Tag: inner voice

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the voice

I have a really close friend I met in 2005 at the Byron Katie School for The Work.

We’ve talked almost daily ever since.

Not exactly like the way you might think.

What we do is send voice messages to each other.

This leaves us room to listen when we can, even if it’s the next day or a few days go by, and respond when ready.

This just happened organically. We didn’t try to make it happen.

Something about it unfolded in this smooth way that works so beautifully.

However, it does make for a very interesting relationship….

….kind-of A.I.-ish before its time: we don’t hang out with each other physically.

We live thousands of miles apart.

(She did come to my wedding in 2012).

The other day, we were exchanging messages about The Voice.

No, not a show or a band.

The mean voice.

The one that shows up in your head that’s very, very harsh and can be downright violent.

Some psychologists label it “intrusive thought”.

My friend had noticed it after she spoke publicly.

“You shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have opened your mouth, you should never speak in situations where many people are giving you attention, you need to improve yourself, there’s something broken about your brain.”

Long ago, I heard Byron Katie say something that caused my ears to perk up:

“Victims are vicious”.

No one wants be a “victim”.

And yet, what I had to admit was….when hearing that voice, it was acting like a perpetrator, very brutal and attacking.

Which left some other part of me a victim.

I used to have acutely around one topic in particular: my behaviors with food (although it would expand in a flash to just about any other behavior, it could find fault with anything).

When I ate a lot, or binge-ate, or grazed from one end of town to the other, or looked in the mirror, or thought about what I should or shouldn’t be eating, or had urges for junk food, I had a running voice that also said “you are lower than dirt, something’s really wrong with you, you need to get it together.”

It was bitter, focused, undiscerning.

So one of the very first things any of us can do, who experience an addictive/repetitive behavioral process of any kind, is to relax and recognize the presence of this aspect of living with mind.

What if it does NOT mean there’s something broken about your brain, just because it exists?

Yesterday, I heard the Voice talking in my own head about this recent webinar that had no slides, no script and no selling.

There is a desire within me to support people who suffer like I suffered and to help them move from that entrenched position. Or be a part of the journey that helps them get unstuck.

Can you absolutely know that this is true that you need to change, snap out of it, get over it, stop being who you are?

I can’t know it’s true.

How do you react when you believe you’ve got to change?

Now…who would you be WITHOUT that thought?

WHAT???!!!

But.

I’ve been trying to fix, adjust, improve or change myself when it comes to eating, feeling, thinking, acting for “x” years (long time)!

How could I NOT want change?

Try it on for a moment here now. Just right now. Relax without having a single drop of a future, or need to change.

Rest a moment.

Notice how connected you are to everything in your environment, sharing the air, the furniture, the space, the people (if there are any). Sharing your life with this thing called “food”, having a brain that thinks and a body that moves.

What would it really be like if you did not go to war with yourself to improve?

What if you did NOT have a broken brain?

What if that wasn’t even possible?

It can be exciting. Peacefully thrilling. Restful. Simple. Open. Mysterious.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t a profound curiosity at the way things move in this life, in the mind and the body.

Turning this belief around: I do not have to change. My thinking has to change–especially about the brain. Change has to come to “me”.

Could any of these turnarounds be just as true, or truer?

Yes. I can find how I am still alive, studying life and the world and myself in it and I’m not “done” even if some part of me believes I haven’t changed, or that I need to. I can notice life has its own timing. That even though I’ve eaten in crazy ways, I’ve also experienced joy, gratitude, peace and happiness here on earth.

Yes. I’m busy questioning my thinking. I’m learning by turning things around. I’m learning that what I’ve assumed to be true….often isn’t. Maybe always isn’t.

Yes. I can hold still and be open to transformation meeting me, not think of myself as needing to chase after it. I can make friends with life, my environment, my mind, my body, with food.

Love is here in the present. Here I am with all my imperfection, a human being, being lived.

“Seeking is arguing with what is.” ~ Salvadore Poe

Who would you be without your violent story, especially when it comes to eating, food, your feelings, your body?

Can you accept everything, including yourself, as it is for just for this moment, now?

Eating Peace Experience starts next week on Sunday, visit this page to learn more HERE. We have a lovely group. We will be doing a deep dive into exploring the voices that contribute to off-balance eating, thoughts of food, and emotions.

