Tag: death

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OK That Death Is On Your Shoulder

Here I am in the lush, earthy-smelling, dark green, damp Pacific Northwest forest of eastern Oregon.

I am sitting in my little cabin, in bed with my trusty laptop, and my newly written worksheet on The Body.

Fourteen people have come together to contemplate painful beliefs about the body, including eating, pain, accidents, mental illness, weight, aging.

“The worksheet” as you know, if you’re familiar with The Work, is the place where you write out your most despicable, vicious, frightened, depressing, nervous, unhappy thoughts about whatever it is you are thinking about.

It might be a person you know, your parents, your child, the weather, the government, that country, this world, your house, your work, money, your body.

Even if you’re not super familiar with The Work….step one on the way to discovering freedom and a life without stress is simply identifying the painful thoughts speeding through your mind.

These are thoughts you think that don’t feel good. Images you picture that don’t feel fun or sweet, that may be horrifying or extremely sad.

Memories that appear that are desperate, dreadful, or disgusting.

There are a lot of thoughts in the mind that feel downright awful when you think them.

This is the beginning of The Work…identifying these difficult, troubling, worrisome thoughts.

Then, once they are out in broad daylight, right there on the paper, they can be examined rather than avoided or brushed under the rug.

In our workshop full of people, we all wrote a Judge Your Body worksheet after considering a time when we had an objection to something going on in the body.

A situation occurred, and we saw our body as a problem, some part of our body as an irritant, or a major fear.

For me, my body grew a tumor on the right leg. Cancer! It also has a cellulite-y butt, an aching right foot, a left hip that gets stiff, and graying hair.

And yes, I know the mind is right here, close as close can be, watching the whole thing, inseparable from this body, a part of it…and yet we can so easily separate the body from whatever it is I think of as “me”.

It seems like there is my body, and then there is my mind, which notices, thinks about, critiques, and finds solutions for the body.

The mind, I notice, has had judgments, opinions and assumptions (happy ones and unhappy ones) about the body since I was very young!

So this evening, I’ve brought myself this gift of reeming the heck out of this body, telling it what I REALLY think about this situation.

No holding back…this is letting it rip to the fullest throttle.

Question One on the Judgment worksheet: What is it about your body that angers, confuses, or disappoints you, and why?

I mean REALLY, REALLY enrages you, scares you, gets you mixed up, disappoints you, freaks you out, makes you feel nauseated?

Well…since you asked….

I am frightened with this body because it’s going to die. It feels pain. It’s vulnerable. It can never be absolutely perfect.

This situation sucks! Who thought this up anyway! We come into a body, it runs into things and things bump into it, it grows and moves and operates itself somehow through some amazing and mysterious life force, and then decays either a little or a lot, and dies either sooner or later.

Stuff has happened, and will happen again, that HURTS. I don’t have control. I don’t even get how the thing actually works, or why it’s doing what it does.

And after being in the body (which I’m not exactly sure I am in, depending on what “I” is) and being here on planet earth, I have to die after all that! Jeez!

I OBJECT!

But wait.

Instead of objecting over and over again (which I notice has never worked so far to change the situation) and ask if it is really true for me that it’s upsetting that this body is going to die?

YES! If someone asked me right now, like a waiter in a restaurant: would you like death…or would you like life?

I’d say LIFE. Duh.

So can I absolutely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, know that it is upsetting to die?

Can I know that it’s final, difficult, painful, tragic, that I’ll leave all the people I love forever, that I’ll never be connected to them again, that it will hurt?

Oh, well, now that you put it that way. I can’t actually KNOW with complete absoluteness that dying is upsetting. Or separating, final, painful.

I haven’t actually done it, in this lifetime. Yet.

Come to think of it, I have NO IDEA if it’s true that death is upsetting.

I know that the way I react to the world and to my life when I believe that dying is upsetting is that I cling to this life, I think people with great health, youth, and vitality are lucky, I think signs of aging (meaning…on the way to death) are bad. I think my cancer was frightening.

The way I react to the world when I believe death is upsetting is that when someone I really love dies I feel very, very sad. I miss them.

Who would I be without this thought that death is upsetting?

What if I couldn’t believe that this situation of being alive, in a body, is disturbing (in a bad way)?

What if everything is going unimaginably well with this body? What if it was a good, good thing that it’s had the “flaws” it has appeared to have, the accidents, the distress, the injuries, the pain, the ugliness, the signs of death?

What if death is so dang awesome it’s going to be the adventure of a lifetime!

Fabulous! Can’t wait! So lucky if you find out your dying sooner than later! Woohoo!

“Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity.” ~ Tao Te Ching #16

Of course you may not be thrilled about death, or life, every moment. But to begin to examine this idea called death…that we will all experience…opens up our minds to Great Investigation.

We feel fear, sorrow, angst, paranoia, impermanence, we imagine what we’ll miss in the future when we consider death, so sure it will hurt either emotionally or physically.

But not to brace against it, or resist this situation of living in All This, being here, apparently being alive just for awhile, knowing death is coming…

…what freedom. How incredible.

Joyful laughter arises. I know nothing.

“It’s good to realize you will die, that death is right there on your shoulder all the time.” ~ Pema Chodron

Love, Grace

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Have A Body? Lose Control

Only a few more weeks of the early-registration fee of $295 for the Breitenbush retreat focusing on the issues we have with our bodies….more on that in a minute! After May 1st the registration fee goes up to $350. We have an amazing group forming. The retreat is limited to 14. The fee I just mentioned is the tuition…everyone coming phones Breitenbush to reserve your chosen accommodations (tent platform or your own bungalow?) and delicious meals.

Click HERE to read all about it.

What does it mean to do The Work on The Body?

Well….have you ever had a stressful thought about your body? A thought that when you think it, you experience discomfort of any kind?

Spending some time with the stress about having a body like yours can be quite revealing. Thoughts about the body are so critical, agonizing, and painful…and then, we’ll have thoughts about ourselves and how we really shouldn’t HAVE these critical thoughts about our bodies.

First the thought, as I pass the glass window on the street “gosh, your butt looks too big” or “wow, your face really is looking old these days”. Then the thought “I can’t believe you’re not OVER criticizing your looks at your age, you should know not to care”. Then the thought “I need to relax, take care of my superficial thoughts, handle my health better”.

And so on. The cycle of “thinking” in a compulsive way along the lines of things not being good the way they are.

Especially this body. So imperfect and so frail.

Bodies can be the entry point into awakening like no other. With this thing I live in, called a body, I am aware of my need to be attractive to other humans, my desire to be attractive to myself, my frailty, pain, weakness, the smallness or temporariness of being in this body..death and impermanence.

My thoughts about my body are, in fact, thoughts about life and death. They all lead to the most profound, similar place.

For me, the mind can start spewing thoughts so quickly on the body, it’s faster than a speeding bullet!

  • I wish I were twenty years younger again
  • I don’t have enough time (here on the planet)
  • my hip should stop hurting
  • I need to do yoga, stop aging, have zero pain
  • dying is not going to be fun or easy
  • I hate when other people die
  • I hate feeling bad, I never want to get sick again
  • my face shouldn’t have wrinkles, my hair shouldn’t turn gray, my feet shouldn’t hurt

The list goes on. There are cures, too, around every corner. You can start in on all kinds of ways to “solve” the “problem” of having this condition.

And yet, as I inquire over time, even on the dumbest most mundane thoughts about my body, I get such insight and love for this thing that it becomes simple, easy, and not a source of regret or wishful thinking.

I love being exactly in this body, at this time, at this age, with these little feelings and conditions. It’s magnificent…it’s surrender. I see how it does not take changing or altering this body to experience joy, love, acceptance, connection, intimacy and peace.

Doing The Work on the body leads to the grandest, most wonderful questions and awareness that I am not this body, there is much more here….and that for some reason, this whole thing is temporary.

What if your thoughts looked instead for the benefits in your condition? The opposite sort of experiences?

  • I wish I were twenty years older…I’d be closer to that fun moment called death (or croaking) that I’ve heard a zillion things about but will only experience once
  • I have all the time I would ever need on this planet, in this lifetime
  • my hip should keep hurting, it’s a sensation that’s speaking
  • I don’t need to do anything, I need to keep aging (that would be weird to stop aging), I need to have great pain and notice I can learn to relax with it, and that it leaves
  • dying is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done…I won’t even be doing it (finally it won’t be up to me, kinda like life if I really think about it)
  • I experience great love when other people die (so far, always true)
  • I’m open to feeling physically bad, I’m open to getting sick again…there are advantages and I can find them
  • my face should have wrinkles, my hair should turn gray, my feet should hurt…I get to have this amazing aging experience in this life (vs die young).

By having this body, as it does exactly what it does, I get to see how nature works in this particular form. I get to respond to this particular body, I get to feel what reality/God/source is offering through this body.

I get to see how much more I am than this body. This mind doing its amazing thing…wondering, exploring, feeling, sensing. Body and mind and beyond all interacting. A great mystery.

