Tag: inquiry

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Are You Trying To Handle The Master Carpenter’s Tools?

I have had many questions recently about how the teleclasses work and what it’s like to participate logistically. Like, “do I need my computer and do I need to watch something online?!”

The good news: all you need is a telephone. Any kind of phone will do. I haven’t gotten fancy yet with webinars or slides or something actually online…although that’s probably coming. But this option is quite simple. You dial in to a regular 9-digit US phone number and then enter a code, and we’re all on the phone together!

Many people like to use Skype as it is then free from their foreign location. This DOES require a computer and the use of the free software by Skype. I am amazed at all the wonderful people calling from Australia, Japan, Germany, Spain, Peru, Mexico. Truly incredible!

And speaking of technology….MY HARD DRIVE CRASHED! ARRRRGGGGH!

What was that? Did you say I might want to do The Work on this situation?

Oh, now that you mention it…I DID notice a moment of exploding thoughts about gizmos and gadgets and hard drives not working. I WOULD call that stressful, yes.

In my Friday Horrible Food Wonderful Food teleclass, the effort to establish the group forum initially didn’t work either. Arrrgghh again.

These moments are so fascinating for watching the mind that wants control, or believes it HAS control, or believes it NEEDS control.

It has such a hissy fit. It should be going THAT way, not THIS way.

This is the landing place of angst, frustration, resentment, suffering. I want it to look like that, I think it should look like that, I need it to look like that…in order to be happy.

I will NOT be happy until it looks the way I think it should look.

  • my hard drive shouldn’t break
  • all data needs to be retrieved
  • this program should work
  • this shouldn’t take so long
  • I should understand this. Yesterday.
  • whose fault is this? Attack them now.

With computers and technology, I find the frustration is so minor, my mind brushes it off as inconsequential. Unimportant, not necessary for investigation. I quickly find that the data I thought I needed is not needed at all.

However, this is absolutely fantastic training ground for awareness of the thought process, since there is not so much invested, according to my mind. The feelings are not very strong, so I can see how the mind works when it’s incredibly self-oriented and all about ME.

Busy finding fault with those people out there who are doing it wrong. Those hard-drive builders, that data-retrieval company, my teenager who dropped the thing in the first place, the people at google or apple who are updating everything so freakin’ fast I can’t keep up.

This mind will do the same thing on seemingly much bigger issues, the ones I care about a lot more.

Like…my body should be like THAT, not like THIS. My girlfriend should be like THAT, not like THIS. My job should be like THAT, not like THIS. The political scene, the corporations, money, traffic, my child, my mother, my father, time, energy, my health, my job, my living situation, that other country, the government, chocolate, the weather.

One of my favorite things Byron Katie says is “who needs God, when we have your opinion?” 

But. I can’t be mistaken, could I? That would be alarming. Confusing. Weird. I mean, wouldn’t I lose all my volition, my energy, my push, my drive? If I am not 100% RIGHT then what will I do? I won’t know what to say, think, feel, dream!

I won’t be able to come up with my PLAN for this situation and how it should be handled and managed. I’ll be too passive!

[We interrupt this Grace Notes post to let you know that right in the middle of writing it, half of it suddenly disappeared from the screen with a message about unusual technical difficulty right here in this moment].

I am now laughing!

What are the advantages of having things vanish, break, disappear, get lost, become unretrievable?

I notice that suffering occurs, on some level, every time I think things should be different than they actually are. I also have believed that if I accept WHAT IS, then I myself will become nothing, mean nothing, and not matter. And nothing will ever change (and it needs to, remember?)

What are the advantages for losing my work, losing my hard drive, losing my memory, my former husband, my childhood, my family the way it once was? What are the advantages for losing my health, my youth, my job, my house, my money, my hard drive?

I am here, now, in the present. I notice there is now, and a new thing to think of or do. I notice I don’t need all my recordings on that hard drive, I don’t need the wedding pictures (there are plenty more from other people), I don’t need it to run my classes, I get to buy a new laptop that is new instead of very old.

I notice everything is moving and changing. Nothing is stagnant.

“Our life’s work is to use what we have been given to wake up. If there were two people who were exactly the same—same body, same speech, same mind, same mother, same father, same house, same food, everything the same—one of them could use what he has to wake up and the other could use it to become more resentful, bitter, and sour. It doesn’t matter what you’re given, whether it’s physical deformity or enormous wealth or poverty, beauty or ugliness, mental stability or mental instability, life in the middle of a madhouse or life it he middle of a peaceful, silent desert. Whatever you’re given can wake you up or put you to sleep.”~Pema Chodron

For me, I am nodding off when I start in on those people, that technology, or this situation that is BAD and needs to be FIXED.

There she goes, falling asleep into the irritable, intolerant, anxious, sad, all-about-me mind!

I remember, at some point, to question my thinking.

Because I find over and over again that without making war on a situation, amazingly, it seems that it’s actually MORE likely to change.

Well, it usually does anyway, whether I’m trying to get it to change or not.

