Tag: being alone

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Being Alone Is Better Than You Think

Last week in the Horrible Food Wonderful Food teleclass, someone mentioned something I’ve heard quite a few times before…and not just related to discomfort around eating.

Aloneness. Emptiness. Space. 

Yesterday, in the morning YOI (Year of Inquiry) group, it came up again.

And now that we’re on this topic, I must admit I’ve probably thought about it 847 times in the past month alone. (I could be exaggerating). 

It’s a great and wild dilemma. Being alone. Here. With images, thoughts, sensations, ideas.

And lots of infinite space, mystery and lack of understanding at a mental level.

When I fist encountered this awareness, like many of us, I was pretty young. It’s like the question “who would you be without that thought?”

Another way it occurs to people, even when children, is they wonder what the truth is, they see something new and unusual and compare it to the usual, they hear about death or birth and think “I wonder what is before birth, or after death?”

Questions without absolute answers! Everywhere! 

(Picture someone holding their head with both palms pressed to either side like in an old black-and-white horror movie….shouting “THEY’RE EVERYWHERE, THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!” with question marks flying all around like birds.)

Then, I realized, I am not exactly having a stress-free experience of this alone-in-all-the-universe-mystery-chaos-unknown thing. 

Ah ha! I can inquire into even THIS situation. This troubling situation of empty space and Not Knowing!

There you are, in your home, all alone. Perhaps the night is before you, maybe you feel tired, maybe you no longer want to “work”, you want to rest. 

OMG! The Vast Emptiness! 

Run for your life!

This is where, in my own past, I would have the feeling to go eat something. Or drink alcohol. Or wonder what movie was on TV. Better check emails, or surf the net, or go to that porn site. Perhaps shopping, smoking, contacting someone, facebook, studying. 

It’s almost as if just the very idea of asking who I am, what this life is for, what is death, why am I here, what should I do now….sets off a low alarm to the mind. 

But is it true that Not Knowing the full answer, the complete picture, that Not Understanding…..is sad, bad, or troubling?

YES! I must understand! These great questions are my passion! I will know the Truth or die trying! 

If I accepted that I’ll never understand, or that the MIND won’t understand fully, then I won’t TRY to understand. If I accept that the MIND will not rest, that it’s a busy machine, then I’ll NEVER find peace. I’ll give up.

Can you absolutely know that this is true?

No. Doh!

How do you react when you believe that you’re gonna figure All This out at some point?

Arrrgh. Mad. Then sad. Then furious. Then depressed. Then scared. Then hopeless.

Now….who would you be without the thought that you need to know? That this is one big unknown mystery (and that’s alarming)?

Without the thought that this situation is sad, bad or troubling?

What if this unknown, alone, emptiness is fabulous, exciting, true, spacious, or deserves some investigation?

What if it’s OK to have this mind that has a penchant for answers (and questions) and it’s OK that the mind doesn’t really grasp All This?

Turning the thought around, could it be just as possible that the mystery of who you are, and what’s going on around here, is thrilling, beautiful, light, important and good?

“To stand alone in true solitude is to stand in the recognition of the absolute completeness and unity of all manner of existence. And from that common ground, where nothing and no one is foreign to you, your love extends across the magnitude of time and embraces the greatest and smallest of things.” ~ Adyashanti 

Maybe the immensity of space you notice when you do not know what anything is for, or what happens next, or what this all is….maybe that open space of nothingness is full of love, not fear. 

And perhaps the visions of flying through outer space untethered, with no one anywhere in sight, about to die…is just a picture.

With Love, Grace

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The Stunning Truth About Being Alone

Sometimes, you have sudden, unexpected changes in your life.

One day it’s that way….and then something happens….and it’s another way. Never to return to the old way.

Recently, a lovely inquirer contacted me to do The Work on something that comes up regularly: her partner left. 

Another woman and I did The Work together on her cancer diagnosis. 

I can guarantee that for both these situations…there are thoughts of Before and After. 

Before….things were good. After….things not so good.

I’m in the newly updated football stadium of the local huge university. The Sports Medicine clinic takes up the entire underground level, new state-of-the art rooms and lots of wood and purple.

I check my cell phone. No internet down here. They should put that in. I could be getting something done. Instead of sitting here by myself.

