Category: Trouble With Food and Eating

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Don’t Change Your Addiction, Investigate It

Addictive behavior is one of the most troubling for people who go through it.

Overeating (my personal biggie many years ago), drinking alcohol, drugs, porn, relationship obsessing, emails, sex, internet surfing, smoking. 

If you’ve ever had even one fogged-out trance-like escapist episode, you might come up for air later and often wonder what happened….and how you can make sure it never happens again. 

Only it does.

People write to me all the time asking about how to do The Work on the cycle of addiction. 

It doesn’t actually matter what your deal is, whether eating, ingesting something, doing something mindless and apparently time-wasting…..the main thing is that you notice a lack of presence. 

And often, a sense that you are experiencing something not exactly helpful for your life. Or downright harmful and death-oriented. 

What Byron Katie and many thought teachers often say is, just keep doing The Work, keep looking at your thought patterns and what you believe about everything that bugs you, everything that brings up stress….and you’ll notice that the urge to use will lessen, and then vanish.

But what if it’s not exactly vanishing? Or what if you’re so exhausted by the addictive behavior that the main stress you see is your horrible relationship with that substance?

Just start there.

I hate this cycle. I hate overeating. Why? Because it does nothing for me, it’s bizarre, I keep doing it with the same results. I can’t control myself. 

Recently I was working with a wonderful inquirer who has suffered terribly with binge-eating. She has, however, been studying herself in a lighter way in the past couple of years.

Before, when she overate, she detested herself, thought of herself as totally and completely self-defeating. But now, she was open to understanding better the spell that would come over her called a “binge”. 

And she had recently discovered something. Just like I did long ago.

BEFORE the feeling of urgency to eat entered, there was an uncomfortable feeling that had nothing to do with food. And guess what came along with (almost simultaneously) before that uncomfortable feeling? 

A troubling thought. 

Believing something scary, alarming, worrisome, nerve-wracking or terrifying. And believing that was actually true. And not knowing what to do with all the fear.  

Bam. Eat. Smoke. Drink. Text that person you’ve been obsessed with. Hunt for workshops to sign up for online. Buy another spiritual non-duality book.

But it’s really OK if you don’t even know what the thought was before you felt like doing your addictive thing. 

Like I said, you start with what is prominent, what is screaming in your head. That will be a stepping stone to the next thing.

You can trust the process.

I hate this addictive cycle.

Is that true?

Duh. Of course it’s true.

Are you sure? Are you completely positive? What do you mean by “hate”?

No. I am not completely sure that it’s true that I hate it. 

How do you react when you believe you hate the cycle of addiction and everything about it?

I attack it. I hate food. I hate myself. I hate society. I blame everyone. I wish I were dead. I feel discouraged. I hate being alive. 

Your reaction may not be so dramatic. The way you react may be that you make a plan. You sign a contract. You vow. You go through a treatment program. You promise. You control yourself. 

But who would you be without the thought that you HATE this addictive cycle? 

If you really stay and sit with this idea for awhile, even for five minutes, you may notice that something inside of you relaxes. The energy of “hate” which is like an intense feeling of fear surging outward (or however you might describe it) doesn’t have so much vigor behind it.

What if you LOVE the addictive cycle?

Ha ha, kind of funny right? But what if there is something, up to now, that has been useful about the whole thing (apparently)? Even though it has hurt and been so uncomfortable….perhaps it has given you something you thought you needed.

What if you’re not wrong, to have experienced your addiction?

What has been good about it?

Maybe there is another way to find relief, freedom, letting go, power, kindness, soothing, clarity, or love. That has no side effects. 

You can find the way. You will, in just the right time, the right moment. 

“Who would want their mind to be quiet if they understood it, if they really understood it? If they could meet all their thoughts with unconditional love, which is what these questions bring, then who would want the mind to shut up? Who would want to escape or change it? We haven’t been able to quiet the mind. And we haven’t been able to meditate it down or medicate it down, not for long. It looks like we have control over it until we get the parking ticket. So instead of fighting our thoughts, through these four questions we welcome them as friends.” ~ Byron Katie

I would never, ever, ever be where I am now, with this calm that accompanies me almost all the time around food, without the severity of the food addiction and cravings and urges. 

I LOVE that I had that cycle of addiction. It served me beyond anything else possible to study this mind and wake up, wake up, wake up, over and over again.

“Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away. When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop.” ~ Geneen Roth

Much love, Grace

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Is There Something Wrong With You?

One by one I’ve been interviewing all the participants who took my recent 8 week Eating Peace class.

I LOVE getting feedback.

It’s like we’re engaged in a project together to investigate this common and sometimes agonizing experience when the act of eating feels stressful, NOT peaceful.

