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.
Thinking of the end? Join us in DIH: IIT? (That’s short code for Divorce Is Hell: Is It True?) Starting January 12th for 8 weeks. Sundays 11:00am PT.
Sometimes, the companions we meet along our journey in life are…..difficult.
To put it mildly.
Like, for example, the people we marry or move in with or spend lots and lots of time with in romantic formats or possibilities of romance.
Those same people leave us, anger us, hurt us, smite us, replace us, and grow us in ways perhaps we never imagined or dreamed.
It didn’t go the way we wanted it to go.
Perhaps it’s not going the way we wanted it to go right now.
It’s tough when a relationship goes south, or doesn’t seem to be the dreamy wonderful vision it was at first.
The other day, a close friend of mine asked to listen to the memorial service recording of my first husband Tom, from July 2018.
My friend asked about fast-forwarding the recording to where I come to the front and speak.
Fortunately, because another different friend had asked for the very same speech several months ago, I had the exact segment saved from the service where I spoke, quivering voice and all.
I found it again on my computer and sent it.
I couldn’t listen to it myself. Too emotional. Too hard to bring back the memories.
I didn’t want to hear my voice breaking constantly during the short space of time I was on “stage” sharing to an audience of hundreds.
My friend wrote back.
“I am so moved by this profound tribute. I love how your heart remained forever open to Tom. You are MY teacher. I am blessed to have such a good seat in this play. Thank you for your brilliance, consideration and poetry”.
I suddenly had the thought to share this very personal speech with you that feels sacred and somewhat private.
Why?
Because this speech exists because of The Work of Byron Katie.
This story could have gone very differently. In which case there would have been no speech at all. Perhaps just mourning and jaded despair.
In my relationship to the man who played the role of first husband, I might have remained myself in the role of victim. I might have been bitter. I might have been terrified. I might have been glum or depressed, or feeling like a failure or someone worthy of rejection and abandonment.
I might have remained angry and resentful.
But I learned, just before things went a little haywire in our relationship, how to identify and question my beliefs.
I still have mini fits and tell stories that sound sad, but I know they aren’t true.
Yes, we got divorced. Yes, I felt abandoned. Yes, I thought I’d never love again. Yes, I thought I wouldn’t make it and was shattered into a million pieces.
None of that turned out to be true. And thankfully, I could SEE it wasn’t true because of questioning my beliefs, questioning what I was telling myself, questioning the thoughts connected to the emotions I felt.
I had the four questions.
Instead, I think of that relationship as one of the most profoundly important and life-transforming of my entire life.
You’ll hear why when you listen.
Click here:
If you are suffering because of a primary relationship going off the rails, or love not measuring up to what you anticipated or expected….
….if you are still “in” the relationship but contemplating a break in the structure and you have fears about what you’re imagining….
….join Nadine and I in our upcoming course starting Sundays January 12th (no meeting Jan. 19th). We meet online on zoom from 11:00am-12:30pm Pacific Time/ 7:00-8:30pm UK.
The only requirement for joining is wanting to end your suffering in relationship; whether in the distant past, in the present, or in the imagined future.
Join us if it’s right for you.
And guess what? Kind of funny (and we get it): We’ve been asked a handful of times for a registration link that doesn’t mention the title so certain partners won’t be hurt or confused if they see it on a credit card statement.
If you want to sign up for this course without having the words “divorce” or “break up” or “separation” or “hell” (LOL) anywhere in print then please feel free to use this simplified link to enroll right here.
This work is about addressing the fearful thinking and finding the peace within you that’s available right now, no matter what the status or condition of your relationship.
It’s about finding freedom and clarity, so you can be honest and real and share yourself lovingly with the other, with every “other”, and notice how peaceful and safe it can be whether you’re committed, married, single, divorced, separated, confused or complicated.
Divorce/Breaking Up/Separation Is Hell–Is It True?: 8 session online zoom course dissolving the pain of feeling separate from another human being who appears to move away from you. Join Nadine Ferris-France and Grace Bell right here. Sundays at 11:00am PT/ 7:00pm UK. We start January 12th (no class Jan. 19th).
Eating Peace Experience is coming. This is my highest touch, thorough, deep dive program into identifying and questioning the thinking that drives any kind of off-balance eating.
It changes and updates every single time.
We begin January 27, 2020 and go until April 16, 2020 (and probably a bonus week beyond).
Before the program starts, especially if you’re curious about the program or where to begin on this eating peace journey, I’m offering a webinar workshop online at six different times: “Five Stories We Tell That Keep Us Fighting Eating Wars”.
