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When Will I Be Satisfied?

The search for satisfaction is such a huge drive in humans (including me) that it’s easy to find it at the forefront of any activity, any experience, any thought we have about ourselves or others…anything we do.

I want to be satisfied when I go to work, satisfied when I eat, satisfied with my physical health, satisfied with my long-planned vacation, satisfied with my behaviors, satisfied with my reactions to the world, satisfied with how much money I have.

We want to be able to look back at an event, or our whole life, and say “yes, that was totally and completely satisfying….I wouldn’t change a thing”.

We want to get together with people we love and feel truly connected, satisfied with the way we make contact with each other.

The process of finding satisfaction seems linear. First, I notice I am not satisfied. It could be at a physical level, like hunger. Or it could be emotional…wanting intimate sharing with someone. Or it could occur to me that I’m not satisfied with the way something appears to work in the world.

I experience dissatisfaction, I move towards getting to the state of satisfied.

The thing that is very tricky is that we don’t always know what we’re actually dissatisfied about…or what would bring satisfaction.

In fact, I used to NEVER have it right.

One of my greatest places of suffering was with food and eating. I believed that the way my body appeared to others and to myself, and the way I ate food, would bring me satisfaction for comfort, nurturing, pleasure, connection, and kindness.

I actually believed that if I was thin, I would be happy. I would be satisfied. I also believed that if I ate that comforting, delicious food even when I wasn’t hungry, I would get comfort.

I didn’t bother to look more deeply at my experience of being totally dissatisfied most of the time; uncomfortable, sad, critical, worried, without intimate connection.

I had this terrible feeling of fear about NOT getting satisfied, but I didn’t like seeing that—it really seemed frightening or very sad to realize that nothing was ever quite perfectly satisfying.

The song by B.T. Express from 1974 Do It Til You’re Satisfied is a blast to dance to. However if I start thinking that it’s possible to substitute the doing of something (like eating, or exercising, or drinking, or being sexual) for satisfaction of some other deeper need, then I really suffer.

The thing is, you don’t have to know exactly and precisely what it is you really, really need that would be satisfying. In fact, trying to work hard to figure out what it is can be another distraction. And maybe….there IS NOTHING that would be the ultimate satisfaction (tricky tricky little mind).

But it can be so sweet and exciting to discover that you would love a deeply honest conversation, kind interaction with someone close to you, you’d like to tell the truth and be heard, you’d like contact, you want authentic and meaningful discussions with members of your family.

To put down the food or drink or work or TV and say “I have something I’d like to ask you about…I have something I want to share with you today…I’d like to talk with you about life…”

It has been incredible to question my beliefs about what I need and what I think would give me satisfaction.

Not being so upset that this lack of satisfaction exists…what a wonderful relief.

If not being satisfied isn’t so bad…then we can be with it for five seconds without speedy quick trying to get satisfied.

Today, right in this moment, I can have fun imagining what might bring deep satisfaction to my experience of this day.

I am going to leave alone some of the things I repeatedly “use” for satisfaction. Like checking emails, drinking tea, eating something sweet, talking on the phone, exercising really hard, reading, thinking thinking thinking.

I don’t mean I’m going to force myself not to do those things….instead it’s seeing how I can find satisfaction even without those, feeling how happiness and contentment can be here, no matter what.

(You mean….I can have fun and joy without a good book!!??)

Slowing way down, stopping when full, leaving a little on your plate, waiting two minutes, moving in a calm way, remembering all is well, breathing deeply, going to the bathroom before you’re bursting, handling the little needs of a body, opening to what is next, going to the store, leaving early, being on time, canceling that plan, speaking to this person, making a new plan, saying that important thing right now in the moment, noticing, not pushing….

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever.”~ Tao Te Ching #33

Love, Grace
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. $215. To register click HERE now and then send me an email grace@workwithgrace.com.

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June 2013! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.

