Last night for the fourth night in a row I walked under a black sky studded with sparkling stars. Walking very slowly in the crisp air with my huge puffy blue down coat zipped up tight, I turned off my flash light, head tipped back in wonder.
A new friend and fellow scholar of the Orphan Wisdom School I’m enrolled in said “there are so many stars, I can’t even tell which is the big dipper”.
We paused under the brightness, and soon found the big dipper, and little dipper. Others were also here with us, all making our way back across a huge expansive night field towards our cars parked in a long row on a dirt road near the place we’re meeting.
Everyone was looking up.
At the very same moment in my mind I was thinking about something posed in our group just before we broke for the night.
Retreats are not necessary, not required.
Because this life is not about being as careful as possible so you make no mistakes, or figuring out how to fix yourself, or resolving your inner world once and for all, or finding the answer to what makes you happy.
No.
Life will always be imperfect, we’ll make mistakes, we won’t feel quite resolved, things will be messy.
Happiness will most likely be found through a powerful acceptance of the nuttiness and surprise of life, not in getting it all figured out and managed.
I thought about this concept of not needing “retreat” because not only have I been on many, many retreats of all kinds, shapes and sizes….
….I’ve also been in the place where I could not afford either the time or the money to go on retreat, or leave my daily life behind and meditate for a week.
Which brings me to one of the things I love about The Work and doing it as an ongoing practice every day.
All it is….is four questions, and trying on the turnarounds.
And all you do is ask these questions when you notice you feel stress, suffering, anything that keeps you from actively engaging fully in your own daily life.
Your daily life is your personal school.
When I notice there’s something that would prevent me from movement, action, a sense of holiness about even the most mundane daily activities, or lack of imagination and respect, I can ask these questions.
Is what I think right now true?
Can I absolutely know it’s true?
What happens and how do I react when I believe what I think? How do I speak? What do I say? How do I treat others? What do I do?
Who would I be without this belief running in my head? What would this look like? What would I say? How would I be with others? How would I treat people, myself, my life? What else is possible instead of thinking the same way I’ve always thought, or everyone around me has always thought?
And after this deep exploration, we get to find the turnarounds.
What is the complete opposite, or what if I turned what I think upside down, or switched places with the person in question, or wondered if what’s happening is for some hidden benefit I don’t know of yet?
What if I wasn’t against what’s going on so completely, with a sense of war, defense or attack towards it?
It doesn’t mean I have to like it, or love it, or support what’s going on, or be thrilled with what I’ve encountered….
….not at all.
But the mind opening up into all possibilities, not trying to fix things or people or myself, not trying to stay in a game of good vs evil….
….wow. It is freedom. To “wonder” about life is freedom.
It will break your heart, too. But you won’t be numb anymore.
I love how The Work is a great investigation, and you don’t have to go anywhere to start. You can do it right now, with just one thing you’re suffering about.
Instead of giving up, growing passive, feeling hopeless….you can be yourself, in action, alive, being.
If you’re not sure how, or you want to practice with a group, you really CAN do The Work without leaving your own home. I’ll be offering an inquiry call Tuesday morning May 3rd from 7:45 – 9:00 am Pacific Time. You can drop in or drop off the call any time, so come to all or a part of it.
You’ll get the chance to identify your thoughts about a difficult or stressful situation, and do The Work on just one belief you have about it. You can share out loud, or just listen.
“Can we stop pretending to know, and rest in wonder and never-ending mystery?” ~ Jeff Foster
My friend and colleague Doug Foresta (creative, thoughtful and hilarious too) interviewed me on his Empower Radio show. Listen as we talk about peace and he asks me….what is peace and how do we access it anyway, and other cool questions that I usually ask other people.
***********
Right Now, I have enough time.
So I’m not sure how it happened…..
….(OK, OK I know I am actually the person who said “yes” to my own calendar schedule, why’d you have to remind me?)….
….but I’m starting TWO teleclasses in the next ten days followed by a 3 day retreat here in Seattle area where we’ll be doing The Work and focusing deeply on how we create, feel and live the turnarounds we find when we do The Work (very cool exercises to help facilitate this together).
I seriously did not plan starting two teleclasses plus a retreat in such a condensed period of time on purpose.
I never would do that.
Except this statement appears to be untrue. As it turns out, I’m probably doing that.
Do you ever feel a time crunch scheduling conflict, and you’re a little stressed about the load?
Or, perhaps, it’s completely impossible to do what you think you wanted to do in the amount of time you had available to do it in?
Oy vey.
I need more time.
It’s sooooo true!
We’ve done similar inquiry before, but let’s see what happens today as we look more deeply at why we need more time, and what’s really going on with this belief “I need more time.”
This is one of those top-hit repeating thoughts. A stressful belief that appears and re-appears over and over.
So….why?
Why do you need more time?
Because I have special things to say about the Relationships Course and they need to be written, then shared, and special things to say about the Eating Peace course, and two different mailing lists of people interested in them, and I should tell them about what they’re like so they can decide if its a good time for them to take the plunge and do The Work in these areas.
Writing and making announcements takes time!
But I’m off in the hinterlands to hang out on the earth with a small tribe doing more non-writing-ish things. I won’t have my computer with me much. Although this hasn’t stopped me before.
Why do I need to write about my courses?
So people know about them, so they can opt-in and sign up. You can’t actually run a course or a retreat without people participating in it….right??!
(Not actually true, I realize. I can do The Work myself in quiet solitude and have a fabulous time being student and facilitator….although I’m pretty dang sure I wouldn’t sit as still, nor as quietly, nor as long, if on my own. But that’s another inquiry.)
Funny, though….having people enrolled seems important. It seems necessary. Maybe even critical for making this business of service in The Work to happen. How else do I join with others to do inquiry? How else do I earn a living?
This is VERY IMPORTANT!!
I do know, however, that creating offerings and sharing them with the world can be done stress-free (amazing, but true) and without the belief “I need more time!” screaming in my ears.
If you feel like you really need more time to complete something, or accomplish it the way you want, then this inquiry is for you.
This inquiry can happen when you’re on a freeway stuck in traffic and you’re late. It can happen if your biological clock is ticking and pretty soon it won’t be possible to have children. It can happen if you’re aging and you want to live to see more happen. It can happen if someone you love dearly is moving away, or terminally ill. It can happen if a buzzer just went off and you had to stop doing whatever you were doing.
I need more time….so I can savor what’s happening much longer, so I can not feel the loss, so I can feel filled up, so I can be satisfied, successful, achieve what I want, accomplish the dream, or live.
It’s a pretty big deal, this needing more time. A lot is hanging on it.
How do you react when you believe you need more time?
I make lists, sometimes physically but mostly in my head. I think since there’s pressure to get stuff done in a certain amount of time, I have to be hyper clear, on task, no “wasted” time. I feel a rushed energy within, tight and tense.
If someone interrupts you, and you’re believing you need more time, how do you treat that person? (Visions of telling my daughter NOT NOW when she burst through the door to my room).
Sometimes, with this belief, there’s sadness. Hand wringing. Fear. Pictures of what’s to come….like death, life over, time run out. I think about my dad dying long ago. I needed more time with him.
But who would you be without this thought that you need more time?
What if all those things you need more time for, can wait….or aren’t really necessary for happiness, right now?
Wait. What?
I don’t need more time with my dad, in order to be happy? I don’t need more time to wake up and get enlightened? I don’t need more time to make money?
Huh.
What if you stopped, in this moment, and noticed the space you’re in. Are you OK? What’s going on right now, no matter what the date, year, or hour on the clock says?
Ha ha, for me, I notice my body is ready to take a walk, not write. I put on my coat and slip my phone/camera into one pocket and my wallet in the other of my heavy down coat. I walk out on the street of this new city I’m in, where I’ve never been before. I stop in a little organic grocery mart and get some yummy food in a little bag, snack size. I step out again and begin to walk, having no mental idea of where I am, looking around at the buildings with fascination.
I stop sometimes and take a picture, I love buildings so much. I notice the odd arrangement of huge brick Victorian houses next to weird 1960s complexes. I walk and walk and breathe in the air and stare at the people, listen to the French and the English being spoken, and drink in the street.
And then, I turn a corner and before my eyes appears a massive gigantic building rising in the distance with a tall tower reminiscent of Big Ben in London, with gargoyles and flowery decor and massive windows, all across an expansive lawn. As I walk, I’m in the middle of a huge central square, and right near me a big beautiful flame burning as the sun sets in a sort of tureen in the middle of a wide stately walk.
Welcome to the Parliament of Canada, I read on the sign.
I had no idea this was here.
I do not need more time.
Could this opposite point of view be truer?
“Focus your attention on the now and tell me what problem you have at this moment….You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction, of time. You are getting out of the insane mind that is draining you of life energy, just as it is slowly poisoning and destroying the Earth. You are awakening out of the dream of time into the present.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Much love,
Grace
P.S. For either telecourse, or the retreat, you need no experience in self-inquiry. Come. Something in your mind produces stress when it comes to love, or that one particular relationship. Some thought in your mind produces agony when it comes to eating. Troubling thoughts about reality create a troubling reality. Come to teleclass, or to retreat in Seattle, and turn in the direction of peace.
Today I’m headed to the distant reaches north of Ottawa, to a cold (snow flurries recently reported) remote area to participate in Orphan Wisdom School with the good Stephen Jenkinson.
I’ll be taking my trusty laptop and sharing with you some of what happens there for me, especially when it comes to the power of self-inquiry and being on this beautiful and crazy planet. Who knows what will happen. Stay tuned!
********
Grace Bell facilitating – notice the new gamer headphones, extremely hip. My game is inquiry, apparently.
During the past year, I’ve been doing more and more mini retreats, something I offered for the first time several years ago: a short intense half-day session doing The Work with a small group.
People come from all walks of life, and I’ve offered them online and in person.
This format morphed into mini-retreats-for-one, where a client and I meet for three hours whether in person or on facetime or skype or facebook video call. The amount of time feels luxurious and incredibly powerful and helpful.
The number of people taking this option has exponentially increased, maybe because it’s such a sweet deep dive. It’s amazing to have the time available to really go beyond the traditional once per week 50 minute sessions in many healing professions (this way isn’t always ideal for everyone).
I wanted to make sure you knew this was an option for you. If you’re concerned with anxiety, eating issues, a really difficult relationship (or lack of one) or trouble at your job, career, a co-worker, it can be awesome to sit with your mind and a facilitator for 3 whole hours.
What I didn’t expect was that people who chose this format for meeting….would want to come back two weeks later for another mini retreat. As long as I have room and space, I’ll do this for the significantly smaller fee than the usual rate for solo sessions (3 hours for mini retreats right now = $225).
So why is this way working, I wondered?
I didn’t even think I had enough 3-hour chunks in my schedule to find space, but they keep appearing to open up just right, for example for a condensed version of inquiry on weekends, or evenings when it’s only 5 pm my time, but 10 am for the inquirer in their time zone.
And why is it working for the inquirers who love to take the time and space to work this mini-retreat way?
I see these five reasons why:
1) there is time for the inquirer to express the presenting “problem” which is a person, situation, condition, a feeling they don’t like about their lives….so they feel heard.
2) with a few questions and further investigation, a MORE critical or worrisome or frightening problem often appears. A childhood memory comes forth, a moment with a parent, or a very stressful time in life with change. These come into focus….like we’re detecting the true source of the trouble, the proof or evidence of suffering they’ve carried with them sometimes for years.
3) The inquirer gets to contemplate and meditate on the Judge Your Neighbor questions very deeply (not the way we usually do things on our own, at least I sure didn’t). When these beliefs are identified, then you’ve got your direction. I do the writing for the inquirers, they sit still and give all their attention to simply answering the questions, nothing more required. (If you want to see the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet questions, they’re right here).
4) We inquire into stressful belief(s) using the four questions. We relax and take a short break if needed part way through for just 5 – 10 minutes (or not). We let The Work run the session.
5) The inquirer is left with clear Next Steps. Other situations or scenes to explore and investigate. We’ve taken time to start at the surface, and then look into the fog, clearing out the cloud cover and finding it’s safe to go deeper.
Another way to spend more time slowing down to discover what really disturbs you is to take a small class with others. Meeting once a week for 6 or 8 sessions is such an awesome way to anchor your time in inquiry (and spend less, but also learn from hearing other peoples’ inquiry work).
Whichever way you enter inquiry, I personally think the mind finds it too slow.
Can’t this go faster? Can’t I just get a quick one-sentence answer to life? Can’t someone tell me how to calm down and chill?
Well….maybe that’d be nice….but not really, no.
It just doesn’t work the “fast” way. You don’t really want it super fast, anyway–you want the truth, not some quick answer, right?
Really, the only way I ever found to enter peace was to look into what caused me, personally (it seemed) to move OUT of peace.
I had to tell and question my story, to respect my story, to honor my story for being like a two year old. I had to give it the time it deserved because it was the only one I had.
As I look back at myself doing The Work, and all the incredible inquirers who appear in my life for facilitation….what I see is we all have to start at the very beginning (like Maria in the Sound of Music). We look at the difficult, stressful stories of suffering we’ve been living out, sometimes for our entire lives.
But now, we get to wonder….is it true?
“So in the beginning, to deeply inquire about anything, you have to care about it. You have to care enough to allow it to get inside that shell. What do you really care about? What pulls you into here and now, this minute? What is the most important thing to you? For real inquiry, it is important to be asking about something you sincerely care about. The question needs to be personal, not about a spiritual teaching or something that’s outside of your experience. It needs to be something that’s coming from the inside.” ~ Adyashanti
Are you ready to join a small group or have your own one-to-one solo session(s)? If so, I’d love to work with you. It’s the greatest honor I have in my life….exploring what we truly, honestly care about and finding out what’s actually true, for ourselves.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Relationship Hell To Heaven is a 6 week telecourse starting Weds, May 4th. We meet 9-10:30 am Pacific Time, and all you need to begin is a willingness to clearly notice what your stressful story is about ANY relationship in your life (mom, dad, brother, sister, neighbor, spouse, boss) and dig into the beliefs you have about that person without editing yourself. What an awesome place to do it, in a telegroup. You’ll start to feel less embarrassed about your thoughts, you’ll be inspired by others, you might even feel normal, and free, and discover solutions you haven’t thought of before. Register here. Join me in the Peace Movement.
what is really unbearable here? separation…..or Unity with everything?
Yesterday in Year of Inquiry people read their worksheets at the beginning of our call, as always (and as I also say to everyone….if you don’t have a worksheet, you are ALWAYS still welcome).
Scenes of being left out emerged, or fear of criticism.
I rotate people in to take turns offering the thought to question, and the woman whose turn it was shared her situation with us.
A moment when she’s watching her partner express love and openness…..and it’s not to her.
The speedy quick lightening bolt of “I am left out” arises, almost without words.
The mind is so quick in its assessments, isn’t it?
I have one of those moments, from the past, and I still remember it vividly, it was so fascinating….
I was loving getting to know a man who I found very unusual, quirky and adorable. It was mid-life and after divorce and something about this man was very different and not the typical type of guy I had been attracted to in the past.
He was the facilitator/instructor of a dance I started attending. For a long time, I participated and noticed him and honestly, found it quite wonderful that he didn’t approach me, look at me, or try to dance with me. (I was very inward in a rather exciting, moving, wild way and dancing without words and without obligation facilitated this inward movement of change brilliantly).
The moment I remember so vividly was after this new man in my life had become a companion for a few months.
I was no longer so inward and quiet at that point. I had been attending almost a year, twice a week. I had made some new friends, pretty amazing and friendly people, and found myself finally breathing more deeply in this different chapter of my life.
On the freeform dance floor, everyone dances however they want, moving towards and away from other dancers, dancing alone, joining others mid-song, following the flow of your own movement without instructions, rules, or steps.
It’s a brave and strange experience, but then….not brave at all–just you being you, moving in a body.
I loved it.
One night, this flash of a moment, I looked across the dance floor to see my new companion dancing closely with a woman.
The music stopped, with a pause of silence before the next song soon began, but they did not part from a close embrace, foreheads touching. When the next tune began, they continued to hold still, close, together.
Suddenly a zap of adrenaline surged through my whole body.
I’m left out.
This means….
It’s almost without words, it’s so fast.
But it means something terrible, in that kind of moment. It means I’m abandoned, I’m lost and untethered, this is threatening in some way. That’s what the body is saying it means, as I feel the fear of zapping anxiety run through me.
The Work is about not ignoring this, or pretending it doesn’t matter. The Work is not about acting like you don’t care what you’re looking at disturbs you, or giving yourself a pep talk about how it’s not what you think and all is well and this is not a problem and you better not show you’re so insecure and already acting like you own him so get your act together.
That’s one of the things I love about The Work.
The Work says “tell me everything, everything, everything about that moment.”
That’s step one….allowing everything to come into consciousness that frightens you about a moment in time, and what you’re believing that causes you torture and pain.
I was left out.
Is it true?
Yes.
I’m not in that pairing over there. I’m over here, on the outside of the circle, on the fringes. Alone. Abandoned.
Are you sure???
Who would you be without the belief you are left out? Who would you be, how would it feel inside the body, without the notion that I am not included in something and I should be?
Whoooosh.
I’m back inside my body, without the belief I’m left out.
My arms move, my eyes take in lights, motions, dancers, colors, legs, arms, peoples’ feet, floor. The energy pulsates inside me. I hear music, flutes, drums, cello, horn, tambourine. I see so many other teeth smiling, eyes laughing, faces expressing all around me.
And over there, this new man I adore is in a tender pose, kind and connected with another human being on the dance floor, unafraid to show public closeness to someone else right in front of me. He is free, I am free.
Turning the thought around: I am not including him, I am not including myself.
I am filled with resistance to what I see, I am assuming it means something about me (it didn’t) and how I won’t get enough love, attention, connection. Or something dangerous, called abandonment or loss, might happen.
The turnaround continues, endlessly, to be true: I am included.
I am part of a human family celebrating to music on a dance floor. Together we are all sharing. I dance with others, including both men and women. It’s absolutely beautiful.
I am included in breathing the air, in sweating and drinking delicious water, in being here, body on dance floor….body on planet earth.
With this particular man, he is one of the happiest human beings I know, not seeking and grabbing for contact from others (or me) but very content within himself. He loves dancing with men and women, with strangers and friends. He moves with joy. He trusts himself. He is not intent on being worried about what I think (that’s my job). He has deep integrity, and loves honest talk.
