Tag: adyashanti

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What If You Had Nothing To Complain About?

The definition of a complaint in the dictionary is an ailment, disease, affliction, protest, objection, grievance, grouse, sickness.

It comes from the word lament. Grief. Sorrow.

We’re told we should never complain and that people who complain are irritating.

It seems true.

And yet…I noticed once that I was complaining about complainers. I had objections to these folks. But I was doing the same thing as them….

….wishing they would stop so I could be happy.

One fantastic way to dive deeper into understanding the whole process of complaining, whether you do it internally or say it out loud, is to write down every complaint you can think of in five minutes.

You might be surprised at how many you can think up.

I wish it wasn’t so late, I wish I had more time, there’s a pen mark on the couch, someone should have emptied the dishwasher, I wish the chicken was hot, I don’t want to go buy bananas, I thought there was gas in my car already, I don’t have time to book my tickets to the retreat, I didn’t write that other email very clearly…

I mean, it can go on and on and on.

What I’ve observed over time is that I have some of the very same complaints over and over. They’re like a broken record, playing repetitively.

Those are juicy ones for inquiry.

But after you look at these in more detail…you might have fun taking a look at the overall big picture…and seeing what happens if you inquire.

Let’s do it!

There are things that are wrong, and I object to them! They’re irritating, annoying, frightening, infuriating! 

Is that true?

Yes. There are things everywhere that are upsetting, imperfect, unfortunate and worthy of complaint!

I mean…EVERYWHERE!

Can you absolutely know this is true? Are you sure?

I almost don’t know how to answer that question. It seems true. Even considering it not to be true is sort of….unusual. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Nothing to complain about? Impossible!!!

How do you react when you believe there are so many things worthy of complaint? When you really believe its true that things are imperfect and wrong around here?

I spout off complaints. I try to find solutions. I “work” on solving problems. I try to fix the complaints and get them handled.

It’s a big project. It’s never-ending.

Well…who would you be without the thought that there’s something to complain about?

Pause.

I’m almost silenced. Without the belief that there’s a lot to be upset about here on planet earth, in my life, I’d be….I’d be….

….wow. I’m not even sure who or what I’d be.

“To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

I wouldn’t be a victim. I’d be here. Now.

I’d be looking around the space I’m in, noticing the air, the feeling of this place. I’d have eyes taking in the scenery, I’d have a body doing what it does, I’d hear a dog bark and a car motor somewhere nearby, I’d smell the lotion on my hands, I’d have a mind drinking everything in.

Turning the thought around….

….there is nothing to complain about. Nothing.

“Not even knowing what’s true–just knowing what’s not true is enough, because what that leaves is the great surprise. And all you can know about it is its nature. And so you begin to live a fearless existence.” ~ Byron Katie

Just to see what its like to not believe you have something to complain about….woah.

Empty. Quiet.

“Often, the pursuit of happiness leads to sorrow…Really happy people aren’t pursuing happiness, have you noticed? But you think they got it because they pursued it! What’s not told to you is that the pursuit of happiness leads to sorrow. Even if we attain something that gives us some happiness, we know that whatever we’ve grasped won’t last forever. Even a great spiritual experience!….In the midst of all this is the sacred. Causeless happiness.” ~ Adyashanti

What if your complaints are innocent, but also…unnecessary?

What if you could decide to simply relax, rest, and not take your complaining seriously?

Now that’s exciting!

Much love, Grace

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How Do You Know You Don’t Need To Know Why?

whywhywhyOne of the most common questions people have when looking at something very troubling (or even mildly disturbing) in life is WHY?

Why did that happen?

What was the cause?

Why did I act the way I acted, why did he/she do what they did? Why did she feel that way? Why did I feel that way? Where did this come from? Why is it going the way it’s going? What’d I do?

It’s like there’s this huge thirst to understand, to comprehend our nature, or other people’s reasons for doing what they do….

….but can we really find peace in knowing why?

Today in the Relationships Hell To Heaven class, that’s what we were investigating.

I need to know why “x” happened.

Yeah! It’s absolutely true!

If I knew why she dropped our friendship, if I knew why he was so mean, if I knew why he didn’t think our relationship was enough for him, if I knew why that happened to me, if I knew why life has turned out like this, if I knew why I got cancer, if I knew why I had so little money, if I knew why she said that….

....I’d be happier.

Are you sure?

Oh.

Not really.

How do you react when you believe you need to know why…and you don’t know 100% why something is the way it is?

I HATE NOT KNOWING! Argggh!

Participants in the group inquiry yesterday looked closely at how they felt when they believed they needed to know why something went the way it did:

Angry, frustrated, ruminating on the problem, driving their car in silence and rehashing what went on in the past, analyzing.

Who would you be, though, if you couldn’t believe you need to know why, order to be truly happy?

It’s one of those bizarre ideas, noticing who I’d be without the belief that I need to know why anything is the way it is.

Like my mind tries to go down an alley, or an interesting coldesac, or down a hole, or on a journey into space, but there’s no answer….

….and it’s OK that there’s no answer.

Full stop. No need to know why in order to be happy?

Yes.

I notice I have no idea why this world is the way it actually seems, why life is like *this*, why I am alive, why I was born, why the wind blows.

In my family growing up, my parents used to play music all the time. One album they put on regularly was by the singer Odetta who was popular in the 1960s and beyond. She had a fabulous song, a variation on a tune written by Woody Guthrie, I loved since I was about five called “Why Oh Why?”

The song is the sweetest moment of a child’s bedtime.

The child asks in the song….Why is the sky so blue? Why oh why oh why?

The parent answers “…because, because, because, because… goodnight, goodnight.”

