Category: Relationships

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Make A Decision!

Beliefs about the best ways to make decisions, how to make them, and when to make them can be really heavy without us even realizing it.

What exactly is a “decision”? It’s a great word. In the latin root it meant to CUT OFF or kill. Kind of dramatic. It’s like there are different pathways or roads, and to decide is to cut off all of them except one. Deciding means eliminating possibilities.

When someone is decisive, they are considered to have solved the problem, persuaded themselves or others, convinced, settled the situation. They are clear, they move on quickly, they have killed multiple choices.

People are seen as successful when they make clear, quick, “good” decisions. People are more wishy-washy or flaky, changeable, unpredictable if they change their minds or don’t know what they will decide.

It can be really fantastic and liberating to question beliefs and theories about making decisions. Are you sure that it’s best if you decide NOW? Are you sure that it’s true that choosing-not-to-decide-IS-a-decision? (I always loved that one, so stressful in some situations if you believe it).

Is it really true that it is best if you make a good, solid, quick, zippy decision? Or bad if you reconsider, take in more data or information, let things digest, or wait?

The mind that is very identified with YOU and YOUR SUCCESS loves to chatter away at you about your problems and other peoples’ problems. It will use scary tactics and threatening ideas to force you to decide or make you nervous about a decision you just made.

I love questioning any thought, ever, that arises about making decisions that is nerve-wracking, anxiety producing, anything that creates uncertainty.

  • I need to get moving
  • I absolutely must make a decision
  • Other people will think less of me if I don’t decide
  • Not deciding means I’m procrastinating/weak/anxious
  • I made the WRONG decision
  • I’m the one who decides, it’s up to me

Your smaller ME mind, some call it the ego, will be focused on one thing only. Making the RIGHT decision. No regrets. Making sure it works out for you and those around you.

“You have a decision to make, and your mind wants to know what the right decision is. But you realize that that isn’t a relevant concern anymore because your framework for decision making has been conditioned. A “right decision” according to whom? One person’s “right” is another person’s “wrong.” If you’re not going to make decisions based on right and wrong or should and shouldn’t– which only exist in thought–then how do you move?”~Adyashanti

What is beyond the me/ego/personal mind is infinite possibility, especially if there really is no right and no wrong. It’s vast, and silent. Notice how the Universe doesn’t really ever answer the question about what is absolutely right or wrong. It allows everything, there is nothing to resist. There is NO WRONG DECISION. And no right decision. Wow!

Do not despair if you don’t know what decision to make. The mind will put so much energy into good and bad, right and wrong, justifying what you are about to decide or what you just decided. It will spew out criticisms, lists, analyses about things you “decided” from 20 years ago even.

Instead, relax. I have found it’s all I can really do once I question my thinking that seems to enjoy churning out the list of pros and cons about everything. That becomes….boring, unimportant.

Instead, know that you don’t have to know how anything will turn out. Let yourself stop trying to find the right answer. Trust in the subtle silent force of life….of love, that is just here. If you’re not sure it’s here, question your thinking.

Even if this is not the acceptable norm of society, allow a decision to come by feeling out what is true beyond fear and worry, beyond what is YOU. Literally.

“A healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan….”~ A Course In Miracles

Love, Grace

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That Annoying Person Should Change

There are many spiritual and philosophical traditions that encourage humans to “take responsibility” for themselves.

What does this actually mean? I am “taking” the blame, duty, liability, charge, burden, accountability for my life for myself.

The word “taking” shows that I could leave responsibility out there on another person, events, the weather, my parents, the way I grew up…..in fact it’s almost like that’s where responsibility naturally is perceived to be—out there. That’s why I have to take it.

The odd thing is, in doing The Work or any form of self-inquiry, in reading many spiritual traditions and teachings, the more we take responsibility for our lives, the more there seems to be a murky line about where I end and the rest of the world begins.

In fact, I begin to see how wherever I go, whatever I see, whomever I’m interacting with…..there I am, present right in that situation. It’s like I’m a part of the universe all the time, everywhere.

(This reminds me of Dr. Hew Len, teacher of ho’oponopono from an ancient Hawaiian spiritual practice. He told me once during a workshop how he noticed that everywhere he ever went in the world, when there was a problem, there was one common denominator—HE was there).

Debbie Ford wrote a wonderful book called Spiritual Divorce in which she writes about taking full and complete responsibility for her attraction, her marriage, and her divorce with her former husband.