And I’m learning how to deliver information in a way that is easiest, most direct, clear, supportive.

In the end, the most important thing is, how can I be of greatest service? What works? What induces or inspires freedom, change, an alternative experience, one that is useful?

Of course, there are no guarantees. No way to apply an exact formula. It’s a process, a practice. It’s an un-doing really, not a doing of anything.

Doing Nothing.

I remember how I used to feel when I would have “episodes”. Code word for frantic binges, eating everything in sight and buying more, stuffing food in like I was trying to hide it, in a panic.

Quick! Emergency!

But not everyone has such extreme anxiety or urgent cravings and actions. Some people will buy one candy bar and gulp it down, or continuously return to the cupboard for more raw cashew butter or vegan brownies, grazing off and on all evening.

Sometimes, people sit down with food while watching television and feel semi-conscious of how much is going in their mouth and down their throats.

But for just about everyone….there is a moment in time later on, after the eating, when they have the thought that they must be sick, crazy, failing, missing something, hopeless, lacking any discipline.

A pretty difficult thought to believe: something must be wrong with me. 

Yeah! Look at the evidence. Extra weight. Isolation. If normal weight, then the evidence is this obsessive eating, this obsessivethinking.

Even if you don’t have an issue with food, or it’s very minor and of fairly little concern, you can find where you might have evidence of the possibility of something being wrong with you.

For some people it’s change, loss. Divorce. Illness. Confusion.

Something must be wrong with you. 

Is that true?

Yes.

Why can’t I stop acting or thinking this way?

Can you really know that it’s true though, like for All Time, that doing this thing or being that way MEANS there is something wrong with you?

For me, when I look back at who I was and how I behaved and how I lived…I can find how nothing was inherently wrong with me.

Something was out of balance. I was afraid. I was in a fog. Something wasn’t clear. It seemed like my best choice at the time.

I was believing some really troubling thoughts, and somehow I needed to eat at the time. Because that was what I did. Everyone is doing the best they can with what they’ve got, with what they’re believing, and that includes me. And you.

How did I react when I believed that thought, that something must be wrong with me?

Exhausted. Total despair. A feeling of the lowest energy and like giving up. Sometimes an inner rage, blistering words towards me, towards the whole planet. I’d go off on being in this world sometimes, saying or thinking things like “it’s completely insane!”

For some people, how they react to the thought that something must be wrong with them, is that they eat more, they snap at people, they push, they isolate themselves…..or, they try even harder and put on a fake plastic smile and overwork or take care of others and strive to be better, or take mega workshops.

But who would you be without the thought that the must be something wrong with you?

Especially given what you’ve done?

Realizing that there was something so powerful, important, crucial and fundamental happening in those moments of troubling or shameful behavior, that even if I didn’t understand it all….it was a clue, a gift, of the greatest awareness.

That activity I was doing, that thing I said, that uncomfortable behavior….could that mean that something must be right with me?

What’s a genuine example?

Instead of just going on autopilot that something was wrong, how was it right?

Here’s what I see as right, when I look back: I felt the pain. It helped me move away from the hot stove. I became aware of how terrified I was of other peoples’ anger and my own, and how I’d try to shut it down. I was too afraid of rejection, and didn’t want to ask for help for good reasons. I didn’t know another way, but I began to put energy into whatever it would take. 

I had the mechanism, naturally, that was like a compass telling me which way to go. I could feel it, even if I didn’t consciously grasp it.

And now, years and years later….I also realize that it put me on a trajectory that completely eliminated more minor food obsessy type moments. If I have any criticism of the body, it can barely get any traction.

I do not get involved with the “right” and “wrong” of food. I do not go up and down ten or twenty pounds. I do not have conversations about recipes, I don’t cook because I notice I don’t enjoy it, really, ever (and I don’t oppose it). I am happy with very, very simple food a lot of which turns out to be raw since I dislike cooking. Hilarious.

I have small moments of learning about food, with delight, but it takes just about one tiny percentage of my mental energy.

I have a good friend who also found how something was right with her for her past drinking behavior. She stopped, because it got unmanageable. Non-issue now.

What is right about you for getting divorced, for losing your temper, for being so clingy, for getting sick, for hurting your leg, for losing your job, for feeling like you can’t forgive……

…..for getting a Reality Slap (coined by Russ Harris)?

It waking me up. Eyes wide open awake.

I felt the discord in being a believer of those stressful thoughts.

Yes, something was really right with me. You may find if you even open yourself to this possibility, something inside sparkles.

Not screwed up. Not missing something. Not incapable. Not special. Same as all humans…feeling pain sometimes.

But wait, there’s more.

What if there is no wrong or right with you, nothing to counter or get rid of, nothing to add or find? 