“When your heart is cheerful and at peace, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, whether you live or die. You can talk or stay silent, and it’s all the same. Some people think that silence is more spiritual than speech, that meditation or prayer brings you closer to God than watching television or taking out the garbage. That’s the story of separation…..You can’t let go of a stressful thoughts, because you didn’t create it in the first place. A thought just appears. You’re not doing it. You can’t let go of what you have no control over. Once you’ve questioned the thought, you don’t let go of it, it lets go of you. It no longer means what you thought it meant. The world changes, because the mind that projected it has changed. Your whole life changes, and you don’t even care, because you realize that you already have everything you need.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

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Eating Peace: the voice in your head doesn’t have to run your life

Everyone has voices running in their heads, have you noticed?

Of course, you can really only hear your own. It’s there when no one else is talking or you have a quiet space of time, or you’re all alone.

It sometimes talks as if it’s another person, saying “you should go to that party, you shouldn’t wear that, you should weed your yard…you should eat something!”

So goofy. Who is that?

And when it gets mean, or steers you to something you’d really rather not do….like eat more when you’re full, or eat that thing you know makes you feel sick later….then it’s especially odd.

Do I have a companion in my head that’s not exactly friendly?

Yes, it sure seems so. Not friendly at all. Downright violent and totally destructive sometimes.

The thing is, you don’t have to listen to it.

I know that sounds so mundanely simple, you might be thinking “Doh! Why didn’t I think of that!” because you HAVE listened many times and bumped into that voice over and over, and it’s guided your actions or movements, your thoughts and emotions.

But today, despite it sounding a little too simplistic, I suggest you invite that voice in, and find out what it’s really made of, find out what it has to say, and perhaps why it’s chirping all those suggestions that don’t really serve your best interest.

AND most importantly, treat it like it’s not exactly sane. Don’t listen to it. Who’s in charge anyway? You are. The full and complete you. The one who’s listening.

Much love,

Grace

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The Wild Hair Problem-Generating Thought You Can Question

The Wild Hair Problem-Generating Thought You Can Question
The Wild Hair Problem-Generating Thought You Can Question

It’s not a new idea to most of us that when we’re telling ourselves something painful and troubling about other people, places or things….

….we’re also tellingourselves mean things.

Like….

.…you are so mean to have such thoughts about other people. You should be more accepting. You’re so judgmental. You’re ridiculous. You have no answers. You are so opinionated. What an unenlightened person you are. 

All said to you. From a voice we can’t define, exactly.

One thing I’ve come to know about that voice, though….

….is that it is convinced there are dreadful problems that appear about life, circumstances, the world, other people, and of course you, too….

….and it has a project. Fix them.

It gets really frustrating to try and fix stuff in our environment or to try and fix stuff about other people.

They keep doing what they’re doing, they don’t change.

So we turn on ourselves and try and fix the way WE are.

How do you react when you believe you need to be fixed or improved, you really need to “get” something about what’s going on here that you don’t get yet?

Wow, it’s intense how I react.

I enroll in training programs, I sign up to get a degree, I pay lots of money to hang out with people I think can help me.

I read lots of books, I structure my day to include physical exercise and meditation, I go to therapy, I eat only food from my food plan.

Not that there’s anything wrong with these. At all.

But that underlying belief….I need improvement…..ouch.

Left to my own devices, I am out of control, I’m unspiritual, I’m compulsive, I’m an addict, I’m wrong, I’m not enough.

Who would you be without the belief that there’s something wrong with you?

Even though you did that embarrassing thing once…..even though you put your foot in your mouth, even though you defended yourself by chopping someone down, even though you said harsh things to that person you love, even though you got divorced, or lost all your money (like me), or got cancer, or ate too much?

Who would you be without the belief there’s anything wrong with you whatsoever?

Kind of strange, right?

But let’s say there isn’t. Let’s say all that occurred was not your fault.

How would that feel?

What if there was something right with you, and that’s why it went down the way it did?

You responded like a human. And you are human, it turns out. You had thoughts, feelings, experiences and you didn’t know how to work with them (yet) and thought you should know, so you criticized yourself.

And even THAT was not wrong.

And now….

….you can sit still if you like, being here in the presence of yourself and your environment in this moment as you read these words, imagine not fully believing the thought that there is something wrong with you, with life, with what’s happened or what you’ve done.

“Everybody has their favorite way of arguing with God. When you start to follow, instead of lead, you start to follow that inner movement that is not speaking. It leads; you follow…. 

….This idea that there is a problem….that’s the wild hair in the ass of humanity.” ~ Adyashanti in My Secret Is Silence

Have you been arguing with God, by thinking you’re a problem?

Much love,
Grace