Save your seat
You can sign up for it here (pick your best time).
I like to think of these five stories as “spells”. Like magic spells, it’s like we’re under a trance assuming what we think is true. We experience craving, eating, stuffing, starving, vowing, worrying, dieting, punishing, criticizing and everything in between when we tend to believe these stories.
How incredible to get off that ride and out of that mindset, for good.
Join me by signing up for the free webinar right here (you’ll get to take a look at the dates offered and choose your best time and day).
NOTE: If you are a previous Eating Peace Online participant, and you’re joining us again (everyone who’s enrolled so far in the program has had access for life) then please make sure you let me know so I can include you in my “active participants” list.
One of my favorite things about this journey of studying compulsion, stress, worry, agony, addiction, pain and suffering is how it becomes easier and easier along the way.
I’m still on a journey, for example, of relaxing around the mind. I feel the anxious nature of mind, and move (hopefully sooner than later) to question the beliefs arising.
The beliefs don’t result in eating off-balance, or hurting myself badly….thank goodness. But they might cause me to wake up at night, or ruminate on something and study it.
Which is OK. Nothing wrong with that. It’s called being human.
There’s nothing wrong with you if you’ve been in and out of compulsion, even for years. You just haven’t learned another way.
Wherever you’ve come from, you can open up to where you are right now, and now, and now and begin to access freedom and peace in this present moment–the only place it actually is.
Here’s how and what to do if you think you can’t and you’ve been having a terrible time with eating (or planning your next food or diet program):
If you’d like to join our free facebook community Eating Peace: Question Your Thinking, Change Your Eating visit us HERE. The only requirement is a desire to end disordered thinking/disordered eating.
Everyone is welcome.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Friday January 3rd is “First Friday with Grace” which is a 90 minute open complimentary session in The Work of Byron Katie on anything and everything. Join me here.
If you’ve ever felt moved to do or try or venture into something new…..there may be a few thoughts about it.
For example.
Just a few months ago, my friend Max texted both me and my husband “I’m signing up for a hip-hop class. Would love your company. Will you take it with me?”
I immediately went to the website, despite the late start on Tuesdays (8 pm) and looked to get more information.
I signed up. My husband wasn’t so sure, and the class was full before he could even think about it.
For me, it was a “yes” right away and I followed that “yes”.
They have a class for hip-hop? I’m in, I thought.
I’ve only learned hip-hop or other dance by watching, in school hallways long ago, on the grass outside the auditorium, at house parties, in the movies, dancing at clubs. There were no classes for dancing of this kind. The way you learned was by watching and copying and inventing.
The first night of class, my friend Max was traveling.
So I went by myself.
When you do something new, everything is like a little blossoming story unfolding right in front of you. Finding the location, finding a place to park, entering the building.
The class took place in a big busy vibrant area of my city called Capitol Hill, at Velocity Dance. People were swarming around the entrance, skipping up the steps, crowding in the entry area inside.
There was an office. A woman inside, where it was much quieter, directed me to go through all the people (who were here for another dance event) and find a door on the left that would take me to a different studio in back for my hip-hop class.
When I made my way through the throngs to this back studio and entered, a new group was milling, waiting and talking on the edge of the dance floor. People were removing coats, tucking water bottles into the cubbies provided, changing their shoes, laughing with friends.
And they were all the age of my young adult kids.
An immediate thought careening through my head “I am too old for this. What were you thinking? It’s a hip-hop class.”
But another thought right next to that one “Who am I without the thought?” Hilarious joyous laughter at the fun things I get myself into. And questioning the belief “I don’t belong.”
My mind was actually yelling for a second “You’re almost 60! Get a grip!” (I’ll be 59 in January, so it’s true, but the TONE of that voice, jeez).
Who IS that talking?
That’s a great question. Who is that who is talking with such disdain and criticism, and why are they saying it?
One of my favorite exploration in studying mind and thought is the question “What is the threat? What am I (or what is that voice) afraid of? What’s the worst that could happen?”
I recognized the assumption of that voice. It’s trying to warn me, protect me. It believes “I will be rejected, they’ll think I don’t belong, the other humans in the room (a dance studio in this case) will wish I wasn’t there.”
THEY will be threatened by ME.
Which is bad. Because, look what happens when a threat arises? A separation begins. Me vs Them. A divide.
Someone doesn’t belong.
Danger.
How do you react when you think THEY think you don’t belong? When you believe it might be a risk to go somewhere new, do something different, enter new territory, be with new humans you never met before?
