Tag: body

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I am NOT this body, I AM this body–the dance of inquiry here, now!

Lately, I’ve been doing The Work with many people on this body.

It seems like it’s our personal vehicle, it takes us everywhere, it is a living contained organism that’s only ours, no one else’s, this body.

This body.

We’ll move out of it one day, appearing to leave the world (who knows for sure), perhaps having the chance to say goodbye (maybe or maybe not).

And yet, even with all this individuality and independence and solo journeying through life (and some of us enjoy it that way)….

….there’s nothing like gathering with others and sharing the process, the mystery, the stories, the tick-tock of time passing.

Something so very precious about noticing how very Not Alone we are.

There’s a chair, a wall, a rug on the floor. There’s a tiny spider lowering itself from the ceiling.

In my particular environment at the moment of writing these words, there are two other human beings sleeping behind closed doors in bedrooms, on this early morning.

Last night I gathered with eleven other people for a Full Moon circle. A medicine circle.

An important component or structure of this particular circle (as for many circles), every single time, is each person speaking with a talking stick. There may or may not be a topic. You can speak, or not speak. The one holding the stick has the floor, with no interruptions.

Just like on retreats in gatherings to inquire into our thoughts with others, sharing happens out loud. We come together and listen.

What struck me last night, as it has before, is how we don’t know what others will say…and we don’t even know what WE will say.

There can be planning, organizing thoughts, changing our minds, “deciding” on a topic, or no planning at all.

I believe I am the one sharing. This person I am, this voice, this mouth, this “me” with this body.

But I get surprised every time.

During this time of year, we’re moving into winter where I live. The season is growing dark and colder, all the leaves falling from the trees, the heater in the house whirring, a sweater coming on over the head upon rising out of bed.

At this time, I feel the deep contentment of sharing with others in these inquiry circles that appear to have come together with Year of Inquiry and Eating Peace Process, where we are simply, deeply, regularly moving into exploring What Is over and over again with the four questions.

We’re watching this magnificent mind (or, OK, this torturous mind), and sharing it in writing or out loud. We’re listening.

I notice the mind LOVES asking and answering questions. It likes searching for answers, it likes investigating and learning so much, and making natural shifts or adjustments out of asking whether or not something is really true.

I also notice the mind loves doing this with other people. Otherwise, it can go down worm holes and wild goose chases and side bars and mazes and perhaps get lost there for weeks (years) without a flashlight.

So back to the body inquiries I’ve been privileged to be a part of lately.

We all see how we’re assigned to this particular body, and then at least if you’re like me, I wind up believing “it’s mine” and then….I’m all alone, really.

It can sometimes be quite stressful.

How do I react when I believe I’m all on my own? Self-contained? Unique? Independent? By Myself? Special? The One with This Problem (physically, emotionally, relationally)?

I see myself as vulnerable and isolated. I feel nervous that “my” body is a unique organism or vehicle, especially if it has illness, or pain or something damaged, or by comparison it’s not as good as it once was in history, or not as good as other bodies I see.

I FEEL alone when I believe the thought I’m on my own.

So who would I be without this thought that I’m all on my own, self-contained, unique, independent, by myself, special, the One with this problem?

Relieved. Sharing. Connected to other humans. Putting myself in the company of others on purpose for sharing circles (even if my mind criticizes other people or things that happen there sometimes).

Without this story, I notice the cushions in the rooms so soft and available for support, and the four walls of the room standing strong for apparently many years, long before the body I seem to live in even existed.

Without this story I notice how this mind can open up to so much more than this body–it sees other visions, places, items in the environment. It gives attention to other people. It joins with things.

Turning the thought around: I am NOT all alone. I am surrounded, merged, connected. I get in a vehicle (which puts me in the company of a machine called a car) and drive to a gathering of people with a bright moon overhead in the night sky.

I am not all alone.

On telecalls almost every day, doing The Work, I share with people wondering about their behavior with food and eating, or with their thoughts, or with the people in their lives.

I read peoples’ words as they consider their minds, from their writing online, our questions, our puzzlement. I read their answers to the four questions….so dear. I hear the voices of a whole group on the phone gathered to study this human experience, together. I read other peoples’ comments in the Eating Peace group or the Year of Inquiry group and we’re together.

Turning around the thought again: My thinking is all alone.

