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One of the most interesting exercises and invitations to us all as we do The Work and self-inquiry….

….is to wonder what it would be like to “live” a potent turnaround.

As you probably know….

….the turnarounds are all the opposite angles, perspectives and views to our stressful beliefs.

“He should give me flowers” becomes “he should not give me flowers” and “I should give him flowers” and “I should give myself flowers.”

We sit with these crazy opposites and find examples of how they are also true.

It doesn’t mean any of them are the “right” answer.

They’re like trying on completely different coats, or wearing a different pair of shoes (or moccasins, as the ancient wisdom native saying goes).

Sometimes, we’re hit with the implications of a turnaround, and we might feel great excitement in turning our life situation inside out into something new and different.

The situation that seems so very threatening and awful….

….with a turnaround seems challenging, but possible.

Or, super thrilling!

Or, hilarious!

We get to ask this awesome question: What If I Lived This Turnaround?

What if I actually went into the flower shop, and bought myself the most gorgeous bunch of flowers in the whole place?

Instead of holding onto my thought that HE should be the one doing the flower-buying.

If it can start with something simple, like buying myself just the thing I always wanted someone else to buy….

….what else might be possible to turnaround?

What if I really could bring something different to life, even out of the tragic thing I experienced?

Yesterday I got two sweet and brilliant examples of living turnarounds right before my eyes.

The first was….

….getting to talk with an amazing woman who has clearly lived an astonishing turnaround in her life after giving birth to a baby with down syndrome 28 years ago (Debra Ruh).

I was so moved by her lifetime example of turning her difficult experience into something beautiful, I interviewed her to share it with Peace Talk listeners.

(You can download this Episode 106 of Peace Talk on itunes right here).

The other example of a living turnaround yesterday was…..me.

I led a retreat online, with people dialing in using their phones or computers, for three hours about questioning love stories that hurt.

I shared my biggest painful love story of divorce (that has turned into a blessing).

You know what the living turnaround is?

That I was leading a Valentine’s Prep Day retreat online, where people came from all across the United States, Europe, Australia….

….and this is what I do for a living now.

I join with others to question stressful thoughts.

I get messages like these….both of which I also received in emails yesterday:

I had the thought….wow….

….it’s bragging to share these beautiful comments.

But my life is full of these kinds of expressions of love now. Full of thoughtful, incredible people so sincere about questioning their suffering.

Who would you be if you lived one of your turnarounds?

If you opened up to the thing that happened, that incident, that relationship….

….could now morph into something spectacular, or new?

I was once on staff at a School for The Work and was partnered with a woman who was very distraught about a horrible tragedy in her life.

She had been the driver of a car, on a family vacation, and the tires had suddenly blown out (they were later recalled for all these types of vehicles) causing the SUV to flip wildly off the road.

The accident killed her husband, one of her daughters, and the best friend of her other daughter.

In her path of healing, at a future point in her life, she founded an organization to help people handle the shock of sudden death, including helping firefighters and police officers deliver shocking news to families after accidents.

I cried with her, as we did The Work together, as she undid the terrible pain one level further.

We could both already see, in that inquiry, how stunning it was to see what came out of what seemed awful. It was something helpful to humanity, to her community.

Love prevailed.

She’s an inspiration to people of overcoming accidental death and living an incredible life beyond beliefs about how reality should be.

Just like Debra Ruh, the woman I spoke with on Peace Talk.

Now….my own experiences have never been so dramatic.

But I certainly never could have dreamed I’d get to question my thinking, talk with other truly powerful people on a daily basis, or have three hours fly by while asking and answering questions, and turning suffering around into blessings.

What turnaround are you living right now?

Meditate on what it might look like, if you did turn what you’re imagining around.

Let it come in as an idea, an inspirational thought.

You don’t have to know right now….let it come to you.

Let it take as long as it takes.

