As mid-summer comes to a peak, even though it’s still two months away….
….its time to open up applications to Year of Inquiry 2015-2016!!
Actually, a bunch of people already applied when I first put the word out a few months ago.
There’s already a fantastic group assembling.
What is Year of Inquiry?
It’s a group that gets to be like family, where we all dial-in to tele-sessions every month for an entire year. We laugh, we cry, we really investigate deeply our innermost beliefs about life, other people, mother, father, children, money, body, our stressful situations.
Every month is a different topic for inquiry.
You join to practice doing The Work regularly.
You connect with others in a remarkably unique way: at a profoundly honest level. To do this work, you have to reveal what you’re thinking.
It takes courage.
If you’re like me….this doesn’t come super easy. You may be someone who notices you don’t really get around to actually doing The Work, unless you schedule it, get a partner, hire a facilitator.
Looking at your mind is tricky for your ego.
OK, not just tricky….TERRIFYING.
(I know it’s hard to identify what an “ego” actually is…let’s just say it’s the self-centered, worried, anxious, fixated mind that likes to imagine stressful things and considers the world dangerous).
The ego, it seems, would LOVE for you to NEVER do The Work.
It spends a lot of time and energy, that ego, making sure you’re not looking at things clearly, you’re striving towards a goal, you’re getting distracted, or you’re escaping (with alcohol, drugs, or overeating for example).
It’s just a little skittish.
Doing The Work breaks all this down.
The ego….BUSTED!
Excited? Curious? Ready?
If you’re interested in applying or asking me questions about YOI, click right HERE. You can type in anything, and I’ll get back to you soon. All you need to do is answer a few question to apply, and send me yours.
I can not WAIT to see who the awesome folks who gather together to learn, expand, grow, un-do our stressful thoughts, understand our addictions, and support each other in waking up.
This is truly what we’re doing.
Waking up to our natural selves, and what its like to answer the question….
….Who would you be without that stressful story?
Wow. Amazing idea.
Some people renew for YOI every year, and they’ll do it again, because life without believing your past pain takes practice.
Maybe lots of practice!
I’ve been doing The Work for over ten years now.
And honestly? It just keeps getting better and better.
I can hardly believe something has stuck for me as a regular, steady interest for this long. I was always going on to the next new method or new psychology or new philosophy.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I still love learning about new modalities.
But The Work? It actually works.
It’s changed my inner life entirely….and because of this, my outer life is totally different too.
Let’s do The Work! Join me in Year of Inquiry.
“Everything I need, in order to know the Truth, is given to me in the Silence. I call it The Work.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace
P.S. If you need to try out tele-sessions first, that’s what Summer Camp is for and it’s underway right now until August 7th. Email me by hitting reply, and you can try a Summer Camp call.
It flashed through my mind when the doctor said “I need to talk to you about your biopsy.”
Bam. A surge of energy coursing through like a firehose from center of my body up out through my chest and throat and face.
No. Not this.
The mind almost didn’t have words…..but it DID have beliefs. It was an internal scream and urge to run.
I might have said to you at the time, if you asked what I was thinking……”nothing. I was in shock, I couldn’t think!”
But that isn’t actually true.
I was afraid I was going to die.
Dying is a bad, bad, bad terrible thing.
We all know that’s true, right?
Everything surged together in time into one penetrating moment.
“You have cancer.”
Exploding on the inside, outside staring with huge eyes. Listening to the doctor’s words with razor-sharp carefulness. Shaking very slightly, showing nothing much externally, part of me knowing I really have no information at this point.
Only the word “cancer”.
That word has so much put on it, it was hard to weed out the thoughts.
Cancer = death.
And death by cancer is the worst. Right?
Is it absolutely true, though?
Yes. Too short. I am only in my forties. I should live until….a ripe old age. I should live.
(I had this thought WHILE I am actually STILL ALIVE, notice).
So cancer = death, and death is bad ESPECIALLY by cancer…..is that really actually true?
No idea.
Well, actually, as I sit and contemplate….no.
I’ve heard death is stunning, beyond belief, heaven, mysterious.
I see I Do Not Know.
Once again, what is true is simply “it’s a mystery”.
I also notice cancer lives here in lots of humans who do not die.
