barriers to The Work – The Work of Byron Katie with Grace

August 21, 2017

Exclude nothing, welcome it. The astonishing practice of The Work.

Have you ever experienced the feeling like you know The Work of Byron Katie is transformative, you’ve tried it, you’ve done it, you’ve been in workshops on The Work, you’ve sat with Katie in person, you’ve even gone to The School for The Work….

….and yet, something isn’t jarring loose? Something keeps on keepin’ on, it keeps repeating itself, you keep feeling bad about the same thing, you don’t really get how to address your particular relationship(s) or issue?

It can’t be so simple, can it? You can’t just “question your thinking” and change your life, can you?

Yet we’re drawn, constantly, to inquire once we’ve been bit by the bug of the power of self-inquiry. To wonder about if what we’re thinking is actually true is amazing!

What if everything I’ve ever been terrified of isn’t actually true?

Wow. Exciting.

But even though I’ve known and deeply experienced and been fundamentally changed and impressed by The Work, I haven’t always felt the power of it.

I know how to do The Work, but….(we have our reasons we don’t do it, or we think it won’t work….)

The grooves and habits we’re in are perhaps deep, and practiced for many years (since childhood)!

Over the past ten years I’ve worked on my own thoughts about the following topics, and worked with so many people who were suffering about the very same situations.

Doing The Work on someone who really angers you, where you felt resentment or even rage for being betrayed, ignored, hurt.
Doing The Work on money, or loss of your job, or feeling anxious about your survival because of the volatility of money or your career.
Doing The Work on addictions, like going to the fridge for more, more, more when you’re clearly not hungry, or drinking to where you don’t remember what you said, or smoking cigarettes when you thought you already quit.
Doing The Work on love, sexuality, couples, marriage or divorce
Doing The Work on getting cancer, hurting yourself physically, aging, or not being attractive enough.
Doing The Work on the pain of being alive, on mother, father, sister, brother….on everything we learned or experienced when we were tiny things.

If you wonder about hitches or blocks about doing The Work, like thinking it’s not as big a deal as it seems, or it’s just not so light and easy, you may enjoy listening to the live immersion webinar today.

Come join me for an investigation of what typically blocks us when it comes to this profound and transformational self-inquiry.

We start today, Tuesday, August 22nd at 8:30 am PT: Ten Barriers to The Work and How To Dissolve Them. (2 hours) Click HERE to register. Bring a pen and paper.

At the very end, and I mean truly after 90 minutes of only focusing on barriers to The Work and wonderful exercises to help crack them….I’ll talk about Year of Inquiry for those interested in the one year program starting soon (live calls start the week of Sept 15).

But if you aren’t drawn or can’t attend this live webinar….don’t worry.

I’m here with you in The Work. No one needs a webinar to do The Work. The Work is something you can do, free of charge, by answering four questions and finding turnarounds.

All you need to do is identify one particularly stressful thought today. Write it down.

Then hold it up against the four questions. Keep repeating it over again, as you wonder about every question, and every answer. Then find your turnarounds….all the opposites to your stressful belief.

If you have a special and particularly difficult stressful thought, hit reply and let me know what it is and if you’ve worked it before. I’ll write about it in a Grace Note soon.

“When the mind begins inquiry as a practice, it learns as a student of itself that everything is for it. Everything adds to it, enlightens it, nourishes it, reveals it. Nothing is or ever was against it. This is a mind that has grown beyond opposites. It’s no longer split. It keeps opening, because it’s living out of a fearless, undefended state, and it’s eager for knowledge. It realizes that it’s everything, so it learns to exclude nothing, to welcome it all.” ~ Byron Katie in A Mind At Home With Itself

Let’s do The Work. Because nothing could be so wonderful as to not be against what happens.

Much love,

Grace

June 29, 2017

My Big Kahuna Barrier to self-inquiry

One of my favorite things about The Work is that you are your own guru, teacher and educator. You answer the four questions known as The Work or self-inquiry (or Inquiry Based Stress Reduction IBSR if you want to get fancy). You find your own turnarounds.

