Byron Katie has a funny thing she does when talking about the way people thank others.
People say “thank you” to her.
People say “thank you” to their families, or friends, or neighbors.
Katie asks with a tone of laughter….
….”Have you thanked you?”
When you really think about it, this is the sweetest thing.
Not everyone immediately thinks so.
It’s like….yeah….whatever.
I’m not really that great. I don’t get it. Isn’t that kind of egotistical or something?
But taking a moment to consider your steadiness, your loyalty, your patience with yourself.
You’ve been with you no matter what.
Even if you’ve ripped yourself to shreds verbally, or done things you’d prefer to keep secret forever….
….that sweet mysterious center of you has been here the whole time.
It doesn’t actually even need to be thanked, have you noticed?
It basically doesn’t care, in a really good way.
But for the fun of it, thank you anyway, in this time of thanking and gratitude.
“We’re all taught that something needs to change for us to experience true peace and freedom. Just imagine for a moment that this isn’t true. Even though you may believe that it’s true, just imagine for a moment: What would it be like if you didn’t need to struggle, if you didn’t need to make an effort to find peace and happiness? What would that feel like now? And just take a moment to be quiet and see if peace or stillness is with you in this moment.” ~ Adyashanti
That’s the place I’m talking about, that we all have.
Even if you think you don’t or you’re so mad at yourself for wasted time or doing something dumb or doing it wrong or not getting it yet.
All that’s running like a babbling brook.
And here we are together, floating, relaxing, Not Leaving even if we’ve tried to leave.
Thank me, thank you, thank me.
(Now pet your own hair and feel how absolutely cute and adorable you are…..
…..and if you can’t feel it or it seems too weird or wrong…..
…..there’s something you can do with that kind of thinking and it’s called The Work).
Much love, Grace
P.S. Half day mini retreat Saturday 12/12 1:30-5:30. Question your story, change your world. Join us!
4 hours to insight…with The Work of Byron Katie on 12/12 at Grace’s place
December 12 mini retreat has open spots 1:30-5:30 pm at Goldilocks Cottage (my home) in northeast Seattle.
Whether you’re brand new to self-inquiry using The Work of Byron Katie, or very experienced, it’s the most exquisite time to start at the beginning, and go from step to step through the process.
(Break into Julie Andrews….”let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start….”)
The Work begins with identifying a painful situation in your life.
Something you wish would change.
This is the first step, whether you are super experienced in doing The Work, or brand new.
You might be saying…..
…..are you kidding me?
If I unleash that Pandora’s Box of places I’ve experienced pain in my life, I’ll be in a workshop doing The Work for about a month.
Or a year.
Or the rest of my life.
You get the point…..some of us have encountered many very difficult experiences and people, places and things.
But here’s a funny thing I hear all the time:
“I know in the end that what I complain about or object to is really just me. It all comes back to me. I am the person with whom I have a gripe. I’m the one I don’t like. I’m the one at fault now. I don’t really even judge other people any more, what’s the point? I get that they did what they did and were mentally ill, or messed up from their parents. I KNOW it’s all about ME now!!”
I really hear this almost every single time I hold a retreat, or a new class, or even have a solo session with someone.
The thing is…..
…..it is very difficult to suddenly drop out of the ego-centered mind, a sort of negatively grandiose idea of the badness of oneself…..
…..and instantly become open to hearing, accepting, forgiving and being entirely compassionate with oneself, exactly as you are right now.
People are mean to themselves, have you noticed?
This is not exactly a mind that’s capable of consulting and inquiring with loving unconditional neutrality.
Which is what doing The Work is all about.
If you’re positive you’re a bad seed, then you’re being stubborn and your mind isn’t exactly open.
Actually, your same mean vicious mind is likely better at forgiving other people than it is at forgiving you.
So why not start with others? It will be easier.
And not just a little bit easier….a LOT easier, and a lot more clear and mind-blowing for you.
BUT.
If you really persist at feeling bad about yourself, I have a confession to make.
I’m with you, brothers and sisters.
I’m keeping a journal right now more regularly because I’m teaching Eating Peace, a 12 week program in deep self-inquiry with presentations, exercises, and The Work for anyone who has ever felt angst around eating and consuming.
We’re working from the inside out, on slowing down this process of thought that leads to reaching for something to put in the mouth.
Everyone is invited to keep a journal five minutes a day, and to sit silently five minutes a day.
