If you notice you also are needy…..no need to pretend it isn’t true. Pause, see, notice….The Work.
OMG that person is soooooo gushing, over-the-top full of praise, way too complimentary, ingratiating, very needy. They must want something.
Have you ever had that inner feeling about someone, like they’re Pepe Le Pew?
I have. Then I did The Work on them.
And guess what?
Perhaps even worse….have you ever had the feeling YOU were being too clingy, needy, desperate, grabby about someone, or about a relationship you were attracted to?
The thing is, compensating for your own needy feelings, your own wants and desires, or trying to suppress them….
….doesn’t really work.
This is what it’s like.
OMG I really want to hang out with that person. He’s awesome. Uh oh. I better not ever be needy. Being needy is gross. He said he doesn’t like dependency in others. I did The Work on that other guys neediness, which was gross. I’ll act nonchalant. I’ll be easy-going.
They want to cancel last-minute plans? No problem. They want to go to that restaurant, even though I don’t like the big screen TVs inside? No problem. They chose that movie with lots of scenes of blowing things to smithereens? OK with me. They want to see the play with the crying, sad ending? Sure thing.
I just won’t appear to need their love.
I’ve read the book.
Cool as a cucumber over here.
This is called skipping over the next step in The Work and avoiding the feelings of grief, sadness, dread, loss, or heart-wrenching disappointment.
I understand it. I’ve done it.
In one love interest, I already had The Work in my life, but I would “do” The Work over and over again on the man being totally uninterested in me (who I felt interested in) so I could be MORE detached, laissez-faire, and relaxed in his presence….
….all with the secret inside hope that therefor he’d propose, be more attracted, or want to betogetherforeverfortherestofourlives.
(No spaces between the words on purpose).
So if you notice yourself doing ANYTHING to try to be NOT what you are, or what you feel….
….good little hiding place for self-inquiry.
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
In this case: NEEDINESS!
Here’s how it unfolded for me.
First, with a quality (like “neediness”) you’ll probably already have noticed how someone else has it, and you found it repulsive.
The next thing that happened is you maybe did The Work, and discovered YOU had this quality, and found it repulsive (ahem, like my example, “neediness”, just saying).
You vowed without even knowing it that you would start working immediately (or continue “working” on yourself) on this quality. I will never, ever, ever be needy.
Oh, rats.
I realize something.
I am still totally 100% against neediness. I did The Work on that other person being needy, it pointed back to me, and now I’m determined not to be needy myself.
Important bulletin: I’m still against neediness.
This work is about the Truth. Noticing reality. Noticing what I’m at war with. Noticing my own pain, stress, suffering.
I myself shouldn’t ever be needy, make requests, ask for help, for food, for attention, for love.
Is that true?
Sigh. Yes! Aren’t enlightened people Non-Needy?
But can you absolutely know it’s true you shouldn’t ever be needy?
No. Because sometimes, I have been.
How do you react when you believe you shouldn’t act needy, detached, clingy or have any agenda whatsoever?
See above. I do things I don’t even like to do. I don’t hang up the phone.
Who would you be without the belief you shouldn’t be needy?
I’d just be here, with myself, noticing the desire for attention or support or security, and relax a little.
I’d maybe even….giggle.
I’d observe how brilliantly everything goes, even relationships, without my knowing a thing. I’d be so very aware of the part of me, as a beautiful inquirer said yesterday in the Eating Peace Process group, that’s very grounded.
Like a tree the way it blows wildly about, maybe loses a branch or two, but is rooted in the ground no matter what it’s winding up thinking or believing.
“You’re working at a deeper level. You’re not working with your psychology, to suppress, hold together, do affirmations, get the energy nicer. You’re going deep. You’re working with the blockages themselves, rather than the result of the blockages. Deep is the only place a solution exists. All the energy, attention, consciousness can now go to seeing the rock, on seeing, seeing, seeing…..If you center the energy back in the witness, in yourself, all these things will fall off like a snake, they will shed. You’ll start feeling peace where you felt disturbance. You are an extremely beautiful being, who needs nothing from anyone. The flower when it blossoms and opens in the morning naturally opens. It doesn’t need to receive, or to give. You are like this.” ~ Michael Singer
The best fire alarm for stressed out feelings? The Work!
Urgent! Urgent!
(Listen, I hear the Foreigner song from 1981).
The feeling of needing to hurry, ASAP, is very stressful if you aren’t a rock band singing about it.
Running, pushing, moving fast.
The other day a lovely inquirer said she felt like it was an emergency to find peace. All caps I WANT TO DO THE WORK AND FIND PEACE NOW!
Everyone feels urgency sometimes. Quick, I gotta call that person. Quick, I gotta apologize. Quick, I gotta say the right thing. Quick, I gotta leave this place. Quick, I gotta get enlightenment. Quick, I gotta calm down. Quick, I gotta figure this out. Quick, I gotta get a job. Quick, I gotta get some money. Quick, I gotta get over there!