Does anyone actually “die” when they hear the diagnosis “you have cancer?” I’ve NEVER heard of that happening before. But my mind reacts to that word “cancer” as if I am on my way out.
(Um….and this was always true when it comes to the body…I notice).
All that happened when I heard “you have cancer” was a beating heart and surge of energy and ears in wide open alert listening mode.
Those can all be very, very good things.
Who would I be without the belief cancer = death, and death = bad?
From a far off distance, I feel laughter coming on.
I’m here. I’m back.
I’m typing in this moment, and breathing. I look up out the window and see a street outside with pavement, and green leaves all around. I see sky.
I get a taste of the nectar of being here, without any past or future.
I notice I’m not even clear about who “you” is when the doctor says “you have cancer.” Because she’s talking about this body, but I seem to expand much farther than this body. I mean, I see a tree hundreds of feet away, far outside a window.
That whole scene was almost a decade ago, with the whole doctor saying “you have cancer” deal.
That whole scene is a movie in my head in the present, actually.
And here in the present, considering death….
….I imagine it to be the most tremendous journey and adventure I’ve ever taken.
I see it’s got nothing to do with my mind, either.
My thoughts have a hissy fit about cancer and death, but something within here, present right now is absolutely thrilled even though this mind is not so sure.
It says “Let’s Go! Bring it on! Abundant life is shining everywhere! Look!”
I turn the belief around: I am not going to die. I am going to live. This body is going to die. This individuality is going to die. This selfishness is going to die. This fear is going to die.
This “I” is not.
In the Byron Katie event I was viewing until yesterday a man raised his hand in the audience. He spoke with a thick accent. He was from Japan, and very moved by The Work.
He said “Do you know what ‘I’ really means in Japanese?”
He looked around the room, smiling, looking up at Katie, pausing.
“It means Love.”
Is it possible for love to die, altogether, absolutely?
Even if someone has cancer, even if someone divorces you, even if you have a huge fight, even if you personally kill someone else, even if you’re in prison for your entire life?
No love, anywhere in sight?
I haven’t found it to be true yet.
Not even close to true.
“Cancer happens. It has a right to life. Where I live is…what do I know about what’s best for me? If I have cancer that’s fine with me, if I don’t have cancer that’s fine with me. It’s not really my business if this body has cancer. My business is to work with my mind and to keep this body as respectfully as I can, and the rest is all good.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Still many days of Summer Camp For The Mind (all the way until August 7th) so join us for this inquiry blitz with a daily telesession including two weekend 2-hour telesessions doing The Work. Sliding scale. Join any time.
Love is who you are–and if you don’t believe it, question your difficult stories and see
I’ve been watching a retreat called Being With Byron Katie all weekend on a big screen with a truly fabulous group of people.
They came from many corners of Washington, Oregon and California.
With one thing in common.
Everyone has been touched by questioning their stressful stories.
The beliefs or repetitive memories that say “this world is dangerous” or “my life has been a sham” or “reality is treacherous.”
I am reminded, by being with Katie for 4 days of live video sessions for six hours per day, that this work is absolutely transformational….
….and ANYONE can do it.
People raised their hands sometimes from the in-person audience of almost 500 people doing The Work with Katie in Switzerland.
They would ask questions that are familiar.
This is confusing. There are so many thoughts. Where could I even begin? I just have a bad feeling sometimes about the world, it’s not connected to any specific “thought” so what do I do then? What if the one I have trouble with is ME?
Katie responds to each person with love, kindness, and an invitation.
Follow the simple directions.
First, find one moment in time, one situation where you really feel reality was horrifying. One moment where you were raging angry.
Only one.
Katie asked several people, as they wandered through a wild inner field of brambles and snags and long stories and heavy beliefs, trying to explain, feeling confused….
….have you ever been angry? Or resentful?
Go back to the first troubled memory, if you need to.
What were you thinking in that moment?
Write it down.
Follow the questions on the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet.
This is the first part of doing The Work.
You’re going to look at what you object to, with such closeness you are practically back there in the middle of that difficult situation.
The mind is so powerful, you might cry, or feel adrenaline, or rage right here while you remember.
Good.
Instead of trying to escape this horrible feeling and terrible memory, and say affirmations, or feel so desperate, or drink or overeat or smoke….
….sit in it.
You are meditating on this human condition. You were there. Call it back.
