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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All It Takes To Be Happy

Next in-person event: spring retreat May 16-20 in northeast Seattle at a lovely ornate old house with a hot tub and lush, gorgeous grounds. We walk, we meditate, we hear wisdom poetry, we do a whole lot of The Work and the time together is life-changingly precious.

For information please visit here. Room for a few folks to stay at the retreat house, please email and ask grace@workwithgrace.com.

ALSO facebook live on LOVE for Valentine’s Day. 8:00 am Pacific Time February 14th. What are your stressful love thoughts? Reply back to this email to let me know. We’ll do The Work on Wednesday right here.

The other day, I heard myself talking with a dear friend who also does The Work a lot and has attended the School for The Work.

She had heard I was teaching a money course right now, after a month on money in Year of Inquiry that came first, so practically 3 months altogether of facilitating, noticing, walking with our groups through inquiry on money.

It means I’m doing The Work on money myself. I’m remembering, catching different thoughts, sharing different memories and situations. I adore hearing everyone’s stories, or sticking points, or questions, or confusion.

When the inquirers share out loud, whether in the money course or in Year of Inquiry….

….they’re communication naturally inspires others. People don’t feel so alone.

And we sure can feel alone when it comes to money.

Remember the friend I just mentioned I was speaking with? I heard myself say to her “I’ll never retire, I’ll be working until the end of my days trying to pay off my mortgage and make sure I leave something to my children, after screwing around not earning for most of my life until ten years ago.”

It was like all of the sudden my words and tone were full of self-pity and victimish sinking down into the floor.

Ugh.

It went there so fast. Ba-Bam. Hear a story, pick it up and apply it to me immediately. Feel defeated.

It was from the power of comparison. ALL OF IT. 

I heard she got a huge raise, she was about to make her final mortgage payment so her house loan was all 100% paid back, and SHE was retiring in two years.

What?

She’s so lucky. I’ll never do that. I should have started earlier and cared about money more. I’m a loser. She’s a winner. Plus, her house is triple the size of mine.

LOL. Sigh.

Is it true?

Yes. Did you hear what she said? Only 3 more mortgage payments and she’s DONE WITH HER LOAN FOREVER.

Can you absolutely know it’s true she’s lucky, and this good fortune is because her house will be paid off soon?

Haha. No.

It’s kind of embarrassing.

I suddenly see my luck to even have a loan and a house and an amazing life working from home doing The Work and sharing with people in the first place. Money flows here and there and everywhere without judgment.

The mind thinks, the mind compares…and I can never know it’s true, honestly. Before this friend told me her details, I was happy. So some words and images entering my head brought the future into my imagination, and my heart sank.

What a wild, magnificent, chaotic, strange thing…believing a thought is.

And it’s not even true.

How do I react when I believe she’s got it made, she’s good with money, I am not?

Scared. Depressed. Lots of pictures of being old and unable to work. Angry at other people who didn’t show me a better way (those parents, partners, meanie friends).

How do I treat money when I believe it’s piling up somewhere else in greater amounts than over here with me?

Gulp.

I’m jilted by it. It doesn’t like me. I’m angry, resentful. Money, you mean nasty conniving friend! You two-faced volatile one! You’re not even nice to me! Stupid money!

(I think I’m about six years old in how I react–or maybe like a jealous pre-teen who wants to date the guy SHE is dating, and is MAD about him not choosing ME).

But who would I be without this heavy, stressful, agonizing story? Without the belief she is lucky with money, she is better off, I’m not liked as much by money, I must have done something wrong?

Who would I be without the belief that money likes her better, like I’m not as likable, not as loved, not claimed, not so wanted?

Ooooh, this is exciting to wonder about!

Without the belief that more money means I’m better off, or safer, or claimed, or honored or favored or loved?

Wow.

Who would I be without that belief?

Noticing the amazing, astonishing abundance around me.

Kitchen lights, colors, red carpet with gold flowers, brown leather purse, laptop, wall calendar, bookshelf, silver ring with sea blue stone, fridge, lamp, silence, wallet with cash inside, four coats in my closet and one draped over the couch, beautiful sound of friend’s voice telling of her joy and hand-clapping, noticing the celebration of life whether money is around or not around, cowboy boot string lights through the living room window.

Without my story, I’m so open to my friend’s phone conversation. I’m excited with her. I hear a person who feels loved and relieved and happy. She’s showing me what it’s like to feel this wonderful way. I’m in the presence of joy.

Turning the thought around:

“I’ll always retire, I’ll be playing until the end of my days paying off my mortgage and adore giving so much to my children. I played just the perfect amount and DID earn most of my life before ten years ago (jeez, that’s true).”

How could the story I have lived with money support me with perfection…no other alternate way possible?

First of all, the reality of it is the way it has been. And in this moment, right now with inquiry, the reality becomes different than my complaint about it.

It’s been perfect with work and money, because I get to meet all these incredible people and have the most intimate and beautiful, holy, sacred, honest, touching conversations with them. We share the most powerful communication in life–the things that bring us to our knees.

It’s perfect with money because I can see nothing more is required in this moment, except inquiry. I get to discover the brilliance that money, or someone else giving it to me, or something being zero-ed out (like a loan for a house) is not required for my own deepest happiness.

Wouldn’t I want to find out that peace is possible without money, or any person, or anything needing to change…including myself?

Astonishing.

It’s unconditional love. Truly un-conditional. No requests. No demands. No adjustments. No hopes. No wishes. No thinking to money, or to any relationship or to any part of life or reality “if you change, then I will be happy”. 

Such freedom, such freedom.

“It takes only one person to have a happy marriage, and that one is you.” ~ Byron Katie

In this moment, married to the silence, married to the news from my friend about her coming retirement (whatever that is), married to listening, married to money.

Married to reality.

Without my story….happy.

Much love,

Grace

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Do You Think You Need To Change Your Thinking?

We all know there’s something going on with this mind, and it’s not always helpful, it seems.

We have thoughts about our own thinking:

  • I should change my thoughts
  • I need to fix my mind
  • I have to eliminate my negative thoughts
  • I need to stop thinking completely
  • This thinking is horrible, bad, wrong, idiotic
  • I need to destroy my “ego”

But this big thought of needing to change thought itself, so I can stop being driven crazy or eating the wrong way….

….is another war against reality.

Are you sure it’s true, you need to fix your mind?

Hmmm. Yes. Seems true.

Can you absolutely know it’s true?

No. If I was in charge, I would have changed by now, but something’s going on here that is beyond “me”….and this mind appears to “think”.

How do you react when you believe you should change your mind, your thoughts, that you should battle with them?

I flip flop between aggression towards thinking, and despair about thinking. I feel very discouraged. I run around the world trying to find out where I can crush my thoughts, fix them, or switch them. Who can help?

I chant positive affirmations.

Sigh. It’s a lot of work.

Who would you be without your story of needing to fix your mind?

Woah. What?

No thought of fixing this?

A strange predicament.

But interesting. And then, perhaps….very freeing.

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Expect reality NOT to follow your plan

For the month of February inside Year of Inquiry our topic is Relationships.

Relationships of any kind.

Now, I’m aware that this is a huge wide range of choices for relationship when they are any kind. But inside, you usually know which ones to investigate.

Anyone who’s disturbed you. Anyone who’s bothered you. Anyone who you feel less than peaceful when you think of them.

You might be thinking “Where do I even begin? There are so many people who’ve bugged me!”

You might also be thinking, like so many people do, that you already know it’s all about you and not the other people, so you just want to focus on YOUR inadequacies and imperfections.

The thing is, focusing on you is still joining in on the belief that there’s a problem. You’re assuming there’s a problem in the first place, right?

Someone’s doing it wrong…let’s fix it!

The other day as we began the Year of Inquiry presentation we always start with every month, like a little mini workshop on the topic, I drew a lot of information from Byron Katie’s book “I Need Your Love–Is That True?”

Especially about the concept of “needing”, having needs, receiving what you need, or getting your needs met, as we say these days.

That’s a simple place to start. You might ask yourself the question “in what situation, with whom, did I not get my needs met?”

Hmmm.

Images float through the mind of moments. Moments where I believed I didn’t have love, support, care, attention, safety.

Yeah. Remember that time one of your supposed best friends stabbed you in the back and reported you to the authorities for entirely false reasons? Remember that love interest who acted like a stalker and freaked out? Remember that relative who quit communicating? Remember when that stranger stole your luggage? Remember when your dad died? Remember when you were abandoned?

Stories flash through. Sometimes we find proof that we didn’t have what we needed waaaaay back. It started young.

But can you absolutely know it’s true?

Rats. No. I’m here now, breathing, alive, having a pretty spectacular life honestly.

It can’t be absolute that I didn’t get what I needed.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be here. (And that’s not even true that if I wasn’t here, it means I didn’t get my needs met–we all seem to perish or transform into whatever’s next. It’s called dying. Everyone gets to do it.)

How do you react when you believe you weren’t supported, loved, honored…that you didn’t get what you needed?

I shake my fist at the sky! I shout “Bloody Hell!” with a gruff look at an imaginary God who is supposedly looking down. Resentful. Tense.

Who would you be without your belief that you didn’t get what you needed?

Huh? But….

Really wondering who I’d be without believing this story of having needed something and missed it….

….a softness is here. A recognition that who I am without my desperate, sure, anxious, victim-minded thinking, is relaxation. Being. Just here.

No need for it to feel ecstatic, loving, thrilling or “good” or pleasurable.

Here. Just here. Natural.

Noticing all is very, very well and I’m temporarily in this life showing up as this right now, and all the things I’ve ever thought that happened that were BAD about relationships are over. 

Noticing I have no idea what is needed and what isn’t…and when I DO think I know, I’m often wrong.

Noticing how liberating it is to Not Know what’s best for anyone or for me.

“The alternative is to expect reality NOT to follow your plan. You realize that you have no idea what’s going to happen next. That way, you’re pleasantly surprised when things seem to be going your way, and you’re pleasantly surprised when they don’t. In the second case, you may not have seen what the new possibilities are yet, but life quickly reveals them….a life beyond your schemes and expectations.” ~ Byron Katie

Turning my thoughts around: I’ve always had just what I needed. Every one of those people has supported me in getting exactly what I needed. My thinking didn’t give me what I needed.

Wow.

How could these be just as true, or truer?

When I didn’t get what I hoped for or expected, I had to reset, to regroup, to learn, to ask for help, to give up. My sense of “me” and my grabbiness was crushed. I woke up (sometimes it felt like a slap in the face awakening–but apparently that was required).

I found my self-sufficiency that had nothing to do with having a mind or having a thought. Magic happened. Loss turned into transformation. I became aware of what I truly value–and it wasn’t other people providing my needs.

In every situation where someone was less or different than what I expected, I can ponder what was supportive about that experience.

You can too.

Success is as dangerous as failure. 
Hope is as hollow as fear. What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure? 
Whether you go up the ladder or down it, 
you position is shaky. 
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, 
you will always keep your balance. 
What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear? 
Hope and fear are both phantoms  

that arise from thinking of the self. 
When we don’t see the self as self,  

what do we have to fear? 
See the world as your self. 
Have faith in the way things are. 
Love the world as your self; 
then you can care for all things. 

~ Tao Te Ching #13 Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Those relationship moments that hurt?

I can practice having faith in how they went. I can find examples of how they helped me grow, what they revealed.

I’m not sure what the ultimate outcome will be, but it sure is more fun than thinking I didn’t get what I needed.

What could be more exciting, heart-breaking and joyful than thinking I got just what I needed in every moment for my entire life….and everything’s OK, even when it isn’t (according to my plans)?

Can you feel it?

Much love,

Grace

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Tech Support Nightmares…To Sweet Dreams

Facebook Live at 6 pm today Pacific Time for anyone and everyone who wants to join me for inquiry on wanting to control what’s happening. Facebook page is here and you simply go to that page for these live shares, and you’ll see me visible in a post area. If you miss it live, it’ll be recorded and stay right there on the page to watch later, including any mistakes or goofiness that happens. Live, unedited inquiry.

*******************

And so for the seventh morning in a row, I checked to see if my websites were acting “normally”.

As in, you type in the name of the site, and voila, you arrive there on your computer. It’s what we tend to expect when exploring or finding something online.

But no.

My daily call to Tech Support is the next step so yet another tech support person might help address this problem of why my sites say they are “not secure” when they in fact are.

No one can visit them. Including me.

All the people in Eating Peace Process can’t access their presentations and recordings at the eatingpeace.com. Anyone wanting to read or comment on Grace Notes or look up the spring retreat dates can’t see them at workwithgrace.com. Seattle folks who want to dance on Saturdays can’t find driving directions at freeformdancedance.com.

This is a disaster! (LOL, you know where this is going, right?)

What I love about The Work is you get to start at the beginning with question one, instead of wildly romping through how you react without pause. You’re already reacting, when you feel upset, frustrated, depressed, disappointed.

The Work let’s you slow it all down, name your belief in the form of a statement, and look objectively at what you’re thinking.

My websites should be working. They should be accessible. They should NOT show weird error warnings that they aren’t ‘safe’.

Is it true?

Yes!!

What is going on?!

I pay for these sites to work! They have something-or-other called an SSL installed for security. They are “safe”! They don’t have viruses. They haven’t been hacked. The support people should fix this NOW.

Can you absolutely know this is true?

Ugh.

No.

What I notice in reality is that something funky happened with a migration of hosting–in other words, moving my three sites to a different place in the great big network of the internet (don’t worry, you don’t have to be technical to get the point).

Can I absolutely know it’s true something shouldn’t have gone wrong? Everything “should” be the way it used to be? That I shouldn’t need to wait, or call, or have this so-called problem?

No. What’s the reality of it?

There are no working sites for these three information spots. Are these sites really necessary for world peace? No. Is it really a disaster? No. Am I sure it should go differently than the way it’s going? No. Is it really a hassle to make phone calls to Technical Support? No.

How do I react when I believe this “problem” is happening, and it shouldn’t be?

OMG.

I sigh deeply. I think about ending this relationship with the company that hosts my sites. I go back and forth between aggression and helplessness.

Divorce! Cut off! Good riddance! I’m never gonna be your friend again! Anger! Disappointment! Complaining!

But who would you be without this belief, that it shouldn’t be going the way it’s going and these sites should be “working” and accessible?

Haha.

Almost funny to think of this wondering.

Without this belief, I’d be goofy dancing to the On Hold music which is now becoming very familiar.

Feeling interested in each new individual I speak with, marveling at all the different voices, questions, and at how  everyone is to try to do the best they can to help and take lots of notes and send the problem on to another higher level expert (their idea).

Kind of excited by my own awareness that when I see things aren’t resolved yet, I wait and I get interested myself in the problem solving. I read and learn things on the internet about what could be wrong. I’m super curious. It’s actually fun.

Like figuring out what’s happening in any machine or system….how fascinating. This approach applies to all things technical and internet, but also a flat tire, the broken dishwasher, the drivers-license renewal queue, the clogged drain, a science experiment, something hurting in the body, money, and relationships.

Yes, even relationships.

Because this feels like a new attitude, when I question my thinking.

Without my beliefs of how it shouldn’t be the way it actually is, I continue on with the process, the dance, the intrigue. I keep going with the project. I wonder “wow, this will be interesting to see what happens next!”

Maybe I do shut down everything and move on to other adventures that don’t involve websites, but who knows?

What lightness, without these beliefs that what I’m focusing on should be any different. I still have the vision of participating with change, the curiosity, being connected and involved in this predicament.

And it’s fun instead of aggravating.

Turning the thoughts around:

My websites should NOT be working. They should NOT be accessible. They should show weird error warnings that they aren’t ‘safe’.

My thinking should be working. My thinking should be accessible. My thinking should should show weird error warnings that these thoughts aren’t ‘safe’.

Aren’t these turnarounds a delight to find?

How could these turnarounds be just as true, or truer?

I’m learning some interesting things about the backend of websites. I’m aware of my commitment to understanding.

I get to respond to emails that have been forgotten as I wait on hold, and write this very inquiry out. I get to see how it doesn’t really matter, in a good way, that a website can’t or can be seen on the web. Everyone who needs access to something on one of the websites has written me via email and I’ve been able to solve or find answers for everyone, 100% of the time.

And oh boy, the turnarounds to the thinking….so great:

My thinking IS showing weird error warnings that my thoughts aren’t safe. I was noticing stress, nervousness, frustration. But now, it’s all kind of collapsed as I felt the red lights flashing (in the form of emotions) and stopped to question.

My thinking is now working for me. Open to the next step, which is to await someone to email me back as they dive more deeply into this issue. I picture several experts all putting their heads together to see how to solve this.

My attention turns to working with a client, then the money teleclass in a few hours, then more clients.

There is no emergency, and in many ways (in every way), no issue whatsoever.

Ahhhhh.

Much love,

Grace

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The Work is seeing the Dragon

There’s a simple exercise I mention and offer when working with people in the eating peace process (a course to look at our eating behaviors and wonder about them in a new way).

I call it the “shhhhhhhh” exercise.

Kind of like a jumping jack, when it comes to calisthenics.

Only all it involves is raising your pointer finger to your lips and making the sound “shhhhhhh” which means to be quiet.

“Shhhhhh”.

When things get a little loud, chaotic, out of tune, blaring.

A re-mind-er to the thinking brain to settle down, quiet, stop fussing with all it’s antics about what has gone wrong and what could go wrong or any other fodder its suggesting, that creates nervous (or worse) energy.

When I say “shhhhhh” in a gentle way like this, I get to pause, relax, and open to what’s visiting.

As I sit, I see images flow through like clips from movies, happening now, yesterday, last week, in the future, ten years ago….

*one hundred participants gathered in a hall all seated on the floor cross-legged, many heads of pitch-black hair all facing forward. I see from my position on the floor the teacher sharing with us in his soft and very thick Indian accent, in English.

*crows cawing and flying in a crowd just outside the living room window dawn

*sun beams creating stripes on the pale yellow wall to my right

*hearing sweet voices and speaking into my computer on my lap in the middle of a wet afternoon about inquiry on money and feeling compassion for the suffering and worrying…wishing I might grant peace with a magic wand and noticing a thought that this is inadequate

*a cup of tea filled to the brim….only now, it’s empty….but it could be full again later this afternoon

Seeing the physical things around me, remembering the physical things that once were around me, anticipating and projecting things around me, later.

Who would we be without our stressful, certain-they’re-true stories?

We may still be story-tellers…

….thrilled with the moment, carrying on, feeling the full feelings of life, celebrating, sorrowing, grieving, being very quiet, living this particular life with all it’s mystery and curiosity and strangeness….

….loving what is.

We’d be remembering how lovely a story is, and that it is a story.

We’d be honoring the story to the depths of our hearts, and respecting the stories we’ve lived, without rejecting, condemning, denying, or hating them.

“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.” ~ Ursula Le Guin (thank you for your contributions and RIP).

The thing I love most about The Work is turning towards the story.

I see the thing I’m most opposed or upset about, the trouble. I look at it closely. I answer the Judge Your Neighbor questions about it, without trying to change it, expecting immediate answers, or fixing myself.

I judge, I look, I scream, shout, cry the story and I hear myself tell it. I’m in the story.

I can see then, what it is.

A story. A great, wonderful, beautiful, tragic story.

But not one that is True to the end of time. Not ever. There’s always a new chapter.

There’s always the Don’t Know mind.

How loving that is.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. My website is still down. And I missed at least 48 hours worth of emails that all got deleted. Yes, it could be a Grace Note. Coming soon!

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Money is safety (and other myths)

Last call for all the inquirers interested in doing ten weeks of The Work on money…or we should probably say we’re really doing The Work on our thinking about security, safety, comfort, adventure, fun, pleasure, ease, play, special-ness.

Because these are the qualities we generally think money can buy.

To sign up visit HERE.
Even if you never, ever do The Work on money, you may recognize the things it appears to be able to buy, and investigate these if it seems stressful.
Not long ago, I was talking to a distant family member who said he loved money for the safety it supplied, and would be supplying in the future.
Safe future, safe from physical pain, safe from suffering when he’s aging, safe from loneliness. The money will pay for people who are younger to do chores and tasks and who can handle his physical needs, errands, medical attention, companionship.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting set up for any of these options. Why not?
But I heard also the sound of someone who was terrified of Not Having Money. Intolerable to think of going without it, or not having enough eventually.
Money would be buying safety.
For a second, I felt different. “I’m not concerned with accumulating and saving like that”, I said to myself. “I’m so over it. I’d hate to have those kinds of fears and anxieties and the need to hold on to an amount that seemed to be ‘enough’ for sometime later in the future.”
“Thank goodness I’m so easy-going in this department. Heck, I’m even offering an inquiry course on money! No problemo! Let money do what it does, I’m alive and well and…..”
Wait a minute.
Sigh.
I almost thought I was better than the one who was worrying about money, or believing money provided safety. That tricky rabbit (mind).
So let’s inquire today.
The belief: Having money means you are granted a certain level of safety in advanced age: you receive care, attention, what you need, comfort, treatment.
Is that true?
YES. Let’s be honest here. Jeez, have you been in the various kinds and levels of nursing homes or facilities? There’s a difference.
But can you absolutely know it’s true that having money grants you safety?
No.
I really can’t know this at all. I’ve been without money, and been perfectly safe. I’ve had money, and felt terrified.
I sat many hours for days with a dear friend who was in a fancy place for hospice care, and I’m honestly not sure it was better than all the many places I’ve spent time in with other people in the past who had nothing. The fancier place smelled a little better and had a nicer looking lobby.
I’ve had no money, and asked perfect strangers for help and they were incredibly generous and accommodating. I’ve had money and still gotten the flu, hurt my leg, sprained my ankle, been criticized.
What is safety? Is it a sense of comfort? Don’t surprises happen whether you have money, or don’t? Do I really need to have money to have connection with other humans, or receive support?
With the thought that more money makes things safer, or better…I miss what’s happening now. I lose my sense of humor. I fail to notice the incredible comfort I’m experiencing in the present moment as I think of the future.
With the thought that money grants safety, I notice it’s all about the physical body and it’s support. Is that really what and who I think I am? A body?
“Success is a concept, an illusion. Do you want the $3900 chair instead of the $39 one? Well, sitting is sitting. Without a story, we’re successful wherever we are.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is
Who would I be without my story of the future and safety, and money making it better?
Huh.
Rather funny.
Hilarious even.
It all seems to be a big story, created in an instant, then the mind moves on to the next piece of entertainment. I notice without the story of money meaning safety, it comes and goes, I get motivated or not, I rest, I work, I sleep, I wonder.
Not having the thought that money = safety, it doesn’t mean I don’t have it in my life, enjoy it, use it, give it away, keep some, or work hard for it at times.
I notice an ongoing relationship with it.
Turning the thought around in all the ways I can find:
  • Having money does NOT mean you are granted any safety in the future.
  • Having inquiry–the capacity to question your mind–means safety in the future.
  • Safety in the future is not even possible here in this moment…it’s only an idea.
  • Safety now means having money in the future
  • Having money means lack-of-safety in the future.
  • Nothing is guaranteed, including safety (safety from what?) or money or a future.
Good lord.
It’s all true and none of it is true.
But isn’t that a relief in a way?
No control, no set story. Follow the simple directions.
If you need some money, there are ways to acquire it in integrity. If you want to save, there are ways to do this, with love.
All I can find is that fear is not required…and I can feel immense compassion for those and for myself when I’ve felt fear about money.
What can we do?
The Work.
“Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work then step back, the only path to serenity.” ~ Tao Te Ching #9
 
If you want to come on the journey of identifying the stories you’re scaring yourself with, and exploring and dissolving them with the four questions….it’ll be a wonderful money adventure. Join me here.
Much love,

Grace

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The most powerful two words anyone said to me when I was suicidal

Many years ago as a very young woman, I sat in a 12 step meeting crying.

I was speaking about how horrible I was, how disgusting I felt, how I didn’t think I could go on, how it was all me and my rotten-to-the-core attitude. My eating was out of control. I smoked in between eating.

Ugh.

I had been depressed for what felt like a very long time (several years) and full of anxiety.

Then someone passed me a note.

Inside there were two words, and they were kind of intense….

….but shockingly true.

“Negative Grandiosity”.

It was a little bit of hard tough love, but one of the most wonderful, profound and helpful notes I ever received in my life, and it was from a complete stranger.

Join me on my facebook live where I share a short unedited video about the stressful belief “I’m the worst person in the world” or the equally painful “this is all my fault”….

….and I mention this powerful story from my past that helped me stop the track I was following.

If it’s stressful, it’s worth questioning.

Click HERE to follow along with this inquiry on yourself, and how harsh the thought can be. (Scroll down until you see the video with me in my kitchen).

Much love,

Grace

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Is your weight loss program really a self-distrust-maintenance program?

The brilliant Cheri Huber, meditation teacher and author, offers a beautiful idea, summarized in her book “There is Nothing Wrong With You”:

Your self-improvement plans and projects are ego-maintenance projects.

They don’t accept this present moment here now. They argue with it. You’re this or that, and it’s mediocre, unacceptable, lacking.

What’s here now is wrong, bad, ugly, fat, grabby.

I will fix myself, and then later I’ll be right, good, attractive, thin, self-less.

The problem lies in “later”.

The mind that’s oriented to fear LOVES that later, you’ll be OK, but not today, not right now, not yet.

I’m reaching for the dangling carrot, and not getting it.

Constantly on the hunt, planning for a better future.

What a paradox to relax, now. To stop the planning, pestering, controlling, dictating in a rigid way.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with turning over a new leaf, and venturing out on a journey to health and vitality, or peace and joy. We love those things.

But the best way to receive these, to experience them?

Notice them….now.

If you really sit long enough in an uncomfortable moment, difficult feelings, hateful images, screaming inner voices, forcing, willpower, the mind freaking out and mad as a hornet….

….you may be surprised.

You may discover peace of some kind is actually possible here. And this moment is not FULLY filled with fear, dissatisfaction or powerlessness. Sure, the mind and thoughts are all riled up. But not everything, not the feeling of being alive.

In this video today, I’m calling that part that can feel peace now the self, perhaps the peaceful self, the true self…I don’t even know if I can say “true” (as if I would ever know).

This inner “I” however, this life force, doesn’t care about weight loss later on, and it also doesn’t care about compulsion in this moment, or severe cravings, or chaos or lack of knowledge.

It’s OK with not knowing, resting, relaxing, being still.

It’s been here the whole time, and it never abandons you despite your mind and your actions.

Much love, Grace

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Identify, Question and Un-Create Your Thinking If You Want Eating Peace

When we experience compulsive behavior or obsessive or addictive activity, it’s usually not so pretty. However you want to call it, you know what I’m talking about–when you feel like you go into a trance of craving and consuming.

We feel swirling discomfort, intense emotions, swarming feelings.

Often the feelings stand out. Not the thoughts.

It’s like the thoughts become so distant, you can hardly remember what they were. They went by at the speed of lightening.

The primary thing we notice is FEELING.

When we’re full of feelings…especially conflicted ones…oh boy watch out.

We act pretty crazy.

I started eating as soon as I had the chance, and stuffed in food without caring what it felt like in my body. All I wanted was to eat, and eat. I had a panicked or angry feeling often, or a depressed feeling, and eating seemed to be the best way to express it.

It seemed like there was no thought at all. Almost like my mind was taken over by some kind of hungry ghost, or a zombie.

The thing is…when we slow down enough to wonder what we ARE thinking…it’s not completely vacant.

I began to find thoughts that were very stressful that happened first. Thoughts that scared, angered, frustrated and saddened me.

Many of us have heard of the idea of the “order of creation” in human behavior (I first heard about it used in Education Research looking at children’s learning abilities and behavior).

It looks like this: THINK – FEEL – ACT – HAVE

We usually see best the LAST point: What we have. Our results can’t be denied. We’re heavy, sick, unhealthy, hopeless, small, shrunken, unhappy. 

We can also see how we act for the most part: eating, purging, over-exercising, under-exercising, stuffing, grazing, hunting for food, fixated on pleasure so that we’re out buying food.

We definitely can feel our suffering. We’re conflicted and confused. We sometimes have strong clear feelings about our life depending on the situation, but we often feel push-pull and love-hate towards many things including food and eating and our bodies, and full of both despair and hope. It’s all over the place!

And the thinking? Like I said, I wouldn’t even know consciously what was bugging me by the time I was eating. It was voided out by the compulsion.

The thing that helped most in my entire life to become more clear about this order of creation?

Admitting, identifying, clarifying what I was really thinking about situations in my life that caused troubled feelings.

Because then, I could question these thoughts.

When I questioned these thoughts, my feelings changed all on their own.

Here in my video today, I share about the way this process often went for me and how I replaced my original thoughts with thoughts about eating, and how much suffering that created (and I couldn’t seem to get out of it until I investigated more closely).

Much love,

Grace