I’m in Los Angeles for the annual event called the Mental Cleanse with Byron Katie.
Once again, I am touched deeply by what it’s like to do The Work in a group.
And this is a big group–several hundred people in a giant convention room in a hotel near the airport.
There’s an empty chair up on the stage next to Katie, and who knows who will be the next person in the chair.
We get to hear that person’s situation they’re wanting to investigate, the moment in their lives when they felt irritation, sadness, anxiety, or immense frustration.
Yesterday we listened to four brave peeps.
The thing I absolutely love about doing The Work in a huge group like this, is that after the process of inquiry–taking each concept through the four questions and turnarounds–Katie turns out to everyone else and asks….
….what’s your takeaway? Your feedback?
What did you learn from your own life situation?
I love that as I listen, I don’t have to even try to find situations to work on or look at. The other people in the chair are doing it for me!
I can simply trust the process of sitting, being present in the room, hearing a human situation that brings stress, or agony, and suffering through the way it has been perceived.
A woman did The Work on a psychic who told her she would die at age 72.
Another woman did The Work on her boyfriend who keeps suggesting she get a job rather than try to run a private practice.
A man did The Work on a friend who argues too much about dumb things like which app is better, or which car model.
As the people describe their situations, we picture the scenario.
It’s like I’m right there….and I don’t even know these people!
The mind is amazing like that. It creates a movie instantly and fills in the details the more it hears the scene described.
The problem enters when we begin to believe what we see is absolutely true. Taking it very seriously. Holding it as threatening. Chalking it up to a moment on earth that’s dangerous.
Isn’t it amazing, I thought yesterday, that in any of these situations we’ve experienced in life, whether we’re thinking about death or an annoying loved one….
….it’s because we’re threatened in some small or big way.
What is threatened?
Our sense of “me” being here, in tact, living it’s own life.
My identity.
Me, me, me and my survival and success here.
Katie chuckled, looked down a moment, and commented on something so simple, so automatic, so universal, and the source of our anxiety, fear, suffering, emotional pain.
Our thoughts.
The ego mind tries so hard to protect its identity, she said, to keep the identity of the self in place….
….and it will work so very hard to do it, maybe extra hard when it’s particularly threatened, because secretly it knows….
….it doesn’t actually exist.
All that work for nothing!
Ha ha.
The mind is so funny.
So today, I’m enjoying watching the images, memories, and thoughts float by of what I’ve thought to be “bad” or “good” about “my” life….
….seeing how it’s only a movie.
Right now, what’s happening in “my” world is a quiet and beautiful expansive hotel lobby with swirly feathery greenish carpet, screens playing in the distance with people talking about the news and football players running, music on the speakers, murmurs of voices of people in the distance in clumps, and this writing coming out.
And of course, none of it is “mine”.
It was just a flash of life from this perspective for a moment in time.
If I had six figures….I’d be successful….are you sure?
I’m sending this out as I take off from the Seattle airport to Los Angeles, heading for my first New Year’s Mental Cleanse event in a few years with Byron Katie.
I can’t wait to hear the people who get up on stage and so bravely share themselves vulnerably with a room full of about 300-500 people.
Wow.
That’s a lot!
And many of these folks who get to do The Work with Katie will be filmed and recorded, and the conversations they have with Katie will go on youtube and head out onto the internet, inspiring others to also investigate suffering.
It’s a pretty courageous act to be willing to expose oneself in this way.
A very long time ago, when I was in the hospital inpatient treatment program for eating disorders, I got to write my autobiography.
At first, I was soooooo grossed out.
Write down the horrible details of my addictive and painful process?
For other people to read?
Please no. Not that.
The eating, bingeing, drinking, smoking, shop-lifting, boyfriends, scarcity, quitting jobs, frequent moving, dropping out of college, vicious judgments towards myself and others.
I had what they call a huge in-to-me-see problem.
An intimacy problem.
Which I’ve heard said is the root of all addictive processes.
Nowadays, I appear to write about whatever comes to mind about myself and share what it is like to both believe, and un-believe, these thoughts.
It’s pretty intimate, I guess.
And sometimes, I still feel shame, or the urge to keep something to myself.
Like about money, for example.
Not long ago, I received a one-time individual mentoring session for being a part of a class (I love learning all kinds of things, and often sign up for classes–one at a time is my only rule).
This class was for small business owners and learning how to connect with other people to support business growth.
Only a handful of people “won” the opportunity to have a one-on-one session with the teacher, who had an MBA and was successful at starting several businesses, even though she was a bit younger than me.
I wasn’t sure what to ask her, we only had 30 minutes.
When I sat still and wondered what my biggest question was about running my little business, the answer came to mind “What is my next step to make more money?”
Another part of me immediately responded with…..
…..“OH COME ON!! Still? Can’t you get over the whole I-Am-Not-There-Yet thing when it comes to MONEY??!!”
When we got on the phone together, I blurted out the shameful truth.
“I haven’t made 6 figures yet!”
Honestly, it’s almost embarrassing to write this in Grace Notes, because of all the “six figure” rhetoric.
I was embarrassed to tell her I had not yet made six figures in my business, and embarrassed to tell you I cared.
Six figures means, in case you don’t know, that in Canadian or US dollars you are making 100,000 (count the digits–it is SIX) per year. Maybe for euros this little saying also works. But you get the picture.
It’s a milestone marker in business growth. Six figures kinda means you’re cruising along, getting to a basic operational stage with running a successful small business.
Except.
I thought “I have to keep it a secret that I don’t make six figures”….
AND at the very same time….
….with this business mentor, I felt embarrassed about not making six figures.