How I react is I see pictures in my head of past situations when I heard of separation and rejection happening. I really have no idea how the class will unfold with all these people in it who I see in the room, but the mind conjures up images of those people being judgmental, wondering why I am here, them thinking I don’t belong.
Who would I be without this belief “I don’t belong here because of my age”?
Totally thrilled and enjoying myself. Incredibly curious about life which happened to bring me into this space and time on a dark wintry night in Seattle.
Fascinated with the other humans I see in this class–so many of them appear to be from other countries all over Asia. Fascinated by the instructor who has grey speckles in his beard (making him theoretically a little older) black eyes and gorgeous moves.
Noticing very quickly how the mind doesn’t care about age anymore and is more curious about everyone and is full of questions, questions, questions.
Without the thought, this body becomes a vehicle for watching what is, listening. Noticing other bodies with arms and legs and necks. Watching them with absolute wonder as they move–some of them looking as if they are also incredibly new and awkward to movement in this way.
Without the thought that I’m too old for this class, I’m hearing music I remember from the 90s (my favorite!). Wondering if these dance students know this music, since they were probably babies when it was produced.
Turning the thought around: I belong here, at the age of this body.
How could this be true that it’s wonderful, an enhancement, something beneficial that I’m here showing up in this aged body and the “oldest” in the class?
Well, first of all….I’m here. That’s what happened. So I should be there, because I am.
Second, I feel incredibly grateful and absolutely fascinated that I’m so drawn to dancing, and dancing happens easily at my age as any other age. I appear to be more comfortable, in fact, than some of the other dancers.
Third, I get reminded of my two young adult kids who I adore.
Fourth, I get to learn new dance moves. I get to learn a dance routine, which is difficult for me–I usually dance very spontaneously and memorizing the routine requires concentration.
There’s no real reason I don’t belong. No one says for me to leave. No one looks at me funny, in fact they seem friendly.
Turning the thought around again: My aged thinking doesn’t belong here.
Now that’s the truth. My thinking is very old. It’s an old, ancient story of perceiving who does or does not belong based on something to do with the body.
My mind was being prejudiced. We do this to ourselves as much as we do it to others, I’ve noticed.
Who would you be without your story? What might you do? What would you explore? What new experience would you sign up for?
If you were truly free, noticing exactly where you are in the perfect place to be in a body–yours–what would that feel like without your thinking?
“The basic realization that other people can’t possibly be your problem, that it’s your thoughts about them that are the problem–this realization is huge. This one insight will shake your whole world, from top to bottom”. ~ Byron Katie
Ever feel totally abandoned in a primary love relationship? In conflict? Arguing? Critical? Wondering what went wrong?
When we have relating troubles in a romantic, love relationship we can feel utterly hopeless, or terrified.
Breaking up, separation….divorce.
We promised, things looked beautiful, it was good and exciting.
Then something happened. Maybe very slowly over time. Maybe suddenly. Maybe you wondered from the beginning if this was going to work out.
If you’ve found yourself thinking and feeling any kind of suffering around a relationship transition–dating, committed, married, separated, complicated–then you’re invited to The Work with my co-facilitator and I in the new year on this topic.
We’ve both been there, we know what it’s like to have agonizing, sleepless nights about a relationship we thought at one time was wonderful….and then, not so much….
You don’t need to be divorced or broken up already, you can be considering it and looking closely at the fear, worry and sadness. What we’re doing in this course is looking at our minds and our thinking, and seeing more clearly without the brutal suffering.
Love to have you join us in January on Sundays. We meet at 11:00am Pacific Time, 2:00 pm Eastern Time, 7:00 pm UK for 90 minutes each week, with lots of support in between in our special online forum and pairing with others in between.
New year, new perspective, new way of relating and being in relationship.
Remembering my own divorce experience, and break-ups before and after that….oh what wild rides.
A Grace Note post from the past jumped out, after I recently worked with another inquirer on being newly single.
I share it with you today, as each person I work with who is going through some kind of mental pain, I learn from and am very touched.
It takes courage and willingness to question your thoughts.
Or, OK. It takes courage and willingness to even ADMIT your thoughts, which is the very first step.
The other day, for example, I worked with an amazing person who really touched me.
She was so unhappy because a love relationship had gone south quite dramatically, and ended.
She was so sad, she could hardly contain her grief and rage all mixed together. Her thoughts kept turning to herself, and how she was the one who screwed up and if she hadn’t said x, y, z or threatened to break up with him three months ago, this terrible ending wouldn’t have occurred.
I’ve known that voice that condemns the self. It’s dreadful.
