introversion – The Work of Byron Katie with Grace

Attending big events, conferences, workshops, retreats or courses are all something many of us have experienced.

It’s a big deal to have your curiosity sparked, decide to say yes to something, come up with the funds, make plane reservations or drive for hours to get somewhere, arrange your accommodations, leave your daily life behind, get time off work.

What’s more is….you want deeply to come away with vital or inspiring information, or a change of heart, or a completely new perspective that makes it all worth it.

That’s why you’re going in the first place.

There’s a lot riding on some of these things we attend!

The story in the mind is….when I get there and go through this thing, I’ll get “x” or I’ll obtain “y” or I’ll learn “z” and then I’ll have something I didn’t have before….

….and I’ll feel better, or I’ll feel fabulous, or I’ll feel transformed, or I’ll feel inspired.

So you know how I mentioned I was visiting New York?

Well, one reason I’m here was to attend a one-day conference all day long yesterday for people who run businesses, like me, who want to share their message, get their book published, understand publicity, share authentically with the world.

To be honest, this is not really my “thing”.

I’m usually headed to a silent meditation retreat, a personal growth workshop or a training that helps me be more effective with clients and students, or with myself.

I like studying peace, more than anything.

This was almost the antithesis of peace, for the introverted inner me.

Ha ha!

I was connecting and being with people all day long in conversation, with microphones, stages, chairs, coat-checks, bathroom lines.

Asking people what they do, hearing interviews, listening to a few experts, asking an editor about my book proposal next steps.

But after I’ve done The Work for awhile, I’ve got to admit, this is one pretty clear way I’m different, directly as a result of doing The Work.

I can still hear the internal thoughts float through, but somehow, I’m not really disturbed.

I really do know they aren’t true.

Here’s what they sound like, right in the middle of the conference, during breaks, keynote speakers, getting tea, walking from the front of the room to the back, seeing the person sitting next to me:

I don’t fit in
I should just take a picture
I should talk/shouldn’t talk to him/her/them
I don’t know how to connect with everyone
I am different than whatever’s going on here
this is not “my” greatest pleasure
it’s too loud
people are looking at me
I have nothing to say
what a fascinating world….look at her purple hair, his leather jacket, her huge smile, his tired worried face, their blonde heads leaning together, the sun pouring in the window.

It’s like a steady flow of thoughts, sounds, sights, smells.

Those thoughts float in, like little warning labels.

But then it’s like there’s a hand reaching out, as if to shake hello, saying:

“Oh hi…is it true?”

“Are you sure that’s true?”

“Oh…remember when you used to think that was true, like, all the time? Yah, that was funny, wasn’t it. Chuckle.”

All I can say is, this was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in my life at one of those conference-type educational meet-other-people and learn business thingies.

I even got surprised by meeting one person who popped in for lunch who was not an official part of the conference and didn’t speak publicly at all, and who happens to be a rock star in the business world.

I shared with him what a kick I get out of his newsletter writing about his mom, and told him it makes me happy about my own high-expectation parenting of my own kids.

I told him my son follows him, too, at my demand, er..I mean encouragement…and he apologized for using the F-Bomb sometimes, and he said I was a good mom.

It was so cute.

So fun to meet the delightful Ramit Sethi

OK….so maybe this type of event doesn’t necessarily offer a “spiritual experience”, or a shift of consciousness that’s totally life-changing so that it feels like rebirth, or a cracked open perspective, or a massive transformation in mind-body-spirit….

….or does it?

Why couldn’t anything have the possibility of inviting me to stop assessing constantly if something was “worth it”….

….but instead to simply flow into yes, or no, or maybe, and watch the way the environment around me changes….

….while something within is steady, persistent, and peaceful as a deep, vast lake.

I do fit in, always, and the world fits in me
someone else should take a picture, not me (see above)
talking just happens, or it doesn’t
I know how to connect with everyone
I am the same as whatever’s going on here
this is my greatest pleasure
it’s just right in sound level
looking is happening, and not happening at all
I have something to say (and nothing to say! halelujah!)

What if this quiet, empty room I’m in now, while writing this, was just as amazing as one full of people, or a meditation retreat, or the busy city Saturday streets?

