Grace Notes

August 7, 2025

psychological prison

Suffering from some kind of compulsion?

You can start right now on looking at any addictive pattern you’ve entered. Keep reading.

It almost doesn’t matter what you do.

The outcome bothers you.

Some people can’t stop cleaning, pulling at their hang nails, watching TV, thinking about their “ex”.

And then you attack yourself for being such a dunce, for eating wheat or sugar again, for texting her, for buying something on amazon. Because there’s obviously something wrong with you.

You know those mean thoughts we’ve been talking about?

What if you set those really intense, heavy, negative, mean thoughts that you yell at yourself or other people completely aside?

This is a cement layer that sometimes seems can’t be penetrated.

The self-hate or frustration is so vicious, you just want to get some relief, get away, rest, and find some solid ground.

Your own mind seems to be an enemy.

You give yourself the nastiest motivational speeches you’ve ever heard.

If anyone else spoke to you that way, they’d be called totally insane, or seriously abusive.

But instead of trying to get away from that Mean Voice today, how about let’s see if there’s something else present, that you may not be quite seeing directly, that you’re believing to be true?

This might be hard, but it’s worth it.

Answer these questions:

What are you really hungry for, besides food (or whatever else you use to get distracted)?

What is not exactly satisfying, in your life?

Where do you not feel satiated, full, or comforted?

What about your life feels empty?

Do you feel dependent on anything? What?

Where do you feel unsafe, nervous, or terrified…past or present?

When do you say “yes” when you’d prefer to say “no”?

Enough questions, for now.

What are your answers?

I once heard very long ago that talking about difficult topics is the way through them.

Having a dialogue.

“The finest way to heal or deepen a relationship is dialogue”.

~ Anthony De Mello

If food is something you get angst over, you’re the same as I was.

What I know is that food is required for life, apparently. It’s a source of life. It’s pleasurable. It’s comforting and soothing. At just the right amounts, in balance.

Too much food is sickening, frustrating, and uncomfortable. Too little food is desperate, condemning, horrifying.

If you overeat, or undereat, something inside of you believes it is worth the discomfort….the behavior and the experience is giving you something you think you need.

Maybe there’s something else, a ghost hunger, that you’d rather NOT see.

Maybe it’s frightening, very sad, or feels hopeless to see this thing you want or wish for, so part of you prefers not to see it.

You don’t ever have to look at your thoughts…..but if you don’t….you may keep having the yo-yo problem of being in control, then out of control, up then down, barely relaxed for a moment, then panicked. Swinging all over the place, and then making a new diet plan.

The inquirers who enroll in Eating Peace Experience (starting Sunday) are bravely going to take a look at this “problem” and we will be doing a deep exploration of the self with food.

You can too, sitting quietly by yourself wherever you live, to write what seems to be really true for you.

Once you identify your struggle in a way that is beyond the mean songs that sing “I can’t control myself” or “I’m hideously fat” or “I’m a rotten person” then you’ll be able to question what you’re believing.

Once you question what you’re believing, you may find your urges and cravings begin to make more sense, and then to dissolve.

You may relax.

“…we are in a psychological prison created by our minds. Until we begin to realize how confined we are, we will not be able to find our way out. Neither will we find our way out by struggling against the confines we have inherited from our parents, society, and culture. It is only by beginning to examine and realize the falseness within our minds that we begin to awaken an intelligence that originates from beyond the realm of thinking.” ~ Adyashanti

Beyond the realm of thinking!? Wow, really?

It means you don’t have to be a brilliant thinker to become free from compulsive behavior.

“God doesn’t make junk. It’s wonderful to realize that it’s not a possibility. There is no mistake.” ~ Byron Katie

Just for today, quiet yourself, and write down some of your stressful, repetitive thoughts. Once they’re in writing, you’ll be able to take them into inquiry. You’ll be able to dialogue with yourself.

You can do this.

If you’d like guidance and an adventure in awareness to help end the off-balance behavior around eating or thinking about food….join us in Eating Peace Experience.

Read about and enroll in Eating Peace Experience HERE.

Here’s the schedule:

All sessions meet at 10:30am-Noon PT/ 1:30-3pm ET/ 7:30pm-9pm CET

Sunday, August 3 Class 1
Sunday, August 10 Class 2
Sunday, August 17, Class 3
Sunday, August 31, Class 4
Sunday, Sept 7, Class 5
Friday, Sept 12, Class 6 * (different day)
Sunday, Sept 28, Class 7
Sunday, October 5, Class 8
Monday, October 13, Class 9 *(different day)
Sunday, October 26, Class 10
Sunday, November 2, Class 11
Sunday, November 9, Class 12

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you’d like to book a complimentary 15 min consult to ask questions or just meet me and find out more about Eating Peace, you can do that HERE.

July 29, 2025July 29, 2025

the voice

I have a really close friend I met in 2005 at the Byron Katie School for The Work.

We’ve talked almost daily ever since.

Not exactly like the way you might think.

What we do is send voice messages to each other.

This leaves us room to listen when we can, even if it’s the next day or a few days go by, and respond when ready.

This just happened organically. We didn’t try to make it happen.

Something about it unfolded in this smooth way that works so beautifully.

However, it does make for a very interesting relationship….

….kind-of A.I.-ish before its time: we don’t hang out with each other physically.

We live thousands of miles apart.

(She did come to my wedding in 2012).

The other day, we were exchanging messages about The Voice.

No, not a show or a band.

The mean voice.

The one that shows up in your head that’s very, very harsh and can be downright violent.

Some psychologists label it “intrusive thought”.

My friend had noticed it after she spoke publicly.

“You shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have opened your mouth, you should never speak in situations where many people are giving you attention, you need to improve yourself, there’s something broken about your brain.”

Long ago, I heard Byron Katie say something that caused my ears to perk up:

“Victims are vicious”.

No one wants be a “victim”.

And yet, what I had to admit was….when hearing that voice, it was acting like a perpetrator, very brutal and attacking.

Which left some other part of me a victim.

I used to have acutely around one topic in particular: my behaviors with food (although it would expand in a flash to just about any other behavior, it could find fault with anything).

When I ate a lot, or binge-ate, or grazed from one end of town to the other, or looked in the mirror, or thought about what I should or shouldn’t be eating, or had urges for junk food, I had a running voice that also said “you are lower than dirt, something’s really wrong with you, you need to get it together.”

It was bitter, focused, undiscerning.

So one of the very first things any of us can do, who experience an addictive/repetitive behavioral process of any kind, is to relax and recognize the presence of this aspect of living with mind.

What if it does NOT mean there’s something broken about your brain, just because it exists?

Yesterday, I heard the Voice talking in my own head about this recent webinar that had no slides, no script and no selling.

There is a desire within me to support people who suffer like I suffered and to help them move from that entrenched position. Or be a part of the journey that helps them get unstuck.

Can you absolutely know that this is true that you need to change, snap out of it, get over it, stop being who you are?

I can’t know it’s true.

How do you react when you believe you’ve got to change?

Now…who would you be WITHOUT that thought?

WHAT???!!!

But.

I’ve been trying to fix, adjust, improve or change myself when it comes to eating, feeling, thinking, acting for “x” years (long time)!