I included myself later by being very honest, sharing with him that I had seen him hugging another and felt a surge of fear, and we had a fabulous conversation about intimacy, physicality, contact in dance, closeness, touch….
….and everything we’d ever learned about it and what we wanted to un-learn.
“Most people want to keep dreaming that they are special, unique, and separate, more than they want to wake up to the perfect unity of an Unknown which leaves no room for any separation from the whole….To the ego such uncontaminated love is unbearable in its intimacy. When there are no clear separating boundaries and nothing to gain the ego becomes disinterested, angry, or frightened. In a love where there is no other, there is nowhere to hide, no one to control, and nothing to gain.” ~ Adyashanti
As I do The Work, I see the fine, exciting, and mysterious dance of relationship I have with anyone reveal itself as….amazing, startling, uncontaminated love.
No one is required to do anything to keep me happy.
While on retreat here with a beautiful assembly of those who have shown up to be together these three days, I’m struck by a thought someone mentioned our first day together.
I can’t eat whatever I want.
This tantrum shows up in so much more than food and eating.
I can’t DO whatever I want. I can’t BUY whatever I want. I can’t SEE whatever I want. I can’t TAKE whatever I want. I can’t HAVE whatever I want.
It’s like a deep cry of feeling limited, enraged, locked in by the circumstances of life or reality.
When we do it anyway, eat anyway, take anyway….even though there are consequences we don’t like….
….we may “win” just for a moment, but then we lose.
The frustration and fury and guilt gets ramped up even higher.
Yesterday, as our retreat group investigated together, someone became aware of a beautiful distinction I’ve heard before.
The body “can’t” eat everything….it’s the mind that wants to, and can.
What if you rested there?
What if, instead of following, like a zombie, the demands of mind saying you MUST eat, drink, do, have, see, take….even if there are horrible consequences (like being overweight, or going to jail, or harming something, or feeling ashamed)….
….you went ahead and let the mind have a hissy fit, and you let it run wild with imagination having everything it wants all by itself without dragging the body along?
Instead of saying “NO, don’t think about that!!” to yourself, in terror, what if you treated your thoughts like they were there for a reason, and doing the best they can (like a toddler)?
Everyone had a laugh imagining the mind getting to eat the entire box of cookies, or taking one bite of everything on display, or wolfing down the entire extra large chocolate bar.
Later as we walked around a nearby lake, in silence, as a part of a contemplative exercise during retreat, we took the question with us on our walk: who would you be, walking this path, without the belief you have an eating problem?
Who would we be, without the belief “I can’t have what I want, in this moment and it’s HORRIBLE!!?”
I notice, in this morning moment squares of bright sunlight shining through a curtain, on an avocado green wall. I hear the sound of air blowing through a vent. I see a dark magenta colored tassel hanging from a silver doorknob.
I feel the joy of the sweet day ahead in sharing with others the preciousness of inquiry, and my notes and curriculum on this little laptop.
Turning the thought around: I can have what I want, in this moment.
Could what is happening right now be good enough? Could what is present be supporting you? What if everything you ever thought you couldn’t get or have or eat or feel or be…..was available?
Is what I thought I wanted really the thing I want?
All I know is….all those times I ate and ate and ate actual food, it was never what I really wanted. I never felt satisfied, or happy, or thrilled, or joyful. It was never enough, it never hit the spot. It felt like “almost but not quite” or wildly far, to be honest, from what I really wanted.
What I really wanted was to feel “enough” and at the same time feel excited about what was unfolding….because life was indeed unfolding, constantly.
Even if this moment is filled with thoughts of “I can’t”….the body doesn’t have to take action.
I hear the words “Is It True?” and allow inquiry to fall into this moment, too.
What if I really did not know what I can or can’t have, or do, or say, or be? What if I have no clue? What if nothing is required, for this moment to be OK? What if “I can’t” is hilarious instead of hellish and frustrating? What if I can?
What if it doesn’t really ultimately matter, and I knew peace and joy were possible no matter what?
What if you left all your notions of what’s missing behind, if you left all your beliefs behind, like all these beautiful retreat attendees do at every meal, as we do The Work together on stressful beliefs like“I can’t….”?
Who cares, do nothing, give up, say nothing….if you think doing The Work means being passive….you might want to question it.
I have a private monthly group (open again for new members in fall 2016) that meets on Sundays for 3 hours. We met this past weekend here at Goldilocks Cottage.
A member of the group brought up a brilliant and powerful question about The Work and inquiry. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.
What if I become OK with everything, nothing bothers me, and I wind up becoming incredibly…..passive?
Like, I don’t mind anything that happens?
And it looks like me not speaking up, me never saying “no”, people doing whatever they want even if it’s taking my stuff or walking all over me, me not caring about things that I actually SHOULD be caring about, me quitting things, me not taking action, me nevertrying to achieve anything?
Ha ha, I love this question.
Over a decade ago, when I first was doing The Work after I attended The School with Byron Katie, I was dating and going through a divorce.
The very first guy I dated in my new single life was a super interesting character, like so many humans are.
Only a few dates into the experience of getting to know him, I was writing worksheets. The worksheets continued, even though we actually didn’t see each other that much and mostly had some long phone conversations with long gaps in between. It felt like a push-pull, on-off, go-stop, mixed-feeling relationship, fairly confusing.
I found a lot of disturbing traits in this man, and I wrote about them and took them through the inquiry process.
One weekend I was at an event with Byron Katie (I had the good fortune to attend quite a few in a condensed period of time back then).
I raised my hand.
“Katie….I keep doing The Work on this same very annoying man in my life and our conversations and interactions….but I’m not getting past my irritation. I feel sooooo angry.”
We had a discussion about repetitive work, motive, trying to “get” somewhere else, pushing oneself into being nice, going against what you really want, mistrusting oneself, not saying “no”, being afraid, trying to manipulate so you don’t get hurt.
Katie describes this aspect of doing The Work as doing it with a MOTIVE. Meaning, you already have planned or mapped out where you want your feeling-state or your answers to bring you. You already have mapped out where you imagine yourself to be, and what would be best for you, for the other, for the world.
I wanted to be easy-going, happy, non-judgmental, smiling, laughing, enjoying the company of this guy I was dating….who I actually didn’t really like that much.
Yes, yes, yes, he was perfectly acceptable as a human being on the planet and could live his life the way he liked (which he reported was full of suffering, depression, anger, addiction and a tremendous amount of anxiety).
