Eating Peace Core Basics Teleclass starts Thursday, September 8th. We meet from 9-11 am for 3 consecutive Thursdays, then skip a week, then another 3 Thursdays. Please visit here to find out more and to register.
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The truck is borrowed and in our driveway. The hard plastic storage bins are purchased in various colors, ready to be filled with what we want to keep. All the cans of old paint are piled ready to be taken to the hazardous waste station. I’ve started a pile of dump items in the middle of the back yard; completely broken chairs, moulded car seat covers, pieces of broken tile and pipes from the bathroom project several years ago.
I’ve asked my two young adult kids, and husband, to mark Labor Day weekend in their calendars for this massive overhaul work party instead of a family vacation.
That old shed is getting cleaned out, and moved to a different location in the yard. The garage is going to get smashed down, and rebuilt into a living space in the not-so-distant future.
I’ve got my sleeves rolled up. This is gonna be very satisfying!
I wake up the day before this three-day weekend full of clean-up plans, to pounding rain on the roof and a few of the plastic storage tubs filling with rain water.
Then my son calls and says….”I’ll be over soon, but I’ve really only got one day tomorrow. I’ll do the dump run, I’ll do the Goodwill run, I’ll stick around until evening….then I gotta go.”
Then my husband says….”Hey, I found a dance hall that’s OPEN on Saturday morning, so I booked it! We’ll still offer our weekend dance on Labor Day weekend!”
Then my daughter says….”I got invited to Amy’s cabin on Lopez Island leaving Saturday night. I’ll work on the garage, but I want to go!”
WHAT??!!!
No one else is taking this clean-up project seriously. They are not going to help. They are too slow. They are too busy. They don’t care. I have to do everything.
Arrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!
Have you ever had plans, and one thing after another happens and it appears the plans you had, are not exactly going the way you thought?
When you make plans….they should THE WAY PLANNED.
Is that true?
LOL.
Oh my, that is funny. Have you noticed how often things change or go unexpectedly? How often the image of the future picture is not like we thought, at all?
The other day as I noticed this thought pouncing in to my mind like a tiger, ready to attack everyone in sight for not caring, not being helpful, or for being too slow….
….I kind of chuckled.
Because almost simultaneously, I thought….oh.
Hmmmm.
How could it be a good thing, this isn’t a three-day extravaganza of laboring, but instead, only one?
Maybe the way this is going is just right. Maybe I had all this desire and plans for the way it should look, but it’s not going that way for a good reason.
Sometimes, plans and visions in the mind appear to be interesting, or desirable, but they aren’t going to happen in just that particular way, in that particular order.
And what about plans for activities that aren’t so “perfect” and ordered?
Like the plan to skip class, avoid that person you are afraid to speak truthfully to, quit your job, marry that girl….
….or what about the plan to smoke, eat, drink, calculate, steal, force something to happen that doesn’t feel good, yet you want it anyway?
The demand to have something happen can be coming from a place in you that’s like a little toddler, or desperate, or filled with this-must-happen energy….
…..or a plan can be coming from a place in you that is more, balanced, open, willing to be flexible, and doesn’t know what’s ultimately going to happen (and OK with that).
It doesn’t matter what you’re planning, really.
If you feel furious about it not going your way, you’re going to suffer.
Here are two questions I love to ask, if I notice I’m feeling anxious (or enraged) about “my” plans not going the way I want them to:
1) What am I afraid of happening, if these plans fail? What’s the worst that could happen?
2) What do I think it means about me, about other people, about this situation, if the plans do not go as I hoped or wanted?
Sometimes, I thought plans needed to go a certain way for me to feel worthy, successful, “good”. Sometimes, I thought plans need to go a certain way so I could avoid other big dangers, and to protect myself.
But what if there’s a middle way to be with plans and planning?
As I’ve heard Byron Katie mention and speak to this process of being aware of the future: If I know I’m going on a trip, I pack my bags. But I have no idea if I’m really going on the trip, until I’m on it.
Very funny, very odd for that mind that loves plans.
So today, after only one “working” day, and another in silence, writing, bicycling and only a wee bit of further clean up….
….I can see how feeling and being and noticing who I am without the mindset “they shouldn’t have cancelled, we all should be cleaning, they are too slow, this should be finished….”
….is better than I ever could have planned.
“When you make plans and replay them in your mind, you may be projecting that the future is going to be more important than the now. But it’s not. Being one with what you’re doing, is being totally into what you are doing “now”. The energy is not diverted from what you’re doing “now” (planning) and into the future. What you are doing now (even if it’s planning) is this, here, now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle in conversation with Oprah Winfrey on video
So even the activity of planning happens, then we get to see what really happens, trusting reality, speaking up if it’s right, sharing.
I enjoy the alive, present activity of planning, if planning is called for and feels right.
I notice my legs and feet were so tired Saturday, they were throbbing by 9:00 pm. Everyone pitched in gloriously, and I loved everyone knew what they wanted to go off and do for the rest of the long weekend, enjoying themselves.
I’ve gotten a break, and writing time.
Now, I notice, is sweet. The emptier shed (not completely empty yet). The space for a dinner date with my husband, rather than working. The writing of this Grace Note. The opening of my fall calendar and noticing some items to “plan” for.
Peace, here now.
Even as a house project is apparently unfinished.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Speaking of planning….I’m sharing my Eating Peace video today even if you have no interest or concern with eating issues, because it’s about so much more than eating. You have to plan, is that true? You have to avoid something, is that true? The only way to stop agonizing about something is to succumb to it….is that really true?
Watch here.
xo