How could I NOT want change?

Try it on for a moment here now. Just right now. Relax without having a single drop of a future, or need to change.

Rest a moment.

Notice how connected you are to everything in your environment, sharing the air, the furniture, the space, the people (if there are any). Sharing your life with this thing called “food”, having a brain that thinks and a body that moves.

What would it really be like if you did not go to war with yourself to improve?

What if you did NOT have a broken brain?

What if that wasn’t even possible?

It can be exciting. Peacefully thrilling. Restful. Simple. Open. Mysterious.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t a profound curiosity at the way things move in this life, in the mind and the body.

Turning this belief around: I do not have to change. My thinking has to change–especially about the brain. Change has to come to “me”.

Could any of these turnarounds be just as true, or truer?

Yes. I can find how I am still alive, studying life and the world and myself in it and I’m not “done” even if some part of me believes I haven’t changed, or that I need to. I can notice life has its own timing. That even though I’ve eaten in crazy ways, I’ve also experienced joy, gratitude, peace and happiness here on earth.

Yes. I’m busy questioning my thinking. I’m learning by turning things around. I’m learning that what I’ve assumed to be true….often isn’t. Maybe always isn’t.

Yes. I can hold still and be open to transformation meeting me, not think of myself as needing to chase after it. I can make friends with life, my environment, my mind, my body, with food.

Love is here in the present. Here I am with all my imperfection, a human being, being lived.

“Seeking is arguing with what is.” ~ Salvadore Poe

Who would you be without your violent story, especially when it comes to eating, food, your feelings, your body?

Can you accept everything, including yourself, as it is for just for this moment, now?

Eating Peace Experience starts next week on Sunday, visit this page to learn more HERE. We have a lovely group. We will be doing a deep dive into exploring the voices that contribute to off-balance eating, thoughts of food, and emotions.

“When your heart is cheerful and at peace, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, whether you live or die. You can talk or stay silent, and it’s all the same. Some people think that silence is more spiritual than speech, that meditation or prayer brings you closer to God than watching television or taking out the garbage. That’s the story of separation…..You can’t let go of a stressful thoughts, because you didn’t create it in the first place. A thought just appears. You’re not doing it. You can’t let go of what you have no control over. Once you’ve questioned the thought, you don’t let go of it, it lets go of you. It no longer means what you thought it meant. The world changes, because the mind that projected it has changed. Your whole life changes, and you don’t even care, because you realize that you already have everything you need.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

July 23, 2025July 23, 2025

Eating Peace Experience starts soon: question your thinking, change your behavior

Have you had trouble with eating, food, body image, fretting about when, how, what, if you should eat?

I used to think something was deeply wrong with me.

Even if I didn’t overeat, graze eat, binge eat, panic-eat….I was obsessively thinking about how to avoid food and suppress my cravings and make sure I did NOT eat.

I hated being out of control, and I hated being in control.

Life just wasn’t easy with food.

(Really, it wasn’t easy with my thinking).

Years ago, I began sharing more about what I was like, what happened, and how my identity changed from “f*#&d up around food” to peaceful with food.

While I had done a lot of mind and feelings work of all kinds: therapy, est, context trainings, course in miracles, group therapy, Overeaters Anonymous….when I did The School for The Work with Byron Katie, something clicked for me about all I had ever been doing when it came to food and eating and the long, powerful journey it felt like I had been on with this impulse to either eat food or think about eating food.

It suddenly struck me one day that I had believed there wasn’t enough for me and I wasn’t safe with my own experience and emotions, and often my reaction was violence against myself in the form of self-defeating and self-critical thoughts.

I realized the urge to eat or avoid eating both came from a deep place of “something’s not right”.

Let’s just say, I had a suspicious relationship with reality and life. It looked unpredictable.

I thought of myself as unpredictable–and that this was a shame.

Over the years, investigating all the dynamics involved with eating food, I started sharing in these kinds of notes. I started talking on youtube (!) and I taught courses to guide people through this wild journey with compulsive behavior and uncover peace within.

People have told me what I share applies to all addictive thinking (not just food) and I get it.

It’s pretty true.

The process of becoming peaceful within starts with looking at the disturbance, but it doesn’t really matter what the disturbance actually is or how it looks when acted out.

Some of us feel a disturbance, and our habitual thinking moves to reach for food, or avoid it and start obsessing about it.

There’s almost always a flavor of negativity or fear about ourselves and who we are being, how we’re showing up, what we’re “doing”.

I happen to have years of experience in my own journey, and working with others, to end the battle with eating…..

…..but humans do nutty behavior with just about anything.

My study of this for several decades has given me some insight on my own recovery, and how others change from compulsive behaviors as well, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, shopping or eating.

This work of addressing something that looks like addiction is really about ending the addiction to thinking.

Yes, I said “addiction” to thinking.

What do I mean by that? Why would someone be addicted to thinking, of all things?

I mean how we trap ourselves in compulsive mental loops, trying ultimately to solve a problem, or to get away from our feelings…to numb ourselves, to distract ourselves, to escape the moment as quickly as possible.

I know not everyone expresses this with eating woes.

When you feel like you have to DO something (eat, drink, smoke, check your emails, stay on facebook, game, over-exercise, read, fix yourself)….

….are you afraid of what would happen if you didn’t take action?

What’s the worst that could happen if you hold still?

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

(LOL).

Some of you might remember me telling my first meditation retreat story.

When I first went on a meditation retreat I thought I was being tortured by 1000 tiny ants hammering on my head and inside my skin.

I woke up every night at 2:30 or 3:00 am.

I was on a wooded wild mountaintop, with distant views of the Pacific ocean very far away (the same retreat center I’ll be teaching at in one month!–more about that later).

At night, there were no lights, and lemme tell you, not one view. Pitch dark.

I was sharing a room with a whole line-up of women all on cots, all sleeping. I would disturb them if I turned on any lights.

I realized I could only sneak out to the foyer, get a cup of tea in the wee hours, and stand there.

I was trapped!!! It was sheer torture!!!

I joke around, but we all know what was really disturbing me was not the silence, the stillness, or the lack of entertainment.

It was me facing my own inner life of thought.

My thoughts, my feelings, my awareness of the world.

It wasn’t exactly….good.

Who would you be without your beliefs about the dangers of life, or the dangers of this world, or the dangers of eating food, or the dangers of not eating food?

Who would you be without your escape behavior?

Who would you be if you took a very deep breath, and paused, and noticed your body and your environment without attacking it, or defending against it?

You might say: I don’t know who I’d be!

But not knowing feels somehow much better than KNOWING you are totally in danger, or that you’re a bad person (and so are others) or that this world is threatening.

So even though I don’t have all the answers, that’s for sure, I do notice something remarkable.

It’s OK to not know.

Right now, I’m entirely safe and quiet and peaceful, even while I’m typing these words.

You probably are too, if you’re reading this note.

Who might you be without the belief you’re in danger, or in trouble, or something’s wrong with you, or you’re very small and unworthy and the best way out of that troubling experience is to “do” something, grab something, eat something (whatever your thing is)?

I keep discovering that who I’d be is Not Acting Violent anymore with my eating, or anything else.