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

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You Are Not Your Monkey Mind

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Many of us have heard the term Monkey Mind these days. It’s used to describe the thought pattern that seems busy, nervous, compulsive and illogical (even though we pretend its logical) and totally reactive to whatever is going on, like it’s the end of the world or something.

(DOH!)

The Tibetan Buddhists call it “sem”. It’s the part of the mind that acts like a candle flickering in an open doorway, moving wildly and chaotically around with every passing puff of air.

The Monkey Mind will blow in the breeze on any topic. You KNOW what I’m talkin’ about, right?!

The bigger the anxiety or possibility for Not Knowing what will happen….or actually fearing something BAD could happen…the busier that Monkey gets.

Big topics are Losing Money, Troubling Relationships, Rejection, Health Declining, Death of Someone Close.

Anything that feels threatening really, to the Monkey Mind, will get it to rise up and chatter. Sometimes it will chatter so loud it wakes you up at night.

  • I thought you’d be more successful by now!
  • You only have “x” amount of years left on this planet, get moving!
  • I can’t: lose weight, stop drinking, stop smoking, take care of myself
  • If this pace keeps up, I’ll never reach enlightenment
  • I give up
  • She/he/they shouldn’t have said that, acted like that, done that
  • I need more or better: money, food, house, car, body, partner, sex
  • Thank you for sharing, Monkey Mind! (JEEZ!)

Have you noticed how mean that thing can be? So rude! So critical! It will attack everyone around; your best friend, the people closest to you, and then YOU too!

The great spiritual teachers and philosophers who have lived and written throughout the ages generally say the same thing about this aspect of the human experience of thinking…

They say that this voice, this busy bee hive colony, is not really YOU. It’s not your true nature, it’s not the whole of you, it’s not your genuine self, not all of your Mind.

The thing is, while it’s helpful to hear what those teachers say, it’s not so hard to find out for yourself that this Monkey within is not you.

You can question the thoughts it is throwing out. Then the thoughts begin to feel not so serious, or 100% true, or absolute, or important.

When you ANSWER questions like the ones offered in The Work (below) then some bigger part of you gets to have a look. The Observer.

How do you know where to begin? How do you know which thoughts you are thinking that you might want to question?

The thoughts that scare you or make you mad, sad, or unhappy.

And in the middle of the Monkey Mind screaming forest of sounds, you have to grab just ONE of the thoughts and look at it in depth…investigate it.

I need to figure this out, I must calm down, I have to have an answer, I need to know, I need help….

Is it true? Even if you think it IS true, can you absolutely know that it’s true?

How do you react when you’re believing the Monkey Thought? The one that seems so serious and important and real? Do you notice how stressful it is?

Who would you be or WHAT would you be if you didn’t even believe what that Monkey Mind was saying?

Who would you be if you were watching, but not in the middle of the tornado swirling, the cacophony of insane ideas and sounds, or if there was 85 kinds of music playing at once and you didn’t freak out?

Who would you be if you didn’t have to figure it out, or try to calm down, or interpret the situation, or find THE answer, or fix it, or get away from that person, or get more, or do more, or be different than you are?

This exercise of asking oneself who you would be without the stressful thoughts is what it is like to allow the whole situation, the whole predicament, the whole story…to be as it is without trying to change it anymore, mentally.

“The ego thinks we would become indifferent to everything and uncaring in the face of this nonresistance. But actually something different happens. Instead of being uncaring, we actually come into a deeper and more intimate relationship with what’s happening. We become very deeply connected….This opens up a door within us for an entirely different response—a response that’s not based in opposition.”~Adyashanti

What if all your stressful thoughts are not really YOU? What if all your worries don’t really matter? What if you let go?

What if there’s no perfect solution to the problem? What if you can’t fix it? What if there’s nothing you can do about it and it’s OK? More than OK?

“Having been reduced to nothing, nothing may then express itself. This expression of nothingness is love. Love is without a source and without an object, it has always been present.”~ Steven Harrison

Love,
Grace

Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. $215. To register click HERE now and then send me an email grace@workwithgrace.com.

