Upcoming events:
*Three hour Saturday afternoon meetup 3/18 at East West Books for only $25. Register here. I’ll share specifically how to do The Work on eating, weight, compulsive thoughts about food and your body.
*Living Turnarounds Group Sunday 2/26 3-6 pm (if you’re a beginner in The Work, email me first before registering).
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I’m about to go dancing. It’s what I do on Saturday mornings now if I’m not teaching a retreat somewhere out of town, and one of my absolute favorite things in my entire life.
This kind of dancing is almost not really “dancing” the way many of us think of as dancing, because it’s spontaneous movement, without words, to music of all kinds of genres and countries.
There are no step, no choreography, no requirements whatsoever, no need to dance with anyone. You can stop, you can sit on a yoga mat or a chair eyes closed or open, you can shake a shaker or tambourine, you can be entirely still. People of all ages attend, and I especially love all the people who come in their 60s, 70s, 80s.
What does this have to do with The Work?
Everything, I realized some time ago.
Here I am in this body, on planet earth, experiencing this particular lifetime. There’s a mind attached to this body, a brain, thoughts, feelings, responses to this reality.
And movement happens, it seems, out of this body. I lie down to sleep. I rise in the morning and get out of bed. I go to the kitchen and drink a glass of water. I notice thoughts, and notice the room, and notice sounds. I peel a banana and eat it, gorgeous.
Now, the body sits at a table and fingers are typing. Soon, this will stand up and gather a coat and others items to leave for the dancing. At least this is most likely. The mind doesn’t know exactly how it will go.
In the flow and river of what’s happening are thoughts, ideas, planning, wondering, and movement and stillness.
The way of it.
Not up to me. I am not in charge. I didn’t even invent this body, I don’t run the lungs, heart beat, temperature. I don’t invent the thoughts that appear, or the feelings that follow thoughts.
I used to think, when I stuffed myself with junk food, and watched my judgments become enraged, when I shoplifted that time on my bicycle in college, when I said mean things to people close to me, when I didn’t have enough money, when I didn’t win the race, when I didn’t dance very freely, when I was nervous about going on stage, when I had any uncomfortable feeling….
….I used to ALWAYS think it was My Fault.
Or, someone else’s.
What’s wrong with this person? (Me, Them).
Then I’d start to think about all the ways I could improve myself, or get away from that other person, or stop feeling “x”.
In the Year of Inquiry group the other day on our phone call, someone said as she’s navigating a major change in her life, very unplanned….
….What if this is the BEST that could happen?
As opposed to the WORST?
An amazing thing to realize, to feel and understand and be aware of….even just a drop.
It suddenly brings us back to right now, this moment, looking around as if to find the good news, the best, the interesting, the wondrous, the handle-able.
Are things so difficult as our thoughts sometimes make them out to be? Do we really need to worry? Is fear the motivator for change….or is accepting this stunning lack of need to change things the easier way?
As I found The Work in 2014 it was a slow dawn. First it was reading Loving What Is. Then a weekend workshop. Then making my way to the School for The Work in 2005 (a big leap there, with 9 days of inquiry). Then another school, and using the last drop of savings to attend it. Free to spend the money without fear. Even with fear.
No planning was done for how this went. I just knew what to do next. And next. And next.
And I noticed dancing right there at the School, during breaks, during one exercise. The joyful, spontaneous movement that didn’t need to be any certain way whatsoever except free, expressing itself.
So I found dance back at home where I lived, free-form dance, and I started going specifically to do what Byron Katie calls “living your turnaround”. An intention to move without worry, or criticism (well, there were a lot of inhibitions at first, for about a year, but I kept showing up and dancing who I would be without my thoughts).
And eventually, with my husband, I started a dance of this same interesting kind–open movement without plans, without requirements of any kind.
Being You in a group of other people all moving together.
This feels like where The Work brings us all. Being ourselves, connected to everyone and all that is, moving freely with joy and love, this body, music (or no music as we live our waking day moving from here to there, even from one room to another room). Just for a temporary time here on planet earth.
Who would you be without any thought whatsoever that something is required, or there’s someone to blame–someone’s fault–just for today? Who would I be without the belief there’s something off, or wrong, just for the next hour?
What if this is the BEST that could happen, and I could doubt my fears and angst about whether or not it’s gone wrong?
“Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to change the world so that they can be happy. This hasn’t ever worked, because it approaches the problem backward. What The Work gives us is a way to change the projector-mind—rather than the projected. It’s like when there’s a piece of lint on a projector’s lens. We think there’s a flaw on the screen, and we try to change this person and that person, whomever the flaw appears on next. But it’s futile to try to change the projected images. Once we realize where the lint is, we can clear the lens itself. This is the end of suffering, and the beginning of a little joy in paradise.” ~ Byron Katie
As one of my other favorite teachers (Adyashanti) invites people from time to time to try: Sit on a couch, and only get up when “it” gets up, not when you think you should, or shouldn’t, or when you have a thought about it.
Who would you be, how would you move, without your beliefs or your identity?
This morning, apparently, I’d be Dancing.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Most Saturday mornings Free Form Dance Dance is at Northgate Community Center in Seattle. Doors open 10 am.