Most people who know they have an issue with consuming in an emotional or addictive way think thoughts like this:
I should get a grip
there’s something wrong with me
I’ll never heal this
it’s always been this way
I should know better by now
I really should be different (I know)
I’m ugly
The other night, I wrote for five minutes without stopping when I experienced an uncomfortable moment.
I wrote about the moment: this is boring, I should be creating my podcast, my daughter is contrary and hard to be around right now, I want an inspirational movie, I need more fun and down time and excitement.
Then, I actually thought when reading it over…..
…..wow, how embarrassing that I was such an 11 year old complainer about “my” evening and wanting entertainment NOW.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of meditating, instead!!
What a dope!!
So I shared my journal entry with everyone in the next Eating Peace presentation to show them, even if I no longer have an issue with food, I still have thoughts of consumption around movies, and I’m judging the evening hours as boring.
But what if I didn’t know what was true?
What if I didn’t believe my thoughts?
What if I left them over in the corner, like a little humming plugged-in machine, and spent time wondering what it would be like to not think I needed to be any different than I was?
“Egocentric karmic conditioning self-hate is a process of taking life personally.” ~ Cheri Huber in I Don’t Want To I Don’t Feel Like It
Mind is still making noise.
It’s appearing in the pages of my journal, like any other human being with a brain.
But who would I actually really be without these thoughts?
Who would you be, if you did not take life personally, if you didn’t take anything personally….like a personal thought against you?
Wow.
Um.
Even as I just wrote this, I looked up and looked around the room, rather delighted.
This is the same room I wrote in that I thought of as boring last week.
But I feel laughter almost bubbling up out loud.
Without the thought that anything around here is personal?
Without the thoughts against myself being true, in any way?
Without KNOWING that I’m wrong, that I should get a grip, that I should know better, that I’m so eleven-years-old, or that I should improve in any way whatsoever?
The lightness is astonishing.
Surreal. Thrilling. Almost brings tears.
Everyone else looks brighter, too.
And all those situations I felt oppositional to, or weird about remembering, or in pain over…..
…..they seem like bad dreams, and distant times.
They’re over.
They’re figments.
“To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now. ” ~ Rumi
If you love yourself right now, as you are, thoughts and all….
….you live now.
Much love, Grace
P.S. Half day mini retreat Saturday 12/12 1:30-5:30. Question your story, change your world
Without your dreadful thinking, even in the midst of great suffering….who would you be without your story about what is hard?
I’m sitting in such gratitude and delight in the power of people collecting together to investigate truth, suffering, love and being human here on planet earth.
Yesterday we had the first group of inquirers gathering for an 8 month adventure of meeting to do The Work.
(We’re full now, but I’ll do it again next year).
The mind, and the feelings following all the thoughts the mind produces, are magnificent.
But on a bad day….
…..it feels like it’s NOT so good that this mind is so magnificent.
It’s overwhelming.
You feel very much alone, and therefore lonely.
Kind of like this lifetime trek, especially with this mind, is never-ending and something always comes along to trip you up somehow.
Not feeling good seems super difficult, and drives people to seek relief.
Somewhere.
Anywhere.
Trouble is, sometimes there is relief, and sometimes not so much.
Even mentors or teachers, or methodologies, or practices, or books, or teachings we all agree are incredibly powerful and supportive….
….don’t always “work”.
Or sometimes, they work for awhile–we feel better temporarily.
Then, we just want to get back to that good-feeling place but we’re waving our arms around like a beetle turned upside down.
A few years ago, when sitting quietly listening to someone else do The Work on a situation that brought me to tears, I noticed a very persistent and painful underlying belief pop into my head.
This man had been responsible for killing a child by accident.
Life is full of suffering.
Its sooooooo sad.
I don’t like these stories, these terrible things that happen in peoples’ lives!
Horrible accidents, war, trauma, death, disease, starvation, depression, loneliness, being trapped or stuck emotionally.
I asked God (you can call it something else, call it Reality or The Force–that mysterious energy I have no idea how to define)….
…..what’s up with All This?
I asked this question as I heard the destruction, and pain, and the guilt this man expressed while doing The Work.
Flashes of many pictures came through my head. It felt like my heart would break.
People I personally knew who were currently suffering, people in the room I was sitting in, all of whom were there to understand better their difficult feelings about life, and how to become free of the negative, fearful, agonizing thoughts about what happens here.
Why is it so hard? I asked, feeling so desperately sad.
