Tag: byron katie on death

Posted on

Who would we be without our thoughts about death?

It’s been the most days in between Grace Notes writing I’ve had since I began them five years ago.

I was working on what felt like one of the most important speeches of my life–so all writing focused on that, every day.

I spoke this past weekend at the memorial services for my first husband and father of my children.

I’m so glad I spent the contemplative time coming back to what I wanted to say at his service, almost daily, for over a week.

It came out good.

It really was the best speech (not that I’ve given a whole lot of them) I’ve ever done in my entire life.

And now, today, it’s been a month since this man died.

Death is an amazing contemplation and inquiry. We don’t know really what happens to consciousness or awareness of a person when they move through death. Often, we’ve been curious our entire lives about it.

We’ve known other people who move into this thing called death, but we’ll only experience it once ourselves, fully, in this lifetime. (And yes, there are a gazillion little deaths along the way in the form of change).

One of the first more profound self-inquiries I ever did using The Work was on my father’s death from cancer, which happened many years earlier in my life.

To sit and write down the concepts about his passing brought up all kinds of emotions and feelings, heartbreaking images, longing, wondering “what if” all over again.

Sometimes just writing the first step, our agonizing thoughts about this very painful situation involving death, feels too much to bear.

It’s worth it. 

Death is the ultimate separation, it seems. Something in my mind defined it as permanent, loss, cut off, absence of love and connection, forever, dread, empty silence, gone-ness.

But can I absolutely know that’s true?

Am I sure about what death is?

No.

Who would I be without my story, my thoughts, my ideas, my fears, my worries, my definitions of death?

If you’ve suffered from the death or loss of someone in your life, doing The Work never means you don’t cry or feel the most massive heart breaking open, or forget about them, or stop missing them….

….but it can mean you stop feeling like a victim of this process called death.

It can mean, like it has unexpectedly for me, that you’re OK with not knowing what death really is, and that you notice all is well and this person who has died has brought you a most immense gift in both their living and their dying.

It can mean the feeling of true, deep love. Even joy.

Who would we be without the thought “they died”?

Full of the most beautiful appreciation for them imaginable, for their image in my mind, for the peace of this moment.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. I’m preparing behind the scenes for a wonderful new Year of Inquiry starting in September. An entire year of practicing The Work in a small group. This year, for those who are interested, there will be even more in-depth practice, sharing and training in facilitation for all those wanting to coach others in The Work. Enrollment begins August 21st: Learn more here.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Death Has A Terrible Reputation

Last Tuesday in Year of Inquiry (YOI) we began our final twelfth month. Almost an entire year together investigating commonly painful topics.

We saved the best for last.

The investigation of our thoughts about something being OVER.

Death. Exits. Done. Asta la vista!

Although it sounds like I’m kidding around a little….the ideas, beliefs and orientation we have to endings, death, getting fired, break-ups are some of the most incredible concepts to examine and feel, ever.

When something is over whether it was fun, lousy, or complicated, there are all kinds of mixed feelings. Sometimes enormous suffering and pain come alive, almost unbearable.

It will never be like it was again. I can’t handle this. I need closure. I don’t want this to happen. 

But can you know that it’s true that it SHOULD be like it was and stay that way? Are you absolutely sure it was better before it was over, or that nothing good came after?

Are you positive you didn’t handle it well? 

My three sisters, my mother, my father’s close friend, and all my sister’s partners and my former husband are all gathered in a circle surrounding the deathbed of my father.

Outside the rain patters on the beautiful rectangle panes of 1920s window glass. It’s pitch dark as midnight, but only early evening. November in Seattle.

Ten people all alive and physically well. Ten kind souls, some of whom with potentially very long lives still to come, many of us in our 20s.

My mom was only about the age I am right now.

We are all touching my father’s body, still surprisingly solid looking, although his beard is sparse from chemotherapy.

He just took his last breath a while ago. I am holding his left hand. I felt it grow cooler and cooler. There is a deep, yet incredibly sacred silence pervading everything.

Then tears come through the body like a huge crashing wave.

We’re all riding it, engulfed in it. It feels like there is nothing but this very alive grief, shaking everything.

For the previous two months, I had been living with what feels like anxiety, visiting the hospital every day. Still in my first job after college, I dutifully came to work at the appointed hour, and one morning my boss said “Come and go as you need to. I’d be a basket case if I were in your shoes.”

I left immediately and went back to the hospital. My sisters and I rotated in and out of my father’s room for two months. Before he went home to die.

As I look back now, I realize I did not have to do anything to handle that situation.

Understanding my dad’s death is still underway, even over two decades later. I do not need closure.

When I believe that before the death/change was better, I feel sad, even bitter. When I believe I don’t want that to ever happen again, I feel terrified.

Who would you be without the thought that you don’t want it to go the way its going? Or the way it went? Or that it is all-horrible that this life is so temporary and things come and go?

Without the belief that it’s over?

“When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what you are.” ~ Adyashanti

Turning the thoughts around…..strange these ones are: It will never be like it was again, oh hooray! Everyone, including me, is handling this. I need it to remain unfinished, open. I want this to happen.

That last one, not so sure when it comes to to my father.

But this is just a simple exercise in inquiry.

“Is it true? Expect nothing. See these four questions as a gateway, a door into yourself. And continue. Move into that third question, and the fourth question. Turn it around. Expecting nothing other than the experience of what arises….Death has a terrible reputation, just like life. We think ‘when I die I don’t know what’s going to happen’. Well, in life, we think the same thoughts. Everything we believe about life, we project into death. If you loved every thought you think, welcome life, welcome death.” ~ Byron Katie

If my dad has gone on to have a compelling, fascinating, magical adventure (how could it be otherwise) then why would I ever want anything else for him?

I don’t.  

Much love, Grace