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren’t afraid of dying, there is nothing you can’t achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place. When you handle the master carpenter’s tools, chances are that you’ll cut your hand.”~ Tao Te Ching #74

I used to cut my hands over and over again. They were a bloody mess. OUCH. Just so unhappy and so full of thoughts about my predicament being terrible. Life seemed sooooo hard.

But with The Work, letting go of the outcome, turning my thinking around to the opposite, finding advantages for my present situation….my hands only appear to have little nicks and scratches on them.

And today, with this technology “break down” thing, I notice my “hands” are pain-free. In fact, they look pretty lovely. They look fascinating! Who made these hands? What made these hands? Who or what do they belong to?! Freakin’ Incredible!

Love, Grace

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I Wish That Person Was Happy

Wow, there is nothing like doing The Work with a kind, interested, curious group of inquirers for hours together during a weekend.

I absolutely loved the group that assembled these past two days in Seattle.

I noticed a little mosquito-sized thought entering my mind by the end of the second day: I want everyone to find relief, inspiration, happiness, or hope during this weekend.

I want them to have an AH-HA moment! I want them to be AMAZED by their own power to ask themselves if what they are believing is true! I want them to be EXCITED! I want them to be CHANGED after this weekend and go off into the sunset Renewed!

Good lord. Have you ever wanted someone close to you to be happy? It just seems like such a benign little thought, such a good-hearted little happy positive thought, such a nice thought.

Wait….what? Did you say co-dependent? That I might be over there in Other Peoples’ Business?

Ooopsie Daisy! Heh Heh.

It is actually quite stressful to wish that someone else is happy, or “gets” something, or feels better.

And it is entirely hopeless.

This past weekend was for me, no one else. It was a practice in being of service, which is incredibly powerful and joyful. It was a practice in being honest, authentic, real, open.

This past weekend was my practice at telling the truth of my story, and the truth of how it changed, knowing that for some people, it seems to be very inspiring to learn about.

I happen to be a human being that once was insane around food.

I could not be in the presence of food without becoming afraid, angry, or condemned. I hated vegetables because they were the only thing I was supposed to be eating without guilt. I hated sugary sweet things because to even imagine eating them meant I was a terrible, greedy, disgusting person.

How incredible to have FOOD, a thing which we apparently need to live in these bodies, be something of such danger. I could slip at any minute into the You Are Bad category. Or be pure in the You Are Good category based on what I chose to eat.

I feel so grateful not to be there anymore. To see all food with equal joy and gratitude. All food as my friend, whether chocolate chips or broccoli.

But how did I get here? It seems like a long and winding road. Learning just a little bit more all the time. Sometimes learning something big, that felt like a leap forward.

I wish I could give it to the people who suffer around food. But everyone seems to have their own path, their own journey.

Now, my work is to allow those people who are suffering to be as they are.

So I want that person or those people to feel better, to feel relief, inspiration, joy, hope, excitement, change or peace….is that absolutely 100% true?

YES!!

Who in your life do you wish would feel better?

How do you react when you believe that thought?

Fretful, hand-wringing, I keep thinking about them, images of them come to mind, I worry. I call them up, I send them emails, I think of ways they could find relief, I offer suggestions.

I might clench my jaws, I might feel concern, and spend time thinking about them. Their image keeps coming into my mind like a broken movie clip flashing over and over. It’s rather mad.

Eeewwww. Yuck. It is not that fun to be in other peoples’ business this way.

Who would you be without the thought that someone else, or a whole group of other people, should feel better than they do?

“Thinking that people are supposed to do or be anything other than what they are is like saying that the tree over there should be the sky. I investigated that and found freedom.”~Byron Katie

Without the thought that anyone should learn, get, or find anything, in my presence or out of my presence, I am so mysteriously open. I am shaking my head in the strangeness and beauty of them all. I am fascinated by whatever state I see anyone in. I am trusting.

I am allowing everything to be as it is. I am letting go.

“You just act sometimes as if you’re God, as if you need to make things happen. I noticed that things happen with or without me, people approve of me or they don’t. It has nothing to do with me. This is really good news, since it leaves me responsible for my own happiness. It leaves me to do nothing but live my life as kindly and intelligently as I can. If you don’t notice and aren’t grateful, I understand. It’s only me I’m dealing with, and that is enough for a lifetime.”~Byron Katie

The turnarounds are actually truer than my original beliefs about other people. In fact, they are the only true beliefs…and maybe not even those, actually:

I want ME to have an AH-HA moment! I want ME to be AMAZED by my own power to ask myself if what I am believing is true! I want me to be EXCITED! I want me to be CHANGED after this weekend and go off into the sunset Renewed!

Done.

Love, Grace

P.S. Last call, a spot left for Friday’s teleclass Horrible Food Wonderful Food, Noon – 1:30 Pacific time. Click below to register or send email with questions to grace@workwithgrace.com.

