Live on facebook was sweet on Feb 14th. I received many wonderful terrible thoughts about relationships to question (thank you all who sent them).
The chosen Valentine’s Day thought? What I have, should be different. Different relationship. Coupled, not single. Other person, not the one I have. Different relationship status.
Different is better. THIS isn’t good.
To see how the inquiry turned out, head over to the facebook page right here.
And for those of you patiently waiting for the website to work again, it now does (don’t use www): https://workwithgrace.com.
Finally, I did it. Peace Talk Podcast has been revived after a quiet spell.
The first topic of inquiry after this time of silence?
Gaps in communication, death, dying, endings. Except, sometimes, revivals.
You just never know how something’s going to unfold. You never do really know, do you?
Who would we be without the story that it’s better to know what’s going to happen? Or even that we can? Or that we need to make a plan, and follow it?
Not that there’s anything wrong with plans and schedules. Let’s not get crazy….knowing what time it is and agreeing to some basics makes life simple.
The bus leaves at 7:05, so get there at 6:55. You still may not leave, there still may be no bus, but oh so sweet if everything comes together and there is one. It’s fun, rather wondrous, people sharing needs and services, efficient.
Who would be be without our stories that it has to go the way we want, in order to be happy?
In a big ongoing adventure! And most importantly, feeling super curious, and having fun. Maybe having more fun than if it went the way you planned.
You can listen to the new episode 135 of Peace Talk on itunes right here. Look for the latest new episode also on google play, soundcloud, I Heart Radio and several other audio services.
Thanks for listening, for being here with me in The Work in all these ways, for coming along for this ride of questioning thoughts and unraveling the unnecessary pain.
“Do you believe what you think? Often, within pain or depression, there are thoughts you’ve had for so long and held so close that you don’t even know they are there. And you’ve never stopped to see if you even believe them.” ~ Byron Katie
Are your thoughts about yourself creating a brick wall of suffering? Who would you be without your negative thoughts….about you?
This past weekend I had the privilege of being with a small group led by someone who has had first hand practice in The Work of Byron Katie for thirty years: Katie’s daughter, Roxann.
My favorite thing about her story and her insights was describing how she used to do The Work with her mom, and Katie would say “you can’t harm a human being and not feel the effects….and YOU are a human being.”
In other words, when we tell ourselves awful, nasty, vicious things, when we’re harsh with ourselves, when we do things we find dishonorable or out of our own integrity (even with no one else around)….
….we feel bad.
And it’s amazing how powerful the Self-Attack Voice can be.
I once heard Annie Lamott, the beautiful writer, call it radio station KFCK.
Something happens, you’re triggered, you turn on the radio, you find the channel, you tune in, and here comes a constant stream of “I hate you” language, followed immediately by “you suck” feelings.
Yikes. It really hurts.
And of course, what I always used to do with this voice constantly talking in the background (sometimes screaming), was to do everything possible to make up for my wrong-doing, to improve myself, to fix me, to become a better person, to eliminate the negative (and when this didn’t work….eat, or whatever escape mechanism of choice was available).
It’s a lot of work.
Instead, what if we invited that voice to come in for tea, and we questioned it instead, or had a more civilized conversation?
I know, I know….we’re inviting in a crazy screaming person, but what if they’ve been screaming because they’re trying to help, and we’ve been ignoring them?
This morning, I noticed when I woke up…..wait, what’s that sound?
I hear something in the other room. Do you hear it? Oh my….yup. It’s that radio station I just mentioned!
It’s saying: “You should have finished the outline yesterday, you’ll never get your project done. You have one day to finish laundry, have you packed yet for your trip tomorrow? No, I thought as much. Leaving things until last minute again. You didn’t read the whole book, either, the only homework required for the program. You try to do too much. You don’t do enough. You haven’t meditated recently. Why’d you buy organic jelly beans at the grocery store?”
So today, let’s slow down and be with this voice, directed to ourselves.
I like asking these questions, when it comes to this voice: What is this voice most afraid of? What’s it trying to ultimately accomplish? What’s it worried about? Why does it think you should follow it’s directions? What’s the worst that could happen, if you don’t?
I sit and consider the answer.
You can do this right now, if you want.
Pause.
What’s that voice really scared about?
I’m failing. I’m not good enough. I can’t ever do it right. I’m not worthy. I made a mistake. I am abandoned. It’s possible to be banished. I could die.
I notice this feeling is like a gut wrench right in the middle of my stomach. My chest feels like dust is stuck inside my lungs. My body feels tired. I feel nauseated. I feel like giving up.
I feel very, very sad.
And what if now, we asked some simple, yet deep, questions about this kind of voice, energy, judgment, conditioning?
Called The Work.
First question: Is it true that you are personally not good enough, unworthy, or need to be somewhere else? Are you sure you can’t feel love and joy for yourself, that you made a mistake?
No.
If you answer “yes” then be sure to ask the second question: Can you absolutely know this is true without a doubt, for all time?
