Category: The Work of Byron Katie

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Never-Ending Stressful Thoughts

Doing The Work on the SAME THING over and over again,even if small, can sometimes feel discouraging.

I’ve worked with two lovely clients in the past week both of whom said: “I have looked at this over and over again, I have done The Work so many times on this same topic…..and nothing has changed!”

Some situations seem impossible. It seems like the stressful thoughts keep coming, the images, the memories, the trauma, the pain. “I have always been like this”.

I once had a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet that I had filled out on a person I was so angry with I felt like my head would explode. I almost couldn’t write what I needed or wanted, what should happen now, what shouldn’t have happened because I just wanted to scream “I hate him!”

But I had nowhere else to go. I had only me, and my painful thoughts, in the room. Drinking, smoking, eating, running, complaining, gossiping…these did not appear to work any more. If they did, I would still be doing them. I am not that spiritual and I have no control over any of it.

So I questioned every belief on that worksheet. I felt a little shift, and some insights, some little light bulbs lighting up (the size of those itty-bitty night light bulbs). But nothing BIG. Nothing dramatic or life-changing. The phone didn’t ring with the other person on the line apologizing for all their terrible mistakes, I didn’t feel happy.

But I did feel relief, and sort of empty. I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew before doing The Work.

Two weeks later I was writing the same worksheet. There were probably some of the same sentences written on it, at least it felt like it. I did the Work again. I was curious, there were some interesting moments in my thinking where I could answer the simple questions and find something different there.

Three weeks later, I was writing the same worksheet. That horrible person was at it again. I would just think of that person and feel fury! And great despair. I did the Work again. That time I felt light for a moment and went on to something else.

Then I had the privilege to be at an event with Katie herself and I raised my hand. I really needed to get to the bottom of this so I wasn’t enraged anymore. I didn’t want to think about this person for one more minute, I wanted them OUT of my mind.

“Katie, I am doing the same worksheet over and over on someone and my anger is NOT going AWAY.”

Katie said “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are.”

It felt like the lid was taken off the over-blown air mattress and all the air was swishing out with a big hiss. I was aware in that moment of how I had a motive to become UN-ANGRY. I didn’t hate that person, I hated my own anger. I hated my own emotions, my own thoughts. I hated my own way of relating to this person.

I was in resistance, in WAR. I was doing The Work with the strategy of making a chess move in order to WIN and skip down the road afterwards.

Deepak Chopra says “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return.” 

I find that sitting with the most excruciating feelings and emotions; despair, rage, grief, terror….and starting to write, there is a way through the forest.

One of my most favorite spiritual teachers, Adyashanti, writes “Freedom is never freedom “from.”  If it’s freedom “from” anything, it’s not freedom at all.  It’s freedom “to.”  Are you free enough to be afraid?  Are you free enough to feel insecure?  Are you free enough not to know?  Are you free enough to know that you can’t know?  Are you free enough to be totally comfortable, to know that you can’t know what’s around the next corner?  How you will feel about it?  How you will respond to it?  That you literally can’t know?  Are you free enough to be totally at ease and comfort with the way things actually are?  That’s freedom.  The other thing is the ego’s idea of freedom.” 

I remember that person I did worksheets on once and I feel choked up with gratitude. That’s the kind of thing that happens with even stubborn people like me do The Work even when it seems like again and again the same topic. The War is over.

Much Love, Grace

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Questioning The Pain Of Losing Someone

A wonderful friend of mine who loves to do The Work kids around about the fact that he has an old shirt that he uses as a rag to cry into when doing his inquiry. Kleenexes are just too small!

And boy, we sure needed some old shirts today to cry into during the Relationship class.

Our topic was Loss and our assignment was to imagine losing something or someone very precious to us, very important, that we couldn’t bear to lose.

Everyone really went for it: they picked their child, their sibling, their partner, their parents.

I have done this exercise and imagined my children gone.