It was a spiritual wake-up call, she says for taking responsibility for herself instead of blaming her partner.

So here I am willing and able to take responsibility for myself and my responses to the universe and the people in it, and I see some people in the world who are annoying, who have personality traits I don’t like or find repulsive.

I write down all the things I find most annoying about them. How I think that person should change. This is my list, on paper, of what is here that is unpleasant that I get to investigate. I expose my judgments. They are there anyway, so might as well admit it and take a look.

  • she is so sugary sweet and laughs way too often
  • she can’t stop talking
  • she is so superficial and talks about really boring things in life
  • she’s very negative, she complains too much
  • she is scared, needy, and clingy
  • I wish she would stop singing, whistling, babbling on

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean I now rip myself to shreds for being judgmental.

I see that annoying person, and I ask myself what is it in ME that is seeing this behavior, those words, that way of being as annoying? Can I watch it and look at it and see what else I’m believing?

I listened recently to Byron Katie doing the Work with a woman who was very annoyed with one of her friends. Katie asks the woman, who would you be without the thought that your friend is boring, negative, fearful, annoying or full of complaints?

Who would I be if I looked, without all the judging? If I didn’t think “I need to get away from her! I need to avoid spending time with her! She’s not that great a friend!”

I would see that this woman is being herself, and when I’m listening to her I’m afraid she will never stop talking. I am scared of her neediness, I’m scared of my own falseness when I see her, and my resistance to her. I think I should be helping out, I should be nicer. I’m afraid to speak up, thinking she will be hurt, and then I will be hurt. I’m stuck. I’m sad that this woman feels so worried, frantic, and makes so much noise. I’m sad she’s not able to relax. I’m sad thatI am not able to relax around her!

I see how this annoying person should not change until I step up and take responsibility for how I feel in her presence. She is showing me what I am scared of in the world, what I think I can’t handle. She is showing me where I forget my sense of humor, compassion, and kindness, which are so much more natural for me than being annoyed.

“You are your only hope, because we’re not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we’re aware of it or not. The whole world is about you.”~Byron Katie 

Love, Grace

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A Cup Of Tea Experiment

Byron Katie has a wonderful exercise in her book I Need Your Love–Is It True? that I adored doing the first time I read it. Here is the exercise:

“Think of someone you want to impress, or whose love you really want, or who you’re afraid of displeasing or who you think has power over you.

Now imagine having a cup of tea with this person. Imagine that during this time, you don’t make the slightest attempt to influence his or her mental life. Imagine that all you want is to let them have their thoughts, their tea, and their experience. 

What does it feel like to sit in the presence of that person in this way? What do you notice about how it feels to be you? What do you notice about the other person?”

I pick a spiritual teacher who has a huge following, someone many people admire and receive help from about very deep and profound issues. I admire their work enormously. Many people all over the world know their name. I can hardly imagine having tea with them.

I notice first, without the need to impress in any way, that my body feels much calmer, more relaxed, open. I notice I look directly at this interesting person, and they are looking at me. I notice thinking about myself at first that I have nothing really to offer…..and awareness that I thought I should have something to offer.

I notice thinking that I should ask them some questions, perhaps about my personal spiritual practice. It seems sort of ridiculous, though, without wanting to impress or displease or be attended to.

If I were really not making one single drop of an attempt to influence this person, I notice silence, and maybe joyful questions coming out of this silence. I would ask the questions, if they arose. I notice feeling a smile come to my face, so delighted.

If I really were not trying for anything, everything is paused. I notice, there is not really a ME here that needs anything at all. Strange, emptiness. Perhaps neither one of us speaks.

And I stay with myself, neither trying to please or not trying to please. Just there. Moments of thinking “wow, this person I have so admired, right there in a chair across from me”. Yet, I am here, no need for anything, without trying to “get” something from them, including recognition.

“As you identify less and less with the “I”, you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything. Do you know why? Because you are no longer afraid of being hurt or not liked. You no longer desire to impress anyone. Can you imagine the relief when you don’t have to impress anyone anymore? Oh, what a relief. Happiness at last!”~ Anthony deMello

What a magnificent way to live in that moment, having tea, seeing everything around this “me” that apparently is sitting in a chair, with eyes looking out. Table, cup, sky, sounds of birds, smells of flowers, tea, cooking.

Who knows, in this delighted, grateful, relaxed place I might hear THEM ask ME some questions. I notice they really love being here with me, without anyone trying to impress anyone else or help anyone else or accomplish or achieve something.

Without the thought that I need to influence, be remembered, gain anything……I am leaving everything alone, leaving it the way it is. It’s actually hilarious. Here comes laughter!

I would love to hear what comes to you when you do this exercise! Please head for the blog post of this same article at Grace Notes at Work With Grace and share what you imagine, what it feels like, what you notice and learn. Can’t wait to see what you post below!

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You’ve Been Spared

One of my favorite all-time thoughts to look at, and to question, is “he left me”….”she left me.” The sadness, heart-ache, and desperation people feel when thinking this thought can be enormous.

Without questioning it, many of us think wildly about WHY someone left. Was it me? Was it her? What did I do? Where did it go wrong?

It’s not a happy situation. Someone was here, and now, they are not here. Someone was a close friend, a lover, a companion, a work mate, a neighbor…and now they are far away, we speak less often, we never see them….perhaps they have died.

The whole premise behind the thought, following the thought, is that in this “leaving” there is fear, loneliness, grief, anger, despair. It means something bad. It means there is Something Wrong.

The mind loves to find out what’s wrong. Oooh boy! A PROBLEM! (Hands wringing with glee).

My father died many years ago. One of my first realizations with investigating by using The Work was to question “he left”. It seemed like he wasn’t here anymore. No body anywhere. I had been sad for so long about this.

Isn’t it amazing to turn this entire experience around, upside down, to the complete opposite. A person has “left”. Off they went to another place, another relationship, away from this life. I turn the feeling around inside myself and see if there is Joy present in this situation. What if this is a good thing? How could that possibly be true? Can I look, just to see?

Byron Katie has a wonderful comment she offers to people who are upset about someone or something moving away from them: “You’ve been spared”.

Sinking in to this, it is not about finding all the faults you could ever list about that other person, who is no longer present.  Although it can be a place to begin. Did you really love and adore absolutely everything about that person 100% of the time? Noticing that you didn’t can be a little step towards willingness to see this all differently.

But don’t get trapped there. Attacking the person who left takes energy, attachment, focus….and continued suffering. We get stuck doing this.

My father was an incredible man. Kind and loving, thoughtful. I had no thoughts about difficult qualities I was now spared from. But still, how could it be that there were advantages to his passing, just at the moment he did?

Truly considering being spared from that path means I come back to the center of myself, being here with me….all me. Person gone, even a beloved being who has died. No imaginary stories about how it would be better if they were here in person.

You moan, “she left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.
~Rumi, from “A Community of The Spirit”

It would be a little weird if my father just kept living, since apparently what happens around here is that we’re born, we’re tiny babies, we grown into adults, and then we die.

I mean, when would be the “best” time for him to move on? I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision.

And how about all the other people who have supposedly “left” during my lifetime? What has been important about those partings?

I get to live back in the center, the mysterious unknown, here with myself. Trusting all that is. It’s a Friendly Universe. Adventure, Possibility….seeing what is next. My conversation is with God, with Source, with Reality, the way it is.

My father leaving? It was time for me to make peace with a career, to know that I was enough, all by myself. I went to graduate school. I decided to have a baby. Major life decisions became very clear and simple.

Other people leaving? No more drama. Freedom to come and go as I please, silence in my home, doing all the things I love to do without anyone else’s influence. I go to a movie, I’m the one who picked it. I eat some food, I’m the one who cooked it.

Empty space, open to all kinds of possibilities. Total JOY with my own company. Noticing that I am such a fun person to hang out with, no one else is necessary. At all.

“If you open yourself to the Tao, you are at one with the Tao and you can embody it completely. If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.”~Tao Te Ching #23

Love, Grace

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Neediness Is Gross

Dating. Pure torture for many. Especially when the mind starts giving it’s opinion, and the thoughts aren’t exactly fun, kind, or gentle.

It can quickly lead a person to decide to give up dating altogether. Just too stressful.

However, if looked at as an open experiment…dating can be absolutely fascinating. And an opening into the world of mystery, surrender, curiosity, and getting to know oneself in a most intimate way. It’s just a bonus to get to know someone else in the process.

In Our Wonderful Sexuality this morning, we questioned the belief “he is oblivious to my needs”.

Oblivious is a fabulous word. In the dictionary is it simply defined as “not aware of or concerned with what is happening around”. So, oblivious to MY needs would be that he is not aware of my needs, not concerned with them at all.