I question my thoughts, and everything else falls into place with balance.

“You cannot be nonviolent if there is any part of yourself that you are in opposition to. You are not truly serving if there is any part of yourself to which you will not extend compassion. Your love will always be conditional as long as you are excluding any part of yourself from it. Suffering cannot be healed through self-hate. Only through compassionate acceptance can suffering be healed. If we accept, if we open ourselves, life will transform us.” ~ Cheri Huber in There Is Nothing Wrong With You

Whatever your addictive thing is, even if it’s telling your troubling story about the world, you can slowly and gently unravel the knots that bind you.

Question your thinking, change your actions (eating, or anything).

You really can.

So I’m offering a very special Eating Peace Experience course for those who struggle with eating, food, weight, obsession about food….starting in only a few weeks on Sunday, August 3rd. It will run until November 9th.

Why is it extra special?

Because it’s on Sundays. I never usually offer courses on Sundays….but in looking at my schedule and all the events happening, it was the very best time. It may never happen again on Sundays.

If weekends work best for you, and you want to look at your relationship with food without violence, self-hatred, control, willpower or anger….this is the place to do it.

We meet from 10:30am-Noon Pacific Time/ 1:30pm-3pm Eastern Time/ 7:30pm-9pm Central European Time.

And here’s the deal: everyone enrolled in Eating Peace Experience will also get to join the EPIC eating peace inquiry circle and drop in to do The Work with the group twice a week (or listen to recordings) when you can.

This is an immersive high-touch program because we’re looking at altering our identification with eating as a soother to fear, with eating as a response to compulsive thinking.

We’re digging down into the depth to look at our urges to be violent, to put up shields, to grab and feel our survival is threatened.

But it’s only the survival of our thinking.

I loved everything I learned in Grace’s Eating Peace class. I continue to learn from the deceptively simple tools and jewels. More and more I discover the Life Beyond the Suffering around food. And If I forget, there’s always another chance to remember. Like each time I choose to eat. I’m choosing peace more and more often. Thanks, Grace! ~ Oregon, US

Grace is like the fairy godmother who is objectively and lovingly looking at what’s going on in behavior, thoughts and feelings. The content of the class felt comprehensive and well thought out. I would certainly recommend the course. Thank you. ~ Toronto, CA

Eating Peace Experience is a program I put my heart and soul into and continue to create and re-create with some key underlying principles at the foundation.

We work with behavior design, specifically co-created for you so that it’s safe for your unique situation. We question thoughts that keep us from feeling free with eating and food.

This program combines The Work of Byron Katie and self-inquiry with other angles to healing emotional eating. We address parts of ourselves, using Internal Family Systems work, we draw from many of the prominent and wise addiction theorists who have helped shape treatments for people who are suffering.

We are held up by thought leaders and spiritual teachers you’ve probably already explored and learned from.

We mostly look to ourselves, to find our own inner wisdom already present.

If you’d like to read more about it, visit this page HERE.

REPEATERS: Have you taken Eating Peace Experience before and ready for a tune-up, or to take yourself to the next chapter of your journey? Please hit reply and ask for the repeater code for $500 discount.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. Mount Madonna Retreat is exactly one month away. Reports are that it’s been a wonderful summer at the center and I can’t wait to be back in this beautiful setting to do The Work with you. Vincent Santos will be leading gentle yoga before breakfast and after dinner each day exclusively for our retreat participants, and we’ll be diving into The Work together all day long. Ready for a getaway? Join us here.

January 2, 2023January 2, 2023

Money. Relationships. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.

Ever feel like secretly you are BEGGING the universe, other people, an event, you yourself….to provide you with something you deeply and repetitively seem to want?

Lordy.

I say that with a sigh because of the persistence of this mind to come up with various angles on the same themes:

I want more money. I would be so happy. I would feel so generous. I would have so much less anxiety and so much more safety, fun, fulfillment.
I want more love. I would be so happy. I would feel so joyful. I would have so much less anxiety and so much more safety, satisfaction, fun.
I want more physical or emotional space. I would be so happy. I would have creative energy. I would feel generous. I would have less self-pity and more abundance.
I want more success. I would be so happy. I would feel so fulfilled. I would have pride (the good kind) and feel assurance.

It really does bring home that anything we believe we want more of in our lives generally points to the same thing: that getting this would bring happiness.

This goes even for things we don’t always love, like overeating or smoking or taking drugs.

In the split second of moving towards that experience, we feel like we’ll get a little happiness for a second from the taste of the food, the relaxation of the alcohol’s effect on the mind, the relief from the craving.

When we’re engaging in all this Wanting More, it sure does make our current condition look bad, doesn’t it?

This current state of my life, in this particular department (money, relationships, business, etc) is Not Good.

I have proof.

Those people over there are much happier. I myself used to be happier. That other time/place/experience is BETTER.

This is bad, here.

There’s an absence of the thing I want, here.

What happens when we believe this is true?

(And it sure happens fast).

We feel sad, we chase down the thing wanted like we’re on fire, we beg.

Please, please, please…..could I just win a billion dollars?

Please, please, please……could the perfect mate show up tomorrow?

Please, oh please…..could my business make a bigger difference to more people?

Who would you be without the story of begging?

I mean, what if I just stopped the begging and let things be the way they are in this moment, this situation, without pushing and pulling every which way?

I like seeing that sitting still doesn’t mean I’m never going to want anything again.

I mean, I’ll probably be thirsty in a few hours for water!

It’s the way of it.

But to question the mind’s orientation for MORE is so freeing, so exciting.

Thoughts don’t have to the be the Truth.

We can notice the thought-chain that keeps on ticking, and it’s not who we are.

We are the ones watching, hearing thought, watching it perceive the world, while something here within ourselves is silent.

We *think* we always want to be MORE of ourselves, or have more for ourselves, but that’s just thought, too. Isn’t it?

What if we’re enough already.

We are as much as we could ever be. This is it.

If you’re having trouble with money or relationships as the “more” thing your mind is endlessly talking about, and you’d like the relief and freedom of questioning your story with money, or your story about love….

….the best way I’ve ever found is in The Work of Byron Katie.

Living With Money is a course that brings us a way to identify what it is we’re thinking that hurts, like the broken record “I want more money”, and allows us to see a new way to be with money and live with it peacefully.

Live sessions to accompany this course begin on January 11th and will run every Wednesday at 9:30am PT through February 15th. Sign up now for the course and begin–and bring your questions to our live calls.

What we often notice is when it’s OK to be right where we are, things start to get easier all on their own.

Same with an important relationship in your life you might want to bring to inquiry: lover, spouse, mother, father, sister, brother, boss, co-worker.

Relationship retreat is a 4 day blitz Feb 2-5, for 3 hours each day. You will do The Work with a small group, on any stressful relationship in your life.

When you question your beliefs about your relationship, you change on the inside, and you can then be clearer, know what to do next, act with kindness and strength and possibility, and end your war with What Is.