You’re working intimately with your mind on situations that have actually happened in your life–and you’ve got your sometimes vivid, sometimes foggy, painful memories of that situation.

The thing is….when I first started out in The Work….I kind of had mixed feelings about the whole ME being the teacher thing.

What??! I’m the teacher? I’m the guru? DANG IT. That can’t be right. This? (pointing to self). Seriously? Are you talkin’ to me?

Byron Katie suggests: “Anything you want to ask a teacher, ask yourself. And wait for the answer in silence.”

But. (Let’s be honest).

That’s actually the problem here!

My ways don’t seem to work so well. I’ve done it wrong. I have huge flaws. It seems like something’s missing! There must be some mistake.

Can’t you see? I am NOT the teacher. I’m a dork!

(And I know the Voice in the head to some of us is pretty mean. It calls you names far worse than “dork”).

The thing is, this orientation towards ourselves can be so loud, so rude, so dismissive, and so fretful….

….you don’t feel like you can answer these questions about reality and the world and your life, with any kind of confidence or clarity. The despair has already set in. Maybe you worry that if you DID answer the questions, they’d be the WRONG answers.

At least, that’s how I felt about my own answers. Tentative. Nervous. Very lacking in trust.

I was totally convinced I was LOOKING for answers, not that I HAD answers already. Stop telling me I have answers! I don’t!

Here’s the good news: all these ideas about you missing something, about you not being the teacher? They are only more thoughts, upon thoughts, upon thoughts. And very worthy of inquiry.

The energy of attack you have towards yourself, you’ve also had about other people, or life encounters that were scary. It’s a fairly natural human reaction to loss, surprise, shock, or believing you lack love to Go To War with something. Anything. The self is usually the best target of all (it seems). We don’t really want to hurt other people. So we turn it on us.

I keep noticing, everyone is truly a real softie inside for the most part (OK, always). We really don’t want anyone to suffer. We wish we ourselves didn’t suffer.

So what do we do with The Work if we feel like we can’t answer the questions, or trust our answers, or we feel super confused, and we’re just so dang sure we can’t be the One, or the teacher?

Start with….naturally….The Work.

Is it true you can’t answer the four questions and get anywhere, or be your own teacher? Are you sure your answers aren’t the complete package, the full monty, the best way?

Hmmm.

Ummm.

It FEELS like there’s something missing here, but I can’t know it’s absolutely true.

How do you react when you think the thought that you can’t really be your own personal guru, or answer-giver?

I circle the globe looking for other teachers. Better teachers. Other people who know a lot more than me, or seem to. I get nervous about who I can or can’t trust. I’m full of longing. I think the answer is in Rishikesh. Not here. I listen to hours of talks on youtube.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Because there really isn’t. Amazing wisdom resides in this world. And some of it’s on the internet.

How do I react?

I DO NOT DO THE WORK. Not all by myself.

I keep saying “whatever’s here can’t be it”. I think it’s not enough. I’m not smart enough, good enough, wise enough, patient enough, slow enough, fit enough, relaxed enough.

But who would you be without your story that you aren’t the teacher you’ve been waiting for?

Gulp.

Wait.

You mean….

I’m not even sure who I’d be. OK though. I’ll try to answer.

Without the belief….I’d feel curious. Kind of weird. Unknown. I’d notice the space I’m in, the present moment. I’d notice the mind very busy with thought, and also a pulsing aliveness here. I’d find it funny that I have no answers, but feel like that’s also OK somehow. I’d notice I’m here.

Turning the thought around: I am my own teacher. I’m the One I’ve been waiting for.

How could this be just as true, or truer?

I’m the only one who has been here for every single moment of my life, in addition to some part of “reality” or “life” or “creation” which has also been here all of my life (call it God if you like).

I’m the only one who knows the in’s and out’s of the way I move through life.

I’m the one who remembers the situations the way I remember them, whether painful or joyful. They get locked in my mental files just THAT way, even if others were there to observe it differently.

