Tag: buddhism

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That Annoying Person Should Change

There are many spiritual and philosophical traditions that encourage humans to “take responsibility” for themselves.

What does this actually mean? I am “taking” the blame, duty, liability, charge, burden, accountability for my life for myself.

The word “taking” shows that I could leave responsibility out there on another person, events, the weather, my parents, the way I grew up…..in fact it’s almost like that’s where responsibility naturally is perceived to be—out there. That’s why I have to take it.

The odd thing is, in doing The Work or any form of self-inquiry, in reading many spiritual traditions and teachings, the more we take responsibility for our lives, the more there seems to be a murky line about where I end and the rest of the world begins.

In fact, I begin to see how wherever I go, whatever I see, whomever I’m interacting with…..there I am, present right in that situation. It’s like I’m a part of the universe all the time, everywhere.

(This reminds me of Dr. Hew Len, teacher of ho’oponopono from an ancient Hawaiian spiritual practice. He told me once during a workshop how he noticed that everywhere he ever went in the world, when there was a problem, there was one common denominator—HE was there).

Debbie Ford wrote a wonderful book called Spiritual Divorce in which she writes about taking full and complete responsibility for her attraction, her marriage, and her divorce with her former husband.

It was a spiritual wake-up call, she says for taking responsibility for herself instead of blaming her partner.

So here I am willing and able to take responsibility for myself and my responses to the universe and the people in it, and I see some people in the world who are annoying, who have personality traits I don’t like or find repulsive.

I write down all the things I find most annoying about them. How I think that person should change. This is my list, on paper, of what is here that is unpleasant that I get to investigate. I expose my judgments. They are there anyway, so might as well admit it and take a look.

  • she is so sugary sweet and laughs way too often
  • she can’t stop talking
  • she is so superficial and talks about really boring things in life
  • she’s very negative, she complains too much
  • she is scared, needy, and clingy
  • I wish she would stop singing, whistling, babbling on

Taking responsibility doesn’t mean I now rip myself to shreds for being judgmental.

I see that annoying person, and I ask myself what is it in ME that is seeing this behavior, those words, that way of being as annoying? Can I watch it and look at it and see what else I’m believing?

I listened recently to Byron Katie doing the Work with a woman who was very annoyed with one of her friends. Katie asks the woman, who would you be without the thought that your friend is boring, negative, fearful, annoying or full of complaints?

Who would I be if I looked, without all the judging? If I didn’t think “I need to get away from her! I need to avoid spending time with her! She’s not that great a friend!”

I would see that this woman is being herself, and when I’m listening to her I’m afraid she will never stop talking. I am scared of her neediness, I’m scared of my own falseness when I see her, and my resistance to her. I think I should be helping out, I should be nicer. I’m afraid to speak up, thinking she will be hurt, and then I will be hurt. I’m stuck. I’m sad that this woman feels so worried, frantic, and makes so much noise. I’m sad she’s not able to relax. I’m sad thatI am not able to relax around her!

I see how this annoying person should not change until I step up and take responsibility for how I feel in her presence. She is showing me what I am scared of in the world, what I think I can’t handle. She is showing me where I forget my sense of humor, compassion, and kindness, which are so much more natural for me than being annoyed.

“You are your only hope, because we’re not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we’re aware of it or not. The whole world is about you.”~Byron Katie 

Love, Grace

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Attached To Praise

Many of us notice that we are attached to hearing praise. “Wow, you are so amazing, I love what you’re doing, your work is incredible, you did that so well, you get an A, you get a gold star, I would follow you anywhere, I’m madly in love with you, you’re just so perfect…”

Teachers say these kinds of things to students, parents to children, friends to their friends, lovers to each other, employees to bosses, bosses to employees. Anyone might say this who is trying to get the attention of the other person.

It is VERY interesting to watch the place inside that likes the praise. I now like that person who likes me. I do NOT like that other person who does NOT say good things about me.

I remember when I first discovered that I would begin to “like” someone when they apparently liked me. Mostly with authority figures who seemed to think I was doing a good job. If I did a good job at something, then I should do MORE of that.

I did not want to speak up about things I saw at work or school that might take away that positive talk and reinforcement and good feeling I had. I felt safe, I didn’t want to mess up that safe feeling. They like me, oh good. Nothing bad will happen, like getting fired.

Later in life, I seemed to become interested in men who expressed romantic interest in me, attraction for me…although the suspicion of my own motives began to offer me perspective. Just because he wants me, can I detach from knowing that and ask myself if I want him?

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone who is expressing interest, offering praise, saying they appreciate you, speaking their adoration….this is about seeing that some us of start to FORGET what we like and don’t like, because of what is being expressed.

Most of us are deeply drawn to being truly free. No need to receive positive strokes, hear what others think and hope that it’s favorable. But it’s hard to give up and enter the world of NOT KNOWING and doing what pleases ourselves, what is most kind to ourselves.

Here is a most beautiful test, though, thought up by Anthony deMello, that offers a true awareness of what is possible beyond all this pushing and pulling and going towards and going away from others: pretend you’re ultimately in a conversation with God, Source, Reality, the Universe.

You’re talking to IT, the Bigness beyond you. Now notice what it’s like if you tell God or the Universe that you don’t need it/him/her, or any of the praise that Bigness offers. Hearing how perfect you are does not “make” you move towards God differently, does not make you depend on God or feel attached to God.

What if you could say and feel “I am perfectly happy without you. You are free, I am free.”

Perfectly happy with or without The Universe? But I can’t do this life without some encouragement, praise, being loved, being wanted! Bosses have to like me, partners have to adore me, friends have to say how likable I am, God has to accept me unconditionally. I know what all those things look like, and I need them. I will be lonely without enjoying praise. I will be too detached, that would be weird.

“The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there’s some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.”~ Pema Chodron

Adyashanti once said during retreat “Enlightenment is standing on your own two feet”.

I am scared of giving up attachment to hearing warm, lovely praise only because I am imagining that it might be frightening out on the open empty plains all alone with no certainty.

But that’s what many of us really, really want. Total freedom. Not allowing ourselves to be manipulated by anything. Open and wild, trusting it all.

Love, Grace

 

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Go Really Slow If You’re In A Hurry

Many of us have a person in our lives who we repeatedly notice brings up stress for us, maybe even every single time we are in their presence. It may be someone you once knew in the past but don’t interact with anymore. But just THINKING about them makes you mad, scared, or sad.

“That jerk! That *&%^$@! I can’t believe they….! I will NEVER speak to that person again! That was the biggest mistake I ever made!”

The mind races. Full of memories, thoughts, ideas, images of that mean, nasty person who was so full of BS or such a rotten, selfish jerk. Or worse.

After I had been doing the Work for a few years, I encountered a person in my life (OK, there may have been several) who brought up unhappiness inside myself constantly. Frustration, anger. It seemed like every time I talked with them, I felt irritation or fear.

“That person makes me so mad!”

When I was believing this thought, I noticed that my body felt very tense, fists clenched, it felt like hot steam was coming out of both ears like a cartoon character. I wanted to RUN AWAY before I hit something! Boiling mad!

Simply slowing down, and not getting scared because I’m angry or scared, is the first step I found towards freedom. This work of inquiry can be about taking the most tiny baby steps towards questioning what I believe. Like even just questioning the thought that the person I’m thinking of MAKES ME MAD.

Is it true? YES! I wasn’t mad a second ago when I wasn’t thinking about them! Now I’m really mad because I AM thinking about them. Jeez!!

But can I absolutely know that it’s true that THEY are making me mad? I mean….there they are being themselves, saying what they say, acting like THAT….and who is reacting with anger? Could there be another way of responding? Am I sure it’s that person’s fault that I am feeling mad?

Who would I be without the thought that they are making me angry? That what they are doing MAKES anger rise inside me? That what they are saying creates this energy of anger in my torso and my fists?

Well. Without that thought, I am curious about where this anger comes from, or what it is. I don’t attack that person so fast, as the responsible party for this uncomfortable feeling of anger or hatred. I don’t want to run away so fast. Getting away doesn’t matter so much.

Gosh. Could it be that this anger came from somewhere OTHER than that person? I look. This takes slowing way down. It’s like taking a 3-D snapshot of this moment right after that person does what they do that “created” anger inside me. I look at this moment carefully. I see my own face. I am feeling confused. I am feeling scared, maybe even terrified. I am feeling hurt.

I am thinking that I know what it means when this person does that…and it’s not good. It means they are tricking me, taking advantage of me, hurting me, not caring about me, not understanding me. It means they can threaten my happiness or peace. It’s dangerous to be in their presence. So here comes ANGER to help out, to offer protection.

If I turn around the thought to “I am making myself angry” I see the truth of this. They are simply being themselves, having their own responses. Being human. They are not handing me a ball of anger. They do not have a magic wand and zapping me “be filled with anger NOW!”

Anger is not streaming like water or light FROM them INTO me. They are not forcing me to be angry, they are not MAKING me become angry. Even if they were holding me down and sitting on me and being violent, I cannot take their anger like a vaccuum cleaner sucks up dirt. The anger has to start from somewhere inside of ME.

So where is this anger actually produced? It’s an energy that follows my thinking. I think they can hurt me, I believe it’s really true, that I could be rejected, taken advantage of, mistreated. When I believe that this is possible, my mind produces the energy force field of anger.

What if it wasn’t possible to think that this person was a threat?

I could replay the 3-D movie again, with so much more curiosity. Frame by frame, I could see where it was in that split second that I thought I was in danger. The exact second that I didn’t believe love was present, that things could be OK no matter what.

Loving what is for me starts with slowing down every moment of any stressful experience to study it, like a scientist. Where do I believe, in this moment, that this is not a friendly universe? What do I really think is true?

“This need to control the flow of life because you somehow feel your well-being or survival is at stake is universal to the ordinary human condition. Generally experienced as tension in the gut, often in the solar plexus or the lower abdomen, it’s the glue that holds together the thoughts, feelings, images, and memories that make up the illusory self.”~ Stephen Bodian

When I am separate from you, and when I believe I MUST be separate from you because you MAKE me mad, I enhance the separation. I live with anger and fear. I see these feelings as necessary for protecting my separate self, for being safe.

Who would you be without that thought that you were in danger, something about you was in danger, when that person did what they did?

What if that moment was perfectly safe, when they did that horrible thing, said those terrible words, ripped you off, ignored you, stole your money?

Can you find anything that could be safe about that moment? Even the tiniest example?

Look at the scene again where that person made you so angry. Look at it and now, tell yourself a new story that this went just the way it did and it was OK. Reality was running itself, all headed towards a loving outcome. Everything becoming balanced, everything offering beauty, gentleness, peace. Love present in any and every moment, even that one.

Slowing that moment down to as slow motion as possible, see what is there. It may change  your entire experience of the same person in the future. You may not experience any anger again when you think about them at all. There they will be, doing what they do, and not “making” you mad.

Who are you, in that moment, when you drop the thoughts that you are threatened?

Open. Unknowing. Expansive, curious, waiting….trusting. Awake!

“It takes no time to be who you are”~ A Course In Miracles

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You’ve Been Spared

One of my favorite all-time thoughts to look at, and to question, is “he left me”….”she left me.” The sadness, heart-ache, and desperation people feel when thinking this thought can be enormous.

Without questioning it, many of us think wildly about WHY someone left. Was it me? Was it her? What did I do? Where did it go wrong?

It’s not a happy situation. Someone was here, and now, they are not here. Someone was a close friend, a lover, a companion, a work mate, a neighbor…and now they are far away, we speak less often, we never see them….perhaps they have died.

The whole premise behind the thought, following the thought, is that in this “leaving” there is fear, loneliness, grief, anger, despair. It means something bad. It means there is Something Wrong.

The mind loves to find out what’s wrong. Oooh boy! A PROBLEM! (Hands wringing with glee).

My father died many years ago. One of my first realizations with investigating by using The Work was to question “he left”. It seemed like he wasn’t here anymore. No body anywhere. I had been sad for so long about this.

Isn’t it amazing to turn this entire experience around, upside down, to the complete opposite. A person has “left”. Off they went to another place, another relationship, away from this life. I turn the feeling around inside myself and see if there is Joy present in this situation. What if this is a good thing? How could that possibly be true? Can I look, just to see?

Byron Katie has a wonderful comment she offers to people who are upset about someone or something moving away from them: “You’ve been spared”.

Sinking in to this, it is not about finding all the faults you could ever list about that other person, who is no longer present.  Although it can be a place to begin. Did you really love and adore absolutely everything about that person 100% of the time? Noticing that you didn’t can be a little step towards willingness to see this all differently.

But don’t get trapped there. Attacking the person who left takes energy, attachment, focus….and continued suffering. We get stuck doing this.

My father was an incredible man. Kind and loving, thoughtful. I had no thoughts about difficult qualities I was now spared from. But still, how could it be that there were advantages to his passing, just at the moment he did?

