The Work of Byron Katie with Grace
question your thinking, wake up to a kinder life
One of the worst things about doing something compulsively, is repeating it over and over and over again.
Same story, different day.
Weight up, weight down, weight up, weight down.
Eating too much, eating too little, stuffing, starving, gorging, minimizing.
So off balance.
Instead of criticizing yourself, do this instead.
Most of us who eat or do compulsive things for emotional reasons are trying very hard to adapt to difficult situations.
Maybe there’s a particular experience you feel really, really vulnerable about.
Like….please, I don’t ever want this to happen.
For me, one of my vulnerable spots was that I don’t want to be rejected. I don’t someone to feel complete lack of forgiveness towards me. I don’t want to have no recourse, or be unable to make it up to them, if I do something “wrong”.
Very, very stressful.
It went back a long, long way into my history.
It felt like a core, gut feeling I had for my entire life.
If you give yourself the attention, the care, the compassion to look at your own places of vulnerability….
….maybe even the “special” two or three you repeat over and over….
….you may find something amazing happen.
You stop craving food. You stop feeling so compulsive.
Ask this one question when you feel like overeating, or doing something to soothe yourself emotionally that isn’t really that good for you (drinking, smoking, hooking up, spending).
Peace,
Grace
People ask me from time to time….how will I ever figure all my thinking out, find all the awareness I need.
Like, will I need to write things in a journal forever? Will my thoughts never end? What if I’m sick of analyzing myself?
Here’s something short and sweet to do when it comes to compulsion.
It’s he one thing you really need, to discover peace.
Much love, Grace
Today I can’t wait to be at East West Bookstore in Seattle doing a little mini 3 hour workshop on eating, body image and our relationship to food…..and how to enter peace instead of war.
Doing The Work is of course my favorite tool and method of inquiry for working with stressful beliefs, and naturally inquiry is what we’ll be doing in the workshop.
HOWEVER.
When it comes to addiction, fear, compulsive behavior of any kind….
….when we’re doing things we hate ourselves for later, feeling needy, feeling upset, feeling angry, feeling like we want to escape or attack (the perfect pain points for addictive or compulsive behavior)….
….then it’s often hard to find WHAT it is you’re troubled by?
What would make me troubled enough to overeat when I don’t really want to, or smoke, or drink, or start house-cleaning, or surf the internet, or try to find someone to hook up with?
The thing is, moving into your compulsive favorite thing to do, if you have one (most people do, some are more destructive than others) is a REACTION to a belief you’re thinking.
You’ve already bought the belief.
You already assume it’s true, and it’s frightening, aggravating, infuriating, and it feels hopeless.
So you do the behavior instead (in my case, I ate, and sometimes drank or smoked cigarettes or over-exercised).
It kind of works for a little bit, when you’re hunting down the substance and caught in the energy of your compulsive pattern.
When I went into the addictive behavior, I would not be aware any more of what was bothering me, and instead, I’d be thinking about eating, the food I would buy, the taste, smell and feeling of it as I devoured it. The anticipation was all-consuming and overwhelming. It was mesmerizing. Obsessive. Nothing else existed hardly, except getting my fix.
With such a wild energy taking over, the energy we’re calling “addictive”, it is actually a bit tricky and difficult to put on the brakes and see what’s hidden.
Why?
Because what’s hidden is SO PAINFUL.
I’d rather not take a look at it. Do I have to? Can’t I just eat instead? Or get stoned? Or run 10 miles and beat my body into a pulp of exhaustion? Or have sex in a bathroom with a stranger?
You can. I did.
But it wasn’t ultimately satisfying. It was shameful, embarrassing, I felt horrible later, and it kept me on the cycle I refer to as CRIME – GUILT – PUNISHMENT.
You committed a crime, you’re guilty, you must be punished. You feel horrible and gross, you vow never to do it again, and then….
….the background underground haunted old pain starts to wake up, since you’re not busy hating yourself as much, and it starts to get louder.
Sooner or later, when it gets too loud to tolerate, you need to do the thing again, the thing that helps you forget about it.
Let me tell you, I am so happy not to be in that severe cycle anymore I kiss the ground with gratitude.
It doesn’t mean I don’t do it in smaller, much more subtle doses. For example, I’ve noticed a tendency to compulsively try to be pleasing to people so they’ll relax, calm down, like me, or become safer for me. This compulsion to be in communication with others in a pleasing way shows up sometimes by me withholding what I really want, or not saying what’s really true. (We’ll talk about that another day).
Here’s what’s important for stopping a cycle of compulsive thinking, and then compulsive acting, that zips you away from seeing what you ultimately really WANT to see, even if it’s painful.
First, decide you want to see what’s going on, what’s hidden. Part of you already DOES want to see it….encourage that part.
Then, notice these two options.
Old Way, Defensive Way, Conditioned Way (called “Believing Your Thoughts”):
New Way, Loving Way, Freedom Way (called “Questioning Your Thoughts”):
Much love, Grace
Let’s be honest. It sounds good to meditate, or be a meditator.
Someone who is quiet, at peace with silence, so comfortable they can sit still with themselves for hours.
When you’ve experienced compulsion for anything though….
….that fiery, pushing, wanting, intense craving to eat it, get it, hunt it down, consume it….
….then meditating is the LAST thing on your mind.
But what if it didn’t have to be?
What if you called “meditation” an act of Not Responding to the thoughts in your head about what you need or don’t need in order to be happy?
I know it’s hard to actually sit down….so here are a few ideas for at least slowing down, and two techniques you can find out more about.
Much love, Grace
You might be able to tell, there’s a theme lately going on in Grace Notes or Eating Peace videos on youtube.
Retreat.
On the inside.
But you may not be so happy about that theme if you feel like you’re not doing it right.
If you feel like you’re completely pissed off, agitated, anxious or depressed. Or on attack mode (the opposite of retreat) running forward trying to get it handled, or fixed, or done forever.
I get it.
The other day I thought a stream of thoughts, all of which were along the same vein….
….like the way there are veins in the old granite rock up near Ross Lake in the wilderness, driving distance from my home.
Up near Ross Lake, huge slabs of rock are exposed, with a highway cutting through the edge that winds up through the mountains.
College and high school classes go there for the observation and learning about geology of the region, where the under-layers of earth pushed and cracked to the surface and became exposed.
Huge veins of deep or light color run through the rock.
Like the pebbles you see on beaches that have one line running through the pebble that’s different from the rest of the rock, making the pebble appear to have a ring around it.
Since I was little, the kids all said “pick up this kind of pebble, make a wish, and throw it over your left shoulder into the water….your wish will come true.”
Wishing rocks.
Who said so?
Maybe someone many generations back, or far, far back into so many years ago we don’t even remember.
That one thread running through the rock was so solid, so beautiful, so permanent, so colorful.
As I was noticing a thread of thinking running through my own mind, I suddenly had the vision of one of these pebbles….
….or a whole side of a mountain, like near Ross Lake, that had a thick vein of color running through it in massive proportion.
My thoughts were thick and tight and strong, and repetitive, like this vein.
Sigh.
They went like this:
Life is kind of dull, like the weather. I don’t feel like (fill in the blank). Maybe I should get a different regular normal job (I always love when this thought comes in). How about a cup of coffee? Yeah, that’s it. It’s not possible to be on retreat at all times. It’s too boring, too slow, and not practical. There are too many things I want to do in life, and I need to clean. And pay bills. My cottage is too small. The carpet needs vacuuming. Nothing ever works out perfectly.
Yeah.
It was that self-piteous. Piss. Moan.
It continued.
My clients and students who are angry right now, or having a hard time, especially those who experience a contentious relationship with eating?
There’s no solution. They’re right. Life is hard. Holidays are difficult. Family is troubling. People are complicated. Addiction is not easy to overcome. Compulsion is too strong to address. It’s too hard to change one’s story.
And while we’re at it, can I mention that I hate shopping?
BEEEEEEEPPPPPP.
Did you hear the loud horn?
It was the kind that is built to scare away bears in the wilderness.
You hear it?
It means “stop now”.
Because these kinds of thoughts are strong, compelling and they have babies faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
(Which, by the way, do you know where the saying comes from “faster than you can say Jack Robinson?” From the 1600s in England. Talk about passing along ancient impressive history and old stories through phrases, like the line in the hard rock lasting for generations into the future, even if we no longer know who Jack Robinson is anymore).
Pause.
Even though everything is happening.
Even though you are getting on and off airplanes, or wishing you could and you aren’t.
Even though you are upset with the weather, and worried about global warming, and its not snowing where you live anymore, or snowing too much.
Even though you were fired, or your love of you life divorced you. Even though you lost your hearing, or your health. Even though you can’t read every amazing classic book ever written. Even though you don’t know what to get your kid for Christmas. Even though you’re sick of decorations all around you when you do not even celebrate this holiday. Even though you ate too many cookies at the office party.
Just stop.
Do you notice how you react when you think it’s hopeless?
Do you notice what happens in your body when you believe the world is a dangerous place, or disappointing?
Ow.
When I believe these kinds of thoughts, there’s a crushing weight of self-criticism, responsibility, grief.
So who would you be without these thoughts?
Without beliefs that pack tightly together and create a line inside a rock?
What if you just caught that chatter that says “I’m sick of it” and wonder who you are without the belief?
Because there are already huge parts of you without the belief.
My pinky finger on my right hand, for example, doesn’t have any of these thoughts.
I also didn’t have these thoughts yesterday when curling up in bed to go to sleep after a productive day.
I didn’t have the thought when walking into the gym, or listening to one of my best friend’s messages about her own thoughts with love and acceptance.
Or when I noticed the beauty of red car tail lights filling the night streets. I’m not kidding.
You don’t even really have to work so incredibly hard to wonder what it would be like to not have these kinds of solid, ancient thoughts.
Because there is already a great part of you, far bigger than the energy of this thinking, that doesn’t have any of these thoughts.
Who are YOU anyway, who believes it has stressful thoughts?
Are you sure YOU have them?
Where are they?
I notice they are only an energy, zipping through.
I notice they only come into vein-formation if I begin to follow them, and believe them, and take them seriously.
The other day a student wrote to me “I feel like breaking something!”
“How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are!” ~ Byron Katie to me when asking her about my own anger and how to get rid of it.
Just because I think it, I feel it, doesn’t mean I AM IT.
Turning the thoughts around….
Life is full of movement, like the weather. I do feel like (fill in the blank). I am not the one in charge. Nothing is required. There are no solutions to “life”. It IS possible to be on retreat at all times, it’s already actually happening, I don’t have to try. My thoughts are profuse, and that’s fun. Only my mental noise and mind believes them, not the rest of me. I will never be “done”. My mind is too small, my mind needs vacuuming. Everything works out perfectly.
Pause a moment longer, now that you’ve been pausing to consider your thoughts, and not taking them seriously.
Take a very deep breath.
Relax your entire body. Hold still a moment.
Even if your mind yells and makes noise and comments and gestures and demands you get up and do something….
…..notice how you do not have to act like it’s true.
“Practice not doing, and everything will fall into place.” ~ Tao Te Ching #3
Much love,
Grace
Not everyone knows that I spent about 10 years of my life….
….as a smoker.
Yep.
I had my first cigarette sometime around age 17 thinking this was just a casual funny thing to do when gathered with friends pretending you were a real grown up.
That turned into heading off to college very soon afterwards and noticing the students who smoked and the students who didn’t smoke, and joining in with the crowd who did.
Then I had a boyfriend who smoked. Every day.
The frequency just kept increasing over time, until I had to realize….
….I was a smoker.
Then I learned something about tobacco companies making millions and decided to buy a pouch of tobacco and roll my own (thinking this cut back on my contribution to those Big Corporations).
One day, I was rolling my cigarette in my apartment, all alone. I had been out biking almost all day, sweating and feeling joy in my athletic body.
I paused. I have no idea why.
I thought about what I was doing, looking at my fingers working with the rolling paper. I could no longer say “I’ll stop smoking when I graduate college”. I could no longer say “I’ll stop smoking when I break up with my boyfriend”. I could no longer say “I’ll stop smoking when I live in my own apartment”.
I was 26, I had broken up with the smoking boyfriend, I had graduated college, and now I lived in my own apartment. I kept passing all those points, and I didn’t stop.
This was going to be harder than I imagined.
I suddenly knew….I either keep going like this, thinking I’ll stop when….
….or I stop.
I don’t know why this particular thing struck me this way.
I had other experiences of addiction….primarily eating….
….that despite wanting to change or stop, I just couldn’t or didn’t until I had several important mentors, therapists and teachers help me with my overwhelming feelings.
But smoking?
It really came over me that day. I just have to stop.
So I did…..for about 6 months.
Then, through a series of transitions and events, I left my job and my apartment behind and returned to my parent’s house where I grew up to regroup for awhile and figure out what was next.
Staring out the window of my old childhood bedroom, at age 26, I felt like an abject failure.
I’m doomed, I thought. I’m such a loser. I can’t do anything right.
Now I have to find a job all over again, and my own place to live, and stop moving back in with my parents. Jeez.
The next thought?
I know! Go buy a pack of smokes! Yeah….do that next!
So I listened to that voice, and I left on foot for the corner store, and walked around the neighborhood at odd nighttime hours, smoking (since it wasn’t allowed in my parents’ house and I agreed it shouldn’t be, plus I was ashamed to be seen smoking by my parents).
I didn’t realize back then, it was my thoughts and feelings that were driving my urge to smoke.
I didn’t realize my own self-hate, being addicted to compulsively thinking there was something wrong with me and with the world, was the thing that fueled the fire of doing this activity called smoking.
Thoughts like….
….I’m unworthy, I can’t, I’m stupid, I’m slow, I’m too whatever.
But here’s the real kicker, as I look back at that time when I re-started smoking.
I’d smoke (or eat, or drink, or over-exercise) in order to not have to actually discover what it would be like to simply be myself.
I didn’t think I could be just me.
Raw, unaltered. Unfiltered (like the cigarettes I used to smoke).
Now, before you think that I “got” something and had a big Ah-Ha magic moment and stopped smoking because of a great lightening bolt of insight….I’ll tell you the end of the smoking story.
As I wandered the neighborhood in growing despair, I would sometimes have the thought “I’d rather be dead.”
Not exactly ready to commit suicide, but very dark and hopeless.
It was so dark and intense….
….I found myself sitting on top of my childhood built-in desk one night at 2 am, looking out at the roof tops of other houses into the night sky, with the window wide open.
God, I need help. I have no idea how to do this. Help.
A few days later, I accepted an invitation from an old friend to attend a party.
Who knows if I would actually go or not….I had no idea.
But I did.
At that party, a man came up to me as I sat under a tree with my lit cigarette and said “Is this your James Dean impression?”
I stared.
Did he just say what I think he said?
It was the most honest question I had been asked in months, and months.
The banter followed. He sat down near me. We talked for hours. We exchanged phone numbers.
A week later, no call from this man.
But I had been thinking about his bold question and the term “impression”.
I liked this awareness that the smoking was an impression, and not the real me. This is secretly what I knew already.
When I reached him on the phone, here’s what he said: Yeah, well, I agree it was awesome talking last week. But I’m serious about the whole smoking thing. I hate it. Smoke smells terrible to me, it kinda makes my head hurt. If you want to do it, OK….but we won’t be seeing each other.
Woah.
Smoking, or his company?
I got all the remaining cigarettes I had purchased, and crunched them into pieces and flushed them all down the toilet. The thing is, I had done this before. I knew what it was like to think “I’m DONE!” and then go back later.
But the next day, I learned I got a job I had interviewed for several weeks earlier at The American Lung Association.
You couldn’t smoke if you worked at the American Lung Association. In fact, I would be helping to educate people about quitting.
I never smoked again.
Not everyone gets an obvious set of choices like that. Maybe because I was such a knucklehead, I needed it to be really clear what choice to make.
But you still have one choice….do you want to see what it’s like to stop acting on the addictive pattern you’re in?
Because you can.
You can tell other people, you can get support, you can call for help.
You can question your thoughts about yourself that you aren’t capable of stopping.
You can most of all question your thoughts of pain, suffering and unrest. All the disturbing thoughts you think that you’ve been believing are true, that contribute to your addictive fixations….
….whether you’re focused on smoking, or eating, or drinking, or using drugs, or having a massive weird crush on someone, or using sex or people as objects of addiction, or spending money and buying stuff, or achieving enlightenment.
Finding out what’s out there, beyond stopping, becomes more interesting and curious and draws you to it like a magnet.
“Eventually you’ll want out, at any cost. You will then realize that life is actually trying to help you. Life is surrounding you with people and situations that stimulate growth. You don’t have to decide who’s right or wrong. You don’t have to worry about other people’s issues. You only have to be willing to open your heart in the face of anything and everything….” ~ Michael Singer
Much love, Grace
Are you someone who doesn’t really go for the woo-woo solutions to real life problems?
Well…this tool for changing your relationship with eating can sound a little cray-cray.
But believe me, I’m not that crazy (only crazy in a good way).
This tool is genuine, powerful, and used by many cultures, religions, therapeutic modalities and processes of emotional healing for centuries.
It’s in you already, you just may need to develop it a little, spending a little more time using your imagination for love, not hate (primarily for yourself).
See how I did it here. Leave a comment to let me know how this tool works for you–I love hearing from you and reading your comments.
Love, Grace