Enter it.
Have you ever said to yourself “don’t think about that crushing situation! Get a grip on your mind, think about pink daisies and happy times instead!”
I notice that didn’t work for me.
In fact, the more I did that, the angrier or more terrified I actually got.
I really do get the saying “what you resist, persists”.
It wants to be reconciled, it wants to be heard, it wants acknowledgment.
A woman did The Work with Katie that brought me to tears.
When her daughter was 2, this woman went to see her father. This man was her daughter’s grandpa. The two year old was meeting grandpa for the first time.
An incident occurred.
Grandpa hit the two-year old.
This woman (mother of the two year old) went into a flying rage at her father. “If you ever hit my child again…..!”
Trouble and silence and unhappiness and everyone feeling crushed(except maybe the two year old, who forgot about it almost immediately).
For 19 years.
(The two year old is now 21).
As this woman questioned her past horrible memory, this experience with her father and her daughter, she discovered that the actual “hit” lasted a second.
But in her resentment, she hit her own father AND herself with guilt, for 19 years.
I know when something “hard” has happened in my own life.
I tell the story to all my close friends.
“She betrayed me”. Or “he abused me.” Or “he abandoned me”. Or “he hurt me”. Or “it almost killed me”.
So it didn’t happen only once, it happened all those times of retelling the sordid tale.
Who would I be without the belief I was wronged?
Without the thought I was a victim?
Without the thought there is no support here on planet earth?
Without the thought (this is incredible) that something TERRIBLE happened that I can never get over?
I notice I’ve so far gotten over everything that’s ever happened.
Only my mind has logged and recorded and repeated back to me all the tough times.
Thank you for sharing, dear mind.
I know you mean well.
Thanks for continuously remembering it and persisting so brilliantly. You kept coming back until I slowed down and meditated on each situation, in silence.
And as soon as I got really, really silent and quiet, I noticed the goodness in this present moment.
What could be more astonishing than that?
Nothing.
Literally….Magical Mysterious Nothing.
Deep bow to Byron Katie whose voice of wisdom it turns out is actually my voice of wisdom.
Deep bow to whatever is within me that hears the truth.
“Everything I need in order to know the Truth, is given to me in the Silence. I call it The Work.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace
P.S. I love you even if I’ve never met you, and you’re reading these words. You’re amazing.
The other day, as I listened to the people inquire on the Summer Camp call, I had the thought…..people are absolutely astonishing.
So awake, so full of wisdom.
People have taken a dive in for only the first week out of five, and not everyone can make it to every call of course….
….but the thoughts being investigated for their truth are quite deep and expansive.
Here are a few of what we’ve been delving into so far:
I am (insert my name here)
I can’t stop with only one (cookie, kiss, thought)
I don’t want to be alone
I need more money
I need to be secure
When looking at stressful thought, we noticed how deeply and quickly it follows a dramatic trail of suffering sometimes.
One second, I’m on the couch being me, no worries.
The next second, a thought enters and I feel fear.
Something about this isn’t safe.
A participant in Summer Camp shared how she feels afraid so much of the time.
This basic very stressful thought is so powerful to question: I am not safe.
The first thing to do if you feel overwhelmed with fear, is to make a list of the top five things.
You might say “I have no idea, I just feel fear and anxiety! I’m an anxious sort of person! It’s terrible!”
Thank you for sharing, mind.
And now, pick just one thing you’ve found personally frightening in your life.
A specific situation.
This helps you get so very close and connected to that memory, that occurrence in your life….no matter how old.
You weren’t safe in that situation?
Is it true?
I notice when I have this belief that I wasn’t safe, every time, I survived.
Which is why I’m writing this now. I’m still here.
So no, it is not true that I wasn’t safe. Ever.
How do I react when I believe it’s possible to be threatened….
….and I have the proof of that particular situation I remember, the one where I thought I wasn’t safe?
I get all freaked out in the moment when I’m remembering it. I might even wake up at night, thinking. Even though I’m lying in bed, and it’s super safe.
Even though nothing is actually happening now….except thinking.
So who would I be without the belief in danger?
Alive. Laughing. Jumping in the water. Asking for help. Sharing. Slowing down. Watching.
Doing The Work.
Who would you be without the thoughts that you are (insert name here) or you need more of anything, or you can’t stop with just one, or you don’t want to be alone?