But what if you paused before the beliefs come in about how rotten, stupid, and ugly you are?
Those thoughts only exist when you believe this situation shouldn’t have happened. It’s like we take out the whip and start beating ourselves with it mentally, for punishment of this crime of causing something to go wrong.
Are you sure a break-up or change or ending or move in another direction….IS wrong for you? For the other person? For the greater good?
Can you absolutely be sure it’s terrible?
Even if you say “yes” it’s a horrible thing….keep going with inquiry anyway.
How do you react when you believe the break-up, divorce, or getting fired is BAD BAD BAD?
Isn’t that when you begin to hate yourself, or think of yourself as unworthy?
Who would you be without this painful story?
I’m not saying a break-up isn’t shocking. It is sometimes. It’s unexpected, a surprise, and you may not have seen it coming. (And we could question that we should have).
“
If we’re even one breath more or one breath less than anyone else, we’re not at home.” ~ Byron Katie
But what if the turnaround is just as true, or truer….that this ending, break-up, divorce, cut-off is good? Or interesting, fitting. Perhaps it has an important invitation.
When I was getting divorced, I sat with this turnaround for a very long time….many times, honestly. And I found examples of why it was good this had happened.
It brought me to know myself in a way previously impossible to reach. It gave the the beauty of becoming comfortable, and then ecstatic, with silence. It gave me so much time to meditate and read.
It gave me the power to question my thoughts like wildfire.
My thinking was the only thing that was painful. I got it.
“We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.” ~ John O’Donohue
If you find yourself having gone through a relationship that ended with suffering, at any time in life (some people take this course who got divorced 30 years before)….
….then you are welcome to sit with Nadine and I in this beautiful practice called The Work, and find your freedom.
I’m researching our fears and worries about young people and eating. Have you ever felt terrified your daughter might be developing an eating disorder?
Have you felt nervous about all the junk food at your sister’s house where she’s raising your nieces and nephews?
If you’ve had any worries at all, I’d love to have your candid answers on this survey here. Thanks for taking the time.
This work will be used for future support for how we can be with eating, food and body image ideals and not freak out but support our children, teens or those we live with. Even if your kids are grown, or you’re not a parent but have definitely been worried about someone developing eating issues….I’d love to hear from you. To fill out the survey please visit here.
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Have you been stressing because of family or other social gatherings, parties, celebrations, feasts?
Lots of food can be present. In fact, even if we’ve wished it to be so, it would be weird NOT to have food at social gatherings with others.
But disordered eating I found was born from disordered thinking.
Those thoughts. They do seem like a problem, don’t they?
In the past, I really believed everything I thought about food, eating and body image.
It was all pretty scary.
The mind was screaming at me: “Watch Out!” or “Get Ready, This Will Be Hard!” (about a holiday feast or celebration for example) or “Be Vigilant!”
You can’t be very internally calm or free when you have a voice running like this inside your head, right?
How to calm down?
Dis-connect yourself from that part of your mind. Notice that it is NOT you anyway–you’re already Not That. It’s only a voice.
You can stop watching that horror movie and stop getting worked up.
Watch how to handle this kind of alarm right here:
If you’d like to join our free facebook community Eating Peace: Question Your Thinking, Change Your Eating visit us HERE. The only requirement is a desire to end disordered thinking/disordered eating. Everyone is welcome.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. I’m working hard behind the scenes on an upcoming free webinar for everyone, coming LIVE in January in preparation for Eating Peace Experience which starts January 27th. Stay tuned for how to sign up for the free webinar and share it with others so we spread the word that eating peace is possible for everyone.
Snow-covered bridge at Breitenbush, like the snow-covered bridge to question four: Is it cold? Is it safe? Will I fall? Do I really want to go there?
I just sat for 15 minutes without starting to type, staring into space, knowing I wanted to say something about Breitenbush and the winter retreat I just returned from.
I see many images of the inspiring joy in people’s faces when they “get” something through self-inquiry.
Someone started skipping on the last day–the way kids do on a playground. She said she was so happy, the only thing to do was to skip. A burden was lifted from her that had weighed her down for years. It was over. Her face was beaming.
I see the delight and fascination of sharing the leadership with the dear Tom Compton, and how we share back and forth with those present, each bringing a different flavor to the process which makes it grander (so my story goes) or more expansive, curiously different and very sweet.
There were exactly equal amounts of men and women participating.
The journey of being with friends in inquiry is quite stunning. The questions raised, the work done, the lightbulbs turning on in peoples’ minds.
Sometimes, a question comes up with a lurch.
Like….hold on….what??