No.
Even if you say “yes” keep going.
Next question: How do you react, what happens, when you believe you should have done it differently, you’ve got something “wrong” here, you’re unworthy of acceptance and kindness in this moment?
How do you react when the way you are….scares you?
I notice I feel small, tight, closed. I feel like a victim. I actually behave like a victim of my own KFCK radio station as it plays on.
A few weeks ago, someone in the brand new Year of Inquiry group wrote to me and said how overwhelmed she felt about beginning this work as a constant practice, because as she wrote her worksheets on other people, and turned everything around, it all came back to herself. She’s doing it wrong. She’s got the qualities of “badness” she’s seeing in others. She’s screwed up.
But as Byron Katie says “turnarounds should feel like a kiss, not a slap!”
These attack-thoughts, or outward-movement thoughts, are only there and alive because they’ve been passed along and it’s the way you learned.
A “Fear Based Religion” as Roxann said this weekend.
I’m believing in fear, I’m believing fear will “make” me snap out of it, pull it together, and shape up! I’m believing that fear will make me change, or wake up. I’m 100% positive I’m asleep.
I’m forgetting the power of love, acceptance, and open hands, not tight fists. For some weird reason, it seems easy to forget “love” as the power. We’re not familiar with this way. We didn’t learn it. We’re not sure we can trust it.
And yet.
Who would you be without your story you’ve done something wrong? Who would you be without the story you need to fix yourself, or wake up, or be any different, or shape up, or prevent terrible things from happening?
Who would you be right now in this moment, as you read these words and consider “being” without believing anything’s wrong with you whatsoever?
Again, it may be time to pause.
Feeling what it’s like to be without the thoughts that something’s missing, something’s wrong, something’s bad, something’s off…..about you.
Without believing your thoughts of self-condemnation….
….you may just have a good cry.
Turning these thoughts around: I’m succeeding. I’m good enough. I constantly doing it right. I’m worthy. There is no mistake. I am connected, I am love. It’s not possible to be banished. I am living.
All is well. I am safe. No mistake. No mistake. No mistake.
Turning it around: My thinking is failing, not good enough, constantly believing in wrongness, unworthy, making mistakes, believing in banishment, believing death is terrible and to be avoided.
And what if this is good news, that my THINKING can’t find answers, or fix everything, or correct all potential emergencies or problems, or make everything better?
That’s a lot to put on the energy of “thought”….right?
What if something else is here, besides all the frantic, chaotic, mean thinking? Simply being.
Simply being.
Who are we, without the story that we have to believe our thoughts?
I noticed, as I inquired this morning….silence.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
Sometimes people ask me to write about special topics they feel confused or unhappy about.
I love it when that happens.
The other day an inquirer asked me to write about depression, and not really understanding why.
In some ways, most feelings start out without full explanation.
They envelope the body, course through our torso, our face feels hot, our stomach fluttery.
What does depression feel like?
I remember it well.
Like a huge volume dial has been turned down to one, where it was once at a ten, all around the heart. This quiet, dead feeling expanded down my arms and legs.
Tired, heavy, curled over in the gut, feeling like I couldn’t stand up.
The word depression sounds like it feels…..pressed down deeeeep.
Long ago a therapist, or perhaps a workshop leader, said depression was anger or grief imploding inwards.
Trapped, stuck, flattened.
But I don’t want to turn it outwards! That would result in raging at other people, or sobbing my eyes out, expressing how disturbing I find the world, acting crazy….right?
I can’t just start FEELING right in front of everyone!
Can I?
If you find the very idea horrifying, there is a way to slow this process of uncovering and taking the pressure off the implosion slowly, one thought by one thought at a time.
Like easing the air out of a big blown up balloon.
Don’t go thinking you’ll have to identify 1480 thoughts before the depression lifts, that’s just another depressing thought.
So here goes:
If your feeling of depression could talk and you set it in a chair, looking like a big lump of gray mottled nasty something, what would it say?
What are the ideas it has about what hurts, what feels painful, what you object to?
Life is difficult
I can’t stand “x”
My work situation is “y”
My family life is unpleasant because “z”
What I really hate about life is “q”
Once you have that first idea, write why you think this thought.
Find your proof.
Don’t talk yourself out of the exercise and say it’s not all that bad, you already know life is good, you were just kidding.
Pretend you’re not kidding.
“Life is difficult”.
Why? Make a list. Write what seems difficult about being alive here on planet earth.
See if you can make it personal, as in, what is difficult for YOU about being here.
If you give yourself only 15 minutes to write, give or take a few minutes, you will follow the breadcrumbs to what ails you, what you’re believing and thinking at a deep level.
You will have one step on this dark journey taken, like driving on a foggy, foggy road with headlights on very slowly going 5 mph. It doesn’t matter that you’re moving so slowly, and it’s so hard to see. You still see something.
You’re moving.
