Tag: overcoming loss

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No More Leaving

Have you ever wondered why you like someone?

There are often qualities we are conditioned to understand, enjoy, “get”, or relate to easily and well. When someone comes along with just the right amount of the formula that we can relate to, we like them. It may even feel so familiar, like you’ve come home, that you think “OMG! You’re the one I’ve been waiting for! This is FANTASTIC!”

And it’s REALLY REALLY fascinating and wonderful to ask yourself; why? Why this person? Why now? Why am I so drawn? Why do I like them sooooooo much?

What is going on here?

Anthony De Mello writes in his sweet book Awareness “If you’re attached to appreciation and praise, you’re going to view people in terms of their threat to your attachment or their fostering of your attachment.”

I remember realizing that with some people, the actual reason I liked them, as Tony De Mello also discovered, is that they do the behavior or say the words that show they are enjoying themselves in my company, they are feeling good, I am feeling good. We are appreciating each other.

I like them because they like me. They like me because I like them. It’s like we recognize each other as people who can give and receive appreciation, love, approval, praise in a way that is comfortable, familiar.

It’s like there’s a measurement device faster than the speed of thought that is a very sensitive sensor, looking at all these energies or personality traits and behaviors. All of it getting measured against the comfort zone. My comfort zone.

It’s like getting into a mode where we’re tasting the personalities of porridge, like Goldilocks, and we know immediately when it’s JUST RIGHT.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the beauty of connecting, making intimate contact with someone (or many), being real, honest, joyful….being around someone who inspires you!

But this attachment sensor is powerful. It’s even become a theory in the psychological field, that people are driven by their conditioning around attachment and connection.

So what happens when you really like someone, you’ve had a wonderful feeling with them, deep intimate connection….and then they drift away, or tell you it’s not working for them? They say NO. They’re too busy, they don’t have the time, their life circumstance changed and they aren’t available anymore. They don’t return your calls.

Rats.

You may get to find out what you’ve been attached to.

They don’t like me after all, I did something wrong, I offended them. What did I say, do or think that distressed them? I have to figure it out. I am not important, I am not lovable, I am not worth it to them, I am dismiss-able, I am worthy of being ignored. This is terrible, this is a problem. Agony, worry, fear, hand-wringing, busy mind.

The scale of this pain can be at a level of 100, like when your life partner of 20 years leaves….or it can be a 10 like when a co-worker you used to have a coffee break with every day says they don’t have time for that anymore.

“The truth is everything will be OK as soon as you are OK with everything. And that’s the only time everything will be OK.”~ Michael Singer

I start with the most simple of core stressful thoughts in this situation, where I am here with myself, and that person I have so enjoyed seems to be gone.

I need to talk with them, I need to be with them NOW….Is that true? Am I OK right here in this moment, without their presence? Can I connect with others, if I want to talk or listen?

This one human being out of billions on the planet is the ONLY ONE that will resolve this feeling of detachment. Like a baby whose mother dies. Only that human being, that baby’s mother returning, will bring genuine happiness back.

IS THAT ABSOLUTELY TRUE?

Could it be that if someone is gone, if they break up with me, if they move away, perhaps even if they die, that I can still be happy? Could I get what I need and want from someone else?

“How do we love ourselves? One way is by not seeking approval outside ourselves–that’s my experience. By not seeking approval outside myself, I come to see that I already have it. I don’t want approval; I want people to think the way they think. If I seek your approval, it’s not comfortable.”~Byron Katie

I notice that when I question my thoughts about that person and their level of contact with me (or lack of it) that I have no idea really what it means. I can’t know at all it means they don’t like me, care about me, or that I am worthy of being left.

And there are so so many other human beings in the universe…and more places in this world than anyone could ever explore. So many possibilities!

There is intimacy right here in this moment. Appreciation for this present moment.

I once saw a motivational speaker called Bob Proctor on film talking about how much he enjoyed his own company. He was so enthusiastic. So full of playful happiness! He exclaimed “I just LOVE myself! I am so much fun to be around!” and then he kissed his own hand with such childlike joy, it made me laugh out loud.

That is what it is like without the thought that I need that person to come back, to say they like me, to say I didn’t do anything wrong, to comfort me, to call me.

Without the thoughts that anyone should be nearer than they are, without feeling attached or detached or concerned or anxious or fearful…I appreciate myself. I find what is lovely, precious and comforting, right here, right now.

At some point

Your relationship With God

Will become like this:

Next time you meet Him in the forest

Or on a crowded street

There won’t be anymore “Leaving”.

That is,

God will climb into Your pocket.

You will simply just take
Yourself

Along!

~Hafiz

You are beautiful.

Love, Grace

P.S. Only a few spots left to do The Work for a day in Seattle. Come join us in this amazing process of identifying your painful thinking, and questioning it! Write grace@workwithgrace.com to reserve your spot.

Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven In-Person Intensive Seattle 12/1 10 am – 6 pm.

Horrible Food Wonderful Food Weekend In-Person Intensive Seattle January 12-13, 2013 Saturday 10 – 5:30, Sunday 1:30-5:30. To register for either weekend workshop, click here!Fill in the workshop fee after you click the Buy button at the bottom of the page. You can use paypal or any credit card (you don’t need a paypal account).

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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Flowing Tears Doesn’t Mean It’s Bad

Sadness and grief have been addressed by teachers, psychologists, philosophers, and religious figures for centuries. Sadness appears to be a long-term experience of humanity.

Loss, despair, change, death…these often bring tears. Many thoughts appear in the mind, sometimes almost simultaneously with this emotion or feeling called sadness.

Expressing sadness can feel strangely out of control. Often, when we really “cry our eyes out” we just let the wave take us from beginning to end. And then, it’s over.

Deep sadness that keeps appearing or returning can become more difficult to navigate. How do we humans work with sadness that remains…with terrible loss or grief, perhaps life-changing loss that follows the death of a loved one, or some other permanent change.

“I’ve developed a new philosophy – I only dread one day at a time.”~Charles Schultz

When I look back on my experience of sadness in my life in childhood and then later as I grew up, I see that I had some really interesting thoughts appear very quickly (that I never questioned) when it came to sadness.

These beliefs about sadness kept my feeling stuck, unresolved, unexpressed somehow:

  • my sadness will bother other people
  • I need to keep this to myself
  • if others know I am sad, they won’t be honest with me
  • no one knows how to help people who are sad anyway
  • there’s no solution to this loss (the person is gone, the event has passed)
  • I’ll feel this way forever
  • being too emotional or sad is a sign of weakness
  • if only this hadn’t happened I wouldn’t feel sad in the first place.
  • I hate this feeling

These kinds of thoughts are heavy, weighty, and very difficult for allowing this thing called “sadness” to run through us, without trying to manipulate ourselves or hide it or change it ASAP.

So here it is. Tears, grief, sobbing, body rocking, the voice making sound. Perhaps your sadness is only quiet tears falling from your eyes, and maybe not even that.

Instead of judging this experience….I let it be here. I let it take the time it takes. I notice that there is an end. I remember that there is a saying “have a good cry”. Like it’s actually a good thing, like it releases something.

“I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been – if you’ve been up all night and cried ’til you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness.” ~C.S. Lewis in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe 

I was listening once to Adyashanti, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, talk about holding a funeral for his dog. He found himself weeping, sobbing openly while everyone gathered around. And right in the middle of that great grief, he noticed a great warmth in the center of his heart, like a light beaming there.

Without any judgment or hope that I will soon NOT be sad anymore…if I watch this sadness thing and notice what is happening…I may find that grief and joy are present together.

I entered my house last night after taking my darling son to college and leaving him there. THAT was when sadness hit me, and I cried. I was having thoughts like “he will never live with me again” (and, chuckle, I do not know that this is true). Something about entering the quiet cottage knowing this, with the thought right there.

The thought enters “I miss him” and I immediately question it. Not 100% true. Images rapidly firing through my mind’s eye of him being born, standing up in the park for the first time, age 8, age 12, now. Do I miss any of that? No, he is right here, in my mind. I can picture him perfectly. I know what he might say, how his face looks.

This is not denying sadness, making it something different than it is. It is just noticing that I cry and cry for this goodbye moment, acknowledging somehow this change….and that this moment is also hello. I begin to find advantages for his departure.

“Is it sadness that you are feeling or love? Isn’t it love, feel it as deeply as you can, let it live in you, allow it, let it cry you, take you over even, its okay, love is all powerful. Don’t confuse feelings that you believe to be sadness with what love feels like, my dearest.”~Byron Katie

Love, Grace

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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