Tag: arguing with reality

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Tech Support Nightmares…To Sweet Dreams

Facebook Live at 6 pm today Pacific Time for anyone and everyone who wants to join me for inquiry on wanting to control what’s happening. Facebook page is here and you simply go to that page for these live shares, and you’ll see me visible in a post area. If you miss it live, it’ll be recorded and stay right there on the page to watch later, including any mistakes or goofiness that happens. Live, unedited inquiry.

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And so for the seventh morning in a row, I checked to see if my websites were acting “normally”.

As in, you type in the name of the site, and voila, you arrive there on your computer. It’s what we tend to expect when exploring or finding something online.

But no.

My daily call to Tech Support is the next step so yet another tech support person might help address this problem of why my sites say they are “not secure” when they in fact are.

No one can visit them. Including me.

All the people in Eating Peace Process can’t access their presentations and recordings at the eatingpeace.com. Anyone wanting to read or comment on Grace Notes or look up the spring retreat dates can’t see them at workwithgrace.com. Seattle folks who want to dance on Saturdays can’t find driving directions at freeformdancedance.com.

This is a disaster! (LOL, you know where this is going, right?)

What I love about The Work is you get to start at the beginning with question one, instead of wildly romping through how you react without pause. You’re already reacting, when you feel upset, frustrated, depressed, disappointed.

The Work let’s you slow it all down, name your belief in the form of a statement, and look objectively at what you’re thinking.

My websites should be working. They should be accessible. They should NOT show weird error warnings that they aren’t ‘safe’.

Is it true?

Yes!!

What is going on?!

I pay for these sites to work! They have something-or-other called an SSL installed for security. They are “safe”! They don’t have viruses. They haven’t been hacked. The support people should fix this NOW.

Can you absolutely know this is true?

Ugh.

No.

What I notice in reality is that something funky happened with a migration of hosting–in other words, moving my three sites to a different place in the great big network of the internet (don’t worry, you don’t have to be technical to get the point).

Can I absolutely know it’s true something shouldn’t have gone wrong? Everything “should” be the way it used to be? That I shouldn’t need to wait, or call, or have this so-called problem?

No. What’s the reality of it?

There are no working sites for these three information spots. Are these sites really necessary for world peace? No. Is it really a disaster? No. Am I sure it should go differently than the way it’s going? No. Is it really a hassle to make phone calls to Technical Support? No.

How do I react when I believe this “problem” is happening, and it shouldn’t be?

OMG.

I sigh deeply. I think about ending this relationship with the company that hosts my sites. I go back and forth between aggression and helplessness.

Divorce! Cut off! Good riddance! I’m never gonna be your friend again! Anger! Disappointment! Complaining!

But who would you be without this belief, that it shouldn’t be going the way it’s going and these sites should be “working” and accessible?

Haha.

Almost funny to think of this wondering.

Without this belief, I’d be goofy dancing to the On Hold music which is now becoming very familiar.

Feeling interested in each new individual I speak with, marveling at all the different voices, questions, and at how  everyone is to try to do the best they can to help and take lots of notes and send the problem on to another higher level expert (their idea).

Kind of excited by my own awareness that when I see things aren’t resolved yet, I wait and I get interested myself in the problem solving. I read and learn things on the internet about what could be wrong. I’m super curious. It’s actually fun.

Like figuring out what’s happening in any machine or system….how fascinating. This approach applies to all things technical and internet, but also a flat tire, the broken dishwasher, the drivers-license renewal queue, the clogged drain, a science experiment, something hurting in the body, money, and relationships.

Yes, even relationships.

Because this feels like a new attitude, when I question my thinking.

Without my beliefs of how it shouldn’t be the way it actually is, I continue on with the process, the dance, the intrigue. I keep going with the project. I wonder “wow, this will be interesting to see what happens next!”

Maybe I do shut down everything and move on to other adventures that don’t involve websites, but who knows?

What lightness, without these beliefs that what I’m focusing on should be any different. I still have the vision of participating with change, the curiosity, being connected and involved in this predicament.

And it’s fun instead of aggravating.

Turning the thoughts around:

My websites should NOT be working. They should NOT be accessible. They should show weird error warnings that they aren’t ‘safe’.

My thinking should be working. My thinking should be accessible. My thinking should should show weird error warnings that these thoughts aren’t ‘safe’.

Aren’t these turnarounds a delight to find?

How could these turnarounds be just as true, or truer?

I’m learning some interesting things about the backend of websites. I’m aware of my commitment to understanding.

I get to respond to emails that have been forgotten as I wait on hold, and write this very inquiry out. I get to see how it doesn’t really matter, in a good way, that a website can’t or can be seen on the web. Everyone who needs access to something on one of the websites has written me via email and I’ve been able to solve or find answers for everyone, 100% of the time.

And oh boy, the turnarounds to the thinking….so great:

My thinking IS showing weird error warnings that my thoughts aren’t safe. I was noticing stress, nervousness, frustration. But now, it’s all kind of collapsed as I felt the red lights flashing (in the form of emotions) and stopped to question.

My thinking is now working for me. Open to the next step, which is to await someone to email me back as they dive more deeply into this issue. I picture several experts all putting their heads together to see how to solve this.

My attention turns to working with a client, then the money teleclass in a few hours, then more clients.

There is no emergency, and in many ways (in every way), no issue whatsoever.

Ahhhhh.

Much love,

Grace

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Want a new identity?

Open yourself to this moment, and everything falls into place
Open yourself to this moment, and everything falls into place

This month the Year of Inquiry program is looking at the body, physical conditions or limitations, feelings like “exhaustion” we don’t like.

But really, the sticky beliefs we have about the body are almost the same as the ones we have about anything that feels uncomfortable.

