Tag: meditation

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Leaving Everything You Know Behind

This morning I was reading letters and responses that people have written to an author named “Sugar” which were printed in a magazine called The Sun. One of my favorite magazines of all time. Well, the only magazine I’ve ever continuously received and read each month for many years.

Someone had written to this woman named Sugar wondering if it was OK to NOT be speaking to her dad. This woman had HAD IT with her father.

Most of us have had the experience of wanting to shut down communication with someone else when we disagree or argue with them, or feel very hurt by them, or just too scared of them. It just seems like too much, too hard, too stress-producing, too uncomfortable, too painful.

I myself have had this experience, not so long ago even.

There is no right or wrong way to be around stopping talk with someone, of course, each experience is unique. But I liked how Sugar answered this writer. Sugar said “I will tell you about my own situation with my own father” and she told that story.

The story went like this: father gets mad, daughter gets hurt, daughter gets mad, no communication for many years, daughter reaches out, father gets mad, no communication again for years, father reaches out, daughter gets hurt, father gets mad, no communication again.

As I read the story, I realized that I expected the daughter and father to reconcile, to talk, to fall into each others’ arms at the end.

But it didn’t go that way. It doesn’t always go the way we like. Sometimes people need, apparently, to not communicate with each other. I’ve been the one myself to say I need a break, I can’t do this, I need to be quiet for awhile.

Doing The Work is like laying every idea I have down about what would be MY idea of a good outcome. It is seeing who I would be without my stories. It is leaving everything I know behind. It is opening to the wide sky, the vast earth, the limitless mind.

One of my favorite recordings, that I listen to every few months, is the haunting and beautiful poetry by David Whyte. A dear friend sent this one to me again recently, so I knew it was time to hear it once more.

Communication, silence, waiting, re-connecting, silence. Who knows how it will unfold, but it is all Love in the end. All of it.

In this high place

it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,

pray the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands

will stare into the lake astonished,
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow,

the true shape of your own face.

David Whyte Tilicho Lake

Much Love,

Grace

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More! Less! Now!

The Tao Te Ching from 64 “…the Master takes action by letting things take their course. He remains as calm at the end as at the beginning. He has nothing, thus has nothing to lose…”

But I want “this” to be faster, bigger and more! Like my business, my bank account, my bicep muscles, my dance moves, my wedding, my children.

And I want other things to be slower, smaller and less! Like the flu, cancer, my neighbor’s noise, bills, natural disasters, problems, my journey to death.

I have found that questioning these concepts one by one, page after page of concepts I’ve written down, I find it pretty amusing the way my mind is so interested in piping up around what there should be more of and less of in my world.

Letting things take their course is revolutionary to this voice that loves to evaluate and diagnose everything it sees.

But wow, is it worth it.

One thought I had recently was that I should have more money. I chuckle to think of this thought right now….but if someone knocked on my door within the next five minutes and said “would you like some more money?” I would probably say yes. If there was no catch.

How amazing, though, to really ask myself, is it true that I want more?

I ask this in my teleclass on Money, Work and Business…and it’s an exercise I’ve heard variations on before in studying money and our beliefs about it: What do I really want more money for? I mean really? Security? Peace? Freedom? Joy? Power?

What do I want more of anything for? Or less of something for? And if I want it to be bigger or smaller than it actually is, if I’m not relaxing and letting things take their course, all I get is the Not Relaxing part.

It turns out things always take their course. I don’t get a vote.

This does not mean I have no importance, I have no influence, that all is random chaos and it’s terrible, meaningless.

In fact, when I find who I am without the thought that I need something to be MORE or something to be LESS, for anything to run a different course than it’s running, at first I catch a glimpse of excitement.

If I let myself really see who I’d be without the thought that I want more money, all afternoon, all the next day, and let my mind work with this idea, this imagination, this picture…

I see how all I really thought I wanted that money would give me is either already here, or perhaps impossible. I don’t have to go “get” it. There is no security that can be guaranteed by money, there is no peace that money brings, or freedom, or joy. I cannot keep it or pin it down. I have no control over it. Money does nothing, is nothing but a story. I can’t even keep it, if I had it I would put it out there again. It comes, it goes…it runs its own course.

What is here, is peace, joy, silence, love, security, freedom, a great hum of unknown. Just here, with me listening. Can you hear it today?

“The master has nothing, thus has nothing to lose.”

Much Love, Grace

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Sneaky Little Rascally Mind

The mind can be so tricky, slippery, sneaky! That rascal!