And bam, I realized I had a huge deep-seated base-level belief about being human.
It’s hard.
Bad things happen here.
Just listen to the news!
We wouldn’t be doing The Work, or in meditation retreats, or doing the things we all do, if life were easy, would we? Any of us?
But I felt the awareness of self-inquiry begin then to work on that thought, that deep belief, like a ping-pong bouncing and banging off edges everywhere.
Hard–easy–wanting it to be harder occasionally–wanting it to be easier (almost always, can’t this be easier)–harder–easier?
Too hard, too easy, not hard enough, not easy enough.
Well….let’s take a look at this belief.
Is it true that life is hard?
You’re seriously asking this question?!?
Of course it’s hard!
Did you hear what I heard? Have you seen what I’ve seen?
But wait.
Let’s slow down and wonder about this statement, this thing we’re calling “life” and how we conclude it’s hard.
Life is hard.
What is meant by that?
Usually, thoughts like I already mentioned….war, brutality, fear, death.
But is life, itself, hard (even if those things take place inside of life)?
Is it True?
Wait for it.
My answer is “no”.
I wound up here, alive, it turns out.
I didn’t invent life, or create this life. I was given it whether I like it or not.
It…..happened.
Life actually came first, not my thoughts about it, or my experience of it.
My attitude, and preferences, and whether I like it or not…..
…..developed as I grew, learning from all the people around me, taking in what I encountered.
I never thought to inquire about much, I was like a sponge.
No one knows why, or exactly how, life happens.
Not even the most brilliant scholars or genius minds or religious wise-people (although it is amazing to read everything you’re drawn to, if you enjoy it).
So is life itself, hard?
No. I really can’t find this to be absolutely true. I really don’t know what it is.
How do I react when I think this thought, as I listen to the suffering of other people, or remember times I believed I was in pain?
I want to cry and cry. It feels like a grief that is forever.
So sad that such terrible things happen to people, that everyone feels fear sometimes, everyone feels physical pain, loss and agnst.
But who would you be without the belief in the absolute-ness or grand broad idea that life itself is hard?
Not like denial, not like trying to slap a smile on, or think positively.
Just not acting like you’re sure having life itself, being alive, is HARD?
Who would I be without this thought?
I’d feel a pin of light on the inside of myself, maybe back behind my heart, that is here and accepting of everything, knowing I’m here as this body/mind but also perceiving more than what is here.
Just like a flower or a tree, I grow, I live, I die.
Nothing to be done.
Except to be, to wait, to feel the stillness, to feel the balance and unknown mystery of it all.
What if you collapsed and relaxed absolutely everything inside of you, everything about yourself?
Your muscles, your feelings, your mind, your hands, your eyes, your thinking, your breathing?
If you let it all relax, nothing to do…..what do you notice?
I noticed that’s the practice of who I would be without believing my thought that life is hard.
I don’t even have to actually NOT HAVE the thought….
…..only to feel the imagination enter my mind.
Who would I be, without believing that life is hard, even in the middle of loss, hopelessness, loneliness, or being with other people and their suffering?
Turning the thought around: life is easy.
Woah.
I actually have nothing to do with it.
It couldn’t really get much easier, you know?
It’s being completely run by something other than my mind, that’s for sure. I’m participating in it, without choice.
What could be easier than that?
Double-woah.
Except for my thoughts about “life”, it is the easiest thing in the world.
“The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is
What about in the middle of such terrible suffering, hearing about the story of someone who accidentally killed someone? Or suffered childhood abuse? What about wars and violence? What about dying of disease? Rage? Starvation? Thirst?
How about the turnaround: my thinking is hard.
If I did not believe my thoughts, I would see the suffering, but also the joy, in the experience of living.
I could find having no heavy opinion, no wish for it to be different than it is.
I wouldn’t feel hopeless, either, oddly enough–I wouldn’t treat myself like I’m a jerk for thinking life is hard sometimes.
I’d just notice, that’s the way of it. I have a brain, it turns out. Nothing wrong with that.
I would notice that in the moment I am picturing this man’s terrible story, I am actually in a room full of loving curious supportive people, all sharing this together, with unconditional love.
I almost missed it.
“It’s very simple: When we believe our stressful thoughts, we suffer; but when we question our stressful thoughts, we don’t suffer. We end our suffering. I’ve been told that the whole point of the Buddha’s teaching is the end of suffering. It’s the Fourth Noble Truth, Stephen tells me. Yes, human beings suffer when they don’t know how not to, and yes, it is possible to end all suffering simply by waking up to the difference between what is reality and what isn’t.” ~ Byron Katie in her Newsletter October 2012
You mean, I can question the difficulty, sadness, or suffering….
….of anything?
Yes, anything.
“All suffering is mental. It has nothing to do with the body or with a person’s circumstances.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy
Thank you everyone for coming along for the ride, for bringing your thoughts, concerns, worries, confusion, and despair to this Great Inquiry.
Who would we be without believing our stressful thoughts?
Noticing how shared this experience is, and how much we all love each other.
Excited.
Grateful.
Full of wonder.
Coming up with genius ideas for how to proceed.
Aware that the worst story, the one running in my head that isn’t even mine, is actually……over.
What do you notice right now in your reality?
Much love, Grace
P.S. Half day mini retreat Saturday 12/12 1:30-5:30 has 4 spots still available. Question your story, change your world. Join us!
an ouchy story, worth questioning—are you sure it’s true?
The other day the Year of Inquiry group had a powerful investigation of primary love relationships.
The kind where people choose to commit, marry, move in together, share resources.
The initial idea offered up for inquiry, so very stressful:
Relationships hurt.
I love the way Big General Ideas can lead to powerful deep contemplation on your own personal belief-system.
That’s why I always have a “topic” in Year of Inquiry.
Because, if you’re not sure where to begin around what bothers you i in your life, you can often find Big General Situations you find distressing, uncomfortable, or horrifying.
They’re happening right now, in the news, right?
So the other day, we were looking at relationships in general.
Have you ever thought “this relationship is so painful”.
About ANY relationship you’ve had in your life?
You’d almost be strange if you didn’t have that thought.
The mind LOVES generalizations.
It loves to have one experience….THAT relationship….and begin to find proof of all the other relationships that also hurt.
Like Romeo and Juliet for example. They sure were screwed up in a tragedy of errors, weren’t they?
(See how we can get started on that story over there, not the one right here, in our own heart?)
Thoughts will start floating through, or zapping at you like lightening bolts.
All love relationships suck.
Love stories are all fairy tales.
Those who get married never stay together (and people should stay together).
All teenagers are hard to live with.
In-laws are torturous.
Mothers are HUGELY stressful. They influence us so greatly. So do dad’s (if they were around….they should have been by the way).
Friends betray you. Or don’t have enough time. Can only do so much.
Bosses are so often difficult, and co-workers, because you HAVE to deal with them daily in order to go to your job, which you depend on to survive.
Siblings compete with you. They’ll ditch you in a second.
I could go on.
Do you see how everything I just wrote, having to do with relating to others, has a big wide grand all-time statement in it about life with other people?
Mind loves this kind of general prejudice.
Here’s what I’ve noticed within myself:
Something happens where I felt pain. My heart broke. I felt grief, agony, sadness, loss. I felt frustration, anger. Maybe I couldn’t ask for what I wanted, or get it. Maybe I felt the desperation of someone I cared about going downhill, fast. Maybe I couldn’t get my basic needs met, for example, as a kid…..or right now, in my current life.
But then my mind tries to gather it all together and make a conclusion.
My thinking (always a few beats AFTER the experience has already happened) makes an observation, then holds it up against other situations that are almost exactly the same (or close) and says….
….You need to stay away from “x” (person’s name).
Then just to be safe, the mind also says to not only stay away from that person who hurt you, but also ALL OTHER PEOPLE LIKE them.
So you can be prepared.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being prepared….but you already ARE prepared, and you didn’t even ask for it.
It just happened that way.
You experienced what you did, by humans bumping up into each other, and you got prepared by being thrown in the pool. Your heart was broken. The people who reared you were in huge pain and suffering and knew no other way themselves.
Your thoughts will say….
Must. Be. Very. Careful.
And then if you even smell a whiff of that “kind” of person again, you’re outta here!
That “kind of person” who hurt you in the past, this is what they are like and I know it:
They have no regard for others…..yeah, that’s right! They vote Republican. Or Democrat. They have long hair. They smoke. They go to that kind of place on Sundays. They live in this kind of area. They dress in those kinds of clothes. They go to this kind of school. They say these kinds of words.
But the thing is….
….if you keep your thoughts hugely general like this, you won’t really ever get to the inner inquiry. Or it will be trickier potentially.