Here’s the good news: nothing stays the same.
It may feel like you’ve been depressed for months, years. But no feeling, not even joy, is full powered on 24/7.
Once you have one thought, the one on top, you can take it through inquiry.
Get someone to facilitate you. Write out your answers. Call me, Grace, and make an appointment for an individual session, I’d be honored to work with you.
Most of all, while you’re exploring the darkness…let it stay there.
Don’t try to push it away or turn on all the lights at once. If they’re going to do that, they will in due time all by themselves.
Welcome the darkness, the depression. Have tea with it. It’s hear for an important reason, with something significant to say.
You don’t want to get rid of it too soon to understand its message.
“For a tree’s branches to reach to heaven, it’s roots must reach to hell.” (medieval alchemical dictum)
Deep breath. Go. No expectations.
“It’s good that it hurts. Pain is the signal that you’re confused, that you’re in a lie.” ~ Byron Katie
Update on Breitenbush Hotsprings Annual Retreat June 25-29: For those of you still wishing you could come and thought there was no hope, there are a few spots left for lodging, if you’re open to sharing (very inexpensive that way):
There is a female dorm bed still free, one entire cabin available after all, without plumbing (they are very cute, cozy and private and bath facilities are a short walk away), and one free bed inside a cabin with plumbing that is occupied by a woman who is enrolled already (open to female roommate).
Our workshop only can fit two more in our gorgeous Forest Shelter meeting house….so call Breitenbush soon if you’re ready to go for it.
This is a marvelous, sincere group of truly amazing inquirers, and we have fabulous exercises planned to create an incredible opportunity for you to free yourself, literally, from your troubled thinking.
If you’ve struggled with inquiry, feeling at war….and ready to declare peace on an important situation, join us. Why not now? We can’t wait to meet everyone. Call 503-854-7174.
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Speaking of No Hope…..or Hope…..the experience of being with or without it is extremely powerful.
Every human has times of hopelessness, and times of great hope.
But it’s a tricky concept, the idea of hopefulness or hopelessness. Because it can set you off into the future very, very easily, or into the past with the blink of an eye (the blink of a thought).
Here’s what I mean.
I’m going about my day, living my life, moving from here to there. This is the present, what is happening. And inside my head there are thoughts flashing, pictures of what could be, or what was.
When a difficult or scary thing occurs, the natural experience of the mind, projecting into the future, is to prefer to avoid it repeating.
I hope that won’t ever happen again.
When a wonderful thing happens, or you hear an enticing story filled with good news, your mind naturally wants to generate that story for itself.
I hope that happens to me, I hope I can do that!
There are also reflections the mind has of the past and what should have happened or should NOT have happened, that can never be rewound, never re-lived, never a do-over.
Totally hopeless.
The thing is, you know when you’re going off into a stressful land of stories when you feel anxious, worried, sad, despairing, or unhappy about any event, whether you hope for it or hope against it.
The most simple thing to do then, I have found, is inquiry.
“This situation is hopeless” (and I am so disappointed, regretful, horrified, sad).
Is it true?
Yes. I thought I was going on that retreat, that adventure, I thought I would have succeeded with “x” by now, I thought I’d be with that person, I didn’t think I’d lose, I can’t figure it out, I failed, I can’t….
Are you sure?
No. I’m never sure. I know things can change at any moment. But careful now. Notice the ease with which the mind could slip into hoping and grabbing on and pushing forward, without rest.
How do you react when you think your situation is hopeless, and this is a terrible thing?
Rage, fury, depression, sinking into inaction, mute… OR running as fast as I can even though the timer already went off, the race is finished.
But who would you be without the thought that this hopeless situation is terrible, horrifying or eternally dark? Without the thought that you HAVE to get back to HOPING, or else?
Without the thought that all is hopeless is bad, hopeful is good….I notice something gently opens right here, in the middle of this hopeless situation.
I notice I’m alive, breathing, and there is something more here, present, without thought. Something that has nothing to do with THINKING.
How funny!
I turn the thought around: this situation is hopeless, and that is really, truly OK. All is well. No trying, manipulating, pushing, lashing out.
Wow. Maybe there is something beyond me, beyond my own thoughts. Perhaps reality has other ideas besides the ones I myself think are best. Maybe rest is here, and love, and support.
Even out in the desert with no water left and only a few more breaths before death.
“When you’re having a relatively pleasant dream, you don’t mind so much dreaming on. But when your dream turns into a nightmare then you REALLY want to awaken from that, when you can’t stand it. That’s what happened to me. It drove me almost to suicide….When I was a child, my pain body grew very quickly…. But if this had not been the case, I would have never awakened. So retrospectively, one is grateful for one’s suffering, because eventually suffering will wake you up.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Welcome all hope being lost….and doing nothing. The greatest surrender.
“When the ancient masters say ‘If you want to be given everything, give everything up’ they weren’t using empty phrases. Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.” ~ Tao Te Ching #22