There’s a deep feeling when I’ve had this thought that I won’t survive! CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!
It has to happen YESTERDAY. Or else.
Or else what? What is it that will die? What’s the worst that could happen?
I once had a man I was dating who I didn’t know extremely well, who I was pretty sure wasn’t a good match. He could feel the distance through our phone conversations. I was anxious about his neediness.
The next day, he showed up in my city after taking an emergency-type last-minute flight. I couldn’t see him. One of my kids was sick at home and I felt like distancing from what felt….frantic.
I felt scared of the intensity of it all. And sorry for him and for myself. Yikes.
The thing you see that needs to happen…..it HAS TO. NOW!!!
I remember this feeling when my house might have foreclosed if I didn’t come up with a payment within a few days.
Must. Happen. Immediately.
Are you sure?
Oh. Wow. Um. It seemed like an emergency. But right at this exact moment in time I’m aware I’m breathing, there’s a ceiling and a floor, and warmth, and I’m actually OK.
So no, it’s not true.
But I’m sure it WILL be true! Soon! (Now, now, keep going).
How do you react when you believe something has to happen immediately, including finding peace or enlightenment?
I notice an intense feeling of crunching down within, a tightness, lots of adrenaline and speed rushing through the body. A shrieking voice inside that’s terrified.
I can’t sleep, I feel like I can’t think straight (it’s true, I’m thinking crookedly all bent up around fear).
I treat anyone else who’s frantic like they need to be avoided.
So who or what would I be without this stressful lie that the thing Must Happen Now?
Sometimes, I’ve had the thought if I let go of this belief, I’ll lie down on the floor in a puddle and no longer try. I’ll give up in despair. Even if the thought is extremely frightening that the thing I want to happen must happen right now….I can’t give it up! Otherwise it will never, ever happen ever.
Ahhh, that tricky mind encouraging you to stay in the thought and not wonder about what really, really would happen if you weren’t thinking something ELSE must happen ASAP than what IS happening.
Who would you be, for example, without the thought you must stop feeling anxious RIGHT NOW (hear finger snapping)!?!
For me, I’d notice the sensations called “anxiety”. I’d allow them to be in the room with me, in my body here. I’d let things be as they are, like watching a rain storm or thunder and lightening. The wind is blowing….let it blow (I notice I have no control over it anyway).
Without the belief something must happen, or stop, or change instantly….I notice something here relaxes.
And then relaxes a little more.
There’s a bit of space around the edges. The thing I’m nervous about isn’t as awful and big as before.
I definitely don’t feel like escaping, either. There’s no thought about eating, drinking, smoking, doing, internetting, TV watching, planning my escape, spending, making arrangements stressfully. I’m just here.
Ahhhhhhh.
Turning the thought around: Nothing needs to happen differently, or immediately, or on my preferred timing. What’s happening is just right.
Oh.
You mean I don’t need peace right now in this instance?!
What are the examples that I don’t?
Breathing. Typing. Going to the store. Lying still. Meditating. Picking up the phone. Sending an email. Going to the gym. Talking to my mom. Getting dressed. Everything happening, unfolding, nothing “dangerous” occurring. Even with nervous energy or uncomfortable feelings, all is well.
I hear rain pouring outside right now, and I’m not “against” it. I’m inside in a brightly lit cozy winter cottage. The sound is actually beautiful of the rain on the roof. Perhaps I could see this feeling of anxiety coursing through me like rain on the roof. Something natural, exciting, pattering. Something that comes bearing a gift.
Turning it around again: My thoughts are urgent. My thinking needs “x” right now (like peace). And only my thoughts. Nothing else is really an emergency at all. My THOUGHTS must happen immediately.
I like how Byron Katie says, if you looked in a basket of thoughts, you’d see air. Nothing. Thoughts are only…..thoughts. You don’t have to believe them.
How could it be a good thing this is unfolding in its own timing (not mine) and I am not the one in charge? How could it be a wonderful gift to not demand that anything be different than it is, in this moment?
Jeez. You’re getting carried away with this whole thing….now this is pretty extreme. A GOOD thing that it’s not happening, there are no guarantees, and life doesn’t appear to be concerned with urgency about this topic?
Wow.
I notice the lightness of not being the one who has to worry, force, push, control, make-happen, charge ahead.
In fact….what a surprise.
The inner anxiety appears to have passed on by now. Feelings did not require action, apparently.
Just like a wound healing, or the sun coming up on Reality’s timing, can I trust what’s going on here, without trying to control the outcome?
Ha ha! Yes.
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it….it’s just easier if you do.” ~ Byron Katie
In fact, it feels so sickening sometimes, we’d rather die, or dissolve into the floor, or go live on another planet.
The thing is, when you focus on your shameful self, your dreadful act, the horrible way you eat….
….you miss some exceptionally important information about why, and how, this strange way you ate came to happen.
What was going on before you had the thought “I know, I think I’ll go eat something, that’s it!”
How did that process occur? Why do you think it occurred? (And no, the answer is not “because I’m an idiot” or “because I can’t do it right”).
Condemning yourself and beating yourself to a pulp is what leads people often to a violent approach to solving their eating problems. Training regiment, torturous exercise, alarm at 6 am to hit the gym, eating exact amounts of food, weighed and measured and documented and counted with many foods left off the menu, weighing yourself with a scale, measuring body parts with measuring tape.
I repeat often there’s nothing wrong with a food and diet and exercise plan. But they rarely work long-term. They rarely offer permanent peace and satisfaction. They fix the symptom without addressing the underlying cravings and hungers that have nothing to do with food.
At least that’s what happened for me. Thank goodness I couldn’t ever stay on a food plan or diet for longer than a few hours. Something inside of me was determined to get to the bottom of the issue, to see myself and know myself from the inside out, and to end the struggle.
Anyone, including you, can do this.
You don’t need to take vows and oaths and make promises never to eat that way again (or do any other troubling activity you get pulled towards to cope with your thoughts and feelings).
When you identify what you’re thinking and feeling, without shame and self-hatred, and inquire with kindness and self-compassion….
….eating off-balance is no longer necessary.
If you notice shame and meanness arise towards yourself because of the way you’ve eaten….stop. Ask what else is going on, besides failure to eat peacefully?
Get to know the wonder of YOU. It’s not as bad as you think!
For the many people who have emailed asking for the replay link for the Eating Peace Masterclass, here it is: Watch here.
(Yes, you submit your email and you’ll get all the information in your Inbox. You can unsubscribe to any future emails from me immediately by unsubscribing, or updating your preferences, at the bottom of any email you get).
Someone had a wonderful and fascinating question: Can I take the Eating Peace Process and apply it to my break-up in a love relationship?
How fascinating, because what this person can tell by knowing about self-inquiry, is that the feeling of addiction, craving, reaching, and agony around your target of choice….can vary widely.
Her “target” (the thing desired) was LOVE. Keeping it. Getting it. Upset about love gone wrong.
Somehow, a deep inner target or desire we have, no matter what the things, seems to reach for attention, appreciation, approval, acceptance, pleasure.
Now, I’m not sure the Eating Peace program specifically would work for the sense of being addicted to stressful stories about love relationships and worry about loss in that department….
….but this inquirer was onto something as she noticed that wanting a relationship to be a certain way felt like an addiction or compulsion.
Whew.
Most of us have probably noticed from time to time (or a whole lot) that you’re THINKING about something AGAIN, and you wish you weren’t.
It feels like you can’t stop thinking about it.
(When can I get some cookies, how can I get him/her, I need to keep consuming this, I need to keep texting him/her, I need to get rid of what I ate, I need to get him/her out of my life, I need to fix myself so I stop craving, I need to fix myself so I stop liking him/her).
Here’s something you can do as you notice your thoughts arise.
It’s kind of simple: Write Them Down.
Allow your thoughts to be petty, ridiculous, desperate, needy. Write down what you want that person or the food to do, be like, offer, give you.
What would it feel like, if you got what you wanted? What would you have, if you had it?
If you NEVER got it, what would be terrible about it? If you never received, acquired, consumed this thing you want, how painful would it be? Would you go mad with frustration?
What else would come to the surface, if you did NOT get what you believe you want to relieve the craving? (Don’t just jump to thinking “That would be GREAT!”)
Study yourself and your compulsive moments. You are the One you’ve been waiting for. You’re the one with the best answers for yourself.
You question your own thoughts, the ones YOU notice in your mind….you answer the questions with YOUR answers, which also appear in your brilliant willing mind.
Welcome to The Work.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Wonderful small group starting tomorrow in the Eating Peace Process. You start with your own work in writing on the weekend. We meet for the first week live on Tuesday evenings and/or Thursday mornings. Compulsive thoughts about food can be so painful. If you’re ready to go in and explore the root of the addictive process, join us here.
One of my favorite Byron Katie prompts or questions to help dig down into The Work is:
WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS?
The “it” of course, is your stressful belief.
What does it mean, if it’s true? What do you think it means about you, or about other people (or that one other person you’re concerned about)?
What are all the meanings you give this thought?
This question comes in especially handy if you think something stressful is a solid fact, not open to interpretation.
Some examples:
I am going to die. My car tire went flat. I tore my hamstring. The carpet needs vacuuming. I weigh 500 pounds. It’s raining. I have $10.19. I got married. I moved to a cottage. My husband went to live in Timbuktu. She has cancer.
If you notice something seems like an irrefutable fact, a simple fact, a thought you can’t argue with….
….and yet you notice you feel stress or pain when you think it or write it….
….it may be time to answer that question about what you think it means, if this is 100% true?
Last night I got to spend a beautiful evening at a local bookstore where I live called East West Books.
Inquirers both familiar and brand new to me came to gather and do their work about food, eating and body image.