“To exclude anything that appears in your universe is not love. Love joins with everything. It doesn’t exclude the monster. It doesn’t avoid the nightmare–it looks forward to it.” ~ Byron Katie

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” ~ Ben Okri

Last night there were emails flying around about a celebration my family gathers for every year that extends from many generations back.

It’s called Easter.

It’s a super fun and meaningful time of gathering.

Somehow the true, deep spirit of spring, renewed life, starting fresh, the promise of growth, revitalization, rebirth, returning warmth, resurrection out of suffering….and family connecting together in a really loving way, all show up in this day for me.

I also love something I found out at some point in my forties that completely surprised me.

Easter, every year, is determined by the moon.

When I heard it, I said something like….that can’t be right?

Seriously?

Easter is figured out every year by the first full moon after the spring equinox?

That sounds too astrological or earthy or something. Too ancient.

Are you pulling my leg?

It’s true, though.

Easter is the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox (the change from winter to spring on March 21st). Jewish passover is the first full moon after the vernal equinox. I know there’s all kinds of information about Julian calendars and Gregorian calendars and proposals to always make Easter the Second Sunday of April and many other ideas about the date of the holiday….

….but I was startled by something that up to that point it seemed so laid out in stone about What We Do and What We Believe (from my church growing up)….

….being determined by the moon.

The moon is part of a natural, wild world far beyond humans. It’s there and we study it, explore it, wonder about it.

It feels entirely mysterious.

I guess I never noticed how the date jumped around to various spring-ish Sundays while growing up.

I was like the moon as a child, as so many of us are.

The number of the date doesn’t really matter. That’s not what we’re celebrating. The calendar simply marks something as the time it happened.

It brought to my attention a place I was potentially wrong about my childhood religion.

I had thoughts about how mind-and-rules-and-commandment oriented it all was…..but this was evidence to the contrary!

So once again, next month my family is celebrating Easter together for a whole day the way we’ve been doing for ages.

And it turns out, the Abundance, Desire and The Work Retreat I accidentally scheduled for that very same weekend.

I wouldn’t have known until a third person said they couldn’t make it, and really wanted to, and calendar checking occurred, and these discoveries.

It caused a thought or two to flicker through my mind, like a racehorse.

You should have checked the dates better. You’re no good at scheduling. Didn’t you say you were going to hire administrative help this year? What’s the hold up? Can’t you do anything right? Maybe you should just cancel altogether. You’re already doing the April Eating Peace retreat. Jeez.

Have you ever noticed that voice says “you” like it’s talking TO YOU?

This is a fascinating thing to notice.

Who is that voice, anyway?

Where is it coming from?

I’ve noticed all my life….it doesn’t feel entirely like it’s me. I feel like the one hearing it.

At the Mental Cleanse about six weeks ago, a beautiful young woman got up in the chair on stage, with Byron Katie, to question her thoughts.

She had a very mean, vicious voice in her head and the thoughts she had written down were about this horrible, troubling voice.

She said it had a male gender.

By the end of the inquiry session doing The Work, Katie and this woman were laughing about the Voice.

I don’t mean to make light of this very difficult and VERY frightening experience, to have a violent or mean voice dictating and shouting at you from within your own mind….

….but how astonishing to be able to hear it as the voice of something that is not out to destroy you, but to find out more about what it wants, what it means, what it’s saying.

To actually be open to listening to it.

There was a moment between Katie and the young woman, where Katie suggested to her after some dialogue and awareness and insights….

….Doesn’t this make it easier, to invite the voice in rather than be so terrified of it and want it destroyed? Then, if it says for you to break your arm, (or something “mean” like that), you can say back “Easy for you to say, you don’t have a body!”

I loved it.

You get to treat that critical voice like it’s your neurotic friend, trying his best, doing his best to help bring peace to your situation.

Rather than take on the very same energy of trying to kill it, suppress it, shut it up forever.

Isn’t that approach, after all, WAR?

When you hate your own critical voice, or try to help other people stop theirs, then you’re treating these voices like they treat you.

As enemies.