Nothing’s impossible, but you may want to follow the simple directions and slow what you’re picturing way, way, way down and look at just one thing that’s frightening you very closely.
So you ponder what troubles you about humanity, about human relationships.
So you derail the GENERAL category movement that the mind loves so much.
“The mind loves general…it doesn’t have to land.” ~ Byron Katie at 2008 – 2009 New Year’s Cleanse.
So consider as you narrow down your list of proof for why those relationships hurt….
….the relationships who have hurt YOU.
Just you.
Those are the ones you want to focus on.
If you have someone in your life who is suffering, and it makes you super crazy nervous because it seems like they’re going down in flames….
….where have YOU gone down in flames?
What makes you so nervous about that person being that way?
What are you trying to avoid?
What is it you never want to go through again?
That friend who is going through divorce? Why does it really bother you? What’s the worst that could happen…..for YOU?
Or that brother who is in a new relationship that in your opinion is lousy?
Why? What’s the actual problem, for you personally?
Picture your worst case scenario.
Picture it, for your own sake.
Get specific.
This is YOUR life and YOUR inquiry we’re talking about, not someone else’s.
Instead of generalizing all over the canyons and valleys and spouting off what would be best for other people, notice what fear is sparked inside of you, what you’re afraid of, when you see something you fear.
Then….you’re on to your own story.
Which is the one that counts.
Today, as you consider what you don’t like about other peoples’ experience out there…..
…..let yourself see why not.
Then you can really truly inquire in a way that makes a difference, for you.
And when you do THAT….
….wow.
Look out.
“At first, inquiry may seem more than you can handle; you may feel as if it is cutting your heart open without anesthesia….You are still identifying as a you, and you begin to see that you yourself are all the people you found unkind, brutal, stupid, crazy, greedy, despicable, and this is so painful that sometimes you don’t think you can bear it. As it keeps inquiring, the mind continues to understand that it is its only enemy and that the world is entirely its projection, that it is alone, that there is no other, and that this is absolute.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names for Joy pg. 233
Keep going.
It is not more than you can handle, to feel and see the terrible situations “out there”.
sweet to know: entering the cave of solitude leads to a joyful place
In yesterday’s Grace Note was a beautiful poem Dream Song written by John Berryman–I forgot to include his name.
It seems, as a writer myself, like a big omission! Jeez!
Yesterday felt scattered, chaotic, with a big list of what needed to get done according to the plans for business and work and personal basics like going to the gym and buying greens for dinner.
It’s funny the wide gap that can happen between what’s expected, and what actually happens.
By 7 pm yesterday, I had my presentation ready for Eating Peace, I had my curriculum done for Money: Loving This Story (it starts in January on Thursdays), my daily blog was finalized, and I had three hours of evening, an empty open gap of time, for doing whatever I pleased.
What to do?
Instead of actually relaxing, though….
….an old familiar feeling entered the scene.
The night was dark, blustery, cold. Things felt quiet and contained in the environment, like staying in was natural.
And yet, my mind kept thinking about December plans, the need to make copies, get items ready for this weekend’s meetup and first session of the 8 Month group, buy tea, arrange a ride for my daughter for Saturday, write the check for the school thing, call the airline reservations to make the change, take the computer to the old computer graveyard (remember?) and clean out my too-old summer clothes so I never have to look at them again.
But I don’t WANT to do any of those things.
I want to be entertained. I want to be excited. I want to connect. I want to. I want to. I want. I want. I want.
I chat messaged a friend “what movie should I watch?”
Husband was busy, daughter was busy.
The restless energy felt like a small flutter in the pancreas area, or behind my back.
Right then….another dear friend skyped me.
I talked with her for an hour or more. This is exceptionally rare.
Especially rare to have this happen fairly spontaneously. My schedule is usually mapped out and I’m quite organized or disciplined with what I’m doing and when.
At least it appears that’s what I am.
Who knows.
But who would you be, when you got that restless feeling of wanting, without starting to demand you need entertainment?
Without believing you “want”?
Without believing you need to go get something so you can become satisfied? (Like food, movie, friend, whatever you use to fill yourself).
I’d be still.
I’d feel very, very quiet.
I’d allow the mind to jump and fuss and screech around like a hoot owl, but something else would stay steady, relaxed.
Silent.
If loneliness appears….OK.
If wanting appears….OK.
But it doesn’t have to be believed, it doesn’t have to be followed.