I thought this today as I remembered Cheri Huber’s quote “you cannot be non-violent if there is any part of yourself that you are in opposition to”.

Then the thought comes in “oh boy, I have a bit of work to do still, I notice I am not perfectly THERE all the time, all self-accepting and non-oppositional”.

This sneaky little thought is actually an opposition in itself. I need to change, to adjust, to fix something. I need to be just a wee wee bit more purely non-oppositional.

How very, very strange it is for the human mind to consider having nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to change, nothing to say, no new way to be.

I can hear the thoughts getting nervous right now, like a hen house at night when there’s a fox creeping around. What would become of us! We’d all go to hell in a hand basket! Life would be meaningless! Nothing to do? Nothing to fix? No! Impossible!!! Cluck Cluck Cluck!!

  • If I stop trying to improve my business, I’ll sit around all day watching Puppetiji on youtube
  • If I let go of protecting myself or I don’t set good boundaries, I’ll get hurt
  • If I really don’t think I need to do anything, I’ll be worthless this lifetime
  • If I let go of all control, I won’t have a schedule to follow
  • If I don’t oppose my fat butt, then I’ll never exercise
  • If I don’t oppose the dandelions in my yard, I won’t pull them up
  • If I don’t feel like going to work (that boring job) then I’ll lie on the couch all day and eventually, I’ll starve to death (which is bad)
  • If I don’t oppose those wealthy people, they’ll take over even more and I’ll never get what I want

This effort to control things, to control yourself, takes a lot of energy. And it believes underneath it all that you can make a mistake, other people can make mistakes, and very bad things can happen unless you get a handle on yourself!!

Cheri Huber writes “Pay attention. Self-hate is slippery. It will even say things to you like, ‘you shouldn’t believe the voices of self-hate. If you are still believing them, there really IS something wrong with you!”

We believe that if we exert enough control and stay “good” people then we’ll have a good life. If we have a bad life, then we must be doing something wrong.

What if we really let go of control…even in our thinking, and found that life moves and ebbs and flows and creates without our personal control or lack of it.

What if we opposed nothing and let go?

Katie says, if you put your hand into a fire, do you have to decide to move it? No. When your hand starts to burn, it moves.

Maybe we don’t have to dictate to ourselves how we’re going to behave today, what we’re going to say or do, or plan. We will sense easily how to be, and our nature is very loving. It doesn’t want to get burned.

What if it’s possible that what lies beneath your opposition is a life force stronger than you could imagine? What if you won’t lie there like a log if you let go of all control and planning?

Katie writes in Loving What Is “people new to the Work often say to me, ‘but it would be disempowering to stop my argument with reality. If I simple accept reality, I’ll become passive. I may even lose the desire to act’. I answer them with a question: Can you really know that that’s true?

Much Love, Grace

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I Can’t Stand It!

One of my favorite thoughts to question is “I can’t stand it!!!”

It’s one of those simple, short, instant thoughts that comes to my mind if I really don’t like something that’s happening or something someone is saying.

Can you feel the sensations in your body that match the idea of not being able to stand it (whatever it is)? Tension, frustration, agony, fear!

A place that I’ve had this thought before is when I’ve had very little sleep and I’ve been awake many hours, and maybe I see that I’m probably going to be awake many more hours still….the thought comes in “I can’t stand it, I have to sleep!”

But if that were really true, I’d fall down right there, wherever I was, and start sleeping.

It turns out I always “make it” through the day. So far in life, I’ve always stood it, I’m still here.

Let’s take a harder circumstance. I was reading Byron Katie’s book this morning Who Would You Be Without Your Story? and there is a woman whose husband had left her to go be with another woman. The woman believed “I can’t stand it”.

I remember when I was waiting in the doctor’s office after getting a biopsy of a funny mole on my thigh. The doctor had checked the stitches from the biopsy and then said “why don’t you get dressed and then I’ll come back and we can talk about this”.

Suddenly, this wasn’t going the way most other doctor’s appointments went. We’re going to TALK about this? My mind was off like the race horses! Before knowing anything! Adrenaline, alertness, anticipation, intuition.

And, I also had The Work. I watched my mind within 10 minutes only, before the doctor even returned, question the belief “I can’t stand it, if it’s cancer”. It was cancer.

Katie writes “You believe you can’t stand it because you haven’t inquired. You haven’t enlightened yourself about how the mind works. So you have to live out I CAN’T STAND IT’. “

A friend who loves doing The Work emailed me a new title of a book he’s reading “The Guru Next Door” by Wendy Dolber. I live across the street from a bookstore (my personal addiction….we’ll talk about that later) so I’ll be looking for it today.

In the book is a list Wendy calls The Seven Understands of All Unhappiness. One of them is so simple:

“Believing something causes unhappiness is the very reason it seems to “cause” unhappiness”.

When I think about the things I can’t stand, I am CERTAIN that they cause unhappiness. Duh! Lack of sleep, lack of money, the cancer thingy on my leg, running out of gas in my car, not enough time, getting the flu, people dying, war, earthquakes.

Do these experiences REALLY cause unhappiness? What if they don’t? Almost hard to imagine, right?

But that’s what The Work brings. Even if it’s just the possibility that what I’m believing isn’t actually 100% true, and peace is possible, even in this “difficult” experience.

What if I CAN stand it? What if my life goes on? Or even if it doesn’t? Am I sure I couldn’t stand THAT? 

So I watched what happened with the thing called cancer on my leg. I cried on the surgeon’s table as I was being wheeled in, but it was like my tears were not 100% serious. I thought about Jesus when he knew what was about to happen with the whole crucifixion situation and he said “God, do I HAVE to? Are you sure I can stand it?”

Now there’s just a big 3 inch scar on my leg where there was once 45 stitches. I like to say I got in a sword fight with a pirate. What if having a cancer tumor cut out of your thigh is just as exciting as getting stabbed by a pirate? It’s a pretty good story. The key word being ‘STORY’.

“We’re using mind to enlighten mind, because there isn’t anything else….When we realize that it’s our own mind that is causing our suffering, then The Work begins, then the fun begins. It’s living in a whole other polarity, a whole other realm. And what I love about it is we no longer believe that the world is causing our suffering, that it CAN cause our suffering. It can’t not ever—no chance of it.”—Byron Katie

Much Love, Grace

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Grateful For The Ones Who Hurt Me

Do you ever say to yourself “If it weren’t for those mean, nasty, rude, bossy, critical, judgmental, fuming, volatile, emotional, crazy people that have been in my life, I would be having a GREAT TIME here on planet earth!!!”

Have you ever noticed how this sentiment enters…sometimes in such a subtle, quiet way?

If only those people would not have hurt me, bothered me, influenced me, attacked me…I would be OK.

If only that person hadn’t cut me off in traffic, if only that store clerk had been more cheerful, if only that ticket vendor had been faster….I would be better off than I am right now.

Walt Whitman wrote  “Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?

Today as I do the Work and remember the people I’ve done the Work on I become aware that these moments of great feeling, even when full of stress and sadness and anger, have been some of the most important interactions of my life.

One of my favorite poems I share with you today:

Suppose that what you fear

Could be trapped,

And held in Paris.

Then you would have

The courage to go

Everywhere in the world.

All the directions of the compass

Open to you, except the degrees east or west

Of true north

That lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare

Put your toes

Smack dab on the city limit line.

You’re not really willing

To stand on a mountainside

Miles away.

And watch the Paris lights

Come up at night.

Just to be on the safe side,

You decide to stay completely

Out of France.

But then danger

Seems too close

Even to those boundaries

And you feel

The timid part of you

Covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend

Who learns your secret and says

“See Paris first.”

—M. Truman Cooper

Suppose the greatest friends we have are the ones who have pushed us to enter Paris, helped us get there faster perhaps, didn’t even have to know our secret.

The Universe will give you exactly what you need to face your fears, to discover yourself, including all those people who were not apparently loving and kind.

Thank you grandpa, co-worker, boss from 20 years ago, dying father, eating disorder, former husband, alcohol, absence of all money, cancer, tobacco, car accident, suicide of friend, drunk friend, porn addict man, enraged man, the person who stole my luggage…..

Much Love, Grace

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Never-Ending Stressful Thoughts

Doing The Work on the SAME THING over and over again,even if small, can sometimes feel discouraging.

I’ve worked with two lovely clients in the past week both of whom said: “I have looked at this over and over again, I have done The Work so many times on this same topic…..and nothing has changed!”

Some situations seem impossible. It seems like the stressful thoughts keep coming, the images, the memories, the trauma, the pain. “I have always been like this”.

I once had a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet that I had filled out on a person I was so angry with I felt like my head would explode. I almost couldn’t write what I needed or wanted, what should happen now, what shouldn’t have happened because I just wanted to scream “I hate him!”