“While there is nothing to fear about our natural state of infinite Being, such a state is beyond the ego’s ability to understand, and as always, egos fear whatever they do not understand and cannot control. As soon as our identity leaves the ego realm and assumes its rightful place as the infinite no-thing-ness/every-thing-ness of awareness, all fear vanishes in the same manner as when we awaken from a bad dream.” ~ Adyashanti

Deep breath.

I turn the thought around: I don’t need to know why, if I don’t.

Isn’t that lighter, more free, rather funny even?

“How do I know that I don’t need what I want? I don’t have it.” ~ Byron Katie

I don’t have the answer.

Turns out, I don’t need an answer.

Wow! Can you find it?

Much love, Grace

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What If Everyone Loves You?

Yesterday morning Relationship Hell To Heaven started off with a wonderful bang! (There’s still space for one person, by the way, to join us–you could catch up by listening to the first class recording).

Someone offered the thought “he doesn’t get me”.

It occurred to me throughout the rest of the day what a common thought this can be.

That person doesn’t understand me, doesn’t grok me, doesn’t vibrate the same as me.

And the general crowd version of this thought: These Aren’t My People!!

Long ago when I was only 19, I saw a public service ad for Overeaters Anonymous on TV. I felt desperate. Although I had only had a handful of binge-purge episodes, I was haunted day and night by the problem of food and eating.

I called the number.

A sweet woman, who must have been a lot older than me and had kids, started talking about stuff I had never dared or even imagined people could speak about out loud.

She said before going to OA, she would eat everything in sight in the kitchen as she prepared food for her family. She ate a whole pie once, before dinner.

I still remember the feeling during that phone call, feeling like Dorothy when she enters the land of Oz, and the movie becomes sparkling, brilliant, in full living color.

You mean…people can talk about this?

WOW. I thought you were supposed to hide this kind of information from others.

I showed up at the next Overeaters Anonymous meeting I could find and went for several months. I stopped binge-eating. The rooms were full of interesting people. I was making friends who really got me.

And then, I went off to a college study program in Europe, with my newfound knowledge called “talking to other people honestly” and the Big Book of the Twelve Steps.

They didn’t have OA in Italy. They had AA.

I found the English speaking meetings and went. I felt so terrified of losing my new “food” sobriety. I wasn’t bingeing and purging. I was intensely rigid with food. I wouldn’t let one bite, or sniff, of anything with sugar, flour…I can’t remember what other limitations I had, but I learned it from a “diet” plan they offered at OA at the time.

One bite, I was told, could set me off. I must be very careful.

The people in AA of course were different. They quit drinking, or were interested in quitting. I didn’t drink because that was also a part of the OA program of no sugar.

But the AA people would tell stories about hitting their bottom with drinking, going to jail, helping other alcoholics.

I was afraid to talk.

What should I say…that my name is Grace and I’m a food addict? Should I just say I’m an alcoholic, even though that sounds weird and I don’t think I am? What about those couple of times I drank a lot?

Should I say I’m an addict? That would be true…except they might think I’m a drug addict, which would be even farther from the truth since I smoked pot exactly once and detested it.

I don’t fit in! I’m not like the AA people! Oh no! I have to stay on the program!

I would read the AA stories of recovery in the Big Book and actually change the words in someone’s story from “alcohol” and “alcoholic” to something about food.

I didn’t realize it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter. But oh the agony at the time.

They don’t get me.

They’ll think I’m gross, they’ll think I’m sick, they’ll reject me, they’ll be repulsed, they’ll kick me out when they find out I’m not an alcoholic. If only I WAS an alcoholic…that’d be better than bulimic and food-obsessed anyway. Jeez.

Hilarious, really.

Many people in the Relationships group yesterday felt alone, isolated, separated, frightened when they believed that thought.

But who would you be without it?

Without any belief that someone doesn’t get you, it’s sad that they don’t, it’s not possible that they could, you don’t fit in…without that whole story going on who would you be?

So connected, open, joyful it’s hard to describe.

Relating to everyone. Feeling contact with the air, the chair, my body, voices, people, the flow of energy changing and morphing every second, every moment.

I would feel like I could just sit with others, or with one other person, and hum near them, like a little machine, with joy…without even speaking.

Last year I got to go to an AA meeting again after many years.

I loved everyone in that room.

I still had the thoughts that they are looking at me and wondering if I’m OK and who I am and if I need to talk or need their support or if I just drank myself blind the other day or if I’m an old-timer….chattering of stories of wondering what THEY must be thinking about ME.

But that was in the background.

I knew we were all the same.

Humans.

“All things–all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary–are equal expressions of the Infinite. There is no more or less Infinite, no higher or lower Infinite…..If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.

Turn that thought around: they DO get me, everyone gets me…it was me who didn’t get myself before, when I thought they didn’t get me.

I was worried about being different, rejected, unloved, alone, weird, unacceptable.

I forgot I belonged, anywhere. Because that’s where I was.

“When I walk into a room, I know that everyone in it loves me. I just don’t expect them to realize it yet.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love, Grace

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Take A Break From The Self-Critical Bull

Do you ever put yourself down?

Oh man.

In the past, I’ve easily heard come right out of my mouth little phrases said under my breath TO myself, like “you idiot, what the hell were you thinking?” or “come on, pull it together, it’s not that big a deal” or “what the f*&% is wrong with you?”

It’s no secret that we’re sometimes super crazy harsh with ourselves.

My harsh voice used to be really vicious.

Geneen Roth, one of my favorite authors and teachers of inner freedom from the turmoil of eating troubles, calls it The Voice.

Or maybe it was her friend (who I also adore) Annie Lamott, who is also a writer.

Annie once said that The Voice was like KFCK radio station.

Turned on, it spouts obscenities, mean phrases, attacks, sarcasm and criticism, all directed at YOU, that no friend who ever cared about you would EVER say.

Many people who come to work with me say they really don’t think that many mean things about other people….

….it’s this KFCK radio station that’s the worst, and they want to do The Work on themselves instead of others.

The weird thing is….over time, I began to understand why Byron Katie suggests not doing The Work on yourself and your thoughts about who you are….

….but instead, to just point your finger outward and rip someone else to shreds.

It’s because when you look at yourself, your observations and perceptions are so completely insane, it’s often hard to find clarity or to perceive what the truth actually is for you.

You are in the soup, with yourself, and you can’t really ask your own mind easily to find a genuinely neutral, open-minded answerer.

Sometimes, when you’re tempted do The Work on yourself, you have a big motive.

You’re hoping you’ll CHANGE.

If you hope someone changes when you do The Work, INCLUDING YOU, then you’re setting yourself up for big fat disappointment.

I know it’s kind of counter-intuitive….to actually investigate a belief system or way of looking at something inside you (or others) without a secret wish that they will change.

Why do The Work?! I mean seriously! You mean I just have to ACCEPT EVERYTHING?!

All those nasty and imperfect qualities?!

Impossible! NEVER! I will fight for improvement of the person who I am until the day I die!

But what if you dropped the thought that you are missing something, you need to change, you KNOW that the quality you’re objecting to is bad and needs to be eliminated?

I love telling people about a conversation I had with Byron Katie once.

I said I did The Work over and over again, on the same few people, and I was still really freakin’ angry!

She replied “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? YOU ARE!”

Oh! Huh.

Then it dawned on me how much I tried to be a never-angry person.

No wonder I used to eat food and throw up sometimes long ago, or run five miles super hard, or work overtime. My anger was getting trapped in an inner explosion in my stomach.

It didn’t mean it was time for me to start yelling at everyone else, instead of yelling at myself….that doesn’t feel good either (and I already did that, anyway, on the inside).

But just acknowledging the quality I disliked, and seeing how human I was, what a relief! I started to have an attitude of being open to how much it benefitted me to experience the quality of anger….or any other objectional quality, for that matter.

Anger was powerful, zesty, fervent, intense, passionate, exciting!

Who would you be without the belief that you should change?

It’s a seriously new thought for some people. They may have had the thought they should change since age three.

“As my mother used to say, “You’re like a bull in a china shop.” Did you ever hear that? If you let your mind imagine a bull getting loose in a china shop, that’s how the me is. It’s knocking things over, things like the most precious china. With a whisk of its tail, there goes . . . grandma’s four-generation-old antique china cups! Boom-they’re gone. When your me is operating, it’s like that bull. It tends to make a lot of noise because it’s always in a slightly adversarial relationship with its moment. It produces noisy thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or opinions. It also likes to search, moving its head around, scanning for the right emotion in the body, scanning through the mind for the right concept…Inside, there is something that is not creating nearly as much noise as the me. This something else, this openness, this awakeness, is not searching for the next moment or scanning for the right emotion or experience. You can get the sense of it now.” ~ Adyashanti

Right now. No scanning for what’s wrong. No criticism.

Just wait, and feel it.

If that feels hard to do, don’t worry. Even that is OK.

Much Love,  Grace

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Advantages of Visiting The Strange and Dangerous

We had been driving for hours. A family vacation road trip.  

“Only 3 more miles!” I said.

As we entered the national park I wondered how long until we actually see the famous lake. Because of me we’ve taken a 3 hour detour to our destination later today just to see this lake, which I can barely remember from my childhood. I know I was here when I was about ten, with my parents and sisters.

We’re now driving on a quiet two lane road, we’ve gained lots of elevation. Up ahead, we see a few cars parked along a very short stone wall.

“I’m just going to stop right up there, then we can look on the map and see how far to the best viewpoint or hike”.

I turn off the road.

We all gasp.

Suddenly before us is the gigantic, indescribable, brilliant blue Crater Lake. We leap out and stand, awestruck.

My kids, ages 17 and 20, are also stunned.

My son says it looks like a mystical other-planet, like something out of a movie.

He hops over the stone wall, walking towards the edge of the massive cliff. My daughter follows, even stumbling a little over as she hops the wall. My husband goes too, right past the sign that says “CAUTION” with a picture of someone falling off a cliff.

“Get back over here!” I say to them all “Didn’t you see the sign?”

My heart is beating and I’m a little shaky.

“It’s fine, mom, jeez!”

“No, I really want you to get back over here behind the wall, that’s why the wall is here.”

My son is now actually climbing up a small rock formation off to the edge that has a very small tree gripping its roots into the boulders.

The drop-off is sheer from that tree, hundreds and hundreds of feet. We are at a very high vista where we can see the entire lake stretching out before us. This lake sits in the top of a volcano that blew up about 8000 years ago.

I am picturing my daughter following my son, she is headed that way. My husband is too.

“Do NOT climb up there please, you’re freaking me out!”

We all laugh, I even say I seem to be having a weird physical reaction, my stomach almost feels sick. Oh yes, that thing where I’m a bit afraid of heights. I almost forgot.

“I really either can’t look or I want you to come back”.

My daughter comes back, climbs back over the wall and exclaims “Mom, wow, you are sooo scared”! She gives me a hug. I laugh, but still feeling the adrenaline in my stomach.

The thing is, even while this is all happening, something is watching it all, observing.

Lake, Sky, Cliffs, Son, Daughter, Husband, Wall, Moonscape, Chipmunk, Wind, Stomach, Blue.

This body is reacting, but inside (or entirely outside) knows all is well, nothing to fear.

But let’s look, to help out that frightened voice, the one that imagines the worst….someone falling to their death. When my kids were younger, I might have shouted in anger for them to stay next to me if they started climbing over walls.

A terrible deadly fall could happen.

Is it true?

Of course it’s true! Haven’t you ever heard of gravity and people falling before? It happens all the time on this planet!

Are you sure?

Yes. It COULD happen. It’s happened before, it’s happening somewhere right now. People are falling. It could happen again.

Although, now that I think about it, no one is falling right now in my perception. Only the possibility of falling is happening.

My reaction to “they could fall” is wild. Pure fear.

The most vivid picture is the moment they lose their balance. They are there, then gone. No way of finding out if they are OK. Images of them crumpled far, far below so far away you can hardly see their bodies.

An intense feeling of reaching out and pulling back towards me, towards solid ground.

I pause….looking at this strange and wild scene.

Who would I be without that belief, without the fear of falling, without the fear of heights, without the fear of loved ones vanishing into thin air?

Laughing.

Astonished at the craziness of landscape on this planet, the wonder of the earth which is so bizarre and full of unusual visions, like this one.

Realizing that I am categorizing this as an unusual vision, and sitting at home on my couch as a normal vision. Either one could be just as weird, if it was unfamiliar.

A bird from this lake area, for example, would be terrified in my house.

If I had no reference for falling, for thinking I KNOW what’s a bad or good outcome (falling, bad…nothing unexpected, good)….

….I’d be almost tearful with how weird and exciting it all is.

Here, now. Perceiving an incredible expansive landscape. Totally in love with my family, noticing I love them being alive in these bodies for the moment, all together.

Knowing there will be a moment when none of us have these bodies anymore. And apparently in this moment none of the bodies are disappearing over a cliff.

Without the belief that falling could happen and it would be horrible, without needing this fear to go away, I realize this gasp, this heightened energy, is awareness of infinite space, strange and unusual and new vistas, uncertainty.

I myself feel like I’m on the edge of the world.

It doesn’t matter if other bodies, that happen to be my family, are going closer to the edge. They are happy, comfortable, playful, exploring.

“No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace. If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.” ~ Adyashanti

We get back into the car, continue a short way along the road, and stop again. We climb a switchback trail up the side of a peak, and then climb up into a lookout tower built long ago.

I’m still aware of the edge. One part of me still wants to tell my kids to keep back.

But another imagines flying over this incredible land, flying into outer space, flying into unknown worlds. Maybe that’s what it would be like to fall off the cliff from a human body, who knows.

What I notice is that right in that moment, no one is falling….

….except me, falling in love with wild open unknown space.

Isn’t that what I’ve always wanted?

Much Love, Grace

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Giving Up Being Stuck in Dreams, Photo Albums and Pictures

The other night I had a fascinating dream.

Do you remember your dreams? Some people remember them all, some remember none of them, some remember only from time to time, some have the same dream over and over again.

Dreams are quite intriguing. I used to write a lot of them down, they would pour out of me like a short novel. I had to do it upon waking since the memory and images would fade away, disappearing into the fog, unless I got them quick on paper.

In my dream, I was entering a large convention center. It was sparkling clean, the sun was magnificently bright like California, the stairs going up and in were white, the building was white stone, elegant.

Other people were also entering the building, and the cool, smooth marble hotel lobby. The sound of voices and excited talking, murmuring, conversations was everywhere.

As I entered the main convention room, whomever was on the stage was in the far distance. There was already a large crowd in the audience, with only a few rows of chairs available at the back of the room.

I suddenly realized, in the dream, that this was the first time The School for The Work was being led by someone other than Byron Katie.

I woke up thinking about time passing, life unfolding, and how powerful that we imagine all comings and goings, past and future, the absolutely stunning change occurring constantly, in every day that goes by.
Many of us keep photo albums. A picture is taken, and saved. When we look at old photos of times gone past, it can evoke many other images, memories, thoughts, feelings.
The thing is, we don’t need to look at a scrapbook or photo album to recall places, relationships, or to recognize how something once was and how different it is now.
I once had a really close friend who did The Work with me a lot. We facilitated each other through the four questions.
One day we decided to start doing The Work on loss. We started with easier stuff than people.
My friend asked me what I was most afraid of losing? I thought and thought. My house? My precious bracelet? My computer?
I asked her what she was most afraid of losing. She said her photo album. Especially of her kid growing up.
Inside, I was like “seriously?”
But as I thought about it, I realized I had sometimes avoided looking at pictures of the past, or the future, because it made me SAD!
“I want everything to be like it was before, I don’t want it to change, I want people to stay alive, I want my kids to be little again.”

Who would you be without those thoughts? Without thinking, as you become keenly aware of change, that it’s sad, or hard, or difficult, or that you wish for those other days?

I would look at the pictures and feel the sweetest joy in remembering that time. I would feel the feelings come and go, relaxing, knowing these are just images, and no longer exist.

This is true about photos I’m actually holding in my hand, looking at, or dreams I have about the future.

“Life without a reason, a purpose, a position… the mind is frightened of this because then ‘my life’ is over with, and life lives itself and moves from itself in a totally different dimension. This way of living is just life moving. That’s all….This awareness and life are one thing, one movement, one happening, in this moment — unfolding without reason, without goal, without direction.The only thing that makes it difficult to find that state and remain in that state is people wanting to retain their position in space and time. “I want to know where I’m going. I want to know if I’ve arrived. I want to know who to love and hate. I want to know. I don’t really want to be; I want to know. Isn’t enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?” No. It’s the ultimate state of being. The price is knowing.” ~ Adyashanti

When I give up knowing what these pictures really mean, whether real pictures in a photo album or dream pictures in my head, I just BE.

I’m sitting, being with these images, feeling stillness inside.

Noticing how strange and wonderful life is, how it changes, sometimes wildly, dramatically, people and places coming and going.

“Colors blind the eye. Sounds deafen the ear. Flavors numb the taste. Thoughts weaken the mind. Desires wither the heart. The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is open as the sky.” ~ Tao Te Ching #12

A picture enters the mind (something 1000 times a day, right?) and you can trust it to come and go.

“I want everything to change and move, I want people to live and die, I want my kids to live and die, I want everything to happen the way it happens, then and now and later.”

Wow. That’s can be a startling turnaround.

But how amazing to feel the freedom of a heart as open as the sky.

Much Love, 

Grace

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Forgiving Yourself

forgiveWWGHave you ever realized you hurt someone’s feelings…after you hurt them…and felt horrible?

Even if it was completely unintentional.

Maybe some kind of miscommunication. Maybe you interrupted someone when they were talking and you didn’t know they were about to tell a true confession. Maybe you didn’t attend a party and the host was mad. Maybe you didn’t call someone back and they were “waiting” for your call.

So that person reacts, then slaps you verbally or acts pissy or ignores you or makes sure you know you were outta line or did something they disapproved of.

Or maybe something extremely painful happened. You ran over a beloved pet, or a person, in your car. Something you did resulted in someone else’s pain.

I’m such a bad person.

It’s a sneaky little self-flagellating thought that doesn’t actually bring much freedom, love or kindness to you, or to other people either.

Let’s inquire.

Think about that thing you said, or did, or the way you acted that it turned out bugged someone….

It was a bright summer day. There were people on the sidewalks, crowding the entrance to the small parking lot for the well-known Puget Consumer Co-op, a health food grocery store in the urban Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. The locally famous statue of people waiting for the bus was about 200 feet away. People take pictures of that thing and decorate it with clothes and all kinds of costumes. Tourists had their cameras out.

I had been circling the block with my baby in the back seat for about 15 minutes, determined to go in there and buy organic groceries and bulk co-op nuts and all-natural pancake flour.

(I was a bit of a hyper-perfection-only-the-best-for-my-baby type mom, it was really annoying….this was twenty years ago!)

My son was asleep in his car seat, I was super tired. But determined.

This was about the fifth time driving the same route through the parking lot, back out to the crowded street, around an extra long block, coming back through an alley this time, re-entering the parking area once again.

Thank God! Someone’s red back-up tail lights! They were leaving!

I paused with gripping fingers on my steering wheel and zipped into the space the split second after the guy pulled away, my blinker clicking.

Relief!

I woke up my one year old son, carried him into the store, set him in the little child seat of the shopping cart and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

As I started down the very first aisle, a man taps me on the arm, looking at me intensely in the eyes. His face is angry, his mouth tight, furious.

“Excuse me. That was very, very discourteous of you,” he says under his breath, softly but with a biting, vicious tone.

I actually turn around and look behind me to see if he’s talking to someone else. No one there. I look back into his angry eyes.

“What?” I ask with my heart starting to beat, a shot of adrenaline racing through my torso.

“You stole my parking place.”

I blink. I’m trying to match his reaction with my actions. I have no words for a moment, he looks so frightening.

I mumble with fear…”oh, sorry, I was waiting a long time to park, I was circling……”

He marches away.

Ping. That’s the moment.

Who would you be without your story?

Who would you be without the belief that you did something wrong, you imposed on someone, or hurt them?

Without the thought that I was a bad person, should have noticed him, should have seen his car, should have paid attention, should have prevented this, should have been more courteous?

Hearing words, seeing a face, seeing a mouth that almost wants to spit, seeing fury.

Like watching a rain storm blow through. Letting the words and the face be the way they are.

Without the belief it is my fault, my body relaxes. The huge lump in my throat might come up and out, and I might have started to cry.

It’s hard to stay without the belief for some. To even imagine who you might be, or what you might be, or what that would feel like.

Be gentle with yourself, gentle with you, with those other angry people or disappointed people. Feel what it’s like to let it be the way it is.

I turn the thought around, the feeling around.

There is nothing wrong or right. There is no fault. It went the way it went. This isn’t personal. I am a human. He is a human. I shouldn’t be so mean to myself, I shouldn’t make this about me. This isn’t about him.

Could there even be something supportive about this moment, this experience?

Wow. Hard to begin. But then, something cracks.

I appreciate this experience of being hated, being dismissed, being misunderstood, because of how deeply it reminds me of my own disappointment, all the times I have misunderstood, the times I have hated others.

It appears that this is the way of it, the way life moves. Fear happens. I know what that’s like.

And now, here in this moment, I can relax and fall backwards behind that fear. I can use even this memory of “doing something wrong” as an opportunity to rest, to love.

I can send love to this situation.

Perhaps those people who dismiss me are reflections of how I feel about myself, of the way I have treated me. Who knows. But I haven’t treated myself very well. I have thought of myself as needy, desperate, without love, insignificant, stupid and powerless.

Someone who doesn’t pay attention well enough to who else is wanting a parking place.

Not exactly the sweetest eyes to look through.

“When you’re being what you are, when you’re living the awakened life, there’s nobody to forgive, because there’s no resentment held, no matter what.” ~ Adyashanti

That includes yourself, no matter what.

You can choose right now to see that you are love, you are loved, you are loving. Not as a little positive thinking message, but as something just as true or truer than your painful story.

Maybe that person bumped up against you and saw you as unloving, because you’re the one who can handle it….and turn it around.

Much love,

Grace

 

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I Have To Make A Good Impression

clapforgrace

Yesterday afternoon a group of inquirers gathered in my little cottage to do The Work. It was a brilliant, warm summer afternoon with a light breeze wafting through the open doors and windows of the cottage.

The wind chimes were singing, the air was warm (sometimes hot), and everyone was attentive and interested.

When I first offered a meetup, a couple of weeks ago, I was a little nervous. I reserved a meeting space at the public library. I made packets for everyone who would come (I made twenty).

Best case scenario it would go like the picture above. Can you guess who I would be in that picture? Chuckle.

More than twenty people sent an RSVP, there was a short waiting list.

I practiced in my head which story I would tell that would best demonstrate my own journey using The Work, what would be able to convey the power of personal awareness through inquiry, how it changed my life.

I had to make a good impression in 2 hours.

How could I say what a difference this has made? How could I let these people know, who were total strangers, the way this work altered the way I looked at the world, and therefore altered my entire experience…..of everything?

How could I say in words this deep shift….a shift so subtle but so profound that I see so many new possibilities, it’s crazy?

And that it’s led me to other insights, teachers, and awareness, that I feel like I’m on a conveyor belt of enlightenment that I can’t get off, if I wanted to?

(In a good way).

Oh boy. I noticed a little stressy thought.

Called HOPE thinking. I HOPE it goes like ____ . I HOPE they get it, I HOPE I really communicate how powerful, I HOPE I can tell them how awesome, I HOPE I can demonstrate how fabulous….

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Did you hear the huge horn again? That one that is like the Gong Show, a giant HOOONNNNKKKKK….only in my mind. It’s one of those big horns they use when lifeguards have to get the attention of everyone in the water, or a boat is telling another boat to get the heck outta the way.

Stop. Listen. Move into inquiry.

Oh yeah!

I need to explain, they need to get how GREAT it is (whatever it is, you can substitute your own idea or thought about the greatness of something….you know what it is, right?)

Is that true?

Well. No. Not everyone has to “get” what I get, or see what I see, or understand. In fact, they couldn’t. Ahem.

How do I react when I believe someone has to understand what I have to offer, get me, feel what I’m saying?

Like I did the first time I had a meetup. Thinking about the BEST way to do it. Not exactly relaxed. Planning.

Who would I be without the thought?

Scheduling the next meetup with a whole different attitude (the one I had yesterday). Gentle on the inside. Resting. Noticing how sweet and unique and awesome everyone is, even if they are supposed “strangers”.

Without the thought that I need to somehow get any information whatsoever from inside me over to people over there, I notice how it doesn’t matter.

Everyone on their own timeline.

Me here now, enjoying all these people, so appreciative of them coming, showing up, trusting their process, their life pace and interest.

Noticing they are here to give to me, actually, not the other way around.

How beautiful! WOW!

Without the belief, I prepare for people coming with no expectations, being only myself, nothing to fix, nothing to change, nothing to deliver.

Ha ha, how funny.

The meetup was so much fun…more fun than ever.

Whatever and whoever was necessary showed up in the moment, and it was better than any plan or presentation or structured format could have ever offered.

“True autonomy arises when we have broken free of all the old structures, all psychological dependencies, and all fear. Only then can that which is truly unique and fearless arise within us and begin to express itself. Such expression cannot be planned or even imagined because it belongs to a dimension uninhibited by anything that has come before it. True autonomy is not trying to fit in or be understood, nor is it a revolt against anything.” ~ Adyashanti

I love everyone who comes to do The Work with me. Everyone.

We’re digging into holy ground. They stay or they move on, it doesn’t matter at all. They are held by reality and the universe and whatever is running things around here.

Which isn’t me, by the way.

DOH!

If you want to come along for the One Year 2014-2015 adventure in inquiry, where we address a stressful topic every month in a small telegroup, with two in-person retreats in Seattle, then visit HERE for more information.

Or just sign up by clicking below (this is still the early bird rate, which will end today).

undefined Click for Complete Year of Inquiry Program

undefined Click for Telesessions Only Year of Inquiry

Much love,

Grace

 

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Are You Afraid They Done You Wrong?

NightStormThinking

Have you ever awakened after sleeping, whether it’s morning or the middle of the night, with a feeling of dread or negative anticipation?

Probably.

Everyone has had a nightmare, or felt impending doom, or been nervous about an idea that crossed their mind….and everyone’s been surprised by someone else’s behavior.

But if you feel the looming dread, it’s pretty uncomfortable. Or downright debilitating. You might have images of that mean person who hurt you floating through your psyche. Maybe even from a very long time ago….so long, you hardly remember.

Even though the present moment is fine, you’re in a room sitting or lying there and nothing threatening is actually happening (usually the case when you wake up from a bad dream) you’ve got a feeling you can’t shake.

Fear.

The thing is, that fear or sense of being haunted feels like something visiting you. It affects you. Even if all that’s going on is you’re lying in your bed…..with thoughts.

So….what to do?

What I’m about to say won’t be that surprising.

Even though I know how to do The Work and question my thoughts….I don’t always sit down, take out my pen and paper, and start to investigate.

Instead, there’s a kind of built-in impulse.

It’s called Fight or Flight.

We perceive there is a dilemma, a threat. Something hurt us, or is about to hurt us. It hurt once, it could hurt again.

So we say “I’m gonna KILL that evil person who stabbed me in the back!!!” or we say “I will never, EVER put myself in that position again!!”

Attack or Run.

And there’s nothing wrong with you if that’s where your mind goes. It’s a very natural, innocent reaction to the fear.

So how can you get out of that reactive mode when you’re really overwhelmed, and you might not exactly WANT to do The Work in that frightened moment? Here’s a suggestion that’s worked really, really well for me, that might be helpful for you, too.

Grow the fear even bigger. 

Yes, you read that right.

Clearly define your nightmare, your most terrible fear, the WORST that could happen. What is most terrifying thing you’re nervous about, in that vision, in that feeling of dread?

This can be tricky….so here’s an example from my life. A situation where fear appeared in my mind and body in the night, after I got triggered during the day.

Several years ago, I open a letter I get from the state government where I live. I am a credentialed Certified Counselor and I get mail from the Department of Health from time to time. No big deal. I’m curious. Maybe it’s about my annual fee that’s almost due.

I start to read the letter.

My heart suddenly skips a beat and my stomach flips.

The letter says that someone has made an anonymous complaint about me indicating I haven’t REALLY graduated and don’t have a master’s degree. There are a few more bullet points, a couple of them sound really bonkers and weird, like a slightly crazy person wrote them.

Huh? What the ?

I know the statements in the letter aren’t true, not a single one. So that’s not the worrisome part.

My mind goes to who on earth would do such a thing? I can’t get off combing my mind for WHO.

Why? Who? Why? Who? What have I missed? Who did this? Why would someone want to do this? Or even think this?

That first night, I can’t sleep in the middle of the night after waking. I’m thinking about this situation.

I know I have to turn and face this fear, and understand it, instead of ruminating and perseverating over who or why this has happened….because none of that is going to help me. I learned that the hard way.

I start to write.

What is the WORST that could happen?

I see made-up visions.

Police cars screech in to my driveway, men with uniforms handcuff me and push my head down as I get crammed into a police car. I am rushed to jail somewhere and there’s a newspaper story about how terrible I am….even though they got the wrong person.

I can no longer work, I am shunned, I can’t earn money, people walk away from me like I smell. I’m all alone, destitute and abandoned. No place to live, I can’t support my kids. I have to get a job doing something I don’t even like, working 9-5.

What else?

There’s a person with some kind of demented personality disorder, or a paranoid sort, someone really freaky who is also obsessed with me or angry with me for some unknown reason, who is going to jump out of the bushes, or take me down in some sneaky very creepy way…..starting with this lie.

I picture the worst with painstaking detail, I let my mind have it’s total conniption fit.

My reputation destroyed, I owe money, my current career over, and a really messed up sick person out there trying to hurt me.

Now I can feel the pain in my heart in a huge way. I see what I imagine is the most awful thing.

I am all alone, hated, rejected.

I can investigate this terrible state of aloneness, hate, banishment, rejection….and really examine the truth of it.

Being alone and betrayed is hell. And it’s someone’s fault. Not mine.

Is it true?

Yes. I can’t survive it. I’m too sad, too hurt. I am a victim of someone’s sick behavior. It’s wrong. It’s hell.

Really?

Can you absolutely know that you can’t survive? Are you sure you’re in hell? Are you positive you’re alone, and betrayed, condemned, unsafe, lost, banished?

Are you completely positive you are a victim? That this is someone else’s fault?

Wow. No.

I’m not sure of anything here. All that happened is I opened a letter. I don’t have to know why, or who. I can stand here, noticing my reality is that I am in the world where tough things happen, people get upset and do harmful things, I am still alive and breathing.

Funny how quick to jump to the I’ve-Been-Done-Wrong story.

“Why do we need to constantly define our experience? Can we not just experience each moment, as it is. Without a story?….The mind is evolved to impose, manufacture, to dream order into existence. It’s an order-creating machine, and explanation machine. Why this, why that? It tries to create order out of infinity. But when it runs amuck, it tries to create order out of EVERYTHING. It becomes a cancer. Why is there suffering, why does God let this happen, why did you look at me that way? Why is this moment the way it is? You don’t know why. Simple.” ~ Adyashanti 

Who would I be without the belief that someone can hurt me? That I have been betrayed, falsely accused? That I’m in danger? That this MEANS I’m alone?

Without the belief that I’m a victim?

Holy Smokes.

What if I’m safe? What if I could notice that reality is kind, not dangerous? What if this is an invitation…to relax into this experience without defending, without attacking, without needing to explain. A moment to feel the joy of seeing it differently.

What if….

….this is my opportunity for spiritual growth, for true forgiveness? To let go, to open my hands and stay right here, without making a punching fist. To notice that nothing is actually wrong.

What if this is my chance to not think of myself as attacked, as a victim?

“When you approach the barrier areas of your thoughts and emotions, it feels like going into an abyss. You don’t want to go near that place. But you can go there, and if you want to get out, you will go there. Eventually you will realize that darkness is not what’s really there.” ~ Michael Singer

Turning the original terrified statement around: Being alone and betrayed is not hell, it is heaven. It is uplifting. It is an invitation, an initiation. I am not alone, I am not betrayed. I am totally and completely connected. I am supported and loved. Whoever did this could be suffering and feels alone, or betrayed, confused, doing the best they can.

I turn it all around to myself, only.

I have had an inner voice that’s been really quite brutal. It criticizes, judges, pushes. Listening to that mean voice, I have betrayed myself, I have shoved myself into the dark. I have banished me, hated and criticized me, attacked myself. I have lied about myself and said crazy whacked things about me that were not true. I have thought I might not be able to really help anyone, I have thought I’m not good enough, I’ve felt less than, small, powerless. I’ve cut myself down.

“Perception is but a mirror, not a fact. What I look on is my state of mind reflected outward.” ~ A Course In Miracles

If I am not a victim, I cannot be harmed. I cannot be banished. Or permanently hurt, or damaged forever, or crushed, or destroyed.

I notice that right now, in that fearful state then and as I write this, looking back and remembering that night when I was scared….

….the sun has come up, gone down, life went on, and the silence in the center of my heart and soul has never been broken.

Sleep happened.

Exciting to notice.

No matter what strange things have befallen you, no matter what pain and terror you have experienced, or what confusion other people have created in your life….can you feel what’s here that is empty and joyful all at once?

Even if it seems like you can’t feel it….just wait.

“If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. Talk to your enemies.” ~ Desmond Tutu

Much love, Grace

P.S. If you’d like to see a copy of my master’s degree and all accompanying official documents…they are on my website now for all the world to see (smile).

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Standing In The Dark Light, Doing The Work

When I was seven, my family sailed from England to Montreal to move back to the United States where my parents were from.

The day after leaving port, out on the open sea, a storm rolled in. The sky was dark, dark gray, the ship tossing up and down.

I thought it was exciting.

After dinner, my sister Priscilla and I made our way to one of the big doors to the outside air. I opened the huge door with effort. Wind and spraying waves everywhere!

I saw the colored streamers from the Bon Voyage party the day before. They were making green, red, blue and yellow ribbons of color on the wild wet deck. My sister Priscilla and I had to scream at the top of our lungs to hear each other.

We were playing a game of jumping up in the air and laughing hysterically when the deck beneath our feet lurched and surprised us at its weird angles. It was like the game we played in the elevators. You jumped up as the elevator moved and felt the unexpected landing when the floor slowed to a stop.

The waves were crashing up on the decks and water running. We slipped and slid and laughed.

We got cold and it was getting darker and darker, and we heaved open the great door and went back inside to the bright lit-up interior and found our room. I remember changing, and my parents reappearing, and we climbed into our beds and fell asleep rocking intensely back and forth in the storm.

No images of disaster or getting swept away or drowning.

Years later, I asked my parents where the heck they were that night and they looked astonished. They had no idea we were out there, all alone on the deck.

What could have been a disaster was not a disaster to anyone in that moment. Everything was doing its part: the wind, the sea, the ship, my idea to go out on the deck. No one’s “fault”.

Innocence.

But the memory still brings me the scenario of storms. Disasters. Big natural events that are uncontrollable, totally destructive, all-powerful, impersonal, violent.

Terrible events, like war, accidents, injury, deaths.

These are incredible investigations in The Work. In really seeing what can be lived through.

It may be more than you know.

Right now there is a YOI (Year of Inquiry) group currently running who are in their 11th month of doing The Work together.

This month eleven topic is The Worst That Could Happen. Next month, the twelfth and last, is Death and Endings.

These are intentionally saved for these last months of our time together for two important reasons.

One, because the group is ending, the group will change (even though some people are rejoining again for another year) and it’s time to close this particular circle. We’ve gotten to know one another incredibly well.

We have a trust and bond, and can go visit the dark placestogether.

The second reason was expressed perfectly by one of the members of YOI yesterday when I was facilitating her for one of her solo sessions.

“I had no idea that doing The Work steadily like this for all these months would bring me this kind of awareness. I feel like I’ve peeled off about three layers of the onion. It just happened through staying in The Work. And now, I’m looking at very profound issues like violence, hardship, trauma. I can feel something has shifted.”

I agree.

When I found The Work, I had no idea that I would start doing it, and keep doing it, and keep returning to it over and over again.

Weird.

Considering all the books, teachers, paths, courses, retreats and methods I have learned. I did rebirthing, corrective reparenting, est, transactional analysis, gestalt therapy, encounter groups, group therapy.

I went out into the remote wilderness with Outward Bound for 3 days of silence and 3 weeks of hiking rugged sharp mountain terrain. I meditated for an hour a day minimum, I studied the Course in Miracles (it took me 20 years to do the workbook). I went to inpatient treatment for addiction and disordered eating.

But The Work fits in to any and all of these. It’s a practice, like meditating.

Some people think that they’ll do The Work, answer the four questions about their painful concepts, and get a big massive Ah-Ha and never need to question their minds again. Or maybe they think that if they DON’T have this experience, they aren’t doing it right, they aren’t getting what they could.

But those are just more thoughts. Probably stressful ones.

Maybe some of us are hard nuts to crack, as they say. Or maybe we’re slowly coming to, waking up gently…without a big huge alarm clock blowing in our ear.

That’s the way it appears many people become awakened. Like a volume button is being turned up ever so slowly, just at the right pace, not too frightening.

It helps so much when you have a group supporting you on the journey. At least, it sure has helped me. Especially on this hard, frightening, shocking stuff.

Every day I do The Work because I know what it’s like NOT to do The Work. I remember it.

Over-analysis, ruminating, obsessing, compulsive behavior, believing myself, feeling sick with fear, angry at God, depressed, full of self-hate, addictive.

When life was good….no problem. When life was upsetting…. horror. No other alternative.

Who would you be without the thought that something is impossible to recover from, that answering four questions isn’t really that big of a deal or that mind-opening, or you need a special teacher, guru, insight in order to be truly happy?

I’d stop panicking, I’d stop running in terror, I’d stop hunting the world for a better place, a better answer.

I’d stop hunting. I’d stop. I’d. I.   .

“The Work is merely four questions; it’s not even a thing. It has no motive, no strings. It’s nothing without your answers. These four questions will join any program you’ve got and enhance it. Any religion you have–they’ll enhance it. If you have no religion, they will bring you joy. And they’ll burn up anything that isn’t true for you. They’ll burn through to the reality that has always been waiting.” ~ Byron Katie

I myself began really doing The Work, that is, questioning what I believed to be true, in earnest in 2005 even though I had read the book Loving What Is. 

I did The Work because there was no place else to try, or to turn. I had done enough therapy. I wanted to understand the most horrifying losses in life, the greatest pain and fear I carried, without expectations that I would “improve” or become a better person. I didn’t care about that anymore, I wanted to know the Truth.

I keep doing it, because I suspect everything I think may not be true….in fact something in me has known all along it isn’t.

But only with practice can I feel how my mind, my thinking, is not in control. And seriously isn’t aware of the absolute Truth.

Like, ever.

It’s very good news.

“We must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence into the unknown, beyond where all paths end, to that place where we go innocently or not at all–not once but continually. One must be willing to stand alone–in the unknown…One must stand in that dark light, in that groundless embrace, unwavering and true to the reality beyond all self–not just for a moment, but forever without end. For then that which is sacred, undivided, and whole is born within consciousness and begins to express itself.” ~ Adyashanti 

I hope you’ll join me for a Year of Inquiry in September. CLICK HERE to share with me your thoughts about attending, to help me get to know you. It’s called an application so I can get a sense of what you’re looking for and make sure you’re in the right place. I can’t wait to be with whatever group is formed and meet you in September.

It’s going to be an amazing year.

Much love,

Grace