“It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am describing is the birth of true Love.” ~ Adyashanti 

What if There. Is. Nothing. With. You.

Oh, ha ha!

“We all already have everything. We all do. That’s how I can sit here so comfortably.” ~ Byron Katie

If you’re noticing difficulty in your inner world around food and eating, come join the Horrible Food Wonderful Food weekend, the first weekend of April right here in Seattle. Friday night, Saturday and Sunday all day, non-residential. $295.

Please email grace@workwithgrace.com if you have questions. If you want to attend and bring a family member or good friend, the second person is half the fee ($150).

Love, Grace

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Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend Coming 4/4

I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be offering my non-residential weekend Horrible Food Wonderful Food, limited to 14, Friday night April 4 – April 6th….in only a month.

The weekend is an ever-expanded in-depth look at the stressful beliefs that I found to be in place that created overeating, binge-eating, obsession with healthy eating, or diet mentality.

I share with you what I found that freed me from that cycle, and you identify what you’re thinking that causes you to stay stuck in yours.

Then, we’ll take these stressful beliefs to inquiry, using The Work of Byron Katie.

This weekend will offer a great tool for your tool box in your journey of healing compulsive or emotional eating…or just thinking too much about weight, or food.

Sign up by writing to me at grace@workwithgrace.com or clicking this button here: undefined

“Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away. When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop. When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart. When the shape of your body no longer matches the shape of your beliefs, the weight disappears.” ~ Geneen Roth 

Could it possibly be true that witnessing, looking at what you’re thinking, and questioning it, is enough?

Yes. It has been for me.

Join me for the weekend next month.

Much love, Grace

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I Have To Do Something! Like Eat!

Since I’ve been teaching the Eating Peace teleclass (next week is our last group) I’ve thought once again about that strange, terrible and rather amazing experience of being overwhelmed with compulsion, the belief that I MUST DO THIS or I MUST HAVE THIS that descends in a binge.

This doesn’t happen with only binge eating. There are many other activities that people experience as compulsive, obsessive, trance-like activities.

There are the ones we all know about: eating, smoking, drinking, gambling, exercising, pornography, internet surfing, television…

…but it’s not the actual activity or substance that’s the “problem”.

If you went to live on the moon, where they don’t have any alcohol, then the substance of alcohol might be gone, but what was the reason you were drinking it in the first place?

Because there are reasons.

At a deep level, the reason I used to binge-eat and feel totally out of control was because I was panicked about my feelings.

I was truly terrified of quite a few things: people criticizing me, the unknown of the future, my sense of being lost and separate in a difficult world, my thoughts that life is hard, brutal and scary.

I was very afraid of the lack of love I experienced, and when it came on really strong….I ate.

It’s the same with someone who uses drugs, smokes something, or who can’t stop thinking about a love relationship.

(I’ve heard this called a “love junkie”. That sounds about right. Been there, done that, too).

It can feel difficult to get at the root “problem”, the core of the experience.

But here’s the good news: you don’t have to fully know what the problem actually is.

You can very simply know that you are scared, muddled, confused, terrified, angry, despairing….and your thoughts about feeling these kinds of feelings is that you can’t stand it.

Quick! Change the channel! I’m frightened!

Next thing you know, you’re stuffing your face, or thinking about beer.

Recently, when I heard of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s death from heroin, after 26 years sobriety, I wondered what was going on in his life that he thought escaping was the best plan.

Escaping from his feelings. Escaping from having to “stand it”.

In 26 years of not using, my thought is that he distracted himself in other more subtle, less destructive ways all that time. But it was still distraction. Avoidance.

I’ve met people who can’t stop taking self-improvement workshops, or attending non-dual speaker events. Ahem. Oh right. That might have been me.

With The Work, I love taking this powerful, brilliant, creative “mind” and considering the simple belief “I have to do something.”

Is it true?

Are you positive you have to do something to help you stop being anxious, afraid, or confused in this moment?

Are you sure you have to do anything, at all?

Who would you be if you didn’t believe you have to do anything? If you sat in a chair until you got up because you want to, not because you have to?

Even if it looks like someone thinks you’re horrible, you’ve had a great loss, you’ve got a disease, you’re a bundled of inexplicable feelings, you aren’t enlightened yet, you aren’t a good person (I’d question that)…

…who would you be without the thought that you have to do something, like eat?

What might happen then? If you feel frightened, and did nothing?

“With inquiry, it can’t be learned like ‘a way’. It can’t be controlled. There’s nothing you can ever know about it. You ask the questions and you don’t ever know what’s going to come up. That’s why it’s so difficult for some of you to answer the questions. You’re entering a universe that you cannot control. So we try to figure it out before we answer it, and that keeps the answer underneath it, it keeps the mystery hidden. And we’re afraid of what we can’t know, or control. Inquiry is new territory.” ~ Byron Katie

If you’re frightened, like I once was (and still am sometimes) to sit and be with the unknown, without doing anything, and you’re not sure if you will explode unless you do….