Yes, yes, yes I could have (and still have) a sense of compassion for the torture people, like this man, put themselves through by not questioning their thoughts.
But that didn’t mean I had to live with him, as Katie says.
I did not have to be his personal right-hand-woman, or to date him, or to even talk with him if I really didn’t want to.
Katie said to me some powerful words in the conversation we had, that I’ve never forgotten: “Grace, how do you know you’re supposed to be angry? YOU ARE!!”
Oh.
Wow.
You mean…..I’ve not supposed to make myself Not Angry if I am? I’m not supposed to force myself to hang out with someone I don’t find very interesting, or loving, or willing, when that time arrives?
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I had absolutely amazing conversations with this man for awhile. Really curious, truly incredible insights. Deep sharing, practicing saying things out loud that I never did before, hearing things I genuinely needed to hear, noticing how much identity I had all wrapped up in “relationship” and allowing that to be questioned and dissolved.
It’s just that it had a shelf life.
I did The Work on powerful situations and events, like “he shouldn’t like porn” or “he is greedy and terrified with money” and “he shouldn’t criticize me.”
I was stunned and liberated with the turnarounds: I shouldn’t like the “porn” of being mesmerized by thinking about him and his porn, I shouldn’t be addicted to incessantly seeing what I don’t like about him or men or dating or sexuality or couples or breaking up. I shouldn’t be terrified and greedy with money. I shouldn’t criticize him, or myself.
After noticing, deeply, my own anger…..and through Katie’s words finding the deepest permission to allow anger to be alive and present….
….I felt an equally passionate surge of JOY.
I knew to stop torturing him, but most of all to stop torturing myself, with my thoughts, and to be HONEST in my inquiry.
For the first time in my entire life, I broke up with someone rather than withdrawing quietly, or trying to prevent someone else’s anger towards me, or trying to make sure someone else wasn’t hurt by me, or trying to maintain the desperate and false image of All-Kindness-All-The-Time (not).
This was TRUE kindness to everyone involved.
Especially me, and I was the most important person I needed to live with and enjoy and love.
The Work is about accessing the next thought, the next underlying philosophy about life and how you think you “should” be, and dropping what you know that creates suffering.
The Work is about questioning what you see on the surface, and then discovering there’s something else the next layer down, and then another layer, and another, and another.
Sinking deeper and ever deeper into inquiry is like having a huge sense of awareness, for me, of making friends with myself and following the breadcrumbs to the most juicy, delicious, mysterious, exciting, safe and loving center.
Fire is a part of All This.
Trying to fight fire with The Work can give you a nasty, bitter taste of pointlessness, despair, non-action, depression, waiting, joylessness, suppression.
Of course, I had to have the motive I had for as long as I had it, until I noticed it clearly.
And then, when I saw it….poof, it disappeared.
“The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way. Nothing is impossible for him….” ~ Tao Te Ching #59
I have found doing The Work is never about being passive, or forcing yourself to be quiet, or pleasing, or happy when you aren’t.
It’s the opposite.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Spring Retreat May 13-15 Seattle has a couple of spots left. We have three wonderful days together, with special focus on uncovering your “living turnarounds”….Everyone finds through inquiry the TRUE freedom you want to live, the action you take despite quaking hands and heart-beating with the unknown ahead. This is the alive, awake you that responds to reality with trust….and this includes trust for yourself.
You can make the wrong decision….is that true? It’s YOUR decision….is that true?
The other night, my husband and I got in the car as the sun set, on a glorious warm spring evening here in Seattle.
We were headed for an annual event, a great friend’s birthday party–always lively, full of music, dancing, conversations, costumes, re-connecting, joking.
And then I said….”Wow, I’m kind of tired. I’d almost rather stay home and rest and hang out with you.”
I had been on a road trip that very day, driving a couple of hours to another town with my daughter and mom to tour the same college I graduated from–a bit of a memory-lane experience for me. My daughter was accepted there, but not so sure she wanted to attend.
It had been an emotional day, a day full of feelings, long-forgotten images.
I had told several other friends, who always went to this big shin dig every year, that I wasn’t guaranteed to be there, because of this college visitation day.
I knew after a long day on the road, heading out for a party might not be on the top of the self-care list.
Right when I suggested out loud about not going…..my husband said “Really? Well, if you don’t want to, I’m COMPLETELY happy to turn this car around and go back home.”
Six minutes later, we were back home.
We were both asleep by ten o’clock.
At 2:30 am, I woke up thinking about my former life in college and what a strange, uncomfortable, self-destructive, anxiety-ridden time it had been, whether or not my daughter would be OK if she attended the same school, all the fun I missed at the party that night and the people I didn’t get to see, the final IRS payment I needed to make for taxes, my upcoming Eating Peace retreat next week.
Fortunately for me…..I could feel the Not-True-ness of the wee-hours thoughts, and I soon fell back to sleep again.
But it reminded me of how painful it used to be to think I made the wrong decision.
I should have gone to a different college
I should have been more mentally healthy when I was in my twenties
I should have gone to that party last night
I should have chosen a more solid career earlier in life
I should have married an entrepreneur long ago, or a playwright
If you’ve ever thought you made the wrong decision, it can be a horrible feeling if you think the consequences or outcome is BAD.
Not long ago, a young woman wrote to me saying she needed help, she was filled with such regret about saying “no” to a man who asked her to marry him.
He went on to get married to another woman.
Her heart was broken, she said she felt desperate, devastated, like she’d made a terrible decision.
But who would she be without her belief her decision was “wrong”?
Who would any of us be without the belief that our past decisions were the “wrong” decisions?
What if we truly didn’t know? What if it was not true? What if it went the way it went for a very important reason?
Who would you be without your story that it should have gone differently, and YOUR DECISION was the cause of your suffering?
Even though you have a voice, and you did say “no” and you were the one who walked away, or you were the one who chose (apparently), you were the one who said “yes”, you were the one who did or didn’t follow a path, you were the one who turned left….
….who would you be without the belief this was all up to you.
This doesn’t mean it was someone else’s fault suddenly. This is more like, who would you be without it being anyone’s “fault” at all?
What if it should have gone just as it went?
Can you find anything, whatsoever, coming out of that decision and how things unfolded, that benefitted your life?