Jeez.
What inquiry to even investigate?
I should have more money / I shouldn’t / I want more money / I don’t want / I need more money / I don’t need / I care about money / I don’t care.
This would require a more subtle examination of the stories present.
The world could judge me!
My business mentor could judge me!
Oh….one at a time!
Right!!
In This Situation (with the business mentor and our session)….
….she’ll think I’m a loser, small potatoes, insignificant, unorganized, bag-lady potential, and a dork when she learns I make less than six figures.
And this would be bad because……why?
Because I want her to like me, to believe in me, to help me, to teach me, to support me into riches.
Is that true?
Well, yes!
Such an impulse to say “yes” if I’m looking at money, money, money, just money.
And yet….let’s get more specific.
She is more successful than I am, she makes more money. She knows now (because of my confession) what I make. I am not as good as she is, because of this number.
Is that absolutely true?
No.
How do I react when I believe in comparing numbers, in amounts of money, in this woman being more successful than me because she makes more money than me?
Yikes, it’s a bummer.
Images flash through my head of people and the amount of money they “make”.
Even though, I actually do not know how much they make. (Interesting point).
I’m sure they make a lot, because of their excitement, the way they speak, what they do, what they buy, the clothes they wear….
….that they are totally making a ton of money.
I read my mentor’s words if she writes, I hear what she says if she speaks, I deduct that if she has four full-time employees she’s rocking it, she’s inventing a ten-year plan, she’s succeeding, she’s successful, she’s already succeeded.
Who would I be without this comparison?
Without this belief that she is more successful than I am since she makes more money?
Wow.
Without the belief that the amount of money someone makes means they are succeeding, or succeeded, or will succeed in the future?
Holy smokes.
It’s hilarious.
Huh. Pause. Wait. (Silence).
Turning the thought around: she is NOT more successful than I am.
I’m far more successful at being Grace, at being the person who struggled massively with self-hate and addiction and depression and confusion and quitting jobs and treating money rudely….
…..and then found balance, and steadiness, and contact with reality, and money, in just the right way for me.
I have enough money.
I know nothing about her daily life, really.
Examples also float through of all the very wealthy people I’ve known who report that they are unhappy, who are the same as me only with a lot of money, or who spend money but feel no grounding or peace or joy or rest.
Turning it around again: I am more successful than her (with money). How could this be just as true?
Well, I’ve lived about 15 years longer, so my hands may have touched more money over time. I’ve known what it’s like to live with nothing and be eligible for food stamps and survive. It’s kind of a fun, dramatic story.
I have NO IDEA what she considers. I am more successful at being myself than her. That’s 100% truer.
Turning it around one more time: I am more successful than my thinking, especially when it comes to money.
Ha ha ha!
When I even start to think about money, I enter comparisons, I judge, I analyze, I wonder, I get scared, I see other people as better or worse off, I’m like a Comparison Machine with money flying hither and yon in all directions.
I see riches, and wealth, and poverty, and lack….
….just like we all do.
And what is here, right now, without a thought about money?
Air. Space. Quiet. Images. Stories. Fantasies. Joy. Laughter. Not Knowing. Fun. Truth.
Intimacy.
If you notice your mind getting turned on by money and comparing who makes what and who doesn’t make what and who has it and who doesn’t have it and who uses it best and who doesn’t use it well and who makes it easily and who doesn’t make it easily and who is lucky and who is unlucky and who is successful and who is failing…..
…..no matter how much money you have…..
…..you might want to join the 8 week MONEY teleclass coming up on Thursdays starting January 14th from 2-3:30 pm Pacific Time.
We deeply look at situations, and share ourselves honestly, and grow up into greater wisdom about money.
And get this.
It’s by donation (suggested $150 – $395).
Only 4 spaces left.
What have you got to lose?
(Ooooh, great question. We’ll be looking at that one).
Special retreat to do The Work and inquiry on Everything Money is March 25-27, 2016 in Seattle. Come celebrate the exploration of money, making it, losing it, keeping it, playing with it here on planet earth. We will have so much fun.
“Isn’t it for safety, or you would be beyond pain, beyond suffering [if you got more money]? Isn’t it about finally being safe? Finally being secure? But aren’t you safe right now? Skip the trip! Everything you ever wanted is here, safe, now. Is money really hard to make? God is everything….but not THAT. Except for my beliefs, it’s a very simple thing. I know where to go, what to do, when to do it. It can look like a billion dollars, or ten dollars, I’m wealthy. I had something to do with making the money….is that true? That’s why we have people born in poverty, in wealth, so we can see that we have nothing to do with it.”
~ Byron Katie in 1990s during weekend on money and business.
Meetup today! 2-4 pm at Goldilocks Cottage in northeast Seattle.
**************
But I really have to do that RIGHT NOW….are you sure?
I was pregnant with my son (he is now 21 years old).
It was the beginning of the sixth month.
I looked down in amazement, for the hundredth time, at the way the belly stretched out in a round smooth balloon shape.
I was observing the process of a life coming into form, and simply….
….move itself along.
I still frequently remember this moment vividly.
Because, even though I continuously was fascinated, almost in awe of having this experience…..
….something that day was different.
Suddenly, I realized it was not “my” belly.
I was looking at “a” human belly that was doing it’s own thing and was being run by the universe, or God, or Life (whatever you like calling the great mystery of it all).
It was like there was something watching the whole thing, being stunned and amazed at having no idea how this all happens, or why, or wherefore, and awareness of not being in charge whatsoever.
And then a voice inside said to me like hearing someone talk out loud practically…..