The doctor comes in and pulls out a cool wall-mounted screen. He shows me the black and white image of my entire pelvis, which looks like a butterfly, or a weird beetle. 

He’s pointing to something white and saying “see, no hamstring here…it’s just Not There…I think you’ll pretty much HAVE to get surgery to be able to move about in the future.” 

It doesn’t really sink in until later, when I’m driving away. What exactly did he mean by SURGERY?

I google the internet. Oh. I google the words used in the report of this image. 

I’m not sure when it happens, but it’s like waking up slowly to what needs to happen here. Bunches of thoughts. 

I’ll be in one of those L-Shaped casts for my leg keeping it totally and completely braced and immobile….for several MONTHS. Can’t put weight on it for 3 months, will maybe go on a jog at 6 months. And I’m told I won’t be back to normal for a YEAR.

OK then!

The mind kicks in on all the things I might not get to do: the New Year’s Cleanse, dancing next weekend, sitting at the Thanksgiving table, DRIVING, getting on an airplane in January….going to the bathroom easily. 

A thought rises to the top, with the mind rushing. From smooth, deep pool…to Grand Canyon river rapids! 

HHHEEELLLLLPPPP!

I’ll be lying on the couch going CRAZY because I can’t go exercise! My muscles will atrophy! 

I’ll have to just…..just….SIT THERE.

Kind of odd, really. Because this is often the result after a big major life-changing event.

Your partner leaves, and you are sitting there. In a room by yourself. 

You find out you have cancer, and you are sitting there. You’re the only one who has it, in this particular way, right in this moment. You’re on your own.

You lose your job, and you are sitting at home. In a room by yourself.

You’re in a big accident, and you are lying in a hospital bed. By yourself.

I know there’s lots of people around, too, but I’m talking about awareness of the most difficult moment in the midst of all this. 

What is actually happening, in this terrible moment when I have lost something, lost someone, lost my life as I knew it?

Am I sure it’s terrible, that it WILL be terrible soon, that it will be terrible forever?

Since I cannot know the future, what I CAN look at, and answer…is my answer to this question: is this truly horrendous, disastrous, shattering, devastating, horrifying, tragic?

Right now. Well?

OK, well, now that you put it that way. Right NOW, I’m actually writing this note. I don’t feel much pain. I’m sitting up. 

I’m not sure how I will feel, later, after the operation, when I’m lying down and I’m not even ABLE to sit up.

It may seem a small point. But the anticipation of the terrible moment in the future is actually a little, well, a little crazy to go into. 

It’s like saying…OK, let’s get stressed out NOW because you’re going to get stressed out LATER.

I look around, at NOW. There’s a desk, this beautiful cream-colored couch, dark morning air outside, murmuring early-morning voices walking past, a bookshelf full of the best books on the planet, a happy kitchen.

Don’t I pay sometimes to go sit in total silence with a small group of people interested in being all alone, and quiet?

How do I react when I think that what is happening right now is worrisome, or that I have to prepare for the unpleasant thing about to happen in the future?

I get jittery in my chest. I have images flash before my eyes. I see myself wasting away into skin and bones…and turning into a skeleton…and dying.

Seriously, the mind is very dramatic. 

I felt this way when my former husband left, too. Like I was so vividly aware of a space of emptiness, I could stay lying on the bed forever and not talk with anyone for 3 days, and just read and space out and stare. 

But who would I be without the thought that I KNOW it’s gonna be rough later? 

Without the thought that later, it will not be possible to be happy?

Without the thought that this here, right now, sucks?

Wow…I catch this little glimpse of it being very interesting to be immobilized in a cast-brace-thing and not be able to move, like Houdini, for two weeks.

(Oh, Houdini escaped within 3 minutes? Don’t remind me!)

Ahem. Back to inquiry. Who would you be without the thought that the AFTER of this whole operation thing will be difficult? 

I see advantages. 

No packing up my gym gear for the gym. Not necessary to be in great physical condition to have a happy life. No driving a car, paying for gas, just not necessary to go ANYWHERE. 

In this moment, without the thought that THIS, Reality, is BAD….I actually kind of find this all funny. I’m sitting in a room all by myself. 

Holy Moly!

There are all kinds of things I can do, on that couch in the future, without the thought that being alone, lying there by myself, is a bad thing.