Sure. The mind is running, just like my heart is beating. It’s doing its thing.

And the minute I connect with other beings to ponder an idea or a concept, this isn’t even true anymore.

What I notice is how often I have had the thought I’m all alone when the world seems threatening and I’m scared.

I never have been. Only the mind says so.

Otherwise, there’s stuff, mugs, tea, furniture, grass, trees, sky, activity, animals, sounds, humans, leg, arm, computer.

I notice the surprise of what comes out of the mouth when I’m in a sharing circle. So, even the words or this writing is not “mine”!

I have this body, it is “mine”—is it true?

Can I hold this contemplation with the deepest joy of mystery?

What if it’s a good thing that nothing belongs to me….not even this body, not even this mind?

I notice, there’s something very exciting about not being able to identify For Sure that this body, this thought, these words are “mine”….and yet still be here, noticing.

What a thrilling mystery.

“A man who knows that he is neither body
nor mind cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to be selfish for. Or, you may say, he is equally ‘selfish’ on behalf of everybody he meets; everybody’s welfare is his own. The feeling ‘I am the world, the world is myself’ becomes quite natural….

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.” ~ Nisargadatta in I Am That

Today, I thank you for being here and reading these words.

I love you, being here in whatever way you are.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your presence matters. How do I know? Because you’re here.

Much love,
Grace
P.S. In two weeks I’ll be at Breitenbush and my husband Jon will be in the retreat group with us all (he loves The Work). The forecast calls for very cold rain. Dark, cold, fresh, exquisite woods with cozy warm cabins, and optional hot springs soaking if you like, and a circle of wonderful investigating human beings all interested in looking at their stressful thinking. Dec. 6-9 (Thurs evening through Sunday lunch). Call to make your reservations 503-854-3320. Only a few spots left.

P.P.S. If you deeply desire to join one of the groups underway, there’s always room for those who want to share with others in inquiry. You could jump on the inquiry train. We’ll welcome you with open arms (in either eating peace or year of inquiry, if you have some experience in The Work). Hit reply to ask.

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I can’t take it anymore with this body (my Stephen Hawking turnaround)

“I can’t take it anymore!”

I said this internally in my own head, not out loud, as I looked at the ceiling over my bed, unable to even turn over because of pain.

I had torn my right hamstring right off my sits bone by doing a gymnastics move I hadn’t done in 25 years. I wanted to reverse time, go back and fix it. I wanted it to not have happened at all.

Now after surgery I had a full leg brace to make sure I didn’t move, and my right leg was sort of withered looking.

I had a huge scar from left to right the full width of my upper right thigh in the back under my butt cheek where they drilled the hamstring back into the bone and held it fast with two titanium pins.

This was the ninth day of lying on my back in bed. Every time I got up to go to the bathroom, it hurt horribly as I dragged myself there. I couldn’t put any weight on the right leg. I couldn’t sit on the seat (I had a huge thick cushion put on the toilet seat and still couldn’t).

At that moment of looking at the ceiling….again….

….I tried to turn over onto my stomach.

It hurt so much, but I was determined. I could get out of the bed, so surely I could turn over and lie on my stomach for once?

Ouch.

I tried and kept trying, and then finally flopped over like a block of wood getting turned over by a tiny ant. Or a fish lurching over on a boat deck.

Then on my stomach, I stared at the place the floor and the wall met. I had a great view of the carpet.

OK, here I am on my stomach at last. Now what.

I stared at the floor for about 30 minutes, and lay there feeling the relief of being off my back, and on to my stomach, and then eventually realized I needed to turn over on my back again if I wanted to anything besides stare at the wall.

Slow pushing, careful turning. Flop.

And then the thoughts broke through.

I can’t take this anymore. I’m trapped. I’ll never be the same. This is horrible. My life is over.

I did The Work.

I got to trade facilitation with a beautiful certified facilitator, so I could stay close to this process without jumping out and into Doomsville.

Is it true, you can’t take it anymore?

Yes. Cry.

Are you absolutely sure? Can you know it’s not possible for you to “take this” anymore?

(Note the victim role, I am a very small potato and the world and reality are massively huge and all-powerful and I’ve lost).

No, it’s not true.

How do you react when you think you can’t take it anymore, and something very tough is happening?