I once met a woman when enrolled in a class who had three sons who had all been killed, and I thought to myself “how could she even be teaching this class today?” It was like in my mind, I thought she wouldn’t be able to even cope, for the rest of her life, because of that experience.

It is so powerful to find out what these painful thoughts are about losing someone, as they are the biggest, worst, most horrifying versions of what we really believe about loss.

A lighter version about loss that still leaves some people reeling, is ending a relationship. An even lighter form of loss with someone we care about is having them move to another town.

What do you believe about “losing” someone?

In our class this morning one of the beliefs we questioned was “I want her to talk to me”.

How do I react when I believe that thought? I had images flash through my mind. I remembered being so anxious to talk with a man once who I was dating that I carried my phone into the bathroom. What if he called, and I missed it? I remember being aware of the power of that thought and how I was believing it so strongly, I had no peace, no freedom.

Who are you without the thought that you want more than anything in the world for that person to talk to you?

Without the thought I come back to the present. Woman standing in a bathroom, space all around….air, ceiling, floor. Woman who can now see what is present right here in this moment. Woman no longer interested in carrying her phone with her everywhere, even to the bathroom. FREEDOM!

If my children were gone, I would live. I would know because I was alive that I had more living to do here, and they did not.

The amazing thing is that with doing The Work and becoming freer of the fear of loss, freer of the idea that I have lost important people, my life seems so full.

Amazing to live in a world where people can come and go, live and die, and I flow with what happens. I can argue with this…but I will suffer.

Eckhart Tolle writes “To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them – while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.” 

Much Love, Grace

P.S. The topic and awareness of LOSS when it comes to sexuality is just as powerful. So many experiences where people feel they have lost out, are losing out, will lose out when it comes to happiness and sexuality. We may be full for the class, but email me if you want to be on the waiting list and you may be able to start with us on Friday!

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If I Speak Up It Will Be Terrible!

Several months ago I had the experience of wanting to cover up a growing feeling of anxiety I had with a friend. I’ve had this experience before, I can remember it as early as age 5!

If I show someone close to me that I’m anxious about something they are doing, they’ll either attack me or attack themselves. If I say I prefer them to stop doing what they’re doing, someone will get hurt….and it could be me!

And by the way, on top of being stuck between a rock and a hard place and busy helping my friend to not do any attacking, I shouldn’t be so judgmental!

One of The Four Agreements, written by Don Miguel Ruiz, is “Be impeccable with your word”. He says this includes using your word to point in the direction of truth and love.

What I had believed most of my life was that what I say, my words to others, should be nice, kind, gentle, well-received, and leave people feeling better than they felt before.

It’s really living out the teaching “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.

I was mixed up about what “nice” is. I thought it meant that if I had an objection, or a preference, or a request, or an observation, or I wanted something different, or even wondered about something, that this wasn’t “nice”.

I found I was in a heap-o-trouble. The unspoken word between my friend and I caused great misunderstanding and confusion.

I love completing this exercise:  “If I speak up, the worst that could happen is________.”

  • With my children, if I speak up, they will protest, yell, resist…and I’ll get angry
  • With my parents, if I speak up, they will be crushed and full of despair
  • With my friend, if I speak up, they will feel rejected and angry and stop being my friend
  • With some acquaintances, if I speak up, they will spread rumors about me
  • With my co-worker, if I speak up, he will say mean things about me
  • With my partner, if I speak up, he will be sad and I will be alone

Pema Chodron says “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”

Now after doing The Work for awhile, I see my fear rise up and I know there is something important present to look at. To delay may make it bigger.

I love how once we question the terror of speaking up, doing The Work also helps us discover who we really are, what kinds of preferences we actually have, what we want or desire, what we don’t like and move away from.

True freedom is being able to speak, without rage, terror, hopelessness shutting down the voice that needs to speak. Let the voice have its say on paper, then let your voice speak what it needs to say to others, with love and truth and impeccability. No worry about the future, or what will happen next, or what happened before.