…..remember how great it is to stretch?
The feeling of stretching like a cat to the ceiling and sucking in as the stomach flattens.
The sensation of languidly reaching.
The sensation of breathing deeply, then raising arms over a head, and feeling the back bone and stomach come much closer together, all the organs and guts and everything inside the torso moving with a slight back bend and a melting in and up.
I used to do gymnastics, but it had been a long time since a back bend or a walkover.
Except right NOW….
….I can’t do that. I’m pregnant.
Then, an inner voice, yelling.
DON’T THINK ABOUT WANTING THAT!!
You can’t have it!!!!!
A little wave of fear coursed through me.
This body can’t do that move in this condition. It will be a long time, many many weeks, until stretching like that is possible.
I know this sounds really melodramatic, right?
Oh My God what a TERRIBLE thought……
……to want to stretch and not be able to!
But it was weirdly serious, strangely full of warning. Do not go beyond this point.
You are in a course of events that are unknown, and all you can do is go along for the ride.
Do NOT wish for something right now that is not possible in reality.
Including the simple act of stretching.
That would be painful.
Now, when I think about how vivid and clear that moment was, it’s like a foggy window got completely wiped free, or a round circle got popped out with those fancy and brilliant glass cutters.
But it’s kind of weird to talk about it, because who has such a moment of insight about not being able to stretch during pregnancy!
Not being able to stretch is so no big deal. What a weirdo.
But I STILL remember that moment, and some unexplained wisdom appearing from within that KNEW that spending anything more than the split second I did of longing for something different….
….was a way to create suffering for myself.
Actually to create it out of thin air.
Wanting something that wasn’t possible.
Wow.
I could wait until later.
I would HAVE to, in fact.
I knew right then that going with the flow of what was happening was far, far, far easier than complaining internally about what was happening in my body and what I couldn’t do at the moment.
What I didn’t see at the time, was the wisdom of how this applied to absolutely everything about reality.
I had no idea.
If I argue with what is going on in my life, the natural trajectory I am not controlling….
….then I will lose the argument.
The arguing itself will give me nothing but angst and suffering, frustration, wishing, longing, sadness, annoyance.
“Am I better off making up an alternate reality in my mind and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the same forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me?” ~ Michael Singer in The Surrender Experiment
Today, I love that right in this moment (I just did it) I stood up and stretched to the ceiling.
Now, it turns out, is good for stretching in this body.
But that hasn’t always been the case, and there will be a time again in the future when it isn’t again.
If you find your mind is upset about what you can’t do, have, achieve, accomplish….
….question your need to do that right NOW.
It’s not about giving up dreams or visions, or falling into an uncaring depressed apathy.
Just noticing who you would be without the belief you need to stretch, when you absolutely can’t in this moment?
“Perfection is another name for reality. The only way you can see anything as imperfect is if you believe a thought about it. ‘It’s inadequate, it’s ugly, it’s unfair, it’s flawed’—is that true? This chipped coffee cup on the table: how beautiful it is when you simply look at it, without any thought of what it should be.” ~ Byron Katie
Are you truly interested in ending my way of thinking that results in suffering?
I enter a coffee shop with my laptop in my bag, ready to write.
Ready to inquire into something interesting, and commonly stressful.
Not sure what will come to mind to investigate, I buy my Rooibos tea and find a seat in the long, fairly full cafe.
There are empty tables spotted throughout the large space.
I do that thing where I place myself just about evenly between other groups, or tables where people are sitting, glancing slightly at the environment, placing my laptop facing away from a guy in the corner who has a….busy….energy, for want of a better word.
I take off my coat and place it on the opposite chair to the one I’ll be taking, and sit with my back to that guy.
I open my laptop, and I hear the guy say something.
“Can I open my mouth? Hey! I’m talking to you. Can I open my mouth? You! The one with the hat. Can I open my mouth?”
It’s an angry, haunted kind of question that doesn’t make sense.
I don’t have on a hat.
I don’t think he’s talking to me.
Although I did just have a hat on as I came in, and I placed it inside my bag. Was he looking at me before, when I entered the cafe?
Wait, is he on the phone maybe?
I look carefully.
“Can I open my mouth? Can I?”
He’s got weird eyes, rather intense.
I get up for a glass of water before starting to write in earnest, and he’s staring straight at me and still saying the same words. Like super sarcastic and creepy.
I get the water. My phone lights up as my good friend is calling me and I pretend to answer her call even though I know she’s just leaving me an important message and it’s not necessary for me to pick up.
I actually fake that I’m saying “hello” while gathering my stuff and I move to the front of the cafe, the opposite end from this quiet back area. I carry my full cup of tea in one hand, and the phone in the other, with coat and laptop and sweater tucked under my arms.
I sit by the big street window near the very front of the cafe instead.
No big deal.
But I notice a pretty stressful belief come through.
I stop the other writing I’m doing, on something completely different, and decide to write on this instead.
I’m creeped out.
Inside I’m saying “this place always is weird. It’s a strange coffee shop. There are weirdos in it every time, or just a weird feeling. It’s too dark. The music is sort of horror movie-ish. I shouldn’t come in here alone. This place is like the Devil’s Triangle.”
I kind of chuckle, though.
Not true.
Who would I be without these thoughts?
I’m being a little extreme, right?
I just happen to look up at movement out on the sidewalk after someone has left the cafe and I felt the cold air from several feet away from the door opening and closing. A person is walking by right outside the window I’m sitting next to now.
I catch the eyes of the same man, directly through the glass, looking in at me.
The guy who kept saying “Can I open my mouth?” like he was furious, and insane.