My Relationship With Food Changed After Your Class

“Dear Grace, I wanted to tell you that after I took your class for two months, I have never had the same difficult relationship with food again. That is a miracle. It’s been six months now, and I still can hardly believe it. I am simply not worried any more about my food, and this changed everything. I recommend it to anyone I know with eating troubles.”~EK Horrible Food Wonderful Food class participant

Learn About Teleclasses Here

Click here to register for any of these classes online. You can also send an email to grace@workwithgrace.com if you’d prefer to mail a check or want to ask questions.

  • 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.
  • Our Wonderful Sexuality: Untangling the Passion, Attraction, Love, Past Terrors, Future Worries, Fear, Confusion, Tenderness, and Joyful Intimacy.Tuesdays, January 22 – March 12, 2013, 6:30 – 8:00 pm Pacific time. 8 weeks $395.
  • Horrible Food Wonderful Food: Healing the Love/Hate Relationship with Eating, Food, and Our Bodies. Fridays, January 18 – March 15, 2013 Noon – 1:30 pm Pacific time. 8 weeks. No class 2/22.
  • 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.

In Person workshops:
Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June 2013! 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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When Will I Be Satisfied?

The search for satisfaction is such a huge drive in humans (including me) that it’s easy to find it at the forefront of any activity, any experience, any thought we have about ourselves or others…anything we do.

I want to be satisfied when I go to work, satisfied when I eat, satisfied with my physical health, satisfied with my long-planned vacation, satisfied with my behaviors, satisfied with my reactions to the world, satisfied with how much money I have.

We want to be able to look back at an event, or our whole life, and say “yes, that was totally and completely satisfying….I wouldn’t change a thing”.

We want to get together with people we love and feel truly connected, satisfied with the way we make contact with each other.

The process of finding satisfaction seems linear. First, I notice I am not satisfied. It could be at a physical level, like hunger. Or it could be emotional…wanting intimate sharing with someone. Or it could occur to me that I’m not satisfied with the way something appears to work in the world.

I experience dissatisfaction, I move towards getting to the state of satisfied.

The thing that is very tricky is that we don’t always know what we’re actually dissatisfied about…or what would bring satisfaction.

In fact, I used to NEVER have it right.

One of my greatest places of suffering was with food and eating. I believed that the way my body appeared to others and to myself, and the way I ate food, would bring me satisfaction for comfort, nurturing, pleasure, connection, and kindness.

I actually believed that if I was thin, I would be happy. I would be satisfied. I also believed that if I ate that comforting, delicious food even when I wasn’t hungry, I would get comfort.

I didn’t bother to look more deeply at my experience of being totally dissatisfied most of the time; uncomfortable, sad, critical, worried, without intimate connection.

I had this terrible feeling of fear about NOT getting satisfied, but I didn’t like seeing that—it really seemed frightening or very sad to realize that nothing was ever quite perfectly satisfying.

The song by B.T. Express from 1974 Do It Til You’re Satisfied is a blast to dance to. However if I start thinking that it’s possible to substitute the doing of something (like eating, or exercising, or drinking, or being sexual) for satisfaction of some other deeper need, then I really suffer.

The thing is, you don’t have to know exactly and precisely what it is you really, really need that would be satisfying. In fact, trying to work hard to figure out what it is can be another distraction. And maybe….there IS NOTHING that would be the ultimate satisfaction (tricky tricky little mind).

But it can be so sweet and exciting to discover that you would love a deeply honest conversation, kind interaction with someone close to you, you’d like to tell the truth and be heard, you’d like contact, you want authentic and meaningful discussions with members of your family.

To put down the food or drink or work or TV and say “I have something I’d like to ask you about…I have something I want to share with you today…I’d like to talk with you about life…”

It has been incredible to question my beliefs about what I need and what I think would give me satisfaction.

Not being so upset that this lack of satisfaction exists…what a wonderful relief.

If not being satisfied isn’t so bad…then we can be with it for five seconds without speedy quick trying to get satisfied.

Today, right in this moment, I can have fun imagining what might bring deep satisfaction to my experience of this day.

I am going to leave alone some of the things I repeatedly “use” for satisfaction. Like checking emails, drinking tea, eating something sweet, talking on the phone, exercising really hard, reading, thinking thinking thinking.

I don’t mean I’m going to force myself not to do those things….instead it’s seeing how I can find satisfaction even without those, feeling how happiness and contentment can be here, no matter what.

(You mean….I can have fun and joy without a good book!!??)

Slowing way down, stopping when full, leaving a little on your plate, waiting two minutes, moving in a calm way, remembering all is well, breathing deeply, going to the bathroom before you’re bursting, handling the little needs of a body, opening to what is next, going to the store, leaving early, being on time, canceling that plan, speaking to this person, making a new plan, saying that important thing right now in the moment, noticing, not pushing….

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever.”~ Tao Te Ching #33

Love, Grace
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 click HERE now and then send me an email grace@workwithgrace.com.

Mark your calendar for Breitenbush, the end of June 2013! 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.

If you like this article, forward it to friends, family or colleagues. To get on the list to receive these directly via email, go to www.workwithgrace.com and enter your email in the sidebar. Your email will not be sold or used for any other purpose than these Grace Notes articles and announcements. You can Unsubscribe at any time by clicking at the bottom of any newsletter.

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The Innermost World REVEALED

Leave a comment at the bottom of this post! It is wonderful to see your thoughts, questions, ideas, journey.

This past Saturday I had a most beautiful day facilitating a workshop of incredible inquirers all here to look at their painful thoughts about an important person or issue in their lives.

People are really amazing when they attend a workshop. They show up from many miles away, getting themselves from home all the way to strange and distant location, to be with other people they’ve never met before.

And bare their innermost thoughts and feelings to them.

We’ve probably all noticed how it feels like in being human, there’s an inner self and an outer self.

Inside the mind, there’s the one thinking, feeling, looking, sensing, and chattering away…which is all going on in this inside world. It’s a whole universe in here, and only YOU can see it. Only YOU can hear the voices, pick up the sensations.

And then there’s the outer world of where you stop and the rest of the universe starts, and it is doing it’s thing, filled with life and activity and events.

Have you ever wondered where the line is between inner world and outer world?

The body feels like a boundary area, perhaps, between both worlds. It seems to be close to the place this inner self lives. This thing called me is somehow involved in bringing life to the body and taking it here and there, moving it certain ways, putting clothes on it, resting it, feeding it.

But this seat of consciousness, the deepest inner world that feels so….INNER. Where is it exactly?

Even if we can’t define this inner world exactly and where the boundaries are, isn’t it so fascinating how INNER it seems to be? Like down inside this cave or secret world or separate realm or little hideaway place. Inner, inside, in the middle, the center of everything, at the core, bottom, or heart of it all.

And then, when people gather together in this powerful way in any kind of deeply personal work, intentionally….miracles can happen.

This does not mean lightening bolts come out of the sky, or magic wands are waved (although anything is possible, who knows) but by just the smallest revealing of this innermost world, something can shift, some energy can be moved.

Through this movement, change happens. Things get unstuck.

The first time I ever went to a gathering of people interested in revealing some part of their inner world was a 12 step meeting. I was 19.

I was so filled with suffering, I questioned all the time whether this life was worth living. This seemed like a mad, mad world and I felt equally as mad and VERY UPSET. It wasn’t funny. Full of despair.

I was absolutely amazed that people sat together in one large room and spoke out loud and shared some of the content of their hearts without trying to hide it or make it prettier than it was. They were telling on themselves. I felt like I was not alone in the way I had been thinking, not entirely.

One of the things I love about doing The Work is that the first step is simply identifying what we are actually believing and feeling that is most stressful. The really uncomfortable, mean, vicious, nasty, horrible thoughts we are thinking about someone else (or ourselves). Feelings put to words.

Most of us feel *HORRIBLE*, and I mean really, really horrible, about having these thoughts and feelings in the first place (I sure did).

But keeping a lid on them, locking them down and hoping they would go away never worked well for me. At all. I really tried!

Gathering together with others to reveal these innermost “secrets” and then take them into the light is what doing The Work is. Investigating these truly fascinating critical thoughts, terrified thoughts, sad thoughts.

That’s what our group got to do on Saturday together. So I know, some cracks were made in the inner-world boundaries and light got in.

“If you want to be free, you must first accept that there is pain in your heart. You have stored it there. And you’ve done everything you can think of to keep it there, deep inside, so that you never have to feel it….On the other side of the pain is ecstasy. On the other side is freedom.”~ Michael Singer in The Untethered Soul.

Being willing to reveal the painful thoughts is courageous, and worth it. How incredible are all the humans, who know that staying in what appears to be their inner comfort zone world isn’t going to really work in the end.

They desire freedom more than comfort.

Thank you to the group on Saturday, and every group that has gathered to learn, study, reveal, uncover, and face their inner pain.

Today, you can notice something that pulls you in, something that brings up a little fear (or maybe a lot). Catch it. You are an amazing observer of your own inner world!

Write it down. Take it to the Four Questions…explore it, whether with someone else or with your own wise self.

You only need to look at one thought at a time. No more than one. If there’s a whole stack of ’em, just take a look at the one on top.

“Together we will disappear into the Presence beyond the veil, not to be lost but found; not to be seen but known.”~A Course In Miracles

Love, Grace

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.

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Eternity Is Our Destiny–Is That Scary?

I know I’ve been writing constantly about the mind this past week. Interesting little entity. Very busy, very constant, and at some point, very predictable.

Basically, I’m referring to this mind as a thing…but it’s really a sort of energy. Thinking. Words, images, scenes, sounds.

Byron Katie mentions in her work this mind and how it conjures possibilities about the future and worries about the past like waves in the ocean. Impossible to conquer. Always there.

Today, I love being reminded that if some kind of stress enters the scene of my conciousness, then its only a thought. Really, it’s just a THOUGHT. Made of no substance.

Eckhart Tolle speaks of this universe and our very minds as made up of things…and of space. Thingness and No-Thingness.