Several of them shared their brilliantly honest worksheets about their weight, the food they feel pulled to eat, a body part they hate seeing in the mirror.
The work on the thoughts brought forward was quite incredible.
But I especially loved one woman’s thoughts about having too much weight on her body.
“I am too fat”.
And what do you think it means about you, about other people, about your life?
Deep breath.
Ouch. Because here’s what she said, and it reminded me of my own mind attacking itself for what it thought was true.
It means I am guilty, I am wrong, my life isn’t good, I’m not happy, I can’t wear fun clothes, I can’t be seen on the beach (another inquirer quietly uttered the word “whale” about his own appearance in a bathing suit), I can’t stop worrying and thinking about food.
For some others, being heavy or assuming you’re fat means….
….no one will love you. People will criticize you. No one will be attracted to you or date you. People will think you’re lazy, or greedy.
One thing I suggest is finding a moment in time where you first learned this thought that you are indeed too heavy.
Who did you hear it from?
Because you didn’t have the belief when you were born, that’s for sure.
Where’s your proof that fatness or heaviness or something-wrong-with-this-body is actually the case here?
(If you have a vivid image, like someone else in the group last night did, of mom saying “you are too big to have stripes that circle your body, you need vertical stripes only!” at age 7, then you might have a perfectly clear moment for a situation to investigate with The Work).
When you write down what you’re thinking, the thoughts are caught on paper, not zipping out of the air around the corner.
You’re too ____. (In this case, fat).
Is it true?
No.
How do you react when you believe this thought?
Horrible. Heavy. Despairing. So I go eat to get some sweetness and feel better.
Who would you be without this story of “I am _____” (fat, thin, tall, short, old, young, smart, dumb, sick, stupid…..and on an on, you pick your most frequent flyer).
Who would you be without the story of “I am too fat”?
Going about my business. Playing more. Doing art. Spending time with friends. The woman voicing The Work for everyone present last night said “I’d probably know a lot more people”.
Turning the thought around: I am NOT too fat. My THINKING is too fat.
Yes. My thoughts are heavy, dense, thick like flies surrounding the body, buzzing and yelling at it all the time. My thoughts are big, extra, overloaded, especially when it comes to the body. They’re focused on the body, not life, not expanding in other areas besides the body!
With the thought? Pain and suffering.
Without the thought? Light, free, living life.
“You’re either believing your thoughts, or questioning them….no other choice.” ~ Byron Katie
It may be quite disturbing at first to write down such a thought as “I am too fat”. It can be frustrating to even think about it all over again, and realize, as you write, how much you HATE this problem that’s been here since childhood.
But would you rather write down your thoughts and then take them one by one through the inquiry process known as The Work (it is work, after all) or keep on believing them?
Just saying.
If you’re twisted up about this topic in any way, if you’ve found yourself eating from one end of the refrigerator to the other, if you’re wondering more deeply about the connection between your weight or your eating and your thoughts….
….and accessing peace with eating, your body, food….
….the Eating Peace Process Online begins on Saturday.
Everyone enrolled receives their first writing exercise on Saturday and the first “lesson” for looking at the food, eating, body, mind. Our first calls are Tuesday 1/17 at 5:30 pm, and Thursday 1/19 8:30 am. If you’re in the program, you can come to one or both (everything’s recorded).
I can’t wait to share the practices and exercises that worked best for me in my own healing journey, so you can choose what to take into yours.
And the most important practice of all, the cornerstone of the Eating Peace Program…..The Work of Byron Katie.
Read in detail about it here. Join me if it’s time.
New Eating Peace Masterclass on the Barriers in The Mind That Come Between Us And Eating Peace. Watch the webinar live on Tuesday 1/10 at 5:30 pm or Weds 1/11 at 8:30 am. Register here. (It’s free).
*********************
When it came to food and eating, or weight loss and getting into shape, the first place my mind always went was to the solution.
I’ll eat like “x” and avoid “y” and add this exercise to my daily routine and resist “z” and control myself and apply willpower. I read many books on nutrition and dieting, all of which had pages of information about what was happening with the cells and molecules in the body, what recipes I should follow in the kitchen, and how I should plan my day (take the stairs, not the elevator).
All of that was ridiculous, considering the actual problem was in my mind. It was in the way I viewed the world, and how I was adapting to very stressful situations.
I was full of fear, anxiety, worry, nervousness and discomfort in some areas when it came to living life….
….and the way I adapted and coped show up in the way I ate.
The way through this very agonizing dilemma?
Identify clearly your stressful beliefs and fears, and question them. Find the opposites, the turnarounds, and practice living them.
As Einstein said (paraphrased), if he had an hour to solve a problem, he’d spend 55 minutes defining and studying the problem, and five minutes “solving” it.
So I quit studying food, nutrition, and exercise and I began to wonder what was below the surface of this whole thing in the first place.