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June 2013! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.

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

 

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No Need To Go Anywhere In This World

It’s amazing what having a bit of extra time, changing up your routine, altering your daily environment, or setting up vacation time can do to mix up your mental activity.

Right now I am on a vacation that is a reunion with dear friends I’ve known for 25 years. My thoughts prior to the vacation were that there would be tons of group activity and I may have to sneak away to get some of my introverted recharge time.

This is not the way it’s turned out. I’ve had free time with my own thoughts, my book, the beach, tropical weather…gathering in the evening only under a big moon with friends after slow days.

Outside the scenery is gorgeous. The movie right now, my particular movie of life, has iguanas, mangoes, waiters with trays of drinks walking by, blue tiled swimming pools, baking heat, pelicans, waves crashing.

Inside the movie is this mind, responding, having thoughts, occasionally getting snagged on some ideas or images. It is busy, running, never stopping its conversation about EVERYTHING.

The mind has new things to comment on in this new environment. And more TIME. Nothing scheduled.

For some people, empty, open time can be tricky. The mind has an opportunity to talk louder than ever, without busyness to distract it.

Funny, but the mind can get so loud for people when they are done with their jobs, for example, that they fill their evenings with watching TV or playing games, just to get away from their minds. This can happen in an even bigger way when they are on “vacation”.

I find one of the best ways to work with the mind in these kinds of chatterbox moments, when time is available for the Committee to get VERY loud, is to start writing down the most fearful, infuriating, sad or painful thoughts.

This may be writing in a journal for some, but for others the thoughts may be simple and clear. To see the stressful thoughts is very powerful, more clarifying than you may know.

Empty time. What are your thoughts? I should be exercising, I should be writing, I should be working, I need to eat something, I want activity, I wonder what “x” is doing (about 20 people may float across your consciousness), I wonder what I should do for next year’s workshop, I should work on my business today, etc, etc.  

And these are only the thoughts that are commenting on “productivity”. There may also be comments on people with whom you’ve had difficult relationships, unresolved communication, painful moments.

Back again to just watching. See if you can actually just watch, even if only for 2 minutes, without “doing” something or reacting.

In Horrible Food Wonderful Food in the past couple of weeks a wonderful participant was able to practice slowing down the way she usually experienced and ate a kind of chocolate she loves.

She opened the chocolate and then waited, watching her mind comment, but not allowing it to take over and consume her (so that she in turn would then consume). She was amazed to find that she drove home in her car without eating, as she normally would have, and then found she didn’t want it anymore.

Just a little waiting and watching can change everything. EVERYTHING. This means waiting before you act, slowing what you say down, slowing what you do down, not acting when you’re in the thick of a fearful or vengeful or aggressive or bored moment.

In the hours that pass most recently, on this thing called a vacation (stepping into a different scene than the usual life, if there is a “usual” life) my mind is still here, and so is my inner observer, enjoying and watching all of THIS.

Let your mind run, and let it show you what is real and not real! It is safe to look at your busy, busy mind, especially when your life is more empty on the outside and you have more time, in those moments later at night, when the outside of you is not so busy.

I notice as I let myself watch the ideas, the loud voices saying that I need, should, want in this place that is like paradise on the outside, it doesn’t matter what it looks like or where I am. The inner world is what matters most of all to me. I am sure to you, too.

You don’t need to go anywhere to explore it.

There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. 

There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine.   

O traveler, if you are in search of That  

Don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.

——

This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.  

This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth.  

To be one with the truth for just a moment,  

Is worth more than the world and life itself.
~Rumi

Love, Grace

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm.
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. To register for either weekend workshop, click here! Fill in the workshop fee after you click the Buy button at the bottom of the page. You can use paypal or any credit card (you don’t need a paypal account).

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.

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What Is A Belief?

What is a belief?