I notice that in the content of my thoughts in the last hour are tons of suggestions about things to do, say, or feel. Be sure to leave on time. You have only 15 more minutes to write. I need to finish x,y,z. It’s getting dark. I wonder who is winning the election. I hope my former mother-in-law is OK. I have to a,b,c by the weekend. I wonder why we live in infinite space, like why it is set up this way with earth and the planets and all that. 

I remember recognizing, while watching my thoughts and inquiring, several years ago, that I actually was afraid of being WITHOUT thought. Infinite space. Like a big white-out fog, no people, no objects, no ground, no up or down. I didn’t like the deep ocean either, it always kind of bugged me to watch movies where people were going down with cameras to where it was entirely dark under water. Spooky.

But how amazing to consider who I would be without the thought that I need to know what’s going on around here, that I need some kind of form, that I need to understand, or that “infinity” is creepy.

The collective disease of humanity is that people are so engrossed in what happens, so hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms, so absorbed in the content of their lives, they have forgotten the essence, that which is beyond content, beyond form, beyond thought. They are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who you are.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

For me, I realized first how freaky I thought eternity was. It always made me nervous as a child. Too big.

But now that I can question my thoughts, I have discovered that I have no idea that Nothingness is Bad or something to be worried about.

In fact, I think eternity and nothingness and space and emptiness are here, right now, and they don’t hurt, they aren’t terrible. Have you noticed?

“Fear and unhappiness follow from the belief that we are going to feel a way we won’t like feeling in the future.”~Bruce DiMarsico

Who would you be without the thought that you need to be something, do something, think something, understand something….

How would you live if you knew all was well in your ultimate future, and your destiny of eternity that Eckhart mentions is incredible, sweet, precious…and PEACEFUL.

I would be more willing to see beyond whatever is happening here, not to take it so seriously, with such importance and nervousness, not anxious, not threatened, not depressing.

Without knowing what anything is for, or believing all your thoughts, life starts to become really funny, and really calm. You might crack yourself up over what you notice you suffer over.

In fact, I notice that I have never actually, my entire life, had a white-out moment where I was surrounded by nothing, black space, endless dark water, fog, and/or no people and no sound and Nothingness forever. Not even close.

Love, Grace

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm.

Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. To register for either weekend workshop, click here!Fill in the workshop fee after you click the Buy button at the bottom of the page. You can use paypal or any credit card (you don’t need a paypal account).

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.

If you like this article, forward it to friends, family or colleagues. To get on the list to receive these directly via email, go to www.workwithgrace.com and enter your email in the sidebar. Your email will not be sold or used for any other purpose than these articles and announcements for Work With Grace. You can Unsubscribe at any time by clicking at the bottom of any newsletter.

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No Need To Go Anywhere In This World

It’s amazing what having a bit of extra time, changing up your routine, altering your daily environment, or setting up vacation time can do to mix up your mental activity.

Right now I am on a vacation that is a reunion with dear friends I’ve known for 25 years. My thoughts prior to the vacation were that there would be tons of group activity and I may have to sneak away to get some of my introverted recharge time.

This is not the way it’s turned out. I’ve had free time with my own thoughts, my book, the beach, tropical weather…gathering in the evening only under a big moon with friends after slow days.

Outside the scenery is gorgeous. The movie right now, my particular movie of life, has iguanas, mangoes, waiters with trays of drinks walking by, blue tiled swimming pools, baking heat, pelicans, waves crashing.

Inside the movie is this mind, responding, having thoughts, occasionally getting snagged on some ideas or images. It is busy, running, never stopping its conversation about EVERYTHING.

The mind has new things to comment on in this new environment. And more TIME. Nothing scheduled.

For some people, empty, open time can be tricky. The mind has an opportunity to talk louder than ever, without busyness to distract it.

Funny, but the mind can get so loud for people when they are done with their jobs, for example, that they fill their evenings with watching TV or playing games, just to get away from their minds. This can happen in an even bigger way when they are on “vacation”.

I find one of the best ways to work with the mind in these kinds of chatterbox moments, when time is available for the Committee to get VERY loud, is to start writing down the most fearful, infuriating, sad or painful thoughts.

This may be writing in a journal for some, but for others the thoughts may be simple and clear. To see the stressful thoughts is very powerful, more clarifying than you may know.

Empty time. What are your thoughts? I should be exercising, I should be writing, I should be working, I need to eat something, I want activity, I wonder what “x” is doing (about 20 people may float across your consciousness), I wonder what I should do for next year’s workshop, I should work on my business today, etc, etc.  

And these are only the thoughts that are commenting on “productivity”. There may also be comments on people with whom you’ve had difficult relationships, unresolved communication, painful moments.

Back again to just watching. See if you can actually just watch, even if only for 2 minutes, without “doing” something or reacting.

In Horrible Food Wonderful Food in the past couple of weeks a wonderful participant was able to practice slowing down the way she usually experienced and ate a kind of chocolate she loves.

She opened the chocolate and then waited, watching her mind comment, but not allowing it to take over and consume her (so that she in turn would then consume). She was amazed to find that she drove home in her car without eating, as she normally would have, and then found she didn’t want it anymore.

Just a little waiting and watching can change everything. EVERYTHING. This means waiting before you act, slowing what you say down, slowing what you do down, not acting when you’re in the thick of a fearful or vengeful or aggressive or bored moment.

In the hours that pass most recently, on this thing called a vacation (stepping into a different scene than the usual life, if there is a “usual” life) my mind is still here, and so is my inner observer, enjoying and watching all of THIS.

Let your mind run, and let it show you what is real and not real! It is safe to look at your busy, busy mind, especially when your life is more empty on the outside and you have more time, in those moments later at night, when the outside of you is not so busy.

I notice as I let myself watch the ideas, the loud voices saying that I need, should, want in this place that is like paradise on the outside, it doesn’t matter what it looks like or where I am. The inner world is what matters most of all to me. I am sure to you, too.

You don’t need to go anywhere to explore it.

There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. 

There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine.   

O traveler, if you are in search of That  

Don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.

——

This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.  

This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth.  

To be one with the truth for just a moment,  

Is worth more than the world and life itself.
~Rumi

Love, Grace

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm.
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. To register for either weekend workshop, click here! Fill in the workshop fee after you click the Buy button at the bottom of the page. You can use paypal or any credit card (you don’t need a paypal account).

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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Crazy And You Know It

I will never forget a time when a man sat down to work with Byron Katie on stage at a public event. Here he was about to expose his innermost painful thinking, a very intimate act, in front of hundreds of people. As he settled himself into his chair he said “I am mentally ill”. Katie replied “we all are, honey.”

Have you ever had the thought that you are crazy?

When any of us say this with awareness, we are of course not generally commenting on a true mental health diagnosis out in this world. We are functional, good, kind, well-meaning people, doing our best.

When we say we are feeling crazy, we are commenting on the chattering inner mind that doesn’t seem to stop. The one that keeps us up at night!

For some people, this mind will lock in on problem-solving with a vengeance. It will list, sort, analyze and assess with a very critical, sort-of non-emotional cutthroat approach. The mind goes into “attack” mode. Take No Prisoners. Destroy! Argue!

For others this same mental activity will be more filled with nervous anxiety, scanning the world to see how to avoid conflict, hide, run and protect itself.

Other minds will focus more on how terrible it all is, how sad, lost, despairing or meaningless.

All these Voices exist inside the mind, producing emotional stress. Even when things seem to be going well, it’s talking 180 miles per hour, saying “good, finally, let’s hold on to this, it could be temporary, it might be too good to be true, must do whatever it takes to keep this good thing going!”

Even that is stressful!!

A thoughtful inquirer and seeker recently recommended Michael Singer’s book to me The Untethered Soul. I love how he describes this inner voice as a completely whacked roommate.

Singer writes: “If somehow that voice managed to manifest in a body outside of you, and you had to take it with you everywhere you went, you wouldn’t last a day. If somebody were to ask you what your new friend is like, you’d say, “this is one seriously disturbed person. Just look up neurosis in the dictionary and you’ll get the picture.”

Another powerful author, Annie Lamott, calls this voice KFCK. It’s like a radio station that is turned to the channel “you are screwed” constantly. It’s mean, vicious, terrified or horrendously grief-stricken.

Even though this inner mental world of thinking appears to be a part of the human condition, there is good news!

The one who notices the voice, ISN’T the voice.

It’s observing. It’s silent. Totally quiet, very mysterious, watching without judgment. It doesn’t know and it doesn’t NEED to know.

As Eckhart Tolle says, this is the first step, simply noticing.

Mr. Crazy Voice may say that this first step is ridiculous, won’t get you anywhere, is inconsequential and stupid. It will say “noticing? HA! whatEVER . That won’t do any good!”

It will think you’re supposed to do something, say something, think something, be something different….and demand change from the people or circumstances around you.

But notice how you sink into that place that watches and accepts. It is quiet, still, but beautiful and open.

It pulls you in like a magnet, if you let it. Beyond any feeling of fighting, arguing, analyzing, debating, wondering, worrying.

“The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement. Thus the Master travels all day without leaving home. However splendid the views, she stays serenely in herself. Why should the lord of the country flit about like a fool? If you let yourself be blown to and fro, you lose touch with your root. If you let restlessness move you, you lose touch with who you are. “~Tao Te Ching #26

Don’t be upset with yourself if you have flitted to and fro having hissy fits about this and that. I’ve had at least three in the last 24 hours, all internal. They flare up.

Even if you’ve had 500 fits, are wondering why you are so crazy, even if you have wailed, gnashed your teeth or vowed revenge on someone…the Deeper Bigger You does not care, and is watching it all. It is aware.

In fact, you don’t even have to worry about taking Step One. You’re already doing it. You might be crazy, but since you know it, you’re waking up!

“Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.” Carl G. Jung

Love, Grace

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What Is A Belief?