I don’t have to “do” anything. I can quiet down, I can quiet.
The thinking is not important, the lonely restless feeling is not all that is here.
I wait a moment, just a short moment, and notice I’m back with myself.
The solitude and being here with yourself….maybe not as bad as you think.
Spiritual joys come only from solitude,
So the wise choose the bottom of the well,
For the darkness down there beats
The darkness up here.
He who follows at the heels of the world
Never saves his head.
~ Rumi
Much love, Grace
P.S. Drop in meetup Saturday 11/21 from 2-4 pm, 8 month group has room for one person Sundays (once a month) starting 11/22 from 3-6 pm. Both in Seattle, hit reply if interested.
you need to do something to get this party started, are you sure?
I was reading and preparing for my Peace program that starts later this morning.
I’ve been reading on why people act compulsively for several decades now, to tell you the truth.
Because I suffered so much when I did stuff like smoke, overeat, drink, think, seek, grab.
It’s not news to me that sometimes I’ve decided to watch a movie because I feel the freedom of empty time, but hemmed in by my own demands of myself.
Write the thing! Get it done! Write the thing!
You don’t have time to watch the Martian!
(Blah blah blah).
Almost always, my belief systems appear to be supporting two Grand Ideas.
1) Not Enough.
2) Too Much.
Usually, these have to do with feelings.
Feeling like there’s not enough peace, love, relaxation, gentleness, nurturing, happiness, contact.
Feeling like there’s too much fear, anxiety, irritation, worry, darkness, unhappiness, tragedy.
But the other day, as I found myself absolutely joyfully blissed out at an awesome house party for a wonderful friend who turned 70 (without a substance of any kind entering my system in any compulsive way).
By comparing that moment of joy with humanity….to the moment I think there’s not enough….I remembered that sometimes, sometimes when I’m alone….
….a thought comes through that says….
….wait for it….
….this is boring.
This is it? says my brain.
Really?
This all you got for me, Reality? Seriously?
Come. On.
Like a Mean Girl.
But, I admit, it’s there anyway, even though it is so immature, self-centered, and shows how much I am seeking entertainment from This World (which I should probably call My World in that kind of moment, if I’m being totally honest).
Have you ever called a situation, or a person, or life….boring?
I know, it feels like you’re twelve.
OK, six.
But let’s look anyway.
That’s what inquiry is all about…after all.
(It’s called, becoming more mature and wise by starting with where you are, but I’m getting ahead of myself).
That person, or that quiet moment, is soooooooo *BORING*!!
Is that true?
Yeah!!!
Same house, same people, same neighborhood, same obsessive tendencies, same stories, same complaints, same way of saying hello to me, same clothes, same repetitive need to buy groceries and pay the mortgage bill and do the laundry, same business goals, same trying, same family dynamics. Same, same.
Same.
(I love the way the mind makes things really huge and wide, like so big they are statements about All Of Life, for All Time).
Can you absolutely know it’s true the thing you think is boring, actually IS boring?
Are you sure?
Oh. Um.
No.
Not at all.
I’ve found an empty silence in my own familiar living room on a Friday night the most remarkable place I’ve ever been, or felt. I’ve been on totally silent retreats with zero talking and smells coming alive, sights of nature astonishing me, staring at people with wonder.
Kind of weird, but it’s been true.
But in THIS moment….my neighbor telling me her same story over again about her cat is definitely boring.
Maybe.
Hmmm.
Rats.
NO!!! I can’t know she’s absolutely positively boring!!
I can’t know that if my mind says…..”boring”…..
….it is true.
Dang it.
How do you react when you think something, or someone, is boring?
Frustrated. Looking. Shouting “change the channel!!!”
Hunting around for a little somethin-somethin.
You know what you do when you think something’s boring.
I used to do eating. Now, I do more subtle things like work on my business, or write, or read spiritual books, or watch spiritual teacher lectures, or plan my next program.
But who would you be without your belief?
Who would you be in the very moment you think…(boring!)…whether you speak it out loud or just notice something moving away from the moment?
Who would you BE?
No thought that this is boring.
Hold still, consider it.
Look around the moment.
Woman talking about her cat, showing me her cat, leaning in to have me pet her cat.
What is your moment?
Without the belief, in that moment, I notice gentle quiet energy, soooo sweet. I notice ideas about what else is happening over there in the house, and that’s OK too. I notice a genuine and very slow impulse to now move back into the house, to go over there, not here. I notice dear faces, openness, kindness. I notice silence.
You may find, without your belief that someone is boring, that you turn in another direction. Or you laugh. Or you lean closer to that person, with tenderness. Or you reach out to pet.
What’s it like to not have the thought that life is boring?
It happens…..life without that thought.
Just when you least expect it, have you noticed?
Dream Song
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,
who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
by John Berryman
It’s all so beautiful, and changing, and brilliant as a bonfire in the dark November rain.
Turning it around: I bore myself, in this moment of boredom. I am boring. My mind is boring. My thoughts are boring.
But I am pretty exciting.
I am much more than these thoughts, these little repetitive beliefs.
Me, wag. Me, exciting. Me, wagging.
You too. All of us.
Nothing missing, no one left behind, nothing out of order, nothing more required.
bad things can happen if you say “no”….are you sure?
Wow, another meetup! Saturday, November 21st 2-4 pm in Seattle at Goldilocks Cottage.
Good time of year to do The Work even more, right?
Also, last chance to join Eating Peace the powerful online program that begins tomorrow to address inner angst and lack of peace when it comes to consuming. Eating Peace is 12 weeks of Tuesday Presentations and Wednesdays in The Work. We always meet from 9-10:30 am Pacific Time (both days). Everything is recorded if you need to miss.
This is the last time I’ll offer Eating Peace at this fee. When you join, you get access to Eating Peace for life, every time I offer it. Yes, you read that correctly.
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Yesterday I was talking with a dear friend.
About his need to say “no” to his parents.
He’s a young adult in his mid-twenties, but as I spoke with him, I thought….
….his age probably doesn’t really matter, not really.
His parents were asking him lots of questions about his life, his career, his goals, his intentions, his direction.
But I’ve talked with plenty of older adults who still thought their parents were nosey, or asked too much, or requested too much information.
If it’s not parents, you might still relate to someone in your life peppering you with questions, or inviting you over, or wanting to spend time, or suggesting you see this movie, or buy that good deal, or get a job at their place of employment.
I once had someone in a class I offered come up at every single break and ask me questions.
I started wanting to duck out the back door.
She should leave me alone!
This is what the young man thought about his parents.
We laugh in the movies about this kind of character who doesn’t get the hint and comes over at awkward hours, or calls at the crack of dawn, or barges into our office when the door was shut with a Do Not Disturb hanging in broad daylight.
What is UP with that person?
Can’t they see I’m trying to have some silence, take a break, get some down time?
What is wrong with them that they would have so many questions?
(I love how the mind will decide something is wrong…with them…because they have questions you don’t want to answer).
What if you could hold on to yourself, as couples therapist David Schnarch so famously puts it….
….no matter WHAT that person is doing, saying, asking, or acting like?
One way to get to your truth, is to see why it is you don’t want to tell it.
So….why don’t you want to tell the truth?
The truth that you don’t feel like talking right now, you don’t want to have a conversation until later, you don’t want to go to that movie, your answer is “no”?
I can’t say “no”! They’ll get hurt, disappointed! They’ll call me two-faced, or someone who isn’t clear. They’ll be upset. They’ll say I led them on. They’ll criticize me for changing my mind. They’ll be so disappointed!
A great way to work with this kind of anxious thinking, about what will happen if you simply tell the truth and tell them your answer, is to imagine it really happens.
Ugh.
They ARE hurt.
They ARE mad.
They HATE you.
Is it true?
Are you sure it’s true?
How do you react when you believe you MUST avoid hurting someone’s feelings in any way possible, or disappointing them, or concerning them?
How do you react when you believe you CAN hurt their feelings?
Careful.
So careful, you might not even know how you feel about something anymore, yourself.
So careful you might feel you have no preferences, you’re completely easy-going, and it’s a terrible risk to reveal you disagree or want to say no to someone you love.
Terrified of the results, the rejection.
I used to be like this.
Honestly, I still get surprised by peoples’ requests sometimes. I don’t have an answer right away all the time.
But it used to take me so long, I would feel stuck in a vice of indecision.
All to avoid that terrible “no” which would then “hurt” this other person.
Who would you be without the belief that the person who has asked you for something will be upset if you say “no”?
Who would you be without the belief that if they DO act upset, you were wrong, bad or a horrible person? Or that you’ll be rejected?
Wow.
You mean….not knowing what the outcome would be, just going with my honest answer?
Holy moly.
