This past weekend a whole lotta questioning happened!
I had the privilege to be among companions in The Work and hear their concerns, some of their deepest moments of suffering.
I can always relate to what inquirers are concerned with. My own work floats in the background to every single thought and inquiry brought forth.
One woman spoke for me, for everyone, who’s ever sat down and questioned their repetitive beliefs:
“I’ve done The Work on this ten thousand times and I keep finding the turnarounds, I find the examples, I can see the opposite of my stressful thought to be as true or truer….but the stress still plagues me.”
There are those feisty subjects, situations, people, whole belief-systems that seem really deep, endless, haunting, unresolved.
If we’ve got an unhappy experience from the past…and continue to be annoyed or afraid…then what to do?
How many times can you write a worksheet on the SAME EXACT THING and arrive at the SAME EXACT PLACE??!
Some awareness perhaps, but not really complete and everlasting peace. Not done, resolved, complete. Not over it. It’s not put to rest.
Fantastic question.
There was once a car mechanic I heard about who had an enormous number of clientele.
He didn’t advertise, market, put out flyers, or even have an official business.
People would learn about him word of mouth, show up, call the unpublished number. He had something special going on around cars.
He could diagnose and figure out the thing that was needed for any particular car to run again.
A good friend who had the honor of using this mechanic told me that this Car Whisperer told him when he bumped up against a problem, and he tinkered, researched, made attempts and tried different solutions….but something wasn’t working (yet)….
….that he would leave that car alone for awhile.
He would drop his motivation to fix it.
Yes, even if someone was calling and saying“where’s my car, you got it fixed yet?”
He would go work on another entirely different car, a different problem.
He would sleep on it, walk away. Then come back to it when it felt “right”.
And almost every time….LIGHT BULB.
In a few minutes, the necessary answer, the missing link, the correct mechanical part, the next step would make itself known.
Byron Katie speaks about dropping all motivation for anything, when you’re doing The Work, except the Truth.
In the dictionary, it reads that to have a “motive” is to have a reason to do something. Often related to a crime. You think if you do something, you’ll get something better, you’ll succeed in the future.
“Motive” comes from the word “move”.
I want to Move-It Move-It!
In other words, I don’t like it the way it is, or the way I feel about it right now…I want to feel differently, I want to feel peaceful or blissful or psyched instead.
Now, this isn’t always of course what is going on if we have the same repetitive identical beliefs over and over about one person, or a persistent stressful feeling about a situation…but it’s great to look at.
What is my motive? Why do I want to question this? Do I want to know the Truth, or be Blissed Out?
Maybe they aren’t always the same.
I had one person once who was really buggin’ me. I would write a worksheet on this person over and over. The same exact sentences would come out, maybe with a little variation.
He should be different.
I asked Katie about it. “I keep doing The Work on this person, with no resolve….what should I do?”
She replied after a brief discussion, “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are!”
OMG! I realized that I had been believing that I SHOULD NOT FEEL THIS WAY!
I believed that I should feel happy, loving, kind, joyful and warm-hearted towards that person 24/7.
Like, yesterday.
That’s what spiritual, good people are like, right?
As I saw this aspect of my own personal motivation to jump to feeling happy and forgiving ASAP, I put that worksheet down.
I didn’t pound the pavement, as they say, until I Got Peace.
I honored my own feeling of whatever this thing I was feeling actually was, that we call Anger.
I actually did a whole worksheet on ANGER and the feeling of anger and all the dangerous, terrible things I believed could happen to me or to others when the feeling of ANGER rises.
I stopped feeling so anxious about anger. I stopped feeling so sure that there was no place for anger inside me, or inside this world.
I stopped having a “plan” about this situation.
I let go of the motivation to get this squared away so I could go on with my life.
What did I notice?
The emotional pain started to fade. DOH!
“If I can’t breathe, I don’t know if I’m going to live or die. I don’t know if I’m going to be breathed again, or not. It’s absolutely not up to me. But in the “don’t know” if I’m going to live or die, or breathe or not, I don’t miss the joy of the life I DO have.” ~ Byron Katie
If I give up wanting The Work, or anything else, to bring me joy…I notice I do The Work anyway (so far).
I notice that even my own awareness or learning or peace or personal process is not up to “me”.
If I don’t have to know, or achieve anything, what a relief.
“The Master’s power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old.” ~ Tao Te Ching #55
If you think that you won’t do The Work or you’ll never become free or peaceful, unless you have a motive…..test it out.
You may find that you are as bizarre as me, and you keep inquiring anyway.
Kinda like that saying “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”
Before….I don’t know….and it’s a bad thing to not know. After….I don’t know….and it’s a good thing to not know.
Much Love, Grace