A participant new to The Work suddenly wondered if this whole Question Four thing was such a good idea.
“Wouldn’t a parent, who questioned the thought that they should guide their child, become a blissed-out hippie? They’d ignore and neglect their kid!”
Ah. Question Four: Who Would You Be Without Your Thought?
Sometimes, it’s a little strange. Perhaps threatening.
(If you like videos, I spoke about this same situation and question four on Monday facebook live my facebook page here).
Early on in my practicing of The Work, I found myself a couple of years into the process with a problem that wasn’t changing, wasn’t going away.
I was constantly upset with a male friend who we were sort of dating and sort of not dating. Off again on again. Complicated. All that.
A day came when I found I was seething with anger, for the thousandth time, and I got to speak to Byron Katie about my disappointment and despair to find myself with so much anger and a repetitive worksheet at this guy again.
How many times was I going to have to do The Work on this same person?
JEEZ.
What I didn’t realize, was right there in that very disappointment, I was wishing desperately to be peaceful, kind, loving, and happy with the person I was doing The Work on.
I had my idea of what that looked like, like a vision of the definition of “spiritually on track”. My thoughts were that “good” people don’t go into rages, don’t get super angry, don’t criticize, aren’t selfish, never lie, aren’t greedy.
There was a long list of “rules” honestly. I must strive for those “good” qualities and squelch or move away from the “bad” ones.
But trying to get somewhere with myself and with this man wasn’t actually doing The Work.
Not at all.
That beginner spoke it more bluntly, and she spoke to something that I really did at one time, or was trying to do (it was always failing).
I was ignoring what was genuine for me in that fascinating relationship: I was not really interested in dating him.
When I spoke to Byron Katie about this predicament she said to me: “how do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are!”
DOH!
I think that may have been the moment I recognized that doing The Work is not about being passive, condoning what’s happening, it’s not about “loving” violence or something terribly frightening and doing nothing.
It’s not about being compliant, easy-going, remaining quiet if you need to speak up, or falsely going into bliss when bliss is the farthest thing from your mind.
That was the moment I knew reality included rage, and it also included a pathway to work with the rage called honest self-inquiry.
I wasn’t eliminating my hatred, anger, fury. That would be like trying to eliminate fire from the earth. Not possible.
But I could tend to the fire, honor it, and move to safety.
The Work gives us permission to be exactly who we are. All those feelings are welcome. They are the energies that bring us awareness of our perceptions of What Is.
Good that they’re here. Let’s not try to get rid of them. They might be present for some important reason.
I’m so grateful to the inquirer who reminded me of the worry about Question Four, the fear of dishonest passivity, the potential to throw away all parts of a relationship and not attend to it with freedom and clarity, and strength.
All those years ago, when I was “working” on fixing myself and my anger with that one individual by doing The Work….I suddenly recognized that what I needed to do was to clearly break up with that guy.
No more “are we dating, or not dating?” No more volatile and confusing conversations. I wasn’t interested anymore in my addiction to my dream of how that relationship should go.
It was over.
The thing is, we also don’t have to be afraid of this desire to be peaceful, blissed out, “in the present moment”, or good spiritual people.
Why did I even come into The Work in the first place? I wanted peace.
It’s not dangerous to want peace, though. It wasn’t dangerous for me to keep doing The Work because I had a goal in mind of Non-Anger and Happy Relationship.
I simply failed.
Question Four is just a question. YOU are the one with the answer.
The question is so big and broad and wonderful, you get to explore and navigate through the mind and feelings all the possibilities. Could it mean x? Could it mean y? Can I see another way, without all my stress?
If your clear and steady path is to devote time to your kids, for example, to care for them, support them, respect your life in parenting….that’s where The Work will lead you. You care about that. You can’t Un-Care about that by answering Question Four.
What I find continuously is the wisdom of the beginner’s mind, the reminders from the beginners I get to sit with, the opening to each new situation I study with wonder–fresh, new, passionate, curious.
What I kind of wish I had spoken more to at the retreat, or more articulately, was that we’re only wondering what it would be like without our story, our interpretation, of a situation or relationship.
We’re not setting down the entire relationship and banishing it, or our feelings, for all time. We’re not abandoning what we love.
In Question Four I’m asking myself who I’d be without my suffering in this situation, in this way I’m relating? I’m asking myself who I’d be without the scary images I conjure about the future, about the past?
I’m asking if I could just try for a moment to be totally and completely open, honest and free to have this relationship I care about go wherever it goes, without me being in charge of the universe (or the future).
It doesn’t mean I don’t speak, care, love, share, talk, act, do, be.
You know what happened with me and that man I constantly did The Work on so many years ago?
I knew to break up with him. I had never, ever in my life broken up with a person (I was 44 years old at the time).
I had never been absolutely clear with a man who I was romantically interested in about my feelings when they shifted.
After that conversation with Katie, I stepped out of the room, I placed a phone call, and I told him it was over, with a feeling of loving power.
Up to that point, I had always disappeared into the mist without a conversation, since age 8 when Ernie gave me a ring stapled inside notebook paper as gift wrap at school.
I was so horrified I never spoke to Ernie again. That pattern repeated itself for the next 36 years.
I’m still learning from Question Four.
The reminder from the participant who was so worried about question four was a brilliant exploration.
I learn from every retreat and gathering with friends in The Work.
Every time. Amazing.
Tom and I are doing a retreat together again June 2-7, 2020. They’ll open registration after January 1st. To come to Breitenbush, you need to call them and sign up.
Breitenbush where we hold this retreat is such a unique place: a conference center that’s been around since the 1940s, an entire community run on its own electrical system generated from the underground hot springs.
A big beautiful lodge serves three delicious vegetarian meals a day cafeteria style. Little cabins stand in rows A, B, C, D, E, F all looking like rustic little Laura Ingalls Wilder prarie cabins; cedar walls and ceiling, a large built-in cupboard and shelf in the corner, soft lamps above the beds, a simple desk near the door, an old-fashioned radiator making the entire space warm and cozy.
There are no keys at Breitenbush. The doors don’t lock. There are no cars at Breitenbush. You park in the great parking lot, load your things in a big cart with very large wheels, and roll all your stuff to your cabin (surprisingly easy). There is no cell phone service, there is no internet.
The place our retreat meets is a beautiful stand-alone meeting house called the River Yurt.
We really have little distraction but our minds, our thoughts, the feelings that occur within….and silence.
All I can say today besides this description of a place in the Oregon Cascades, is I feel full, free, touched and so deeply appreciative of this work and what I get to witness.
How could I be so lucky?
Human beings are so fabulous.
And this is true for me both with and without their stories.
The stories people live through are astonishing. And even more so are the stories people are able to come to peace with.
Or, perhaps the stories I am able to come to peace with.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. The next retreat in The Work of Byron Katie to look at finding clarity about anything disturbing you is May 13-17, 2020 in Seattle. Spring Cleaning Retreat. Mark your calendar. We’ll either be meeting in the elegant retreat house near where I live OR….(exciting and very probable)….my new retreat space in my back yard. People can camp here, stay in airbnb’s close by (lots to choose from). It will be awesome to welcome you to my home.
P.P.S. Come to Friday Free Inquiry Jam Dec 13th.7:45 am PT. (see link above).
Tis the season for many people for eating, over-eating, binge-eating, too much cooking, thinking about food, worrying about food, feeling frustrated or like giving up, avoiding or stuffing yourself at big gatherings or family feasts, or imagining how your new diet will be after January 1st and this year’s resolution.
How many times did I make another new resolution?
Hundreds.
I gave up after awhile.
But it was either despair and apathy, or, fiercely staying on top and “winning” the battle.
There had to be another way.
I would think this, and still feel like it was elusive and impossible.
It begins to seem like there are two primary options for working with this predicament of anxiety, sadness, disappointment and frustration with eating:
a) force, willpower and diets OR
b) not caring, accepting your limits and that you’re diseased or crippled, and doomed to heaviness.
One thing you can do right now today, is begin to be open and curious about an interesting element or feeling with which you might be viewing eating, food, yourself and your urges, your body, and the world…..and it’s called danger.
The belief is that it’s dangerous to be in the presence of food. It’s dangerous to eat. It’s dangerous to be you, around food. It’s dangerous to hunger, or to be full. It’s dangerous to feel strongly. Food is simply dangerous. Having a body is not very safe (it never looks right, or you have to hang on to your fine appearance for dear life).
Here’s how you might work with this fear of danger and lack of trust:
If you’d like to join our free facebook community Eating Peace: Question Your Thinking, Change Your Eating visit us HERE. The only requirement is a desire to end disordered thinking/disordered eating. Everyone is welcome.
This quiet Thanksgiving morning in the US, I’m writing you from Cannon Beach, Oregon where the tide is way out at the moment, and the day is just getting light.
I had a terrible night’s sleep.
I stared out the slightly cracked window blinds for hours seeing the dark inky pitch black color beyond. I checked my phone’s clock at 1:30 am and looked at incoming emails for a moment, then closed my eyes and tried again.
