Tag: compulsive eating

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Eating Peace – Mind Like Water

What if you stopped trying so hard to do something about the way you eat, your weird food behavior, your cravings, your discord?
You might think “OMG! But! I have to do SOMETHING!!!!”
Right?
Otherwise….
….(terrible images, terrible feelings, terrible sadness).
What if instead you said Mind Like Water instead.
Watch here to see what I’m talking about:
Eating Peace With Grace Mind Like Water
Eating Peace With Grace Mind Like Water
You can relax, it’s OK.
Much love,
Grace

P.S. Eating Peace Workshop is filling this year. I love the people who are attending. Reserve your spot now, it’s one month away only. Click HERE.

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Eating Peace – Something you can do if you’re overwhelmed

Earlier this morning the Eating Peace group met for our weekly practice in questioning thoughts related to cravings, eating, body image and food.
Some participants have been struggling.
It’s a season of sweets. Contacting friends and family. Being with people. Having big feelings.
Here’s something you can do that’s so simple, you might dismiss it as being ineffective or boring or dorky or new-agey.
But it isn’t. Not really.
It requires…..doing nothing.
Check it out here. And remember, if you’re feeling discouraged, this will pass. I mean it.
Lots of love to you on this wonderful day.
Eating Peace With Grace 12-24-2014 Inner You's
Eating Peace With Grace 12-24-2014 Inner You’s
Much love,
Grace

P.S. Eating Peace In Person 3-Day Workshop Is Coming! This is open to everyone wanting freedom from eating issues that feel painful. February 6-8, 2015 $297. For more information about housing, location, and details (updated frequently) or to register click HERE.

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Slowing Down The Sin-Guilt-Punishment Spin Cycle

I made a video for you!

I’ve had many people write me and talk with me about deep discouragement when it comes to resolving their eating and food issues.

It’s not uncommon to feel like you want to give up, and be overwhelmed with despair.

I myself often felt suicidal about my eating, energy level, compulsive behavior, and unhappiness.

One way you might dive into a cycle that you can’t seem to get out of, like you’re riding a children’s merry-go-round wheel in the playground that’s going really fast, is to stay in a vicious circle I call sin-guilt-punishment.

Watch here to see what the first thing is you can do to stop the spinning. Leave a comment under the video, I’d love to hear how it’s going for you.

Eating Peace With Grace
Eating Peace With Grace

Much love, Grace

P.S. Eating Peace In Person 3-Day Workshop Is Coming! This is open to everyone wanting freedom from eating issues that feel painful. February 6-8, 2015 $297. For more information about housing, location, and details (updated frequently) or to register click HERE.

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Eating Peace Video #3 – Three Treasures To Help You End Emotional Eating

The Tao Te Ching says that there are three treasures it has to teach: Simplicity, Patience and Compassion.

You can use these to heal your life with food.

Except….don’t use them to taunt yourself, criticize how not-good-enough you are, or how you’re falling short of the desired goal.

In this video today, I explain how to avoid the tendency to be extreme, which happens a lot with compulsive or emotional eating, and be TRULY simple, patient and compassionate with yourself.

ALSO, if you want a whole conglomeration of many of the tools, medicine and healing items I’ve used to recover completely from compulsive and emotional eating, or thinking about food….

….then head over to the webinar recording I did live last Wednesday.

You may have watched already…but if you haven’t, give it a shot.

It was fun!

Here’s one note I received from someone who attended the webinar:

Dear Grace,
It was fantastic.
Clear, thorough, an in-depth simplicity, useful.
The potter in me speaking found the images of raw clay–bowls, throwing–particularly beautiful.
Thank you and with love, J

I loved the questions and feedback I received, and I’m here to serve you if you seek help in this area. It is my deepest commitment and joy to be on the helping end of this whole eating issue, someone who is assisting in the healing of all of us, rather than fueling the fire of dis-ease around eating.

To access the webinar recording, CLICK HERE. You’ll enter your email, but you won’t be double-subscribed to this list, don’t worry. Look for the webinar link in your Inbox.

I’d love your feedback on what’s confusing, what is difficult to implement, what works for you.

“Some say that my teaching is nonsense. Others call it lofty but impractical. But to those who have looked inside themselves, this nonsense makes perfect sense. And to those who put it into practice, this loftiness has roots that go deep.” ~ Tao Te Ching #67

After the 12 week Eating Peace Program gets rolling on Sunday morning, I’ll be sending out news, a video, or some tip or insight to you all once a week. As of this moment, there are a few spots available in Eating Peace, so click HERE or write if you’re interested.

It’s gonna be awesome.

You can heal your relationship with food, no matter how far gone you think you are.

Much love,

Grace

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Eating Peace: Three Overwhelming Forces That’ll Make You Eat

People with eating issues obsess about food for many reasons, whether you’re thin, fat, slightly heavy, bulimic, starving yourself, fearing chemicals, being “perfect” about eating, upset with junk food, and everything in between.

Over the years I was deep into problems with food (from age 15 to 28) I’ve had every kind of moment you can possibly have with food.

Comfort, desperation, sadness, consoling, stuffed, starving, dieting, frightened, angry.

Of course, it was really all my experience with my thoughts and my own mind, not so much food.

So where do all those thoughts come from, that create the urge to worry about food, or eat food, or crave food, or deny food?

I found you could boil in down into three major forces. Any one of them, when running unquestioned without any self-inquiry, will kick your ass and start to overwhelm you…

….and no amount of willpower or control can stop the urge to eat.

I tell about these three forces in this video:

Eating Peace with Grace
Eating Peace with Grace

I’ll share more about what you can do specifically to relax, even if your mind is freaking out in any one of these force fields, in a second video in a few days.

If you can relate, and have questions on how to stop your patterns when it comes to food….click on this link HERE and comment over at my blog. I’ll read every comment and answer your questions!

Much love, Grace

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After A Binge or If You Feel Sick – Simply This

At a huge conference yesterday, I had an experience I haven’t had in a very long time.
Feeling very, very full after eating a feast in a really gorgeous, high end restaurant with lovely people and several hours of conversation.
As I bicycled home late at night the moon shone brightly and the air was warm…this is Scottsdale, Arizona…the desert.
All was well, until I stopped moving, jumped off my bike and entered my hotel room.
Then…woah.
My stomach is so full!
As I drank some water (so full), as I brushed my teeth (so full), as I pulled back the soft sheets (so full), as I checked emails quickly (so full), as I closed my laptop and turned out the light (so full), as I lay in silence on my back, feeling my stomach with the palms of my hands (so full).
As it turned out, something disagreed with my stomach and twice in the night I got up with diarrhea.
When something feels off in the body, the mind loves to comment.
Have you noticed?
No matter what kind of sickness, even a common cold, the mind may chatter away saying “you should have washed your hands after encountering those kids”, “you should have gotten better rest the other day”, “you shouldn’t have eaten that food”, or “you should have taken your vitamins”….
It will go on and on trying to figure out where you made the mistake, so you can avoid it again.
But what if you observe that the reason you feel bad is all because of YOU. Then, there is another meaner more vicious voice that can attack you for succumbing to your cravings. It’s bitter, critical and judgmental.
And really feels horrible. Important for inquiry.
Let’s look.
  • you should know better
  • I can’t believe you drank that/ate that
  • there is something completely wrong with you
  • you’re an idiot
  • you must not love yourself
  • this means you’re a fraud, childish, sick, needy, gross
You may have felt this way a thousand times, if you’re someone who falls into a compulsive process with food (or many other behaviors).
But instead of being so mean and raging an army against your own behavior…try something different.
Who would you be without these thoughts? Who would you be without believing your story about what happened, what’s wrong with you, or why you’re a failure?
If you’ve had a binge, take a deep breath.
Be very quiet.
Can you notice what is gentle, peaceful and sweet about this moment, now?
What else are you, besides your thoughts about the way you eat?
Can you find the opposite to your thinking?
  • you should not know any better
  • It’s completely believable and OK that you drank that/ate that
  • there is something completely right with you
  • you’re a genius
  • you must love yourself
  • this means you’re a normal human, innocent, healthy, have needs, beautiful
How could it be as true, or truer, that all unfolded as it did and you can learn from what happened?
If you’ve binged, it can be difficult to catch the thoughts you had before you felt the urge to binge…but it’s totally possible for you.
I suggest getting a Food Journal. Long ago I called mine a Binge Journal.
Write in it as soon as you remember, whether a day later after a binge, several hours after, 15 minutes after, the middle of it, or when the craving first arises.
You won’t be able to capture your thoughts on paper BEFORE you feel the cravings, if this is a new process. Don’t expect that of yourself, you’ll discover so much just by looking back at your last binge or over-eating episode.
What were you feeling, before cravings rose up? What was happening for you before you felt uncertainty, before you ate, before you drank, before you grabbed for something? Who did you think about or talk with? What did you feel afraid of?
For me…as I look right now today, I see a lot of inner activity was going on, and I didn’t take time to be with myself and rest.
Thoughts that floated through my mind yesterday, before the dinner ever took place, were like this: there are soooo many people at this conference, I want to connect with people more intimately but I’m finding it hard, I want to rest and feel the inner energy I love so much, I wish I had more money, I wish I had more time, I don’t completely belong here, I’d rather be at a meditation retreat, I’m all alone, this place is unfamiliar, I need to squeeze everything I can out of this conference and I’m not doing a good job, I am not really successful in my work.
It felt alarming, somewhat anxious. I had not stopped and questioned what I was thinking. I had believed a lot of what I thought.
Don’t belong. Not enough. Separate.
Without any of these thoughts about what I should or should not be doing, or that I am not connected or enough….
….I feel so relieved. Quiet.
Back again to nothing being required, nothing more needed in this moment, nothing missing.
“Freedom from obsession is not about something you do; it’s about knowing who you are. It’s about recognizing what sustains you and what exhausts you. What you love and what you think you love because you believe you can’t have it.” ~ Geneen Roth
Blessings to all of you who have felt the numbing harsh pain of that Mean Voice talking to you, and seeking comfort in food or drink or something that hurts you later.
There is an answer, there is a reason for it all. There is nothing wrong with you.
Here is a video for you, by a sweet spiritual teacher named Mooji. Very simple, very kind. This is one thing you can do after a binge, or when you’re overwhelmed with self-criticism or cravings.
Much love,
Grace
Eating Peace will begin on October 26th. We’ll meet most Wednesday and Sunday mornings from 8:30-10 am Pacific Time for twelve weeks. We’ll practice self-care, self-love, inquiry, and stopping before bingeing, and stopping before wild believing of everything you think. Read more details and sign up by clicking HERE.
Much love,

Grace

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Welcome To Eating Peace–It’s Possible For Anyone

First of all, thank you for being here, for being on this list that goes to only people interested in issues around eating, your relationship to food, body image, your weight.

I got tons of feedback about what your greatest frustration is around this topic, what you have gotten from doing The Work on your beliefs when it comes to food or anything related, and if you have a question for me now.

No matter where you are in your understanding and experience of eating and food….you aren’t the only one feeling this way. That part I know for sure.

And I probably felt every way you can possibly feel when it comes to food.

Angry, hopeless, enraged, terrified, sad, depressed…..

…..and then just a little hopeful, relaxed, accepting, trusting, honest…..

…..and then I began to notice the crazy urge to obsess, think about food, be concerned with what was junk or not junk food, or to see myself in the mirror and feel disgusted….

…..all shrink away. That way of being was walking off into the distance over the horizon, slowly but surely, and then it disappeared.

No fighting urges or cravings, no willpower necessary, no discipline, no need to get motivated.

I still have critical self-talk, I still have impulsive ideas or thoughts spring forward that aren’t true, but they just don’t ever seem to have to do with food and eating.

It’s like it’s not necessary to have a behavior manifest or surface at that level anymore.

People have asked me for several years…more than several years, to be honest…how did you do this? 

How did I get to where I no longer had to even think about food and eating anymore?

The other day, I was reading some literature on emotional eating, especially eating disorders, and the expert author said something like “this is a lifelong practice, since we always have to eat every day, so it requires care and attention for the rest of one’s life.”

When someone writes or says something like that, I shake my head.

It is not true.

I was an anxious mess around food. My weight went up and down, it doesn’t even matter that the range it went up and down wasn’t very much, it was either binge-eating or starving or worrying.

Never any peace.

But now, it is not in my consciousness to have food be something more than a great pleasure in life, to eat when hungry, and to stop when full.

You can have this too, I know it.

If I can experience life like this, year after year, then so can you.

For a long time, admittedly, I have resisted going into more depth on how to offer what I’ve received and healed, to others.

Part of me has thought “Ugh, I am so glad to be away from all that obsessing, I never want to hear anyone talk about calories or fatness or binges or which foods are healthy and which ones shouldn’t be eaten again for the rest of my life.”

But the truth is, no one ever really does go on and on about those things, unless they are frightened and don’t know what else to say.

I remember what that was like.

For whatever reason, I’ve been working more and more with people these past couple of years who suffer from this dilemma. They don’t feel happy and peaceful about eating, one of the basic requirements of living.

I’ve worked with young women and older women who are deeply concerned about their relationship with food, and occasionally men as well.

So, after working with so many others, offering my own journey of recovery (everyone’s will be unique in some ways) and finding out the best way to serve you….I’m offering an in-depth program for healing the way we relate to food.

This will include not only inquiry (which is a fantastic way to address the mind and its speedy quick thought process) but also how to rest, notice what is present, and feel the love surrounding you in every moment.

I’m bringing together many pieces of my favorite healing modalities, the things that helped me most of all, and leaving out the things that didn’t!

(Like, that you’ll have this as a lifelong problem—NOT!)

For me, my relationship to eating sparked my spiritual life.

It made me aware that I was not happy with reality, or myself. It “forced” me into seeking help and connecting honestly, for the first time, with people and with the reality of who I was.

I am so grateful for my terrible relationship with food and eating now. It changed the course of my life when I was a teenager….and I see now, made my life better than I could have ever expected (although it was hellish for about a decade, it seemed).

In the next few days, I’ll be sending out more information about healing from a damaged or troubling way of relating to food and eating.

I’ll also send info about this upcoming program that I’ll be offering, finally, after so many people have asked me to do something more than just the 8 week teleclass in The Work.

If you have anything you’d like to ask or that you’d like me to write about, just reply to this email.

If you think “I’ll never get over this food thing/extra weight/insecurity with eating”…..can you absolutely know that it’s true?

Who would you be without that belief?

What if the opposite was as true….or truer?

I will get over this food thing, I am over this food thing right now.

How is this possible? Can you find any examples, no matter how small, that in this moment, you are free?

“Addictions are always the effect of an unquestioned mind. The only true addiction to work with is the addiction to your thoughts. As you question those thoughts, that addiction ceases because you no longer believe those thoughts. And as those thoughts cease, as you cease to believe them, then the addictions in your life cease to be. It is a process. And there’s no choice; you believe what you think, or you question it.” ~ Byron Katie

Together, we’ll explore what it’s like to not believe your thoughts, how to find out what you’re even believing in the first place, what you really want, when it isn’t food, and how to connect with others.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. The program Eating Peace will begin on Sundays, October 26th. We’ll meet online for a webcast at 8:30 – 10 am Pacific Time. You’ll be able to listen and watch my presentation….then ask questions. We will not do The Work exclusively during these modules, that will happen on a different day/time over the 3 months ahead. More about this soon. Can’t wait to “meet” you if you’re joining.

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Do You Know The Difference Between Ghost Hunger And Real Hunger?

One of the first places I experienced deep, horrible, shameful suffering was in the way I ate.

It all started pretty young for me.

I remember “knowing” that people were “good” when they ate salad, broccoli and apples, and “bad” when they ate half a pizza, candy, or big bowls of ice cream.

I was eight.

Slowly the building blocks of beliefs came together to make a perfect storm of being freaked out around eating.

The culture and society praising thin, parents having wildly high expectations of themselves and of me, the beliefs that big feelings were to be shoved under the carpet or you’d make a fool outta yourself, and the incredible comfort of eating food.

Put that all together and you’ve got fear, anger, sadness, and more fear.

It took some heavy work and amazing encounters with wise teachers, and learning to be really honest, to find my freedom.

After a few years went by, people began to ask me about my recovery, how it happened, what it was like….and could I help.

I was hesitant.

It was trickier than I thought.

Fast forward after many years of insight, awareness, reading, learning, a master’s degree, group therapy, individual therapy, family therapy, and finding The Work of Byron Katie….

….and I loved the simplicity of identifying all those beliefs I had as an eight year old kid and a teenager, and questioning if they were really true.

My first telecourse to help break apart the pattern of eating too much or too little, of dieting or obsessing or freaking out about food, was in 2010.

I kept updating it, noticing what worked, what didn’t work, what helped, what didn’t help.

I’ve taught the course 21 times.

The last time I offered Eating Peace was nine months ago.

I’ve been waiting to roll it out again, because I’ve been researching, writing, and compiling piles of information about what’s been missing in supporting people to get to freedom around food.

I surveyed and interviewed almost everyone who participated in the last group…

…and some who participated in classes even before that one…

…and I learned some very important things.

People understood how to question their thinking, they learned how to relax more with food, they felt more self-acceptance in their bodies, they could question some of those big weird beliefs like “I should be thin to be loved” or “I have a problem with food” and turn these thoughts around…

BUT…

…only a few participants felt permanent change in their daily relationship to food and eating, or their bodies.

Sometimes, participants felt enormous relief and flooded with peace. They wouldn’t feel like eating so much, they might not even start a binge.

Then a few days would go by, or a few weeks or months…and the urge to eat would appear again with a vengeance.

Here’s what I found, if you are someone who’s experienced ANY kind of ongoing addictive pattern where you use SOMETHING to alter your mood, whether food, sex, shopping, smoking, drinking, facebooking, whatever…..

….This is all about your beliefs about you, and your conflicted feelings about safety, power, rest, love, sadness, satisfaction, hunger, fullness, independence, aloneness and who you really are.

What I have found by studying myself and other people is, the only way to get to the bottom of the compulsion for food when you are not actually hungry, or the compulsion to starve yourself when you are…

…is to catch that very moment–it speeds by so fast it’s like a flicker of something on a movie screen–before you feel like consuming or exercising or DOING something.

It’s whatever is there that says “I cannot stand being in this moment, I have to do SOMETHING, I don’t feel good.”

There are simple ways to begin to find out how to identify ghost hunger from real hunger, and to stop mistrusting yourself and treating yourself so meanly.

I’m going to dive in again with a group to not only investigate the mind, but also to investigate feelings….maybe even feel them.

It does take practice and it’s a process, not an instant fix.

One thing I learned about the teleclass was that 8 weeks is a great introduction, but it’s not enough time.

We’re going to meet for twice that time. For four months, I’m going to help you get clear about this Food Thing, and practice relaxation.

We’ll practice Being….and Doing Nothing….when it comes to this “problem” with food, this problem you may have had for almost all your life, give or take a day or two.

Here’s the good news:

The mind can be your friend to investigate food, eating, craving, compulsion, powerlessness, discouragement, emptiness, and fear.

If you would like to be on the early-bird list to learn about this new program for making friends with food, eating and your body…

…then click here.

If you have a friend or a family member or colleague who you think would like to be on the list for the upcoming news for Eat In Peace, please click here to forward this Grace Note to them: Blue.

I can’t wait to work with everyone who signs up.

Freedom from thinking and feeling bad about food is possible for everyone.

Even you. Especially you.

“Imagine not being frightened by any feeling. Imagine knowing that nothing will destroy you. That you are beyond any feeling, any state. Bigger than. Vaster than. That there is no reason to use drugs because anything a drug could do would pale in comparison to knowing who you are.” ~ Geneen Roth

Much love, Grace

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Not For Everyone, But Maybe For You: A Private, Special Retreat

I am thrilled and jumping up and down (on the inside)!

Because a dream I’ve had that others have suggested to me before, something I couldn’t imagine only a few years ago, is now coming into reality this fall.

For five+ years now, I’ve been working with people who hate their bodies, people who struggle with eating, people upset by aging, their flaws, their appearance, a difficult spouse, trying times with kids, and those frightened about money and lack of support.

As one of my favorite authors and teachers, Geneen Roth, summarizes it….

….it’s the suffering of Not Enough.

Every single workshop or class offering inquiry to those struggling with food and eating, pain or illness has offered profound teaching for me personally.

I’ve been learning how I can transmit the information I have of freedom from the prison of worrying about food, trusting my appetites, accepting this body and its flaws, allowing money to come and go freely, letting go of anxiety, feeling grateful and feeling deeply beautiful….

….to you.

I’ve loved my own journey every step of the way (well, ok, I didn’t exactly LOVE it every step of the way) and living this ever-expanding life with you means the world to me.

You may know where I came from, but if you don’t, it’s kind of embarrassing and ugly.

At least that’s how I used to feel.

I was anxious about overeating, upset when too hungry, and never, ever satisfied with the way my body looked. I went on huge binges, stuffing my face with everything in sight. I pushed myself hard with exercise.

I lost almost all my assets and money, and never had a satisfying career. My relationships were somewhat rocky, I got divorced. I yelled at my kids.

I felt flawed.

The stressful beliefs began when I was a kid, and surfaced more deeply when I was in high school. Then they got more sophisticated and I became a nutrition expert (without a degree), and bulimic, and life felt frighteningly unpredictable.

Ugh.

What I really, really wanted was total freedom from thinking about my life in such a painful way.

It’s agonizing to imagine that something is wrong with you, with your body, your mind, your feelings, and that you’re a failure when it comes to being here on planet earth.

Then, on top of feeling unacceptable, I would criticize myself for being self-critical.

I should know better! I should be nicer to myself! I’m acting like a teenager! I need to get a grip!

You can’t win, with this kind of loop-dee-loop thinking. It’s like bouncing back and forth between a rock and a hard place, like a ping pong ball on steroids, never getting any relief.

I sought many modalities of healing and all of them were excellent.

Individual therapy, group therapy, The Course in Miracles, meditation, The Work of Byron Katie, retreats, counseling, training, spiritual teachings, twelve steps.

And now I’m ready to combine them into core teachings for healing the mind’s attack on the body, on other people, on food, on money, on life, and end that war.

I find there are six areas of stressful beliefs, some that begin when you’re only a child, that contribute deeply to Not Enough-ness.

You can question them all, and shift.

They are responsible for immense suffering.

These areas are:

  • If I don’t look acceptable, people won’t like me. If people don’t like me, I’ll suffer. Therefore, find out what acceptable is, and look like that.
  • My feelings are not to be trusted, or shown to others. They upset people.
  • I am not safe in many situations. The world (full of people) is a chaotic, disturbing or terrifying place.
  • My thinking is not my friend.
  • There are many activities that can change my feelings about situations that are troubling…like eating, smoking, drinking wine, cleaning, getting a crush on someone. But they all hurt in the end.
  • I am my body, my body defines who I am.
Boy howdy, when your feelings are not trustworthy, and your thinking is not trustworthy, and the world is not trustworthy….then you are up sh*t creek, philosophically speaking.
But there is a way out, entirely, from that madness.
You can question what you learned was true, from your earliest memories all the way to now.

You can alter your beliefs, your mind, your feelings….by changing what creates discomfort for you in your own belief system.

In other words, if you don’t like the way a thought makes you feel, you can question it and find out if it’s really, really true.

When I was in my twenties, I felt desperate to find answers. I had some fantastic guidance, but I wish I had found a clear resource to look at my inner thoughts and what I was making things mean in my life.

Now, I don’t even have to “work” at it.

Don’t get me wrong, my mind still has troubling thoughts. Just the other day I saw my 53 year old wrinkles around my eyes and let out a sigh.

But then I chuckled.

And if I don’t, I’ve got The Work.

Who would you be without the belief that you are Not Enough, that people won’t like you, that you need to be liked, that there is Not Enough money, Not Enough attention, that you must protect yourself from a hard world?

Kind of amazing to consider, right?

Which brings me to why I’m so excited….

I’m offering a very deep focused immersion into self-inquiry, spiritual inquiry, The Work and experiential exercises I’ve found to be amazing to address the sense of feeling lack, disappointment, anger, fear, discouragement…..

…..to a very small group of eight people.

The Serene, Powerful, Loved, Ecstatic, Enough Retreat.

If you enroll in this unique once-in-a-lifetime retreat, offered November 10-13, 2014, you will look at the nooks and crannies where you have believed in Not Enoughness.

You will look at who you really are, what is genuinely true, and what’s gotten in the way of your freedom.

You will have access to the nurturing, care, enough-ness, beauty and wisdom that lives inside of you, that’s been here all along even through your self-defeating behaviors.

You can put down trying to solve the problem of life, money, kids, spouses, food and weight, and build your contact with unconditional love.

We’ll question painful messages of fear and hurt, of thinking there is something wrong with you.

You’ll open to truly imagining there isn’t.

I would love to support you to put down the battle, the project of self-improvement forever….and I know you can’t stop your thoughts, and you can’t control them.

(Control never works in the end).

But you can turn your attention to other truths, you can stop proving that your stressful thoughts are true, and prove the peaceful ones instead.

This is not your average, in-house retreat where I have people come to my cottage for a day or two. This particular format will appeal and be possible for only a very few.

We will be in luxuriously cared for, with special guest appearances via skype or in-person by teachers who are experts in spiritual inquiry (and maybe you’ve heard of them).

I’ve asked several important guides, and it is yet unknown who will be able to connect with us for sure. It will be a surprise!

You will be able to ask personal questions and have direct contact with them.

This experience will be different than large meditation and educational retreats attended by hundreds. You will not contend with crowds.

And I’ll offer you my own experience and strength, and my compassionate facilitation.

“The Way of Liberation is a call to action; it is something you do. It is a doing that will undo you absolutely. If you do not do the teaching, if you do not study and apply it fearlessly, it cannot effect any transformation. The Way of Liberation is not a belief system; it is something to be put into practice.” ~ Adyashanti

You can turn all of your beliefs around, and live a life of completely, utterly, unconditionally enough at every turn, around every corner, deep inside of you.

You can start practicing it now, by turning the troubling beliefs to the opposite:

  • I can look the way I look, people love me. If people don’t like me, I’ll won’t suffer. Being myself is acceptable.
  • My feelings are to be acknowledged, honored, and shown to others. They don’t upset people. Or me.
  • I am safe in every situation. The world (full of people) is a mysterious, magical, curious and loving place.
  • Thinking is my friend.
  • There are no activities that can change my feelings about situations that are troubling…except self-inquiry, self-love, allowing everything and everyone to be as they are.
  • I am not my body, my body cannot define who I am. My body is inside of me, as is everything else.
At the Serene, Powerful, Loved, Ecstatic, Enough Retreat

you will stay in five-star award-winning accommodation Willows Lodge in Woodinville, Washington. Our group will be fully catered for every meal. We will work with the abundance of beauty and food as part of our inquiry practice, and what is enough.

For many others who will not be able to do this due to cost…. ….have no fear, I’ll be presenting my teleclasses this summer starting soon in July, and YOI (Year of Inquiry) in September…and I am working on pre-recorded classes you can take on your own.

(Eating Peace will be the first class people can take online on their own, stay tuned).

“We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.” ~ Marianne Williamson

Letting yourself experience this four-day retreat of deep self-inquiry, The Work, presence, now….you may discover a new light within that is both serene and ecstatic, when you know how loved you are that no situation, person, place or thing can change this.

And who knows what can happen from there.

The Serene, Powerful, Loved, Ecstatic, Enough Retreat is by application only.

If you are interested, please click this link. I will respond to all applications on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please apply by July 4th, independence day in the US. Your payment will be due upon your acceptance into the program and confirms your participation.

Thank you universe for this incredible opportunity to be a guide along your journey.

Wherever you are, and whoever you are, you are love.

“Love is action.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love, Grace

Posted on

Not Believing Your 10,000 Thoughts = Peace Around Food (Or Anything)

Wow, I loved doing The Work this past weekend in Horrible Food Wonderful Food with the beautiful inquirers who wanted to look at the way they eat, view their bodies and examine their compulsive movements with food.

Not only did we question powerful thoughts like “there won’t be enough for me” but we also looked at one person in our lives whose behavior, words, or even a “look” disturbed us.

That person was bothersome….and it may appear that they have nothing to do with our relationship with food or eating.

But it may be more closely related than you think.

Try this test.

First, pick a situation where you got scared, upset, nervous, irritated, worried, confused. It’s a scene from your life. There was another person, or a group of people, involved.

It can be hard to choose sometimes, when there might be many moments spent with this other individual. So allow one particularly troubling moment to come to mind.

It doesn’t even have to be that big of a deal….the most important thing is you have some objection to someone. You didn’t like something about the situation you experienced with them.

Then, write down all your beliefs about this situation. Write down why you’re disappointed or nervous, what you would prefer instead, what you wanted, what you needed in order to be happy.

Now you have your troubling concepts written, on paper, in front of you.

Here’s where the interesting part about food and eating…or ANY addiction…comes in as a part of your investigation into your stressful experience of reality.

Let’s say you write this about someone: I am upset with him because he lied to me. I want him to grow up. I want him to vanish. He shouldn’t have ever started talking to me. He should cut the crap. I need him to apologize, relax, stop being so dramatic, enjoy his own life. 

You may then do The Work with any one of these concepts, asking the four questions and finding your turnarounds (opposites) and exploring the truth of your story and if you really believe it.

Now, to investigate further with your addictive substance (in my case it was food)….here’s the interesting test:

Turn all your thoughts around to the opposite, to yourself, and plug in the word “food” and try it on like you’re trying on a different outfit.

I am upset with myself because I lied to myself about food. I want me to grow up when it comes to food. I want my thinking about food to vanish. I shouldn’t have ever started talking to myself about food. I should cut the crap. I need me to apologize to food (to my body), to relax, to stop being so dramatic, to enjoy my own life especially when it comes to eating food. 

Wow. What an awesome prescription for what I needed to do next, to face my addictive behavior.

I can spend more time with this prescription, specialized for me only as it was built out of my own stressful perceptions (of that other person).

Instead of that other person, or thing like food, needing to change, in order for me to be comfortable, could it be ME who could be comfortable first?

Can I stop lying to myself and telling myself all kinds of detailed, intricate, wild, chaotic, sad, violent stories about food, eating and this body?

“You just stop telling your mind that its job is to fix your personal problems. This job has broken the mind and disturbed the entire psyche. It has created fear, anxiety and neurosis. Your mind has very little control over this world. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent….You have given your mind an impossible task by asking it to manipulate the world in order to fix your personal inner problems.” ~ Michael Singer 

Today, I know that eating something will not solve my personal inner problems. It will only fuel them, quite honestly.

Drinking, smoking, engaging in obsessive thinking about a relationship, shopping, cleaning, setting goals….these also won’t resolve anything in the inner world. Yes, they will distract me, cause temporary memory loss, create drama, make me feel relief.

But all that is really not that fun. I tried them all and they really all stopped working. And I wanted more than relief.

I wanted liberation.

So in that moment when you feel like reaching towards something like a candy bar, a cigarette, a magazine, memories of that giddy moment with a lover….

….could you remember to ask yourself “is it true, that I need or want this?”

Is it true that this present moment isn’t good enough?

Is it true that I’m hungry? Or unhappy? Or lonely?

Is it true that this moment won’t be changing in a few seconds, without my help?

“You can have ten thousand thoughts a minute, and if you don’t believe them, your heart remains at peace.” ~ Byron Katie

Doing The Work on anything addictive, on others, on what I object to in my life in any way….is such a great alternative job for this analytical mind than demanding it resolve the situations or people I encounter in my life.

And funny thing….the more I have done The Work….

….the urges, cravings, commands, demands to DO something (like eat, or think, or plan)….

….all vanish.

For all those who wrote to me about doing Horrible Food Wonderful Food via web cast, YES, I will do an online retreat soon on this topic where you can join from anywhere in the world.

I love your creative ideas, and your sweet and amazing desire to set yourself free.

Much love,

Grace