Concentrated time on my business re-tweaking my website. Finishing my little booklet on hitches that come up with The Work as you begin to do it. Completing that third draft of the parenting ebook that people are already downloading (it will be much better and more succinct). Writing that dang book proposal that keeps being on the to-do list endlessly and keeps getting bumped to the bottom. 

“You can just as easily identify with a problematic body and make the body’s imperfection, illness, or disability into your identity….Once the ego has found an identity, it does not want to let go…..[but] no matter what your body’s appearance is on the outer level, beyond the outer form it is an intensely alive energy field.” ~ Eckhart Tolle 

Even if I died during the operation (remember? Drama Queen mind?) I actually might find THAT quite interesting. 

“Any feeling of discomfort or stress is an alarm that lets you know you’re believing an untrue thought.” ~ Byron Katie

“Just take five seconds to be quiet……It will stun you, it will really shock you if you’ve never seen it before: how much untruth we take to be as true. THIS is being alone….it’s aloneness inside, alone even from our own concepts.” ~ Adyashanti

Do I want to feel that aloneness, without running from it? That freedom that is so incredible? That wild mystery? Alone, all by myself?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Love, Grace

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Standing Where No One Else Can Stand For You

Being all alone arises as a very stressful thought for people at various times in life.

Here comes the thought “I am alone”.

I know this can be a fabulous feeling….alone at last! The whole house to myself! Quiet, meditation, sweetness.

But today I’m looking at the painful reaction to this thought.

(I love how Byron Katie says that The Work is for the stressful beliefs, not the happy ones….although once you begin self-inquiry….even those happy ones may start to fall away).

So when it’s sad, uncomfortable, frustrating, or full of anguish to be thinking “I am alone”, what’s the worst case scenario?

What’s wrong with being alone?

This is serious question!

I picture being on the tropical island in the Pacific, like in the movie Castaway, forever. No rescue or departure back to civilization at the end.

Or what about the Life of Pi story with no return to land.

Dying alone. No other humans around.

Or floating in outer space with nothing in sight. Nothing, for miles.

In the past several years, I have worked with many people who are absolutely sure they don’t like being alone.

They have no partner, no family, no job, or not enough friends.

I have also worked with people who are in relationships, but feel alone and critical of their partners.

Alone in a crowd, alone in the world.

People feel unloved, unsupported, abandoned, discarded.

There is something here called ME and it feels disconnected with the environment, separated.

There is too much contact, or too little contact. Whatever is happening is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Alarming. Depressing. Off.

There is a lot of fantasizing about the troubling things that could happen, from this state of too much aloneness or not enough aloneness.  Or fantasizing about wonderful things that could happen with more aloneness or less aloneness.

So bring on The Work.

In that dark, empty, alone moment that looks bleak, separate, frightening…or in that frustration of wanting to shut out others so you can finally be by yourself…

…who would you be without the belief that you are alone?

Who would you be without the thought that you need to be MORE alone, or LESS alone, or you’ll go mad as a hatter?

In a huge crowd, walking down the street, talking with one friend, dancing, at a gathering of people, sitting in an audience, meditating all by yourself, eating food, driving your car, thinking, sleeping…who would you be without the belief that the state of being alone is hard, tough, or imperfect?

What if instead, you lived your life as the turnaround to the painful stance towards being alone….Joy? 

What if you felt the immensity of being alone without fear? Without the need to do anything about it, today?

What if you could live the belief “I am alone” and experience it as curious, wonderful, wild, exciting, adventurous, free?

“It is Love that leads us beyond all fear and into the solitude of our being. There we find our utter aloneness because we stand free of all the false comforts of illusion and find the capacity to stand where no one else can stand for us. We are alone not because we have isolated ourselves behind an emotional defense or false transcendence, but because we are no longer held captive by either the mind or fear.” ~ Adyashanti

Love, Grace

 

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I Am Alone In The Big Ocean Universe

Have you ever had one of those open unscheduled days where you have some open time? You are excited for all the little household tasks, errands, projects, organizing, managing, resting and perhaps even a little entertainment or reading you might want to take time for?

Sometimes these days are called The Weekend. Or if not the whole weekend… Saturday.

The way my life has gone over the past several years is that the weekend is similar in many ways to every other day of the week. I work with clients quite often, I teach classes, I go to the gym, I catch up on email, I update my website, I do laundry.