Hmmm. If he is not aware of my needs, what could I do? Oh! I could talk! I could say “I need some water, I need you to move over, I need to be home by 10”.

But needs are so gross. They show….neediness. Being “needy” is bad. Needing nothing is better. Being needy show dependence, immaturity, high maintenance focus. People don’t like other needy people.

One of my all-time favorite strategies, quite unconscious in many ways, has been to Not Need Anything. Including food. If neediness was bad, well it certainly wasn’t going to be shown by me, that’s for sure. No one will ever accuse ME of neediness!

The problem is, that no matter how much you would like to do away with that pesky sensation of hunger, or the need to go to the bathroom, or the longing for a partner, or the wish that someone would like you, it will grow bigger and bigger until you HAVE to respond. Or die.

And being Against Neediness is signing up for a fight. I am against, resistant, opposed.

Doing The Work and examining your thinking, your feeling, the way you live in any given situation (like being on a date) you hold this precious moment and all your uncomfortable thoughts with respect.

Something in your mind starts to believe “I need someone who will pay attention to me, she just seems so oblivious…”

You can question so much there. Is she in fact oblivious? Really? And if she appears to be, is that really so bad? It’s kind of nice to hang out with someone who doesn’t zone in on everything I say or do. What are the advantages of this person being just the way they are?

Anthony deMello writes that where he came from in India, people started believing they needed transistor radios to be happy. Until everyone started getting transistors, they were perfectly happy without one. “That’s the way it is with you”, he says, “Until somebody told you that you wouldn’t be happy unless you were loved, you were perfectly happy….You become happy by contact with reality. That’s what brings happiness, a moment-by-moment contact with reality.”

“If you put your hand into a fire, does anyone have to tell you to move it? Do you have to decide? No: When your hand starts to burn, it moves. You don’t have to direct it; the hand moves itself. In the same way, once you understand, through inquiry, that an untrue thought causes suffering, you move away from it.”~ Byron Katie

Move away from judging “neediness” in you or in others. Move away from focusing on the absence of people noticing your needs, or being so sure you don’t have your needs met. It burns when you think there are needs here and that they should be met in YOUR way that you approve of, or someone else’s way that THEY approve of.

When you move away from the stressful beliefs about needing, then when you get hungry, you simply say “I need some food”. If the person you ask doesn’t have any, or says no, there are a billion other people available to ask. Keep going.

Love, Grace

If you like this article, forward it to friends, family or colleagues. To get on the list to receive these directly via email, go to www.workwithgrace.com and enter your email in the sidebar. Your email will not be sold or used for any other purpose than these articles and announcements for Work With Grace. You can Unsubscribe at any time by clicking the button at the bottom of any newsletter.

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He Should Change

Anthony deMello, the wonderful Jesuit priest and author, wrote that he has news that is VERY GOOD:  none of us has to do anything to change. In fact, he said, the more you do, the worse it gets.

All we really need to do is understand ourselves.

We’re about to spend some time doing this starting Thursday, in the teleclass Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven. We look at relationships with ANYONE: spouse, parent, child, boss, colleague, employee.

Just like doing The Work of Byron Katie, there is no list of what you should do in order to change…in fact in a very careful, measured way, the suggestion of inquiry is to study the pain, like scientists studying ants or other strange insects.

So, I found myself thinking about someone who I have found troubling. When I think about him, I notice negative feelings inside. These feelings are inside ME, not inside HIM. So who is the one suffering with the negative experience here?

Step number one is to see what I’m thinking, what I think is true, what I repeat to myself over and over again when I think about this person:

  • he should get his life together
  • he should stop drinking
  • he’s deceptive, lying and manipulative

The only way I could have these kinds of thoughts and feelings is if I expected something different. I see fault, I see need for improvement, I see a more Perfect Image hanging over the person’s head.

I am actually demanding that the person change. They should be a little different, or a LOT different, than they are. The bigger the painful thoughts, the more demands I have, and vice versa. The bigger the emotion, the farther I see that person from their perfect possibility in my mind.

What is the common denominator in every experience I’ve ever had where there is a Problem? Hmmm, gosh…. Just one common element that is present, every time I experience stress, every time I see something missing or something not quite up to snuff?

What is it that is always present, every time I think about that annoying person? ME!

I am always present when I see a problem. Everything else, in fact, changes. People come and go, issues are different, concerns are new or old…but every time I see a problem, oops, there I am.