The Tao #50: …“the Master doesn’t think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day’s work”. 

Much Love, Grace

P.S. This is a fabulous topic that we’ll apply to Sexuality, join us in the upcoming teleclass that starts Friday! How amazing it is to speak up when it comes to Sexuality!!

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Sexuality Is Like Everything Else

I love receiving your emails for those of you who write. Several have asked me permission to post these daily pieces to your facebook page or forward it to others…. YES is the answer!

It would be wonderful if you forwarded this email to a friend or loved one, or tell folks they can get these posts by going to my website workwithgrace.com and entering in their email to the little “subscribe” box, or visiting my Facebook page Work With Grace-Byron Katie Coach.

As I finish this first paragraph I find I’m suddenly fascinated by the topic of communication again; talking, writing, giving speeches, facebooking, reflecting, connecting, emailing, hugging, touching.

Speaking of touching!! The Wonderful Sexuality teleclass starts on Friday! Are you the person, or perhaps someone you know, right for one of the last few spots?

I am so grateful for the facilitators who worked with me on the often “embarrassing” topic of sex, and for the work I’ve watched Katie do with people as they inquire on a story that has to do with sexuality.

What if you wrote down all your thoughts and judgments on an incident that involved sexual expression and you let the concepts sit there, in writing (without erasing them or scribbling them out), and you treated them like the other topics that produce stress?

Woody Allen said “Love is the answer. But while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions!”

Some powerful thoughts that the sexuality teleclass has raised for questioning in the past were thoughts like these:

  • He shouldn’t have been deceptive
  • She doesn’t care about me if she doesn’t kiss me back
  • I want him to love me
  • If I have sex with him, he will like me
  • If I’m not feeling attracted, that’s bad
  • My father was a pervert
  • My partner had an affair, and it means that….

We all have every piece of wisdom we need already right inside of us. No need for anything more, and yet it is absolutely remarkably beautiful to me to join in with others when we feel the burden of suffering and repetitive thinking.

The Tao Te Ching #65 “When they think that they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don’t know, people can find their own way.”

I love that I know much less what is RIGHT or what is WRONG when it comes to sexuality than I once did. I really used to have a whole list of what was wrong, all not written down of course because I couldn’t even write that stuff down. Eeeww!

I have found that I have become more open-minded as I have really examined everything I thought of as bad, horrible, gross, disgusting, nasty, sick or twisted.

Just like those enemies I’ve had in my life, or the condemning thoughts I’ve had about life itself, I find that by opening my mind up about these things doesn’t mean I am condoning them.

It’s really the opposite that happens. I feel more free to be who I am, to freely say Yes or to say No, and it turns out that I find my natural state is loving, kind, happy and often open to physical touch.

The universe is more and more loving and friendly and ecstasy is everywhere!

Byron Katie says in A Thousand Names for Joy “I don’t try to educate people. Why would I do such a thing? My only job is to point you back to yourself. When you discover–inside yourself, behind everything you’re thinking–the marvelous don’t-know mind, you’re home free. The don’t-know mind is the mind that is totally open to anything life brings you.”  

Everyone doing the best they can with what they know. Everyone following their own life path, just right, with perfect timing….Not a moment out of order, not an experience they can’t learn from, study, grow from.

Sexuality is Just Like Everything Else

Thanks to all of you for such a wonderful class and the freedom to speak about sex as if I was talking about a nose or arm, how cool that we have this time together.. and thank you Grace for having the fore sight to bring this topic to the open space of presence for us to question it…Tanya, teleclass participant   

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

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Lower Your Standards

I had the privilege once many years ago, when I could barely appreciate it (and he was not yet famous), to meet Desmond Tutu. He taught me about lowering my standards and not thinking everything should be so much better and SO much more perfect than it seemed.

I was just gaining mileage in my journey of self-hate and self-criticism. I had dropped out of the pretty wonderful little liberal arts college my parents were scraping together money for me to attend, I was depressed, I was despairing about what I was going to do with my life.