Not long ago, I had a Saturday all free. No clients. No all-day workshop. Prep for the next all-day intensive was complete and registration full already.

Bonanza! About 5 free hours to do so many things calling to be DONE in the little recesses of my mental internal to-do list.

Wow, so many things…where do I even begin? What’s the priority?

Except something strange happened.

Soon after I awakened and completed my usual morning routine of green smoothie, little cup of French press organic coffee, meditation….I started feeling anxious.

An old feeling entered. It seemed there were no thoughts. Low-level worry. On a deeply grand scale.

Ahhhh, the Deeply Grand Scale. Like it’s way down deep in here in the psyche, not usually tapped into or addressed. Somewhere in a dark place, A hole.

It feels like something jogs loose where I become aware of my smallness. My limited nature. My finite period on this planet in this body. That I will die, that none of this really matters in many ways, that I am alone in my own unique weird journey, but not even really unique.

These are the core underlying beliefs getting triggered. Maybe for me, it was seeing the movie The Life of Pi where the main character lived through a horrendous experience but told the story differently than “the truth”.

Maybe it was listening on recording to one of my favorite teachers of This Spirit Journey and hearing him say that in the end, we are all alone on it.

My little secret scary underlying beliefs come forth when I think about being ALONE.

Being alone, I think (some part of me thinks) is Not Good.

I don’t wanna be in a shipwreck by myself for 3 months at sea! I don’t wanna say goodbye to my children (too late, they’re growing up)! I don’t wanna be disconnected from my partner, or my mom or dad! I don’t wanna wonder where the heck Whatever-Mystery-God is! I don’t wanna say goodbye to absolutely everything I’ve ever been attached to! I don’t wanna climb the ladder all by myself!

Empty space. Empty open life. Mysterious open ocean. Mystery. Unknown. Not knowing.

So what’s the problem??

THAT is where the most interesting investigation begins. I know something inside me believes there is a problem, because I feel the Problem Energy. So let’s look!

What’s wrong with being alone? With people coming and going? With life ending and beginning? What’s wrong with missing someone? Or longing for someone to be here now who I once knew, or perhaps who I don’t even know yet? What’s wrong with seeing beautiful art, and having only ME to turn to, to say “wow, do you see this?!”

When I really ask myself what the problem is with this Alone, Empty, Missing or Nothingness Situation…I can’t put my finger on it.

My mind says that not being able to put my finger on it is a problem! It’s just unknown uncomfortable unpleasant soup. Scary! Not just scary…terrifying!

So scary in the past that I wanted to put something in my mouth to shove the fear back down.

But is it actually really true that the wide open infinite unlimited expanses of reality and space and the ocean are SCARY?

YES! YES! IT’S TRUE! It’s weird! It’s unexplainable! I HATE not knowing! Too big! Too mysterious!

But can you absolutely KNOW without any doubt whatsoever from your greatest expansive broad wide self that you are afraid? That the Mystery is frightening, and that you are indeed ALONE?

No. I really cannot absolutely know that. At all.

This is fear that I’m feeling, is that true? Could it be readiness? Anticipation? Willingness? About-To-Jump-Off-The-Diving-Board Gusto? Surrender? I-Can-Die Now-If-That’s-The-Plan Openness?

Is Fear really scary? Am I sure I can’t handle the wide open magnificent omnipotent unimaginable power of the ocean? Am I sure I can’t handle death?

I mean. I don’t even know what it is, remember? I don’t even know what I’m afraid of, right? Oh tricky mind.

“Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.”~ Tao Te Ching #42

This does not mean oh bad you for hating an experience of solitude. What is wrong with being ordinary? Nothing.

It is through recognizing this pain and fear of solitude that I look again, and go beyond ordinary.

As Byron Katie says, you either believe your thoughts, or you question them, there’s no other choice.

That day I remembered, through looking and investigating, that having wide open hours ahead and a long to-do list and big ideas and awareness of limits may not only be just fine (and not scary) but it also doesn’t seem to be 100% true.

Being alone might not be scary, in this vast universe….and being along might not be true.

Love, Grace

Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. $215. To register click HERE now and then send me an email grace@workwithgrace.com.

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June 2013! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.

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