Tag: anger

I will never forget when I first was exposed to The Work on the WWII holocaust. I had already been doing The Work for awhile. I was at an event with Katie known as The Cleanse, where people come from all over the world to do The Work and listen to Katie working with individuals on stage.

This is one of the most devastating, terrifying experiences of human history for many people…any holocaust. When many are killed violently by others. Groups of people against each other, terror, dictators, destruction.

I had written a worksheet on Hitler before, but not questioned and investigated all my fears and beliefs about him within my mind. It’s almost like I couldn’t quite go there yet, I couldn’t see how one could even ask whether or not the holocaust was horrifying…or question that its occurrence was hell. It was horrifying, that was just true.

How could any of us accept this kind of experience? And I could NEVER love it, that’s for sure.

A woman sat in the chair with Katie and read her worksheet. Instead of the worksheet being on Hitler or the Nazis, it was directed to the people who walked to their death, the victims. They should have done something, they should have run, they should have fought.

As I listened to the story of how the victims should have fought, with violence against violence, self-defense, something in me became willing to consider every little nuance of my own perspective.

Just by listening to someone else do The Work, the questions were present inside me. The answers were alive.

It didn’t mean I had to love it. It didn’t mean I had to fear it either.

I had other visions of terror. Viet Nam, Cambodia’s Killing Fields, Rwanda, the Wounded Knee Massacre, Hiroshima, WWI. Many stories.

I had never been in an actual war myself, or even been around a real gun that went off.

And yet, just hearing the stories….I was scared about the nature of humanity, what it was capable of. I had been scared my entire life.

Sometimes when we ask the question “is it true?” about something we are believing, it seems like the answer is absolutely yes. Those situations, those wars, that horror, that was pure hell-on-earth darkness.

And that day, even while in my own life it felt like everything was falling apart (divorce, moving, almost no money left, sleepless nights, unhappy) I heard an amazing idea:

What if that event was not 100% absolute total and complete destruction? What if something could rise out of it that was healing?

I once heard Katie say “if I break my arm, I immediately begin to see the advantages”.

What if it was possible to remember or hear these terrible stories about evil in the world, and know we are all OK anyway?

Could it be possible still that the universe is ultimately friendly?

One thought I had was that for the universe to be friendly, then death must not be as bad as I am thinking it is. The most terrible end-result happening there in that awful, gut-wrenching situation was death, or the body being destroyed or maimed (if there was not death).

I realized that I did not actually KNOW that death was horrendous. I did not know that if I died with a group of other people, all at once together, that this would be worse than dying on my own.

I also didn’t know whose fault it was. I could say the dictator’s fault….but I don’t really know that. Many factors had to come into play together to create any war.

“Fear teaches fear. Only peace can teach peace.”~Byron Katie

The mind screams in terror, the images repeat themselves. The actual event is over, and then the story lives on to be re-lived.

I notice when I think with terror about these terrifying events in history, I am sitting here as a ball of fearful energy, even if I am surrounded by a silent, quiet house and never have seen an actual real weapon.

This is not about being in denial. In fact, hearing the woman’s work on the holocaust brought me into the feelings and fears I had not even looked at yet.

I was coming OUT of denial.

I realized that without questioning my thinking, I saw myself and people who were “victims” as small, powerless, sad, hopeless creatures. I saw dictators as crazy, insane, violent, brutal destroyers of happiness. End of story.

“The war I made against my family and against myself was as brutal as any bomb that could be dropped. And at a certain point, I stopped bombing myself. I began to do this Work. I answered the questions with a simple yes or no. I sat in the answers, I let them sink in, and I found freedom…..This story is your gift. When you can experience it without fear, your work is done. There is only one person who can end your internal war, and that’s you.”~Byron Katie

If you’re ready to go for it, write a worksheet today on that person or people who were to blame for introducing fear, ruin, devastation, decimation into this world.

Bring yourself this investigation, even if it seems hopeless or unfathomable that peace could be present inside you with those terrible images. Maybe it can. Maybe it is.

Love, Grace

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm.

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

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