If it’s a person, an experience, a condition, an interaction, part of reality and it causes anxiety, heartbreak, worry, or rage…..

…..often we have the same reaction.

Kill it.

Now, I’m kind of joking around here.

But “kill it” can mean the following: get away from it, destroy it, figure out how to crush it or punish it or make it go away forever, work hard to eliminate it, seek help to change it, and never be happy unless it looks like you might be successful at putting an end to your contact with this thing, person, condition, interaction or experience. Forever.

People in Year of Inquiry were noticing weight, shape, or feelings all as being “wrong” and how much the mind suffers when something is present that it thinks shouldn’t be.

I’ve had the same feeling with people, or with the condition of “not enough money” or even towards my own MIND.

It’s a problem.

How to solve it?

Make it go away. It shouldn’t exist. Not like this.

But let’s look at “change” and the wish that something was different than it is.

I demand this to change. Now.

Can you feel the stress? The frustration? The fury at that thing Not Changing?

What if you wished this about your mind, and the act of thinking itself?

Yeah! It should be calmer! It shouldn’t run around like a Tasmanian Devil. My thoughts should be relaxed, still, sharp, genius, and non-judging, and Not Bored.

Haha! As if.

(You know the saying “as if”? You say it with sarcasm like a super rebellious teenager and it means….”As If that could EVER happen!”)

So let’s do The Work on this demand for something to change–even the mind itself.

Is it true that it should change?

Answer this question about whatever it is you really, really think would be waaaaay better if it changed, upgraded, improved, stopped.

Are you absolutely sure it should?

Um. Pretty sure. At least…..

…..dang, now I’m confused.

Maybe not. Maybe I can’t know if it should change, this thinking mind. I’m not really trying to MAKE it think. It’s just doing that.

How do I know it’s not supposed to, or that I’d feel better if it didn’t?

I know how I react when I believe my mind is a problem.

I hammer away at it. I read books about “thinking” and changing the mind. I feel irritated with it. I’m sure there’s something I’m missing, that other people are enjoying out there. Poor me.

Who would I be without this belief, though?

Clunk.

Going blank.

You mean….no belief that this needs to change? No conviction that this is bad, and must be fixed?

Wow.

Wait, even the mind?

Yah.

What if you didn’t believe your evaluations were true, that this should go away, it needs to change, you will be happier later (and you aren’t right now)?

Who would you be without your thought that your thoughtsshouldn’t be as they are?

Hilarious, right?

“At the core of our suffering is the sense that something bad is happening to us. In fact, that’s what the word suffering literally means–to undergo or endure. There’s a sense of passivity (from the Latin passio, meaning ‘I suffer’), of not being in control, of being the victim of life….When the pain is not deeply accepted in this moment, I become ‘the one who is in pain’. And then the search is on. I do not want to be the one who is in pain. I want to escape pain. I want to be the one who is NOT in pain. I don’t want to be pain’s victim. I want a new identity!” ~ Jeff Foster in The Deepest Acceptance

What if you turned it all around and you stood here, right now, without any sense of anything being wrong, or happening to you….

….not the difficult person, your condition, your body, the uncomfortable moment, or your fearful or troubled thoughts?

No need for any new identity.

As if.

“Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.” ~ Tao Te Ching #23

Much love, Grace

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That Troubling Way It Went? It Should Have Gone That Way

That shouldn’t have happened.

How many times have you thought this, in life?

Well….I’ve had it run through my head a gazillion times from the peanut gallery in my mind.

Boy, that really would have been better if it hadn’t happened….

…..what do you think, Peanut Gallery Committee Member B?

Oh, I agree 100%! And how about you, Committee Members C, D, and E?

Absolutely! That shouldn’t have happened! We all agree!

Just look at all the alternative possibilities that are available instead, if THAT hadn’t happened!

But…..what if instead of seeing how clearly something would be better if it hadn’t gone the way it did….

….instead, you found the benefits of the event or circumstance or situation going exactly as it went.

This is what is sometimes called the “living turnaround” in Byron Katie’s work.

I find advantages to what happened, instead of focusing on the disadvantage, concerns, fears.

It’s not positive thinking, or a type of orientation that tries to pretend something didn’t happen at ALL, or cover over the original painful thought. It’s not denial, looking on the bright side, putting a smile on a terrible situation, blah blah.

This is being open to a genuine, authentic openness to benefits coming out of the most troubling situations.

“The sense that things should be other than they are, is suffering.” ~ Wayne Liquorman

Yesterday in Summer Camp, a group of inquirers joining teleconference calls to question their beliefs together as a practice during the summer, looked at this very stressful concept where we really think something should NOT have gone the way it did.

Ouch. Agony.

When thinking that belief to be true, that something shouldn’t be as it is (or was) inquirers in the Summer Camp call reported feeling churning in the stomach, a sharp pain in the throat, jabs in the ribs, anger, rage, wanting to quit, hopelessness.

No hope. What’s the use?

But to truly consider who you would be without the conviction that something should have gone differently?

And then to even find the advantages that it should have gone as it did?

Quite a mind-blower.

This is what people discovered: It should have gone that way because…

…it gives me great opportunity to understand my own pain, my own difficult past and history, to feel better, to notice how I did the best I could (and so did everyone else), to loosen my grip on the need to control or manage things, to allow everything to be as it was, as it is, to let go completely.

“The I-know mind is very painful. It tries to run things like a dictator, and life goes on without it. And all sadness is a tantrum. It’s the war with God, the war with reality–all sadness. And you lose. So turn it around.” ~ Byron Katie

It should have gone that way, because I would never be here right now, writing this, sitting here, living in this particular moment if it hadn’t.

Even with all the Committee Members chiming in.

Much love, Grace