When I questioned my fearful assumptions about life (and eating, food and body image) and spent the majority of my focus on this issue there….I cracked open the barriers I had to freedom.
When I questioned my fearful assumptions about life (and eating, food and body image) I cracked open the barriers I had to freedom.
I still feel nervous and anxious sometimes–I still have bad dreams occasionally, or concerns and I’m not sure how to handle a situation. But turning to food to handle them, or to help me cope or comfort or support my emotional state, is not something that even occurs to me. Nothing like it once was.
To begin to understand what your blocks are to freedom from compulsive eating (or any compulsive behavior) you can start with Byron Katie’s wonderful question that invites us to see what we’re afraid of. It’s not comfortable, always. But it’s profound, and offers insight to our inner fears that can be found in no other way than by identifying them, and looking at them.
The great question?
What’s the worst that could happen?
Here’s how. (The text on the screen will vanish in 50 seconds, hang tight at the beginning if you find it distracting).
The shame of wishing you hadn’t done that. What if what you think it means…isn’t true?
Have you ever had the thought about something you did….
.…Dang it. I wish I hadn’t done that.
Well, of course you have.
It would be almost strange to answer the question “No! I have never, ever wished I did anything differently than they way I did it!”
I’ve had this thought a million times. I’ve caught myself wishing I had not done something yesterday, last night, last week, last month, or twenty years ago…or how about forty.
I really wish I hadn’t done that.
The trouble is, it’s a very painful thought IF you believe it’s absolutely true.
If you absolutely believe you shouldn’t have done something in the past, something you did do, this belief brings up shame, guilt, horror, embarrassment, reprimand. For some people they’re so distressed about what they did, they feel like they don’t deserve to live.
Long ago, in a dorm room of a small liberal arts college with high prestige, I broke down and out of a semi-fast of several years of eating “perfectly”.
I was extremely strict about my diet and food plan, and followed it with great precision (although I could question what it means to be so precise, since I didn’t weigh my food after the first three months or so of being on this food plan-I simply copied/remembered what to eat and the approximate portions). I learned this food plan from 12 Step meetings I attended.
In the meetings, they meant very well, they were offering a very, very clear and uncluttered approach to eating. Lots of items in the world of food were eliminated. Things that commonly incited cravings and urges….gone from the plan. You simply did not ever eat those things and you weighed and measured every bite that went into your mouth. It was like giving up alcohol or drugs if you were alcoholic or a drug addict. The first thing to do: stop the activity of consuming. Just stop.
The problem for me was that I was bound to this food plan like a criminal in a maximum security prison. It was as if I had locked my cravings and urges and desires and conflicts about food and eating in a deep dark dungeon behind a massive concrete and barbed wire wall, never to be found (I hoped) again. And then thrown into the bottom of the ocean, just to be on the safe side.
My attitude and beliefs about myself were that I could not be trusted. I could not eat (think) normally. I couldn’t feel normally. My emotions were tricksters, and often “wrong”.
The shout in the wilderness of it all was CONTROL YOURSELF FOR GOD’S SAKE!
Which is what I attempted to do.
People have this attitude towards many things they believe they shouldn’t have done.
The game plan is…..kill it. Control it. Deafen it. Quiet it down. Lock it away.
Not that many people related to eating the extreme way I did. But the energy below the surface, in many ways, had nothing to do with food or eating.
This may surprise you.
But have you ever decided you’re going to be a more generous, nicer or kinder person? Have you ever thought to yourself “I am going to get a handle on money”? Have you ever thought “I won’t criticize my spouse or get into an argument with my teenager”?
And then, sometime later (maybe the very next day) you yelled at someone you love, or said a mean nasty critical thing under your breath, or started fuming about your job, or you got super nervous about speaking up, or said yes when you meant no, or spent money you didn’t really have, or declined a new invitation, or decided to work longer and harder and wait on your vacation for another date and time…..when you PROMISED you wouldn’t keep doing this.
Maybe you tell yourself, like I did, that you should know better by now. You should have this figured out. You should have your act together in this department. You should be farther along…..well-spoken, calm, efficient, successful, the right weight, good at “x”, brilliant at “y”, resistant to “z”.
Another time I thought severely about myself the thought “I shouldn’t have done it” was after flirting very heavily with someone who wasn’t my primary partner at the time.
Ugh.
Or the time I lost my temper with my daughter. Or when I told myself I’d meditate daily. Or start yoga.
Or one of the worst situations of my life (it seemed at the time) I shouldn’t have had the abortion. There must be something wrong with me. So irresponsible. So wrong.
You shouldn’t have done it.
Is that true?
Yes, of course it’s true. There is no good reason to have done it, I already knew what would happen afterwards, I gave myself a terrible thing to live with!
Can you absolutely know it’s true?
No.
Now, this is amazing that I answer no. But I looked and looked over time. I can’t absolutely know it–not with any of these things I was so sure I shouldn’t have done. Was I the one ruling the universe? Did I really have an overall world-view of every element of the situation? Was I entirely in charge? Was the whole thing that went down my choice?
