Tag: loss

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Put yourself back into reality when it comes to you and money (or any disturbing relationship)

Let’s talk about shame, guilt and unhappiness on facebook live today (Tues Feb 20) at 11:00 am Pacific Time. The way you can find the video, even if you don’t join live at 11 am PT, is to head to my facebook page here.

Why am I on about this topic?

Because in the money course underway right now an entire handful of participants wrote to me or shared with me that they feel guilty, ashamed or upset about the way they were with money at some point in their lives.

At least four of the comments I received from participants in the money class were about events they felt embarrassed or troubled about that happened in the past two weeks. 

Not the distant past (although those can bring on shame as well). But yesterday.

I can relate.

I have a few items that might be considered shame-worthy crossing my mind recently, too:
  • I just opened an envelope containing this piece of paper above. I have the money to pay this bill and have no idea what happened, I don’t remember ever receiving it. What do they think of me? Embarrassing.
  • I have three different events I want to attend including a memorial service, all of which require plane travel next summer. I feel bad about the cost and not sure what to do yet. I’m greedy if I do them all.
  • My husband paid for two nights at Cannon Beach, Oregon over the past two days and it’s very high for his salary as a preschool teacher–it was a gift but I keep feeling torn that I should contribute, but I also don’t want to. I’m so selfish.
  • I should put every extra penny into the plans and building of this second small cottage in our backyard which will be the final home for my mother. I have the secret thought she’s going to live until she’s 100 and I will never recuperate the cost or pay off the mortgage, and I should absolutely pay off the mortgage.
  • I need to leave my kids money, so I should just focus on work. I was too irresponsible and screwed up in my past life. I need to pay now.

I could probably find more.

 

And by the way, in the past one of the worst things I did with money is I shop-lifted when I was at college for no good reason, it seemed. I had the money. I resented having to count every penny and be so frugal and work as a waitress. So one day, I stole laundry detergent and toothpaste and other basics, and put the $20 back in my pocket for “fun”.

What I love about The Work, is if something feels and appears really, really true….and is really, really stressful…

….I can question it.

It’s that simple.

These stories and pictures flash through my head, and I can believe them, or question them.

I notice I like it much better when I question them. I love that I have that option in this lifetime. It’s an incredible option, and truly life-changing.

So let’s do The Work.

I thought the wrong way, did the wrong thing, acted selfishly with money….is that true?

Yes.

I should be completely free and “get” there’s no need to worry about money. I should pay attention and not be a flake with bills. I should be more clear, and generous, and relaxed. I shouldn’t complain. Jeez.

Can you absolutely know it’s true?

No. What’s the reality of it? I’m not always at ease when it comes to money. I make mistakes. I want to sneak spend on travel or education, when I think I should be saving. Sometimes I don’t want to share. I compare with others who did it “right” over many years and saved for retirement, which I did not.

No, I can’t know it’s absolutely true any of it should be different. It happened.

How do you react when you believe you screwed up, or you better be careful and watch out, or you shouldn’t spend or have a mortgage (which means “death” in French) or a Past Due notice?

I feel bad, bad, bad. Embarrassed. I imagine the way I would look if I was carefree and light and breezy and I think I should act like that.

I feel deeply apologetic.

So who would you be without this dreadfully stressful story of money and how bad I’ve been with it?

Wait.

You mean, NO THOUGHT of having been bad with money?

But that’s impossible. I have proof. (See above list, and that doesn’t include volumes of other examples I can surely find if I consider my entire life with money).

This is just a question, though. It’s wondering what it would feel like without believing in the absolute truth of this painful story?

This isn’t an invitation to enter the land of denial. It’s noticing who we’d be without the story entitled I Am Bad With Money, by Grace Bell. 

What if you were doing the best you could in every moment involving money? Would we do any less than the best we knew how, given the fear or trauma or confusion we’ve had about right, wrong, true, false, wounding, healing, enough, not enough?

Ahhhhhhh.

Without the story of money and me and all the angst of the past and the projection into the future….

….I’d relax. I’d be very present in this moment here, now.

I might even chuckle about the Past Due notice and how I received it a few hours after facilitating the money class today.

How nutty is that?

I’d notice I’m human. I’d notice how strange, and inexplicable and joyful and funny it is to be human.

I’d notice how comfortable I am, typing away here, drinking tea, looking at a whole bouquet of small orange roses from Valentine’s day still sitting in a vase of water on the table near me.

Turning the thoughts around:

I thought the right way, did the right thing, thought selfishly about my own mind (especially when it came to money). 

How could this be just as true? Well, when I believed money was required for happiness, fun and comfort, and that I couldn’t get enough of it or could lose what I already had….then my thinking matched this story of danger, worry and loss.

I did exactly the right thing that anyone would do who believed what I did about money. I sought protection, safety, rest. I was confused.

I should NOT be completely free with no need to worry about money. I should be a flake with bills. I should NOT be clear, and generous, and relaxed. I should complain. Jeez.

I could say so much about this turnaround. How terror, instead of pretending not to care about money, brought me to the deepest clarity I ever could have imagined. I finally asked for help. I questioned the worst case scenarios in my head. I got really open about my complaints. I stepped forward like I never knew I could to meet money. I started this powerful work in my life, with true sincerity.

Nothing made me do The Work like my relationship with money. Well, death, sickness and betrayal are up there near the very top, but the fear of not having enough money was stunning.

It showed me where I doubted the universe had my back, where I thought I was inadequate or undeserving, where I thought I needed to hold on for dear life or else I would suffer even MORE later on.

Who would you be without your story?

If money has given you it’s greatest support, being the way it is, what’s been great about the way it’s come and gone? What is it inviting forward in you?

What’s the BEST thing that could happen now, if everything that’s happened so far has been important to experience, for your own awakening?

Much love,

Grace

P.S. I made a new Peace Talk 135 the other day, and it’s right here on itunes.

P.P.S. you can substitute anything or anyone you feel a troubling relationship with into this inquiry: mother, father, sister, brother, partner, boss, co-worker.

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I have created a world where enemies are possible

Still some space in the May retreat for commuters only. We’re almost full, but if you’re considering, there’s still room. 26 CEUs for mental health professionals through Washington State Society for Clinical Social Work. May 11-14.

Breitenbush is starting to fill and this is one where the choice housing sells out fast (little gorgeous private cabins). Read about it HERE. Only one more month for early bird rate. (27 CEUs). June 21-25.

Being With Byron Katie July 8-11 on north Capitol Hill heart-of-Seattle private little home. 4 bedrooms, big kitchen, and simple large living room with excellent seating. Bedrooms available for those who wish to stay overnight (very low price compared to alternatives). Total silence for 4 days onsite, with two 3-hour sessions of streaming Byron Katie live to us from Switzerland. Only $185, probably the most inexpensive way possible to spend time with Byron Katie. 24 CEs for Certification Candidates in Institute for The Work. “The highlight of my entire year” ~ Summer 2016 participant.

******************

Do you see yourself as the victim of a circumstance or situation or an interaction with someone?

Even the teensiest tiniest bit?

Because I’ve found, when I feel this way even just a wee smidgeon, the mind will take off so fast on how that person, or reality and life itself, Done Me Wrong.

Seriously, did you hear what she said? Oh, and that’s nothing. One time a man I know hurt me by….And then there was the time I broke my leg, hurt my back, got yelled at….Oh and also she betrayed me, it was terrible.

The mind kicks in with a story (or now that you’re asking, 100 stories) and goes from zero to 260 miles per hour in 4 seconds flat on how terrible, awful, horrible it was and I’m still getting over it today. It sets records with stories of being a victim and that person doing you wrong.

At least, that’s how my mind has run.

It’s not easy. And it can be incredibly frightening.

You see how you were hurt. Maybe over and over again, like some kind of weird recording loop getting stuck and playing repeatedly. A haunted house.

We’ll say to ourselves DO NOT THINK ABOUT THAT…MOVE ON!!

But no.

It’s right here in my consciousness, in my psyche. I’m thinking about it when awake at night.

I’ve received a few emails and had some individual sessions lately with beautiful inquirers who were really, really afraid and have experienced some pretty intense trauma in the past.

Can you do The Work on these dreadful situations? But they’re so frightening! How could asking four questions handle that heart-wrenching experience?

The astonishing thing is….I’ve found The Work CAN handle these experiences.

I mean, what else really is the problem except my thinking about it?

Because the event, the person, the situation, the circumstance….

….is actually over right now, in this present moment.

If you have trouble even thinking about going back to the difficulty, the pain, the terror, the trauma….here’s one thought you can question right now:

“I can’t handle this!”

People come with this thought in the eating peace program about a moment of compulsion all the time, but really it arises for many in all kinds of situations.

I can’t handle this feeling, this memory, this awareness, this incident, this image, this experience. I seriously Can’t Handle It. Don’t make me!

So before we even start questioning the thoughts about who did it and what happened and what you believe about what happened, if you notice great fear rising up about even doing The Work on something….let’s do The Work on this first thought, OK?

You can’t handle it.

Is it true?

Yes. This ruins my whole day. I just want to be over it, and never think about it again. I’m making myself sick about this. I HATE this memory. I want it to turn OFF. PLEASE. I’m getting tortured here. I really can’t handle it!!!!!!!!!

(Lots of exclamation points).

But can you absolutely know this is true that you can’t handle it?

Look around.

Where are you?

Are you being held up by the ground, the floor, a chair, a bed perhaps? Are you breathing, even if you think you can’t breathe?

I can’t know it’s absolutely true. I notice I’m handling it, even if it barely feels like it. Even if I’m scared to death.

How do you react when you believe you can’t handle it?

Totally freaking out.

Body full of resistance and tightness. Resentful. Defensive. Anxious.

So who would you be without the belief you can’t handle this?

Here you are in this situation: human remembering a painful event. Full of feelings. Flooded. Paralyzed (you think). But entirely without the thought you can’t handle it.

I know it isn’t comfortable.

This isn’t the blissful experience of being without thought.

Notice what’s actually true, though. Even if you have a nervous breakdown (or you could call it a huge crack and shift of consciousness). What I notice is you CAN handle it.

You already ARE handling it. You HAVE handled it.

Here’s a way that’s worked for me, to be with this wondering of who you are without your belief you can’t handle it: imagine your left elbow or your pinkie finger, or your skin.

These parts of you as a living entity handled it. You weren’t running, or needing to control, or being the manager of your pinkie finger and whether or not it could handle it. Maybe you aren’t running your mind either, as it dives off the diving board into fear. It’s just being itself, trying to protect and make sense of something.

The same mind can answer questions….it LOVES questions. It loves getting simpler, and finding answers.

You CAN handle your feelings.

What if they are here to help out? What if they’re suggesting you have some brilliantly powerful work to do?

Turning it around:

It can’t handle me.

How could this be as true, or truer?

“We perceive something as an enemy, when all we need to do is be present with it. It’s just love arising in form that we haven’t understood yet. And questioning the mind allows beliefs to simply arise. The quiet mind realizes that no belief is true, it is immovable in that, so there’s no belief it can attach to. It’s comfortable with them all….Projection would have us see reality as a ‘them’ and a ‘me’, but reality is much kinder….If there’s anything I’m afraid of losing, I have created a world where enemies are possible, and in such a world there’s no way to understand that whatever I lose I am better off without.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy pg. 230

That thing I perceive as so traumatic? It can’t handle whatever this “me” is. This me is vast and expansive. This me is mind and thought, life force, presence, awareness. This me is consciousness, being human. Undefinable really. Mysterious.

The thoughts are puffs of smoke like those little exploding mushrooms in nature. Poof.

If I looked into a basket of my thoughts about that terrible trauma, I’d see air. Nothing. It’s all flashing images of a magnificent creative mind, re-member-ing. Attempting to tie things together, that aren’t actually together.

It’s OK that this mind tries to make sense. The mind itself is also not the enemy. It is a friend, bringing an offering, for inquiry.

It can’t handle you.

That’s truer.

Much love,
Grace

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You’re the one you’ve been waiting for….not the house, not the money

Moving….if it’s sad, do The Work and move peacefully on the inside as well as out.

Money telecourse 4 Mondays starting January 23rd, noon-1:30 pm Pacific Time. Read about it here. Anyone welcome.

Speaking of money.

Last week a lively group of inquirers gathered for the monthly Living Turnarounds private group here in my cottage.

As people did their work, wondering about these experiences with others, noticing the reactions, imagining who they’d be without their thoughts….

….I remembered situations of my own.

The moment a lover is leaving, an uncomfortable request from a sister, a son getting lost in drugs, a grandson triggering frustration, worrying about our kid’s school, arguing with our spouse.

And money….losing it, wanting it, trying to get it, feeling furious about it.

Money is the topic of this month in Year of Inquiry, and I’m also doing a 4 week by-donation telecourse on Mondays starting on January 23rd Noon-1:30 Pacific Time.

Because money, it seems, is a huge biggie source of stress, pain, suffering, worry and fret.

I’ve met people with almost unlimited quantities of money, people who make money in business or real estate, people who inherit money, people who have very little money, people who lost money, or a house, or possessions they deeply loved because not enough money, people who live practically without any money at all.

What I see in reality, is there isn’t a direct tie between happiness and money, and unhappiness and lack of money.

But I’ve really thought it was true, in the past, that my happiness depended on having “enough” money (with “enough” being a little foggy or hard to pin down).

A memory.

I’m in my old house (one of them, I’ve lived in quite a few). It’s a beautiful house. It’s quite possibly my favorite house, besides my childhood home, (and my current cute adorable cottage) that I’ve ever lived in.

It’s big, but not pretentious at all. Built in the 1960s and thoroughly updated from top to bottom. It’s elegant, tucked away with an astonishing 40 year old bamboo wall along a secluded deck, surrounded by old growth cedar trees beyond that. Too dark, some might say. But inside the layout is lovely, with skylights, a big master bedroom with a gorgeous wooden ceiling, two lovely additional bedrooms all looking into lush ferns and forest, a big full basement that can serve as an entire brightly lit apartment.

Large floor to ceiling windows fill the living room space, and the 1960s stone fireplace and mantle. All the doors and closets and windows are stunningly high quality.

I lost that home.

Here comes the thought again.

Like a splinter. All the memories race through. I remember feeling anxious about the monthly payment, worrying about the failed septic tank, fearing a future massively expensive sewer hook-up requirement, terrified of not being able to pay. It’s too much, it’s too much.

Thoughts racing back then, like “we would be better off with something more modest” and other more painful thoughts like “we don’t actually deserve this house”.

As if it shows we’re better off than we actually are. It’s too much, it’s too much.

Images of deciding, with then-husband, to sell it before we get stuck with a big bill. We will sell it and walk away and no longer be terrified of large expenses or big monthly mortgage payments. We’ll be relieved! It will be worth the pain!

Someone comes along who wants to buy this house, never even put it on the market, and things move quickly….

….“Wait. Nevermind! I didn’t mean it! We don’t really want to sell!” I want to cry. But I’m embarrassed to change my mind. I push through. I must be tough. It’s the “right” thing to do.

I didn’t lose it. I gave it away. I walked away from something wonderful, because I was too afraid.

Ugh. This is even MORE stressful.

I made a mistake.

Let’s do The Work!

Is it true, that I made a mistake in selling that beautiful house?

Yes, yes, yes. It was so amazing to find it. There were magical coincidences upon moving in. A car we bought turned out to be owned by a woman who grew up in that house, whose father built that house with his own hands. A famous local mountain climber.

Wow….we own his house? We didn’t even know it when we bought it! This is incredible! We are so lucky! What serendipity!

Pictures of the parties in that house move through my mind. The guests we invited to stay, the meetings–I was not ashamed to volunteer my house to have them in, the strangers we welcomed, the Christmas Eve annual breakfasts for tons of friends and family.

I made such a mistake. A horrible mistake. Surely that’s true?

Can I absolutely know this?

No.

I can’t know more than reality or God or all the mysterious forces involved. I can’t know it didn’t support the people who bought the house, my kids, the divorce in the future that happened only two years later, the collapse of everything that led to all that brought me to here where I am now.

How do I react when I believe “I made a mistake”.

It’s a crushing thought, when you believe it.

People believe they’ve lost relationships, family members, their country, money, jewelry, photos, precious mementos, jobs, houses, cars, reputations, their whole lives as they knew it….

….and they feel devastated.

I felt the flare up, after that very powerful afternoon when all the inquirers came over to do their precious work, as in my mind I remembered again that house.

Never will I get it back.

If only I had been more confident, more aware. If only I had had The Work at the time. I got the book Loving What Is when living in that house. Why couldn’t I have sat down and “done” The Work? Why did it seem too hard to follow? Too confusing and too complicated?

I feel desperate when I believe I made a mistake. Crushed by my own decisions. I did it. Responsible.

So who would I be without this vicious, difficult, despairing thought that I made a mistake? Without the belief I could have done it differently? Or that I want a do-over?

If I couldn’t have this story at all….what would it be like?

Without the thought that I made a mistake with money and gave up on staying in my own home?

I’d relax.

I’d settle down and let the silence of this moment hold me close.

I’d notice I have a cute little place to live, and that house I once lived in rarely comes to mind. I’d appreciate the visions and memories of being so young and agile, and willing to move about and walk away.

I’d enjoy that ultimately my desire is to be peaceful, and this life, like that house, is not “mine” in any permanent way.

I’d remember suddenly all the people I love, many of whom I had not seen in years, contributed to me getting back on my feet again only about 4-5 years later. I had solid evidence of the kindness of the world….and I would have missed this, without that previous experience.

I’d be aware of the incredible freedom of having very few things, of owning little, of starting one’s life all over again from scratch.

I’d remember, without the thought that I made a mistake, the moment quite a few years ago now, when I facilitated a lovely young woman who had lost her house she inherited and decorated with yellow curtains, and her pain and misery of self-inflicted anger. I’d remember how she came to me to question her deeply painful thought, and she helped me by honestly sharing her story.

Turning the thought around:

I did not make a mistake. I made a correction. “I” did not make any mistake. It was done for me, supporting me in an incredible adventure to self-inquiry and truth.

“Just keep on coming home to yourself. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.” ~ Byron Katie

I’m not waiting for a house to come back, or enough money, or the right job, or the perfect partner, or the great success story.

Only to question what I believe is true, when it hurts….

….and open up to a different world, without stories of loss and mistakes repeated over and over again like an alarm that won’t switch off.

Finally, my favorite and most astonishing part of all, when it comes to The Work. This other kind of turnaround:

I am willing to make the same kind of “mistake” again. To lose my house. To make what appears to be a “bad” decision. To think of myself as too small and unworthy. To choose to lower stress, remain out of debt, respect money, do what I think’s best even if I don’t know for sure, even if it means heartache.

Why not. It could happen. (Roseanne, Rosanna Danna).

But even more than being willing, how could I look forward to it!?!

Why is it a good thing I don’t live in that house now, and I made that correction which involved leaving it?

Sometimes, this takes some important concentration to begin. But here it comes, I can see the examples:

I don’t have to clean a big house, or vacuum all that carpet. There are no enormous expenses with a very tiny house like the one I live in now. When my kids are home, or family or friends are over, we’re all together in this little cottage, because there’s no other place to go. There was no suffering about who got that pretty house in the divorce. The people who moved in were thrilled.

Nothing changed in my location, I live so close by. It was very tucked away and isolated and dark, now I’m out in the bright open street facing south. Visitors to the old house had to park several blocks away and walk. I would have never lived here where I live now, and found this place where I can live all the rest of the days of my life into old lady age without ever moving or “downsizing” again.

I’ve had fabulous neighbors I would never have met.

I might have continued ever-thinking that houses are required for happiness.

Who would you be without your terribly painful thought that something or someone got away, and you lost it, or made the mistake that caused it to happen?

Perhaps feeling the abundance of what is permanent….which isn’t a thing or a person or a place or a condition. Excited for the taste of having nothing from this earth stay with me forever, which is where we’re all going eventually anyway.

Questioning that thought that I made a mistake, and lost something?

Priceless.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you notice a stressful thought or two or eight-hundred about money, join the 4 week money class.

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Do endings, loss and death mean…..it’s true?

Work With Grace
Who would you be without this sad, scary story?

Have you ever known someone close to you to become ill, get injured, or find out something devastating?

Yes, everyone’s had this kind of moment in life.

“Dad’s got cancer.”

I remember hearing these words from my mom.

A panic began to rise inside, instantly.

What does this mean? Wait…what? What kind? What happened? Why? What’s going to happen?

The mind is filled with pictures, imagination, possibilities, trying to grab information desperately.

A huge NO fills the body. No, I can’t take this. No, this can’t be happening. No.

When the “worst” thing happens, it’s shocking.

When my dad was receiving treatment for leukemia, which lasted about two years, he was sometimes very sick, sometimes better. He lived just about exactly the length of time they anticipated. The doctors knew so much about the disease, and trying all kinds of ways to make it go away. To fight it.

That was a long, long time ago in my life experience. I was in my twenties, living pretty close by to the big house I grew up in.

I didn’t have inquiry, but my mind had so many questions. Constant questions. Disturbed questions. Questions I had no answer for, couldn’t answer.

Many years later, when I discovered self-inquiry and The Work by reading Loving What Is, I thought….

….well, it’s good for feeling angry and upset with your neighbor (judge your neighbor, right?)….

….but I didn’t even imagine using The Work for situations of life and death.

But then, I was in a weekend workshop with Byron Katie, never having successfully “done” The Work after reading her book, and I recognized one of my greatest, deepest, terrifying, sad, frustrations in life was…..death.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had a very weird and troubled relationship with loss, change, things being temporary, endings.

The biggest ending of all being “death”. The biggest “neighbor” I wanted to judge was loss, death.

I had something, and now it’s gone. I have something, and I will lose it.

My health, my boyfriend, my wife, my kid, love, my life, my daughter, my house, my necklace, my guitar, my friend, my dad.

It was mine. I had it.

Now it’s lost. It’s gone. Or will be.

Forever.

This is hard for some people to think about. Well, I speak for myself.

It’s hard to look at these places that have been so painful. But oh so powerful for The Work.

Stay with me here, and let’s do it today.

As you see those things, places, times or people you lost….

Is it true you lost them?

Yes. All gone.

Are you absolutely sure? Do you know this in the most deep, absolute way?

Are you positive the energy, love, kindness is lost? Are you sure it’s gone, just because you can’t see it or touch it? Are you sure everything about it is completely 100% gone?

Do you need it to be present physically, in order to be happy?

Wow. No. Not really.

I should still have that person, that thing, that other situation.

Is this true?

Who would I be without these thoughts?

Who would I be without BELIEVING these thoughts?

I notice no thoughts hang around 24/7 without one single other thought coming in for a visit. There are seconds, moments, of other thoughts.

The day my father died, I am quite sure I drank water. I went to the bathroom.

Probably several times. I was capable of having that thought to get up and go. It appeared. I went. People brought food. I ate a little. I breathed. I spoke to my sisters and my mom. I stayed. I was there, holding my dad’s hand as he died.

Who would you be without the belief you lost her? You lost him? You lost it?

I’m not saying something profound didn’t happen. But I love how I like to write about my dad’s death, as I feel the tears sometimes still arise, “it was unbelievable.”

That’s what we say about profound moments, eyes-wide-open moments, present moments, astonishing moments.

Unbelievable.

Turning the thought around: I did not lose my father. I will never lose him.

I lost myself. I lost awareness.

I believed I couldn’t survive loss. I believed there was nothing here, remaining, with myself. I believed I had something, it was mine, and now it’s gone.

Who would you be without your story of losing?

“It’s your body–can you absolutely know that that’s true? That’s a very old concept. ‘This is mine. I say so’….It’s not yours. Just because you believe it doesn’t make it true. When you know that you’re not that, you can sit back and watch.” ~ Byron Katie in Who Would You Be Without Your Story 

Could this be also the case for my father? My house? My childhood? My earrings?

Not mine in the first place.

And not required for living, or loving, or happiness, I notice.

Today, can I find evidence for how I gained, how I received, how I lived….instead of the opposite customary sadness?

It doesn’t mean “trying” to be positive and fakey or plastic or thrilled about death or loss.

But I have discovered, with The Work, it’s miraculous to wonder who I would be without my stories of death and loss, and to find examples of joy, acceptance, receiving, kindness, even benefits for what has happened….

….and maybe even though I apparently lost….I also found.

Maybe all my thoughts about death and loss are….

….unbelievable.

Much love,

Grace

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Reading someone close your worksheet on THEM (gasp!)

honest
it may seem frightening….but telling the truth is easier.  Judge Your Neighbor, write it down, ask 4 questions, turn it around.

Best. People. Ever. Signing up for Year of Inquiry.

Yesterday, I spoke with someone asking about the partnering thing I mention we do. As in….you have a choice of zero partnering,casual partnering, or immersion partnering.

And what, pray tell, is “immersion partnering”?

This is what the inquirer wanted to know.

First of all, just in case you don’t know…..”partnering” means you are paired with someone else in Year of Inquiry (by moi) and you connect with that person to trade facilitation in The Work.

Actually, you can partner in The Work with anyone, any time. I worked with one lovely woman for 2 years, weekly, both of us facilitating one another through worksheet after worksheet, discovery upon discovery. It was a brilliant sharing of our lives, honestly, together.

One person facilitates, one person does The Work, then you switch roles.

I always have people connect for partnering in my programs, because you get to know each other so very, very well that way. You learn about your own process, you find acceptance for yourself as you reveal your judgments or hear someone else’s. It’s an awesome experience.

Except.

When what you’re hearing hurts, or feels scary. Or the person starts to bug you.

A flash back.

One of my sisters has attended the School for The Work. It’s why I went a few months later, after she reported such immense learning, and came back smiling from ear to ear.

But I don’t feel so close to her, even though we are two School graduates.

We had a major upset about ten years earlier, when I went to visit her across country (to the east coast) with my newborn baby and my then-husband.

Things didn’t go so well back then for that trip. We had a fantastic greeting on day one, enjoyable day two, but then something started going awry on day three, day four. I was irritable, couldn’t sleep well with a nursing baby. My sister had plans for us and I felt like it was impossible to keep to the schedule. My husband was uncomfortable on the futon. Disappointment. Fatigue. Not talking it through. Tension.

My then-husband, me and our baby caught a plane home early.

The whole relationship felt different. What was once super close, now felt immensely distant.

We didn’t speak for a long time. I avoided it. I felt awful. I felt tense. I was sad but didn’t know how to bring up the “problem” which got older and older as time passed.

Then we both within months, as I said, attended the School for The Work.

Ring, ring, ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s your sister. I’m wondering if we can break through what’s been going on for ten years between us, and talk about it.”

Hearts beating. This is scary. Intimacy.

“Agreed”.

We made arrangements to get together in person, for four hours,(I’m pretty sure I said I thought two would be fine) and write worksheets on each other that we would read out loud, and the other one would then facilitate.

Wow.

I thought about the upcoming meeting with nervousness and hope for days before it happened. I felt excited, and terrified. And I knew it was a good thing, at the deepest level.

Before my sister came over to my house, I wrote about three worksheets, noticing my urge to edit what I put there. I wasn’t so great at the time at staying in one situation. I included moments from childhood, I skipped to the time of the terrible visit (ten years in the past now). I chose not to swear, I felt too frightened anyway. I felt a weird mixture of wanting to be completely honest, but wanting to not go overboard or freak out or be enraged. No way.

Despite the carefulness, there was truth on that worksheet. Honest pain and hurt, and saying so.

Her worksheet on me was honest, too.

To get through this wild ride of exposing our inner thoughts about the other, we copied what we had seen Byron Katie do with people when they do The Work on each other up on stage. One person reads their worksheet, looks up, says “I am ____ with YOU, because _____”. The reader gets eye contact. The listener says “thank you.”

Yep. We did that.

I said “thank you” to my younger sister who said something on her worksheet like “I’m angry with you because you got the best of everything, first. I’m angry with you for being so mean to me when I was a kid. I’m angry with you for being so immature about communicating honestly”.

I don’t remember what she said, exactly, but it stung. And it was true….that’s what I remember.

She was right.

We spent four hours facilitating each other, back and forth. It was one of the most intimate, frightening, wonderful, painful experiences I’ve ever had.

Now that’s some serious partnering.

Immersion partnering, has a few tones that are similar.

The people electing to partner with this kind of depth get to capture their judgments about the facilitation and partnering process they’ve just experienced, on paper.

This can be any petty judgments about being asked questions or the way the process unfolded, or the cadence of someone’s voice as they facilitate. These are the kinds of things we grow up being told to NEVER under ANY circumstance say out loud. The little criticisms saying “I don’t like this”.

Since the two partners are usually not family members or close friends (before Year Of Inquiry that is….after YOI they sure might be)….the concepts captured on a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet may seem much less intense than the ones I wrote about my sister, or she wrote about me.

And yet….the same concerns exist between people who don’t know each other well as for people who know and love each other very deeply.

Can I speak what’s true, and not be cut off from love? Can I be honest and safe?

I’m here to say…..yes.

In fact, speaking what’s true for you, even when you’re terrified, can bring you closer to love, and safer than you ever imagined. That’s the funny part.

It can bring you closer to yourself.

No one in Year of Inquiry has to do this immersion level partnering, and anyone can opt-out any time, for periods when they’re away, or need a break, or have lots happening in their lives.

People are free to opt for Zero Partnering. This works, too. You simply want to be facilitated, and find your own answers, and pairing up with others is a bit much for now–you have some deep work to do.

Casual level partnering is the kind I did over two years with the amazing woman I connected with weekly. You bring your Judge Your Neighbor worksheet to the session, you choose how long you’re meeting, and you each get a turn facilitating and being facilitated on a difficult situation in your life. You can do this once a month, or four times a month, it doesn’t matter.

What I like about the people in Year of Inquiry is they test out the waters and try on what’s right for themselves, and they are in all walks of life and all places of experience with The Work.

We’re supporting and moving in this journey together, questioning the stressed out mind and the perspective that sees the water glass as half empty, rather than half full.

No “right” or “wrong” with how we’re doing it. Ever.

And you know what?

I am sooooo very close to that same sister I did The Work with. It’s absolutely awesome. I can trust her to be honest. There’s no wondering what she’s thinking. She shows up. I admire her so much. I feel happy in her presence.

There are still 8 days until Orientation for Year of Inquiry on September 1st. Three more spots make the ideal full YOI. Is one of them yours?

“We’re all children when we believe unquestioned, nursery-school thoughts. ‘He doesn’t like me.’ ‘He’s a bad person.’ ‘It’s not fair.’ ‘I need to be punished.’ ‘ I’ll cry to get what I want.’ ‘I’m a victim.’ ‘You are my problem.’….Have you graduated yet?” ~ Byron Katie in I Need Your Love–Is That True?

Year of Inquiry: a profound commitment

“Doing YOI, I have found it much easier to do the work with other people. I’ve done it enough that it is just in me so I think about it a lot throughout my day. However, that is vastly different than consciously setting a time to do the work. I found this to be more solidifying of the work within me than I realized it would be. It was as though I was out of practice and this got me back into it in a big way. Perhaps something like an athlete that has been out of practice for a while then gets back into it. The strongest part was the action of me making a commitment to do this for an entire year. There was something very profound in that. Having the fellowship of everybody else was very strong for me as well….Much love to you.” (YOI participant 2014) 

Much love, Grace

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Every Loss Has To Be A Gain

When a beloved furry pet dies, it can feel very sad.

Several people have written me lately about their animal friends dying, and feeling grief, depression, regret.

I haven’t had a pet as an adult…but I understand the welling up of tears and all the thoughts that start to churn that may turn out to feel stressful.

  • I miss him
  • I should have done more with her
  • If only I had known that was his last day
  • her life was too short
  • I could have done better

Funny how when something is “lost” and the life of that animal, or person even, is over….we sometimes want to reach back and grab for more.

More time, more cuddles, more conversations, more intimacy.

A dear inquirer who recently lost a little cat noticed thoughts of guilt entering her mind….

….if I had known she was going to die, I would have let her eat more food and enjoy more pleasures, not been so strict.

Let’s take a look at this difficult thought that can appear with loss of someone you love, whether a pet or a person.

I could have done better. 

Is that true?

Are you sure?

Because you only knew what you knew, in that previous moment. You know a little more now, here in this moment. What if you weren’t supposed to know it back then?

The mind may argue….“but I DID kind of know. I should have paid attention, I should have followed my intuition, I knew I could do better, I could have been more clear, honest, aware, trusting, astute, kind…”

Are you really sure you could have done better? Are you 100% positive that you should have known what you didn’t know, or decided what you didn’t decide?

Many years ago, I became pregnant, and after terrible agonizing, had an abortion.

When asked later in life what I believed to be the absolute worst thing I had ever done, the thing I felt most guilt about…..it was that.

I had never known prior to that experience what post-traumatic stress syndrome might be like. I was beside myself with grief and regret. I was sick for days. It stayed with me for a decade. I was shocked by my own dreadful thoughts towards myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for years.

One of the first Byron Katie events I ever went to, a woman stood up and said it out loud. She regretted having an abortion.

I still felt so much shame, I couldn’t believe this woman told the same story, publicly, holding a microphone!

But as Katie asked her to question her beliefs, to do The Work, something shifted inside about this thing called “regret”.

In the dictionary, regret is defined as the sorrow about the loss of opportunity.

Ah, there’s the rub.

The image of the future or past (which is actually false and does not exist) where opportunity lives, or used to live.

Now, not only is this life lost, but this imagined and vivid alternate opportunity. The one where the person or animal I care about is alive, or happy.

Over and over again, in the distant past, I imagined the birthdate, the gender, the life of this child that never was.

Deep torture.

Who would I be without that thought, that I could have done better?

“You can’t let go of a stressful thought, 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.” ~ Byron Katie

Imagine who you would be without the belief that you could have done better. Because it’s possible that what you’re thinking NOW is imagination, too.

Without that thought?

Freedom, acceptance for this self that is beyond knowing. Peace far, far past all the stuff I think.

A great feeling of everything being exceptionally well and very strange and mysterious.

I turn the thought around: I could not have done any better. I did the best I possibly could.  

How could that be truer?

I can find how that experience drew me into such suffering that the equal and opposite breaking-free became possible. I contemplated short lives, and noticed that every length of life you could ever imagine happens here on planet earth….from a few hours to over 100 years.

I don’t have three children to take care of, I can focus on two.

“Clinging creates the bricks and mortar with which we build a conceptual self.” ~ Michael Singer 

I gave that entity a gift of very little agonizing and suffering, and a return to a place without bodies…somewhere I’ll be again one day.

My life has been filled with so much, this life has not been empty because another life “left” it.

“Every loss has to be a gain, unless the loss is being judged by a confused mind….The simple truth of it is that what happens is the best thing that can happen.” ~ Byron Katie 

What is the gain, in your life?

Much love, Grace

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Disaster Creates A Hole God Shines Through

Have you ever had an incident where something of yours was stolen, vanished, taken, or moved….and you became very upset?

All of us have experienced something like this, of course, and often at a very young age.

We’re playing with a fun toy that we love, we have something special that we keep in a secret hidey place, and one day, its gone.

Or another kid (or sibling) comes along and grabs it! Right out of our hand!

The childhood memories often seem unimportant, or forgotten.

And yet, if someone comes along and takes something you believe is yours, right now, as an adult…

….you may notice the same kind of reaction on the inside as when you were a kid.

Panic! Anger! Where’s my thing?!

This is TERRIBLE! I will never find another thing like that one! It was soooo hard to get that thing! That thing cost a lot of money!

It’s *M*I*N*E* !!!

The other day I returned to my little toyota that had been parked on a city street for about five hours, and as I approached, I saw that there was a bunch of stuff on top of the roof.

Hmmm, kinda strange.

Oh look, it was MY stuff, from the inside of my car! Papers, sunglasses, umbrella, mug.

In fact, someone had ransacked the car, every cubby and glove compartment and CD case all torn open, thrown around, strewn over the back seat.

My gym bag was gone. My cool nike shoes!

Nothing was worth much.

EXCEPT THOSE SHOES! ARRGGGGHHH!

But it was almost like the images, the wondering about who was here, who did this, what they were thinking, and where my stuff was NOW would appear as an idea to follow….and then it would sort of fizzle out.

Oddly, within seconds of registering that the shoes were gone, I thought, oh, I’ve been wanting new ones.

But what if I had something really valuable in my car? A new purchase left on the seat? A secret envelope with money?

As I put things back where they were before, I thought about Byron Katie and one of her stories about returning to her home after traveling and finding everything completely gone.

Only mattresses left.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas to the highest level!

I’ve been wronged! Disrespected! Attacked! Violated!

The stress rises, the worry, the images, the anger. But instead of riding that very upset horse into the sunset and screaming at the thief, wanting revenge…let’s start questioning.

Let’s see what happens, as we investigate.

Is it true that you have been wronged, violated? Do you really need those things that were once here, which are now somewhere else, apparently?

YES! Of course I need them! Can’t you see what I can’t now do, without those things?! This is BAD. This is serious!

Are you sure?

YES! That piece of jewelry was in my family for three generations! That computer cost me a ton of money! I can’t replace that car! 

I find that when I think about losing things that I value highly, I don’t really, really know that it’s true that the situation is dire, that I can’t go on, or that I can’t live without those things.

I do not know that it is true that this is 100% terrible!

How I react when I believe someone took my stuff and I need it?

Frightened! It could happen again! Angry! I am a victim! Pain, stress, tense!

Who would I be if I didn’t believe at this core, deep level that I have been violated? That I can’t go on, or that this is truly horrible, un-fixable, irreplaceable, impossible?

For me, I see that everything is temporary, when I don’t believe these thoughts.

I see that I am breathing, comfortable, even excited, connected with others….the world is actually full of stuff. Things are all around me, new items entering my life, old items leaving.

Everything changes form. Everything. 

I begin to see evidence of the turnarounds being truer than my thought that this is bad, hard, terrible, wrong.

Perhaps from this (I can see the excitement arising already) comes good, easy, wonderful, right.

Not denial (I still file the police report).

Not passive. Not at all.

Alive, thrilled, happy, creative energy.

“Every disaster, whether on a personal level or on a collective level, it looks dreadful….Often, disaster means that forms dissolve….it’s as if a hole were opening up in the fabric of existence….it’s painful, but that is the hole where God shines through.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Even to stop and rest in this a moment, to entertain this possibility that all is ultimately well, that something good can come from this thing that looks like loss….

….you do not have to clap your hands for joy, only open to the idea that loss happens, and so does gain. Always.

Love, Grace

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He Is Dead–Are You Sure?

Recently I found out one of my favorite spiritual teacher guys, the brilliant Dr. David R. Hawkins, died about six weeks ago. He was very old. He lived a very long human life.

Last year I said to myself  “he is really very old…I ought to go to Arizona and have a day retreat with him when he offers one. It could be the last one soon”.

That was true.

The interesting thing that happens when someone wonderful dies and you don’t know them very well, not really, is that some of the stressful thoughts that rise up around death are softer, quieter, sort of slower.

Not the agony experienced, the grief, when someone really close and important dies.

When I learned of the not-so-surprising news of this teacher who made a difference for me and who was quite fascinating, it was like there was sediment on the bottom of a clear lake and it got stirred up a little.

Too late now, I missed out, I need to re-read his books, I need to ‘get’ his teachings better, I wonder what it will be like to be 85 and lived all those years, I should have gone to Sedona (never been), I wonder if his family misses him…like a sadness, a little ache in my heart, my throat. Something missed, something gone now.

When I first encountered the Work, one of the first people I ever talked with about it was one of my sisters. She had gone to the School. She said that while there, not only did she ponder the death of our father fairly young from leukemia, in a way she never had, but also there were others who brought death to the conversation.

Death. One of the things that confounds us the most in this world. What is going to happen? What does it mean? Is it true?

What an amazing question, to ask if it’s really true that the person you know has died? I mean 100% end-of-story died!?

When I ask “is it true, that my father died?” then I realize I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on, in fact.

He was in a body. He was born a baby, grew up, became an adult, got married, had four daughters…and that same body which changed and had an impact and offered and created and lived, stopped doing it in the same way.

But the body was still made of matter, and that material carried on in many various ways into little molecules and atoms and moved on into other formations.

One big mystery. That entity that was my father is now morphed into something undefinable but not actually entirely DEAD. As in non-existent.

And then there are all the memories of my father as well. Those images are big, sweet, sad, stormy, loving, kind, vivid. I remember him so well that I could have a conversation with him. I could actually sit in a chair opposite him in my mind and have a talk, ask him a question and probably have an answer.

That doesn’t seem entirely “dead” to me.

In fact there are so many images and memories and feelings that something is alive. Very alive.

Who would I be without the thought that my father, or anyone, should still be alive in that body they were inhabiting? Who would I be without the thought that it’s very sad that he is gone?

Who would I be without the thought that he is dead?

I’d see the people who look like my father when I do a double-take and stare…I would see them on the street, driving cars, taking walks, chatting with their friends in coffee shops…and I would smile with joy in this sensation that my father is present.

I would say “hi dad”.

I would remember him, re-member, like putting him back together so instantly, I don’t even have to try. He is just there, alive in my mind.

Instead of moving with unbelievable speed to the sadness or the missing him or the idea of what could have been if he had lived longer in that particular formation…. I could turn to myself right here, in the present.

I could notice, just like everyone can, that this moment of remembering him is filled with love.

“The old song asks, ‘Why do fools fall in love?’ Actually, only fools DON’T fall in love. Only a fool would believe the lonely, stressful thoughts that tell him that anything could separate him from another human being, or from the rest of the human race, or from birds trees, pavement, and sky.” ~ Byron Katie, in I Need Your Love, Is It True

Love, Grace

*This workshop is FULL* Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm. Stay tuned for a future one-day event again in March 2013!

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.

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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Being Willing To Lose Everything

When I was separated from my former husband 7 years ago, I had a lot of “work” to do. The Work! I had so many terrifying thoughts rise out of me, I didn’t even know they had been there.

It was within that time of separation that not only was all my money leaving my bank account to pay for food and shelter, I also got a cancer tumor on my leg, and I lost my job.

Sometimes the panic would feel like I was stepping out of a space ship….into black, empty, endless space, miles from any human person, waiting for the oxygen tank to run out of batteries.

The strange thing is that with The Work, I could see that I was having a nightmarish hurricane of beliefs. Part of me could actually see that what I believed was effecting everything. Even though I felt terror, I knew there was another side to this story. I knew to do The Work, with no expectation of any outcome.

I knew it was possible to have all these things exist and STILL BE AT PEACE; cancer, job loss, money almost gone, losing my house, losing my possessions.

One of my greatest terrors was of having no money left, of losing my house. This was very possible.

I did The Work on being Sure it would Awful to lose everything, including my house.

I began to find evidence for how if this happened, it would not be all bad. I found genuine examples of how losing my house and money would bring beauty, adventure, love, connection. I saw how I did not need my house. I did not need money.

What I did not know yet, was that as I sat still and became willing to find examples of the turnarounds to my painful thinking, life would reveal the evidence of a friendly universe that was beyond friendly…that there would be turnarounds that were ones I couldn’t have imagined.

So there I was on a cold dark January and I saw my bank account had something like $16 dollars left. Enough for a few groceries today and putting a little gas into my gas tank. And I had a bill for the January mortgage to my house that said I owed $2,300 dollars on January 15th.

I had already borrowed money from my sister and used my credit card to pay the past three months of mortgage payments. I was going into debt now. I had visions of being on the Titanic. This was going down.

All I knew to do was The Work. And be genuine. Talk with people. Call people up. Speak up, continue to ask people about jobs they knew about, continue to tell people in my life the truth, and then let go with acceptance.

I really knew I would be safe. I really knew that if I started the foreclosure process, then I would be OK and I would move out into my mother’s house and then Something Else would happen. This was about loving myself. This was about experiencing peace and happiness…..no matter what.

On January 14th I went to my dance class, where I was trading my entrance fee for sweeping the floors and helping with clean up. I knew that dancing made me very happy, and being with community was joyful and loving. I knew to go, to put it simply.

At the end of the evening, someone said “We have something for Grace”. We gathered in our usual big circle to share and close the dance. I was presented with an envelope and took it, mystified. It was very close to my birthday, was this a gift?

I opened the envelope and saw bills and bills, $100s and $20s and $1s and $10s. There was enough money to pay my mortgage that was due the next day, and pay for my light and heat until the end of the month.

This was a donation to help me pay for another month of expenses, when I had nothing left.

My heart burst open and I cried and could not speak, and I saw this was a turnaround beyond any one I could have imagined.

“I can’t do it” had been my belief. I can’t get the money, I can’t make it with the expenses I have, I can’t manage to pay for my house, I am losing everything, I am starting foreclosure….

These thoughts had become “I don’t need to be the one to do it!” I can receive the money, I can make it (with or without a house or money), I can manage to pay for my house, I am not losing anything…

And now here was the most amazing example of a turnaround. My heart soared as I felt the gratitude and appreciation. I did my part, I did The Work, I looked at my own fears, and I let go, willing to lose my house and everything.

“You may be afraid to go deeper into The Work because you think that it’s going to cost you something valuable. My experience is the opposite: without a story, life only gets richer…..I’m free to walk in the world without fear….with arms and heart wide open.” ~ Byron Katie

With love and gratitude, Grace