This is so rare for me, so that’s good news (says the mind)….but even one night can be frustrating or somehow sad.
I wanted to have a good, energetic day with my two young adult kids and my husband for the holiday.
Now, that’s not going to happen.
Ah ha.
Did you catch that? I’m anticipating the day already, before it’s even occurred.
In case you find yourself in some mental activity at night when everyone else is sleeping, or awake for no apparent reason….let’s do The Work.
You can do this, actually, on anything you’re labeling as horrible that is happening.
It’s horrible if you don’t sleep.
Is that true?
No.
This is really amazing in itself to find. I don’t feel bad at all right now after sunrise, I’m writing, I’m thinking of going for a nice jog on the beach soon.
It doesn’t really matter in this moment what’s happening this afternoon, later on. If I’m awake staring out the window, I don’t have to label it “horrible”.
What happens when you think lack of sleep (or anything) IS horrible though?
I start analyzing why it’s happening.
Maybe I’m feeling very nostalgic about the death of my children’s father and all the memories here that happened with him in the past (we had our honeymoon here, before the kids existed).
Maybe I’m sad about the brief conflict between son and daughter at the dinner table yesterday–something I don’t see often.
Maybe it’s awareness that I have lots to do, I’ve been traveling a ton, and I’m feeling “behind” on some administrative tasks.
Maybe it was feeling dehydrated physically (I got up and drank two big cups of water during my bout of wide- awakeness in the wee hours).
Or all of the above.
Who knows…..but when I believe being awake is “horrible” or will make things “horrible” later, I’m upset in the very moment in the night.
So who would I be without the belief?
Staring and relaxed, noticing. Fascinated. Noting all these thoughts swirling, and old memories and images that are surprising.
Noticing hopes and expectations for this time away–and dropping them.
Without the thoughts of something being “horrible” I’m aware I’m getting wonderful meditation time. I thought this in the night as I did The Work in my head. I felt the bed, my back against the mattress, the air in the room.
Turning the thought around: My thinking about not sleeping is horrible.
I’m in the future, in an afternoon that doesn’t yet exist. I’m out of the quiet, middle-of-the-night wonder of meditation. I’m not trusting what is at all. I’m making it dramatically “horrible” like it’s a big tragedy, and something’s wrong.
Turning it around again: It’s wonderful if you don’t sleep.
Can I find anything interesting about not sleeping, even if you can’t exactly find it’s wonderful (yet)?
Yes, I explored feelings in energy and the body. I massaged my forearms. I listened to some of the voices I was hearing in my mind, and reviewed memories quietly, peacefully.
Naps are a thing. I can always do this later if it appears as a sweet option.
I’m good at speaking about my feelings, once I turn inward and contemplate them. I’m very interested, even feel wonderful, about Not Avoiding or Escaping. I found some compassion for myself and all the images from the past and this place.
And it is Wonder-Full to be awake in the wee hours. That’s a big turnaround, right?
I can find it. So quiet, so soft, so empty. Two o’clock in the morning is so still. Monks do this on purpose all over the world for centuries to connect to God, Universe, Reality, Self without needing to complete basic tasks or any activities.
I can feel the wonder of being up. The wonder of noticing a sky going from pitch black, to pale blue, to lighter pale blue and grey.
What a mysterious, fascinating, curious place, this earth and this life–my own body, these eyes seeing, this mind thinking, these other bodies in my presence who are “related” to me and so precious:
Children, husband, the people I’ve never met outside walking over to the beach, the buildings, the white seagull, the hum of the fridge–apparently all of this that came out of nothing into something for reasons unknown.
Eating Peace Experience is coming January 27th-April 16, 2020. An immersion program to investigate key thoughts that produce off-balance eating. We do a deep dive.
EPE includes presentations and exercises to locate thinking and feeling, live zoom inquiry groups twice a week, a special private forum, facebook live Q&A. The delivery of this program is high touch with daily connection to support you in catching and questioning beliefs you’ve sometimes had since you were a child about food, eating, body image and belonging.
Speaking of childhood….I’m collaborating on an exciting project I’ll tell you more about later, but it’s about preventing eating-weirdness before it ever happens. I know some of us worry.
This would be moms and dads, teachers, friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles or anyone who desires clarity in looking at kids, our own history with eating, and becoming someone who feels confident (even if imperfect) about life with food and a body and caring for others who eat, feel, think and believe.
If you’re curious about this topic and have noticed worries or concerns about children you care about and the way they eat (the way they think) then I’d love to talk with you, interview style. I have questions to ask you and would love to hear your candid answers. Sign up for an interview here.