So maybe the voice in my head is helping me realize….

….I really could use some administrative support and to stop thinking I need to do it all myself.

And reminding me to lighten up, everything is OK and just write to the people already enrolled and see if they can make a switch.

Why not? These things go imperfectly sometimes.

Which is actually what this whole Abundance, Desire and The Work Retreat is truly all about.

It goes like this…..

I have a vision. It’s in the future. I want that condition, thing, person, situation, clarity, dream, adventure.

I want money, a soul mate, enlightenment, restored health, a youthful body, wealth, glory, fame, success, to be thin, to be free.

Usually in my life, I have an urge to go get it.

I start to run towards the thing.

It looks like THAT (see image in head of wonderful thing in the future). It looks like a perfect retreat, on those perfect dates, with the perfect people showing up in the perfect numbers.

But now….instead of simply assuming it’s true, that it’s what I really want, it’s my desired destination, it’s the end goal….

….we can explore a little, instead.

What will this vision bring me, when I have it?

What else would I have, if I had it?

What would I no longer have, if I had that future desired thing?

What would “abundance” really feel like, look like, smell like, taste like…..

…..BE like?

Anything can be the focus of desire.

Even “awakening” and a mind that works differently, one without a critical voice, for example.

But who would you be without the belief that you can only feel that ultimate pleasure, success, abundance, clarity, love, bliss, joy or peace WITH that condition you’re dreaming of?

It’s strange for the mind to contemplate.

And yet….

….how brilliant to consider who I am without the thought I need “x” to fulfill me.

At the Abundance and Desire and The Work Retreat, everyone gets to identify that thing they want, and not give it up, or try to get rid of it, or live without it, or pretend you don’t want it.

Instead, you get to see why you want it, what you expect, and what you think’s missing right now, that this other thing would improve.

You get to track your thoughts, but even more profound….

….you get to see how you want to feel.

You get to give yourself the gift of feeling, maybe even in the now.

You get to feel, and be, what you want, or get a sense of opening up to the joy of desire as a practice, rather than experiencing desire as sad, frustrating, or wrong.

In the past, I felt so embarrassed about wanting money so much, when I had so little.

Ick, how can I write a worksheet on money and how much I believe it would help me feel secure, safe, proud, powerful, cared for and solid?

It turned out, the conflict within was the thing that really hurt the most. The resistance to my own desires, and trying to kill the voice that said “I want!”

Slowing down to take a look at the image desired in the future, and the associated feelings, and inquiring deeply….

….allowed me to see the peace always possible in the present.

Right now.

To make friends with reality, to feel the support of Now.

Isn’t that what Loving What Is, is all about?

And the fun thing is….

….feeling abundance, joy, bliss, love and peace right now only brings more of it.

Wow.

If you’re curious about what blocks your own freedom, peace or love….

….if you want to meet your desire with friendliness, not upset….

….join me next month in Seattle at my cute Goldilocks Cottage Friday evening March 18 through Sunday 4:30 pm March 20. ($295 for the whole weekend).

Join me next month in Seattle at my cute Goldilocks Cottage, Friday evening March 18 through Sunday March 20. New dates! New location! If you’re traveling from out of town, I can give you recommendations of places to stay, and there may be others who would enjoy having you at their home. There’s also some sleeping bag space in Goldilocks Cottage. Commuters can carpool.

You might even discover what you thought happened, like the way Easter has been scheduled for thousands of years……didn’t.

Exciting! Hands clapping! Now!

“There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes.” ~ Seng-Ti’an

Much love, Grace

Wow, I feel superb after the joyous Eating Peace Retreat.

I get so filled up with joy and connection when I’m on retreat with other people.

Especially through witnessing people slow down, enter silence, and make friends with their minds by questioning their thoughts.

Especially stressful thoughts about eating, consumption, reaching for the *thing* or *activity* that will make things better.

Especially stressful thoughts about memories that enter and re-enter our present moment, unresolved.

