Tag: freedom

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The Best Way To Discover Secret Stress In Your Mind

journal
write it down

Last night the Eating Peace live inquiry call did some digging into finding stressful thoughts about food….

….but really, also, about life.
The great question that I love, to better identify where your mind might be arguing with reality, is to answer this question:
Who’s to blame?
What’s to blame?
Whose fault is it, or what, that you’re not feeling so hot, or you’re having trouble with (food, drugs, sex, work, money, relationship).
Sometimes its crazy simple.
I’m having trouble with that person because that person is a retard! I blame them! Duh!
But sometimes, when you’re overeating, or obsessing about money, or have a general feeling of dread, or thinking about drinking alcohol….
….you might not know exactly what’s bothering you.
It may seem like you’ve been bothered forever, and you’re in a pattern you can’t break.
Too hard to find who to blame.
And you probably blame yourself….viciously.
Because you’re reacting–as in, you are deep in a reaction to some OTHER belief that doesn’t really have all that much to do with the actual food, or alternate compulsive behavior.
For example.
When I was learning about my feelings and how they propelled me in life, especially when it came to my super-destructive eating patterns, I started keeping a journal.
A therapist suggested it. About 50 times.
When I finally began to write, daily, or whenever I felt the most pain and agony about food….
….I was deeply honest.
I wrote how I felt. Not just about food, but about people, life, my situation.
Then, when I had enough data (journal entries) I went back through my journal with my therapist, and she asked me about what I had written about.
Through these conversations, I discovered patterns in my eating.
It was like a lightbulb went off.
Woah–I eat when someone scares me or confronts me, and I’m worried I might be getting rejected or criticized.
Only, I eat about 5 hours later….when the coast is clear and I’m all alone.
Bam.
From keeping my journal, I noticed I ate when I felt rage.
I could also see the assumptions I made about what was going on with other people, and what they thought of me, and what was dangerous, and what I might need or want to request.
As I began to become familiar with my own inner world of feelings, and what they pointed to (my stories) everything I believed started to unravel.
If you have unconscious, speedy-quick, addictive or compulsive behaviors….
….start carrying around a little notebook.
Record your thoughts–but also your feelings.
This information is gold.
And it may save your life.
“Rather than understand the original cause–a thought–we try to change the stressful feelings by looking outside ourselves….Stories are the untested, uninvestigated theories that tell us what all these things mean. We don’t even realize that they’re just theories….Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you’ve attached to something not true for you.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,
Grace
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When Taxes Hurt….Stop It

gimmemoneyYesterday I had to write a check to pay taxes here in the USA.

I didn’t like it.

At least that’s what one voice was shouting in the corner.

Like a crazy Gollum character…..

“Noooooo! Don’t write that check! OMG she’s doing it! Help! This is a disaster! Someone stop her!!”

The check was accompanying my first ever “extension” form to the IRS.

As in, the first time I was not able to complete my taxes successfully by the April 15th deadline.

I’m turning everything in, for the first time, to an accounting firm.

I’ve always done all my taxes by myself. With Turbo Tax online for the past decade, and on paper before that.

I also generally worked for other companies, or had one side part-time business that didn’t make much extra money, or usually LOST money after expenses.

But now, I work for myself full time.

And I’ve done better and better and gotten completely out of debt and have hours and hours of experience working with groups and people and making my work more refined and more productive and farther reaching and of greater benefit to people.

Forever expanding. So far. For now.

But then….taxes! ARGHHHHGGHHHG!

Those greedy bas*&$*s!!

(Picture a bunch of official government-looking people drinking coffee in offices, waiting for my check).

I had to laugh….finding myself with such thoughts.

Because I have no idea what or who the receivers of the tax checks look like, and I’ve agreed by living here in this country to pay the government a percentage of my earnings.

As The Work worked me (I didn’t even write anything down on paper, yet) I noticed walking to the store that I had the thought….

….I appreciate this road.

Roads are built with taxes.

I appreciate the sidewalk, the traffic lights, the electricity running overhead. I appreciate the bridge, the fire station and the city hall right across the street. Those were all built starting with taxes.

I suddenly remembered one of my first bosses, a long time ago.

He was a small business owner with five employees, and used to be the head of a huge corporation’s Operations department. This was his second year out on his own as a private consultant. He was an expert at what he did, and I worked for him as a general administrative assistant.

I remember helping him gather tax documentation together.

With a fine toothed comb, he wanted to go through every transaction that was international and make sure it was put on a separate list so it was not included in taxes. He would have called them the same name I was saying in my own head.

I remember all those years ago thinking “what a cheapskate, jeez!”

Boom.

No more separation from him. I joined with him, 30 years later from the future (which is now) with understanding and compassion.

The urge to want to keep, hoard, protect and never lose anything is weird but not uncommon…..

…..especially with MONEY!

I notice I can make a big fat story out of it being better to keep andworse to give away and not have.

Who would I be without that story?

Wow.

Almost giddy, really.

Its a joyful lack of fear, and excited willingness and eagerness to give, to offer, to allow money to come and go and depart and return.

Like sitting near a river watching it flow on by, not trying to do anything about it, not trying to save it up or go find containers to put it in, or build a dam, or drink lots of water right now because there won’t be any later.

None of that is on my mind next to the river.

I listen, I relax, I’m still.

Having fun paying taxes.

“Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others–with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.” ~ Adyashanti

It dawned on me in this act of writing a check I felt uncomfortable writing that I was treating the tax payment itself, money, the people at the IRS, the government, and myself….

….all without compassion.

So I stopped.

Much love, Grace

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Do I Want Security or Freedom?

The other day I was remembering how I used to be when I felt upset. I might feel afraid, or angry, hurt, or sad.

Back then, I wouldn’t have any way of considering that I might be filling my entire body, my psyche, my mind, my spirit with frightening images, terrified beliefs, disturbing thoughts.

I might feel terrible because I perceived danger, or something bad had happened. I’d get overwhelmed very fast.

Like those flashes on a screen that cause subliminal desire for popcorn. The mind took in a photo so fast, but your full consciousness didn’t register. You didn’t “know” you were just shown a photo of popcorn.

That’s how my relationship with food felt….like some weird subconscious, uncontrollable cravings or trance-like states would come over me.

It would seem like I just started eating.

When I entered therapy to find help in understanding my behavior, desperate to heal it, I discovered that most of my life I was not sure how I was going to feel from one moment to the next.

And I hated this!

I wanted to feel GOOD, and safe, and loved, and comfortable…all the time.

If I felt unloved, threatened, and uncomfortable….danger.

To change the feelings, eating was my number one go-to activity. If I was angry, I would eat with anger, shoving in food and hardly tasting it. If I was sad, I would eat very comforting foods, more slowly, but eating until stuffed. If I was terrified I would eat quickly, gulping it down, hiding behind a closed curtain in my apartment.

Drinking often worked, too, although I would drink alcohol with other people, not so much alone, and it seemed to make me less nervous around humans.

Smoking had a way of changing the channel as well. Kind of a slow, deep breath, stepping outside somewhere, a way to pause, wait, stop.

But eating. Wow. That was rough! (No kidding, a decade of bingeing, vomiting and hating myself…definitely rough).

An awesome therapist I had suggested keeping a binge journal. Writing down my feelings when I ate cray-cray.

At first, I hated the idea and wouldn’t even do it. Then, I tried reluctantly. I would think “I hate that this is on paper, so embarrassing, so awful.”

But then, as I read my own writing….I discovered that when I overate or had a huge craving to binge, or started graze eating or dreaming of food when I wasn’t hungry….

….I was always afraid, angry, sad, lonely and thinking in pretty extreme ways.

When I got more involved in studying addiction, in graduate school, and by getting close to people in 12 step programs of every kind, I felt a kinship.

I started to realize that I had a very deep and abiding fear of darkness. A dark, gripping, haunting dread of…emptiness, death, destruction, aloneness.

I thought I was alone.

But it turned out, other people felt the same way.

“How do I react when I think the thought? I see the images…and then I experience the emotions….and if I’m an addict, I’ll use. I mean, afterall, life isn’t worth living anyway. I’m so depressed and no one can help me–THIS helps though. So I grab my drug of choice, my drink of choice, my partner of choice, my gaming….We all know how we react when we’re depressed….Anything to change the emotions.” ~ Byron Katie

What was one of the most stressful, painful thoughts that had to be in place to even want to binge eat?

“The world is a dangerous place.” 

Killer thought.

It puts you on alert, makes you sad, makes you feel lonely (because Other People are a part of the dangerous world), makes you build your defenses, and work hard at being careful.

So let’s take a look, with The Work.

Is it true that the world is a dangerous place?

Well, duh. The only way out is death. Everyone dies. Everything is temporary. Love is temporary, connection is unstable, people leave, people attack, there’s not enough for everyone, people suffer here!

OK, before you see every image in your mind of death, war, bombs, starvation, disease and terror…..

….see if it’s absolutely true that the world is a dangerous place?

You might still say yes. Accidents can happen here. Right? Although, lots of fun, miraculous, spectacular stuff goes on as well. Life, love, change, evolution, invention, joy.

But. Well. I’m still not sure. I see lots of dangerous stuff in my head.

How do you react when you believe the thought that the world is a dangerous place?

Very careful, cautious, quiet….sometimes grabbing moments of giddiness and connection with other special people (lovers, family, friends), acting like there’s no tomorrow so do whatever today I want, pretending I don’t care.

Who would you be without that belief?

This could take a moment.

Without the thought that the world is a dangerous place? Like all that bad stuff isn’t…dangerous?

Hmmm.

“The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing than you ever imagined it would be. If you don’t experience it that way, it means you’re not resting there; you’re still trying to know. That will cause you to suffer because you’re choosing security over Freedom. When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your experience becomes very vast.” ~ Adyashanti 

I turn the thought around: the world is a safe place. It is my mind that is a dangerous place.

Well, now, that explains why I am having a horrible time in my apartment, eating, when the person next door is having a wonderful time in theirs.

And this turnaround does not mean I am a terrible person, I’ve just given my mind a terrible project—believe the world is a dangerous place and react when I see the proof that this is true.

I spend time considering that the world is a safe place, is not a dangerous place. I see that the world is indeed a wonderful, safe, amazing place. I’m only here for a short time. How would I know that this isn’t ingenious?

What if that darkness is my friend? Even if I’m not so sure yet…just the very possibility that it is my friend feels…exciting. Thrilling. Joyful.

With the thought that darkness is safe…or at least not dangerous…what do you notice about your urge to eat?

“Some of you, your mind is not open, and don’t expect it to be. There will be windows when you’re willing, just be gentle…..It can only be what I’m thinking and believing that causes depression, not me. Not me.” ~ Byron Katie 

Much love, Grace