I look down and start to type, looking in a nonchalant way at the screen of my laptop.
I can see him standing there out of the corner of my eyes, maybe staring back at me. Not moving. Body still there.
Still there.
All of this through my peripheral vision.
I’m typing this.
Then I see him turn, and head down the dark, night time, wet street in the rain.
I don’t look up for a long time.
A moment like this can happen to anyone, anywhere.
What actually occurred?
Nothing much.
A man was acting angry, and sarcastic, and talking to someone, or himself out loud. Maybe talking to me.
I guess I knew to move away, to not engage.
But I want to inquire into the creeper energy, the one that says “it’s ALWAYS like this in this coffee shop. It’s dangerous.”
It shouldn’t be dangerous. He shouldn’t have been in here. He was too weird. Typical, for this coffee shop.
Is that true?
Yes.
I’d like to be able to come up here, buy tea, and not be worried about who or what is in this place! Jeez!!
I want to come and go as I please…..everywhere I please.
No weirdos!
Really?
Well.
No.
Something seems very unrealistic and a little off about that idea.
It really does not appear to be true.
How do you react when you think the thought that this place shouldn’t be dangerous, and I shouldn’t encounter a man talking angrily out loud or staring at me through the window?
Deciding I am never coming here again.
Freaked out.
Writing this.
Cold. Shivering even.
Checking the time until the dance class down the street begins.
Who would I be without the belief this place shouldn’t be dangerous and creepy?
I look up at a painting on the wall. It’s the body of a bride in a white satin dress, holding pale purple flowers, with a completely black body and black face full of dots of stars, no face at all, and geometric black hexagon shapes for hair that blend into a fully black background.
I notice, for some people, this might not be creepy at all. Lots of people are here, in fact.
But what if it is creepy, for me?
No need to fight anything.
Am I safe in this moment?
Very.
Without the thought, I notice I’m physically very, very safe….and I may not come hang out here any time soon.
Without the thought that it shouldn’t be dangerous, I notice I have fun noticing when something is, but not in a furious, deep, or defiant way.
It’s like the way I also know not to cross the freeway on foot, or jump out of an airplane, or contact that one friend right now, or climb Mt. Everest. People can do those things, and I find I’m not interested or drawn.
Maybe I don’t like when really angry-sounding people are talking around me, or staring at me. It’s OK not to like that.
Turning the thoughts around: it should be dangerous.
Well, it’s bringing this kind of “creeped out” feeling to my attention and giving me this wonderful opportunity to inquire into when these kinds of movements happen, without malice or anger or big fear myself.
In fact, I hardly feel any fear at all in my body.
I’m sitting, enjoying the typing flow, listening to the murmur of other voices, seeing the lights are on and people are drinking coffee and tea. I notice I’m not leaving yet and I’ll be a little late for the dance class and it’s fine with me.
Turning it around again: my thinking shouldn’t be dangerous, I shouldn’t be dangerous, especially in this situation.
For all I know, that guy thought I was.
I have no idea what he was concerned about, but it was important to him.
My thinking began to remember proof of moments being creeped out here before, but honestly, I can’t really remember anything specifically that ever happened.
I just notice, I don’t like the atmosphere. It’s dark and eerie and the art and music creates an ambiance of the macabre.
So maybe I’ll go dance class now.
And I’ll be on alert as I walk down the street, noticing movements and people and shadows. It’s the wise, interesting thing to do.
Nothing wrong with it.
My mind is a great story-teller. Creating images, and nervousness and spooky ideas about the man in the corner.
Turn Around: it shouldn’t be safe.
Oh. Got it.
With this whole situation, I have no idea what any of it really was. I may have misunderstood (probably).
I have no idea of that man’s orientation, who he saw as he looked, who he was talking to, what he was meaning, or if he was crazy.
I’ve experienced that same confusion, about myself!
Maybe he was me, looking at me through a window, telling the story about a dark and stormy night and creepiness and the vital question about if he can open his mouth.
I notice nothing actually happened.
I was completely, absolutely “safe”.
It should be dangerous. He should have been in here and I shouldn’t have been. I was too weird. Typical, for this mind.
And it doesn’t mean that’s now my favorite coffee shop.
Spared from the desire for love, approval and appreciation….you are the act of appreciation itself
Yesterday the Year of Inquiry group looked at a thought that is so repetitive within the human psyche, it’s rather stunning:
That person does not appreciate me.
How do you know?
There are so many ways we know….where to begin?!!
I see them hugging someone else, not me. I hear about them eating lunch with another friend, they’ve never invited me before. I overhear them talking about how brilliant someone is, and they’ve never said anything like this about me. I see them kissing someone else, and I thought we were in an exclusive romance.
I watch them leaning towards someone from across the room, and I think they don’t appear that interested when talking to me. They don’t call me back. They don’t ask my opinion. They say “no” to me. They don’t give me money. They stare at their screen, instead of me. They engage in addiction, even though I asked them to stop. I don’t get a raise.They don’t clean up. They don’t touch me. They don’t say they love me. They never reply to my emails.
I could go on and on with what I’ve thought or heard from others, or seen in the movies.
People get so disturbed by the evidence of non-appreciation.
It’s almost overwhelming, and infinite.
But let’s look a little closer at this belief, this feeling of not being appreciated.
I once was getting to know a man. He was a friend and a romantic interest.
We talked like friends. Many hours on the phone for several months.
One day he told me about his plans to go to a summer festival where he would stay in a cabin with old friends, some acquaintances. He lived very far away from me, and I was neither invited nor would I have been able to attend–it had not crossed my mind as something I even wanted to do, honestly.
I had been on the phone with him during his drive into the mountains of somewhere in sunny California, on his way to the festival.
As usual for this early, fun, get-to-know-you stage of the relationship, we were laughing and flirting and telling stories about ourselves. He described the landscape.
He said “I’m about to go into territory where I think there’s no cell service, so if I don’t……”
Cut.
Silence.
LOL.
I looked forward to the likely call we would have on Monday, when he got back home and back into cell zone.
Little did I know…..
“I have something to tell you about the weekend….it’s crazy!” he said like a friend who’s excited to tell some weird and interesting, and awesome news.
“I had sex with someone, and I don’t even know her name! Isn’t that so funny and wild?!?”
(Tires screeching in my head…..followed by a huge gigantic CRASH sound).
Pause. Pause. I was catching my breath, holding it.
I uttered a weak “oh, ha ha, yeah…..crazy.”
He then launched into the story of the noticing this woman, the meeting, the connection, and the path to actual sex and how that all unfolded.
Like a girlfriend telling me about her liaison with a man for the first time, in a way she might have felt as liberating and wild, and new, and fun.
But my stomach was sick.
“Ooops, I gotta go!” I hung up the phone, reeling.
Fortunately, I knew exactly what to do.
The Work.
I had asked for my world, as far as relationships went, to be turned upside down. My old stodgy stories from, oh probably the year 1705 (and a few centuries earlier) were so full of pain and stress, and ownership, and false expectations, and lack of clarity, power, or love….
….that on the heels of divorce, I knew I wanted these stories to dissolve.
I knew they weren’t true as ideas, but obviously not in my heart and body.
They provided only suffering, and they came from some weird history that no longer made any sense (or maybe never did).
I called all my friends who could facilitate the Work, and asked them for appointments for that entire Monday and Tuesday. I called in sick to my job. Because my mind WAS sick.
I believed that man, as a new interesting friend of MINE, should want to be sexual with me and only me.
How ridiculous.
Now, stay with me here. Because this does not mean I am not interested deeply in monogamy and care and attention of a primary relationship. I’m in one now, like that. So far, I love a whole lot about the current relationship I appear to be in, and it feels wonderful and easy and very kind.
But who would I be without that thought that when someone doesn’t want this, they’re not appreciating ME?
Without the belief that it means I am being rejected as they want what they want?
At first, all I could do was to see and imagine how I would be, in that very situation, without the belief.
I couldn’t really feel it.
I could imagine a different person, like the lady next door, who didn’t care about this guy and all the dreamy ideas of being together (sigh) and how SHE might feel.
She wouldn’t be feeling like she lost something, or recognized something awful. She wouldn’t feel rejected, disappointed, unworthy, alone.
As I contemplated my work, and felt the dagger punch in my stomach subside….
….I began to use my mind and my imagination for ease, for wondering
Rather than self-torture.
Who would I be without the belief that his behavior means anything about my behavior? Without the thought this means I am unappreciated?
Wow.
Wow.
Isn’t this what I actually asked for?
Isn’t this what I wanted…..to feel freedom to come and go as I pleased and want everyone else to do the same?
Don’t I want this in every kind of relationship, not just romantic love or sexual relationships?
Clients, family, children, parents, neighbors…..can I be in deep connection with them, no matter what they do or don’t do?
Wouldn’t I want everyone to follow their heart’s desire?
I mean….they have to appreciate ME….really?
I suddenly realized it wasn’t true.
At all.
Wow. The relaxation I felt at not needing to be appreciated, at not needing to be accepted, invited, wanted, hired, cared about…..
….even though it feels tentative at times, don’t get me wrong (and then I do The Work, or ask for what I really want like a hug or a conversation).
I could see in that experience that what was truer, honestly truer, was that he should NOT appreciate me, when he’s busy appreciating someone else.
I should appreciate myself, always.
I should appreciate HIM (I did and still do, he taught me to let go and then ask for what I truly, deeply wanted and cared about at that time).
That experience led me to fading out on all those long-distance conversations that lasted hours….
….and come back to myself, in the present, without any thoughts about what would happen in the future.
Appreciation right now.
It’s worth giving up a dream for. In a very, very good way.
“If I had a prayer, it would be ‘God, spare me from seeking love, approval, or appreciation. Amen’. ” ~ Byron Katie
She told me the story of her early life with her uncle….more like older brother because the age span was only 10 years older than she was.
Somewhere along the way, she lost regular contact with him.
Something happened.
Cards sent to him were not responded to.
Leaving messages or reaching out for contact left only…..
…..crickets.
I love that saying “crickets” about the silence of No Response from someone you care about.
It reminds me of my many summer days in Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle in the US.
They were actually cicadas, not crickets.
But the sound of insects chirping, a dark inky night, a very wide expansive endless sky, stars sparkling, a treeless horizon, and very hot, hot heat pulsing.
Almost too hot to talk, or to move.
If you shouted out into the dark hot night sky….Hello?
Hello? Hello?
Crickets.
The dear inquirer who wrote to me found out only a month ago that her uncle was dying, and then just the other day, she learned he died.
I’ve sometimes thought about a very dear friend of mine and what it would be like if I learned that she died.
Someone I cared about so much, and grew very close to. We shared our most embarrassing secrets, and listened, and psychoanalyzed, and offered suggestions, and laughed very hard.
It wasn’t a long friendship, only a few years.
But the same something happened.
My usual emails were not responded to.
No phone calls returned.
I remember that empty space.
Many days had gone by without any concern on my end. Hardly a thought about her, and what she was doing.