My parents raised me in their chosen faith which was very profoundly important to them. It just happened to be the same tradition that Desmond Tutu was from, and he came to my home city to be with members of our congregation. It turned out my father and some people in the church had written him a letter and asked him to come.

Such a simple gesture—they asked for what they wanted! They didn’t question whether they should ask or not, or whether it was too much, or if they were being too selfish.

The only reason I was sitting at the table with Desmond Tutu was because he was staying in my parents house.

I felt entirely alone in the world. I wondered what this life was for, and the world seemed quite crazy. I was very busy questioning every belief I had ever heard about. I felt worthless. And the chaos I was experiencing left me full of dread and unhappiness.

I could see at the time that I did NOT LIKE questioning my beliefs! I didn’t really want to feel so uprooted.

Then there I was sitting next to this happy, happy man who was talking about Reality. I didn’t know at that time that I would run into Byron Katie 25 years later who was also talking about Reality.

Something about him caused me to look up. I was touched, right in the middle of dismissing everything around me and thinking this was all a big joke (and I wasn’t laughing).

Desmond Tutu spoke of how we see our Reality through our own personal history and our beliefs. He suggested that these beliefs were learned by those around us, passed along through the ages, and that we didn’t know any better.

He talked about having faith and what it meant. He trilled the “r” in the word Reality. He said “….the Real Reality”….and pointed to the center of his chest.

I could tell this man practiced questioned his thinking about who he thought was an enemy. I felt a deep spark of hope light very softly inside of me that it might be possible to view my world in a different way than I had been seeing it. I could start with the people I thought of as enemies.

I love it when I drop my condemning thoughts about my “enemies”. It doesn’t mean I have to hang out with them and become their best friend. But my critical mind stops running, I feel more peaceful and no longer afraid.

Who would you be without the thought that those mean, nasty people in the world are enemies? Or that this whole set up here, this life, is ridiculous or stupid.

I noticed when I felt the love that Desmond Tutu shared, even when he had observed terrible things, I found the place in me that matched this openness.

He didn’t give me peace, I found it because I recognized it as already inside me. It’s also why many of us love to sit and listen to Byron Katie work with others. We recognize the wisdom we already have. We recognize what it’s like to be in Heaven, just as we are.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.—Desmond Tutu

Much Love, Grace

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Questioning The Worst

Hi all, Our Wonderful Sexuality teleclass is almost full! It starts April 20th, Fridays for 8 weeks.

I have found that thoughts about sexuality can be almost taboo to discuss….but as I have seen, the world is a reflection of my own thinking and I turned out to be the person who put a taboo on it.

Now, it seems pretty easy to talk about, to tell the truth about, and inquire into.

Anything that seems worrisome, shaming, secretive, frightening, confusing is built that way because of our stories that we’ve learned about it. Our thoughts are telling us what is right, what is wrong, what we should or shouldn’t think about, what we should condemn or accept, what we need.

After I had done the Work for a little while at the beginning, I had a question that many people have: if I really love reality, if I love what is happening, then will I just be putting up with things passively?

When I first read Loving What Is, I was stunned at the piece in the book where Katie does the Work with a woman who had been sexually molested in childhood. How could anyone ever love what is in THAT situation?

What if we do the Work and find peace around very painful human experiences like this one, the ones that are so terrible we can hardly talk about them? Does this mean I am accepting it, or condoning it? Don’t we have to get furious or powerful to stop such things?

But I found when I start to believe my frightened mind and I am disgusted with what is happening, when I am feeling shock, regret, rage….or when I am feeling worried, annoyed or only a tiny bit anxious….this is not peace. It is not love. It is war, and the war RAGES around in me.

I have found that questioning the nervous or terrifying places in my thinking brings about openness. It’s like something relaxes in my body and new possibilities exist.

I have found it to be true that there is an opposite way of living than fighting against any of these things we really feel scared of or confused by.