Who would I be without my story?

Who would you be without yours?

“Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love, Grace

P.S. Some of the very best thoughts about a future success story are around money and business. Do yours cause you stress, when you aren’t “there” yet? Come do The Work on it! Abundance, Desire and The Work Weekend. March 18-20. Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. $295.

Mini Retreat: Seattle 12/6 1:30-5:30 pm, full session in The Work from start to finish. Everyone will get to investigate at least one stressful situation from their lives, past or present.

Click here to read more and register to come. Limited to 12. 4 CEUs for mental health professionals.

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*Who would you be without your beliefs about Other People?*

The other night I ventured out to a party at an old friend’s house, someone I’ve known since high school days.

Taking off for an event at someone’s house alone….a party, a gathering, a dinner….a social event of some kind….

….isn’t the easiest thing in the world for some people.

Well, I should speak for myself.

I once felt very anxious almost every time I approached the scene of a party.

The voices are coming out of the windows, there are cars parked up and down the street squeezed nose to fender, music wafting into the night air, bright lights from inside.

Lots-of-people sounds.

If you’re like I once was (and I still have ideas waft through like this for sure) you may notice you get nervous at that moment. People are going to look at you when you go inside! They might talk with you, too!

Twenty-five years ago I was in a therapy group.

Those scary, scary humans, OMG!

(It was one of the best things I ever did in my healing process, by the way).

I had been in this marvelous group for over a year.

I shared with everyone during the little beginning check-in whats-going-on start of group that I was invited to a big huge party….but I didn’t really do so well at parties so I wasn’t going to go. Sometimes I drank too much alcohol. Staying in was better. Going out was risky.

One of the therapists stopped me.

“You know, there’s another option besides Not Going. You can go to a party and be completely honest.”

Gulp. What does she mean by that?

She went on:

“For example, you could walk in, look around, go stand near someone and say to them that you feel kind of nervous going to parties and you’re a super-extreme introvert.”

She said I could practice relaxing, not needing to “do” anything, see if a question comes to ask someone I encounter.

Oh.

Seriously?

With this other vision offered to me….it suddenly occurred to me that I had been locked into one story about large quantities of people all together in one place and what you were supposed to be like to be “successful” in that situation.

You were supposed to like attention, love talking with people, love asking and answering questions, and be entertaining, fun, pleasing and likable. You were supposed to be nice, friendly and polite.

But honest? About what you really thought and felt?

Woah. That had never ever occurred to me before.

Who would you be without your story that you are being watched by people with a critical eye, or they need to feel good around you, or you have to fake that you’re interested, or you’re going to “have” to talk to people and be nice?

Without that thought, I’d be totally free to take it all in, move in or out of conversations, or the rooms, connect with the human race, risk being perceived as weird, or quiet, or rude.

Sharing that I was nervous around big groups of people, with people, began a turnaround inside me, even though I didn’t know about Byron Katie yet.

I began practicing genuine honesty, and self-care, in large groups.

Sometimes I bumbled, it didn’t go so well, I screwed up, I got scared.

But then even though I felt shy, I’d try again.

The other night…I had such gratitude about humanity at that party.

The host who opened up his home and baked bread and chicken for guests, the band who played fabulous music, the old friends who I unexpectedly got to see after years and years, the new friends I met for fascinating conversations, the room, the lights, the chairs, the floor.

Even though there were tons of new faces and I had a little of that background of alarm when encountering the new and strange when I first walked in, I had the best time.

Keep questioning your beliefs that groups of people are scary, if you notice they are. Or boring, or irritating, or strange…whatever.

Maybe everyone you encounter is a friend, open, interested in sharing and connecting, curious, accepting, loving, kind, even if they’re also anxious. Maybe you belong everywhere.

Including this party.

Doesn’t that sound more fun, a bit lighter?

“There is only one nature, and it is friendly. If I am perceiving you as not friendly, it is THIS unfriendly mechanism [Katie points to head] that is perceiving the unfriendly….the only thing in that situation that needs to change is ME….Identify what you’re thinking and believing, wake yourself up, you’re in a dream!” ~ Byron Katie

Much love, Grace

Tag: introversion

Ramit Sethi. Everything happens at the right moment.