I notice, when I look at what resulted from my decisions, and trust the way life ran itself, many good things came from every choice (and I’m not sure it was ever “me” solely choosing anything, to be honest).
That college gave me support, kindness, and attention that no other more competitive environment had given me. I graduated. I grew more honest. I dated a very loving boyfriend. I had an amazing therapist who lived in the town of that college who taught me the art of journaling to get to know myself.
My mental suffering led me to a passion so deep for understanding the human condition, I was lit up with learning ever since. My career was awakening, what could be more thrilling, and why would I want anything more solid?
I should have married exactly who I did, and NOT married exactly who I did not. I should have married myself (the practice of a lifetime, and pure joy to be married to “me” now).
I should not have gone to that party the other night.
It was a beautiful, restful, gentle night of silence, wondering, making peace with my college days, making friends with thinking, meditating in the night, spending time with my life partner husband in great connection, watching the rest of Mooji (one of my favorite teachers) miraculously on video even though he was in India and I was in Seattle, feeling the space of inner peace deep, deep within, feeling grateful.
Can you find, in this present moment, what is OK about it, no matter what decision you ever made?
YOU made that decision, is it true?
“When you believe you can make the wrong decision…you’re in past, future, past, future…don’t worry about the present, just past, future, past, future!….The universe will give you what you need. There are soooo many advantages. If you’re of sound mind, how could you possibly believe you made a mistake?” ~ Byron Katie video clip youtube
Every thought somehow, lately, feels less true than ever, and fading into oblivion.
Without this moment having anything wrong with it–including a past decision?
Presence, here now. Life. Joy. It is a feeling in the very center of anything that could be thought.
Why do we have to go with her plans? She is so controlling!
Have you got one particular person you’d like to deep dive into your concepts and stressful thoughts about them?
March 23 9 am PT we’ll start a teleclass (you can dial-in with your computer) series Relationship Hell To Heaven. You’ll get to look at people you’ve had trouble with in your life.
The best part is….you don’t have to try to get along with them, change yourself, create a goal of acting “right” or have any expectations or plans.
Only inquiry.
Awareness changes everything. Click HERE to read more, or to join the six session telecourse Relationship Hell To Heaven.
********
Speaking of plans.
These are funny things, plans.
Like a map, or directions on how to build something….plans can offer a very, very good way and an efficient way to reach a goal or a dream.
I block out time to write my book, for example. I notice when I don’t do this, weeks go by without one single word getting written on it as other things come up instead.
Calendars appear to be required for me, and I still lose track of appointments every so often.
All of these exist because they’re so incredibly helpful. Our minds can’t hold everything. What an awesome invention to write things down, store information, create a map, follow a path, not have to reinvent the wheel.
Except.
Sometimes plans come along, or we receive them, and they don’t feel supportive, they’re not making things lighter. They’re actually making things more burdensome, or somehow, something’s off.
Like the strict diet, for example.
Since I’ve worked with so many people who are working on compulsive or emotional eating in their experience….
….I often ask people what kind of food or eating works for them.
(Everyone in the current Eating Peace Core class sent me their eating plan, for example).
People feel scared about having to have it on paper and how going outside of the “plan” means…..
…..you’re making a mistake, doing it wrong, screwing up, too rebellious.
Lots of us felt the burden of school plans. We must learn x, y, z and get graded well, and then we’ll succeed.
The most important thing about plans, I see now, is to hold them as useful, unless they aren’t.
If you hate plans, or if you love plans and can’t live without them, these two polarities both tend to be stressful.
Recently, someone was organizing a group vacation (that I was not 100% committed to, but part of the group).
We got the “plan” via email.
My thought…..JEEZUS. STOP TRYING TO RUN THE SHOW!
Heh heh.
My reaction?
Feel good I had not committed to the thing. Make a quick getaway. Say I just realized I can’t be there. Slip out quietly, so I don’t have to deal with plan-maker.
But let’s inquire instead.
He shouldn’t make such rigid, detailed plans.
Is it true?
Yes! He’s deflating the whole spontaneous, fun side of everything.
Can I absolutely know it’s true, these plans, the schedule, the “rules”, the laws, the expectations….are awful? Removing the fun?
Can I absolutely know he shouldn’t make such plans? Can I even know they are rigid?
No.
Who would I be without the thought?
Who would I be without the belief he should chill out, or the plan is a burden or stifling?
So funny.
All I needed was this one question and I saw within seconds that I could say yes and no to whatever was happening on the list. I could come and go, no one was “making” me do anything.
I could see how great it is to have a leader, someone super in charge with a lot of ideas. I can also see how great it is I can say without defense or without attacking this leader that “I’m in”, and a few of the activities or items on the schedule I won’t be attending.
I don’t have to have this one email change my whole entire day, or my thoughts about attending altogether.
Turning the thoughts around: he should make these plans, and they’re soft and flexible (turns out, this was completely true). I myself shouldn’t make such rigid, detailed “plans” for handling his plans in my head.
I wrote to my friend the leader and connected, honestly and openly about what I thought worked, and didn’t work, about the apparent plans.
There was no earthquake, or hail storm, or terrible rage against me for not wanting to go along with all the plans.
My “plans” that I would be pressured to keep the plans, were not the way it turned out.
My planning about what would happen if I resisted the plans was not reality.
No planning was necessary, at all.
“We are intuitive beings, but somehow in our conditioning we seem to have been trained to rely on process thinking, figuring things out, like we have to live life with a strategy….Of course you can use your mind to think, have thoughts, but you are very free. There is no need for plans. You don’t have to do any forensics on your thinking. You just move on.” ~ Mooji
Much love, Grace
P.S. Come join Relationship Hell To Heaven if you have someone in your life you call “controlling”. Just saying.
When someone is acting needy or demanding, like they can’t give up until they get what they want, we’ll often judge their behavior as sooooo…..ewww.
There they are, plowing ahead knocking other people out of the way to reach their goal…..or pining and moaning in a corner somewhere because they’re not getting what they want.
Both human behaviors are a bit irritating, even though they’re kind of opposites to the same coin.
Whether someone else is the needy, clinging, grabby person, pushing, selfish, demanding person, you might have one type you notice in your life (or maybe both) on a regular basis.
Either one feels, well, gross….as my teenage daughter would say.
It feels wretched, and upsetting, or infuriating.
Even if you think YOU exhibit one or both of these types of energies, and you don’t admire it much in yourself, there’s a way to address it, and it’s kind of counter-intuitive.
Find SOMEONE ELSE–Not You–who has this irritating or desperate behavior you’re calling needy or demanding, and judge the heck out of them on paper.
Get out a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet, and picture the needy or demanding person acting the MOST needy or demanding they’ve ever acted, who is so insecure (or whatever you’re thinking of them) and write every uncomfortable thought down, unedited, on this worksheet.
I’ve got one.
How about you?
A man who once said to me that he was going to commit suicide without me in his life.
Ugh.
When he wrote that to me….I thought he was completely nuts.
I have this picture of him, long before the declaration that he wanted me to be his girlfriend…..following me to my car, never taking a breath he talked so much (we were friends), and holding on to the open door while I got in. I politely waited for him to pause, so I could get a word in edgewise, shut the door, and drive away.
He’s a dependent addict. Needy, extreme, lost and ridiculous in his thinking. He should get some serious psychological help and to stand on his own two feet. He’s a stalker. I need him to grow up and act normal. He’s sick.
Let’s inquire.
Is it true?
Yes!
Can you imagine committing suicide because someone doesn’t want you? What is this, Shakespeare? Creepy!
For me, it was terrifying.
But could I absolutely know it was true, that he was a dependent addict, like a love addict, with me? That he was needy, extreme, lost, ridiculous…or a stalker?
Not 100%. Well, not at all, now that I think about it.
He lived hundreds of miles away, he worked hard and made lots of money. A love addict?
I didn’t really know.
So how do you react when you think someone’s too needy, or someone’s too demanding, about getting what they want, in any way?
I notice, I try to get away. I ditch them.
If they’re bossy and demanding, I feel afraid. If they’re crying, I withdraw.
So who would you be without your beliefs about this person?
Without the belief he’s reaching, grabbing, begging, insecure, addicted, overwhelmed, too focused on me, and a baby?
“Mind is the creator of all of it, and when you see someone as unkind, it’s reminder that your head is off, not your body, and it’s time to do The Work….Our work’s not done until we stop being at war with anyone or anything.” ~ Byron Katie
Oh yah.
Heh heh.
Without these thoughts and beliefs, I notice the room I’m in, my surroundings. I’m here with myself, and many strong and intense emotions, feelings and images in my mind (of him).
I turn the thoughts around….without using it to attack myself, but instead using it to open up to who the projector is, and that I might not know any better either, just like him.
I am a dependent addict. I am needy, extreme, lost and ridiculous in my thinking. I should get some serious psychological help and to stand on my own two feet. I’m a stalker. I need me to grow up and act normal. I’m sick.
Deep breath.
I’m the one whose heart started pounding when reading a few words on email. I’m the one whose whole day was ruined, just because of not knowing where he was and because he didn’t answer his phone. I stalked myself with my frightened or angry thoughts about him. I woke up in the night, thinking. I needed me to grow up and act normal. I’m the one who acted like a love-addict, like contact with him was my “fix”.
Back then, when I did my work at the time…..
….I saw how I expected someone else to be the grown up (not me, never me) and act mature, enlightened and give the appropriate response to this situation.
It’s like I didn’t think of myself as the one who possibly could be clear, loving, honest and vulnerable.
But it turns out…..I could.
I “broke up” with him, feeling a sense of humility and great clarity too (not wishy-washy), seeing how I was just as weird as he was in the whole dance, acknowledging what a total love-addict I had been, and how dishonest, and how needy.
I gave myself a big hug, and cried a long while, for being so extreme, and lost, and not standing on my own two feet.
“You have everything you need in order to be an honest human being. No one ever has to be afraid of the truth. It’s the defenses that we build around the truth that strike fear into our hearts….If I think ‘What’s the matter with him?’ there is something the matter with me in that moment. I’ve just put an obstacle between us. It’s only a thought, but look what my mind does with it. And until I question what I believe about him, until I do The Work, I lose the awareness of love. So I question it, and love is visible again.” ~ Byron Katie in I Need Your Love–Is It True?
Wow. Love becoming visible again.
Sweet.
Start with your most despicable judgments. Write them all down.
Who ever would have thought your worst thoughts could become lightbulbs to awareness, freedom….LOVE!?!
And if you’d like group support to do The Work together on difficult relationships….you’re in luck. On Wednesdays from 9-10:30 am Pacific Time March 23 – May 11 (no class April 4 or April 27) we’ll begin working together on this powerful journey of inquiry. That’s Noon Eastern, 5 pm London. Click HERE to join read more, or to join the six session telecourse Relationship Hell To Heaven.
Peace Talk Episode 107 is released. I loved talking with Kathleen Gage about practical, everyday inner peace…and no mistakes.
Also, today is Sunday afternoon meetup for folks wanting to drop in to get a taste of doing The Work of Byron Katie 2-4 pm. Seattle. Only $10.
****************
Are you feeling stress or peace when you think of that person?
I received a text once, the last one in a series of texts back and forth about a good friend’s divorce involving lawyers, cease-and-desist orders, heavy alcohol use, terrible sadness, upsetting scenes with kids.
Ugh. The whole thing seemed to be getting worse, and worse, and worse.
Even though I wasn’t so sure, I wrote back that he should do everything in his power to NOT go to war and make more enemies. I called it my Martin Luther King moment. I had this weird hesitation when re-reading it, but I hit “send”.
This is what I got back:
“I’m totally at peace with whatever happens. If you tell me ‘you will get through this’ or ‘in the end you’ll be OK’ again, we will no longer be speaking.”
You gotta admit, this is pretty clear.
I felt smacked down.
Inside I had a voice that said something like “fine, take your completely-at-peace self outta here and go f*%^ yourself, see if I care.”
That would be slightly defensive, wouldn’t it?
Saying something sarcastic, saying I didn’t want to talk anymore, saying he was acting defensive, pointing out he didn’t exactly seem at peace…..any of my immediate comments would be feeding the very same slap-down energy.
War.
I could feel it inside when he told me these words, like a fire ready to explode, in my gut, and I wanted to cry.
The words to accompany the feeling, if I spoke them out loud, were basically like a scream, a wail, pure cussing, a rage.
Inside this voice was having a fit of Poor Me, or I-Have-Been-Ditched or I-Have-Been-Threatened or I-Have-Never-Been-So-Insulted-In-My-Life.
Defend, defend, defend.
And right under this, very hurt.
A great sweeping sense of pain.
I knew that if I wanted to learn from this interaction (and I always do, please) I needed to listen, not tell him what to do or how to be or send back a defensive or hostile text.
I also knew, I needed to focus back on myself and get in my own business, not on his.
How do you get back inside your own business, when someone ditches you, or tells you they don’t like what you said?
The Work.
I identified my thoughts, the hurt ones yelling in my head and bursting in my heart and feeling sick in my stomach.
He doesn’t care about me. He thinks I’m shit. He’s an asshole. He’s a big fat baby, and a victim. He’s so rude. He doesn’t understand me. He’s a liar. He’s sick. He hurt me.
I pause, I look. I see the movie in my head of him, I see the words on my phone, I feel tears form in my eyes. It’s like anger has nowhere to go. And a sadness….why are people so mean like this, so full of rage? Was my pep talk to him really that horrible? Jeez. Poor me.
(I ask myself these questions almost simultaneously while doing The Work….why am I so full of rage? Can I find how what I said WAS horrible?)
Is it absolutely true, all these things I mention, all this pain about him?
In the breath, I look around and see outside the windshield of the quiet parked car. The world is still underway outside this car.
I stop and sob a minute. So hurt.
Is it absolutely true he is this mean asshole who thinks I’m shit, doesn’t understand me, is manipulative and babyish and rude….and he hurt me?
Back then in my car, I said YES!
Fists gripping the steering wheel. Then back to writing.
Now, as I look back doing this work….I can’t say it was absolutely true.
No, it wasn’t.
I don’t know, I don’t know. I have no idea of the entirety of what was going on there. What came out of it was an important and very good change. So, no, it was not absolutely true….even if I have doubts. I survived, I had happy moments, I wasn’t all-hurt-all-the-time. I’m not even sure “I” was hurt. Wow.
How do you react when you believe these thoughts?
In writing, I look at each thought one at a time. I want to give my mind clarity, not get scattered, settle down. I want freedom.
The silent part of me can see how I’m sitting in a quiet car, alone, and how peaceful this moment is EXCEPT for my thoughts.
How do I react, when I believe and think these thoughts? I hate. I feel furious. I want to throw a knife. I feel violent. I want to cry. I feel scared. I think I’m right. I think he’s wrong. I think I’m better. I think he’s worse. I think he’s the source of pain, not my own thinking. Wow.
This isn’t just “defensive”, it’s the energy of war.
So who would you be without the belief? Without the thought that this list of horrible qualities I’ve written down and offenses and meanness are all true?
Hold still.
What would that be like, if the thoughts you have about someone who you think hurt you…..were not true?
What would it be like to not have the thoughts in your head at all? Like, if you couldn’t think them?
This is not denial, not playing mind-games with yourself trying to be nicey-nice when you do NOT feel nice.
But remember how I wasn’t so sure my thoughts were the Absolute Truth of All Time (as if I was God) anyway….and after some time passed I realize my thoughts about this person might not be true at all?
In that moment I felt so hurt and criticized, what was happening really?
Memories. Movies playing in my head. Very quiet car, rain pattering on windshield, skin on steering wheel, things (called cars and people) moving about.
As I remember the words, the letters on a screen I read, I realize without the thought, I’d be a person reading a text (and not even that, since it’s a memory) and no one ever yelled at me. No one ever screamed for me to stay away from them. No one ever said I was shit, or they didn’t care about me.
I look more closely, I spend time there looking instead of picking up a verbal baseball bat to prepare to hit.
Because fetching a baseball bat, whether physically or with words, is actually…..hell. I can feel in the heartbreak, in the turmoil, how hellish it really is.
As I sit and look with this space of a breath, and not believing what I’m thinking is 100% true, I see a person in my mind (my friend), trying to do the best he can. And he even said “I am completely at peace.”
Wow, I didn’t even hear (believe) those words. Why not? Because, they are actually at one level entirely true, no matter how he’s acting or what he’s doing.
Turning the thoughts around:
He does care about me. I don’t care about him. I don’t care about myself. I think I’m shit, I think he’s shit. I’m an asshole. I’m a big fat baby, and a victim, in this situation. He’s so direct and clear. I don’t understand him, or myself. I’m a liar. I’m sick. I hurt him.
What if these were just as true, or truer?
I slowly, carefully, with unconditional acceptance for myself, found examples.
And then….this boiling energy, and hurt energy, lifted and seemed to vanish instantly.
I became aware of how much I love him, and also don’t have to be his best friend. I don’t actually see him all that much, I realized. I don’t know in depth about his life, I’ve assumed a lot, and what I heard at that time via text scared me, I replied with advice “you’ll get through this”, so he would settle down and stop being so upset.
I really was a liar!
I was scared of his opinions, and scared of his temper. I didn’t want to show how sad I felt, how scared, and how horrified I was about his troubling story and life circumstances.
I covered all that up and told him “in the end you’ll be OK” and honestly, I don’t even know what OK looked like. The situation he had shared with me sounded absolutely awful, with many people getting hurt and acting crazy.
I dismissed his situation, I didn’t care about him.
The truth would have been to write “Your situation sounds truly awful. I don’t know what to say. If you want to do The Work, I’m here. If you want me to listen, I can do that–but barely. I’m feeling pretty sad about it.”
I hurt him.
Oh.
I hurt myself, too.
I got very caught up in someone else appearing to freak out (which I don’t know was actually true) and I freaked myself out, about their situation, in zero to 60 in less than one second (the time it took to read a text) and started ladling out advice to get him to stop freaking out, so I could, too.
Wow.
“For thousands of years we’ve been told not to judge–but let’s face it, we do it all the time. We all have judgments running in our heads. Through The Work we finally have permission to let those judgments speak out, or even scream out, on paper. We may find that even the most unpleasant thoughts can be met with unconditional love…..This doesn’t mean that you have to invite your enemy to dinner. Friendship is an internal experience. You may never see the person again, you may even divorce him or her, but as you think about the person, are you feeling stress or peace?” ~ Byron Katie
Much love, Grace
P.S. If you have some work to do on someone like this….Spring Retreat is May 13-15. A few spaces left.