Much love,

Grace

Upcoming ways to question your thinking, change your world:

Online annual Valentine retreat on relationships of any kind 8-11am PT daily Feb 2-5 with Nadine Ferris-France and Grace Bell Sliding Scale $275+

Everyone wanting to join an ongoing group for investigating compulsion around eating, food, body image with The Work of Byron Katie….Eating Peace Inquiry Circle meets Tuesdays 5pm PT and Thursdays 10am PT. Come to just one, or both, or watch/listen to the recordings. We have deep and awesome inquiry work happening. Join month-to-month sliding scale.

Year of Inquiry opens its doors in January only for those who want to join us the rest of the year.

March 4, 2021April 2, 2024

power of doing The Work with others

How in the heck can I do more of this inquiry work?

Or really, the true question for many (for me) was: How can I just have this thing downloaded into my brain and “get” it? And stop feeling bad?

I want peace! ASAP!

That’s what I thought when I read Loving What Is by Byron Katie, and couldn’t figure out how to really “do” The Work on my own, in my house, on my couch.

I’m an introvert! I don’t want to have to go places, join things, go to a school, take a course….waaaaaah.

Can’t this be easier?

Well.

I’ve learned something about myself as I’ve spent time in this beautiful process called questioning the mind.

It doesn’t work so much in a vacuum.

Knocking around in your own mind can be quite interesting, and yes, it can bring insight….but it’s 100 times more powerful when done with other people.

Even for introverts who like the solitary.

Maybe especially for introverts.

Those who believe they don’t like groups, just know, neither–I thought–did I.

However, they saved and changed my life.

All folks, introverted or extraverted (if you even believe in those labels) might have times where they believe people are scary, shady, untrustworthy.

The thought that there was something powerful to learn through inquiry became more important than staying home in my safe place.

So off I flew to the School for The Work.

But I gotta admit.

I chose middle rows, not too far to the front, and maybe even sometimes the back. Waaaay back.

I didn’t “turn to my neighbor” to share unless directed explicitly to do so.

And still, the burr of self-inquiry got into me.

I was an entirely changed person leaving that school. The feeling was magnificent.

The tool has never left, and expanded and broadened and gotten more vibrant over time.

Yes, things I’ve thought of as HORRIBLE have occurred in my life.

Don’t get me started.

And yet, I can hold life as the most fascinating, magnificent experience in every moment–especially those wildly difficult ones.

Especially.

So let’s do The Work again, friends. Let’s imagine and un-think and then feel and un-feel, then return to who we are without our stories.

We were this all along.

Mysterious, wild. Heart-broken, present. Willing. Looking forward to everything that happens.

Upcoming events:
*FIRST FRIDAY! Wheee! This is a completely no-fee inquiry session for anyone and everyone gathering on zoom. Come with video on or off. I won’t call on you. LOL. You’re safe. 7:45-9:15am Pacific Time. Connect here tomorrow from your timezone wherever you are by clicking HERE. Passcode “isittrue?” (don’t forget the question mark).

*Spring Retreat: Thurs 3/25-Sun 3/28 9:00am-12:30pm each day except Saturday 8:00am-9:30am followed by optional dancing online from 10:15am-11:45am. All Pacific Time. Learn more here.

*Eating Peace Inquiry Circle ongoing Membership starting April 1st. Healing at the level of mind for those suffering from compulsive behavior with food, eating or body image/weight. Live sessions, private online forum. Learn more here.

*Eating Peace Immersion Retreat April 26-May 2, 2021. Read about retreat here.

*Eating Peace Basics 101 8 week course May 5th-June 23, 2021 9am-10:30am PT here.

*Relationship Hell to Heaven: BreakUp, Divorce, Separation May 13-June 17th 9-11am PT here.

Much love,
Grace

March 1, 2021

I need more time, more love, more chances

I don’t have enough time.

Not enough time to listen to all those podcasts I’d like to hear, not enough time to read the books I’ve already purchased, not enough time to finish a book that’s half written for many years that I think I’m writing (kind of).

Not even enough time, apparently, to sit and meditate for 15 minutes this past week.

I used to meditate an hour a day, like I was taking my medicine with no question. Get quiet. Do it.

Funny how time feels scarce. Limited.

I need more of it.

So, what ARE we doing with time?

I noticed the way I spent my morning was rising, putting on a sweater and turning up the heat, moving to kitchen to make a green smoothie and boiling water for hot cacao (I’m experimenting with absence of tea or coffee–it’s rather lovely at the moment).

Now, up in my little treehouse office, I write after checking my calendar for the day and also noticing about six things I’d like to do all at once.

In only fifteen minutes,Year of Inquiry group meets–so the constant presence of a circle of inquiry has certainly entered my life no matter how much time I think I need or want or don’t have. It’s my job.

(Seriously, what a gift).

I start the zoom meeting so it’s ready while people arrive, and turn back to this inquiry–so curious.

Time.

Oh, right. I need more of it.

I’ll never finish this before the group, now in 4 minutes.

I need, I need, I need.

The song of the self with a small “s”.

It’s not a bad thing. It just is.

There’s a voice, calling out its needs. Thinking with sadness or disappointment or dread or anxiety that more is required.

I had this thought when my dad was dying almost 30 years ago.

I need more time with him.

I’ve had this thought when preparing for some retreat events: I need more time to share them, announce them, promote them.

One fantastic way to move further along this line of inquiry, is to genuinely hear what you’re telling yourself you need more time for?

I need more time for: Money-making, connections with people, learning something, accomplishing a task, being alive, enlightenment.

Once you identify what you need more time for, you’ve got better focus on the self-inquiry that comes next:

I need more time, so that I can have more ______ .
I need more _______ (from above) so that I can _______.

I usually notice I need more time, so I can have more of something else, and I need more of that something so that I can feel a certain way.

I believe I’ll feel better, with more time to acquire, do, achieve, get, accomplish, practice that thing.

I’ll feel safer, I’ll feel more loved, I’ll feel proud, I’ll feel acceptable, I’ll feel calm, I’ll feel generous.

The story is born, blossoms, with a thousand facets into the future. All from a moment where a thought came through about “more” and “time”.

What a great inquiry:

Let’s do The Work.

Today I asked myself when I began this Grace Note (3 days ago now, LOL) why I need more time?

Because I could find that thought inside every day, I bet.

Today, I had the privilege of doing The Work with a brilliant inquirer who felt he had not succeeded in life: rejected by his girlfriend (they are breaking up), ineffective in other areas, not quite “getting” there to the promised land of peace or worthiness.

Not arriving at the place we are believing in when we say “more”.

Oh the pain of noticing what it’s like to believe we need more than we already have. We need more days to live, more hours with another, more success. More, more, more.

Sometimes people think if they give up this striving for more of something, they’ll flop to the floor and do nothing for the rest of their lives.

If I didn’t want to do all that stuff, if I didn’t need more time to do it, then I’d become totally resigned with doing nothing, going nowhere, apathetic, caring for nothing, sparked by nothing, surrounded by chaos.

Who would we be without the belief we need MORE daylight, and the sun just set?

Without the belief we need more loving contact, and we’re sitting at the deathbed of our beloved?

Without the belief we need more money than we actually have?

Without the belief we need more unconditional love or a spiritual pay-day that catapults us into some kind of place beyond this world (as some people like to think of as enlightenment)?

What if nothing more was needed right now, in this moment? Even if you feel some anxiety, a sense of turmoil? Even with a sense of impending loss or future disappointment?

I keep noticing with this inquiry, the only frightening thing is a story–a thought about the future, or a memory from the past.

I’m believing thoughts about scarcity, about loss, about inadequacy and suffering.

If I don’t do this thing I apparently need more time for, I’ll suffer. If I don’t acquire this thing I need more time to acquire, I’ll suffer.

I’m fail to notice I’m suffering in the middle of the moment of thinking I need more of something or I’ll suffer, later.

Turning the thought around: I don’t need more time. Not one more second. I don’t need more time with that person, I don’t need more time to practice, I don’t need more time because I don’t need to finish right now, I don’t need more time to wake up.

Who is this “I” anyway?

Nothing but a thought.

“Before thought began in that first moment, there was the pure unknown: love. That’s one of the many revelations that people discover when they sit deeply in the fourth question (‘Who or what would you be without the thought?’). They begin to recognize the real world, the world of being love, the fearless, the nameless, the beautiful, the world where nothing is separate and creativity is allowed to flow without interruption, and the new is witnessed and appreciated at every moment, and your’e always alone with yourself, and you’re everyone and everything, free to take full responsibility as the creator of the entire world–your world, the world of your imagination.” ~ Byron Katie in A Mind At Home With Itself

If you think you don’t have enough time for self-inquiry or doing The Work, I’d question that. LOL.

But seriously, sitting and asking myself these truthful, deep questions about what is running through the mind has been totally life-changing.

It’s brought me….just about….everything I’ve ever dreamed I wanted more time for.

Certainly it’s brought me peace around what I believed was worth fretting about, and finding a heart-broken joy about being alive, and gratitude.

If you’d like to get a taste of this practice of questioning your stressful thinking and changing the way to experience life and the world, or anything that’s troubled you….

….consider coming to online spring retreat.

It’s coming in exactly one month March 25-28, 2021.

Sign up for Thursday only, Thurs+Friday, or the whole retreat Thurs-Sunday (Saturday’s a bonus day for everyone enrolled).

We gather for 3.5 days of 3.5 hour sessions (Pacific Time 9am-12:30pm) to dive into one issue, relationship, money, job, memory, concern, situation bothering you.

It’s all sliding scale, you choose (suggested fee a minimum of $60 per session).

Thursday 3/25, Friday 3/26 and Sunday 3/27 we meet 9:00am-12:30pm Pacific Time, and Saturday we meet 8:00am-9:30am PT followed by dancing–online–for those who’d love to attend.

Read more about spring cleaning retreat here.

Spring Mental Cleanse Schedule Online:

Thursday March 25, Friday March 26, Sunday March 28
9am-12:30pm PT
Noon-3:30pm ET
5pm-8:30pm UK
6pm-9:30pm Paris
7pm-10:30pm Israel/ South Africa
6am-9:30am Hawaii
(Saturday March 27th we meet 8am-9:30am PT +dancing)

February 20, 2021

The only important house to clean: your mind

Spring Mental Cleanse is coming: March 25-28, 2021.

Sign up for Thursday only, Thurs+Friday, or the whole retreat Thurs-Sunday (Saturday’s a bonus day for everyone enrolled).

It’s all sliding scale, you choose (suggested fee a minimum of $60 per session).

Thursday 3/25, Friday 3/26 and Sunday 3/27 we meet 9:00am-12:30pm Pacific Time, and Saturday we meet 8:00am-9:30am PT followed by dancing–online–for those who’d love to attend.

It’s a time for deep cleansing internally on the beliefs we’ve sometimes been carrying with us unconsciously for years and years.

Read more about spring cleaning retreat here.

Speaking of the need, and the joy, of deep cleaning….

We all know what that’s like when you do it for reals.

Like, with actual cleaning.

Way under the bookcase there’s are dust bunnies in literal clumps. Along the back of the couch spiders have been congregating all winter in the crack where floor meets wall.

The file cabinet needs to be unstuffed and papers shredded. Books and old clothes need to go to Goodwill.

Maybe you’re not sure exactly what that gunk is in the back of the fridge, which also has an unrecognizable rotten thing in tin foil we forgot about a few weeks ago.

OK, a few months ago.

I like the way, for a good thorough cleaning of something we’re tackling, we open up the thing entirely.

We literally pick up the piece of furniture and move it to the center of the room.

We empty all the contents.

Sometimes the whole place looks worse before it gets better.

Bottles and tins and bags are strewn all over the dining room table in stacks while you get the fridge drawers pulled out and scrub them in the sink with hot soapy water.

It’s a project.

Sometimes along the way, you might think “Good lord, why did I start this? It’s taking way longer than I imagined.”

“This is exhausting. How’d it get sooooo dirty?”

“I wonder how much this would cost to pay someone to come and do this instead?”

Cleaning is not exactly….easy.

But neither is letting everything get dirtier, and dirtier, and more sticky, and more dusty and black and thick and gross.

And if you’ve ever really done a good clean-out of anything, it is amazingly satisfying.

A strange kind of joy comes when you neatly place the thinned-out clothes in the drawers again, or have room in your closet for everything you own.

It’s tending to life, tending to the hearth, the home.

That’s how I think of doing The Work with the unkempt mind–the unquestioned mind.

The mind that gets a bit bleak, dirty, thick with dust.

It gets ugly in there. A few spiders, if you know what I mean.

Good news.

Nothing like a beautiful piece of inquiry to find freedom from repetitive thinking, or repetitive behavior or worry.

The mind is so brilliant, it carries around memories and impact from far earlier times and shows them to you like a slide show over and over until you’re willing to look, and feel fully what you’ve been hiding, or simply ignoring, under the couch.

Sure, no one escapes pain.

We have immense loss: people we love die, viruses descend, jobs end, houses burn, money goes, it seems our dreams don’t manifest, we ourselves grow older.

All those things happen. But then there is suffering about them, through reminding yourself of them and feeling bad all over again.

Unnecessary suffering.

Suffering because we get stuck in a mindset, a way of thinking–and we don’t know how to stop of get out of it.

Heck, we don’t even know we’re doing it!

At least this is what I’ve seen so many times with my own work.

For example, I used to believe–without really even knowing consciously I believed it to the core–that I was abandoned, could be abandoned and probably will be abandoned in the future by people I care about.

I had a strategy I then decided that it’s better to Not Be Attached, so that I don’t get hurt by potential abandonment.

Abandonment being a fact and all.

I didn’t even know I had this running so strongly until my first husband left after 16 years of marriage, and I was fully and completely reminded of my father’s death many years earlier.

I had the solid belief about life: people leave, people die, people are unreliable….and it’s very very sad, dangerous, intolerable and I’m all alone when it happens.

I didn’t know how things had piled up and gotten thick and dusty and heavy.

I didn’t know the demands I had on my first husband to remain in place, or else….

I was dependent, without even realizing it.

Dependent on his presence, on his staying whether he liked it or not, on things going “well” (i.e. my way) so I could be safe and happy.

The four questions changed this kind of painful thinking for me.

Fundamentally, entirely.