“In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.”~ Eckhart Tolle

 Just imagine that person who you are judging and defining as less-than-perfect as instead someone who you want nothing for, and nothing from, at all. No wanting whatsoever.

There they are, shining their star (as a wonderful wise friend used to say to me). There they are, doing their thing. I can spend time with them, or not.

I turn everything around that I think, doing The Work:

  • I should get my life together, especially when it comes to analyzing other peoples’ lives
  • I should stop being addicted to my thinking that there is a problem with others
  • I am deceptive, lying, and manipulative, especially when I’m thinking I’m Miss Innocent or I try to act like I’m accepting, when I’m not

“No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy.”~Anthony deMello

 Do The Work and get free from that unhappiness! And if you need some group support to help you, join fellow travelers in the teleclass on Thursdays for the next 8 weeks, 10am-11:30 am Pacific time.

Love, Grace

Click Here to register for the Thursday class!

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Not Hiding My Violence And Pain

This morning I was reading from Loving What Is, Byron Katie’s book about The Work and how she discovered it. There are many dialogues of people with whom Katie did the Work in the second half of the book.

I randomly opened the pages to a man who is very angry at his uncle for advising him poorly on the stock market.

What an amazing story to question, the thought patterns which say “that person should not have told me what they told me”. Or the opposite, “they should have told me something different, something better…”

  • My friend shouldn’t have told me that insulting joke
  • My dad should have told me why he was depressed
  • The man I was dating shouldn’t have told me I wasn’t his type
  • My grandfather should have told me how to make money
  • My grandmother shouldn’t have told me she was lonely
  • My co-worker shouldn’t have told me she didn’t trust me
  • That doctor shouldn’t have told me the mole was nothing to worry about

This morning in our teleclass Horrible Food Wonderful Food a participant selected the thought to bring to inquiry “I needed her to tell me not to hide my eating”.

How amazing to get an idea of who we would be without the thought that anyone should have said something different than what they have said so far. Or that we needed them to help us. Or that they should have said more.

What if we were ourselves, following advice, not following it, hearing their words, noticing the reactions inside of us….wanting just what we wanted (like cookies) without feeling shame, guilty, desperation, anger, sadness.

I have loved doing The Work on the concept “they shouldn’t have said that!” I bring the situation I’m most upset about to mind. There the person is, speaking. Words are coming out of her mouth. Her face is red. Her eyes are squinting.

Right in that moment, I remember what felt so terrifying about her speaking, the way her face looked. I remember what I thought it meant about me or about them, or the world, that was very stressful.

  • She hates me, I hurt her, I’m bad, I should have done it differently
  • Doctors can’t be trusted, bad things can happen to me
  • I did something wrong
  • My grandmother is suffering and I can’t help her
  • My grandfather didn’t think I was good enough to make money
  • My dad doesn’t think I’m good to talk with about his inner life
  • My friend is making fun of me
  • I am unattractive, ugly

When I do The Work, I not only find acceptance of what everyone has said or not said, I also find that I can find examples of how it was an advantage for me that it went just exactly the way it went.

So the man working with Katie saw his list of demands that he wanted from his uncle, and as he looked at every demand, he discovered that he was the only one who could really give him what he needed or wanted. Not his uncle.

I give myself the gift of the turnaround “I need to tell myself not to hide my eating“. I need to tell myself it is OK to be me, not hiding my behavior, my thinking, my feelings.

I tell people about my story of being bulimic for ten years, going on these episodes of crazed eating so much food it was amazing I could hold it, and then forcing myself to vomit. That I was borderline anorexic for two years, controlling every bite that went in my mouth (which was very little) and deciding I would simply never respond to hunger, ever.

I tell people of my terrible violent relationship with food and eating and how that is now over. I tell people that I eat whatever I want now, whenever I want to eat it. Sometimes I have a moment where I think I ate too much but it’s rare, sometimes I have a moment where I think I’m too hungry and “I can’t stand it” but it’s rare. Sometimes I look at my darling fiance’s bottle of coke and I think “he shouldn’t drink that” but then I laugh.

I know what to do the minute I feel anxiety or pain or discouragement of any kind. I see what it is I am believing, first, and then take it to inquiry.