It’s so much freedom, and as I said, so different from the way I lived in the past, I still find it odd at times.
Not trying to manipulate any outcome…..including the outcome that seems “kind” which is that they are happy, not disappointed, not hurt, and comfortable?
Wow again.
I turn the thought around: I can’t hurt their feelings with my answer. I can hurt my own feelings, by believing I have the power to hurt theirs. They can hurt my feelings with their responses (when I believe they need to like me, or be happy).
The young man I was speaking with reminded me of a poem.
What if freedom is the greatest movement of all, inside yourself, inside others?
Free to be exactly as you are, without dreading what will happen next.
Give it a try.
“…The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn
It was the first night of our support group for people who wanted to investigate the emotional suffering of cancer.
Members of the group could be in remission, or any phase or stage of cancer. Maybe in treatment currently, maybe in treatment in the past.
The important thing, is they were interested in finding support for their beliefs about life and cancer.
Their thoughts, their feelings.
The doctors and medical professionals were the treatment experts.
In this group, we were treating our minds.
Me too.
I will never forget the day I heard when visiting the doctor and she said with a concerned look on her face, like someone trying to be calm…..
…..”Why don’t you go ahead and get fully dressed first. Then we can discuss the biopsy results.”
What??!
Oh no.
I knew. Before she even came back in the room.
“You have cancer.”
It’s not as if it hadn’t crossed my mind, as I felt this weird bump on my right thigh get bigger, and bigger over an entire year.
It met my fingers at my shorts line. I would feel it at the gym, or out running.
It had a hue like the color of my skin, only a little bit darker. The bump grew, outward, as if a pencil eraser was poking up out of my right thigh from deep inside, slowly.
But the doctor had assured me, when she first looked…..”no, that looks like so many funny bumps and spots people have when they begin to age like you, in their 40s. Come back in a year and we’ll check it again.”
Now, it was a year later.
She had biopsied this strange bump a week ago, and needed to put in four stitches.
It looked like the whole thing was gone.
But nope.
Since it was positive for a sarcoma, a tumor in the interstices of the skin, I would need surgery.
A much bigger area needed to be removed, to take out all possible cells surrounding the bump that might also be cancer.
Adrenaline shot through my body, and my mind filled with the sound of the words cancer.
Cancer.
Remembering it so clearly, like it was yesterday, our new group was gathered in a circle for the purpose of exploring and deeply investigating stress and cancer, using The Work of Byron Katie.
I could find it!
My kind and knowledgeable co-leader Anil smiled and shared his introduction. We all went around and said what drew us to be there.
But ultimately, I thought, what brings us together is being touched by cancer.
And thinking….I’m afraid. Cancer is bad. This is a terrible situation. Cancer must be avoided. I did something wrong, if I got it.
Everyone received a clipboard and a blank piece of paper, and a pen.
And we went there.
I guided people to write their answers, in silence, to six questions (known as the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet).
But instead of directing their writing towards a person they had trouble with, they would hold in their minds the very worst moment, the most frightening, when it came to cancer.
Was it the moment they learned they had it?
Was it sitting in a chair receiving chemotherapy?
Was it feeling the sickest they’ve ever felt in their whole life?
Was it on the operation table?
They picked one moment, like the one I remembered so vividly, and held it close while answering these questions.
Somehow, as I guided them along through the meditation of capturing thoughts on blank paper, something told me to be truly thorough. To look around that situation and explore what was difficult, in the memory.
Why are you upset?
How do you want this situation to change?
What should happen instead? What shouldn’t?
What do you need, in order to be happy in that moment?
Describe what you’re looking at which is most frightening in that situation. Describe cancer for you, in your situation.
What is it that you never want to experience again, in this situation?
Then one by one, everyone read this incredibly powerful, vulnerable, honest situation, and the thinking about it, in their lives.
This is the first step in The Work.
Clearly identifying the thoughts, the beliefs, about a situation you dislike, or hate. A terrifying situation.
The four questions come next.
But you can’t move with the four questions without contemplating the belief in your head in the first place.
Now, our group has been meeting for over a month, and everyone’s so inspired to continue.
Can you imagine an entire group of people, all of whom have experienced the fear of cancer…..
…..able to find sharing, love and connection because of cancer?
All I can say is….wow.
Much love, Grace
P.S. This group has space for one more person who would like to join for four weeks beginning on Wednesday 11/18 (no group 11/25). We’ll also begin again in January. We meet in Seattle.