Truly considering being spared from that path means I come back to the center of myself, being here with me….all me. Person gone, even a beloved being who has died. No imaginary stories about how it would be better if they were here in person.

You moan, “she left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.
~Rumi, from “A Community of The Spirit”

It would be a little weird if my father just kept living, since apparently what happens around here is that we’re born, we’re tiny babies, we grown into adults, and then we die.

I mean, when would be the “best” time for him to move on? I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision.

And how about all the other people who have supposedly “left” during my lifetime? What has been important about those partings?

I get to live back in the center, the mysterious unknown, here with myself. Trusting all that is. It’s a Friendly Universe. Adventure, Possibility….seeing what is next. My conversation is with God, with Source, with Reality, the way it is.

My father leaving? It was time for me to make peace with a career, to know that I was enough, all by myself. I went to graduate school. I decided to have a baby. Major life decisions became very clear and simple.

Other people leaving? No more drama. Freedom to come and go as I please, silence in my home, doing all the things I love to do without anyone else’s influence. I go to a movie, I’m the one who picked it. I eat some food, I’m the one who cooked it.

Empty space, open to all kinds of possibilities. Total JOY with my own company. Noticing that I am such a fun person to hang out with, no one else is necessary. At all.

“If you open yourself to the Tao, you are at one with the Tao and you can embody it completely. If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.”~Tao Te Ching #23

Love, Grace

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Falling Off A Cliff Is Exciting

Sometime last year, I was startled at the sight of the cover of National Geographic.

It was a photo of a young man standing on a very thin ledge at Yosemite National Park in the US. This ledge rested in the middle of a massive face of rock called Half Dome, hundreds of feet from the ground, hundreds of feet from the top.

The young man had no ropes, no equipment of any kind.

I guess in the world of rock climbers, at some point someone had the thought “Gosh, I’d be able to climb Half Dome FASTER without all these annoying ropes and safety devices”. It’s called Free Climbing.

Now, many people would consider this a huge risk, even crazy.

I kept thinking about the photo. I was inside that body on the cliff, looking down at my shoes barely fitting on the ledge, looking out at pure space and air. It would only take one small movement, grabbing at an edge that broke or moved, the foot moving 3 centimeters off good support, and the body could fall to the death.

The nervous part of me was alarmed. I didn’t mind that the climbers were achieving these feats, but something got stirred up when standing right in the shoes of that man on the cliff.

Where would the body land if it fell–would other friends and fellow-climbers be standing right there at the bottom? What would they see? What would the fall be like on the way down?

For some the images can be so frightening just to imagine death, accidents, terror….we only have to see a photo. The reaction isn’t as far as we think from being in the middle of the actual event.

But, it’s only truly terrifying when we start believing that this image is TERRIBLE. The worst that could happen: Death is horrifying. I need to preserve my life. I need to be careful. Everyone should be careful, especially children. I need to live. That guy on the cliff shouldn’t die until he’s older.

The thing is, being afraid of what COULD happen is really only a story about what has already happened in the past and deciding that the story is BAD.

No one really knows exactly and precisely what happens the second we’re falling, dying, the moments after, everything beyond that moment. There may be people who return from that experience of “dying” to live and who have stories to tell, but even that is THEIR experience, not ours from this body’s perspective. It’s a great Mystery, absolutely unknown.

“What I love most about reality is that it’s always the story of a past. And what I love most about the past is that it’s over. And because I’m no longer insane, I don’t argue with it. Arguing with it feels unkind inside me. Just to notice what is, is love.” ~Byron Katie

So what IS reality? Some people love to move their bodies up a cliff and feel the joy, power, expression, the urge to GO, to focus, to stay in the perfect flow, to play, to win, to try. Some of these people “fall” off the cliff and their bodies die.

I see that people die at every age, in every circumstance you could ever dream of. Young, old, taking risks, taking no risk at all.

Without the terror of death or accidents, I notice that today I feel excited, adventurous, peaceful, happy, in the flow. I notice it’s fun to take risks, ones just right for me. I notice I’m having so much fun in so many areas, I have no interest in climbing cliffs, and yet today could be my last in this body, it’s totally possible.

I notice what a Playground this place is, people running all over the place taking all kinds of rides. When I feel uncertainty, anxiety, worry when thinking about the young man on the cliff, I write my concepts down and investigate them. I have to stop and slow down to do this. Are they really absolutely true?