So fast, so speedy, so tricky our thoughts about things-that-make-us-feel-better.

They zip by like wildfire, don’t they?

One minute, you’re happy and minding your own business….

….the next, you’re sure that things could be improved if only….

….(fill in the blank with your favorite obsession).

Often, the focus of the attention has a down side.

To put it mildly.

But for this temporary better feeling….

….something inside is whispering, or screaming….

….it’s worth it!

Do it. Get it. Eat it. Chase it.

GO GO GO!!!!

And we do.

And then, that same mind starts to scream again….

….”What’d you do that for! You’re an idiot! Can’t you get this right? Following your obsession or compulsive behavior is NOT WORKING. How many times do we have to go over this?!!”

Yeah, it’s that supportive. (NOT).

I’ve sure you’ve noticed.

The thing is, the self-hatred and blame only keeps the whole thing going in a big vicious cycle.

So what if you just stopped for a second, and wondered….

….what would you have to stay with, or face, or sit still with, or notice, or feel (that’s a key piece, right there–what you would have to feel)….

….if you didn’t chase or reach for that thing that seems to help?

What would you actually feel, without your band-aid?

Wow, the way I used to feel is like my head was going to explode, my insides were turning inside out and a raw ragged desperate pain might destroy me.

I felt fear, terrible grief, panic, rage.

It felt like there was an ocean of feelings on the inside of me and I might crawl out of my skin….or die….unless I Did Something.

Eat, drink, smoke, move, think.

Many years later, when on my first long meditation retreat in total silence….

….the skin crawling feeling reappeared.

Oh. Rats.

Long time no see! I was hoping you were gone forever!

I couldn’t sleep, my stomach was tied in knots, I couldn’t hold still very well in between meditation sessions, and it seemed like my thoughts were literally yelling at the top of their lungs inside my skull in the meditation hall.

I was so nervous about the silence.

Every nightmare I’d ever thought might be true ran through my mind.

Great, I thought.

Just what I wanted.

And I thought I was here to relax.

Thanks a lot, MIND!!!

I HATED my mind, even though I had not taken a super self-harmful drink, bite or smoke of something in order to escape my feelings in quite a few years.

But I HAD stayed very busy, worked a lot, obsessed about getting things done, worried, signed up for self-improvement classes, read a ton of books, and hardly tolerated a moment of silence.

When Silence surrounded me, I was frightened.

So on Eating Peace Retreat, that’s what we do.

We eat in silence, together.

We feel what’s really true.

That we’re in a body that needs just that much food for fuel, and no more.

We can handle the rest of our cravings in another way.

Inquiry.

The Work.

That thing you find truly disturbing? That incident from your childhood, or last year?

The way life unfolds, when it isn’t pleasant?

The only thing I ever find that addresses these experiences like a lazer is self-inquiry.

With other people, gathering together to do The Work helps even more.

You’re supported and you don’t feel alone and isolated.

Someone can be there to say….I know it feels like you can’t handle it, but you can.

You will.

You are.

Have you noticed?

Except for your thoughts, are you OK right now?

“Most of the time we’re either trying to ignore a want (which only makes the want grow) or we’re indulging the want. Deeply accepting the want is the middle way. Between rejecting and indulging lies SEEING–and allowing, and finding freedom in even the most uncomfortable places.” ~ Jeff Foster in The Deepest Acceptance

On my meditation retreat that first time in silence, I wanted to think incessantly about myself and about life, and I was fighting fiercely about myself and about life.

War.

What if you just let all the thinking, your addiction to thinking, your addiction to wanting to understand what’s going on around here, your urge to Know….

….be here?

Oh!

You mean, it’s perfectly OK to have this busy mind?

I am willing to be driven crazy by my own thoughts. I look forward to being driven crazy by my own thoughts.

Why not.

LOL.

Awareness is all that is necessary to dissolve…..everything.

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.” ~ Tao Te Ching #74

Much love, Grace

Tonight! Eating Peace Master Class Live (again). Learn to do The Work when it comes to eating issues. Click HERE to sign up.