Until time passed long enough.
Hello? Hello?
Crickets.
The absence of that friend in my life began to become a focus, a wondering. A curiosity.
The lack of communication was a subtle form of “no”.
No longer neutral.
Where does the mind go, when someone says “no” to you, or you get zero response or feedback or attention and you’ve asked for it?
It may start quietly, but because you really do not know what’s going on, your thoughts begin to look for what went wrong.
And guess who’s the target?
You.
What did I do? Was it something I said?
Nothing. I can’t find anything.
So what else could it be?
Maybe it’s just the way I am.
Maybe….
….I’m not good enough.
That’s exactly where my mind went with that friend of mine.
She did confront me on my plans around my second marriage celebration.
She said I was being deceitful, because I might not get married on paper, only in ceremony. I had been through divorce once before, and didn’t think I could ever stand dissolution of possessions and money ever again.
Sharing assets was certainly not the purpose of marrying, for me. (I changed my mind, by the way, and got married on paper at literally the last minute, but that’s another story).
I remember sitting and doing The Work on her words to me.
Because of her sharing honestly, I became open to changing my plans. I never got to tell her I actually DID change my mind, and my plans, because she never spoke to me again.
But I went over that conversation many times.
Was that the problem?
She told me she didn’t feel comfortable with several of my other close friends, either.
Was that the problem?
And always, under the surface…..
….if I was handling this well, clearly, honestly, with integrity….
….then this rift in the relationship would not have happened.
I could have prevented this problem, had I been good enough, kind enough, attentive enough, loving enough, direct enough, knowledgeable enough, astute enough, sensitive enough.
Is that true?
Yes.
I was not direct with this friend for a long time before the “cut-off”.
Guess how?
I cut her off internally, in little tiny micro ways.
I didn’t share honestly.
I didn’t speak my true heart and mind. I didn’t say “no” when I meant it. I didn’t hang up the phone. I didn’t take care of myself in her presence very well. I didn’t feel free to say how I felt. I didn’t ask her why she wanted to hang out so much. I didn’t trust something about her, about myself.
I was careful.
But who would you be without the belief you are not good enough….
….even if you did all those childish, scaredy-cat, timid, careful things?
Yes, even with all those imperfections, and the Not Acting Right, and the internal judgments you had about them….(fine, I’m better off without her anyway, she’s too intense).
There’s a way of turning things around where you keep the original thought, but you say it with joy and zest.
I call it the Yahoo turnaround.
I wasn’t good enough.
Turned around: I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!!!!
YAHOO!!! RIDE ‘EM COWBOY!!!
(That’s what I yell for some reason since those panhandle days in Texas when I was a kid).
I was a human, doing the best I could at the time.
I was believing, then questioning, then believing again.
That’s what it’s like to be a human.
“Once a painful concept is met with understanding, the next time it appears you may find it interesting. What used to be the nightmare is now just interesting. The next time it appears, you may find it funny. The next time, you may not even notice it. This is the power of loving what is.” ~ Byron Katie
If you could trust the universe, and allow it to give you what you need and not give you what you don’t…..
…..what would that be like?
Maybe you’d notice how gorgeous that sound is.
It’s so beautiful, you forget about everything else but being….
….listening, breathing in air, smelling, seeing, feeling your skin, your body, the blood running through your veins, your knees on the ground.
who would you be without your stressful story? And you can keep the story you love.
Last night I attended a Halloween party.
We call it Halloween, but it’s also known as All Hallows Eve, or Samhain from it’s Celtic roots.
A time when the veil is thinned between the living and the dead, and we remember and honor those who came before us.
In the Celtic tradition, a huge feast was prepared on this night, and places set for the souls of those who have died. Spirits, fairies, contact with what is beyond.
My father’s family roots, the Bells, all came from Scots-Irish lands.
They knew these traditions and myths deeply.
Where I was last night, since people were disguised (also part of the ancient Celtic tradition, in case you didn’t want a spirit to recognize and haunt you) there was a sense of all the wilder personalities and characters of humankind appearing.
I chose to wear an elegant green pantsuit from the early 1960s my grandmother cherished. It had tiny rhinestones punched into the v-neck in three rows, and a huge wide green sash with rhinestones decorating the ends.
It felt perfect for me to honor my grandmother Eleanor. She immigrated as a Swede-Finn to New York City around 1915 at age five. She spoke no English.
She used to tell my sisters and I stories about learning about America, and a hard and funny moment when she tried to say “safety pin” but her accent using English was too strong, and no one could understand her.
She spoke about her four siblings often, and how she met my grandfather, and what it was like to be twenty years old in New York and single, in 1930.
I wish I could ask her so many more questions, now. I was too young to think of the questions back then.
She died in 1986.
But this is what I notice I am so grateful for today, on what is also known as All Souls Day, Samhain.
I am here in this body because of a life force that has moved through this world, in the forth of inception and birth, through other humans known as my ancestors.
Life is temporary for us all, and for them too.
They lived lives, some of them crossing huge wide oceans in boats to get to the same continent where I live now.
In questioning thoughts and stories, we constantly wonder “who would I be without this belief?”
Who would you be without your story?
But it does not mean that all is erased (even if it no longer exists) and annihilated.
I actually now remember and care more for this strange suit called a body, and all those who came before me who also had these suits and wore them here, for a temporary time.
I honor the life force that hums, and still hums now for these ancestors, through what is here now.
Today, I remember Port and Eleanor, Obetra and Burt. I remember my father Aldon. I remember my great grandparents Tom and Mary, Val and Grace, Frank and Bertha, and the two from Finland I can’t remember their names right now.
For me, the most precious thing really, outside of this movie of life, is the gratitude for the ones I can’t remember or never knew their names.
I imagine the time, the late 1800s, the mid 1800s, the 1700s. Flashes of pictures in the mind of what these times looked like, although we could never really be inside them except with this mind.
Without needing to know the details of the story, I know there was a story, and it was a story full of life–no matter how long or short that life–and it was full of suffering and difficulty, and also joy and happiness.
Even if any of these living beings did not feel the silent emptiness of peace within, or even when I have not in this lifetime, I see that all is carried along by an unknown mystery.
No matter what happened, I am now here.
Everyone of these humans held the “I am”.
Just like you.
“Ecstasy is the only thing God knows. God’s nature is eternal, conscious bliss. No mater what you’ve done, you’re not going to be the one thing that ruins it.” ~ Michael Singer
No one else can ruin it either.
If you think they can, continue to question that story.
Send it back today, to where it came from.
A mystery that can hold it all.
Much Love,
Grace
P.S. two spots left for monthly group of inquirers into difficult stories, in Seattle. Read about it and register HERE.
Could you please write a Grace Note about when you delayed getting your degree finished on time?
While everyone has a unique experience of course, it’s a deeply stressful belief that it would be terrible to not finish something of great importance On Time.
Or, ever.
Something you enrolled in and spent lots of money for.
Something that was maybe supposed to change your life, your work possibilities, your future.
I entered a two-year master’s degree program, took all the classes and all the exams, but got pregnant my second year, and postponed writing my thesis.
Writing the master’s thesis meant I needed first to complete a very big research project in culture and personal change as a part of a group or organization somewhere. Followed by writing a book about it.
Believe me, it sounded like a ton of work.
And there were a few stressful thoughts.
As the due date loomed on the distant horizon (I had three more years to finish) my mind would start cranking away at the possibilities.
I would see visions of all the arduous, dreadful work ahead.
I would say things like “it will take a year for me to finish the thesis project, I should start right now!”
But I can’t start yet, my baby is so small.
How can I be breast-feeding and going all over to graduate libraries, teaching workshops to analyze and deliver change, and write an 8 chapter thesis?
Fortunately, I also saw something that for me was very powerful, and alarming.
I saw myself five or ten years into the future without any degree at all, because I didn’t do this thesis project.
I saw what would happen if I continued to believe the thought that this work was too much for me.
It seemed like a terrible vision.
The degree had cost thousands of dollars. I had paid for half of it myself, with my in-laws generously paying for the other half. It had been a huge effort, a big decision, and I had loved tons of what I had learned.
Now there was just this one final push.
And it would be a push.
No denying it.
It involved contacting an organization with a proposal to sweep in, make a positive change through individual meetings, group sessions, retreats, coaching, expertise in behavioral science.
Then after all that was completed, I would analyze the outcome, research my theories, explain the before and after, and what happened, and write about the whole entire thing. An entire book’s worth of material.
I kept thinking it’s too much. I can’t stand it.
Then I’d see that picture in the future of having no master’s degree, after all the classes and tests and reading I had done and all that money spent and all the hours learning up to this point.
Only this one part left.
I had to do it.
What I knew to do at the time was one step, then the next.
Make a list of organizations I’d love to work with.
Call them all. Talk to the executive directors, or whomever makes the decision.
Make a contract to come in as a consultant, discover their difficult spots, and help them find solutions.
Arrange the babysitter (a sister and my mom stepped in, awesome).
Set up the training schedule. Fill in the calendar. Pump breast milk.
Arrange meetings at the organization to find out everything about it, meet with all the staff, take tons of notes.
Make the plan for “change” with the director.
Arrange three retreats (they were held at my mom’s house, she had a big enough living room).
Conduct the retreats.
Give my summary, give suggestions for upgrades and change, shake hands, say goodbye.
Write an entire thesis about what just happened over that 6 month period….the writing took another 3 months.
Bind the book, turn it in, meet with faculty to explain and defend my entire year of this project…..
…..GRADUATE.
It surprised me when I cried tears of pride and joy when I walked across the stage. My second brand new baby was just born, right after the meeting with the faculty when I handed in my bound thesis.
I walked across the stage with my baby daughter in a sling.
That was one heck of a project and a huge accomplishment for me.
If I had 100% believed that I couldn’t do it, or it was just too big of a hassle, I wouldn’t have had that amazing experience of receiving that degree with my family in the audience clapping.
When I look back at it now, it feels like I had an end result in mind, VERY determined to get there, and when I felt terrified I couldn’t finish, I kept doing the next thing, then the next thing, then the next thing.
Kinda like Matt Damon in The Martian (a movie I so enjoyed last weekend).
You solve the next problem, then the next one, then the next.
There is always only today’s problem, and you working on it.
This moment now, today.
It is not an entire year of work for me, all balled up into one terrible moment. That year of “work” had weekends, evenings, many moments with my new baby, discovering I was pregnant with my second baby (fueling the need to get this all done before the deadline even more) and lots of every day life changing diapers.
The mind will see these horrible workloads, the impossible effort.
But it wasn’t actually true.
I loved those retreats, and the meetings I had with the organization I chose to work with who accepted me, a graduate student, coming in and giving them advice (still grateful to this day for them all).
I loved the feeling of having earned every bit of that degree. I felt like I was a master of Applied Behavioral Science because it required me to do what I didn’t think I wanted to do, or what seemed “hard”.
Sometimes……it’s right to walk away from something.
But often, it’s more fun to question that it’s too hard, or not that important, or impossible.