The most amazing thing is how free I am, even with this body. Everyone is.

“Now sweetheart, close your eyes, and go to the place where you are very, very ill….Now see if you can locate the place that doesn’t care. The place that really isn’t bothered by it. It’s there. See if you can locate it—the part of you that is unaffected. The part of you that just watches. Go back to the last time you were in so much pain and see if you can locate it……Go back with it again. It’s a part—no matter how much pain you’re in—it’s witnessing, watching…..Good. That’s the one that cares nothing for control. So let that one grow. It cares nothing for control.”~Byron Katie 

Inquiring into your thoughts about your body, you may find very quickly that you are inquiring about what it means to be alive, and to know you will die.

For me, this is spiritual awakening. Surrender, gratitude…the freedom of not caring.

Do The Work on your body and have a glorious time caring nothing for what everyone else thinks, what you think. (Join us at Breitenbush).

“If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked. If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up.”~Tao Te Ching #22

Love, Grace

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Death, The Greatest Show On Earth

Many of us have spent time thinking about physical pain, illness, trauma, danger, aging or dying. We ALL know someone sick, hurt, injured. We all know people who have died.

Really, Death and Dying seem to be, sometimes The Greatest Show On Earth! 

That’s my own little joke with myself….the greatest mystery of all, though, it seems.

What on earth is going on here in this place? We’re born, and then we will die, no matter what, at least in the body.

Loads of speculation about what happens next, no ability to prove anything. Great effort to find out and explore what happens. Inquiring minds want to KNOW!

Recently, I re-read a wonderful passage of Byron Katie doing The Work with a woman who had cancer. The woman said “my body is in ruins”.

Even if my body is not currently in “ruins”…as I read the script of Katie’s session with the woman, I knew that indeed my own body isn’t getting out of here alive. In some ways, it is already in ruins, too.

Just take a look at this body in 50 years! I’ll bet you a million bucks you’ll see TOTAL RUINS. Maybe even in 10 years, who knows, or next week.

It’s strange how much fear is stimulated with this kind of awareness. Many people have never even questioned the thought that dying is bad, that it’s horrible to have a body that will only end up in ruins.

Is it true that it’s bad news? Really?

I discover that it’s as if there is one part of my mind that is a frightened baby, very terrified, uncertain. It was assurance, doesn’t like the unknown.

But there is another part, that we all have, that is very certain, wise, observing, neutral, peaceful…even deeply joyful.

When I stop and answer the four questions of The Work, my little freaked out mind gets to settle down and answer, and the wise one gets uncovered and comes out to help.

Getting sick, or dying, is bad news. Aiyiyi, look how I react when I think that thought!

Panic, terror, nausea, adrenaline, mind starts finding solutions, the Plan of Attack. (This doesn’t mean NOT to do research. Research can be fun and invigorating when it is without terror).

Who would I be without the thought that getting sick or dying is bad? Even for the people I love?

Well, to be honest, there are many moments in the day when I am not thinking this thought, so it already happens. I am alive, going about my business here and there, sleeping, moving, eating, drinking, bathing, talking, listening, reading…all without the thought that dying or sickness is bad.

What about the second I learn I have cancer, or remember that I will be dying at some point in the next fifty years, give or take?

Who would I be without the thought that dying is bad, right in THAT MOMENT?

I’d be excited. Curious. Willing. Surrendered, relaxed, open. Ready for the adventure. Noticing what TODAY is like. Seeing the clouds that look like cotton balls outside the window right now.

“When it’s no longer at war here [Katie points to her head], it’s no longer at war there-with the body, with cancer, with anybody. When we know we’re going to die, when we really get that, in that moment we realize that we’re not in control. And then we get to watch. We get to watch this beautiful way of it. And love it. And not miss our own death.”~Byron Katie

I don’t know what will happen for the rest of my life and when that day will come that is my last one here, in this lifetime.

But I sure can practice getting ready for it, by questioning my thinking, my fear, my need to be in control, my worries, my angst, my terrors about both life now and impending death.

I don’t really have a choice. I figure it’s suffer, or inquire. That seems to be the case.

“When the fear of death comes up, say yes.”~Adyashanti

A small teleclass is beginning in three hours to address physical pain, sickness and death together…our fears, our imaginings, our worries. We’ll meet for 6 weeks. It is not necessary, of course, to have any current illness or pain…and, you may also have a terminal illness, chronic pain, or someone’s death in your life. Whatever your situation, you are welcome to the group. Click HERE to register or read more about it.