But I had nowhere else to go. I had only me, and my painful thoughts, in the room. Drinking, smoking, eating, running, complaining, gossiping…these did not appear to work any more. If they did, I would still be doing them. I am not that spiritual and I have no control over any of it.

So I questioned every belief on that worksheet. I felt a little shift, and some insights, some little light bulbs lighting up (the size of those itty-bitty night light bulbs). But nothing BIG. Nothing dramatic or life-changing. The phone didn’t ring with the other person on the line apologizing for all their terrible mistakes, I didn’t feel happy.

But I did feel relief, and sort of empty. I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew before doing The Work.

Two weeks later I was writing the same worksheet. There were probably some of the same sentences written on it, at least it felt like it. I did the Work again. I was curious, there were some interesting moments in my thinking where I could answer the simple questions and find something different there.

Three weeks later, I was writing the same worksheet. That horrible person was at it again. I would just think of that person and feel fury! And great despair. I did the Work again. That time I felt light for a moment and went on to something else.

Then I had the privilege to be at an event with Katie herself and I raised my hand. I really needed to get to the bottom of this so I wasn’t enraged anymore. I didn’t want to think about this person for one more minute, I wanted them OUT of my mind.

“Katie, I am doing the same worksheet over and over on someone and my anger is NOT going AWAY.”

Katie said “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? You are.”

It felt like the lid was taken off the over-blown air mattress and all the air was swishing out with a big hiss. I was aware in that moment of how I had a motive to become UN-ANGRY. I didn’t hate that person, I hated my own anger. I hated my own emotions, my own thoughts. I hated my own way of relating to this person.

I was in resistance, in WAR. I was doing The Work with the strategy of making a chess move in order to WIN and skip down the road afterwards.

Deepak Chopra says “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return.” 

I find that sitting with the most excruciating feelings and emotions; despair, rage, grief, terror….and starting to write, there is a way through the forest.

One of my most favorite spiritual teachers, Adyashanti, writes “Freedom is never freedom “from.”  If it’s freedom “from” anything, it’s not freedom at all.  It’s freedom “to.”  Are you free enough to be afraid?  Are you free enough to feel insecure?  Are you free enough not to know?  Are you free enough to know that you can’t know?  Are you free enough to be totally comfortable, to know that you can’t know what’s around the next corner?  How you will feel about it?  How you will respond to it?  That you literally can’t know?  Are you free enough to be totally at ease and comfort with the way things actually are?  That’s freedom.  The other thing is the ego’s idea of freedom.” 

I remember that person I did worksheets on once and I feel choked up with gratitude. That’s the kind of thing that happens with even stubborn people like me do The Work even when it seems like again and again the same topic. The War is over.

Much Love, Grace

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Questioning The Pain Of Losing Someone

A wonderful friend of mine who loves to do The Work kids around about the fact that he has an old shirt that he uses as a rag to cry into when doing his inquiry. Kleenexes are just too small!

And boy, we sure needed some old shirts today to cry into during the Relationship class.

Our topic was Loss and our assignment was to imagine losing something or someone very precious to us, very important, that we couldn’t bear to lose.

Everyone really went for it: they picked their child, their sibling, their partner, their parents.

I have done this exercise and imagined my children gone.

I once met a woman when enrolled in a class who had three sons who had all been killed, and I thought to myself “how could she even be teaching this class today?” It was like in my mind, I thought she wouldn’t be able to even cope, for the rest of her life, because of that experience.

It is so powerful to find out what these painful thoughts are about losing someone, as they are the biggest, worst, most horrifying versions of what we really believe about loss.

A lighter version about loss that still leaves some people reeling, is ending a relationship. An even lighter form of loss with someone we care about is having them move to another town.

What do you believe about “losing” someone?

In our class this morning one of the beliefs we questioned was “I want her to talk to me”.

How do I react when I believe that thought? I had images flash through my mind. I remembered being so anxious to talk with a man once who I was dating that I carried my phone into the bathroom. What if he called, and I missed it? I remember being aware of the power of that thought and how I was believing it so strongly, I had no peace, no freedom.

Who are you without the thought that you want more than anything in the world for that person to talk to you?

Without the thought I come back to the present. Woman standing in a bathroom, space all around….air, ceiling, floor. Woman who can now see what is present right here in this moment. Woman no longer interested in carrying her phone with her everywhere, even to the bathroom. FREEDOM!

If my children were gone, I would live. I would know because I was alive that I had more living to do here, and they did not.

The amazing thing is that with doing The Work and becoming freer of the fear of loss, freer of the idea that I have lost important people, my life seems so full.

Amazing to live in a world where people can come and go, live and die, and I flow with what happens. I can argue with this…but I will suffer.

Eckhart Tolle writes “To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them – while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.” 

Much Love, Grace

P.S. The topic and awareness of LOSS when it comes to sexuality is just as powerful. So many experiences where people feel they have lost out, are losing out, will lose out when it comes to happiness and sexuality. We may be full for the class, but email me if you want to be on the waiting list and you may be able to start with us on Friday!

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If I Speak Up It Will Be Terrible!

Several months ago I had the experience of wanting to cover up a growing feeling of anxiety I had with a friend. I’ve had this experience before, I can remember it as early as age 5!

If I show someone close to me that I’m anxious about something they are doing, they’ll either attack me or attack themselves. If I say I prefer them to stop doing what they’re doing, someone will get hurt….and it could be me!

And by the way, on top of being stuck between a rock and a hard place and busy helping my friend to not do any attacking, I shouldn’t be so judgmental!

One of The Four Agreements, written by Don Miguel Ruiz, is “Be impeccable with your word”. He says this includes using your word to point in the direction of truth and love.

What I had believed most of my life was that what I say, my words to others, should be nice, kind, gentle, well-received, and leave people feeling better than they felt before.

It’s really living out the teaching “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.

I was mixed up about what “nice” is. I thought it meant that if I had an objection, or a preference, or a request, or an observation, or I wanted something different, or even wondered about something, that this wasn’t “nice”.

I found I was in a heap-o-trouble. The unspoken word between my friend and I caused great misunderstanding and confusion.

I love completing this exercise:  “If I speak up, the worst that could happen is________.”

  • With my children, if I speak up, they will protest, yell, resist…and I’ll get angry
  • With my parents, if I speak up, they will be crushed and full of despair
  • With my friend, if I speak up, they will feel rejected and angry and stop being my friend
  • With some acquaintances, if I speak up, they will spread rumors about me
  • With my co-worker, if I speak up, he will say mean things about me
  • With my partner, if I speak up, he will be sad and I will be alone

Pema Chodron says “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”

Now after doing The Work for awhile, I see my fear rise up and I know there is something important present to look at. To delay may make it bigger.

I love how once we question the terror of speaking up, doing The Work also helps us discover who we really are, what kinds of preferences we actually have, what we want or desire, what we don’t like and move away from.

True freedom is being able to speak, without rage, terror, hopelessness shutting down the voice that needs to speak. Let the voice have its say on paper, then let your voice speak what it needs to say to others, with love and truth and impeccability. No worry about the future, or what will happen next, or what happened before.

The Tao #50: …“the Master doesn’t think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day’s work”. 

Much Love, Grace

P.S. This is a fabulous topic that we’ll apply to Sexuality, join us in the upcoming teleclass that starts Friday! How amazing it is to speak up when it comes to Sexuality!!

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Sexuality Is Like Everything Else

I love receiving your emails for those of you who write. Several have asked me permission to post these daily pieces to your facebook page or forward it to others…. YES is the answer!

It would be wonderful if you forwarded this email to a friend or loved one, or tell folks they can get these posts by going to my website workwithgrace.com and entering in their email to the little “subscribe” box, or visiting my Facebook page Work With Grace-Byron Katie Coach.

As I finish this first paragraph I find I’m suddenly fascinated by the topic of communication again; talking, writing, giving speeches, facebooking, reflecting, connecting, emailing, hugging, touching.

Speaking of touching!! The Wonderful Sexuality teleclass starts on Friday! Are you the person, or perhaps someone you know, right for one of the last few spots?

I am so grateful for the facilitators who worked with me on the often “embarrassing” topic of sex, and for the work I’ve watched Katie do with people as they inquire on a story that has to do with sexuality.

What if you wrote down all your thoughts and judgments on an incident that involved sexual expression and you let the concepts sit there, in writing (without erasing them or scribbling them out), and you treated them like the other topics that produce stress?

Woody Allen said “Love is the answer. But while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions!”

Some powerful thoughts that the sexuality teleclass has raised for questioning in the past were thoughts like these:

  • He shouldn’t have been deceptive
  • She doesn’t care about me if she doesn’t kiss me back
  • I want him to love me
  • If I have sex with him, he will like me
  • If I’m not feeling attracted, that’s bad
  • My father was a pervert
  • My partner had an affair, and it means that….

We all have every piece of wisdom we need already right inside of us. No need for anything more, and yet it is absolutely remarkably beautiful to me to join in with others when we feel the burden of suffering and repetitive thinking.

The Tao Te Ching #65 “When they think that they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don’t know, people can find their own way.”

I love that I know much less what is RIGHT or what is WRONG when it comes to sexuality than I once did. I really used to have a whole list of what was wrong, all not written down of course because I couldn’t even write that stuff down. Eeeww!

I have found that I have become more open-minded as I have really examined everything I thought of as bad, horrible, gross, disgusting, nasty, sick or twisted.

Just like those enemies I’ve had in my life, or the condemning thoughts I’ve had about life itself, I find that by opening my mind up about these things doesn’t mean I am condoning them.

It’s really the opposite that happens. I feel more free to be who I am, to freely say Yes or to say No, and it turns out that I find my natural state is loving, kind, happy and often open to physical touch.

The universe is more and more loving and friendly and ecstasy is everywhere!

Byron Katie says in A Thousand Names for Joy “I don’t try to educate people. Why would I do such a thing? My only job is to point you back to yourself. When you discover–inside yourself, behind everything you’re thinking–the marvelous don’t-know mind, you’re home free. The don’t-know mind is the mind that is totally open to anything life brings you.”  

Everyone doing the best they can with what they know. Everyone following their own life path, just right, with perfect timing….Not a moment out of order, not an experience they can’t learn from, study, grow from.

Sexuality is Just Like Everything Else

Thanks to all of you for such a wonderful class and the freedom to speak about sex as if I was talking about a nose or arm, how cool that we have this time together.. and thank you Grace for having the fore sight to bring this topic to the open space of presence for us to question it…Tanya, teleclass participant   

Much Love, Grace

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Lower Your Standards

I had the privilege once many years ago, when I could barely appreciate it (and he was not yet famous), to meet Desmond Tutu. He taught me about lowering my standards and not thinking everything should be so much better and SO much more perfect than it seemed.

I was just gaining mileage in my journey of self-hate and self-criticism. I had dropped out of the pretty wonderful little liberal arts college my parents were scraping together money for me to attend, I was depressed, I was despairing about what I was going to do with my life.

My parents raised me in their chosen faith which was very profoundly important to them. It just happened to be the same tradition that Desmond Tutu was from, and he came to my home city to be with members of our congregation. It turned out my father and some people in the church had written him a letter and asked him to come.

Such a simple gesture—they asked for what they wanted! They didn’t question whether they should ask or not, or whether it was too much, or if they were being too selfish.

The only reason I was sitting at the table with Desmond Tutu was because he was staying in my parents house.

I felt entirely alone in the world. I wondered what this life was for, and the world seemed quite crazy. I was very busy questioning every belief I had ever heard about. I felt worthless. And the chaos I was experiencing left me full of dread and unhappiness.

I could see at the time that I did NOT LIKE questioning my beliefs! I didn’t really want to feel so uprooted.

Then there I was sitting next to this happy, happy man who was talking about Reality. I didn’t know at that time that I would run into Byron Katie 25 years later who was also talking about Reality.

Something about him caused me to look up. I was touched, right in the middle of dismissing everything around me and thinking this was all a big joke (and I wasn’t laughing).

Desmond Tutu spoke of how we see our Reality through our own personal history and our beliefs. He suggested that these beliefs were learned by those around us, passed along through the ages, and that we didn’t know any better.

He talked about having faith and what it meant. He trilled the “r” in the word Reality. He said “….the Real Reality”….and pointed to the center of his chest.

I could tell this man practiced questioned his thinking about who he thought was an enemy. I felt a deep spark of hope light very softly inside of me that it might be possible to view my world in a different way than I had been seeing it. I could start with the people I thought of as enemies.

I love it when I drop my condemning thoughts about my “enemies”. It doesn’t mean I have to hang out with them and become their best friend. But my critical mind stops running, I feel more peaceful and no longer afraid.

Who would you be without the thought that those mean, nasty people in the world are enemies? Or that this whole set up here, this life, is ridiculous or stupid.

I noticed when I felt the love that Desmond Tutu shared, even when he had observed terrible things, I found the place in me that matched this openness.

He didn’t give me peace, I found it because I recognized it as already inside me. It’s also why many of us love to sit and listen to Byron Katie work with others. We recognize the wisdom we already have. We recognize what it’s like to be in Heaven, just as we are.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.—Desmond Tutu

Much Love, Grace