At a deep spring cleaning level.

It’s like opening up the cupboard, emptying out everything so you can take a look, and beginning the scrubbing.

It might look worse before it looks better.

But it’s oh so worth it.

The freedom of a clear, organized closet–a clear, organized mind.

I hope you’ll join me in the spring cleanse in The Work of Byron Katie, an annual event that will now for the second year be again online.

In four days you can do a whole lot of cleaning–probably the entire house.

Including the basement. Maybe we’ll start there.

Join me HERE.

Spring Mental Cleanse Schedule Online:

Thursday March 25, Friday March 26, Sunday March 28

9am-12:30pm PT
Noon-3:30pm ET
5pm-8:30pm UK
6pm-9:30pm Paris
7pm-10:30pm Israel/ South Africa
6am-9:30am Hawaii

(Saturday March 27th we meet 8am-9:30am PT +dancing)

Much love,

Grace

February 2, 2021

I stopped arguing with reality. The relationship was over. (Retreat starts Thursday)!

My cell phone lit up suddenly.

The phone was on silence as usual, but I happened to see the screen glow. At that moment I was staring out the bleak dark January window fourteen years ago, not unlike the one I looked out today.

I leaned slowly to the phone and saw from caller ID the name of my estranged husband.

My heart jumped a little.

He had filed for divorce almost 2 years before, we lived in separate houses, but I had not responded month after month after month to the paperwork.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it and sign the document consenting to divorce.

It seemed so tragic. I had loved this man so much. I had always pictured him until “death do us part”. He was almost five years older and I sometimes imagined he’d die first….and me by his side.

(Weird little future flash: he did die first, and I was by his side a few hours before and a few hours after. Even though we were divorced and we were both remarried. So you never know what anything means for the future, do you? He will always be one of the most important people in my life.)

I answered the incoming call.

He wanted to go out to dinner.

Something I could hear in his voice, someone I knew so well.

He said he had a coupon for a restaurant downtown, and thought of me.

Was I being asked out on a…..date?

I didn’t show much emotion.

This is what I had wanted desperately, but now it seemed almost like too much water had flowed under the bridge. He had another relationship that tanked. He had been dating. He had moved from one rental house to another. He was feeling some regret.

I had just started….barely….to feel like I could enjoy my own company for five minutes without remembering “my husband left me” or “I’m separated”. I had signed up for qigong classes, female empowerment classes, dancing.

Most importantly, I had friends to do The Work with.

I had found out that if I questioned my thinking, my panicked mood shifted from terror to calm by having someone ask me the four questions, and finding turnarounds.

Stunning.

Nothing else changed, only my perceptions and what I was believing.

The School for The Work almost 2 years before had planted self-inquiry into my heart and mind, and when rage, betrayal, panic, sadness and grief came along…it was only a matter of time before I sat down with paper, or texted someone, to do The Work with me.

I was calmer. Just a little. I was sleeping through the night finally.

I said “yes”.

I also said I’d meet him there at the appointed hour. Not agree to have him pick me up and go there together.

On the Saturday night of the famous dinner out (in my world), something I had wished for so desperately, I got dressed up.

I cared. I felt hopeful. I put on mascara.

I thought all the inner angst and grief and heartbreak might be able to be talked through, shared.

I never felt very good at talking. (I’m still probably better at writing than talking).

But as we shared a meal in a booth in a dark rainy wintery evening in Seattle, and no in-depth conversation unfolded or even started, I grew more aware that what I wanted was not in this man, or in the dreams of an intact relationship.

I had questioned the thought 1000 times “I need him to come back to me” or “he abandoned me” or “this shouldn’t be happening”.

And right before me, these beliefs suddenly felt untrue.

At a certain moment, right in the middle of the food and the meal, with this man I had spent 16 years with across from me, with whom I had two children that would have been thrilled to have us remain together, something felt….done.

Over.

Unable to move into a deeper level.

Maybe I could have questioned that thought. It didn’t occur to me at the time.

He talked, and talked, and talked about his job. His boss, his co-workers, company policies, the latest business deals I hadn’t heard about for a long time.

Not one word did he speak of more authentic, deep reflection about this honest moment.

I wanted to cry “What happened to us??!!”

I wanted to talk about where we stood right then.

Something deeper. All that inner Byron Katie work, all the self-reflection and growth and adventure. All the sleepless nights.

I wanted him to say “How are you in there? Are you OK?”

I noticed I myself said nothing, though.

And I noticed I could wonder….do I really want him to ask me deeply how I am? Do I really want to put so much weight on this relationship “working” (code word for staying together)?

I didn’t want to grab for something that wasn’t present anymore. I didn’t want to try, to be so afraid, to feel so desperate, so feel so full of angst and sadness.

What I wanted was not over there, across the table from me.

Wow.

When we left, I went to sit in the driver’s seat of my little car. I held still a moment, my car keys on my lap.

I could find the turnaround.

Maybe this was just plain going the way it was going, without my vote.

And maybe, just maybe, that was OK. Or at least going to be OK, later.

I sensed that I had no idea what my future was, or where I was going, or what would happen with love or romance in my life…..and what did happen wasn’t what I would have ever wanted or ever imagined in my life.

But I got it. Stop fighting. Stop reaching.

Rest. Accept what is.

That week, I signed the divorce papers that had been gathering dust, and the proceedings moved forward.

I’d like to say that I never looked back again at how we might have reconciled, and all that seemed so unspoken. I’d like to say I felt very razor clear.

But no.

There were stressful thoughts, and stressful dramas in my own mind, and stressful imaginings, and dreadful heartbreak.

I could question my thinking, though.

Sweet relief.

And, something was nudged that day out of the stuckness and waiting and withholding and wondering and putting all my attention on HIM, HIM, HIM.

I saw more clearly how I looked at what I thought was necessary for happiness through a straw. All roads pointing to this dear man, and marriage, and a fantasy.

What if instead of being a horrible personal tragedy, this story was not as terrible as I had believed?

What I see now is how I discovered, and still continue discovering to this day, how much that man offered me in my life.

He helped me break down my demands and expectations about love, life, mating, support, security, romance, future, intimacy, speaking truth, honesty, grabbing, wanting and fear.

I believed that the worst that could happen when it came to my marriage, was that it would end in divorce.

What happened when I believed that thought?

Nightmares. My whole world collapsed (I thought) even though I had more quiet time, I had my own place, I added enrichment to my life, I started playing music again, I discovered a career, I found out I liked to work (!)

Who was I without this story: “this relationship must stay together!”?

Without demanding it be any way at all, it simply moved towards divorce.

Turned around: the best thing that could happen was my marriage ended.

How could this be just as true, or truer?

There is a list.

But most of all, I am grateful beyond measure to that human being, that man, for his unknowing assistance in helping me become a better version of myself.

I became someone who was “forced” to find her way to earn a living. Someone who met a new husband who is very different. Someone who can survive the worst that could happen.

Not just survive, but thrive.

Astonishing, even to this mind.

Grateful for the one who broke my heart, so it could grow bigger, wider, gentler, freer.

If you have a relationship where you still feel a sting (or tornado) of pain about What Happened….

….come to retreat starting this Thursday. We meet 4 days in a row, and then skip a week and reunite on Sunday, February 14th. Yup. Valentine’s Day.

The hours are 8-11am Pacific Time/ 4-7pm UK for all five sessions.

Who are we without our stories about breaking up, romance, wanting, hunting for ‘the one’, fighting, loneliness?

We are celebrating Valentine’s Day with the one we cherish, support, feel gratitude towards and love the most: ourselves. Life.

Married, partnered, conflicted, divorced, broken-up, separated, single. All are welcome to this “Relationship” Retreat.

Join us here.

Much love,

Grace

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021

When a relationship has hurt: finding love after love with The work of Byron Katie

Oooh relationships.

Love.

Mawage. (If you’ve seen Princess Bride, you’ll know this reference, so funny).

Divorce. (If you’ve experience this, or breaking up with someone, it may not be so funny).

Yesterday I went to Target, the big store in the US, with my daughter. She needed a belt to follow the dress code for her new job (which she gets to start Monday after much delay due to the pandemic) and groceries, and I needed a pillow.

Turning at the back of the store past the clothing aisles into the electronics and food sections….a huge pink wall on display was revealed.

Hearts, candies, gifties, jewelry, chocolates, pink candles, silk red roses, more candies.

Oh. Valentine’s Day is apparently coming!

I’ve done a little research on the origin of Valentine’s Day and it’s not exactly…pretty.

Either it has to do with martyrdom, sacrifices of goats and dogs, people thrown in jail for marrying couples in secret, executions, and/or an ancient Roman ritual of drunken naked revelry, beatings, and wishes for fertility.

Woah. Um. Kind of intense.

What remains of it today appears to be a celebration of romance and love and poetry and hearts. People get engaged and married, or celebrate together in coupled pairs on this day.

And when love has gone wonky, some people feel disappointed or sad they’re not “in” on the fun.

What a fantastic place for inquiry and investigation.

It doesn’t have to be about Valentine’s Day, either.

Just “love” in the form of romance.

What’s your perspective?

Is it disappointing? Sad? Difficult? Endless work? Passionate? Spicy? Complicated? Hoping against hope?

If it’s stressful, we’re invited with The Work of Byron Katie to question it.

And oh did I ever.

After my very first School for The Work in Los Angeles in March of 2005, I arrived home–literally–to my then husband saying he was no longer interested in being married. During our first conversation post-School.

BOOM.

I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me.

I felt a bit insane.

Some days this was thrilling and all the trapped feelings of following the “normal” flow of what was expected for my life was gone….and it was exciting and unknown.

Some days this was terrifying and I just wanted some solid ground to stand on.

My mind was a wild flip flop.

It felt like frantic grasping onto life without “my plan” (or what I thought of as the general successful plan for most couples).

Who was I without my belief that a relationship should go like “x” in order for me to be happy?

Woah. Really?

I can question that thought?

Yes.

What if there is no “right” and “wrong” way with relationship and relating?

What if we are moving always towards love, exploration, expansion, growth, creativity, joy?

Even if someone leaves.

Even if someone dies.

Even if someone annoys us.

Who am I right now without the belief I need that person to be ______ for me to be happy? (Kind, clean, respectful, productive, ambitious…..)

Without the belief, I’m a free person who is not dependent.

Not even dependent on that person being alive, in order for me to be happy.

I’m watching, playing, dancing, breathing….laughing even.

Life is quite ingenious, fascinating.

“There are universes that you may be missing, universes of wisdom that lie within you, which The Work can open you up to–your own answers to the questions, and the examples of your turnarounds are the key to those universes, the key to a kinder world and all the freedom that is your unlimited birthright.” ~ Byron Katie

Turning my thoughts around: This is not horrific, betrayal, abandonment, rejection, break-up, forever, failure.

Find examples of these TurnArounds are never meant, I find, to hurt us more or talk about us Not Deserving or something guilt-ridden.

These turnarounds are not about denying that something very powerful has changed, or happened, or ignited when it comes to this person and this relationship I’m considering.

But I love seeing that I can actually find examples for how this really isn’t that bad–not as bad as I think.

Never as bad as I think.

In my divorce; I was breathing, I took classes, I went to a second school for The Work, I volunteered in exchange for learning, I had dating conversations, I ran out of money and stopped believing I needed more “programs” in order to be happy, I found my center, I started working for money, I eventually paid of all my debt, I dated other people, I found a new home.

The whole wide world was available to me in that divorce.

No, it was not easy.

(Or maybe it was easier than I think)?

I also found how much I appreciated and admired and trusted my former husband. I was connected to him, and nothing could change that.

I realized one day, that if God had come along and said the following, I would have accepted it whole-heartedly, 100%, no looking back.

God/Reality/Source/Mystery: “I’ll bring you what you really want, and it’s going to hurt at first–badly maybe–but it will be amazing in the long-run. It will change your entire life. It will break your identity apart, in the best way. It will change the way you see life, and love. You’ll find an inner place of love you never recognized before, and it will guide you for the rest of your life. What will happen is: your husband will leave you. Are you in?”

Yikes.

But yes. I’m in. I Am Willing.

Turned around again: MY THINKING was horrific, betraying me, abandoning me, rejecting me, broken-up, failing.

All those horrifying moments…when all that was happening was a woman in a little adorable cottage sitting on a couch by herself.

What was the most difficult relationship I ever had?

Why, that would be my own thinking-mind and all its projections, memories, reminders, anticipations, worries, hand-wringings, small-ness, focus on safety, negative bias, perseveration, wishing, grabbing.

Innocently.

(I’m not blaming my mind).

“Becoming a warrior and facing yourself is a question of honesty rather than condemning yourself.” ~ Chongyam Trungpa

If you feel you still blame or condemn yourself for the relationship you’re in, or the one that got away, or the dream that isn’t manifesting itself….

….we can celebrate Valentine’s Day as a connection with What Is, even if we’ve been single, frightened, desperate, sad, lonely, lost.

I know that by questioning our interpretation of reality and relationship, we can find love in the oddest places.

Right here, on the couch.

Right here, in a quiet moment, reading.

Right here, looking out the window at the dusk sky.

Right here, seeing our loved one’s image in our minds who apparently no longer has a body in this lifetime.

Without the story of the absence of love, love is here.

If you’re not so sure….it’s OK….and let’s do The Work.

If you’re a person who suffers (a little or a lot) from relationship disappointment, upset or anguish….Nadine Ferris-France and I are joining together to offer a 5 day Relationship Retreat for the lonely, broken-hearted, longing or self-critical.

We meet for 4 consecutive days February 4-7 from 8-11am Pacific Time/ 11am-2pm ET/ 4-7pm UK and then one final stand-alone day on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, also from 8-11am PT.

We will dive into exercises specifically created to look closely at our beliefs about coupling, sharing, committing, leaving and being alone.

For those who have upset thinking about relationship….this retreat is for you.

Nadine and I have been offering a course in Relationship Hell to Heaven for a few years now and we have both gone through divorces and commitments to new partners and all the great ride this journey of relationship offers.

What we have found is that relationship is a path to awakening and freedom.

We’d love to share the road with you.