It’s a simple question, but not such a simple answer unless you’ve thought about it a lot.

All this talk about “beliefs” and how great it is to question them….but let’s start from the beginning today. (Enter soundtrack “Let’s Start At The Very Beginning” from A Sound of Music).

In Websters: An acceptance that something is true or that something exists. Something that one accepts as true or real; a firmly held conviction or opinion.

Nowhere does it actually say that it IS true or real. Just accepted as true or real.

Bruce Di Marsico who developed and taught the Option Method of inquiry before he died defined a belief as an assumption that something is true, an assumption that it is fact. He said that a belief is not the proof of truth. A belief about a thing’s existence is not the same as its existence.

I once heard a belief described in an academic lecture as something that is repeatedly thought over and over again.

How interesting! It is just something THOUGHT, over and over and over. It’s like the mind’s eye is scanning the world, the environment, our experience, and it is saying “Is it true now? Yes! Because look at this situation!” And then a year later “And how about now? Yes! This proves it to be true!”

The mind keeps finding evidence and support for what it has assumed, perhaps from a very very young age.

I am a loser. See! I must be–my wife just left me, my bank account just got emptied, I just lost my house, my son hates me, that person doesn’t want me, I can’t make any money, I’m a drunk, I have cancer, I broke my wrist, I am not happy.

Byron Katie offers this question to help us dive into greater awareness of our convictions, opinions and belief systems: WHERE’S YOUR PROOF?

A beginning starting place is to find out why you believe what you believe. Don’t dismiss it, even if it seems childish. See what your proof is….and notice if you don’t have any. That’s OK too. It doesn’t mean you have to change your mind.

You have to see what you believe in order to see other possibilities. You have to see what you believe in order to find out what is hurting you, what is bringing about your unhappiness.

“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.”~Tao Te Ching #1

Naming your beliefs is the doorway to freedom. Start there…

Love, Grace

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 Noon – 6 pm.
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. To register for either weekend workshop, click here!Fill in the workshop fee after you click the Buy button at the bottom of the page. You can use paypal or any credit card (you don’t need a paypal account).

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.

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

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Being Simple Is Enough

It can be an immense relief to hear that keeping things simple is enough. And worrisome.

Really? I mean, I have to THINK and FEEL about all this….life, relationships, my history, my plans. Tons of things happen every day. This is a complicated world!

But today….you can take a moment to stop. Right now while you read, even, or right afterwards. Noticing what is around, without the mind working at it.

Like those times when you let go and stop analyzing, trying to understand, seeking, grabbing….maybe when you give up and walk away. Quitting the battle. Gently.

Many great teachers of wisdom suggest relaxing, just leaving everything the way it is.

“When we dare to doubt what we are told and take a fresh look at what’s going on, we are in for lots of pleasant and fascinating and useful surprises. A new and more satisfying way of life begins to open up, just by noticing what we see.”~ Douglas Harding

All that is necessary is to notice what you see, what you feel, right here in this present moment.

Sometimes having someone with you to ask questions, or be with you in the silence, to have a conversation allows you to keep noticing.

What might you do today, if all you needed to do was to notice what is happening in the present? This may include your noticing that you are thinking, in the present, about the future or about the past.

It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, to think….or to think A LOT about the past or present.

How wonderful, though, to not need to find any answers. The project is only noticing. Like Pema Chodron says about herself, when she discovers she is thinking again…”thinking!”

Nothing more. Simply noticing is enough. See for yourself.

Love, Grace

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Addicted To Your Thinking

The process of addiction is something humans have experienced for centuries. We all immediately have a picture in our minds of what addiction looks like…a person doing some wild activity or ingesting something that causes a change in their experience.

We usually have visions of drug addicts or alcoholics lying in the street or sleeping all day. People in bad shape physically.

But addiction can be subtle. VERY subtle. As subtle as a thought.

The mind is busy. It’s running from the moment you open your eyes after sleeping. There is unconsciousness, then consciousness, repeating itself over and over.

The mind loves to think about success, solving problems, keeping safe, and staying comfortable. If there is a perceived threat…it will often kick into high gear, if we haven’t learned that “high gear” mode doesn’t always work that well.

People in a cycle of some addictive process where they use a strong substance like alcohol, or engage in some intense behavior (like crazy spending and shopping) tend to hate feeling strong, uncomfortable or painful emotions.

The thing is, most of us don’t like feeling uncomfortable emotions. But it’s trickier to identify if our attempt to get away from them becomes quiet, more subtle, softer.

Adyashanti, a wonderful spiritual teacher who I mention fairly often, talks about all of us being addicts. Addicted to thinking about ourselves. To moving AWAY from what is happening inside us, away from discomfort.

Excitement is a strong, powerful surge inside humans that usually is thought of as good. It definitely can take you away from other, more unpleasant feelings. When someone is trapped in the addiction cycle, there is sadness or pain, then the thought of the THING that might help you feel better…..oh goody!

The thing that might help you feel better could be planning obsessively for the future, dreaming of your big trip or your new house. The thing that might help you feel better is exercising, maybe even for 2 – 3 hours. The thing that might help you feel better is talking with the person you have a crush on, watching pornography, surprising someone with a gift, donating to a worthy cause (Dr. Frederick Wolverton, a wonderful addiction specialist and therapist, calls this the Oprah Syndrome).

These subtle forms of reaching towards feeling better and moving away from what is present DO have fewer consequences than blatant escapist addiction activities. Thank goodness we don’t wake up in a strange hotel room wondering how we got there.

But the mind in all those situations is committed to NOT staying with what is true. It likes to escape from it. Until you let it have its voice.

Right in that experience when we feel “bad” if we can identify what we are believing and thinking, then we will not have to work to get back to happiness or balance. We take a deep breath and stay, right here. We do not frantically, or even softly, jump into the urge to get away from this troubling place that is HERE and NOW.

This, right here, is not good enough. I am not good enough. Here and Now is not happy, not peaceful. This needs to change!

“Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being……All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.”~Eckhart Tolle

Addicted to the noise of thinking. Addicted to seeking salvation from this present moment, in the next thing we do (in the future).

Good news. It’s possible to stop. In fact, there is a part of us all that is silent. Not noisy at all.

You can investigate this moment and what your mind is thinking. There is something beyond the busy mind that observes, that is calm and sane.

“Now is not quite good enough”—is it true? Absolutely for all time, 100% true without a doubt?

Who would you be without this thought? If you waited for a second, just to make sure this moment doesn’t have some kind of joy present within it?

What would it be like to experience the opposite of that uncomfortable thought?

NOW IS COMPLETELY AND ENTIRELY GOOD ENOUGH. AND SO AM I.

Love, Grace

 

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Falling Off A Cliff Is Exciting

Sometime last year, I was startled at the sight of the cover of National Geographic.

It was a photo of a young man standing on a very thin ledge at Yosemite National Park in the US. This ledge rested in the middle of a massive face of rock called Half Dome, hundreds of feet from the ground, hundreds of feet from the top.

The young man had no ropes, no equipment of any kind.

I guess in the world of rock climbers, at some point someone had the thought “Gosh, I’d be able to climb Half Dome FASTER without all these annoying ropes and safety devices”. It’s called Free Climbing.

Now, many people would consider this a huge risk, even crazy.

I kept thinking about the photo. I was inside that body on the cliff, looking down at my shoes barely fitting on the ledge, looking out at pure space and air. It would only take one small movement, grabbing at an edge that broke or moved, the foot moving 3 centimeters off good support, and the body could fall to the death.

The nervous part of me was alarmed. I didn’t mind that the climbers were achieving these feats, but something got stirred up when standing right in the shoes of that man on the cliff.

Where would the body land if it fell–would other friends and fellow-climbers be standing right there at the bottom? What would they see? What would the fall be like on the way down?