What if you turned all these around?
I am not (insert my name here)
I can stop with only one (cookie, kiss, thought)
I do want to be alone
I do not need more money
I already am secure
Could these be just as true, or truer?
I am already amazed by the wisdom and beauty of these fellow inquirers in Summer Camp For The Mind.Everyone brings to me the reminder, the joy and excitement, of what is available right here, right now.Freedom. Security. Safety. Silence. Mystery. Infinity. Trust.
“You’re imagining yourself right out of existence. It’s not a small thing we’re doing here….And there’s nothing that’s not good news, if your mind is right.” ~ Byron Katie speaking in Being With Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Summer Camp is still four more weeks starting Wednesday at noon. Click the link to see the schedule, and join us for the un-doing adventure. In a good way.
How does it feel to keep thinking you need to change, improve, grow?
‘I need to make sure I’m thinking positively and joyfully at all times. I have to avoid the negative, dark thoughts. I must remember all thinking is an illusion anyway. I’m not really seeing anything accurately. I need to picture my happy outcomes and keep imagining the wonderful possibilities. I must stop focusing on the dreadful, frightening possibilities…..’
Have you ever read books, gotten more into metaphysics and spirituality….
….and noticed your mind suddenly has a new voice full of little spiritual ideas and suggestions?
All kinds of new ideas. They sound great. They’ll get you to the kingdom.
Exciting!
Only. Hmmmm.
This voice seems somehow familiar.
This voice sounds nicer than others. It sounds more genteel and open. It’s got a really sweet tenure and color.
And yet.
Something smells fishy.
(Rip off the pink sweet mask)
Ah-ha! Dictator Self-Hater Strikes Again!
You see, that mind can take anything and begin to use it to stay on the self-improvement-is-the-goal path. To not truly relax with where you are, now.
I know, because I do it myself.
But I really did it with the project of meditation at one time.
I was so anxious, I knew that what I really needed was to meditate.
People are calm who meditate all the time, right? It’s proven that meditating is the right thing to do. Along with eating well, exercising, being kind, sleeping all night, and being self-less.
Yeah. That’s right!
So I decided after semi-meditating for a decade or so….
….I’m meditating an hour a day.
No excuses.
This will happen, rain or shine.
I’m very disciplined at times, when I set my mind to something. I started every single day with one hour of meditation. Even if I had a fever (which I did once). I sat up in my chair, took position (it didn’t count in a bed or in any other position, I must be sitting up very straight) and set my alarm so I wouldn’t peek at any clocks.
After one year I prided myself on 365 days of meditation, not missing one single day.
I was well into my second year of this when I went on a meditation retreat.
While there, it occurred to me I was “doing” the “right” thing.
Here I am, doing the right thing! See me, oh great universe? How ’bout this, God? You gonna bring me supreme awareness? Abundance and flow? An anxiety-free life?
Look at how good I am! I work sooooo hard. I read books, I watch videos, I meditate, I listen to spiritual teachers, I study, I correct my thinking, I’m practically obsessed with awakening and enlightenment and peace….
….it’s all I ever think about!
Um.
It suddenly hit me.
I was doing all these things in the name of Me. “I” will wake up. “I” will achieve the greatest achievement….self-realization. “I” will arrive and it will be fabulous.
The Universe will basically say “you look mahvellous.”
I’ll feel like a million bucks. And I’ll probably HAVE a million bucks, too!
Ouch. A subtle ouch, but nevertheless, an ouch.
Because this achievement that was going to happen was off in the distance, in the future, some day.
This isn’t quite it yet.
I remember a good friend who caught the same disease….
….er, I mean the same penchant for insight….
….said she was going to save up a lot of cash, because later, when she was enlightened, she probably wouldn’t care about cash.
So who would we all be without our beliefs that we absolutely must do things like meditate, think positively, save up for later, try harder, or improve?
This is not an invitation to the hopeless resigned place of despair.
It’s a reminder that what we really want has to ultimately be possible here and now, not later.
A reminder that we are not in absolute control. We are not isolated islands floating around with something missing.
It’s not an unfriendly messed up universe that sometimes spits out less-than-perfect people with faulty minds.
Who would you be without the belief that you’re going somewhere? Or that you NEED to go somewhere?
I find this astonishing (at least my mind does).
Really? Actually let go? Relax and give up (in a good way)?
Who would I be without the thought that I must improve my thought?
Not so discouraged. Not feeling like a failure. Not ping-ponging around with that dictator voice that’s got either a self-improvement whip or a doing-it-so-good-and-right whip.
I’d be meditating for the sheer joy of it, not because it’s the right thing to do for getting somewhere.
And if I had a fever….I’d probably stay in bed, lying flat and resting.
I’d be laughing!
“Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are.” ~ Pema Chodron
“Conditioned mind is perpetually focused on something other than what is–another time or place, another something that must be done right now. When we don’t succumb to ego’s urgency, fear, and anxiety we can relax, breathe and be, right where we are, right where Life has place us in this very moment.” ~ Cheri Huber
Just for today, take a very deep breath, and be with yourself. See yourself in the mirror and notice how awesome you are. Relax your muscles, your speed, the need to change your mind, your to-do list, your plans for awakening.
And you don’t have to. If this doesn’t happen, that’s OK too.
All is very, very well, without you needing to do anything about yourself.
Wow.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Summer Camp Fridays are from 7-8:30 am Pacific Time! Very unusual early, beautiful summer morning hours! We’ll still have 4 more of these in the month ahead. Join us if you like.
1) Yes, you can join Summer Camp any time, any call. We’ve only just begun. We’ve got almost-daily inquiry sessions until August 7th. Sliding scale, come to one, come to all of them–your choice. Come no matter what you can pay, really. Everyone is welcome here.
We’re questioning thoughts that drive us crazy or bring us sadness or suffering. Life-changing work.
2) Peace Talk podcast is on itunes and the episode on Competition is released….Peace Talk is a short 5-10 minute talk 3 times a week about peace, thought, reality, inquiry and grace. I’d love to hear if you’ve ever had fun with competition in your life, like the story I share in this episode 73.
**********
Thank goodness I stopped by the lodge where Being With Byron Katie starts on Saturday.
We were doing a quick tech check.
Just a short drive-by to make sure all the gizmos talk with one another, and we can easily connect via internet.
Internet, check.
Beautiful big screen, check.
Lovely space, check.
Actual connection to TV screen via my computer, not check.
The host gets bags of wires, cords, plug-ins from a closet.
We’re unplugging and pushing things into the side of my laptop. Nothing fits. You can see the hole sizes already, they will not be working. Male cords, female cords. Nada.
I call Apple.
Over there, my husband is working with the house-owner to hook up a test ipad for an alternative (which doesn’t work) and I am on the phone forever as the help center caller finds what kind of computer I have using the serial number, and locates a photo of the HDMI doo-hicky that needs to plug into it.
I am truly on the phone for an entire hour.
I order some kind of part, adding $18 for practically-emergency fast delivery.
My stomach growls.
The woman at the computer help center says “hey, I see your email so I looked at your website just now and I used to work at the Stress Management Center of America!” We wind up having the sweetest conversation ever about her five years in employment there, and the benefits of stress reduction.
Even though, I’m like “OK, that’s great and NOW I have to go!”
But I just can’t find a problem.
It seems like I should.
My husband and I aren’t at dinner until 9 pm, and I’m starving (I think).
But it’s fun, adventurous, and entertaining.
And we’ll have a working Big Screen with Katie on it starting on Saturday.
What could be more fun than that?
“The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious. Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.
It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.” ~ Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Really, if you wanted to come to Summer Camp, hit reply and email me.
My husband wrote to me yesterday from work on email.
What are you doing tomorrow?
I replied without batting an eyelid….
….one-for-one call at 8 am, Year of Inquiry group from 9-10:30 am, gym workout or bike ride 11-12:30 pm, coaching call from 1-2:30 pm, individual session 3-4 pm, Summer Camp group call 5-6:30 pm.
I then continued creating my Peace Talk podcast on Competition.
(It was about fun juicy parts of competition–and maybe not what you’d expect me to say. Let me know if competition ever works for you, I’d love to hear your stories, and you can hear one of mine on this episode).
Yeah, I guess that’s a pretty full day, I thought.
Nothing that unusual.
Tuesdays roll like that lately.
Mondays are more creative-type days. I try not to schedule too many sessions with people. Although I still had a few.
Even so, I was still working at 10:35 last night on the podcast.
Then, it occurred to me.
Tomorrow’s my wedding anniversary.
Oh!
I went and found my husband, who had been home a few hours.
“Did you ask me earlier today about my schedule tomorrow because it’s our anniversary?”
Yes. He took the day off.
Hilarious.
We laughed about my schedule, and how it never occurred to me that it was 7/7 and doing something special might be fun.
And it was over.
Now….some people might say that sounds very unromantic. But weare planning on going out for a late dinner.
The thing is, the freedom and flexibility we have with each other is incredible.
Not having expectations about what should happen, or shouldn’t happen, is the sweetest ease in relationship.
Until.
Shouldn’t he care more that I completely forgot about our anniversary? Shouldn’t he have planned on taking a day off a bit earlier, so I could clear some of my day perhaps?
Yeah.
This is a little too smooth, easy and flexible!
Ha ha, I am chuckling already….but let’s take a look at this flip-flopping mind and all it’s crazy perceptions.
Who would I be if I didn’t have the thought that anything should happen, but I let myself have fun thinking about what would be most pleasurable?
I might ask him to share breakfast and being together for 30 minutes outside at the backyard picnic table on a summer morning.
Rather than disappointment, or starting to think the day could have been planned better or improved….
….or falling into that easy position of being a helpless critical victim….I might be much more creative.
Maybe I’ll ask him on a short walk between 4 and 5 pm.
Instead of “this should be this/that” I’d imagine what sounds sweet.
I turn those flare-up thoughts all back around and return to appreciation for what is here. Easy, light, no obligation. A way of relating that is about freedom.
“What does it mean to love? It means to see a person, a thing, a situation, as it really is and not as you imagine it to be, and to give it the response it deserves. You cannot love what you do not even see. And what prevents you from seeing? Your concepts, your categories, your prejudices and projections, your needs and attachments, the labels you have drawn from your conditioning and from your experiences. Seeing is the most arduous thing a human can undertake. For it calls for a disciplined, alert mind, whereas most people would much rather lapse into mental laziness than take the trouble to see each person and thing anew in present-moment freshness.” ~ Anthony DeMello in The Way To Love pg. 138
Where two or more are gathered….discovering reality together
I don’t know why and it strikes me as pretty strange….
….but my usual first knee-jerk reaction (like when the doctor hits your knee to see if you have a spontaneous reflex) to the idea of sitting quietly by myself, all alone, is….
.…nnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Kick back and enjoy my own company?
Say nothing, hear nothing, have no conversations with others?
Hold still? Simply relax? Stare out the window?
Isn’t that kind of boring?
Or worse…..
…..isn’t it maddening?
When I first sat still in a meditation retreat, I thought I’d strangle something.
Visions went through my head of standing on my meditation chair and yelling.
“What’s going on here, people?!!! Why are you here?!!”
Then I wanted to leave.
Then I raised my hand to be called on, to go to the microphone and SPEAK.
Part of my motive in raising my hand was to converse, liven things up, and see if there was a way to manage my apparent nervousness about silence and being on my own.
I couldn’t sleep well, I felt like pacing.
Now, when I look back on that experience many years ago, I crack up.
There’s a Monty Python skit (an English comedy troupe who had a British TV show, followed by several movies, in the 1970s) where someone is punished for bad behavior.
They have to sit in the Comfy Chair.
“No! Not the Comfy Chair!!!” (click to see the skit).
For me, it was the same.
I didn’t know that the silence, quiet, simpleness and beauty of resting would be the most incredible experience eventually, and all I was ever really looking for.
Comfort with my own mind, body, perceptions, life.
I wanted comfort, and thought I didn’t have it.
Because my mind raced so wildly, with so many stressful thoughts, that it wasn’t all that fun to sit still.
I’d start thinking.
I’d think dreadful, horrifying, sad, or destructive thoughts. I only needed a few minutes to get going on something that produced stress in my body, or a broken heart.
And I couldn’t stop it!
The best way I found to slow down the mind, relax, and discover balance and the beauty of silence and my own company….
….was to give my mind a project.
Investigating the Truth.
Questioning reality.
Now THAT, dear friends, was a worthy and awe-inspiring project. My mind LOVED projects.
It LOVED problems. Because it wants to SOLVE problems.
Now….
….if I had needed to do this all alone in a vacuum, guess what likely would have happened?
We don’t know for sure.
But I might have taken myself out. Bullet to the head.
I am very stubborn though (it comes in handy sometimes), and an equal part of me was determined to find peace without destruction.
So while this sounds quite dramatic, it wasn’t true.
I’m still here.
Other People kept showing me a kinder reality. They did things like offer meditation retreats, write books, share themselves and their stories of freedom. They gave me hugs, and gave me criticism.
I learned so much from other people. I learned I was definitely in NO WAY doing this life on my own.
(It sounds funny to me now, because I perceive now that there is absolutely nothing that I do on my own. Ever.)
What I continue to find to this very day….
….is that connecting with others….
….whether one other human being, or ten others, or an entire stadium full of humans….
….multiplies my enlightenment exponentially.
Like the beautiful biblical saying “where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I with them….”
Where me and others are gathered with the intention to understand, come to rest, uncover truth and love, Reality is there with us. Love is there with us. Awareness is there with us.
So for me, yesterday morning was a most beautiful energy as almost 20 people gathered together on the phone (some people used skype) to be there, planting themselves into the still space of inquiry.
I love who shows up and the energy of each and every person, even if they choose to listen only and follow along.
We investigated two very stressful beliefs: a) they should clean up, and b) someone might break in.
How marvelous to take a deep look at these two experiences in life.
I could find instantly how I have had the thought that someone should clean up their mess, whether their internal mess or their actual physical mess.
Guess who should really clean up the mess?
And then the fabulous and worrisome common belief that someone might break into my home, steal or vandalize things, and I would feel loss.
Who would I be without THIS stressful thought?
So much freer. I might even find advantages to having things stolen, taken away, ripped off….
….and let go of the attachment and grabbiness of believing I won’t be able to replace it, I won’t be safe, or that my happiness depends on keeping my stuff.
Thank you to everyone who came to do The Work with me yesterday.
If you’re ready to continue, to plug away at thoughts one by one, practicing every day or every week (with a few Saturday breaks) for five whole weeks….
….you are welcome to join us.
I call it Summer Camp for The Mind because your mind gets to go to camp, and play in this “project” called believing-in-suffering, and practicing-how-to-un-do it.
My favorite!
You can really join any time. Check the schedule and see if it works for you to come on board at the appointed time(s) and allow yourself to sit in inquiry.
You can speak up, or follow along quietly with the group.
No calls are recorded, so you can freely listen, freely share, and whatever’s on the call stays on the call.
Here are the exact times for every day of the week for Summer Camp, and you can read more about how teleconferences work and what it’s like right HERE.
Oh, and it’s sliding scale registration.
I’ll be with you every step of the way, and anyone who has questions, gets confused, is nervous, or wants extra help….
….I am here to serve to dissolve stressful thinking, and bring forward a sweet, happy, kind and joyful life.
Thank you for joining me to do it. You are not alone.
At least this is the story that keeps on showing up in my life, and I like this story….
….so I’ll keep it.
“Nothing terrible has ever happened except in our thinking. Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares. The story we tell is the only nightmare that we have lived. When I say that he worst that can happen is a belief, I am being literal. The worst that can happen to you is your uninvestigated belief system.”~Byron Katie in Loving What Is pg. 228
Meanwhile….today appears to be a holiday in the USA.
Guess what I’m doing, just for fun?
The Work!
I love investigating concepts about holidays, vacations, humanity, cultures, groups of people, dates, days and all I think they mean.
My grandmother died on USA Independence Day, 1986.
My son was born on Independence Day, 1994.
My son’s grandpa was born on Independence Day, 1924.
For me it is a day about birth and death. And I love that it’s an actual holiday.
I notice a story is born, a story then dies.
Then it reappears again a year later! Psyche!
Independence from the story, dependence on the story, independence again.
If you have a stressful thought about a date, including today, and what people are doing or not doing on it (or what YOU are doing or not doing on it)….
….you may want to begin with inquiring.
Is it true?
Are you absolutely sure?
Who would you be without your belief?
Can you turn your thought around to the complete opposite?
Can you expand beyond your ideas of right and wrong, and find a place within that’s independent of your stories?
A natural place, in us all, beyond thought.
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Barry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