***********

The other day I saw an article flit by on the internet on “limiting beliefs” and how we must change them in order to feel happy.

Everyone likes the idea of changing limiting beliefs.

They’re…..so…..limiting.

Yeah! I have to change my limiting beliefs!

Fist pump!!

We like “unlimited” beliefs because they’re more fun, expansive, full of endless possible scenarios. Unlimited sounds like forever and ever growing, no barriers, no stop signs.

Unlimited sounds successful and powerful and exciting!!

There’s no cap or lid on unlimited beliefs.

Right?

I suddenly had one of those little bells ring….

….*ping*….

….inviting me to look a little more deeply and explore around a bit, rather than just assume:

limiting beliefs = bad….unlimiting beliefs = good.

What exactly is meant by “limiting” beliefs (and why assume it’s a good idea to get rid of them, or change them)?

What is this word “limited” and what do we really mean when we’re saying there are beliefs that could be described this way?

Hmmm.

Well.

First, there are “beliefs”. I’ve come to see them as patterns or waves or sparks of thought that repeat themselves.

Poof, poof, poof.

They pop up like little fountains and rotate back and cycle around and get revisited over and over, appear and reappear.

Maybe we heard them many times from other people. We learned them, read them, received them somewhere.

The way I’m believing or thinking or perceiving, when it’s limited, brings me a sense of fear, or worry, or slight anxiety, or hesitation, or sadness or disappointment or depression or absence of any other options.

I look at life, when limited, and my feelings are “Oh No!” or “you screwed up” or “this was a mistake” or “uh-oh” or “RRUUUUNNNNN!”

We’ve all felt that moment when viewing our own situations or lives where we think happiness is simply not possible in that circumstance.

In that situation, there is definitely a problem.

There are limited options, limited ways to approach it.

There are LIMITS.

You know what I mean? I mean, seriously.

Here is the edge, and you can’t go past it. No other way around it.

You are limited by a lifetime, for example. You’re born, you grow, you die.

Being in a human body is limited.

Yes. It’s. True.

Except.

What if instead of thinking you have to change your limiting beliefs you didn’t know for a sec.

Are they “your” limiting beliefs?

Are you sure your mind is not working up to par, or the best way possible?

Are you sure you actually DO believe these thoughts in the first place, just because they reappear on a regular basis?

Are you sure these limiting beliefs are so important, or you have to stop thinking them, in order to be happy?

Are you sure this thing….called a limit….is really unfortunate?

(Like your lifespan, for example)?

Who would you be without the belief that you have to change your limiting beliefs in order to be happy?

I know I’ve just posed a LOT of questions.

But….is it kind of fun?

Wow, I find it kinda spacious.

Kind of hilarious, to be honest.

Less work, that’s for sure.

Noticing how interested I am in questioning, investigating, wondering about the world and about life.

I couldn’t stop being curious if I wanted to, it’s totally fun to look and stare at everything and take it in with astonishment and fascination.

I notice right here, in this moment, there’s probably a war happening in several places in the world. There’s famine, and suffering, and people hating themselves.

Right in this moment, there’s horrible weather, and injury, sickness, anger, addiction and death.

Even with all the history of humanity as it is, and the violence that occurs here, apparently, and my small pin-head glasses of one tiny brain on the planet looking through the eyes of one human…..

…..who would I actually be without the belief I’ve got to change these limiting beliefs, and that they are MINE?

If I turn around the thought…..curious:

I do NOT have to change my limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs have to change me (thanks, limiting beliefs….you rock!)

I have to change….nothing.

What if it was truly OK for my mind to run off in all directions with the idea that I must change my thinking, and my mind is limited?

Maybe my mind IS limited.

Maybe any belief that’s running through it, at any given moment, is temporary and personal and basically….limited.

That’s the way of it.

Mind/thought /body/this individual life…..limited.

Perhaps there’s more here than “thinking” and “believing”.

Who would you be without your thought you need to stop thinking limiting thoughts?

Turning the thoughts around:

*I need to keep on thinking limiting thoughts and NEVER change them. Ha ha!

*Thoughts need to change me (it’s happening, every time I question my beliefs).

*Nothing needs to change. Ever.

Gulp.

Wha?

But.

Woah.

I think things need to change all the time. That’s my constant motto. Changing things and waiting for things to change, and resisting change but hoping for change.

Sinking into Not Needing To Change Anything? (Including my beliefs)?

Now that’s a relief beyond relief.

Just……wow.

“All difficulties are created in the mind, by the mind. All problems are imagined in the mind. The great liberating factor of this is…that nothing is necessary to change in the activity of the world in the body or the mind. It might show you more clearly what your true nature is, but anxiety and fear are just a response to who we think ourselves to be.” ~ Ramana Marharshi 

What if what we think is a problem (our mental activity)….

….isn’t?

Much love, Grace

You know those situations (we’ve all had them) where someone thinks you said something, or did something, or heard something, or saw something….

….and it’s completely and entirely wrong?

We’ve all seen in the movies a moment when two people are accidentally smacked into each other because one person trips on the carpet edge while carrying a load of papers and the other person was just rounding the corner into the room….

….BAM! They’re on the floor wondering what just happened, maybe even physically hurt.

….And the romantic partner of one of these people walks into the room a moment later and is completely mistaken about what’s going on.

“This is not what you think!!!” shouts the couple sprawled on the floor after the crash.

But the one who saw the scene has run away already, stabbed in the heart with jealousy and betrayal.

Yesterday, I had two different communications with people where they revealed something thought about me that isn’t true.

But I had two very different reactions.

Hmmmm…..I wonder why?

Ha ha! I know exactly why.

Because one of them feels threatening to the mind.

But I can question it, thank goodness.

The first funny thing that was a little error in perception about me came from a quick and friendly email. A new friend I just met in Los Angeles who also does The Work of Byron Katie shared with me that he had been assuming I was married to another facilitator of The Work.

He wrote me at the end of his email….”By the way, I just learned that you’re NOT married to your co-group-leader!”

I chuckled, thinking about how someone could make this assumption: I live in the same city with my co-leader, we’re about the same age, we were sitting together at lunch in the restaurant.

No idea what else he might have seen, but don’t you love how the mind works to put together puzzle pieces without really knowing?

The second “mistake” of the day got me laughing louder, and a little disturbed.

I received an email from someone who just registered for the annual summer Breitenbush Retreat at the end of June, which is already filling up (exciting).

Guess what the email said?

(The writer brilliantly shared her thoughts in the format of a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet–so ingenious because it makes the stressful beliefs very clear, and very simple, with no apologies for having them).

Here’s the beginning of what she wrote:

OMG!!!

It’s not what you think!!!

Only the pools themselves are clothing optional. The hotsprings are in a hushed, quiet area, accessed by trails set away from the lodge, and they are all quite a distance from almost all the cabins and camping. No one can see any nudity from most of the grounds.

And we never hold our workshop sessions in or near the pools. And we certainly are not naked in the workshop.

The pools are recreational, for people with medical conditions, or anyone there to savor the warm natural waters. They are cleaned and emptied three times a day, and some people travel for miles to heal and soak, and receive body work massage or do yoga at Breitenbush. They are used by participants in workshops on break, for fun.

Our retreat in diving deeply into The Work is held in a beautiful large circular building called the River Yurt. It has stained glass ceiling window and sits near the rapidly flowing river.

There is no nakedness, no clothing-option, and actually it is completely unnecessary to ever use the hotsprings while staying at Breitenbush (I never do).

When I read the email, I noticed a little stress-reaction happening.

Again.

But on a much lower scale than years ago, when it completely freaked me out.

In 2012, I wrote a joking Grace Note about the fear of nudity. I wrote about my Breitenbush retreat with a lot of humor and kidding around.