In today’s video, I share a story of a moment when I grabbed for an answer from outside, desperate for someone to tell me what to eat.
Sign me up for that diet! (I screamed)!
It didn’t go as I expected.
And that was for me, a really good thing.
The roller coaster ride of ON or OFF The Wagon….and the surrender and peace of quitting the hunt and inquiring.
It didn’t take long upon arrival home from The School for The Work to have a big thought hit me like a small truck load of bricks.
What we thought was a clog in the washing machine drain, with three different plumbers coming over to clean the blockage out, turned out to be a break in the sewer line.
The proposed bill to fix the sewer?
$13,090.
Now, I saw “we” but this is not technically my house. It’s my son and daughter’s house they inherited from their dad when he died a little over a year ago.
I cheered them on in keeping the house. What a wonderful idea!
My son moved into the basement apartment and with a whole lot of my help, we spruced up the upper floor like crazy with fresh paint and new fixtures and carpet….and rented it out.
Six months later this happens.
How do you react when you get an unexpected huge bill? (If you want to watch me speak this inquiry on facebook live, you can see these on Mondays right here.)
In this case a pipe appears to be broken, but this can happen with medical situations, accidents, legal matters. Something needs to be fixed, whether it’s a car, a broken bone, cancer, a dead refrigerator or toilet, a cracked sewer….and BAM.
You “have to” pay.
Is it true?
Find your honest answer. Notice the feeling of “no choice” in the matter.
Can you absolutely know it’s true?
Well, in my case it is not true at all. We haven’t accepted the bid proposal yet, there are already other options, and someone just said insurance might cover it if it’s tree branches (which is highly possible).
What happens we you think you have to pay, though? Victim Thinking! This shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have to do this. I’m burdened, this is BAD, I don’t wanna.
Thoughts like “I should have done it differently in the past, and then this could have been avoided.”
Isn’t the mind bonkers? It loves to come up with alternate life stories based on changing a moment in the past that’s already over.
I notice also I feel threatened when I believe the thought that something shouldn’t cost that much, or I have to pay it, or it shouldn’t be happening.
I believe I won’t have enough, haven’t had enough, need to be careful about having enough, and won’t have enough later on in the future.
It’s almost paranoid.
(Drop the “almost”).
Who would I be without the belief “this shouldn’t be happening” and “I HAVE TO PAY”?
Certainly not a victim or a tiny small entity with no say or no clarity.
Without these beliefs I feel empowered and curious, actually. I feel aware, fascinated.
I also notice there’s nothing happening except numbers on a piece of paper called a Proposal. It’s no big deal.
I even remember this happening once before on my own second house I lived in as a young married woman with small children, when the whole entire septic system failed and it cost $20,000 to fix in the very first year of living in the house. I remember the torment and analysis of the funding, and the refinancing of the house to find the money to pay.
I also remember there was always enough food to eat, the house always worked to live in, there was safety, comfort, life went on.
Maybe I’m the one who is supposed to take care of sewage. Why not?
I can do it. I’m good at it.
I love The Work, for example. Taking care of the sewage of the mind. The muck and dirt the thought patterns flash as warning signs, as visitors from beyond.
Nothing terrible has happened. Turned around: all this shouldn’t have happened in my thinking. I don’t “have to” pay. I’m not burdened. I “get to” pay, if I do. We don’t even know yet what’s being paid, and to whom. LOL.
And it’s unlikely the amount will come to $13,090.
I get to contribute to the care of an old house and be the one to improve it and make it beautiful.
It’s a privilege, a joy.
Why not me?
I love the feeling of jumping in, helping something get fixed. I know that even when I haven’t had the money, step by step I’ve figured out where to get it–especially when my mind is free from all that negative thinking about not having enough.
I’m looking forward to the adventure ahead of fixing a sewer (again). Negotiation skills will be honed. Questions will be asked. People will be invited in who are experts. That’s who I am without my story. It’s strangely exciting.
Even thrilling.
But even if you’re afraid and you have a big unexpected bill landing on you….notice how safe you are, how quiet.
Wow.
Who would you be without your story?
“There are two ways to sit here: suffering or not. And then if I reach out for the cup of tea and I pour it and I spill it: “Oh my God! Life is tough–I failed again.” But you know, how else can the tea spill? I’m needed for that. When the tea spills, that’s when I’m a success. When it doesn’t spill, that’s when I’m a success. I’m doing my job.” ~ Byron Katie in Who Would You Be Without Your Story?