….and you’d like to stay in inquiry with the mystery out there ahead of you….

….start today to be with questions, instead of answers. Is it OK not to know what’s going to happen, or what you should do, and that you can’t stand it?

“You work on this for your freedom, not to get something.” ~ Byron Katie

“There are no requirements and no prerequisites to awaken. There is nothing to be done, nothing to think, nowhere to go.

Just stop all dreaming. Stop all doing. Stop all excuses. Just stop and be still. Effortlessly be still. Grace will do the rest”. ~ Adyashanti

If you’d like to sit with the questions without running, even by staying in them every week with a group on the telephone together….then Year of Inquiry YOI. It starts March 7th.

Much love, Grace

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Fat Thinking Creates Misery

I was looking at someone close to me during a class. He was looking forward at the teacher who was lecturing. I was staring with fascination at the belt around his waste which looked squeezed, with his shirt tightening with strain on either side of his stomach.

I had the thought that his stomach was too fat. Or his shirt was too small. And that he should un-tuck his shirt.

And then the thought that I shouldn’t be so rude as to think that thought.

In the current new Eating Peace class, we’ve taken a good look at our bodies by looking in the mirror.

And then there are Other Bodies, too.

Those bodies, the ones that look like THAT (fill in your own image) are beautiful, perfect, exciting, interesting, or attractive.

These other bodies, the ones that look NOT so perfect (fill in your other images like the one I had in my mind) are anywhere from slightly unappealing to repulsive.

Lumpy/Smooth, Thick/Narrow, Tight/Loose, Saggy/Firm, Wrinkled/Flat, Fat/Thin.

Even when I was a teenager, I would have not only the thought that something was ugly on a body…but also that I was stupid to be thinking that it was ugly.

I should control my judgmental thoughts about those other peoples’ bodies! And while we’re at it, I should also love my own body!

Major Dismal Failure at NOT judging.

So there I was, a teenager, seeing the world and it was jam-packed with images of other bodies.

It was so quick, I could easily tell you what was beautiful and ugly in one-half of a second.

I KNEW UGLY AND I KNEW ATTRACTIVE.

I was learning, or had learned, VERY quickly, very young. As soon as I could hear what adults were saying around me. As soon as I could see what people were drawn to, and how they behaved, and who they rejected or praised.

It was in the movies and on TV.

I KNEW already at the age of 8 that when I sat on a table one day, and my thighs spread out in a squished way with my legs hanging over the edge of the desk.

I was shocked at the time.

“I have fat thighs?! I did not realize this! Terrible! They are ugly!”

“100 percent of your misery is brought on by your dishonest, unconscious thinking. That’s what a lie feels like….if you think you’re too fat, it’s not about your body, it’s about your mind. It’s about imagination running wild…The mind doesn’t have the question IS IT TRUE? to stop it, so that it can reconsider, so that it can bring itself to sanity. Sanity is a word I equate with love, with intelligence and maturity. An immature mind, is a mind that hates itself.” ~Byron Katie

I’ve had the thought that someone was too fat. That person should lose weight. They should exercise. Something is wrong with how they are taking in food.

Plus, another person I love I thought of as waaaaaaaay too focused on the body (and it wasn’t me).

She should get off this whole get-the-body-perfect thing. What a waste of energy, time, resources, focus! Jeez!

Can you call up an image of someone you know who is “fat” and who you think shouldn’t be?

Let’s do The Work.

Is it true that they would be better off thinner? Is it true they are actually FAT?

Is it true that they represent everything that fatness means?

Undisciplined, lazy, unhealthy, scared, angry, pudgy, needy, unhappy, self-centered, or don’t love themselves?

Are they really unattractive? Do people reject them, are they lonely? Are they less than spiritual, or unconscious?

Really?

No. It’s actually not true. At all.

What is really the problem with anyone in this world being fat?

I’ve noticed that the world, the universe, Reality actually contains bodies which are of all different qualities. The variety is enormous, in fact, and actually infinite.

I notice that without the thought that anyone’s Body should be different than the way it actually appears in this moment, then the creativity and variety is magnificent.

All these bodies everywhere being themselves….

Could it be that any way a body appears here, now, is just right?

 

See how amazing it feels to be with this thought.

Back (once again) to leaving everything alone.

What was too fat, was my thinking. When I think someone else is too fat, or anything about me is too fat…..my thinking is slow, full, repetitive, thick, heavy, extra, big, dark, overflowing, wide, depressing.