What is a belief?

It’s a simple question, but not such a simple answer unless you’ve thought about it a lot.

All this talk about “beliefs” and how great it is to question them….but let’s start from the beginning today. (Enter soundtrack “Let’s Start At The Very Beginning” from A Sound of Music).

In Websters: An acceptance that something is true or that something exists. Something that one accepts as true or real; a firmly held conviction or opinion.

Nowhere does it actually say that it IS true or real. Just accepted as true or real.

Bruce Di Marsico who developed and taught the Option Method of inquiry before he died defined a belief as an assumption that something is true, an assumption that it is fact. He said that a belief is not the proof of truth. A belief about a thing’s existence is not the same as its existence.

I once heard a belief described in an academic lecture as something that is repeatedly thought over and over again.

How interesting! It is just something THOUGHT, over and over and over. It’s like the mind’s eye is scanning the world, the environment, our experience, and it is saying “Is it true now? Yes! Because look at this situation!” And then a year later “And how about now? Yes! This proves it to be true!”

The mind keeps finding evidence and support for what it has assumed, perhaps from a very very young age.

I am a loser. See! I must be–my wife just left me, my bank account just got emptied, I just lost my house, my son hates me, that person doesn’t want me, I can’t make any money, I’m a drunk, I have cancer, I broke my wrist, I am not happy.

Byron Katie offers this question to help us dive into greater awareness of our convictions, opinions and belief systems: WHERE’S YOUR PROOF?

A beginning starting place is to find out why you believe what you believe. Don’t dismiss it, even if it seems childish. See what your proof is….and notice if you don’t have any. That’s OK too. It doesn’t mean you have to change your mind.

You have to see what you believe in order to see other possibilities. You have to see what you believe in order to find out what is hurting you, what is bringing about your unhappiness.

“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.”~Tao Te Ching #1

Naming your beliefs is the doorway to freedom. Start there…

Love, Grace

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 Noon – 6 pm.
Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. To register for either weekend workshop, click here!Fill in the workshop fee after you click the Buy button at the bottom of the page. You can use paypal or any credit card (you don’t need a paypal account).

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.

If you like this article, forward it to friends, family or colleagues. To get on the list to receive these directly via email, go to www.workwithgrace.com and enter your email in the sidebar. Your email will not be sold or used for any other purpose than these articles and announcements for Work With Grace. You can Unsubscribe at any time by clicking at the bottom of any newsletter.

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Anger–Must Get Rid Of It

Today in the Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven teleclass, someone asked me how doing The Work has really changed me. The wonderful inquirer who was asking the question also said that she felt like she had done the Work often, and she didn’t feel entirely peaceful.

We wound up doing The Work in class together on the belief “I’ll never get it right”.

I remember once raising my hand at a Byron Katie event with a lot of internal pain, feeling like I had written worksheets and gone through the process of asking the Four Questions of The Work many times on the same situation….

Before I even got to say “what am I doing wrong?” which was my basic question at the core, Katie said to me “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are!”

GASP! Moi? Angry?!!

It suddenly dawned on me that I was trying as hard as I could NOT to be angry. Being angry was WRONG. Unspiritual, negative, selfish, unhealthy. I had a motive with all the work I was doing “on myself” and “on others” all the time. To get Good Enough.

I had even heard that if a person was angry a lot, they could develop cancer and other diseases. Anger could bring on heart-attacks, made steam come out of your ears. It forced people to pick up arms against other people, to hit or slap.

Walking around feeling anger could create muscle tension, stress, aches, sick stomachs, poor digestion, high blood pressure.

But what if the actual ANGER itself is not terrible? It is, after all, a part of reality. It is an energy, it’s doing something….it exists. Who am I to say it shouldn’t?

Perhaps, I realized at the time, I was pushing so hard against being angry…sort of like having anger against my anger…that I wasn’t seeing its use, or benefit. It was getting STUCK.

But wait! I had a huge gigantic expectation that spiritual, good, loving, faithful people are NEVER ANGRY. I wanted to get it right.

Being a kind, gentle, loving person who is not expressing anger is an image many of us inquirers have in our minds of how we would be if we could “get there”. We would be awesome, cool, holy people. Nothing would bug us.

If you can allow yourself to write all the most vicious, nasty, hateful, mean, angry judgments down about someone who when you think about them, you feel rage…..then you have made the first step, identifying your beliefs.

Next, you can get up and do some jumping jacks and fist punches into the air and maybe yell into a pillow. It’s a lot different to feel accepting, or even grateful, for anger. If that seems like a stretch, just allowing it to be here is enough. This is deep patience.

Then you can get back to understanding what is truly going on here, right in this moment of furious emotion. No looking to replace the fury with peace with the snap of a finger…but looking with curiosity. No seeking some different state.

“To seek something, you must have at least some vague idea or image of what it is you are seeking. But ultimate truth is not an idea or an image or something attained anew. So, to seek truth as something objective is a waste of time and energy. Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are.”~Adyashanti

So when you are angry, feel it and appreciate it. What is it saying? What does it mean? What are you afraid of? What’s the worst that could happen? If that awful person keeps on doing what they’re doing or saying what they’re saying, what is terrible about it, really?

“The path of developing loving-kindness and compassion is to be patient with the fact that you’re human and that you make these mistakes. That’s more important than getting it right…If you apply patience to the fact that you can’t let go, somehow that helps you to do it. Patience with the fact that you can’t let go helps you to get to the point of letting go gradually–at a very sane and loving speed, at the speed that your basic wisdom allows you to move.~Pema Chodron

Slowing down, I allow myself in any moments of irritation to look, instead of swat it away like a fly.

Welcome, anger. Welcome, fear. Good that you’re here, so you can be seen. Because once a light shines on the troubled spots, and you can wait, stop, love yourself anyway….you may find people don’t bug you as much anymore.

It could be you are getting it right. Bumbling along, twisting to and fro, being human. In fact, I’m sure of it.

Love, Grace

 

If you like this article, forward it to friends, family or colleagues. To get on the list to receive these directly via email, go to www.workwithgrace.com and enter your email in the sidebar. Your email will not be sold or used for any other purpose than these articles and announcements for Work With Grace. You can Unsubscribe at any time by clicking at the bottom of any newsletter.

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What If This Was Your Only Path To God?

There is an idea that humans have used for centuries to find relief. The idea is that their pain means something, that their suffering is not just random, chaotic and ridiculous, but that it is instead part of their life path. How could it be otherwise? There it is….suffering.

If this experience of life that I am having hurts sometimes, perhaps a lot of the time, it can help on a basic level to consider that what hurts is offering something of value, that I can learn from it.

The tricky part for many is when they quickly also conclude that some other great and powerful entity, that is outside themselves (maybe called God, but it could also be called Reality, the Universe, or Fate) is throwing “hard” situations into their paths so they learn.

That there is a power, we’ll call it God, that is punishing. You suffer, God doesn’t care, let’s it happen, or even creates your dilemma. We’re in a wild, uncertain world where terrible things can happen.

Byron Katie will occasionally use the phrase “if this was your only path to God, would you take it away?”

This question comes from her out of a way of thinking about God that is without fear. This God is love, peace, neutrality, beauty, silence, kindness, openness, truth. Truth. 

We like the idea of a path to this kind of God. So the thought that our pain holds a path to God helps quell the urge to panic, escape, shut down or eliminate this painful path.

We can breathe a little. You mean I might be OK in the end? You mean this is all going somewhere, and it’s good?

The phrase Katie uses helps us enter non-resitance to the situation we find so difficult. Allowing ourselves to stay with it, to look at it. To understand the truth of this situation, to see it from every angle and nuance.

Eckhart Tolle has many incredible things to say about human suffering and pain. He suggests that we have a Little Me that is very self-centered, that always thinks life isn’t good enough. Terrible things can happen.

If we get deeply into this Little Me that is all about, well, Me….then we are constantly on edge, irritated, annoyed, enraged, defensive, nervous or terrified. Always thinking about only the past and what has gone before, or the future and what should be prevented. He calls it being in the Pain Body.

At the core level, the Pain Body is screaming DANGER DANGER DANGER. It is scared out of its wits. Literally. There is no clear thinking, beliefs of imminent danger take over our entire awareness.

But what if this Pain Body experience was actually our path to God? (Whatever God is for you, you can say “Love” if you like, or “Peace”).

Eckhart Tolle himself would not be who he is today without terrible suffering as a grad student. Byron Katie would not be who she was today without years of extreme suffering into her early 40s.

Pema Chodron felt rage at her former partner and realized she couldn’t live with that kind of anger, and that set her on a path that changed her entire life. Joan Tollifson was a drug addict living on the street, near death, became sober, and grew into a beautiful spiritual teacher.

Then there are so many others who felt unrest, sadness, unhappiness, never-ending seeking, like THIS was not enough….ever….and now they are different.

A common thread is allowing everything, especially their pain, to be the way it is. Not attacking it, running from it, pretending it’s not there, doing Positive Thinking and saying affirmations. Not fighting.

This is it. Here’s the path. It’s what you are on, it’s what you’ve been living. Right in this moment, if you leave everything the way it is and drop any part of you that wants it to change….see what that feels like.

What if everything is supposed to be exactly the way it is right now, and everything has led you to this moment. Now.

“Only a huge ego could say that you’re supposed to be doing something that you’re not doing.” ~Byron Katie

Feel the relief of not needing to do anything—without a thought that you should do anything, say anything, think anything, feel anything different than THIS.

Even if the Pain Body or Bad Suffering seems to be here, Bad News, Sadness, Anger…see if you can only stop needing to do something about them. No trying to get to a peaceful state, no working on yourself. No getting over to a different Path.

Nothing wrong with THIS.

“When we realize who we are, we no longer have this endless confusion, this eternal battle with ourselves. Therefore we tend to not struggle with others or the world.”~ Adyashanti

Love, Grace