No.
Even if you answer “yes” keep going here.
How do you react when you believe you shouldn’t have done it, and you did do it?
Torn into pieces internally. Self-hating. Hopeless. Frustrated. Punishing myself. Trying harder to control it. Deciding to go on severe diets because I can’t be trusted.
But who would you be without this thought that you shouldn’t have done it?
Wait for it.
The mind might have a hissy fit twisting itself in knots without this thought.
What??! Aren’t you letting yourself get away with murder? Destruction? Violence? Hurting others? Hurting yourself?
This isn’t about pretending you didn’t do something that had major consequences. It isn’t about forgetting reality.
But without the belief I shouldn’t have done something that has already been done…..I am a little lighter.
I can start here, from right now. I rest and relax. I notice I’m still breathing, still living, not struck by lightening. Perhaps I can bring some kindness into this moment, starting freshly. Now.
Turning the thought around: I should have done it.
How could this be just as true, or truer? Are there any advantages, genuine reasons why doing it led to this moment now, where you’re more awake?
In every single situation I’ve ever sat with in The Work where I believed I shouldn’t have done something, I can find a good reason for doing it. An advantage. An unexpected shift of awareness.
Long ago, in that dorm room, I was suddenly struck with the insanity of living with hyper-control, hardly aware of the homework or reading assigned in my classes, the lack of freedom and spontaneity and kindness, the loneliness and unhappiness I was experiencing.
Back then, I got on the next airplane home and never returned to that college campus. I started doing the internal work I really needed to do with my family, my own psyche, my relationship to food and eating, group therapy. Life has been a wonderful road questioning the slavery of stressful thinking.
Plus I saved my parents thousands in college tuition, and didn’t waste my time in a school better built for others, not for me. After a short time, I got a job on a ship which was a magnificent and difficult experience, and I’ll never forget it.
Doing that thing I *thought* I shouldn’t have done was a life-changer and a life-saver and put me firmly on a new and different path than the one I and my entire family had expected.
Another turnaround: it shouldn’t have done me.
That moment, that binge-eating episode, that act of unkindness, that meanness, that behavior, that situation….
….it shouldn’t have “done” me in. It shouldn’t have wrecked my entire world (well, it didn’t actually). It shouldn’t have become such a huge way for me to punish myself or condemn me for life to needing to control myself even more.
Instead, that act I committed, that experience I engaged in, that thing I did….it should be a teacher of love, showing me where not to go in the future, or showing me my confusion.
Byron Katie said in the School for The Work the first time I attended it that the thing I was most ashamed of doing, I could question if it really was as awful as I imagined.
I notice, the thing I shouldn’t have done….it ended. It’s over. It came to an end, despite my own thinking then, or now.
“The Work is about noticing our thoughts, not about changing them. When you work with the thinking, the doing naturally follows.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is
If I think you shouldn’t have?
Investigate. Understand what was going on. Listen to yourself in the most deep, powerful, empathetic way. Share with others, so they might hear you, too.
“There is no peace in the world until you find peace within yourself in this moment. Live these turnarounds, if you want to be free. That’s what Jesus did, what the Buddha did. That’s what all the famous great ones did, and all the unknown great ones who are just living it in their homes and communities, happy and in peace.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is
Despite all those mistakes you’ve made, making you very human by the way…..you are here, now.
What is peaceful about this moment? Certainly not thinking about how you screwed up in the past.
Just saying.
If you have a particular habit of moving towards food and eating when you aren’t hungry, or fighting cravings, or forcing yourself into off-balance diets, or feeling very unhappy about your body and your weight….and you’re ready to do a deep exploration for almost three months, I’m accepting enrollment for the Eating Peace Process which begins January 14th.
The eating peace process includes inquiry into stressful believing, about food, eating and body image….but also about all the other stressful beliefs you have that fuel off-balance eating.
Everyone in the program will have access to brand new slide presentations you can watch on your own time (plus two live optional calls per week) where we follow our thinking, question it, and learn practices that keep us steady, clear and learning what has kept us from the peace we truly want.
Everyone will find a rhythm of self-inquiry and commitment to their freedom and health, and I’ll be doing it all right alongside you.
This program does involve writing in a journal. We’ll do written exercises to help uncover our hidden commitments and fears, so we understand why and how we’ve moved off the peaceful path in the past when it comes to eating (and thinking).
Most of all, the Eating Peace Process is a way to practice resting. Not putting yourself into a straightjacket. It’s a way to understand ourselves and what prevents deep change and transformation.
To read more about the Eating Peace Process, visit here. I’ll be doing some webinars and sharing more about it if you’re on the eating peace mailing list (update your profile below in the teeny small print to see if you’re on the eating peace list).
Today, whatever you fight, whatever you wish you didn’t do….even if it isn’t food and eating, but other things you’ve felt ashamed of and frustrated about….
….you can do The Work, in this new moment, now.