Fortunately, my thinking is not ME.

Just like my body isn’t ME.

“God, or your essential nature, is not Something. Not Content. Not Form. The best description with words is to say what it is NOT….It can be known in the silent space of stillness which is in everyone…”~ Eckhart Tolle 

What if you walked around today, or sat around, or maybe the body you appear to have is lying around…what if you were here and entirely and completely without the thought that what your body looks like or represents IS you?

What if you are much more than that. Or not even that, at all.

Love, Grace

P.S. The Horrible Food Wonderful Food weekend is approaching in April 4-6, Friday evening through Sunday 5 pm. We’ll be looking at what we think about our bodies. Reply back if you’re interested and I’ll keep you up to date.

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Alone And Aggravated

Feeling connected with life, the planet, other humans, our surroundings….isn’t always easy, or automatic, or clear.

Even if we know we’re connected to others in the big scheme of things, like we get it cognitively with our thoughts, the deep feeling sense of being alone can still be alive.

And sometimes, it isn’t fun.

I used to feel like it was floating in outer space with no planet, human, or warmth in sight.

Yesterday the Eating Peace group met for the second time.

Everyone had the invitation to consider their “worst” moments or times of day with food. A repetitive experience.

So many people I’ve worked with over the years have a restless, unpleasant, empty, lonely feeling when they are toward the end of their day.

Perhaps it’s already evening, or night time. Open time. Choice. A desire for entertainment. No need for work. Space. Silence. Home.

During the day, there’s morning, work, to-do lists, errands. Sometimes a reason to keep it together. A job. Other People.

But oh…….the evening.

Many people drawn to drink alcohol do it at this hour as well.

So what’s going on?

For me, I often finally felt like I could relax, stop doing the “right” thing all day, stop working so dang hard.

Sometimes, the empty space of evening allowed my deeper fears or longings to stir….and I didn’t really want to spend time with those fears or look at them head on.

In any case, the space of silence and being alone can bring out some of our strongest beliefs about the universe.

Seriously. It’s that big, and that telling.

There I am, by myself in my safe, warm home. No one to ask me questions, look at me, see me, criticize me, attack me, compete against me, blame me, or need me.

What’s going on for you? How do you talk to yourself?

Some inquirers in Eating Peace said they had the “right” things to do and the “wrong” things to do in that empty space.

I can relate.

My own mind would start in, when I had several free hours and a night alone.

I should do laundry, wash the blankets, clean the kitchen, vacuum, empty the garbage, work on a creative project, write, work out at the gym, write her a thank you letter, read, clean out my closet, research.

I should do something productive.

It was almost like my own mind wouldn’t let me alone to Do Nothing.

Where was the freedom?!

In food.

It was the only way I could be chaotic, non-logical, wild, a rebel, and stop the dictator mind that wouldn’t let me relax, do what I wanted, have pleasure, enjoy myself.

Here’s the belief that would enter, and seem really, really true:

Eating will be nice, comforting, fun, sneaky, an alternative to more work, satisfying. It will help me turn off the mind that never stops and get something for me, for once. 

Let’s take this to inquiry.

Is it true that eating something, in that moment of empty space, with mental chatter that isn’t exactly supportive, will distract me and allow me to get something for me?

Yes. I’m rebelling and crushing that mental chatter. It’s so demanding!

With food, I defy that voice (or maybe for you its alcohol, or some other compulsive process).

But can I absolutely know that it’s true that at that moment, food helps?

Yes! That’s why I keep eating! It actually helps!

What a stupid question!

But here’s the interesting inquiry: can you absolutely know that eating will really, really help in the end?

Um, that would definitely be a NO. A big fat no. Because I’m filled with suffering around food when I realize it actually “works” to a certain extent to give me some relief….but it doesn’t help the silence, the emptiness, the lonesomeness, the cravings, or the frustration Go Away.

Ever.

I override the harsh voice temporarily, I get some power back (I’ll eat what I DAMN WELL PLEASE you &*^%#@!)

But. Bummer. The trance always ends.

And it can’t have really helped, because I am suffering.

When I believe that food, or whatever, changes the channel and gives me some relief from the toil of it all, how do  I react?

I get into the whatever. I eat.

Who would I be without the thought that I have no power?

Who would I be without the thought that empty space, quiet stillness, or open time should be filled?

Who would I be without the thought that I am not capable of finding my own answers, or dealing with the evenings in my life?

Without the thought that eating something will help?

I would feel hope. I would feel curious. Patience. Wondering. Willing to be honest.

I also might cry my eyes out. I might realize how pissed off I feel sometimes.

 

But I’d be willing to stop taking so seriously that chatterbox that won’t shut up about what a loser I am.

“I can give you the simples of all possible rules of thumb: Any time a voice is talking to you that is not talking with love and compassion, don’t believe it! No exceptions!” ~ Cheri Huber

I turn the thoughts around:

Eating something will not help me. Eating something in this haunted alone evening time will hinder me.

Doing anything addictive and distracting will not help me.

“Meditation….is seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.” ~ Pema Chodron

Could it be this simple?

Yes.

Love, Grace

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Worrying About Wants, Cravings and Desires

When people have the experience of over-doing, over-indulging, going too far, having too much, stuffing in work, food, money, experiences, love, sex….

grabbing, craving, wanting, getting, gimme…..

….there is often a judgment that follows about this feeling of desire that it is to be avoided, crushed, and suppressed.

Pleasure? Bad. Desire? Worse. Obsessive craving? Horrid.

Based on past experience of how horrible it feels to have a hangover, or be stuffed with food, or neglect your kids because you’re working so hard….the mind thinks “this craving must be stopped, it’s dangerous”. 

I sure thought that.

So have many people I’ve worked with on their addictive experience, whatever it is. Not just food (my personal favorite) but all kinds of other cravings.

People have told me they wished they could have a lobotomy and cut out the part of their mind that WANTS.

I think the Puritans agreed. And Ascetics.

Anyone interested in controlling themselves and practicing abstaining from “that-seductive-thing”.

Well, that never worked well for me. Like not even for 5 minutes. And I felt really, really bad about it.

Recently, I was remembering a short period of time where I felt that obsessive form of energy about a man.

Instead of cringing the minute I remembered that crush-fear-danger-magnetic-disgust….

….I let the memory live in my mind.

Those memories that make you cringe? GREAT ones for The Work of course!!

Bring ’em on!

That attraction was dangerous.

Is it true?

Yes. He was nuts, he lied, he dropped off the face of the earth, he was depressed. I was SAD.

Can I absolutely KNOW that it’s true that the feeling of attraction was dangerous?

No!

Were my binge-eating, drinking, smoking, over-working, addictive drives ultimately dangerous?

No. I’m still here.

Things got broken apart. Ideas got torn up. Plans got blitzed.

And something new started in its place. Something much more peaceful and expansive.

Something was always there underneath all the destroying and creating going on up on the roller-coaster ride mental surface.

How do I react when I believe that all this wanting or craving is bad news?

I’m against all wanting, craving, desire. I think I need to be vigilant.

I start being against hunger, against the body having needs, against noticing what I find pleasing.

It all gets balled up in one big thought that I want to throw all craving in the garbage.

And if I have one second of craving, I call myself an idiot.

Ouch.

Who would you be without the thought that craving, desiring, wanting, or reaching is bad for me, dangerous, destructive, or wrong?

You mean….this craving could be safe? Neutral? Not something to be afraid of? Natural?

Not something I have to DO something about?

Yes.

Here’s the amazing thing that happens, and I began to notice this long ago around food and eating. If I paused and made no decision, didn’t hack the feeling to bits….

….relaxed, waited….sometimes only for one moment….the craving passed.

Like a wave.

“Each time we move to modify, alter, neutralize or try to get rid of the energies arising, we’re back in the cycle of addictive seeking. We’re looking for something else, something more. We’re trying to control our experience and the thoughts and feelings coming through. We’re overlooking the natural rest of presence.” ~ Scott Kiloby

Turning the thought around:

Being drawn over towards something out there (including a person) is safe, good.

I come back to me, here, now and feeling this thing I’m calling a craving, or an attraction.

Let it be.

Allowing any desires, wants, pleasures to arise and be present….I notice they NEVER stay in the same place.

They build, they shift, they change, they fall away. They are created and they are destroyed. 

“Thoughts are like the wind, or the leaves on the trees, or the raindrops falling. They’re not personal, they don’t belong to us, they just come and go.” ~ Byron Katie 

The relief of knowing that the actual feeling of craving is safe, and normal, can be very liberating.

Who are you without the thought that your attractions are dangerous?

With love,

Grace

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Distorted Thinking Distorted Body

From the time I was 8 years old, I had the notion…and then the more strongly formed idea…and then the certainty that Being Fat was HORRIBLE.

People who were fat were criticized, berated and loathed by other members of society. Kids and adults.

Including my grandparents AND my mother and father.

Those powerful and important people in my life all said really negative, disparaging things about fat people….or about themselves and their own weight.  

You may have heard talk about greedy people, mean people who curse, alcoholic people, people who steal.

But for some reason, my mind locked in on how terrible it was to be fat.

At first it was not noticeable, I didn’t hear it because I had no reference for it. It was like a group of professors (my dad’s colleagues) in my parents’ living room talking about historical documents, student essays and various leaders in 17th century France.

I might have heard sounds coming from out of their mouths, and it was sort of fascinating, but not alarming.

I noticed OTHER things like the shape of one of the men’s glasses, the color of all their shirts, Mozart coming out of the huge black speakers, one of my sisters hands beckoning me outside.

But when it came to food, eating, bodies….at that young age of 8 I was alarmed. All the food in our house changed because my mom went to something called Weight Watchers.

Watching her weight.

You mean…this is an uncertain, dangerous sort of situation that one needs to guard against?

My influential and powerful mom needed to DO something about weight?

I realize…she thought of herself as weighing too much.

The dreaded fat person.

As I return to that image, that memory of that time….thinking about the horrors of being fat and taking that so seriously…

…my mind enters The Work now, as if my 8 year old self can inquire and see what’s really true.

Being fat is horrible.

Is that true?

My mother’s weight matters, she is unhappy, she is suffering, there’s a major problem here….People can be too fat. 

…is that really true?

How do I react when I believe that thought?

Scared. Anxious. Terrified of fat, fattening, fatter, fatness. Hyper critical of fat, fat people, fat conditions, the appearance of fat.

I make effort, I focus on, I strive to prevent fat from happening!

I react towards food like it’s frightening. It causes fatness. It can trick you. It can make you wrong.

But, who would I be without the thought that being fat was horrible?

It’s one of those vivid, mind-boggling moments…hard at first to imagine. Like the mind is shorting-out. Hear the electric tweaks and jerks like a bug is hitting an electric fence?

Zap Zap.

Even for people who have never, ever been worried about gaining weight, personally being fat, or spent much time judging fatness….

….who would any of us be without the belief that the appearance of the body is horrible, and it MATTERS what you look like?

Dang. That’s so spacious. And strange.

And marvelous.

Suddenly, without the thought, there is no concern for fat, thin, age, youth, categorizing, assessing, or putting meaning on anything “seen” in the body….

….there is awareness of so much more that is present, so much more than this body or that body, what is going in or out of the mouth and the stomach.

Without the thought that appearance matters, I clap my hands with joy.

Freedom! So much more here! All temporary and pulsing with life and movement!

“There are two ways to weigh what you do. One is happy and healthy, the other is miserable and depressed…..The cause of suffering is not the body, it is your thinking.” ~ Byron Katie

Look at this body you apparently inhabit in the mirror and see who you’d be without the thought that it should be different.

You may not have to DO anything. That includes reaming yourself for being too “x” (fat, lazy, thin, tired, etc).

How exciting….how restful….what a relief.

“Reality is life without your distorting stories, ideas, and beliefs. It is perfect unity free of all reference points, with nowhere to stand and nothing to grab hold of. It has never been spoken, never been written, never been imagined. It is not hidden, but in plain view. Cease to cherish opinions and it stands before your very eyes.” ~ Adyashanti 

With much love, Grace

P.S. Eating Peace begins January 15th! We’re going to take a dive into Feelings, Beliefs, Situations where Cravings begin. We’re going to examine despair. We’re going to question the pain!
If you have already taken Horrible Food Wonderful Food this class will be different, but you may take this class at the repeater rate of $195.

 

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Your Birthright of Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Not Knowing

So many classes about to begin, new people to work with, ideas popping right and left, projects underway….

….in my mind yesterday I suddenly thought “it’s too much, I’m forgetting things, it’s going too fast, I need to narrow it down, too many emails to reply to, something will get missed, this class needs to start a week later, that one needs to get postponed, must finish book proposal for awaiting editor by yesterday, focus is scattered”.  

It’s like looking at a gorgeous Victorian home that has not been lived in for 40 years. You inherited the house two years ago and began making plans, hiring the architect, getting blueprints, sorting out how to restore and improve this beautiful building from the studs up.

But you don’t exactly have thousands of dollars to draw from to put into this place. So it’s taking awhile.

But the plans are in place, you’ve had lots of good experience, you’ve imagined with joy what this will look like.

And yet, in one moment “this will never get done”.

Followed by a feeling of deflation. The air went out of the balloon and there is a little wrinkled bag of rubber in its place.

The party’s over.

And then, depending on the magnitude of the loss….perhaps a relationship that you’ve worked on for several years is really ending, perhaps the house will go into foreclosure, perhaps you’ve been binge-eating like this for two decades off and on…

total despair.

This will never get done….I’ll never get there. 

Time for The Work.

Is it true?

I don’t know. But with this feeling of giving up, feeling hopeless, wanting to quit, throw in the towel, bag the whole thing…..it’s likely.

Can you absolutely know it is true, that you’ll never get there? That this vision you have will never come to fruition? That you won’t accomplish “x” or have “y” in the way you dream of?

No. Not true. I just Don’t Know. That’s all.

How do you react when you believe something will never happen that you’d like to have happen?

How do you react when you think that Not Knowing whether it will happen or not is somehow SAD?

I demand to KNOW.

I think knowing what’s going on is better than not knowing. I don’t like all this open space.

I have visions of saying “I quit!” to the universe. Shaking my fist at the ceiling.

I believe that what’s happening is chaotic, too much, not right and disappointing. I’m pissy.

But who would you be without the thought that what you are hoping for, what you want, what you envision will never get done, you will never get there, it will never happen?

Wow.

I’d take another step.

In the story of the Hobbit there was discouragement, disappointment, terror, hopelessness….but no one ever sat down in the middle of the road and said “I am not going any farther. I give up. It’s over.”

They definitely thought it. They had their moments.

But without the thought that it will never happen and you will never get what you want, ever….

….this moment becomes fresher, more alive.

Without the belief that I will never get THERE, I feel excited. I look around this room where I sit.

My favorite loose cotton tangerine yoga pants, a cup of herbal tea with honey and milk, seasoned raw zucchini strips just brought by a good friend on the table beside me, a cardboard box cut open across the room on a desk, the sun beaming through window slats and making all the crumbs under the dining room table glow.

This moment.

“As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.” ~ Pema Chodron

Could it be that this place of not knowing, of not having an answer, of seeing what I want and yet feeling ambiguity, failure, striving, possible loss…

…could it be that this here now is the most wonderful place of all?

What if never getting there and never having it get done is fine, OK….even good, advantageous, perfect for me right now.

How exciting! Joy can be here, now….without whatever it is getting “done”.

With much love,

Grace

P.S. Eating Peace will begin January 15th! This is for people tormented by a binge-purge or compulsive eating cycle, negative self-criticism, bulimia, fear and anger towards their relationship with food.

Since this is the first trial of this class, with the wisdom I’ve learned from several teachers brought in who offer healing on this topic, I offer it for $395 but encourage anyone to ask for sliding scale help if you need it and are drawn.

Only $195 for people who have taken Horrible Food Wonderful Food before.

If you want updates and announcements on this topic be sure to sign up for Eating Peace emails by clicking Update Profile at bottom of this email.

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Gentle Gentle The Way Of It

I have received really, really good feedback and suggestions for change for the recovery guide for ending a war with eating that I sent out a few days ago.

Here is an entirely new version.

More tips for what you can do NOW. Less memoir. And all the beautiful quotes I meant to include the first time.

Here’s the funny thing that happened in my mind:

I was reading incoming messages, some people who I asked to read with a critical eye….

….and as I opened up the original document and began to read it again….

…..it looked terrible. 

Who wrote this story going on and on with no real help? This is garbage! A waste of time! You call this a guide? I can’t believe I sent this out! 

That little worried wart voice.

And then, an inner smile…it is sooo different the way I would have once believed that chattering voice from the calm that now winks at me a second later.

It’s like I can simply hear another channel, almost immediately (at least in this situation) that is playing a tune of no concern, of peace.

“When you know how to question your thoughts, there’s no resistance. You look forward to your worst nightmare, because it turns out to be nothing but an illusion, and the four questions of The Work provide you with the technology to go inside and realize that. You don’t have to grope in the dark to find your way to freedom. You can just sit down and give it to yourself, anytime you want.” ~ Byron Katie 

Even if your worst nightmare today is that you said or wrote something off, or someone didn’t get you, or you were misunderstood, or people were critical of you….

….can you really know that it’s true that you’ve done something wrong, or stupid, or cheesy, or ridiculous, or tacky, or scary?

Can you know it’s true that what you did matters, in a bad way?

No.

How do you react when you want to take it back, when you want a do-over?

I always found my stomach felt queasy, I felt exposed, frightened. I expected mean words coming in my direction. I expected people to shun me, avoid me, not want contact.

And who would I be without believing those thoughts?

What if you did something right? What if this was fantastic? Just part of the journey that caused things to go….to the right, instead of the left.

“The real plan is always the way of it, eliminating the need for any plan I might have.” ~ Byron Katie

Today, I celebrate this moment exactly where it is, without needing to do anything, without anything needing to change.

I wrote and added and deleted yesterday, I felt creative and rushed and fascinated….

….and everything is “in progress”.

Everything.

“The Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. He has nothing thus has nothing to lose.” ~ Tao Te Ching #64

Peace be with you today. You are awesome!

Even those goofy thoughts that run through your mind.

With love,

Grace

P.S. Again, the revamped free guidebook to peaceful eating, is right HERE. You’ll enter your email again, and be added to the Peaceful Eating list along with receiving the new guide in your Inbox.