Death comes along. We’ll all get to participate in the adventure. That’s Reality. “It doesn’t wait for our vote, our permission, or our opinion—-have you noticed? ~BK

If I were to fall off a cliff today, it seems most wonderful if I felt joy doing whatever I was doing in the moment before falling, even during the actual fall. Relaxed, thrilled, entering the Mystery. Knowing nothing about what will happen next. Because I actually don’t.

Love, Grace

P.S. If you register today, July 23rd at 9:00 pm Pacific time, you can still join Our Wonderful Sexuality even though we’ve met once (but that’s the deadline). Horrible Food Wonderful Food has room for one if you register by Thursday, July 26 at 9:00 pm Pacific, and on July 26th at 10:00 am the fabulous Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven will begin, to look at an important relationship in your life and where it was, or currently is, troubling.

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Do Something! Now!

A lovely man reminded me recently of the wonderful quote by Byron Katie, who said “I invite you to do nothing for the rest of your life”.

But!? How could this be possible? What does it mean?

For me, it is a reminder of the quiet, yet profound idea that I do not need to “do” anything in order to be happy in this moment.

Adyashanti, one of my favorite teachers who I mention often here, once spoke at a retreat I attended about this topic of Doing Nothing. He suggested seeing if we could not do anything because we thought we should, needed to, or would be better off if we did it or worse off if we don’t. He asked “can you just sit on the couch and not get up without a thought about getting up?”

The mind loves to chatter away with suggestions about Doing. It has quite an edge, have you noticed? It’s not exactly friendly. (Picture a wild cowboy screaming with guns firing in the air and spurs jamming into the horse, galloping at top speed)!

  • Get moving now! Go Go Go!
  • Stop procrastinating!
  • You think you’re going to get somewhere by napping? Do you think life is a spa?
  • You need to meditate more, control your impulses, be more disciplined!
  • If you aren’t happy…then DO SOMETHING! NOW!

So what if we really stopped doing anything? How strange. What if all the drive and busy-ness is unnecessary?

Sometimes a reverse strategy that the mind will offer does indeed go something like this: “Fine. If this is going to be too much for you, then give up. You’re not really up to this anyway. All your goals are unrealistic dreams, why bother….”

I am not talking about THAT kind of Not Doing; deflated, sad, falling short, heavy, paralyzed. This is just too much, I’m not enough.

The kind of Not Doing I mean is simply stopping the auto-responder in your mind, the one that believes everything you think. Here comes the thought “This place is a mess, I should tidy up the house” or “I really need to do my taxes” or “I should make those phone calls” and right on the heels of the thought about Doing is a bad feeling.

There’s a picture or thought of how you want it to be….clean and tidy house….money in your bank account….lots of conversations….but then another thought or two or 97 that stream forward in reaction to your thought about Doing Something: “I hate cleaning, it’s too much work, it’s always ME that does it, I have no help, I hate taxes, it’s too complicated, I don’t understand the instructions, I don’t want to pay them, I am lonely, I have to be polite when talking to people, I have to put on a good attitude, I’ll be on the phone too long….”

The kind of stopping I am talking about is different from this kind of non-doing. It is like I am hitting the Pause button. No emergencies. A feeling of assessing the situation with a deep breath. This kind of not-doing is the kind that feels open, mysterious, waiting, expectant, and kind.

Gangaji, a spiritual teacher in California, likes to say “Just Stop“.

I love questioning the thoughts that cram themselves in for attention, trying to get me to MOVE IT. That is a most wonderful way to stop.

I notice I have a resistance to what I see, a messy house. I ask myself, can I really know it’s true that it should be tidy NOW? Can I know that it won’t be fun to start cleaning?

When I find that the answer is No, there is no needing to push myself to do it. I know what my job is, and I do it. I naturally start putting things away, washing the dishes, noticing how fun it is. What a cute house I have, what an amazing little cottage, how incredible that these hands can put things inside cupboards and wipe counters off.

What pleasure I find in this present moment, where an idea has entered that I need to Do Something. So many ideas, not possible to do them all. What will I choose, from amongst all this fun stuff?

I keep everything slow and steady, soft, no pushing. My relationship with my thinking is gentle. Something inside of me is much bigger than my thoughts. There is an empty wide vast space that is me that can hold all this thinking, all these instructions directed toward me Doing Something.

Everyone has this mystery! Breathe deeply and wait. Nothing terrible will happen if you wait a moment, if you wait to see if it’s really true that you HAVE to do something to prevent unhappiness.

“He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm. He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far. He who tries to shine dims his own light. He who defines himself can’t know who he really is. He who has power over others can’t empower himself. He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures. If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.”~ Tao Te Ching #2

Love, Grace

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Loving What Is? Not This.

Bertrand Russell, the famous British philosopher who was a huge political and social activist during his lifetime, said “every great idea starts out as a blasphemy!”

Sometimes looking at difficult things in life from every angle, or from an entirely alternate perspective, sounds crazy. Just thinking about being with something horrifying and contemplating the idea that it is not as bad as we think….it almost sounds cold or inhuman.

For example, studying cancer, or death, or torturous pain, tragic accidents, huge earthquakes, mass murders….not exactly pleasant topics for most of us.

When I first encountered The Work and questioning my thinking it was through reading Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is. I was reading along, loving the ideas and my mind opening as I read, and then I got to a section where Katie is doing The Work with a woman who experienced sexual abuse during  her childhood.

Suddenly, I felt a little sick to my stomach. In this situation it is not possible to “love what is”, I thought. But I kept reading.

It is radical to stand back from what we think of as the greatest horrors in life, and look with open eyes.

I confess, I like things when they go “well”. I like happiness and easiness and kind voices and quiet places. I don’t much like being surprised or having people jump out at me for fun. Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes to jump into a cold lake.

But I see now how when I preferred to chop out all the “troubling” things from human existence and from my experience, when I raised my fist against them and tried to avoid them, as I used to, I became tense as a block of cement. And about as happy.

Anthony De Mello, the wondeful Jesuit priest I mention occasionally who died in 1986, wrote that people would come to him with their problems and often wanted only relief. They did NOT want to understand their problem and find their part in it. He said that he discovered that some people had to suffer ENOUGH in a relationship so that they got disillusioned with ALL relationships.

Other writers and teachers speak of this suffering that seems to need to occur in order to wake up and find a better way of thinking, of living.

I do not know if we need to suffer, but it seems most of us do. We feel anxious, sad, terrified, sorry, guilty. Some of us feel suicidal, some of us feel deeply angry with others in our lives.

Adyashanti, one of my absolute favorite spiritual teachers, writes poetry that does not always sound pretty, peaceful or gentle when it comes to Reality, God, Source, or Awakening.

One thing that appears true….things don’t always look rosy. We are going to die. People are unpredictable, like the weather, like life.

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~ Adyashanti  

Be compassionate today with yourself in your fear or distress. Be open to others as they are terrified, or enraged. This is all part of the pace of life.

“The Master give himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to…” Tao Te Ching #50

Be with the silence and the part of you that doesn’t know. Bad things happen, good things happen. It’s not OK. But it is.

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Relentlessly Thinking I Should Be Different

A thoughtful reader and inquirer wrote to ask me about the stress she experiences when she believes she needs to relax, lighten up, or stop working so much in order to be happy. You may the post from last week I Need To Relax To Be Successful.

This is such a great discovery, to realize that even with gentle-sounding thoughts and concepts that seem like good ideas, we can start a thread of thinking about how we could improve.

The thoughts go something like this (spoken from one who knows):

  • I should relax more
  • I should be kinder to myself and others
  • If I only knew how to calm down, my life would be more pleasant
  • I shouldn’t let that person bug me
  • If I meditated more, practiced my spiritual path more, then I would be a better person, more loving, and happier
  • I want to spread peace and not war
  • I allowed people in my life to hurt me, it’s my fault
  • If only I had a thicker skin, jeez!
  • If I could just remember to count to ten or have more patience, my kids would be happier
  • I should love myself

What I found is that when I start to get into these kinds of thoughts about how I don’t measure up to the best I could be….frustration, tiredness, low-energy, sadness, disappointment.

One of my favorite exercises in Katie’s book I Need Your Love, Is It True? is to consider the worst you have ever done. Almost everyone on the planet, upon thinking about the WORST they have ever done, feels terrible. We are sure we could have done it differently. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.

Katie suggests that we couldn’t have done it any better. No better, no different. It went exactly the way it needed to go based on who we were, who they were, what we were all believing at the moment.

We were innocently believing our thoughts. That was the way of it, that is the way of it. We were doing the best we could have done.

Notice how the mind will say “OK, I did the best I could in that moment…and IT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH!”

You don’t really have to know consciously what you are actually believing, with perfect wording. You can question simply that you are not doing it well, that you could be doing better.

Who would you be without the thought that you are not good enough at relaxing? What if you didn’t evaluate yourself as needing to improve in any way at all, right in this moment?

What if you shouldn’t even love yourself right now? What if it is not possible to be a better parent? What if you are not awakened because you are not supposed to be? What if you are not successfully raking in money or working at a good job because your current status is just right?

“All that’s required of me is that I be good enough just to sit in this chair now. It doesn’t matter what my mind says…..Only a huge ego could say that you’re supposed to be doing something that you’re not doing. If it’s required, just start moving toward it–get the job done. And if you can’t get the job done, it’s because it’s not required.” ~ Byron Katie 

It is so strange for the mind to not have an improvement plan. But how amazing to find out what happens without one.

I was always so sure NOTHING would happen, or BAD things would happen without an improvement plan. Just try for a few minutes, a few hours, seeing what happens if you have no plan, if you don’t know what is supposed to happen now.

See what happens if all that is required is being you, no “making” yourself do, think, say, or be anything. You may find that life begins to live itself, without all the stressful thinking.

Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity. If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow.  When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death come, you are ready. Tao Te Ching #16

Don’t worry about not being where you’d like to be, yet. You are a part of all that moves in turmoil and then returns to balance, to the common source of serenity. You are on your way. You are supported.

Love, Grace

Wonderful Teleclass!

“Being anchored in doing The Work with something regular, and hearing other people’s thinking helped me see/feel/hear my own…wonderful!”~ JCN, Australia 

Accepting Where You Are:

“I loved Grace’s sweet facilitations and exercises to find blocks, her accepting presence and how she affirms everyone’s process…” ~ Money, Work and Business teleclass participant

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I Am A Thief!

Yesterday I received a call from the company who rented a lodge to me last weekend asking if I had seen a couple of items that belonged in the kitchen.

I recognized them immediately. They were in my home, instead of where they should be back in the kitchen lodge. I thought they were left at the lodge by friends and family.

An innocent mistake, and easy to return the items….

And yet, here came that little idea in the mind “she thought I was stealing, I should have been more careful, now we have to drive 2 hours to return them, we’ve left a bad impression…”

The urge to impress others enters our consciousness in such subtle little moments. There is a fear that those people out there won’t approve of us, don’t like us, aren’t agreeing with us. We become afraid that we’ll be rejected, even by a look, a comment, a thought.

In her book I Need Your Love, Is It True? Byron Katie talks about the quick automatic response that many of us have to say “Excuse Me!” or “Sorry!” to strangers, to apologize, to make sure they are thinking well of us.

What would be the worst that could happen if we didn’t have good manners? If we didn’t explain ourselves? If we didn’t defend ourselves or try to make a good impression?

What if you weren’t concerned with what others think and you simply responded to a situation truthfully and authentically?

In my imagination I have believed that if someone thought I was rude, immature, immoral, mean, selfish or that I don’t care about them…then they might hurt me.

They would leave me or attack me. They would punish me. They would tell other people how awful I am and those people would also separate from me. They would never rent the lodge to me again!!

If someone thought I behaved terribly, then I should feel guilt, shame, embarrassment and sadness. If someone didn’t like me or thought I did something wrong (like steal a bowl from the kitchen) then I deserved their suspicion or wrath. My fault.

Ultimately, I would be alone burning in a fiery pit. Hell. If they thought I was a bad person, then I was.

I remember when my former husband told me he was moving out. I was overwhelmed with the thought that I was worthy of being left. I was terrified, then furious, but crushed because I instantly believed it must be true.

Who was the one who believed that thought that I was unworthy? Me.

A simple question is asked. Someone says “Did you take my thing?” and FEAR is the response. Someone says “When were you going to clean up this mess?” or “I thought you were spending the evening with me” or “We need to talk” and we’re on alert.

The solution? Sit down and question the belief “I want them to like me, I want them to approve of me”….”I did something wrong”.

When you turn these concepts around, you do not have to fear that you will be a cold, disinterested, rude or uncaring person. You will find that what is true is that you want to approve of THEM and to like THEM, even when they are apparently confronting you or expressing criticism.

I want to accept every word, situation, action as reality and bring love to it. I want to love, not hate.

Most of all, I want to approve of myself and like myself. I am my most important relationship, after all.

Here’s the wonderful thing: your most deeply truthful and automatic response to others asking you questions, or communicating with you about something worrisome, or confronting you when they are upset…is love.

“Who would you be without the thought that you need to seek approval? You might be someone who just lives your life and lets people form whatever impressions they want to form—of you and of everyone else. That’s what they’re all doing anyway.”~ Byron Katie

The only thing that is stressful in any situation with another person is my thinking. Without believing the thoughts that I need them to have a good impression of me, I am free.

I find advantages in how other people are. I love them being who they are, I love myself. I am ready for the next step, it’s a big adventure.

Here I am, not believing my stressful thoughts. Happy. Planning a fun drive back to the lodge to return the missing stuff.

Love,  Grace

P.S. These kinds of exchanges are CORE to our beliefs about communicating in relationships. All the teleclasses dive into these kinds of moments with others, with food, with money. To spend some time with this in inquiry, join one of the classes starting next week.

To join fellow travelers on this fascinating journey of inquiry in any of the four teleclass groups:  Click Here

Horrible Food Wonderful Food – Fridays July 20 – Sept 7, Noon – 1:30 Pacific 

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven – Thursdays July 26 – Sept 13, 10 – 11:30 am PT 

Our Wonderful Sexuality – Tuesdays July 17 – Sept 4, 8:00-9:30 am PT

Money, Work and Business – Weds July 18 – Sept 5, 5:00 – 6:30 pm PT

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Icky Ego Must Get Rid Of It!

Many of us have spent our lives studying other humans. Why did that person do that? What did she mean when she said that? What is happening when one person hates, or loves, another person? How did that war get started? What made that person do that wonderful, amazing thing?

We also study ourselves…we find ourselves quite fascinating! What do I want? How do I know I want it? What do I want to express? How do I want to interact with that person, or this person?

Many great writers and teachers talk about a little me, an egoic me, a self-centered me that has a limited point of view.

It’s like the word “ego” is icky. If my ego is in full force then it means that I am not spiritual. It means things are going WRONG.

If I am operating from an egotistical point of view, I am selfish, fearful, angry, disappointed, interested in power, attached and trying to figure out who is to blame, whether it’s me or someone else. But it is definitely someone’s FAULT. I have an enemy.

One of the most amazing things to discover, by questioning and examining painful thinking, is that there is no one to blame. By looking very carefully at my mind and my thinking process, I find there is no enemy.

This includes ME.

Some clients I work with are really hooked up to see themselves as the one to attack, the enemy, the one who needs correction or adjustment. Something happens, a tough situation occurs, and the mind goes straight to “it’s my fault”.

FIGHT IT! FIX IT! YOU DID IT WRONG!

I remember having these kinds of thoughts all the time about food and eating starting when I was a teenager. I was so sure something must be wrong with me!

I find over and over again that this little harsh place that ruminates and considers and analyzes and can’t stop thinking in a nervous or angry way about something uncomfortable….the thing we’re probably referring to as the “ego”…. is more a verb than a noun.

It just means I’m scared. I’m forgetting that I am a mysterious spirit and I have no real idea of the outcome of anything, or the deep meaning of what has occurred. I’m forgetting that all is well.

It just means I am trying to find happiness, peace, fulfillment or security and because of that troubling situation, I’m really worried and believing that there isn’t happiness, peace, fulfillment or security in this situation.

I have found that the more narrow the view we have of ourselves, thinking of ourselves as full of fault, or powerless, or hurt, the more we will experience other people or the world in a narrow way too, where we have to be very careful or really to defend ourselves.

The more we react to someone else’s “ego-centered” behavior or actions, the better the clue that we’re thinking of ourselves as victims, that it’s possible to be hurt or threatened.

I love simply questioning these thoughts, and you can do it today as well: I need to fix it, I need to change, this is bad, I lack something.

What if it isn’t true?

Because let’s face it, you know it isn’t true already. There is a viewpoint inside of you that knows all is well, all is mysterious, you already have what you need inside, you don’t have to go find it, you don’t have to fix anything really, it will work itself out, Good is still present even when things appear Bad….you are capable of such beauty and love it is beyond words.

“The fullness of life is there at every step” ~Eckhart Tolle