What if Mark Watney on Mars had thought it was too hard, or impossible?
We wouldn’t have that awesome story, with the great ending.
Sometimes you just want to put the flag in the ground at the top of the mountain.
You want to do it. You want to achieve it. You want to stay alive.
There is absolutely no guarantee, and no way to tell if you’ll ever make it. It might even seem quite UN-likely.
Without the belief that it’s impossible, though…..you do what you are able, today, and go to sleep and start again tomorrow.
Each day sweet.
Each day unfolding as it does. No way to tell what will occur, when it will happen, if it will happen the way you want (it probably won’t).
The truth is, I never had one single Too Hard day in all that time of completing that major life project called finishing a master’s degree On Time, just before Deadline.
I love that I did it. I did it because I knew to do it, for myself.
Really, it couldn’t have gone any other way.
I’m not sure I had anything to do with it, I just followed the simple directions.
“Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.” ~ Tao Te Ching #9
“If I don’t know why not, I do it. And I don’t know a lot about why not.” ~ Byron Katie
Question your thoughts about killing and death. You may be surprised at who you could be without them.
In our Year of Inquiry group yesterday, we got to look at a terribly painful belief that’s sort of strange to question.
Because it seems like a fact.
He killed the elephant.
I find it profound to contemplate.
How do you react when you believe it happened?
When you think the thought “that person killed something or someone else”…..
…..what goes through your heart and body?
What other thoughts do you have?
In our inquiry group, we noticed how the mind races for some possible answer that would make it manageable, rather than full of pain.
It tries to fill in the story, understand desperately. Maybe there was a reason….
Inside, in your body, the despair and hopelessness….or rage….is firing big energy outward at those who kill.
More thoughts about the wrongness of humanity, or the strangeness and sickness, or the bizarre world, and life and death, and creatures and people.
The pain erupts and it’s immense.
But who would you be without the thought “he killed the elephant”?
I sat internally with this as the beautiful inquirers also wondered what this would be like, who they would be without this troubling thought?
I thought about how I’ve had the belief “cancer killed my father” and had the very same reaction of confusion, terror, despair, and wanting to shout “WHY?!” at the sky.
Who would I be without that belief?
I’m not denying death has happened. I’m not saying this thing called “killing” isn’t accurate.
But without the belief, my mind expands somehow.
I see an image, a picture of a man and a massive remarkable animal. I’m aware the man will one day also die. I’m aware the animal was here temporarily so death would happen no matter what. I’m aware I will die and move to whatever happens without form.
Someone said in our group, that without her thought “he killed the elephant” she looked. She held that picture, without filling the room and her body and the world with condemning thoughts.
I had the feeling of wanting to understand more closely what happens with the one who is doing the killing. What’s going on there? Why would that be the way that person doing this act called killing would move?
This is what scientists and physicians and researchers are asking cancer.
What are you? Why are you here? What makes you tick?
Without the terror, these questions can be explored.
Turning the thought around to the opposite: He did not kill the elephant. The elephant killed him. I killed him. I killed the elephant. I killed myself.
I know these are very odd to write, but that’s the point of inquiry.
You don’t have to find anything interesting there. You can keep your thought of the horror of killing.
My heart still breaks with learning of killing, but without being eternally against it, my heart expands in this breaking.
I see the life and death of all things, and of humans doing the best they can with what they know.
I can find examples of these turnarounds.
The elephant lives, more than ever. It’s all over the internet. It was brought to my attention through this inquiry group. It lives in my mind and thoughts. People are caring about what happens. People are moved and passionate about life and death of animals, and people, and themselves.
In my thinking about cancer, or anything that kills, I kill my love, my joy, my spontaneity. I kill my own happiness. I kill the time I have left here, which is quite temporary.
“‘I should’, ‘I shouldn’t’, ‘you should’, ‘you shouldn’t’, ‘I want’, ‘I need’–these unquestioned thoughts distort the appearance of the good that is as common as grass. When you believe them, you make your mind small, and small-mindedness doesn’t allow you to see why the loss of legs is good, why blindness is good, sickness, hunger, death, a village wiped out, the whole apparent world of suffering. You stay unaware of the good that is all around you, you block out the elation you’d feel when you finally recognized it. Whatever you think, reality is the natural way of it. It won’t blend to your ideas of what it should be, and it won’t wait for your consent. It will remain just as it is, pure goodness, whether or not you understand.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy
Many of us are overwhelmed with what is lacking in our lives, not just with some kind of peace around food and eating.
It feels like we have needs and desires that are impossible to meet, or everlasting.
But what if you could approach all your emotional needs and desires in your life in a balanced way, just like peaceful eating?
Eating in a way that works feels like trusting the hunger, trusting the movement to the food, feeling yourself happily with pleasure, stopping when you’ve had enough.
It’s slow, calm, satisfying, patient.
Good news: when you deeply commit to a calm way of eating, your other needs and desires….those emotional ones…..
….will also fall into place.
You won’t need to grab, sneak, demand, consume ravenously. You’ll know when you’ve had enough. You won’t need to starve yourself.
You can allow yourself to need, without fear of the consequences.
Slow down and feel it, waiting to see what’s right, what each bite is like. Sense it.
Your body tells you when to stop and when to go–you don’t even have to think about it.
Emotional needs and desires fall into place, and will be satisfied, when you find peace and balance in your eating
Peace,
Grace
P.S. Eating Peace Online starts November 17. We meet Tuesdays and Wednesdays live (9-10:30 am Pacific time) but all recordings are included and you can watch webinars, and listen. Get your needs met with food and body, get emotional needs and desires met, too.