Love, Grace

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The Upside of Death

Many people wrote me yesterday to ask details about the Death Class. Several requests for evening led me to schedule it for Thursdays starting March 7 – April 11, 2013 from 6:15 – 7:45 pm Pacific time. Click HERE to register for it.

I am also having fun calling it the Death Class (and don’t worry, we will talk about Pain and Sickness as well!). But it sure makes me laugh to say that I’m teaching a Death Class.

Bringing humor to death and dying has been something we humans have brought to existence throughout the ages, especially since writing, books, theater and poetry.

Maybe even cave men joked around about death. Ug and Thug pretending they fell off a cliff or got gored by a rhino, rolling around laughing.

We will all say that Death and Dying are so serious….and yet, it’s quite amazing to find that often, there are sparks of laughter in the middle of the “end” of someone’s life.

Many years ago, my father was at the end of his. His four daughters, and all of our boyfriends or new husbands at the time, my mother, and my father’s best friend, had all been keeping vigil in my parent’s bedroom for several days.

The last round of chemo in the hospital had come to an end. There was no other possible treatment. It was over. They had sent my father home to die.

My childhood house was filled with people bringing over food. A priest came and gathered for awhile with my sisters and I in our parent’s home, where we all had grown up.

One of my father’s dearest friends called him from Africa. Another flew from across the country to visit my dad for 2 hours, dressed in a business suit, and then returned to the airport to fly away again.

And then came the actual Last Day of my father’s life on the planet.

The people he really loved and cherished were all surrounding him. My mother shared photo albums from their wedding, everyone was in their (fortunately) very large bedroom sitting in chairs, lying on the floor, lying on my parents big bed.

We sang lullabies as we listened to my father breathe. He lay on a special hospital-type bed. The day was a very dark November afternoon with drizzling gray skies outside.

All afternoon we talked in hushed voices about all kinds of things, stretched our stiff necks, went to the bathroom, or would go sit by my father’s bed. Maybe someone would cry softly and we would sit with our arms around each other for a minute.

As all the light faded and darkness came, someone lit more candles. The door opened and closed and people placed a tray of sandwiches on my parent’s dresser.

And then the breathing stopped.

Suddenly, everyone sat up on alert. Everyone who was more than 2 feet away came to my father’s side. We all gathered close and touched him, his shoulders, arms, legs, feet.

We looked at each other, holding our own breath. My mother uttered a cry of great grief. We all began to weep.

And then my father took another breath.

Every single person in that room suddenly burst out laughing. There were no words, there were tears and laughing, and laughing….

And then listening, and waiting, and a long, long pause…

All the laughter fading to a hush, and then listening, and silence, silence.

And then we all knew, simultaneously, that really WAS the last breath, that last one.

And THEN the tears flowed and everyone sobbed. My forehead was resting on my father’s arm and I was holding his hand with my own, and I felt it grow cold. As I cried, I was amazed with this recognition of something I had heard about, the body having no more heat.

And strangely, that laughter did not feel very different from the grief that poured out. At all.

All of it felt like the truth, like love.

“The Tao is like the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds. It is always present within you. You can use it any way you want.”~Tao Te Ching #6

We’re all in the Death Class. Amazing and Beautiful, containing the funniest and the most serious of it all.

Love, Grace

Learn About Teleclasses Here 

Click here to register for the Pain, Sickness and Death Class!

  • Earning Money: What’s Your Problem? Questioning Your Beliefs About Money, Work and Business. Mondays, February 4-April 1, 2013, 7:30 – 9:00 am Pacific time. 8 weeks $395. No class March 4th.
  • Pain, Sickness and Death: Making Friends With The Worst That Happens In Life. Thursdays, March 7 – April 11, 2013. 6:15 – 7:45 pm. 6 weeks $295. 
  • Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven: Working With Painful Hate, Anger, Fury, Despair, Grief, or Disappointment With Someone You Know; Spouse, Mother, Sibling, Father, Daughter, Son, Boss, Neighbor, Friend. Fridays, March 29-May 17, 2013 8:00 am – 9:30 am Pacific time. 8 weeks $395.     
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Oh Goody! It’s Pain, Sickness and Death

It’s here, it’s here! The teleclass on Pain, Sickness and Death!!!

Kind of funny thing to announce with exclamation points, right?

We humans make a lot of jokes about death, getting old, getting sick, and going through very tough physical pain. We often joke about it because it’s so uncomfortable, so serious, and so incredibly difficult.

These things seem threatening. For real!

Feeling acute pain or chronic pain that doesn’t seem to end….having your best friend get terminal cancer…a child dying unexpectedly, or a parent…facing your own imminent death…

These are the experiences encountered in life that can bring the greatest suffering.

With great loss or shock, disease or physical difficulty, many of us think we can’t get through it….like it will actually be so painful emotionally that our lives will be ruined.

I once met a woman who had three boys who were all killed. I had the thought “how could she live through that?” 

But of course, we do live through the deaths of people who are very close to us. There this woman was, right in front of me, living beyond her three sons.

Just THINKING about pain, sickness and death can produce the feelings of horror, or dread. Nothing has even happened yet, and we’re freaking out because of the pictures in our minds.

Turning and facing to look at all this, head-on, is not always pleasant. But sometimes, when the anxiety gets too strong, there’s no other way to go except to dive into the biggest fear.

As it turns out, when you look at the process of being human on this planet, it is not truethat parents should die before their children. It is not true that people shouldn’t get cancer. It is not true that people shouldn’t get in car accidents. It is not true that people shouldn’t have terrible pain in some area of their body day after day.

Because those things happen. All the time.

I figure, as Byron Katie has suggested all these years, you can either argue with What Is and suffer, or question your thinking.

How could that terrible horrible worst thing happening actually be OK? How can I accept it? How can I be comfortable with it? How can I stop worrying?

I have found that the way to stop worrying and being so upset…is to find out what I’m most afraid of, most against, and bring it to self-inquiry.

  • It’s sad that I have a limited time on the planet
  • Getting cancer is terrible
  • It’s wrong and horrible when children die
  • I need my leg to stop hurting
  • Something terrible is going to happen
  • Being young is better than being old

The mind will have a field day delivering horror-show images.

What if we can question and contemplate everything though….these very worst, worst experiences we’ve encountered, the things we most fear?

What if we could find peace right in the middle of mayhem, anxiety, or endings?

“The whole notion of death is a beautiful and very potent spiritual awakener….Even the very idea of death takes away everything we’re identified with. The body will go, thoughts will go, imagination will go….death takes it all away. For the mind, this is terrifying! But if you just imagine body gone, mind gone, feelings gone, memories gone…what’s left?….Death takes everything away except what’s essential.”~Adyashanti

As I turnaround all my thoughts about death, sickness, pain, accidents…all those “bad” things that can happen to a body….I find a foundation of peace that is startling. I think it’s been here the whole time, I just didn’t see it before with all the layers of fear piled on top.

  • It’s awesome that I have a limited time on the planet..what, I want to be special and stay endlessly?
  • Getting cancer is fantastic. It made me slow down, pay attention, rest, actually stop worrying…every day a gift.
  • It’s not wrong or horrible when children die. They don’t ever have to go through all the crap older people do, they are innocent, they don’t think it’s their fault.
  • I don’t need my leg to stop hurting. I’m breathing, walking…learning about pain.
  • Something wonderful is going to happen…wow, bring it on! It’s OK if it’s over.
  • Being old is better than being young, if that’s what you are. This body is incredible, it’s being the perfect servant taking me to the end zone slowly but surely.

“I see life and death as equal. Reality is good; so death must be good, whatever it is, if it’s anything at all.”~Byron Katie

If you’re ready to question your fears about the worst case scenarios….join me on Tuesday mornings starting 2/12. We’ll look at the experience of feeling physical pain, with awareness of illness and malady, and of course the top favorite….death.

I’d love company along this crazy upside-down journey of opening to what’s apparently difficult, in discovering what’s true.

Love, Grace

 

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He Is Dead–Are You Sure?

Recently I found out one of my favorite spiritual teacher guys, the brilliant Dr. David R. Hawkins, died about six weeks ago. He was very old. He lived a very long human life.

Last year I said to myself  “he is really very old…I ought to go to Arizona and have a day retreat with him when he offers one. It could be the last one soon”.

That was true.

The interesting thing that happens when someone wonderful dies and you don’t know them very well, not really, is that some of the stressful thoughts that rise up around death are softer, quieter, sort of slower.

Not the agony experienced, the grief, when someone really close and important dies.

When I learned of the not-so-surprising news of this teacher who made a difference for me and who was quite fascinating, it was like there was sediment on the bottom of a clear lake and it got stirred up a little.

Too late now, I missed out, I need to re-read his books, I need to ‘get’ his teachings better, I wonder what it will be like to be 85 and lived all those years, I should have gone to Sedona (never been), I wonder if his family misses him…like a sadness, a little ache in my heart, my throat. Something missed, something gone now.

When I first encountered the Work, one of the first people I ever talked with about it was one of my sisters. She had gone to the School. She said that while there, not only did she ponder the death of our father fairly young from leukemia, in a way she never had, but also there were others who brought death to the conversation.

Death. One of the things that confounds us the most in this world. What is going to happen? What does it mean? Is it true?

What an amazing question, to ask if it’s really true that the person you know has died? I mean 100% end-of-story died!?

When I ask “is it true, that my father died?” then I realize I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on, in fact.

He was in a body. He was born a baby, grew up, became an adult, got married, had four daughters…and that same body which changed and had an impact and offered and created and lived, stopped doing it in the same way.

But the body was still made of matter, and that material carried on in many various ways into little molecules and atoms and moved on into other formations.

One big mystery. That entity that was my father is now morphed into something undefinable but not actually entirely DEAD. As in non-existent.

And then there are all the memories of my father as well. Those images are big, sweet, sad, stormy, loving, kind, vivid. I remember him so well that I could have a conversation with him. I could actually sit in a chair opposite him in my mind and have a talk, ask him a question and probably have an answer.

That doesn’t seem entirely “dead” to me.

In fact there are so many images and memories and feelings that something is alive. Very alive.

Who would I be without the thought that my father, or anyone, should still be alive in that body they were inhabiting? Who would I be without the thought that it’s very sad that he is gone?

Who would I be without the thought that he is dead?

I’d see the people who look like my father when I do a double-take and stare…I would see them on the street, driving cars, taking walks, chatting with their friends in coffee shops…and I would smile with joy in this sensation that my father is present.

I would say “hi dad”.

I would remember him, re-member, like putting him back together so instantly, I don’t even have to try. He is just there, alive in my mind.

Instead of moving with unbelievable speed to the sadness or the missing him or the idea of what could have been if he had lived longer in that particular formation…. I could turn to myself right here, in the present.

I could notice, just like everyone can, that this moment of remembering him is filled with love.

“The old song asks, ‘Why do fools fall in love?’ Actually, only fools DON’T fall in love. Only a fool would believe the lonely, stressful thoughts that tell him that anything could separate him from another human being, or from the rest of the human race, or from birds trees, pavement, and sky.” ~ Byron Katie, in I Need Your Love, Is It True

Love, Grace

*This workshop is FULL* Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm. Stay tuned for a future one-day event again in March 2013!

Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. $215. To register write grace@workwithgrace.com now.

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June! We will be looking at all aspects of what we consider to be flaws in the body, and Un-doing our beliefs about them. Stay tuned if you’d like to join me and Susan Grace Beekman from June 26-30, 2013. You can change your internal beliefs about what you think bodies should be like….and change your entire experience of being in yours.

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Falling Off A Cliff Is Exciting

Sometime last year, I was startled at the sight of the cover of National Geographic.

It was a photo of a young man standing on a very thin ledge at Yosemite National Park in the US. This ledge rested in the middle of a massive face of rock called Half Dome, hundreds of feet from the ground, hundreds of feet from the top.

The young man had no ropes, no equipment of any kind.

I guess in the world of rock climbers, at some point someone had the thought “Gosh, I’d be able to climb Half Dome FASTER without all these annoying ropes and safety devices”. It’s called Free Climbing.

Now, many people would consider this a huge risk, even crazy.

I kept thinking about the photo. I was inside that body on the cliff, looking down at my shoes barely fitting on the ledge, looking out at pure space and air. It would only take one small movement, grabbing at an edge that broke or moved, the foot moving 3 centimeters off good support, and the body could fall to the death.

The nervous part of me was alarmed. I didn’t mind that the climbers were achieving these feats, but something got stirred up when standing right in the shoes of that man on the cliff.

Where would the body land if it fell–would other friends and fellow-climbers be standing right there at the bottom? What would they see? What would the fall be like on the way down?

For some the images can be so frightening just to imagine death, accidents, terror….we only have to see a photo. The reaction isn’t as far as we think from being in the middle of the actual event.

But, it’s only truly terrifying when we start believing that this image is TERRIBLE. The worst that could happen: Death is horrifying. I need to preserve my life. I need to be careful. Everyone should be careful, especially children. I need to live. That guy on the cliff shouldn’t die until he’s older.

The thing is, being afraid of what COULD happen is really only a story about what has already happened in the past and deciding that the story is BAD.

No one really knows exactly and precisely what happens the second we’re falling, dying, the moments after, everything beyond that moment. There may be people who return from that experience of “dying” to live and who have stories to tell, but even that is THEIR experience, not ours from this body’s perspective. It’s a great Mystery, absolutely unknown.

“What I love most about reality is that it’s always the story of a past. And what I love most about the past is that it’s over. And because I’m no longer insane, I don’t argue with it. Arguing with it feels unkind inside me. Just to notice what is, is love.” ~Byron Katie

So what IS reality? Some people love to move their bodies up a cliff and feel the joy, power, expression, the urge to GO, to focus, to stay in the perfect flow, to play, to win, to try. Some of these people “fall” off the cliff and their bodies die.

I see that people die at every age, in every circumstance you could ever dream of. Young, old, taking risks, taking no risk at all.

Without the terror of death or accidents, I notice that today I feel excited, adventurous, peaceful, happy, in the flow. I notice it’s fun to take risks, ones just right for me. I notice I’m having so much fun in so many areas, I have no interest in climbing cliffs, and yet today could be my last in this body, it’s totally possible.

I notice what a Playground this place is, people running all over the place taking all kinds of rides. When I feel uncertainty, anxiety, worry when thinking about the young man on the cliff, I write my concepts down and investigate them. I have to stop and slow down to do this. Are they really absolutely true?

Death comes along. We’ll all get to participate in the adventure. That’s Reality. “It doesn’t wait for our vote, our permission, or our opinion—-have you noticed? ~BK

If I were to fall off a cliff today, it seems most wonderful if I felt joy doing whatever I was doing in the moment before falling, even during the actual fall. Relaxed, thrilled, entering the Mystery. Knowing nothing about what will happen next. Because I actually don’t.

Love, Grace

P.S. If you register today, July 23rd at 9:00 pm Pacific time, you can still join Our Wonderful Sexuality even though we’ve met once (but that’s the deadline). Horrible Food Wonderful Food has room for one if you register by Thursday, July 26 at 9:00 pm Pacific, and on July 26th at 10:00 am the fabulous Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven will begin, to look at an important relationship in your life and where it was, or currently is, troubling.

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Does A Friendly Universe Include Cancer?

One of my best friends summed up the experience of addiction recently: More.

This moment, this place, this experience is not good enough, long enough, big enough, full enough. It needs to change. Now.

Eckhart Tolle writes about changes and shifts in life that “some changes look negative on the surface, but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”

I find that I used to react to change kind of like this on the inside:

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! (picture a person falling off a 2000 foot cliff)

I confess, I might have even had this kind of reaction for things as small as missing an exit when driving somewhere on the freeway. Or the phone ringing. Or realizing I’m at the gym without my towel.

Now I really do feel more relaxed, waaaay more of the time. Something changes and I think so soon “Oh! I guess it’s going THAT way…oh, I wonder what will happen now?!” It’s very subtle, but what a different way of walking through the day.

With the Work, we begin to think ‘What could be the advantage here? What’s friendly about this situation, that seems so unfriendly when I first look at it? What is interesting, curious, an advantage even?’

I think about the time I learned I had a cancerous tumor on my leg. Here is what I found so far have been benefits of this experience:

  • I realize my body is doing it’s thing, and it’s not me. I am something beyond this body
  • my former husband and children brought over roses after my operation to cut the tumor out
  • my mother showed up to drive me to the surgery, and take me home, and I realize how she is always there when I really need her, always 100% willing (thank you mom)
  • I know all this is temporary in a way I didn’t before, this body is going to end in its own time, just like everyone else—I’m not getting out alive (ha!)
  • it didn’t hurt that much, the pain left pretty quickly, I could stand it
  • saying I had 45 stitches sounds pretty cool, I survived it
  • I have done the Work on cancer and I realize it’s just doing its thing, living its life, shining its star….I don’t have to hate it, in fact, it feels exciting to feel open to it just like anything else (cancer! my new best friend! OK, maybe not quite but how incredible to even contemplate!)

Living a turned around painful concept is an amazing and exciting practice. It feels creative, crazy, fun, playful…entering into the previously unknown. What if things are not as I believed….what if it’s friendly out there?

I feel the thrill of being beyond this ME, this individual person, this being with a physical body. This is literal, not a conceptual thing…it’s like Life is happening, I’m in the middle of it, and when this body is done, Life will still be creatively being itself.

Adyashanti, the spiritual teacher I mention often who I so enjoy, says “the very thing that’s animating you is very mysterious. It’s not good or bad, it’s simply a mystery. As long as you’re trying to improve yourself or break yourself down, you’re missing this incredible mystery. And it’s always been there. As far back as you can possibly remember. We look away from it because the noise in the mind is so much more willing to tell you who you are. “I’m a woman, I’m good, not so good”…very willing to tell you about yourself. The spiritual journey is about getting fascinated with this mystery rather than the little me.    

Change comes along and something new emerges, who knows what. Unknown, magical. Just questioning the horrors, injustices, disease, death….what else is there besides all that? Could this be a friendly universe? I used to be so positive that it wasn’t, or so it seemed. But I couldn’t really know it was true, not even before I had the Work.  

Now, even if I’m unsure or afraid, I see if I can find examples of how the thing I thought of as terrifying might have something to offer. This is not playing be-positive games, this is seeing what’s actually true for me. Wow, I really don’t know if it’s 100% terrible or not. And this alone is lighter, even if I don’t think I LOVE something.

Once upon a time, there was this bad experience that entered the kingdom….what exciting adventure will happen next, if I remember that it’s just a story? It’s a Mystery. 

Much Love,

Grace

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Questioning Death

Byron Katie says that it’s not necessary to question your wonderful, happy stories. Your inspiring stories, your joyful stories. Those are working for us, we don’t worry about them. The Work is about looking at painful, stress-producing, terrible stories.

Still, one of Katie’s wonderful questions (and other philosophers and teachers as well) is “who would you be without your story?” It’s a pretty huge, wide open question. I find that both the “good” stories and the “bad” stories are becoming less easy to define the more I do The Work.

Some of the most amazing changes for me have come out of having cancer, recovering from an eating disorder, being in love and out of love, losing all my money and many of my possessions, or someone close to me to “dying”.

Last night I attended “Parent Night” for my 17 year old son’s driver’s education class. The teacher went over laws, how we parents should help with teaching our kids to drive, reminders of how the licensing system works.

And then he said “now we’re going to see a little movie about the dangers of inexperienced teens driving”.

Oh no…..I hate this story.

In the movie was film footage from a car accident where there were only teens in the car. I see the body of a boy lying face down on the street, I notice his big athletic shoulders and white t-shirt, and there is a pool of blood extending far around him as his body lies still. A fireman puts a tarp over him, the camera keeps moving. There are other bodies, too.

Today I see the movie scene again in my mind. It’s how the mind seems to work. When something is particularly troubling, it seems to repeat the image over and over again. I saw the film clip once last night and that accident scene lasted probably 2 minutes…but now I’ve shown it to myself  probably 1000 times in the last 15 hours, and I was asleep for 7 of those hours!

I even hate telling this story, I don’t want to make others sad, remind them of troubling situations, or admit that I felt like crying and sobered just by seeing that film. But I  can only be worried about telling this story IF I really think it’s TRUE that it’s a entirely tragic story.

One of the most profound experiences in human life is when people overcome very horrifying, dramatic, powerful, life-changing events. What do we mean when we say “overcome”?

For me it feels like the deepest awareness of surrender, of not having control. Difficult events happen. Things that produce profound grief, mental anguish, torment. I can’t sleep, I think about it over and over. I feel numb. Before I had the Work this repeated itself for years. I’d wonder about the meaning of life itself, how can such things happen? It is all so frightening and terrible. Death is shocking, and an accident is a tragedy.

First question: Is It True? My answer: Yes!

I pause…Can I absolutely know that it’s true that the accident I viewed was 100% tragedy? Can I know that they all suffered, or the parents suffered constantly, or that those kids should have lived longer?

How do I react when I believe that this thing was such an awful story, was so terrible? When I think about it, I am overwhelmed with emotion, pain, stress, anger, grief. I think about never driving. I am actually scared, even though nothing has actually happened to me, personally.

So who would I be without the thought? This is not a form of denial, I’m not  pretending the accident didn’t happen….just questioning what would it be like if I could even just rest in the moment of not thinking of it as 100% horrific.

What kind of action do I take when I realize I’m actually entirely safe right now?

How do I live when I realize that every day, people die, some of them in car crashes, and I don’t know why, and will never know why. Some of them are teenagers. Have I noticed that people of all ages die? Have I actually noticed that EVERYONE dies? I am arguing with Reality by saying “that shouldn’t happen”.

“When you argue with Reality, you lose…” suggests Katie.

Tears come, and I feel grateful for being alive right now. Grateful for all the amazing people who arrive at accidents and help clean them up. Grateful that I’ve seen my children live, so far, all the way to teenagers. Grateful that now, my son is going on this adventure in life where he is learning to move his body from point A to point B in a really amazing thing called a car.

Who would we be without the thought that death is terrible and frightening?

Much love, Grace