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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You should really be over this by now–is that actually true?

If you’ve had eating troubles of any kind, then your mind has likely said loudly to yourself:

“Really? You did this again? What’s WRONG with you? You should be OVER this by now!”

Let’s inquire into this thought today, with The Work of Byron Katie.

Is it true you should be over this “problem” by now?

Are you absolutely sure?

What I noticed over the many years I struggled with eating, food, weight….is that I wasn’t over it.

And to this day, there remain concepts to look at that have to do with food, eating, moving. I may not be binge-eating or purging or so extreme with food anymore, but there’s still noticing and awareness and change and interest in peace in every situation.

How do you react when you believe you should be over it, when you aren’t?

Very harsh. I become a Dictator about myself. Or I curl into a ball of sadness and despair.

Desperate, hopeless, angry.

So who would you be without the thought you should be over something that you aren’t over?

And we’re talking about food and eating and weight management and all of that here (although there are many other things people think they should be “over” that they are not actually over).

Without the belief I should be over something I’m not, I feel very curious about the behavior. I have questions. I feel a greater awareness, a willingness to support this person I apparently am.

I inquire. I want to look. I might even ask for help, join with others, find greater support.

I’d look and see what the eating was expressing. What was I afraid of? Worried about? What’s my relationship with reality in the minutes surrounding this eating behavior? What have I not looked at, or what am I missing here that I’ve been afraid to see, or concerned about?

What would make me think overeating, or starving, is the only solution or way to solve my discomfort in this moment?

Who would I be without this story?

Turning my thoughts around: I should NOT be over it, I should be over my thinking. 

What’s the message? “This” energy can’t stop until I face it, look at it, respond to it.

I might even notice that I can say “no” to eating, even if my mind offers this as an option, and cravings have begun. I can be over my “thoughts” in this situation. I don’t have to take action on everything my thoughts tell me.

Including eat.

Could the eating I’m doing and my relationship with food have something to do with my worries about life? They sure did for me. The eating helped me to identify what it was I was thinking and believing about people, what people thought of me, my condition, being small, the dangers of life, the unfairness, anything I might worry about.

I can look at what’s going on in any troubling situation, and inquire.

Thank you, disordered eating, for showing me where my perceptions have not been peaceful about reality.

Much love,

Grace

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This isn’t it. The Work of Byron Katie challenges a very stressful thought.

  • First Friday 8/3 was quite profound. Both the sweetness of the newcomers and people’s questions about doing The Work, plus the inquiry that followed. We’ll return to regular 7:45 am PT next month (and be sticking with that time for awhile). Join First Friday call.
  • Live webinar! Ten Barriers to The Work and How to Dissolve Them. This in-depth online workshop is open to anyone feeling stuck or curious or interested in common bumps in the inquiry road I’ve seen rise up in myself and others that can be questioned. I’ll be offering it twice: Tues, August 21 8:00 am PT and Thurs, August 23 4:00 pm PT. To save your seat, sign up HERE. It’s completely free and I’ll share about Year of Inquiry at the end.

There’s a lot going on this time of year in the Work With Grace cottage.

The days are long and bright, there’s an excitement and energy about gatherings both for The Work, and for connection and celebration in general.

Last night, I had a conversation with someone I met at a big dinner party full of friends and family.

This man had years and years (he told me he was eighty years old with a fabulous chuckle) of experience working with people as a therapist.

We were sharing our joy of understanding the human condition, and what healing feels like or looks like, and he made an interesting comment: Even the most brilliant, genuis thinkers just want connection.

He was commenting about really, really smart people, after he had shared with me some of his experiences with professors and scientists and researchers he had worked with as a therapist.

The thing is, this yearning for connection might come from any one of us (even those of us who are just average in the smart department). People often want to feel like they belong somewhere and are somehow related or connected to their surroundings and others.

Like the feeling of “this is home”.

It feels elusive sometimes. At least is has for me.

The mind is just so good at saying the following kinds of phrases about our condition or place in the world, or wherever we happen to be in the prevailing moment:

  • This is not it
  • I don’t fit in
  • I can’t be comfortable here
  • Love, success, contact, connection is somewhere else, not here
  • I’m not happy in this situation, location, building, life
  • It must be more exciting somewhere else
  • It must be more successful somewhere else
  • It must be more accepting or loving somewhere else
  • This is close, but not hitting the mark
  • Maybe the feeling of “home” for me is in (insert name of town, country, province, region, planet)

Oh my.

How many times did I start thinking; I know. I’ll move. If I just changed up my environment, I’d calm down, feel safe, be OK, have more fun, be successful, be entertained. 

In the Twelve Step programs they sometimes refer to the concept “Geographical Cure”.

I moved something like 28 times before I was 30, and then even after I purchased a home (so privileged to be able to) with my first husband, I couldn’t stop imagining Other Places to move to.

Which we did. After 8 years, we moved. Then after 5, we moved. Then 3, we moved.

Now, I’ve lived in one cute little cottage for 12 years. This is a world record in my life.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with moving, striving to find “home”, trying on different places, hunting, looking, searching and re-searching.

I still sometimes imagine creating an adventure, taking trips, getting into motion, ‘going on an explore’ as Winnie The Pooh says.

But. The low-level sense of being restlessly on the move and hunting for home (not here), however, seems to have fallen away. What a relief.

It’s because of questioning my thinking. Seriously.

So let’s do The Work. Because the other day, I had the thought “this place is too small and crowded”. Followed by laughter, then me filling two bags with clothing and other stuff and taking it all to Goodwill donation center.

Someplace else is home. This isn’t “it”.

Is that true?

Yes. Will you look at this place? When anyone comes over, we’re squeezed. It’s not right because of (fill in the blanks, you can make your list).

Can you absolutely know it’s true that where you are is not home? That it’s not possible to settle in, and rest in this moment?

No.

How do you react when you believe “this isn’t it”?

OMG.

I am engrossed in gathering information about Other Places like a crazy person. If only I had x passport, if only my husband had different work, if only I had x money, if only I was younger/older, if only my kids were x, if only the neighbors were y, if only my roommates were z, if only I could go live in the monastery….

In the past, I’d set to work on Project Go.

So who would you be without the thought “this isn’t it?”

“Enjoy the changing scenery around you. Reality improves when you’re rooted in the timeless within. It improves because you no longer place demands on it that it cannot meet, the demand being ‘you should satisfy me. Things should be the way I want them to be.’ When you don’t place demands anymore on what a place or person or circumstance should give you, you can enjoy them much more. The little birds chirping outside don’t have a problem.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Without the thought “this isn’t it” I pause, I wait. I wonder. I move more slowly. I don’t have the feeling “RUNNNNNN!!!!” (LOL).

I don’t feel compulsively like an addict imagining the future constantly, with pictures of how it will be. Later.

I look around more closely, with curiosity, at what’s presenting itself in this environment I seem to be surrounded by. These people. These circumstances. This place.

Turning the thought around: This IS it. 

How could that be just as true, or truer?

Look around. Can you find what you appreciate about your situation–whether it’s the environment, the people, the place?

Being here in this moment now, I always notice is rather exciting. There’s no future. There’s no past. Or if there is, they are both flashes of memory or images in the mind, and here is vibrant and alive.

It’s safer, kinder, more colorful than I expected.

I notice what I thought was crowded and small (and loud) is now entirely silent except for the tap tap of my fingers on a keyboard. No one is here, but me. There’s all kinds of space in this living room. All the stuff that was piled here before is gone.

It’s just so fun to notice what’s actually true. And that at one moment, my judgment of a situation passing through changes completely.

How is this situation wonderful for you? How are you supported? What’s working for you, in this situation you thought wasn’t “it”?

Turning it around again: My thinking isn’t it. 

Haha. Enough said.

“The Work wakes us up to reality. When we take it on as a practice, it leaves us as flawless, innocent, a figment of pure imagination. Practicing inquiry takes a Buddha-mind, where everything, without exception, is realized as good. It leads to total freedom.” ~ Byron Katie in A Mind At Home With Itself

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you’d like regular practice with like-minded friends all interested in questioning our thinking as a way of life, you might love enrolling in Year of Inquiry. Join one of the upcoming webinars (see above) or visit the page here to learn more. People have already started signing up. I can already tell, it will be a very good year.

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Behold your world. The judgments you believe just created it.

Before inquiry today, four upcoming events (the first one completely free):

1) First Friday! Open Inquiry Jam. This month of August we meet Friday, August 3rd at 4:30 pm Pacific Time  Here’s the link: Join First Friday call.

2) Yesterday, I opened up a letter from Breitenbush Hotsprings. It was hard to imagine all the information it contained about winter, as I sat in 90 degree weather in Seattle.

Winter Retreat is December 6-9, 2018 at Breitenbush Hotsprings! (Woot!) I’ll be accompanied again by my skilled husband and partner in offering The Work. We’ll be in the cozy, magical atmosphere in deep Oregon cascades and hot mineral springs of Breitenbush doing The Work right in the middle of holiday season. A gift indeed (and helpful for visits with Family of Origin–FOO). For more information and to get a running start on planning, visit this link here.

3) Year of Inquiry. So exciting to start again in September. A monthly topic, inquiry live on Tuesday AM and Thursday PM every week (except the last week of the month), a private active forum for sharing online, a powerful way way to stay connected and engaged with supportive peers, and your own brilliant self, in The Work.

This year in YOI, we’ll have a group focusing on facilitating The Work, a track for those wanting to refine their facilitation and partnering skills. (No extra fee for anyone in YOI who wants training in facilitation). Those wanting to do this will facilitate in some of our group live inquiry sessions.

Year of Inquiry is almost half the price of The 9 Day School for The Work and YES, we meet for the entire year,including two months of Summer Camp in July and August 2019. YOI begins in September.

4) Fall Retreat. I’m surprised to say people are already enrolled in October 17-21, 2018 Seattle retreat. Anyone in the FULL YOI program automatically has a spot in this retreat (as well as spring 2019). But there’s room set aside for those to attend who are not in YOI. CEUs for mental health practitioners.

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The daily inquiry in Summer Camp has been profound.

Truly. I was honestly kinda thinking before we began, shouldn’t I give myself a break in the summer from The Work and do this whole summer camp thing another time?

I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

It’s the most exciting summer vacation I could ever imagine: the thrill and peace of questioning beliefs that feel bad and aren’t really true.

For example.

Have you ever had dread about an upcoming conversation, event, presentation, meeting…where you’re sharing or doing or leading something and Other People  have eyes and/or ears on you?

You’re in the spotlight! You’re on! (Heart begins to pound).

The other day, an inquirer in Summer Camp brought up a common stressful situation, and something about it was so beautifully and honestly offered…everyone enjoyed listening and doing their own work on this thought.

“My imperfections will be judged by others”. 

What was the situation where this thought appeared in the inquirer’s mind?

Why, right there in Summer Camp on the group calls!

They’ll hear my crazy thoughts, my judgments, my quirks, my childishness, my nervousness (etc, etc). They’ll “see” me and my faults. My imperfections will be blatantly obvious! 

Then, someone else the following day did The Work on dreading a conversation with a manager at work. “He’ll correct me”.

It was a similar anticipation. In that situation, I’ll be analyzed, evaluated, graded. That person will judge me. It won’t be good! 

Oys.

I’ve had this thought so many times in my life. In school, in front of my parents or siblings, at work, on stage, in friendships, in relationships, at parties, in discussions, in social scenes, leading retreats.

Is it true they’ll judge me?

Well….er….yes.

Isn’t that what we all do? It seems, we judge.

But what meaning are we placing on this judgment that appears to be happening? What’s going on?

Because it feels really bad. It feels frightening.

Can I absolutely know my story about judgment is true?

Can I know it will be bad, or already was bad in the past?

Can I know those times when I was judged were horrible times never to be visited again?

Is it really true that I need their approval, or thumbs-up, or high grade, or to be seen as brilliant or perfect or adequate or favorable?

Wow. No.

How do you react when you believe they’ll judge you because of your imperfections, and it’s Not Good?

Scared. Pictures of the past, all the way back to grade school, or scenes from family moments when dad or mom disapproved. Pictures of the future, being alone, alone, alone.

I’m reminded of how afraid I’ve been sometimes of being alone, and how other people have shared with me that they have this same fear.

How do I react?

I’m super quiet. I never raise my hand. I don’t speak up when someone says something I don’t agree with, OR, I speak up with defense. I start feeling the separation between me and them. I’m not connected.

So who would you be without this thought that they’ll judge me….for anything? Without the thought that their judgments would be terrible, if they DO judge me? Without the belief I need anything from them at all?

Holy Moly.

I’d feel all the dread run down the drain and out of my body. I’d remember that nothing is required for happiness MORE than what’s happening right now, in this moment.

I’d know happiness is not based on what people say, think, do, behave like, or feel. About me.

The beautiful inquirer who did this work in Summer Camp with everyone found her heart-beat was normal, her nervousness dissolved, and the whole kit-and-kaboodle of this thought “they’ll judge me for my imperfections” was gone.

We all spent time finding turnarounds.

TurnAround: They will NOT judge me for my imperfections, I’ll judge myself for my imperfections, I’ll judge THEM for their imperfections, (and sometimes I’ll judge them for MY imperfections–LOL).

The story will not be true…about imperfections and judgment. The story has NOT been true so far.

I have survived, I have felt joy, love, connection despite judgment running in minds (my own, others). I’ve felt the full range of being human, and others having judgments, and lived.

I might even actually be able to find the turnaround (I can) that YAHOOOOOOO! My imperfections have been, are right now, and will be judged by others!! 

Because I’m a regular normal mediocre human who’s part of the pack, here at this time temporarily on planet earth, and I’ve been moved this way then that way because of the music of judgment. Including discovering The Work.

Who would I be without my story that judging is bad, or results in permanent separation, or death, or whatever else we’re most terrified of?

“Behold your world! The judgments you believe just created it……No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

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The Hunger-Fullness Scale: A Guide to Get You Back to Your Natural Way of Eating

So what is the hunger-fullness scale and why should we use it as a guide or a stepping stone to eating freedom?

Well for one thing, my favorite thing of all about this scale is that it’s really a felt sense within. Not another thing you have to read about and follow by studying a book.

This scale is something that’s felt in the body, with no absolute definition. It’s subjective.

It means you are the one in the driver’s seat…or really, your body is. Your mind and your “plans” are not in charge.

Your physical feeling sense of empty and full is the one in charge. Not your EMOTIONAL FEELINGS, either.

This contact with physical sensation has to include the part of you willing to slow down, check in with your inner sense of satiation, and honor it deeply.

In today’s video I answer a few questions I get about the Hunger-Fullness scale and talk about it a little more.

The Hunger-Fullness Scale can hold all diet plans, ways of eating (vegetarian, vegan, meat-eater, and any kind of format for eating, weight watchers or a diet if that’s where you are right now).

It can accompany any way of eating that eliminates some foods and adds in others. Always, the body and the sense of honoring it’s guidance leads the way.

You don’t have to be there instantly.

Just know about this scale of awareness, and practice.

You may have had your head, or counting, measuring, weighing and other methods of portioning food or following rules lead the way and be in charge for a very long time.

This is about seeing the freedom built into you as a human. This freedom and feeling gives you exactly what you need when it comes to boundaries and guidance with eating, if you’re willing to feel it.

And if you are not willing….you might ask yourself why not? What would override your hunger-fullness boundaries?

Whatever would override this scale is deeply worthy of exploring. It’s difficult to do at first, but oh so possible.

It’s so powerful, that turning towards it to look and understand whatever would override NOT EATING when you aren’t hungry and EATING when you are, can result in immense insight and awareness.

If you follow this hunger-fullness scale, you automatically return to the simplicity of eating when hungry, and stopping when full. No diet or control of any kind is necessary.

And as for inquiry…..this is very, very important. You have to know how to identify what takes you away from the natural process of the hunger-fullness scale within, and then question it.

If you’d like with guidance through the tool called The Work of Byron Katie for this process of inquiry, you might love the Seven Day Course for Dingalings. It’s helping people go through this profound practice one bite-sized amount at a time, for a week. Sign up for it here.

Much love,

Grace

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Who would we be without our thoughts about death?

It’s been the most days in between Grace Notes writing I’ve had since I began them five years ago.

I was working on what felt like one of the most important speeches of my life–so all writing focused on that, every day.

I spoke this past weekend at the memorial services for my first husband and father of my children.

I’m so glad I spent the contemplative time coming back to what I wanted to say at his service, almost daily, for over a week.

It came out good.

It really was the best speech (not that I’ve given a whole lot of them) I’ve ever done in my entire life.

And now, today, it’s been a month since this man died.

Death is an amazing contemplation and inquiry. We don’t know really what happens to consciousness or awareness of a person when they move through death. Often, we’ve been curious our entire lives about it.

We’ve known other people who move into this thing called death, but we’ll only experience it once ourselves, fully, in this lifetime. (And yes, there are a gazillion little deaths along the way in the form of change).

One of the first more profound self-inquiries I ever did using The Work was on my father’s death from cancer, which happened many years earlier in my life.

To sit and write down the concepts about his passing brought up all kinds of emotions and feelings, heartbreaking images, longing, wondering “what if” all over again.

Sometimes just writing the first step, our agonizing thoughts about this very painful situation involving death, feels too much to bear.

It’s worth it. 

Death is the ultimate separation, it seems. Something in my mind defined it as permanent, loss, cut off, absence of love and connection, forever, dread, empty silence, gone-ness.

But can I absolutely know that’s true?

Am I sure about what death is?

No.

Who would I be without my story, my thoughts, my ideas, my fears, my worries, my definitions of death?

If you’ve suffered from the death or loss of someone in your life, doing The Work never means you don’t cry or feel the most massive heart breaking open, or forget about them, or stop missing them….

….but it can mean you stop feeling like a victim of this process called death.

It can mean, like it has unexpectedly for me, that you’re OK with not knowing what death really is, and that you notice all is well and this person who has died has brought you a most immense gift in both their living and their dying.

It can mean the feeling of true, deep love. Even joy.

Who would we be without the thought “they died”?

Full of the most beautiful appreciation for them imaginable, for their image in my mind, for the peace of this moment.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. I’m preparing behind the scenes for a wonderful new Year of Inquiry starting in September. An entire year of practicing The Work in a small group. This year, for those who are interested, there will be even more in-depth practice, sharing and training in facilitation for all those wanting to coach others in The Work. Enrollment begins August 21st: Learn more here.

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Unlearning beliefs like “there is something wrong with me” (+ Eating Peace 101 starts Thursday)

In these summer months of heat in the hemisphere where I live, I’ve heard from many about their urge to cover their bodies, never go to the beach, and hide themselves from the world and all those critical eyes.

The other day, I received a note from an Eating Peacer that she closed her blinds and stayed inside all day because the only cool place outside was the lake, and she was never, ever, ever going to be “caught alive” (she said) wearing a bathing suit in public.

I remembered this kind of shame about the body, and how it actually escalated my eating behaviors and turned them into crazed eating instead of normal teen eating.

My thoughts were constantly filled with stress, as I tried to get a more perfect body. I starved myself, then binge-ate, then starved again, then worked out for hours, then ran five miles, then ate, then vomited….

….and repeated the swinging flip-flop back and forth with enormous pain.

I believed something was desperately wrong with me.

I always aimed to try harder, use more willpower, get it right.

Which, actually, I finally sort of did. Although, I’m not sure “I” did it (I’m pretty sure nothing actually happened because of my plans, honestly). But my failures did lead to giving up, in a good way, and stopping the pursuit of a perfect body.

I just wanted peace.

If you’ve felt the pull to peace, and it’s become the most important jewel in your relationship with food….then peace tends to rise above all plans, controls, or management of eating and your body and dieting.

The upcoming Eating Peace 101 telecourse is a good place to focus more openly and deeply on peace when it comes to eating, to food, to our bodies (no matter what weight) and to our feelings and thoughts.

We’ll be looking at our belief system, our ideas, our screaming internal thoughts and voices, and investigating our moments of following a craving, or overeating food, or pursuing at all costs the perfect body.

Who or what would we be like without our stories?

In today’s Eating Peace video, I talk about one key important belief everyone can question who’s ever had trouble with compulsive or dependent behavior of any kind, not just with food: there’s something wrong with me.

Why do The Work?

Because when we do, we unlearn all the decades, centuries of beliefs about thin, fat, full, hungry, good, bad, need, emptiness, control, power, eating, food, attraction, should, shouldn’t.

You are not your mind. You are not your weight or your appearance. You are not your personality. You are not the food you just ate, or the way you ate it. You are much, much vaster than that. (Thank you, Adyashanti).

Much love,

Grace

P.S. Eating Peace Process, the immersion, will begin again in November 2018 and meet through April 2019. Some will attend a January 4 day retreat in Seattle area (optional). All those in Eating Peace Process will have bi-monthly support from May through October. This is an in-depth program for those who are serious about eating peace, and once you join, you’re “in” for life. Stay tuned or learn more (not taking registrations yet) by visiting HERE.

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Divorce or breaking up goes from sad, bad, sad….to grateful yahoo

It’s been 3 weeks now since I witnessed the final decline and death of my beloved first husband and father to my children.

I’ve seen many images course through my mind. It’s been like a slide show. They are never in linear or time-bound order.

Something is shown to me and remembered from our first meeting. A Labor Day September golden afternoon barbecue party….then our bright unexpectedly sunny wedding day 11/11….or then it will skip to a few years ago when I picked him up from his first PET scan, right before his cancer diagnosis.

I see his peaceful face after he died, the strangeness as his eyes never fluttered open.

Tears well up, mixed churning feelings, sadness, laughter, wondering.

One surprise of this movement in grief has been memories of the divorce process. In the past, it exploded a huge amount of separation, confusion, feeling abandoned.

All my former worksheets were on how he shouldn’t have left me, I was abandoned, I missed out, he was wrong, this shouldn’t be happening, it’s very sad.
I found all these concepts to be false.
And suddenly, I noticed something interesting as I watched the slide show of the completion of our marriage:
I never did The Work on the simple belief “we got divorced”.

We got divorced.

Is that true?

Woah. Yes. Right?

But where’s my proof?

Only in my memory. Only in the mind. Only in my stories of what “divorced” means.

Can I absolutely know it’s true we got divorced?

No. (And you might answer yes, if you have the very same thought–it’s OK). I realize my heart feels love and appreciation for that man that’s never stopped.

What is divorce, anyway?

Yes the relationship changed. Yes we moved into our own houses. Yes I saw less of him. But I have always been connected, even when I didn’t want to be.

How do you react when you believe you got divorced?

Sad, failed, hurt, upset, pining.

Who would you be without the thought “we got divorced”?

I’d feel like all the tons of minutes, hours, days when I have NOT had that thought….and I’ve been living my life with the person or people right in front of me, busy with other things.

I wouldn’t feel like I failed. I wouldn’t feel disappointed or full of “what-if” ideas. I would trust what’s happened and what is.

I would notice all the incredible good that’s come out of the Great Zen Stick, called “divorce” for me, that changed my entire life and woke me up when it comes to relationship.

Turning the thought around: We did not get divorced. I divorced myself. I divorced him. (He didn’t divorce me).

I can find examples of every single one. We remained friends, and always shared holidays and the same neighborhood. In the past, I took the whole thing very personally, even though it wasn’t. And how many times did I criticize and separate from him in my mind during our lives together before he ever even spoke of divorce?

Most important of all is that right in the moment I myself am thinking “we got divorced! (sob)” is the moment it’s happening–and only in my mind. Otherwise, what’s around me is connection; to the floor, the room, the air, the people in my presence.

The divorce happened 11 years ago. I dredged it up as I re-membered my default position from the past–which is that it was all very sad.

Can I turn it around with joy, instead of disappointment? YAHOO! We got divorced! Hooray! Congratulations! Amazing! Wonderful! Success!

Wow.

I can find it.

Because of that thing called “divorce”, I did my own inquiry work in great earnestness, I discovered a career, I became far less dependent, I grew up when it came to relationships–not taking everything so dang personally.

I didn’t just have a husband die of cancer on me.

I notice the joy my children are still able to tap into, even if other moments they are so sad about their dad. I’ve been reminded of the temporariness of my own life and to continue to drop what’s not so important.

Especially my stressful thinking about relationships from the past or into the future, including divorce.

“Inquiry ends suffering by cutting it off at the root. No stressful thought can withstand sincere questioning.” ~ Byron Katie

Are you sad or troubled by a divorce experience? It could be about a relationship, a job, a place….anywhere you believe a division or diversion occurred, where something ended and you didn’t plan or expect  it.

That happened and it’s all sad and terrible.

Is it true?

Who would you be without your story right now?

Much love,

Grace

P.S. Eating Peace 101 begins this upcoming Thursday, July 26th 8-9:30 am PT. In this telecourse, we’ll use The Work of Byron Katie to explore our reasons for eating, and investigate these reasons. For more information about the class, please visit here. We meet every OTHER week until October 4th.

P.P.S. If you had any tech glitches in the new intro course The Work for Dingalings (seven days, one lesson per day) I thank all those who emailed to let me know so I could fix them. Sign up for the course here.

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Gratitude Eating (and not because you should be)

I’ve created a course just for brand new beginners to The Work called The Work for Dingalings (LOL).

It’s a Complete Idiots or The Work for Dummies Course where you’ll receive an email per day for a week. You’ll need 20-30 minutes per day to complete your homework.

To enroll (it’s entirely free) sign up here.

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We’ve heard about the power of gratitude.

But sometimes, it’s very difficult to find gratitude when it comes to our relationship with eating, food and our bodies.

These have caused so much strife, hell, stress, desperation, self-criticism.

How can we find gratitude for the weird diet foods we’ve eaten, or the ugly foods we’ve placed before us, or the sick feelings we’ve had when it comes to eating, or the disappointment about our weight, or worst of all, the compulsion to eat when not hungry?

This is NOT a “should”.

But it’s worth trying anyway. The power of appreciation is immense–and maybe more magnificent than you ever imagined.

Take a moment today, and think about the service this relating to food, eating food has been for you.

When I think about my truly whacky disordered eating, it almost seems nutty to consider that experience in my life with gratitude.

But I can find examples of feeling appreciation for the wayI I’ve eaten:

  • It led me to explore psychology, peace, relating to other people, learning about all relationships, and improving my communication
  • it gave me a way to be different from my family, to rebel dramatically, to find freedom from rigid rules about life
  • it gave me a big Left Turn in my own life–I dropped out, I worked on a ship, I went to therapy
  • it brought me to my knees and put me on a spiritual path of acceptance, including myself and my emotions
  • I love the very taste, texture, joy of emptying and filling up every single day–I love eating
  • it’s helped me learn how to support other people also suffering from the same craziness with food

Today, you can try to simply find a sense of gratitude, of appreciation, for something about food, eating, and your body.

Feel it.

Especially before eating. Practice “thank you” and see what happens.

EVEN if you think you’re overeating, binge-eating, doing it wrong.

Without our stories, we are not only able to eat and act clearly and fearlessly, we are also a friend and listener to ourselves, our own bodies, our fullness and our hunger. We are people living happy lives when it comes to eating. We are appreciation and gratitude that have become as natural as breath, and eating, itself.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Eating Peace 101 is coming: a six session class on Thursday mornings 8:00-9:30 am PT starting July 26th and will meet every two weeks (every other week) until October 4th. $295. Everything will be recorded. To learn more, visit HERE.
P.P.S. Eating Peace Process, the immersion, will begin again in November 2018 and meet through April 2019. This is an in-depth program for those who are serious about transforming their relationship with food from the inside out. Stay tuned or learn more (not taking registrations yet) by visiting HERE.
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Violent Thinking Leads to Violent Eating

Long ago, I heard Byron Katie say something that caused my ears to perk up: “Victims are vicious”. 

Yikes!

I didn’t want to be a “victim”. They don’t have a good reputation.

And yet, what I had to admit was….I was very vicious. Mostly, to myself in my own thinking.

When I ate a lot, or binge-ate, or grazed from one end of town to the other, or looked in the mirror, or thought about what I should or shouldn’t be eating, I had a running voice that also said “you are lower than dirt.”

It was harsh, bitter, hopeless, and very mean.

So one of the very first things any of us must do, who experience an addictive behavioral process of any kind, is to relax and recognize the presence of something that is a lie.

Harshness doesn’t solve the problem. You can kill the thing you think you “hate” but it doesn’t end the war. It will rear its ugly head again if all you do is repress or condemn something or destroy it.

Kindness is what changes things at a permanent level. Love is what alters the experience of compulsion to one of understanding and awareness.

Let’s be kind to ourselves.

If you hear the voice that shouts and condemns you in your head, question it.

Remember to ask….is it true?

Do you really need to build this angry energy and use it to FIGHT food, cravings, people, relationships, reality? Are you sure you’re all alone, by yourself, against The World?

Let’s do The Work on this concept.

Is it true that you need to improve, change, or fix yourself….and that the way you are is wrong?

Yes. I’m too critical. My mind is full of harshness. I want to escape. I want to feel better, to get out of here. It’s me against the world (especially in this particular area).

Can you absolutely know that this is true that you need to change, snap out of it, get over it, stop being who you are?

Hmmm. Strange. But I can’t know it’s true.

How do you react when you believe you’ve got to change, especially when it comes to eating?

Ugh. I try everything and anything that addresses diet change. I feel very alone and discouraged. I hate my eating, my body, my attitude, my life.

Who would you be without this belief that you must change ASAP, especially with eating?

WHAT???!!!

But.

I’ve been trying to fix, adjust, improve or change myself when it comes to eating for “x” years (long time)! How could I NOT be wanting change?

Try it on for a moment here now. Just right now. Relax without having a single drop of a future, or need to change. Rest a moment. Notice how connected you are to everything in your environment, sharing the air, the furniture, the space, the people (if there are any). Sharing your environment with this thing called “food”.

What would it really be like if you did not ever go to war with yourself to improve?

Wow.

It can be exciting. Peacefully thrilling. Restful. Simple. Open. Mysterious.

Turning this belief around: I do not have to change. My thinking has to change. Change has to come to “me”. 

Could any of these turnarounds be just as true, or truer?

Yes. I can find how I am still alive, studying life and the world and myself in it and I’m not “done” even though some part of me believes I haven’t changed, or that I need to. I can notice life has it’s own timing. That even though I’ve eaten in crazy ways, I’ve also experienced joy, gratitude, peace and happiness here on earth.

Yes. I’m busy questioning my thinking. I’m learning by turning things around. I’m learning that what I’ve assumed to be true….often isn’t.

Yes. I can hold still and be open to transformation meeting me, not think of myself as needing to chase after it. I can make friends with life, my environment, my mind, my body.

Love is here in the present. Here I am with all my imperfection, a human being.

Who would you be without your story of yourself, especially when it comes to eating, food, your feelings, your body?

Can you feel it just for this moment, now?

Much love,
Grace
P.S. Eating Peace Experience Introduction is coming: a six week class on Thursday mornings starting July 26th and will meet every two weeks (every other week) until October 4th. $295 and we meet live 8-9:30 am PT. Everything will be recorded. To learn more, visit HERE.
P.P.S. Summer Camp for The Mind just started–a daily inquiry practice using The Work of Byron Katie– read more about it HERE and you can still sign up. We meet July 9-Aug 17.
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Can this be love? (+ summer camp opening day recording link for you)

Summer Camp for The Mind starts on Monday, July 9th. Anyone who joins and decides at the end of the summer to continue on into Year of Inquiry will receive a credit of their Summer Camp contribution towards YOI. Pay what you can for Summer Camp. Nothing is required. CLICK the image to join us.

I’m so touched by the online mini-retreat just shared by many this morning. It was magical and heart-breaking.

To get the link of the recording and listen-in, visit this Summer Camp information page HERE. Scroll down to the Opening Day recording link.

I was so moved by the beautiful, genuine inquiry and sharing people brought–from the people who spoke, but also from those who commented in the chat and shared their thoughts and questions.

