journaling – The Work of Byron Katie with Grace

People in my Eating Peace class are invited to keep a journal during the 3 months course together online.

Whenever I’ve taught this course, I suggest writing at least once a day, for five minutes if you can’t do anything more.

But it’s almost embarrassing….

I myself have been practically rebelling against journaling.

Again.

Even though, when I do it, it brings such clarity. As if I see the story I’m telling in vivid formation.

It has to come out into the open, when you write it down.

And sometimes….

….OK, maybe often….

….we humans hate this.

Can’t the thing that happened, or the meaning we’ve put to it, or the difficult incident, or the truly awful experience and the terrible accompanying thoughts….

….just GO AWAY?

I really do know better than to think something can “just go away”.

It doesn’t.

Even if it’s forgotten, it’s only buried and ready to crawl out of the grave at the perfect trigger moment, if you don’t look at it, share it (with yourself, with others) and question the story you’ve made from what you experienced.

Like, for example, holiday season.

People getting together, the weather and sky very dark, memories, hopes to gather, disappointments.

I suddenly realized the other day….

….after waking up with a terrible nightmare about being stuck in a weekend business mastermind conference that cost 5 million dollars….

….I not only need to slow down, I also need to go ahead and talk with myself.

By writing.

So even though part of me is complaining about it, I’m writing.

It’s astonishing the list of things I can find that feel upsetting.

I miss my mom who is traveling in Mexico with my aunt
I miss my dad who died 25 years ago and who would have been busy cooking for all the expected and invited guests
clients I’m working with feel the same awareness of holidays past and I hear their sadness and despair
I’m taking two trips in December and I’m nervous about both
my neck and hamstring injury site are hurting
I haven’t had a super close transformative conversation with my husband in quite awhile
I have two friends I feel distant towards and I notice I don’t write to them, or call them, because it might be hard or stir up feelings

In Brene Brown’s book Rising Strong, she talks about the arc of a story when someone “rises strong” and faces hurt in a way that brings more wisdom to life.

The Reckoning: get curious about your feelings, see how they connect to how you’re thinking and acting

The Rumble: own your story: get honest, then challenge your assumptions (gosh….that would be doing The Work!)

The Revolution: experience a new, braver story to change how we engage with the world and to ultimately transform the way we live

The act of simple writing of all your judgments, complaints, whining, stressful feelings allows you, allows me, to step on the path of this journey.

Without even starting there….

….I’m just a mish-mash of memories, pictures, sensations, feelings and disturbances.

Everything is unconscious, without having some way to look at it more slowly.

Writing seems to be the easiest way.

So today….

….give yourself the immense gift of journaling what’s going on inside that head of yours.

Yes, I know….it would be really fantastic if it would all just go away.

It would be great if we didn’t really have to feel the agony or pain of our stories, our memories, and drag through them again.

But it’s the only way I have ever found that they can get challenged, questioned, seen, digested.

It’s the only way I ever stopped “eating” over something, was to actually spend time with the “something”.

Then eating (or drinking, smoking, doing that escape thing) to shove it back underwater is of course no longer required, or even cared about, or in any way interesting.

Right after this, tonight, I’m going to write about the things I mentioned above that feel upsetting.

Will you join me?

Because only then can we begin to look, investigate, and have a rumble.

And only then can we experience the revolution that follows.

And THAT is a story I love.

Much love, Grace

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

Tag: journaling

Stories. They won’t go away, or change, until you tell them.

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