Pictures of dying, declining, failing, never running again, never biking again, never getting up again. I see nothing good here. My sense of being this small ant in the universe is dreadful, sad, furious, self-piteous.

So who would I be without this story of oppression of the body, this injury being “bad”….and the thought that I can’t take it anymore?

Oh my.

I paused when doing this work for a long time to answer this question…imagining being unable to think this thought that I can’t take it.

I noticed how much reading I was doing (hands straight up overhead with long arms holding the book directly over my face), watching interesting videos, still teaching telecourses and working with clients. Still running the Year of Inquiry.

I noticed I didn’t think about my injury or even remember I was in bed when doing any of these things.

Without the thought….

….I’d be free, relaxed, navigating the next thing, the next thing. Watching life unfold around me, without the thought. Watching how things change, and how I’m not in charge.

I’d be aware of how truly having this thought was what was stressful, nothing else really.

Turning the thought around: I CAN take this anymore. I can’t take my THOUGHTS about this anymore.

This suddenly made me smile.

I began to wonder about this idea of “taking it”. Gross. It sounded so passive and violent. And yet, to consider the turnaround that I could take it, then it could mean something different–like I was capable of taking, and even transforming it.

Or, it wasn’t even “me” that would be transforming “it”, but instead something was taking this and working with it.

Plus I notice taking and giving are a paired type of energy, so there was something giving, and something taking, and energies flowing. I’m watching it all. I’m participating.

And then, as I did this work, I saw Stephen Hawking in my head.

He can’t turn over, and I don’t see him complaining.

In fact, he’s doing some kind of amazing life journey living an incredibly unexpected life with ALS and offering his unique genius in the world in the form of physics and philosophy and explaining it all to humanity.

I immediately found videos with his electronic mechanical voice (since he couldn’t even talk) and listened, mesmerized and overjoyed by his explanations of the universe and space.

He could take it. He could carry on. He could have a brilliant life full of passion without moving much at all.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” ~ Stephen Hawking

My own illusion of failure, pain, decline, the need for a “working” body, death, injury was a grand illusion.

YAHOO!

I can’t take it–not really. That could be a fun turnaround of joyful laughter, not depressing fear and self-pity. It’s not possible to “take” it. It was only my invention in that moment of suffering.

It wasn’t even true.

Thank you Dr. Hawking for your contribution to the world and to my turnaround. You were an inspiration to someone far away who you never met in real life.

By questioning my thoughts, I wound up with appreciation for my injured body.

Because of that incident, I quit my part time job completely to go full time with facilitating The Work, I learned how to do yoga instead of gymnastics, I learned more about astrophysics from someone who didn’t need to have a “working” body in order to be happy.

And that person was me.

Much love,

Grace

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When it burns….

grief
When your heart breaks….cry. When words return, The Work.

Yesterday, I did not hear the news until late evening that a terrible massacre had occurred.

I stood at my kitchen counter for a moment, watching a very short news brief on my laptop to understand what my daughter just told me. My heart swelled and broke and tears came.

Our in-person monthly deep dive group had already met for three hours in the afternoon for our final meeting before summer break (we begin again Oct. 23rd in Seattle for 9 months).

I had been moved and touched by peoples’ work during our group. Many of them had written on their bodies. They were feeling ugly, angry with their appearance, disgusted, frightened, aging, incapable of change.

And then, later, this terrible news.

I let it sink into me, and throughout the evening, let The Work do itself within before I began to write.

This tragedy is horrifying, disgusting, violent, wrong, confusing, frightening. Some of the very same words I wrote about it were the very same words I had heard earlier about the body.

Question Four of The Work is: Who would you be without your thought? Who would you be without the thought that what you see is incapable of change, or permanently disgusting, or love is not possible in the presence of it? Who would you be without thinking your body is horrible looking, ugly, something to look away from?

What about other ugly things? Like human violence?

People in the group yesterday noticed how difficult it was to feel, or imagine in any way whatsoever who they’d be….

….without the belief their body was imperfect, wrong, preventing them from getting something they wanted, a barrier to happiness, fat, or ugly.

Sometimes….it is not easy to find who we would be without the feeling of hatred, rage, misery, disgust, or fear about something we see in reality.

It feels like denial.

As someone in the group yesterday said, with deep grief and pain (about her body)….

….”But. This problem is REAL.”

No one has to drop any thoughts. No one has to make themselves NOT think something they ARE actually thinking is absolutely true.

But here’s what I notice about reality.

It is unconditional. As in….there are no conditions. It is what it is.

It does not really care what we think. Reality moves as it moves, it unfolds the way it unfolds. It doesn’t really wait to see if we’re OK with it or not.

I notice Reality doesn’t ask me for my vote.

I can feel enraged, bitter, despairing and hateful about what goes on in Reality, in my life, in this body, with my appearance….

….or I can question my thoughts about it compassionately.

I can fight what is, or the other choice I’ve often made (thinking it gave me some power) is I can refuse to respond, in stubborn defiance.

I can use what I see as proof that Planet Earth is screwed up, or this body is screwed up, or that my mind is screwed up….

….but whatever I’m looking at, when I see there’s something at fault, it feels like…

…War.

Who would I be, or WHAT would I be, without the fearful, war-like thinking? What would it FEEL like, without believing everything I think?

Can I look at the thing I supposedly always hate, through the eyes of the Beloved? Can I look through Reality’s eyes that are unconditional, mysterious, and pulsing with life?

Turning the thought around: What I see is not pure ugliness, hopeless, gross, to-be-avoided, unworthy, disgusting, wrong, a mistake, incapable of changing, hideous, impossible.

This is not ever saying anything I see I must accept without question, or think of as good, or think of as friendly, or feel joyful towards it, if I don’t.

“The world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” ~ Helen Keller

With my body, if I don’t like living in it, I can move closer to it, become very intimate with it, taste, smell, be with how it moves, what it feels like to eat, notice it, care for it, get to know it instead of ignoring it. I can imagine dropping all my rules and hatred about it and start over, with fresh eyes, from scratch.

I can do this with death, too. I can do this with tragedy, and fear, depression and suffering. I can become intimate with Reality instead of trying to defy it or fight it, hate it or ignore it.

Starting here. With this body. With other people. With events I encounter. With death.

I can question the story of what I think is impossible, even as it hurts.

“What is to give light must endure burning.” ~ Viktor Frankl

Much love, Grace

P.S. there may be room to squeeze you in at Breitenbush in Oregon. Call 503-854-3320 to ask to attend the June 22-26 Retreat: Declare Peace, The Work of Byron Katie.

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without your stressful story of death…

The profound, sometimes shocking experience of someone else’s death or dying can be life-changing, and feel absolutely devastating.

Notice, however, that these profound experiences are someone else’s death. Always.

Our own….we don’t know so much about. And we won’t. Not until we’re going through it. Then we’ll know.

In my most recent Peace Talk podcast Episode 112, I share a poem by the late Seamus Healey.

Poetry about death may seem odd, and difficult, and uninviting….

….or like something we’d never want to be poetic about.

And yet, giving an artistic brilliance to our deepest loss of people we care about—death—brings a blaze of light to it.

Who would I be without the story of death?

Hard to fathom almost. Hard for the mind to “get” this one. And yet, possible to imagine and wonder about.

One thing I’ve noticed, as I wonder about death and who I am without my stressful stories about it, is I would realize death happens, and so far I’ve lived on, even when others I love so much have died.

And I might cry true, deep, life-changing tears instead of holding my grief and fear in. I might live more fully, more intensely, more with the awareness this life is very temporary, this time here on planet earth in this body, very short. It’s just the way of it. It somehow must be OK, because it’s reality.

Without my stressful story about death, I might feel grateful I’m alive today, so very grateful, and prepare for the future moment, called death, with more clarity, less fear, more acceptance, less anger, more joy, less resistance.

I might even get to work and roll up my sleeves since I’ve got today, just today, to inquire and to act, to share, to feel whatever “here” feels like.

Because I am here. For now.

They were here, and for awhile our lives intersected (thank you dad, grandparents, great grandparents, friends, neighbors). I am connected to all my past relations, for generations back. I am connected the minute I’m thinking of them, and honoring them.

Without my stressful stories about death, I stop avoiding the memory of these others I once lived with.

I notice they are still alive in my heart, in the DNA, in spirit.

Enjoy Peace Talk Episode 112, then the next one will be an interview. It’ll be a surprise!

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you’re in Seattle area (or can get yourself here)….I am offering a special three hour workshop at East West Books “Loving What Is: Ending Suffering Over Body, Eating, Pain, Sickness, Death”. Everyone will get to do The Work of Byron Katie from start to finish, focusing on this often very stressful area of how the body is affected physically….including weight, shape, pain, or even aging and death. You’ll get to pick what’s stressful for you, personally, and inquire thoroughly to see what’s really true. An amazing 3 hour opportunity for only $25. Register HERE soon, this is limited to 15 people. Saturday, June 11th.

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Partial, Crooked, Empty, Dying

One of the wonderful YOI (Year of Inquiry) groups met yesterday and our topic this month is on the body.

Perfect for me, right?

With a torn hamstring, last week’s surgical repair, constipation and nausea from pain medications, my hair feeling flat as a mat and itchy from not taking a shower or bath for 8 days, I would say this body is not in the most tippy top shape you’ve ever seen it.

I object! I have some complaints!

There is nothing like a sincere, thoughtful group to stay patiently with the questions of inquiry known as The Work. I LOVED that we all gathered together to examine the body.

  • this body can’t be counted on
  • I am too _____ (fat, thin, old, young, soft, round, short, tall.)
  • things would be better if my body were healthy, fit, attractive
  • I hate that this body is temporary, declining, will one day die
  • there is something wrong with my body, with me
  • I am this body, this is ME, this is my identity

These are deep, gripping beliefs. At least I’ve found them to be.

After our wonderful group today, I kept considering the turnarounds and the beauty of the work, and more underlying beliefs.

As I lay here flat on my back, not able to even move more than a few inches to the left or right (by the way, check out the end of this email of me and my grabbers) I remembered two of my most haunting images.

One is being buried alive in a coffin about 20 feet below the ground. Ewww. I hate even thinking about it. What a horrible nightmare!

The other is born out of a National Geographic cover last year of free-climbers at Yosemite. I am falling, imagining the fall, seeing the rock cliff wall speed by, heading towards earth like a speeding bullet.

(Sorry to give you this stressful image!)

But what I realized before, and again today, is that these are simply pictures, movies playing in the mind. They are not real.

Isn’t that amazing?

All these terrible things that can happen to the body: accidents, injuries, damaging things, illness, disease, death, change, aging, destruction…

….is it true that it is all terrible? That it is all YOU?

Yes! Everyone knows it’s true! People have a rough time after accidents! I think I’m one of them, right now!

But can you absolutely know that it’s true? Really 100% can you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that all those images and destructive changing morphing things that happen are terrible?

Are you sure that body is YOURS, that it is YOU?

Are you sure you are having a terrible, awful, devastating time?

No. I just ate peanut butter and apples and they were delicious. I’m writing this Grace Note.

Come to think of it, I’m lying in a gorgeous, comfy bed.

In the very moment the other day that I was throwing up, or in the moment that my stomach ached from constipation, I was not actually thinking “this is me” or “this is devastating”.

I was just being that…if that makes any sense. I was following the simple directions. I couldn’t help but follow them.

I notice it is usually AFTER something is over that I get worked up about how terrible it all was, how horrible, and how I almost didn’t make it.

Except I did.

How do I react when I am believing that this body here is my identity, that it is who I am in total, that it is sad that all this is temporary, or that there is something wrong with this body?

I am scared. Horrified. I see images of terrible things happening over and over. My body reacts with adrenaline. I believe the world is a dangerous place, where bad emergencies could happen at any moment.

So who would I be without the thought that this is true? Who would I be without the thought that having this body is a rough deal, that being in a body is dangerous?

Turning my thoughts about this body around, I find the following are truer:

  • this body can’t be counted on to stay perfect, and it CAN be counted on to do what it does, halleluia!
  • I am just right the way I am
  • things would be NOT be better if my body were healthy, fit, attractive
  • I love that this body is temporary, declining, will one day die
  • there is something right with my body, with me
  • I am NOT this body, it is not me, it is not my identity

Who would I be without the thought that aging, deterioration, accidents, injuries, sickness, or death were frightening? Or that they were ME?

Laughing.

Not feeling threatened. Noticing there is no need to be careful, nothing to worry about, a great unknown ahead.

A great unknown right NOW.

“Do not be afraid of what appears to be chaos or dissolution–embrace the full measure of your life at any cost. Bare your heart to the Unknown and never look back. What you are stands content, invisible, and everlasting. All means have been provided for our endless folly to split open into eternal delight.” ~ Adyashanti

(I note the words “split open” and how they do sound just a wee bit scary).

But chuckling here with the mind and it’s nervous interest in bad things, I notice also how I have watched two white lilies in a vase go from tightly closed bud to wide open flower as I’ve been lying here in my bed all these days.

I think they have definitely been split open into eternal delight.

And then they’ll decay and someone will throw them in the compost container.

“If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked. If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up.” ~ Tao Te Ching #22

2013-12-17 10.06.07

This is me, Grace, using Grabbers to fetch my ice pack which I call Little Baby Creature From The Black Lagoon. And practicing crookedness.

Much love,
Grace
P.S. 8 week teleclass on food/eating starts again on January 15, and the Year of Inquiry for the Addictive Mind YOI starts on January 10th. Click below to read more!

 

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Trauma Mirror, Mirror Therapy

Many inquiries for Breitenbush retreat, the One Year Inquiry program, and the upcoming June teleclasses! So excited to meet and be with all of you who are coming to in-person programs, including those of you flying thousands of miles to attend. I so LOVE that you are coming.

At Breitenbush, we will look deeply at our relationship to our own bodies, every part of it we don’t like or are worried about…and how this relationship expands out to our relationship with life, death and the universe.

Speaking of the body and difficult parts, I was reading recently of the phenomena of great pain in the body occurring long after a traumatic accident occurs.

I had to re-read the text, in this fascinating book entitled Mind Over Mind by Chris Berdik, to make sure I understood what was being said.

YES…people feel ongoing pain or itching or weird sensations that feel like its coming from parts of their body that are no longer there, or that no longer work.

Apparently, over time, many scientists and physicians and psychologists have tackled the problem of “phantom” pain.

Then a neuroscientist called Vilayanur Ramachandra created a process of making the mind “see” a pretend whole limb and voila, the pain or weird sensations subside for some people.

He calls it Mirror Therapy.

The way it works is that a mirror is held up to the whole, complete, un-lost or un-injured looking body part using a mirror. The mind sees a healthy, complete body part, where it was NOT perfect before, and the pain diminishes, or in some cases is gone.

They don’t really know why, they said in the book, and the results are not definitive….but as I read this, I considered self-inquiry on the body and the way a change in perception of what is can change the way we feel.

So what changed first when I did inquiry; my own mind and what it expected to see…or the actual body part I was looking at with disdain or upset?

Because regularly, throughout my life, I’ve had a few stressful thoughts about the body and what the eyes are seeing.

It happened again the other day, as a matter of fact.

I’m walking along the beach, happy as a clam, thinking about my friends, my clients, all the people I hear from on email, and the pretty weather, and the bulbous clouds, and hearing the sounds, and feeling the space of being on vacation and having no real plans…and then….

I glimpse at my reflection in the bungalow office window and immediately see nine things wrong with my image. And I could probably find more if I spent sixty more seconds thinking about it.

  1. tank top does not match skirt–where’s the color chart!
  2. feet are peeling and ugly and unfeminine, and these flip-flops are pretty ugly and worn out
  3. thighs should be thinner, stomach tighter
  4. jiggly butt, not firm enough, should be pure muscle
  5. hair color too orange, especially in this bright light…covering the gray is not exactly working “naturally”
  6. facial skin too wrinkled around the outer lips, like the cheeks are drooping to Texas
  7. same exact earrings since I left town…which by the way do not match the tank-top OR the skirt at all
  8. vein on left side of neck is huge, as usual since I first noticed it around age 19
  9. couple back on beach having wedding pictures taken, bride in pink and white, looked young, glorious and beautiful…those days are pretty much over for me

It used to be that these kinds of speedy images were very serious. I would then start in on solving these problems, or feel discouraged.

With a vengeance.

Time for Basic Training! Make a plan! Exercise More! CHANGE THE IMAGE IN THE MIRROR through doing stuff.

But since I’ve done The Work and questioned my thinking and very perception of this kind of stuff, and reading about this mirror therapy idea, I know the mind can change completely…the response to what it sees can change completely.

Eyes open, eyes closed, it doesn’t matter.

Who would we be if we didn’t believe the image truly meant something bad? What if we could allow the mind to look, and keep looking, and not turn away in horror or disappointment… but to let it wait and really look.