Even when I’ve been the meanest to myself you can imagine, with really violent thinking, I haven’t eliminated myself. Something has stuck here even when thoughts were cray cray. I’m still here!

I’m the one who’s been drawn to all these amazing experiences and fascinating characters who are fellow travelers here on earth. All the wonderful teachers, the programs (like the school and other beautiful retreats and gatherings). I said Yes. Even without getting why.

Except for my thoughts, life is pretty astonishing, unusual, full of magnificent variety, and totally weird.

Holy Wow.

I am that.

Someone wrote a book with that title….and it could be entirely and completely just as true or truer that you are.

If you’re not so sure about doing The Work or if questioning your thoughts can bring freedom, and a joy you never expected….

….join me for a really powerful webinar coming soon where I go into depth about what it is that keeps self-inquiry from working.

When you register, you’ll get a list of ten barriers I’ve found that all point to the very same Big Kahuna barrier of Not Believing I’m The One I’ve Been Waiting For.

Perhaps all these ten barriers are just ways we remain ignorant, or entrenched in our idea that This Can’t Be It.

I find it’s been helpful to see all these little ways the mind will sabotage, sneak around, trick, or try to stay in a fearful place about life and What Is.

And although I’ve taught the webinar before, every single time I show up and share the slides, the barriers, the exercises, something changes and is new. It’s never the same, based on the questions that come and who attends.

Join me Friday, July 7th for a live webinar: Ten Barriers That Make The Work Difficult, Meh, or Unconvincing….And How To Deepen Your Self-Inquiry Instead.

I’ll also answer questions at the end about the upcoming Year of Inquiry, a small group immersion in The Work from September 2017 through June 2018 with Summer Camp for The Mind for July and August 2018 also….a full and entire year with a small group of devoted inquirers, all doing The Work together.

Everyone who completes the Full Year of Inquiry Program can receive credit for a 9 day School for The Work plus 80 additional credits in training towards Certification in The Work.

Many (maybe most) people join are not pursuing accreditation. Because it’s simply about being in The Work, remembering to question what you’re thinking that hurts.

This program is about YOU. You being your own teacher. Your Year of Inquiry, your school of yourself. You really are the guru or teacher of your own life, and sharing it with us all is a gift.

If you’d like to learn more, besides the Big Kahuna barrier of believing you are not enough and NOT your own teacher, then sign up for the upcoming 90 minute free webinar I on this topic of barriers that prevent us from questioning our thinking, and loving what is.

When you register, I’ll be including a summary handout of the ten barriers.

We meet online Friday, July 7th Noon – 1:30 pm. At the end of the webinar, I’ll include information on Year of Inquiry plus Q & A, so bring your questions!

“You are the one you’ve been looking for.” ~ Byron Katie

June 11, 2017

Masterclass: Getting Unstuck in The Work + Year of Inquiry Information

I’m getting so very excited for Year of Inquiry starting in September!

The Year of Inquiry program has been given the incredible honor of being the equivalent of one School for The Work (+ 80 hours of partner pairing) inside the Institute for The Work which certifies people in The Work of Byron Katie.

This means, for anyone interested in full certification, upon completion of the Year of Inquiry program, you can become a part of the Institute for The Work with your first school plus 80 credits already done.

But the most important reason people participate in Year of Inquiry?

To stay steady in The Work and connect with other people committed to the same deep work in inner exploration of the mind, questioning stressful thinking, and transforming inaction, suffering and despair in our lives.

To get ready for YOI…I’ll be offering a free webinar Masterclass: Ten Barriers to Doing The Work, and How To Dissolve Them. The masterclass stands alone, and, at the end I’ll explain all about the Year of Inquiry program and answer your questions.

While I will offer this masterclass again this summer, the first one is this coming Friday morning June 16th 8:00 am Pacific Time.

Set aside at least 90 minutes, bring a pen and paper (the entire class WILL be recorded) and join me for a powerful journey in self-inquiry.

“I did The Work, because I was in a hurry.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace