Tag: loneliness

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How do you react when you don’t feel at home? Easy. I ate.

As I prepare for the new Eating Peace Process Immersion, coming up in mid-November, I’m creating two helpful (I hope) and complimentary events that I hope will support eating freedom and clarity, and give you the chance to experience online group connection and learning with me:

1) a brand new completely free Eating Peace Webinar on changing the stories that drive eating wars, and;

2) a one-week Eating Wars Challenge where we’ll be together daily from November 4-10 on facebook live to question and shift compulsive or emotional eating in our lives.

I’ll share more in upcoming Eating Peace Notes soon, including information on how to join one or both of these complimentary trainings.

The other day, I was reflecting on one of my first most terrible, dreadful “loneliness” stories.

The “I Am Lonely” story.

I am not connected, I am abandoned, I am alone, I am not safe.

I AM NOT HOME.

This story is incredibly stressful.

When I believed it was the truth, what did I do?

I isolated, I tried to hold back tears, I slept a lot or lay in my bed…and I ate.

This is a truly powerful story to question. So let’s do it today (and you’re welcome to watch my live youtube on this right here).

I am not home.

Is it true?

No.

When I think about this right now, today, I can still find the voice that wonders where home is….that isn’t so sure it’s here, now. But I really can’t know that voice is accurate.

The thought comes in “where else would home be, if not here?”

I can really see it’s not True.

But how do you react when you think it is?

Doubt enters my heart, and I feel it in my body. I believe I won’t be safe quite soon, and I’m not emotionally safe now. I can’t relax. I want to go home, like a little kid saying “where’s my mommy?”

And if you watch my story I shared on youtube, you’ll know that the way I reacted to this belief “I am not home” is that I ate.

I ate and ate and ate and stuffed and filled myself. I remember I knew how to say in French, “J’ai manger trop”.

“I ate too much!”

I said this many times to my student leader on my foreign exchange program who was probably about 24 and seemed so old and wise and capable. I remember her saying back to me “you’ve said that a lot!”

Ugh.

I’ve sat with many people in this stressful belief. Some people react by hunting for the perfect mate. Some people buy clothes and go shopping and try to enhance their environment with a feeling of “home”. Some people watch TV or movies, or join a ton of groups, or fill their time with way too many tasks.

Just watch, if you’ve held this belief that you are not ultimately at home, how stressful it can be.

I notice that I’ve felt source, reality, universe, God, were very far away somewhere and not listening to me. (I notice it makes no sense at all, really, but the images are of distance, outer space, being cut-off, feeling desperately sad).

Now….who would you be without this belief you aren’t home?

I instantly notice a sense of relief or wonder about this moment. It’s quiet, yet I can hear a lot of sounds–crows and eagles outside, a group passing by on bikes calling to each other, wind chimes on the front porch, a loud motor from the busy street in the distance.

But I suppose it would be fine if suddenly I was deaf.

And what would this moment be like without sight, without the belief you aren’t home?

I find there’s a trust present that I didn’t feel before. Something kind. I’m not assuming darkness or blackness means aloneness or separation.

Turning the thought around: what if you are connected? What if you are home?

I am connected, I am found, I am surrounded, I am safe.

Was that actually true for me at that time so long ago when I shared my story of being so far away in another country?

Yes.

I had a group leader, I had adults who had welcomed me into their home to spend time with their family for the entire summer, I sang all summer with my friends in 3-part harmony during our bike ride adventure through France, I felt joy at the beauty I witnessed of landscapes and castles and camping in barns on hay, I learned that I didn’t need my parents or family around in order to be happy.

I also learned that something in me felt terrified and reached for food for relief, escape and comfort. I lost some of my innocence of childhood and discovered I had something vital to contend with—my inner soul’s desire to connect with other humans honestly (instead of food).

It was not easy.

I am still practicing and learning the living turnaround: I am home.

But what I can see is when I do not believe that I’m not home and there’s no hope in returning home, I do not eat wildly and desperately.

I notice a need to articulate my feelings and speak them. I ask for support and put myself in environments where I will receive it. I connect with other people–including all the clients and people who appear for groups–and we do this work, together.

I feel in this body, and in my consciousness, a sense of now, here, being, open.

Gratitude may appear. Thankful for this chair. Thankful for this tree. Thankful for this mind, these thoughts, these feelings even.

This. Nothing more required.

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
~ Wendell Berry

Much love,
Grace

P.S. All new Eating Peace webinar in the works, along with a 7 day Eating Wars Challenge (long-time requested, and I’ll finally do it). Stay tuned, the webinars will happen October 24th 9 am PT and October 25th 2 pm PT and again on the weekend November 10th 4 pm PT and November 11th 10 am PT.

The daily LIVE challenge will begin Sunday, November 4th and I’ll go live on facebook daily with a really life-changing important “story” to challenge when it comes to dissolving compulsive eating.

Eating Peace Process 5 month Immersion starts in November. Registration will open at the end of October. Read about it here.

Eating Peace Annual Retreat. Limited to 14 people. Learn more here. Amazingly, already this is filling even though 3.5 months away. Love to have you start the new year with eating peace Jan 9-14, 2019.

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Whose business are you in? If it’s not your own, you’re lonely.

This weekend the 3 day (we include all day Friday) annual Spring Retreat has been underway.

This retreat, like all of them, is a council of wise folks gathering to contemplate reality, to investigate stories that feel painful, to dig in to uncover hidden stressful beliefs….and of course take them through inquiry.

On Saturday night, it seems our tradition on these 3-day retreats in The Work is to have potluck dinner together.

I looked around the huge grand kitchen table at one point during the meal, after our inquiry together for two days, and was so inspired by the beauty, sharing, joy, and great love I felt for each and every person present.

I haven’t always felt connected to everything and everyone in my environment.

I usually felt DIS-connected from everything and everyone, to be honest.

Even though, as I felt the dis-connection and alienation from everyone and everything, and felt very separate from just about everyone and everything…..

…..I was also wondering constantly what everyone and everything was thinking, doing, and feeling, and hoping no one would be mean to me or hurt me, or that nothing horrible would happen.

My general thought was that people are a bit scary, and the world was definitely full of frightening possibilities. You had to be careful.

There is a principle Byron Katie shares fairly often when facilitating people in their work. The “Whose Business?” Principle.

She’ll ask the question as someone explores a situation: “Whose business are you in?”

There are three choices for your answer:

1) I’m in my own business

2) I’m in someone else’s business (and it’s not my business)

3) I’m in God’s business (also not my business)

So for example….I have a stressful belief that my child should not have broken his wrist.

I wasn’t there when he did, I rushed to the hospital emergency room.

My heart is racing, I’m terrified, I’m worried about him, I believe he needs his mom ASAP. I’m driving like a maniac, my hands gripping the wheel.

Whose business am I in?

My child’s business.

His life included a broken wrist….(twice). His reality appears to involve broken wrists, and I notice he hasn’t been all that upset, he’s felt well-cared for, and his life is completely OK despite these broken bones and incidents. They’ve mended. He’s fine.

When I’m freaking out, and my wrists are perfectly healthy, I’m in his business emotionally. I’m over there, worrying about him and imagining he’s suffering terribly, and no one is home with me driving safely on the road to him at the hospital. I abandoned myself to spend time in his business, sweating bullets instead of clearly and calmly doing what needs to be done without more added stress (like a potential speeding ticket).

What is God’s business?

Earthquakes, typhoons, day time, night time, sun, moon, rock, tree, wrists getting mended, the body doing what it does, death, birth, clouds, aging, plants, the whole of reality.

When I’m in God’s business, the same results occur as when I’m in my kid’s business.

I’m lonely. No one here with me. Upset with God. Putting a lot of suggestions in the Suggestion Box, and they don’t seem to be getting answered, either. (God is so remote sometimes, jeez).

Being in my business is the only sane position, the only principle that actually works. The most stress-free position.