What if we just added a wee tad bit of an open-hearted, accepting attitude? Like we were listening to our best friend say how ugly she felt that morning, and we looked and saw only absolute beauty, even if yes, we agree that she has more wrinkles than she had twenty years ago.

Maybe we’d get used to this body and the images our mind apparently sees, and the feeling of being against what we see might subside.

What if you came from another planet and you didn’t know what a “perfect” body part was supposed to look like? What if you never learned about wrinkling skin being horrifying, or mis-matching apparel?

When I think about who I would be without the thought that any of those speedy quick images MEAN anything….wow. It would all be a big mumbo-jumbo potpourri of creative and changing pictures.

And the pictures would be fun, interesting, fascinating, intriguing, beautiful, ugly, and it wouldn’t matter…it’s just not that freakin’ serious, or real.

Then, you would be someone who lives without believing the thought that you need to change anything about your body in order to be deeply happy.

“It’s helpful to realize that this body that we have, this very body that’s sitting here right now on this shrine room floor……and this mind that we have at this very moment, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive.”~Pema Chodron 

That means THIS body, with the big neck vein and the growing facial lines and jiggling areas….and the body that got cancer, is exactly what I need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive.

Turning it all around, I see the flash of images, in my head or in the mirror, and hold them all in my mind instead of brushing them aside and I LOOK….and everything that once seemed alarming now looks beautiful and sweet….or neutral.

Even the huge scar on my leg from removing a tumor.

So here’s an exercise for us all: try staring at something you think of as ugly or awful, and see what happens. Especially if you decide to bekind (hint: this is the turnaround)…you might be surprised.

You might see yourself as not so ugly….maybe gorgeous. Or at the very least, you will see what you are thinking about your appearance with clarity, and you can question it more completely.

Later, looking at myself in a mirror as I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth, I was startled to see how cute, attractive and appealing that image in the mirror looked.

What a cute smile! What an adorable person! That’s ME!

I guess, somehow, it’s what my mind expected so BOOM there it was…after questioning my thoughts of ugliness and decline.

If you’re ready to do inquiry, and do your mirror therapy, starting with this body you have, then come to Breitenbush. Last chance to register! We gather together in only one month!

Love, Grace

Posted on

Time For Work On The Body

We have only a few spots left in our fabulous retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs Spa and Resort in eastern Oregon, USA.

We will do The Work of Byron Katie on THE BODY.

It’s a big topic. It ranges from smallish criticism and petty ideas….all the way to terror around death and pain.

My personal story is one of near suicidal despair and anger about my eating disorder (bulimia with a two-year anorexic stint) and my violent and unhappy relationship with having a body, eating food, and self-acceptance.

I also had a little illness called cancer.

My amazing and kind co-leader, Susan Grace Beekman (yes, we both are bear the name Grace…we think this is a good sign, maybe) has had her own journey of self-discovery through the body and now looks deeply at pain, aging and bum-knees, using inquiry.

Susan Grace has also been visited by the thought “I should be thinner” in earlier years in her life.

The relationship with the body has profound similarities to the relationship with the universe, with our relationship to our lives.

We seem to be housed in this unique envelope, called a body. And yet, everyone else has one that is generally pretty similar.

Separate, yet One.

Our look at these bodies and what we think of them offer beautiful learning about how our own minds and perceptions work.

What is this mind that is aware of this body?

What is so upsetting about the faults and vulnerabilities of this body here, or that body over there?

Investigating the experience of the body, whether sickness, injury, permanent change, aging, weight, or worry can lead to great freedom…if you’re ready to question what you’re thinking.

We have wonderful and thoughtful exercises planned, for clearly identifying what you really believe, for facing the endless chatter or terrible fear about your body.

We will dive into The Work and inquire. We will learn from each other.

Even if you have no experience in self-inquiry, or with The Work of Byron Katie, you will learn to do it well on this topic of the body.

Even though we’re nearly full, we’re extending the early registration deadline to May 15th, 2013 for the tuition portion of this retreat.

Check out everything HERE. You have to call Breitenbush to register, only by phone. This intriguing resort is deep in the mountains, no internet, no cell connection. It is time for rejuvenation, deep internal work, close contact with supportive people in the journey into yourself and your own thinking. Call 503-854-3320.

Much love, Grace