The alternative is to expect reality NOT to follow your plan. As Katie mentions in Loving What Is, I realize I have no idea what’s going to happen next. Life exists beyond my schemes and expectations.

Questioning the thoughts that you start thinking when you run into a rough patch in life, or when you’re in the middle of real intimacy with someone close and it’s not working out very well can change the quality of your whole experience.

When something seems terrible or embarrassing or disgusting, write down the thought and then ask the four questions and turn the thought around.

Get someone to facilitate you!

Who knows what you will be like with that person who used to scare you or disgust you, with that group of people who are perverse or don’t do what you want.

Your newfound peace may alter the world in ways you don’t know. It will change your own life, as you will no longer feel the need to defend yourself, or attack anyone else.

Now that I have questioned the worst things I could imagine, I find the world to be a safer place. Funny how that happened!

Join us in the next teleclass if it’s right for you! Click link below to sign up.

Appreciation for Fellow Travelers: 

I continue to be amazed how the topic of sex just brings up core beliefs which help me in all areas of my life once questioned. Love this class, and appreciate everyone. Thank you all!—Alison, Pacific Northwest USA

Much Love, Grace

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Anger, The Wake Up Gong!

This morning in our teleclass Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven we did some really interesting inquiry on ANGER.

Mark Twain said “When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.”
It’s much more fun to find the humor in anger. But often, we can get really serious about anger, especially if we think something terrible could happen when someone feels it. Like war, murder, hurt, destruction, nasty words, criticism, hate.

I remember seeing a father in a parking lot once, with his young boy. He was shouting at his son “Stay close to me! I want you right here! NOW!” The boy was watching carefully and following his father’s orders, running right behind his father as they crossed the pavement, staying close. He was doing exactly as he was told.

I was judging the whole scene in an instant “that father is too angry, he is too bossy, he is unloving, he is abusive, that child is in danger, the boy looks too compliant…..”

It dawned on me in that moment how just observing the behavior of someone who I labeled as angry, my story begins to take on a whole life of its own.

 Instant anxiety! Concern! Sadness! Hand-wringing! Go in there and stop it! Run!!!!

But when I am looking out there at someone else, and believing their anger is a problem, I know it’s time to do The Work.

The wonderful man who is so well known now for his incredible work all over the world on working with anger, Marshall Rosenberg, says “All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”

I found when I questioned the belief that anger is destructive, then actually experiencing anger wasn’t so bad. Being around someone else who was expressing anger wasn’t so bad either.

When I am not so fearful of the emotion called anger, instead of pushing it down and doing all that I can to suppress it, I invite it in. I have it sit with me at the table, like inviting it in to have tea.

When I am not so fearful of the emotion of anger, I am more present with other people when they get angry. I can stay with them, instead of attack them or run away.

Now I have great appreciation for anger. If experiences of stress are a little temple bell suggesting that we look at what we’re thinking with care, then anger feels like a GONG crashing right next to my head! WAKE UP!

As Byron Katie says “Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it’s time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there’s no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings.”

Much Love,
Grace

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The Silence We All Have

One of the most comforting, interesting ideas that is repeated by many wise teachers is that we all have some part of us that is solid, unchanging, and kinda beyond this world, beyond the body, beyond whatever is happening.

I was listening to an interview with Stephen Covey, the man who wrote the popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People some time ago.

He said “People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them.”

Deepak Chopra said “in the midst of chaos and movement, there is a stillness inside you.”

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who wrote so famously on the subject of death and dying said “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose.”

I used to wonder what this silence was that people mentioned from time to time. When I closed my eyes and tried to meditate and be quiet, it was like a crowd chattering in all different languages, plus a jack-hammer going and some loud beeps like trucks make when they’re going backwards.

I would start thinking about everything. In fact, it even drove me nuts.

One of my favorite things about The Work is that I have questioned enough painful beliefs, it seems, that I began to feel a core inside me that was unchanging, and silent, and very solid and deep.

Great comfort with silence within is an absolutely amazing side-effect of The Work. Once I had questioned my thinking about the things I was most afraid of in all of my life for a couple of years, I decided to go on my first silent meditation retreat.

The first few days, I thought I might go completely bonkers. So many thoughts and voices talking, thoughts like “this is boring” or “I’m not doing this right” or replaying conversations with people I had known 20 years before.

The other day I was riding my bike and listening on my ipod to Katie talk with people about their greatest fears when they lose their jobs or can’t pay their bills. People were talking about how terrible it would be to have only a shopping cart on the street, to be homeless, to not be able to pay their utilities and have no heat or light.

Katie loves to ask “have you ever really NOT had enough? give me a time when you really didn’t have enough, what is that story, the absolute WORST moment.”

I have done this worst-case scenario thinking many, many times. My mind loves to think of scary things and present them, sort of like a fashion show of possibilities. Like my mind is saying “you thought that one was scary? How about this one!”

What a relief to have the question “who would I be without this thought, that this scene or outcome would be TERRIBLE?”

What if everything that happens offers something beautiful?

Katie says “Life will give you everything you need to go deeper.”

I love the deep places, the place inside that is very silent and expansive. All those pictures my mind invents about a scary future or annoying moment in the future, I know they are not real. They’re in my imagination.

Right there in meditation, as my mind is thinking loudly, I can realize that what I’m imagining is not even true, and remember who I would be without this story.

From Loving What Is “how do I know I don’t need two arms [fill in the blank on what you think is missing]? I only have one. There’s no mistake in the universe. The story ‘I need two arms’ is where the suffering begins, because it argues with reality. Without the story…I’m complete with no right arm…”

Wow, if I think about something I thought was missing, like more money for example, and then I drop the story that it is missing….there is an alive, open, buzzing, happy unknown space in the center of me….silent, trusting.

We all have it.

Much Love,
Grace

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I Crave It Uncontrollably!

This morning was the first teleclass on Food and Eating. I love the thought
brought to surface to question: “I crave it uncontrollably“.

The feeling of craving anything uncontrollably can be extremely painful
and desperate. Whether a substance, or a person, or money, or for
someone to be with you again who is not longer here.

I’ve thought about craving and all it means many times in my life. Even though
I don’t seem to get overwhelming urges or cravings for much in my life I still
LOVE to look at the amazing sensation called craving. Especially when
people say it’s UNCONTROLLABLE.

As I heard all the group answer the simple question “how do you react
when you believe this thought that you crave something uncontrollably?”
I noticed once again the way so many of us criticize, condemn, blame,
and attack ourselves.

I am the one who craves things uncontrollably, and it’s really terrible.
There’s something wrong with me.

Sometimes I still glimpse the feeling of craving, of wanting with a panic,
an extremely deep ache. I can imagine something like…”if only my father were
still alive” or “if only I had enough money to pay for everyone in my family” or
“if only I had more time”….and what these thoughts might be like if they
grew then it might feel like uncontrollable craving.

Because I found the Work it feels like such a relief to have spent lots of
time questioning these things of life that I wish would get satisfied, the things
I want.

One of the most amazing feelings is the feeling of being with a craving and
studying it, not acting right away. What color is it? Where does it live?
Where did it come from? What is it saying? What am I most afraid of in this
moment? What’s the worst that could happen, if I stay here and if I don’t
do anything to solve this craving?

Pema Chodron says “Most of us do not take these situations as teachings.
We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape
 — all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t
stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become
addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.”

See if you really are out of control when you have that craving that seems so big.

Who would you be without that thought that you are out of control, that something
is wrong with you, that your craving is altogether wrong, or that you shouldn’t
have it in the first place?

What if this is a moment where what is happening is that you are meeting your
edge. Maybe it has nothing to do with the thing you’re craving. See if you can sit
still for 30 seconds and see. That may be all it takes to make a discovery.

What if nothing is wrong with you, even when you had a craving?