Those who listen are also a significant part of this inquiry. The energy is alive and somehow palpable, like when a whole hall of people sit in meditative silence together.

Words are not required.

The inquiries brought to the call today were such beautiful examples of human awareness of change, loss, agony, feeling left or criticized….and working with these hurt feelings, opening up to understanding our pain and suffering.

Oddly, we’re not trying to get to any special place, or find that one missing answer, or figure out exactly what to do about this predicament….we’re bringing clear awareness to the story we’re telling ourselves. We’re not looking for advice.

We’re looking at the pain through the mind, the one that “thinks”, that sees pictures and images of loss or fear or anger or disappointment and never-ending unhappiness.

Strange, but it’s as if the inquiries brought to the Opening Day First Friday mini-retreat were perfectly placed, in just the right order, for opening up the story of separation.

I could relate to each and every story. I’ve done The Work on all three. All so painful. All incredibly powerful moments to question.

First, someone shared about a moment with someone close where the relationship was uncertainly defined. Are we friends or more than friends? Where is this going? I wanted something more. This is disappointing. I feel so hurt.

Next, a longer-term partnership (marriage) potentially moving into divorce. One person is moving out into another place to live. We feel crushed. He’s constantly criticizing me. He focuses on my flaws. I need him to say loving, kind things to me and notice what’s wonderful about me.

Finally, a family member has died tragically from cancer. So many people suffering, missing him. I want him to live. He shouldn’t die.

What is this suffering we’re experiencing in these situations? Does it mean, if I don’t suffer, that I won’t care about this person, or recall them? I won’t be close, or love? I won’t cry?

For me, this never turned out to be true.

In fact, as I’ve done The Work and even do The Work today with all these beautiful inquirers on the call, I find that without my thought that I should be with this person, or they should be alive….

….I stop resisting my thoughts of them. I talk to them, even out loud.

I might even listen to them when I ask “Why are you leaving? Why did you go? Do you know how much I love you?” 

I hear their answers, with inquiry, even in my own head. I feel it all. I’m not holding back anymore.

NOT suffering does not mean my heart isn’t breaking and swelling into a million pieces. NOT suffering doesn’t mean being numb, or disconnected, or never thinking of them. NOT suffering doesn’t mean pretending things are OK when they actually aren’t, or trying to be a different person with a different reaction.

For me, what I find NOT Suffering actually looks like is being more connected with these people I adore than ever. At least that’s what I keep finding with The Work.

Instead of repeating the exact same painful thoughts about what’s happening with that person over and over again, I’m sitting with the difficult thought and looking at it from every possible angle.

I’m realizing, by doing this Q and A with my story, that I actually can’t confirm or deny that love is not present in this relationship, in this situation.

Most recently, in fact, when my former husband died, I felt the most strong, big, wide love for him I’ve felt in a long time.

I’ve reflected (and still am reflecting) on some of the unfinished wonderings not taken to the deepest inquiry yet about our parting, and separation, and divorce, and continued connection and friendship and co-parenting and deep support for one another through all these 31 years since we met.

These moments of having the heart pierced with grief and love (they are both there) can only happen with people who are significant and important to us.

“Your story is your identity, and you’d do almost anything to prove that it’s true. Inquiry into self is the only thing that has the power to penetrate such ancient concepts….When I learned to meet my thinking as a friend, I noticed that I could meet every human as a friend. The end of the war with myself and my thinking is the end of the war with you.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is pg. 294

Someone asked today on the call how long registration is open for Summer Camp and I responded…Oh wow, I don’t know. LOL.

You can really join any time, and my thought is, you’ll probably enjoy more time, attention, practice and care for yourself and your thinking if you come on board sooner than later. Plus you’ll get to participate in our Pop-Up private summer camp forum for a greater amount of time. I’d suggest joining this weekend sometime.

But does longer mean better? Do you really have to attend all seven weeks to get the best results? Does more minutes in inquiry add up to more clarity in the mind? Is it better to spend more time in a marriage? Is it better to be partnered than not? Is more life better than less life? Is it better to live until age 95 than 35?

I can’t absolutely know that it’s true.

Maybe one profoundly powerful inquiry can open us to unknown worlds we never thought possible. Maybe asking ourselves “is that really true?” just once about a thought that something shouldn’t happen….can end our suffering and angst about life.

What I notice is that life is passionately, profoundly on the move in the form of people coming, and then going. When there is this experience called loss, or disappointment, or sadness, or rage about people coming or going, perhaps it is not as terrible as I am thinking and believing is it.

I notice I am filled with a startling sense of feeling when these incidents happen. I’m brought to my knees in the present moment. Tears flow. Heart breaks open. Is it not the ordinary. It brings me to The Work.

Could this be true love?

Much love,

Grace