There is no requirement for being “in” or “out” of relationship.

The only requirement is interest in identifying the painful, sad, vicious or dreaded judgments of those you’ve loved (past, present, future) romantically, or noticing the mean, critical, disappointing thoughts you’ve had about yourself…and inquiring.

Valentine’s Relationship Hell To Heaven Retreat is sliding scale tuition ($275-$675 US). In addition to each live call, you will be paired with one other person daily during retreat to do The Work with them (a different person each day).

This is a wonderful immersion in partnering with others, and partnering with your own mind, for love.

Please write if you need further help in order to attend.

Question the assumptions you’re defending (short window open for joining Year of Inquiry)

I look forward to next First Friday on January 1st, New Year’s Day, 2021 7:45-9:15am Pacific Time. Mark your calendar now for the experience of questioning one painful situation in your life from 2020.

When we question one difficult experience, and begin to understand it with loving kindness, who knows what can happen with anything else we’ve thought of as painful?

To make sure you get the zoom link, watch in upcoming Grace Notes or save this email and join me here.

Speaking of questioning just ONE difficult experience….

….When I first encountered The Work, I came to it, I thought, because of one excruciatingly painful experience I felt was looming over me.

The experience had produced the most desperate shame, nausea, and an inner anxiety–panic really–about loss and death and ending all hope for the future.

I was investigating the experience of having an abortion.

It was unbelievably haunting at the time.

(If you want to read much more about abortion specifically, I’ve written a bit about it over the years–you can search on Grace Notes blog site for any key word and find Grace Notes from the past about any topic here).

I kept seeing all the steps of how that life condition had unfolded, how strange that it went the way it did with that decision. I felt guilty and horrified, but most of all full of despair.

All kinds of beliefs were present around that situation in my life.

Wanting to please someone else (the father) more than doing what felt right within. Terrified of the future and that I couldn’t do it alone. Feeling damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. Believing living in a body was the only way for a happy and full life for any human being. Thinking of myself as a murderer. Believing I was doomed.

Except.

I began to learn, with The Work of Byron Katie and that early inquiry….that the way I was thinking might have gaps of untruth in it. (Or, be entirely based on nothing that could be proven).

How can you know if what you’re thinking is not really true, or not allowing a full picture or clarity to enter your situation?

Well, one simple way you know you’re believing something false, for you, is you feel bad; frustrated, uncomfortable, angry, terrified, nervous, anxious, sad, annoyed, desperate.

I like knowing that if I feel troubled, I’m believing something that’s not actually true for me…no matter how repeatedly I might be thinking it to myself.

When I was reviewing that “terrible” situation in my life that led to abortion over and over, I’d panic.

Until I did The Work and understood, just a wee tiny bit, that the situation might not be as tragic as I was thinking.

It doesn’t mean I don’t think it was a deeply painful, or that I condone it. But I’m at peace with that experience where I still feel the grief, but knowing I learned something very important about unconditional love for all of life, including myself, by studying the pain there.

Some kind of crack into peace occurs with every situation I take through the self-inquiry process.

The mental energy settles down. There is an awareness of presence, of being here now. There is a feeling of rest and unclenching that flows instead of getting stuck.

A situation may not become resolved entirely, but the perspective I’ve been holding isn’t trapped forever in a repetitive noise of the same tune endlessly playing (like when an annoying or sad song gets stuck in your head).

Bottom line: when I do The Work, something shifts in the mind and the interpretation I’m holding about whatever it is I’ve found so troubling.

Huge relief.

Which brings me to a weird point I wanted to share, kind of a question really.

Why is there so much resistance sometimes to actually DOING The Work?

I mean, if it’s so freeing, why would I not do it when I feel upset?

People report this resistance, and I get the same thing going on inside of me. It goes something like this:

1) Difficult news, conversation, incident or happening occurs

2) Brain/Thinking starts making meaning out of it–and leans towards danger, protection, worst case scenarios, fear

3) It’s personal, “I” need to think of a plan–a way out, a way to peace, a way to get free, a way to find safety

4) Mind gets busy with the plan, rather than questioning the original story. “I’m too busy figuring out how to stay safe to do The Work right now”.

5) We return mentally to the scene of the crime over and over and rehash and try to make it go “right” rather than “wrong”, retroactively. It’s all about survival.

6) Nothing about our perspective actually changes.

I find without questioning my beliefs when I feel down or depressed, I keep repeating the same stories, feelings, behaviors. It looks like compulsion, addiction, analysis, rumination, bad dreams, avoiding, playing the same thoughts on repeat.

Sigh.

Don’t be discouraged, though.

Even simply pausing for a moment without saying something “should” or “shouldn’t” have happened in the past, present or future….can bring a sliver of peace.

Noticing that without a thought–and even with a thought–we are here, present, aware, alive whether we “get” what’s going on or not.

Another new moment is here.

Potential. Pausing.

Being here without waiting. Taking a deep breath. Exhaling entirely.

Feeling the silence around and inside everything.

If you are interested in stepping into The Work regularly by pausing, then taking your stressful thinking through four questions and finding turnarounds, there’s an unusual window coming up for people to join Year of Inquiry (several have requested it, so why not).

We meet Tuesdays at 9am PT, Wednesdays at Noon PT, Thursdays and 5pm PT and Saturdays at 8:30am PT. We also meet monthly on Fridays to discuss The Work instead of doing The Work–always amazing conversations.

You can begin with our small-but-mighty group on January 5th. To do this, you must join by January 4th to get on board and oriented.

Doing The Work is not a one-and-done type of deal.

It seems we need to get the hang of practicing, having the four questions and turnarounds sink into our experience.

At least, that’s what has worked best and most and steadily for me. Following the practice step-by-step, like meditating daily if possible. No “should” or “have to” just pondering and letting the mind wake up one thought at a time.

If I could heal the pain of an unexpected pregnancy and abortion, I found I could heal the way I related to all decisions. I could heal the way I spoke to others. I could heal my heart. I could heal the way I ate. I could heal the self-condemnation and depression and worry.

What a huge relief.

If you’d like a loving community of fascinating people practicing the end of stress and the openness to freedom through The Work, join me in our Year of Inquiry program.

While the program is set up to offer people an entire year of practice and support–which brings rich friendships and clarity into our lives–you can join month-to-month when you start at one of these openings during the year.

Each month, we study a new quite general topic (and you can also work with absolutely anything stressful for you, this is your program).

January is “money” month.

Read more and sign up here. If you’d like more details about YOI schedule long-term and the monthly topics, read about the schedule here.

If you need financial assistance please click the button once you get to the page to learn about YOI and you can apply for help.

“Year of Inquiry has worked. The times are great and I like that it’s all the calls plus a week off a month. No burnout. Nice to be able to listen to recordings. Grace is organized with the technology and it works. I do like our Slack forum for keeping connected. YOI has been a positive experience for me.” ~ Participant

And if this is biting off more than feels right to chew, come for the fun on New Year’s Day (no charge).

Can’t wait to get started in 2021 with a new year, a new week, a new day, a happy new moment with new possibilities every now, and now, and now.

“If you want to enter a state of grace, question the assumption you’re defending right now.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace