. To start
all over and un-do your beliefs. Pretend you’re from another planet and
you never heard of certain foods being “bad” or “good”. Find out
what is really, really true for you.

It might be OK to not know anything….to be like a little child full of
joy, happiness, eating with delight, then moving on to the next fun
experience in life.

Questioning the “laws” of food and eating that you’ve learned can lead to
such happy freedom!

I love to do this over and over again with others, in our teleclasses.

The next one starts at the end of March!

Love,
Grace

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Ultimate Control For Control Freaks

I love “control freaks.”

Some of my best friends are control freaks!

(Like the one I see in the mirror every morning).

Actually, the one in the mirror turned over a new leaf. Things didn’t work
very well the way I was living before…..or I should say, the way I was
“thinking” before.

I used to do the “extreme control–extreme outta control” dance.

On the control freak side, I would believe “I AM INDEPENDENT!”
I used to think no one can make me do anything I don’t want to do. I used to think life is tough, you have to work really hard, you have to scan the environment for dangerous people and situations, you have to be a TERMINATOR.

On the outta control side (which would ALWAYS come along as a matter of balance
or something) I would believe “I GIVE UP!” I would think, I have to please other
people, I need to be normal and nice, I need help from other people, and I don’t
care what happens to me. I would be a puddle of jello.

Sometimes I just laugh when I feel myself starting to
try to “control a situation” with my body tension…my fists get tight, I
clench my jaw, I lean forward…

…as if that does anything but HURT!

In my teleclasses, I usually start with a “Katie Quote.”

The other day, in our “Horrible Food-Wonderful Food” class,
I read a quote from Question Your Thinking, Change the World by
Byron Katie. It went like this:

“For people who are tired of the pain, nothing could be worse than trying
to control what can’t be controlled. If you want real control, drop the
illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling a
story about how it doesn’t. That story can never be real.”

One thing I used to notice about that extreme attempt to control
my world, myself, my actions, and avoid difficult situations is that
DESPITE my attempts to control things in a very intense way….
THEY COULD NOT BE CONTROLLED.

I would wind up flipping to a sort-of opposite extreme of surrender.
I would be spent, wiped-out, crushed, smacked down, over-whelmed,
reclusive, king of licking my wounds….you can hear the violence in
this kind of experience.

Trying to control life, to control anything, I always wound up
being “forced” to stop trying to run into the wall head first.

I would have to lie down and rest eventually….

It’s a relief to realize we’re being breathed and our hearts are beating
without us actually doing ANYTHING. The chair is supporting me.
The floor is underneath the chair. I didn’t build this house, or the chair.
I just wound up sitting here today, typing.

I don’t have to hunt down air, it seems to be all around me, and I’m
totally and completely DEPENDENT on it. Eeeewwww! Dependent used
to be a “bad” word for the terminator.

Now it’s a relief. No effort. Just doing what I do right here, now. No need
to add anything more to my to-do list.

And guess what? The more I relax, the more I let go of trying to run things,
the easier life has become. There are kind people absolutely everywhere,
wanting to connect and help. There are fun ideas popping in constantly,
there is creativity and curiosity.

There is “success”, no more debt, always enough air, food, warmth, love,
happiness, laughter.

I love how Katie says “have you ever REALLY needed more money than
you had?!!” Wow. No I haven’t. I’m alive and well, it seems.

Come look at those terminator thoughts, the ones that aren’t so relaxing
and fun, and find out what a blast it is to be “dependent”. (Did you just
squirm?)

To your knowing that there is enough, and you don’t have to try to control
anything….

Love,
Grace

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Push Less Have More

I have a confession to make. I sometimes (especially the past week)
really, really believe the:

I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TIME!!!

This thought is a whole system or way of thinking. If I’m thinking
this thought, it also means that I need to believe that I have things
I need to do that I’m not getting done.

It means I believe if I don’t get things finished, done, completed…
then bad things will happen….or at least no good things will happen.

Quite often, the reason I need more time is so that I can do things
that will GIVE me MORE MONEY, or MORE PLEASURE.

Several years ago I was in the worst place in my life financially. I thought
I might actually lose my house to foreclosure. I had no idea where the
next mortgage payment would come from, and it was due in two days!

PANIC, SADNESS, HORROR.

I knew I needed some help to keep my mind on track, answering the
four simple and profound questions. I knew that since I was really scared,
I might not answer them clearly by myself.

I hired an experienced facilitator of The Work. It was the last money I had.

This wonderful facilitator and dear woman heard all my thoughts about
failing financially. I did The Work on the thought “I need to PUSH to be
successful”.

I knew what I meant by “push”. It meant to stay up late, rise up early,
work-work-work, make phone calls, write emails, show up in person
to meetings, never say No, and to never back down.

It’s like being a real tough guy with fists tightly clenched. No sense of humor,
no relaxation. Steam coming out of the ears!!!

I got to question four. Who would I really be without the thought “I need to
PUSH to be successful”?? What would I do if I didn’t believe that thought?
How would I live my life without that thought?

My whole entire body relaxed. I had this day to enjoy. I noticed that I loved
working with clients. I had amazing friends. I had an incredible family. I noticed
that I thought about how I could move into my mother’s basement, even though I was a grown woman with two kids, recently divorced. Even though I thought that would be embarrassing, I sat with that image in my mind of moving my stuff into my mother’s basement and didn’t reject it.

I found the turnaround “I need to LET GO to be successful”. Could this really
be possible? I didn’t seem like it. But I stayed with the process and found
real examples of how letting go might lead to success.

When I got off the phone with my facilitator, I called my mother. We had one of the best, most wonderful conversations we had in years about what it would be like if I
moved in.

I called my sisters just to connect with them and let them know the truth of what was going on.

I called some very dear friends and talked with them about all my options,
really listened to their suggestions, and waited.

I did nothing, unless it felt really loving (like making those phone calls).

One of my sisters called back and said she would lend me enough money for
three months of expenses. I would need to pay her back in a year. Interest free.

I made that mortgage payment. I still live in my house. But I could move in
with my mother any time and know that it would be a fantastic
adventure in getting to live with her again after 25 years…..but it doesn’t seem
that it will go that way, at least not for now.

If you’d like to look deeply at some of your harshest thoughts about earning
money and receiving income, paying bills, and what it takes to do it, then join the
Wednesday afternoon teleclass that starts in two weeks!

To letting go and pushing less in your life,

Grace