“There is no such thing as verbal abuse. There’s only someone telling me a truth that I don’t want to hear. If I were really able to hear my accuser, I would find my freedom…..If your uncle says something that hurts, he’s just revealed what you haven’t wanted to look at yet.” ~ Byron Katie

Our mothers and fathers and all the people around us with their explanations and ideas about food, or stock tips, all these people with their intense feelings and words…maybe they are God in disguise. Giving us everything we need or don’t need for our freedom.

With love, Grace

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The Hidden Gift in ANY Relationship

June 27 – July 1 in the glorious Breitenbush Hotsprings Resort in Oregon! Please register at www.breitenbush.com.

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You Are So Selfish!

If someone calls you “Selfish” it seems they don’t mean it well, and we don’t like hearing it. “Selfish” is not a good thing to be.

I remember the first time I was called “Selfish”. My mother said it to me.

I don’t remember what I was doing, or what I said, but I was overwhelmed with the thought that she just called me Selfish and this was very bad. I would do anything, it felt like, NOT to be that. I should have been thinking of her.

Jane Austen wrote “Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure”.  

The dictionary defines “selfish” as lacking consideration for others, concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.

The very definition has stressful underlying beliefs…we have to believe that being concerned with our own pleasure or profit actually makes us lack consideration for others. And that this is terrible, bad, wrong!

We also have to assume, if there is such a thing as being Selfish, that it is something you can just wind up being, by accident, unless you are diligent and you focus on other people. You need to watch yourself carefully, and keep yourself from doing things just for YOU, just because you like it. You need to think of others first.

Byron Katie wrote in one of her newsletters in 2009 this passage:

“Love is self-absorbed and leaves no room for any other. Love is the affect of self-consuming, the consumed. There’s not a molecule separate, outside of itself. In the apparent world of duality, it can be seen as a you and a me, but in reality there is only one. And even that isn’t true. I call it the last story, the one in the moment. The voice I love from within is what I’m married to. All marriage is a metaphor for that marriage.”

Katie has another saying that I’ve also heard elsewhere “You are the one you have been waiting for!” 

Once I was very angry with a good friend, a man I was dating. In my mind I had the thought “He is sooooo selfish!”

I knew what to do. Investigate my thinking. Because the very thought filled me with frustration, hate, rage and sleeplessness.

Who would I be without the thought that he was selfish? Watching a man who appeared anxious, demanding, watching someone yell out for what they wanted. There was passion! And fear, confusion, worry. He was believing lots of painful thoughts, he was trying hard, he was trying to find balance, he was afraid of suffering, afraid of not getting what he wanted.

The Turnaround is of course “He is not selfish”. How was this true?

He brought gifts to his mother, he invited me to do things with him, he was willing to trust me and other humans even though he was so afraid of them, he didn’t keep secrets, he spoke exactly what was on his mind (even if it was harsh or unpopular), he saw the value in questioning his thinking, he told jokes, he laughed, he could have one conversation for hours with me or someone else, he worked so he could earn a lot of money and pay his way, he paid for other peoples’ meals, he asked questions, he was completely transparent and real so that I could see where I wasn’t interested in him as a partner.

He was super generous, actually, in just being himself. I learned more from him than I had from many others throughout my life about honesty, feeling “criticized”, finding freedom in allowing others to be exactly as they are. He was so free!

What if we are here only to be ourselves? What if that is truly all we can do?

“To love is to be happy and do what you want, whatever you want. Be with. don’t be with. Smile; don’t smile. Be loving; don’t be loving. Give or say whatever you want; take or ask for whatever you want. Do you own thing. If the one you love gets unhappy, don’t believe you are not loving them enough for them to be happy. Their happiness does not depend on you. If you find you want them to be happy, it is because you want it; not because you must be a loving person to prove to them or you that you can love. You are loving if you are happy!” ~Bruce di Marsico

There is no danger in being selfish. Be who you are. You are Love. Your nature is peace, joy and happiness. Mothers say things at just the right moment for our awareness…and how amazing to question anything that hurts.

With love, Grace

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Leaving Everything You Know Behind

This morning I was reading letters and responses that people have written to an author named “Sugar” which were printed in a magazine called The Sun. One of my favorite magazines of all time. Well, the only magazine I’ve ever continuously received and read each month for many years.

Someone had written to this woman named Sugar wondering if it was OK to NOT be speaking to her dad. This woman had HAD IT with her father.

Most of us have had the experience of wanting to shut down communication with someone else when we disagree or argue with them, or feel very hurt by them, or just too scared of them. It just seems like too much, too hard, too stress-producing, too uncomfortable, too painful.