In the Grace Note I imagined the craziness of doing a workshop….naked!

I jested and laughed and said how I could never, ever do that, but that it was weird that there were naked people close by, on the property of the retreat center.

I then went on in the Grace Note to do The Work on the naked body, or nudist colonies, or nude beaches…..not that there’s anything wrong with them. But they’ve never been my thing, personally.

Someone….a dear friend….read that 2012 Grace Note blog post and thought I was teaching my workshop in the nude.

She reported me to the state of Washington, which prompted an investigation, which was quickly dismissed since it was not true.

It was some of the most fantastic work I’ve ever done for my personal stressful thinking.

First, The Work on nakedness. Second, The Work on my job being threatened. I believed at the time it was a really dangerous situation, like being called to the principle’s office.

Instead, it turned out to make my private practice even better and bigger than before. I discovered I was eligible for offering CEUs professionally to those in the field of mental health. I learned about how well the state protects people and clients from wacky practitioners.

I delightedly discovered the extra benefit that I had supervisory, and training experience far beyond what was required for my credential. It boosted my confidence tremendously. I had been doing everything exactly right ever since graduating with my master’s degree in 1997.

The investigators even had to check to see if I graduated, because the friend who sent in the complaint suggested I may not have ever gotten my degree since I didn’t finish on time in 1994 with many of my classmates. Weird.

What I found was an incredible turnaround to the entire experience of someone reacting with fear to what I (apparently) was doing.

Yesterday, I got to remember that whole thing. There it was again in bright shining memory.

Gasp!

They shouldn’t see me that way. (It’s the wrong way).

Is that true?

No.

First of all, it’s the way they see me. Period.

Second of all, there were more benefits than pains that came out of that misunderstanding in 2012.

How do you react when you believe someone sees you wrong, and they should see you a better way, or a “correct” way?

Scared. Sick to my stomach. Wanting to explain. Wanting to fix it. Self-centered. Not reaching out and connecting. Focused on the image of me, not on a more loving expansive image for all.

Who would you be without the belief they shouldn’t see you that way?

If you couldn’t be against how they see?

What if you even took into gentle consideration how they are seeing, took note of it with respect and kindness?

Woah.

Like, you mean….they SHOULD see me as teaching in the nude? They SHOULD see me as married to someone other than who I’m actually married to? They SHOULD see me as a liar? Or someone who didn’t graduate?

But! Those things aren’t true!!!

Who would you be without that thought, that the Truth needs to be straightened out…..by YOU?

All I know is…..without the belief that I need to be perceived “correctly” I am laughing, and having a wonderful time noticing what people see and think.

I notice people have amazing discoveries learning their own perceptions were wrong. Or right.

Turning it around: They SHOULD see me that way. I shouldn’t see THEM that way. I shouldn’t see MYSELF that way.

I shouldn’t see them as wrong. That friend who reported me enhanced my livelihood, she didn’t ruin it. Seriously.

The person who wrote to me about Breitenbush today reminded me that I’ve been offered another location for a one-week retreat in Hawaii that may be more exciting and a next step and new adventure in The Work.

I shouldn’t see myself incompletely, incorrectly–like someone who is a liar, or who makes mistakes and is condemned, or someone doing it wrong. I shouldn’t see myself as so important, or so small either.

And they SHOULD see me exactly as they see me.

It offers them learning on their own path, it makes me human (which, it turns out, I am) and it’s an awesome invitation to do The Work.

It’s a fabulous sledge hammer to my personal identity.

Wait.

Didn’t I want to lose my personal identity in the first place, and expand my awareness into the beautiful, brilliant, open, thrilling and holy place of This Moment Now?

Isn’t this all so very exciting…..to notice how none of those details even matter?

Ha ha.

Thank you to everyone who thought whatever they thought of me, and dared to speak it out loud so I could hear it.

Without you, I couldn’t wake up.

Much love, Grace