Being in my own business, I’m seated here in my own life, feeling the force of being here now, surrendered to what is NOT my business.

Not lonely.

I looked around on Saturday night, sitting at a table with fascinating, interesting, beautiful people who are all very interested in questioning their stressful thinking and waking up to whatever is really true for themselves. I smile with the joy of it all. I feel very much a part of the group, the life force all buzzing together, sharing together. I am not lonely. I’m so fascinated by everything in this room, and every person.

But here’s the funny thing….the more I do The Work and question what I fear, what I’m against, what I dislike, how I am separate, all the stressful thoughts…..

…..the more I find that I’m not even sure there is ANY business I can actually truly, freely, be in. Not even “my” own.

What if every single thing I could encounter in my life is the business of something that is not purely all me? What if nothing is my business?

Just saying.

Much love, Grace

P.S. Next 3 Day Retreat Sept 16-18, 2016. Kenmore, WA.

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Spiritual Joys come only from solitude

Inquiry Into Dark, Destructive, Fearful Thinking
sweet to know: entering the cave of solitude leads to a joyful place

In yesterday’s Grace Note was a beautiful poem Dream Song written by John Berryman–I forgot to include his name.

It seems, as a writer myself, like a big omission! Jeez!

Yesterday felt scattered, chaotic, with a big list of what needed to get done according to the plans for business and work and personal basics like going to the gym and buying greens for dinner.

It’s funny the wide gap that can happen between what’s expected, and what actually happens.

By 7 pm yesterday, I had my presentation ready for Eating Peace, I had my curriculum done for Money: Loving This Story (it starts in January on Thursdays), my daily blog was finalized, and I had three hours of evening, an empty open gap of time, for doing whatever I pleased.

What to do?

Instead of actually relaxing, though….

….an old familiar feeling entered the scene.

The night was dark, blustery, cold. Things felt quiet and contained in the environment, like staying in was natural.

And yet, my mind kept thinking about December plans, the need to make copies, get items ready for this weekend’s meetup and first session of the 8 Month group, buy tea, arrange a ride for my daughter for Saturday, write the check for the school thing, call the airline reservations to make the change, take the computer to the old computer graveyard (remember?) and clean out my too-old summer clothes so I never have to look at them again.

But I don’t WANT to do any of those things.

I want to be entertained. I want to be excited. I want to connect. I want to. I want to. I want. I want. I want.

I chat messaged a friend “what movie should I watch?”

Husband was busy, daughter was busy.

The restless energy felt like a small flutter in the pancreas area, or behind my back.

Right then….another dear friend skyped me.

I talked with her for an hour or more. This is exceptionally rare.

Especially rare to have this happen fairly spontaneously. My schedule is usually mapped out and I’m quite organized or disciplined with what I’m doing and when.

At least it appears that’s what I am.

Who knows.

But who would you be, when you got that restless feeling of wanting, without starting to demand you need entertainment?

Without believing you “want”?

Without believing you need to go get something so you can become satisfied? (Like food, movie, friend, whatever you use to fill yourself).

I’d be still.

I’d feel very, very quiet.

I’d allow the mind to jump and fuss and screech around like a hoot owl, but something else would stay steady, relaxed.

Silent.

If loneliness appears….OK.

If wanting appears….OK.

But it doesn’t have to be believed, it doesn’t have to be followed.

I don’t have to “do” anything. I can quiet down, I can quiet.

The thinking is not important, the lonely restless feeling is not all that is here.

I wait a moment, just a short moment, and notice I’m back with myself.

The solitude and being here with yourself….maybe not as bad as you think.

Spiritual joys come only from solitude,
So the wise choose the bottom of the well,
For the darkness down there beats
The darkness up here.
He who follows at the heels of the world
Never saves his head.
~ Rumi

Much love, Grace

P.S. Drop in meetup Saturday 11/21 from 2-4 pm, 8 month group has room for one person Sundays (once a month) starting 11/22 from 3-6 pm. Both in Seattle, hit reply if interested.