I myself have had this experience, not so long ago even.

There is no right or wrong way to be around stopping talk with someone, of course, each experience is unique. But I liked how Sugar answered this writer. Sugar said “I will tell you about my own situation with my own father” and she told that story.

The story went like this: father gets mad, daughter gets hurt, daughter gets mad, no communication for many years, daughter reaches out, father gets mad, no communication again for years, father reaches out, daughter gets hurt, father gets mad, no communication again.

As I read the story, I realized that I expected the daughter and father to reconcile, to talk, to fall into each others’ arms at the end.

But it didn’t go that way. It doesn’t always go the way we like. Sometimes people need, apparently, to not communicate with each other. I’ve been the one myself to say I need a break, I can’t do this, I need to be quiet for awhile.

Doing The Work is like laying every idea I have down about what would be MY idea of a good outcome. It is seeing who I would be without my stories. It is leaving everything I know behind. It is opening to the wide sky, the vast earth, the limitless mind.

One of my favorite recordings, that I listen to every few months, is the haunting and beautiful poetry by David Whyte. A dear friend sent this one to me again recently, so I knew it was time to hear it once more.

Communication, silence, waiting, re-connecting, silence. Who knows how it will unfold, but it is all Love in the end. All of it.

In this high place

it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,

pray the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands

will stare into the lake astonished,
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow,

the true shape of your own face.

David Whyte Tilicho Lake

Much Love,

Grace

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Screaming Teenage Me

Uh oh. I had steam coming out of my ears last night when talking with perhaps my favorite personal spiritual teacher, my 14 year old daughter.

I think that would not actually be called talking. Yelling is more the description.

It can be discouraging when you notice something REALLY triggers you. One moment, we were talking about her third lost bus pass….then next I am crazed because I am upset with her attitude.

Who cares about the lost bus pass! If I say we’re going to look for it, then start looking! And don’t tell ME you already LOOKED!

Today I had a lovely conversation with a woman who is currently enrolled in Turning Relationship Hell to Heaven. She has been feeling discouraged about how much her mind repeats itself and whether she can really resolve her problems by doing The Work.

It feels to some of us like that busy, busy mind just thinks of something new and clever, and meaner, to say about our “progress” as humans every day:

  • You should know better than to raise your voice or get angry by NOW
  • You are a lost cause
  • You are acting like a teenager yourself
  • After all this work, self-reflection, listening to teachers, you would think….
  • I’m going to be dead before I question all my beliefs and have peace
  • This is one long journey into CONTINUOUS HELL

Woah! That last one was so harsh, it almost made me start laughing!

If I hold myself with compassion, which is ultimately what this Work is all about, then I can gently see what I’m so afraid of or resistant to in that moment, and stop attacking myself for attacking my daughter.

I take out a pen to write down what I was thinking in that moment when the anger rose up like a geyser, like a screaming crowd gone wild.

Martin Luther King said “a riot is the language of the unheard“.

So what is it that I was not hearing when standing with my daughter talking about her lost bus pass? What are my beliefs in that moment, that I’m sure are entirely true?

  • I pay for the bus, and the money is going down the drain
  • Replacing the pass is a hassle
  • We HAVE to find it
  • She should be just as concerned as I am about finding it (she is not concerned)

The demand, control, and desire to be the ultimate dictator and have things go my way in this small moment of communication is amazing! I see how frightened I am of losing money, the unexpected, losing “things” like passes, and frightened that I’m the only one who really cares (she does not, and she should).

Suddenly as I think of the benefits as I turn around the way I see this situation:

  1. I will get to spend time with my daughter if we go get a replacement pass
  2. I see how we’re fine without the bus pass in that moment…I mean really, there is no reason in that moment to have it except to stop the thoughts that it needs to be found
  3. We get to think of creative ways to hold on to stuff, and let it go
  4. I see what it’s like for the person who lost the pass, supposedly (my daughter) to not be that freaked out about it
  5. I ask for her forgiveness, and for my own
  6. I accept that I am a regular human being…..angry, then not angry, full of love for my daughter
  7. Nothing terrible really happened, there were loud voices and two people with red faces

Keep going, everyone! Even when you think you can’t inquire yet again on the same person, event, place, condition, or thought…

“To bow to the fact of our life’s sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.”–Jack Kornfield

Much Love, Grace