For some the images can be so frightening just to imagine death, accidents, terror….we only have to see a photo. The reaction isn’t as far as we think from being in the middle of the actual event.

But, it’s only truly terrifying when we start believing that this image is TERRIBLE. The worst that could happen: Death is horrifying. I need to preserve my life. I need to be careful. Everyone should be careful, especially children. I need to live. That guy on the cliff shouldn’t die until he’s older.

The thing is, being afraid of what COULD happen is really only a story about what has already happened in the past and deciding that the story is BAD.

No one really knows exactly and precisely what happens the second we’re falling, dying, the moments after, everything beyond that moment. There may be people who return from that experience of “dying” to live and who have stories to tell, but even that is THEIR experience, not ours from this body’s perspective. It’s a great Mystery, absolutely unknown.

“What I love most about reality is that it’s always the story of a past. And what I love most about the past is that it’s over. And because I’m no longer insane, I don’t argue with it. Arguing with it feels unkind inside me. Just to notice what is, is love.” ~Byron Katie

So what IS reality? Some people love to move their bodies up a cliff and feel the joy, power, expression, the urge to GO, to focus, to stay in the perfect flow, to play, to win, to try. Some of these people “fall” off the cliff and their bodies die.

I see that people die at every age, in every circumstance you could ever dream of. Young, old, taking risks, taking no risk at all.

Without the terror of death or accidents, I notice that today I feel excited, adventurous, peaceful, happy, in the flow. I notice it’s fun to take risks, ones just right for me. I notice I’m having so much fun in so many areas, I have no interest in climbing cliffs, and yet today could be my last in this body, it’s totally possible.

I notice what a Playground this place is, people running all over the place taking all kinds of rides. When I feel uncertainty, anxiety, worry when thinking about the young man on the cliff, I write my concepts down and investigate them. I have to stop and slow down to do this. Are they really absolutely true?

Death comes along. We’ll all get to participate in the adventure. That’s Reality. “It doesn’t wait for our vote, our permission, or our opinion—-have you noticed? ~BK

If I were to fall off a cliff today, it seems most wonderful if I felt joy doing whatever I was doing in the moment before falling, even during the actual fall. Relaxed, thrilled, entering the Mystery. Knowing nothing about what will happen next. Because I actually don’t.

Love, Grace

P.S. If you register today, July 23rd at 9:00 pm Pacific time, you can still join Our Wonderful Sexuality even though we’ve met once (but that’s the deadline). Horrible Food Wonderful Food has room for one if you register by Thursday, July 26 at 9:00 pm Pacific, and on July 26th at 10:00 am the fabulous Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven will begin, to look at an important relationship in your life and where it was, or currently is, troubling.

Always receive these Grace Notes in your Inbox for free by entering your email to the mailing list. This list will never be sold or shared, these writings are offered with love for the purpose of inspiring peace and kindness in any situation in life.

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Egos Wanted For Hazardous Journey

While reading recently, I came across a wonderful reprint of a 1913 Help Wanted Ad written by the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton:

MEN WANTED for Hazardous Journey, Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.

I laughed as I thought of what a Help Wanted ad would look like for the spiritual journey surrendering to What Is:

EGOS WANTED for Hazardous Journey, zero wages, bitter emptiness, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, confusion and discomfort, safe return impossible. Honor and recognition will mean nothing after success. 

Jed McKenna, author of Spiritual Enlightenment The Damndest Thing(and two other great books) says, if we only knew beforehand what it would be like to wake up to reality, we would run the other direction without looking back.

This is from the perspective of the ME, though. The one that wants what it wants when it wants it. The one afraid of death, physical ailments, mean people, earthquakes, starvation, losing.

If I had gotten My Own Way then I would have the powers offered in most fairy tales since the first stories were told: I could snap my fingers and have material objects appear, I could wiggle my nose and put spells on people, I would be able to fly like Wonder Woman.

Most of all, if I ruled the world, there would be no suffering. I have my list of what involves suffering and what causes it, and I would eliminate those things.

However, as Byron Katie says, I don’t get a vote. God did not actually ask for MY opinion on how to run the Universe.

“The ego’s plan for salvation centers around holding grievances. It maintains that, if someone else spoke or acted differently, if some external circumstance or event were changed, you would be saved….The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself.”~A Course In Miracles

It is actually, ironically (for the me-centered little self) a great relief, a peace beyond anything I ever imagined, to let go of anything being anyone else’s fault. Inside the center of us all there is an empty beauty, a mysterious, joyful excitement. Happiness.

“The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. HOLD ON TO THE CENTER”. ~ Tao Te Ching #5

Come join the Hazardous Journey. Let’s face it, you already have. Might as well accept it….it’s more fun that way.

Love, Grace

 

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Do Something! Now!

A lovely man reminded me recently of the wonderful quote by Byron Katie, who said “I invite you to do nothing for the rest of your life”.

But!? How could this be possible? What does it mean?

For me, it is a reminder of the quiet, yet profound idea that I do not need to “do” anything in order to be happy in this moment.

Adyashanti, one of my favorite teachers who I mention often here, once spoke at a retreat I attended about this topic of Doing Nothing. He suggested seeing if we could not do anything because we thought we should, needed to, or would be better off if we did it or worse off if we don’t. He asked “can you just sit on the couch and not get up without a thought about getting up?”

The mind loves to chatter away with suggestions about Doing. It has quite an edge, have you noticed? It’s not exactly friendly. (Picture a wild cowboy screaming with guns firing in the air and spurs jamming into the horse, galloping at top speed)!

  • Get moving now! Go Go Go!
  • Stop procrastinating!
  • You think you’re going to get somewhere by napping? Do you think life is a spa?
  • You need to meditate more, control your impulses, be more disciplined!
  • If you aren’t happy…then DO SOMETHING! NOW!

So what if we really stopped doing anything? How strange. What if all the drive and busy-ness is unnecessary?

Sometimes a reverse strategy that the mind will offer does indeed go something like this: “Fine. If this is going to be too much for you, then give up. You’re not really up to this anyway. All your goals are unrealistic dreams, why bother….”

I am not talking about THAT kind of Not Doing; deflated, sad, falling short, heavy, paralyzed. This is just too much, I’m not enough.

The kind of Not Doing I mean is simply stopping the auto-responder in your mind, the one that believes everything you think. Here comes the thought “This place is a mess, I should tidy up the house” or “I really need to do my taxes” or “I should make those phone calls” and right on the heels of the thought about Doing is a bad feeling.

There’s a picture or thought of how you want it to be….clean and tidy house….money in your bank account….lots of conversations….but then another thought or two or 97 that stream forward in reaction to your thought about Doing Something: “I hate cleaning, it’s too much work, it’s always ME that does it, I have no help, I hate taxes, it’s too complicated, I don’t understand the instructions, I don’t want to pay them, I am lonely, I have to be polite when talking to people, I have to put on a good attitude, I’ll be on the phone too long….”

The kind of stopping I am talking about is different from this kind of non-doing. It is like I am hitting the Pause button. No emergencies. A feeling of assessing the situation with a deep breath. This kind of not-doing is the kind that feels open, mysterious, waiting, expectant, and kind.

Gangaji, a spiritual teacher in California, likes to say “Just Stop“.

I love questioning the thoughts that cram themselves in for attention, trying to get me to MOVE IT. That is a most wonderful way to stop.

I notice I have a resistance to what I see, a messy house. I ask myself, can I really know it’s true that it should be tidy NOW? Can I know that it won’t be fun to start cleaning?

When I find that the answer is No, there is no needing to push myself to do it. I know what my job is, and I do it. I naturally start putting things away, washing the dishes, noticing how fun it is. What a cute house I have, what an amazing little cottage, how incredible that these hands can put things inside cupboards and wipe counters off.

What pleasure I find in this present moment, where an idea has entered that I need to Do Something. So many ideas, not possible to do them all. What will I choose, from amongst all this fun stuff?

I keep everything slow and steady, soft, no pushing. My relationship with my thinking is gentle. Something inside of me is much bigger than my thoughts. There is an empty wide vast space that is me that can hold all this thinking, all these instructions directed toward me Doing Something.

Everyone has this mystery! Breathe deeply and wait. Nothing terrible will happen if you wait a moment, if you wait to see if it’s really true that you HAVE to do something to prevent unhappiness.

“He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm. He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far. He who tries to shine dims his own light. He who defines himself can’t know who he really is. He who has power over others can’t empower himself. He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures. If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.”~ Tao Te Ching #2

Love, Grace

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Relentlessly Thinking I Should Be Different

A thoughtful reader and inquirer wrote to ask me about the stress she experiences when she believes she needs to relax, lighten up, or stop working so much in order to be happy. You may the post from last week I Need To Relax To Be Successful.

This is such a great discovery, to realize that even with gentle-sounding thoughts and concepts that seem like good ideas, we can start a thread of thinking about how we could improve.

The thoughts go something like this (spoken from one who knows):

  • I should relax more
  • I should be kinder to myself and others
  • If I only knew how to calm down, my life would be more pleasant
  • I shouldn’t let that person bug me
  • If I meditated more, practiced my spiritual path more, then I would be a better person, more loving, and happier
  • I want to spread peace and not war
  • I allowed people in my life to hurt me, it’s my fault
  • If only I had a thicker skin, jeez!
  • If I could just remember to count to ten or have more patience, my kids would be happier
  • I should love myself

What I found is that when I start to get into these kinds of thoughts about how I don’t measure up to the best I could be….frustration, tiredness, low-energy, sadness, disappointment.

One of my favorite exercises in Katie’s book I Need Your Love, Is It True? is to consider the worst you have ever done. Almost everyone on the planet, upon thinking about the WORST they have ever done, feels terrible. We are sure we could have done it differently. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.

Katie suggests that we couldn’t have done it any better. No better, no different. It went exactly the way it needed to go based on who we were, who they were, what we were all believing at the moment.

We were innocently believing our thoughts. That was the way of it, that is the way of it. We were doing the best we could have done.

Notice how the mind will say “OK, I did the best I could in that moment…and IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!”

You don’t really have to know consciously what you are actually believing, with perfect wording. You can question simply that you are not doing it well, that you could be doing better.

Who would you be without the thought that you are not good enough at relaxing? What if you didn’t evaluate yourself as needing to improve in any way at all, right in this moment?

What if you shouldn’t even love yourself right now? What if it is not possible to be a better parent? What if you are not awakened because you are not supposed to be? What if you are not successfully raking in money or working at a good job because your current status is just right?

“All that’s required of me is that I be good enough just to sit in this chair now. It doesn’t matter what my mind says…..Only a huge ego could say that you’re supposed to be doing something that you’re not doing. If it’s required, just start moving toward it–get the job done. And if you can’t get the job done, it’s because it’s not required.” ~ Byron Katie 

It is so strange for the mind to not have an improvement plan. But how amazing to find out what happens without one.

I was always so sure NOTHING would happen, or BAD things would happen without an improvement plan. Just try for a few minutes, a few hours, seeing what happens if you have no plan, if you don’t know what is supposed to happen now.

See what happens if all that is required is being you, no “making” yourself do, think, say, or be anything. You may find that life begins to live itself, without all the stressful thinking.

Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity. If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow.  When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death come, you are ready. Tao Te Ching #16

Don’t worry about not being where you’d like to be, yet. You are a part of all that moves in turmoil and then returns to balance, to the common source of serenity. You are on your way. You are supported.

Love, Grace

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