“All suffering is an invitation to deep acceptance of the present moment.” ~ Jeff Foster in The Deepest Acceptance
Is it true you will ALWAYS be hurt by that situation in the past? What if you could tell a healing story instead?
This month in Year of Inquiry, we’re looking at Hurt, Anger and Fear. One aspect of YOI this year that’s new, are some of the topics. Plus we always have a 90 minute Introduction ABOUT the topic, before we go into the topic, and best practices for The Work on it. With slides.
Someone said today as we’re in our second week….It’s big, this one.
She said she felt a lot of anxiety and like her nervous system is a little overstimulated.
Looking at the times we’ve been hurt in our lives seems overwhelming, sad, infuriating.
Well, it certainly produces anger, and fear. Feelings of Never Again.
Hurt brings out the urgency to relax and get away from the wild feelings of anxiety or tension.
It’s truly profound to take one situation, only one (not too many, not more than one, not EVERY situation we’ve ever known where we felt hurt)….
….and then sit comfortably and quietly and write down our thoughts that were born out of that situation, using the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet.
I notice, if I keep holding every situation in my mind producing “hurt” I’m going to feel pretty full of despair, sadness, hopelessness, fear, or overwhelm. I see flashing pictures of people I’ve felt hurt by, difficult situations.
But a very core, underlying belief appears for inquiry in all this. It’s so simple, I almost didn’t see it.
I was hurt.
Is that true?
Yes. It crushed me. It broke my heart. I was physically changed. My life was never the same again. It was terrible. So hurt.
Picture only ONE of those situations where you felt hurt.
Are you absolutely sure it’s true you were?
Are you positive, without any doubt whatsoever, you were hurt by this outside force–a person, incident, experience–and it was awful?
It’s OK to say “yes” if you think so.
But as I investigate this thought…..can I absolutely know I was hurt for all time, forever? Can I know I was damaged? Can I know whatever broke should NOT have broken? Can I really know absolutely that nothing important came from it?
No.
How do you react when you think “I was hurt”.
I avoid any situation that could appear to be like it again. I’m careful in relationships. I don’t share. I keep to myself. I give up. I remember the pain. I run away.
I feel like someone who was hurt.
So who would you be without this belief “I was hurt”?
My mind almost goes….Wha??
What do you mean? But I WAS! I was hurt! I can tell you the whole story of how hurt I was and the scenes and proof and incidents and terrible moments! You would agree! Other people DO agree, who have heard my stories. I won’t be silenced!
OK, this isn’t about saying you’re crazy, or being in denial, or pretending what happened didn’t actually happen when it’s vivid in your mind’s eye. It’s not about keeping quiet, either.
It’s simply noticing what it’s like in the spaces between the thought “I was hurt” and without the conclusions you make about being hurt that never end.
It’s being without the belief that “I was hurt and it for sure means (terrible, negative, awful, horrible, vile, horrifying).”
Huh.
Without the belief I was ever hurt….I’m at peace right now.
I feel completely content, relaxed and comfortable in this moment. All is extremely well, and I notice the only thing alarming–if they appear–are my negative thoughts about being hurt.
Turning the thought around: I was not hurt.
What are my examples?
Well, I’m sitting here writing about it.
You find examples you know are real for you, no matter how small. I’m physically intact. I grew up. I survived. That person never yelled at me (the situation I’m thinking of, she just disappeared).
Turning the thought around again, can you find any examples of how you hurt the other person, or you attacked…..either someone else, or yourself?
I hurt myself by repeatedly remembering it and speaking the story to lots of people and holding it as a story of endless pain and agony and fear. I hurt myself by believing it was not-get-over-able. I hurt the other person in my mind, wishing for her failure and suffering, believing she was incapable of love and honesty, thinking of her as so powerful as to ruin my life.
Long ago when I was doing The Work on this very thought, the person facilitating me said she saw another turnaround.
Oh? I thought I got all three, and found examples for them all.
Well, she said, you could turn it all the way around to the complete opposite “I was healed” in that situation. What do you think?
I was back to No Words. What?? Healed?
But.
That wasn’t a healing situation, it was a suffering, painful, difficult….
….Oh. Right.
(I was already back into proving my original thought, even though I just did The Work. Already back into bolstering up how awful and hurtful it had all been, how painful, how much I had suffered, how it was all that other person’s fault, or God’s fault).
HEALED?
Jeez.
You sure do ask a lot here. Isn’t it enough that I’m doing The Work at all?
And yet….I began to find it.
I was healed, in that situation with that person, because I lived my life onward with greater awareness. I began to stand up straighter, move forward despite my thinking. I felt the presence of life, of the earth, of this temporary organism called me and how difficult situations are temporary–they aren’t happening endlessly 24/7. I unhooked myself from depending on the physical body, or relationships, or the place I’m standing, or money, or anything in reality to be a certain way in order to feel peace.
I was offered the experience of accepting loss, and seeing beyond it.
“Don’t anticipate and don’t regret, and there will be no pain. It is memory and imagination that causes suffering….When the mind takes over, remembers and anticipates, it exaggerates, it distorts, it overlooks…..Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.” ~ Nisargadatta
When you’re discouraged, or you think your situation is too big and too overwhelming to question….
….narrow it down. Inquire into only one difficult moment. Write the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet. Then start with one concept, only one.
Who would you be without that one thought, in that one situation?
Wait for the answers.
Having a time when you were hurt does not mean forever, does not mean revisiting, remembering, anticipating, distorting.
Could it be also true something here is OK now, that healing also happened?
I know I keep mentioning the Eating Peace Retreat in January in the Pacific Northwest. There are 3 spots left, and no private onsite rooms. Commuters are welcome, though.
And here’s why I talk about it.
Because I’m not only very excited for the new content and ways to share with those who attend, giving you insight into how you can take the practice of questioning your thoughts with you, in every moment (including eating)….
….but also because I know people receive what’s possible at the retreat from the neck down.
You stop staying up in that head which is yelling at you.
The mind that says things like:
“Did you see what you ate last night? What were you thinking? You did it right in front of all those people, too….have you no shame? You should fast every year in December. Rather than stuff your face. Do you know how many times you’ve done this? Yeah….too many to count. You’re pathetic.”
Ow.
Double ow.
It’s really not that funny. It’s dreadful, vicious, and nasty.
I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and immediately think “ugh” instead of “oh hello you lovely person!”
It almost doesn’t even matter what’s in the mirror, it’s a judgment, an assessment, based on deep conditioning about what you’re supposed to think of as beautiful or ugly.
But what if you can’t do it wrong?
Especially if you think you failed lately (you’re gaining weight, you’re eating a lot during the holiday season, you’re going off your food plan, you binged yesterday).
For those of you feeling extremely discouraged during December, try this for a change.
It’s called Not Fighting.
And, I’m so thrilled about the art practice I will bring into our retreat, by living this from the neck down. And movement. And being in the presence of food and eating in a peaceful way for 3.5 whole days.
Let’s do this together.
If you want the experience of disconnecting yourself from your thinking….come to the Eating Peace Retreat in January. You won’t regret it. (The mind loves regret).
Sometimes the way, is in. Do nothing. Let your troubling thoughts be here. What is here, right now, if I stopped trying to change?
People have written to me lately, and individual clients I work with in person or on skype or facetime or phone, and people in Year of Inquiry, and messages on facebook….
….and they’ve said something I have also felt in my life.
For me, I’ve been working hard, but not efficiently. I love working, I love my life’s projects, but I found my mind began to be filled by “have to”. I have to do this, that, this, that. No stopping.
Burn out.
A fatigue, feeling discouraged. Maybe a sense of failure. Or a feeling of having lost.
Even devastated.
I’m not making it. Some people overeat with overwhelm. Or overspend. Over-plan. Then, unfortunately, even more failure.
It brings enormous suffering into the mind.
I remember not being able to get out of bed, with a physical sense of deep, deep low energy. I remember drinking strong coffee, trying to put something into the body to change the foggy and dreadful feeling of slow movement. I wanted to find an “up” feeling.
Being “up” is better. Right?
But what if you didn’t believe where you are right now, no matter how you feel and what you feel, is wrong….and must be changed?
What if there is nothing that could make you happy outside yourself, including an elevated mood, or a million bucks, or health, or love coming to you from another person?
Strange, I know.
Something here, in the empty, dark, tired space….
….thinks happiness must be somewhere else. Even if you’re too tired to try to find it anymore.
It isn’t here. Nope.
What if we remembered inquiry, in the middle of depression, or feeling like we’re making a mistake, or falling backwards, or failing in some way?
But if even that seems to hard, here’s what to do.
First, take a very deep breath and stop. Even if you’re lying in bed, just stop trying to figure it out.
Right now.
Then, you can wonder….what are my thoughts doing right now?
Oh, it’s churning out stories. Concepts.
Despairing ones. Sad ones. Angry ones.
Thoughts like “I am always like this” or “I’ve failed” or “I need x to be happy”.
But something else is here besides these thoughts, besides “thinking” running amok.
The mind might feel resistance, fighting, feeling oppositional to What Is.
Who would you be, though, without believing these thoughts?
Who would you be without the belief you’re doing it wrong? Without the thought you’ve lost? Without the thought you’re missing it? Without the thought you can’t find happiness?
Can you make a place in the room, in your surroundings, inside of you, for your thoughts….and also notice what else is here?
Can you let this be here, all of your thoughts and images and painful stories, and not fight against them and wish you were different and pray for your mind to stop talking?
Maybe let it run today, in this moment, like a river running through.
Then once you sit still awhile, wondering who you are without your troubled stories, you’ll notice who you are without a past, and without a future.
One of my favorite Byron Katie prompts or questions to help dig down into The Work is:
