Holy Moment No Matter What, When, Where

One of my favorite inquirers sent me a quote by Geneen Roth from her book Women, Food and God (which I highly recommend).

In the passage, Geneen writes that holiness is not in what we achieve or eat or weigh.

It reminded me of the sweet awareness that holiness is also not here in Bali, in some extra special way, or out there on a Hawaiian vacation, or in Mexico, or in Paris, or London, or Istanbul.

Holiness, or the awe of this world, can come upon you in a moment, in your mind.

You might be taking out the garbage, and then suddenly think about All This, and the strange, wild magic of it all.

That is a little moment of awe or holiness. It’s like you wake up from a trance…or a tendency to pop from one thought to another in a sort of speedy-zipping way, and you get a bigger view of everything.

So back to Geneen and her most important topic….food and eating.

As so many of you know, also my most important topic, or so it seemed, for many years. I say most important because it was a matter of life or death.

Starvation, limits, stuffing, emptiness, desperation, panic, doubt, determination….all these elements were present in my relationship with food and eating. It was in my mind constantly.

I would NOT have said it was holy. It seemed like anything BUT holy.

Food and how I felt about eating and my body was dark, terrible, full of anxiety, and totally twisted and confusing.

I was a total scaredy cat in my mind. This world was not holy, my body not holy, many people not holy, money not holy, my mind not holy, my work not holy, my thoughts not holy.

No wonder I was so freaked out so much of the time! Day to day life was a danger zone!

The way I viewed the universe quite a bit of the time, if you had asked me, was that it was profane, an abomination, unconsecrated…. all the opposites of holy.

And I was a part of the universe, of course.

But what if this moment, this next hour, is a holy one? No matter where you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what is going on around you?

What if it’s this way for some important reason…and you don’t even need to know what reason?

What if when it came to food and eating, that most important baseline wonderful topic, you imagined that just for a moment today (if that’s all you can do) or for the entire day, that you are an incredible holy entity that you have been gifted with caring for.

In this caring, you close your eyes and feel what this body needs, and with gratitude and perhaps awe, you cared for it like it is a most sacred visitor…like Jesus, or Rama, or your fairy godmother arrived to stay with you?

Don’t think about permanently changing your relationship with food and eating. Don’t think about losing twenty pounds, or dieting, or punishing yourself, or exercising, or healing.

This exercise in seeing what is holy around you is for now only, dropping all the plans for the future.

Dropping all thoughts that holiness will appear when you weigh, eat, or do something different.

If you begin to think of ways your life is not going well, or that you can’t do this exercise, then write them down—you can do The Work on these, they are like gold for your awareness.

Holiness is right here in this moment, not because the moment has wealth, happiness, money, or a perfect body in it…not because this moment is in Bali or someplace that looks pretty!

Anyone can do this exercise, it is for everybody. You could be sitting beside a road on a freeway in a pile of garbage. You don’t need any special information or to go somewhere or understand better.

“To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don’t you experience it? Because you’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful.”~Anthony De Mello

Even right here, traveling, my whole entire diet is completely different than it is at home (so I think). But it turns out the humans eat here, and have plates and stores and gardens and stoves.

Once again, all I have to do is take care of this particular body, today, and un-learn and un-know whatever I think has to happen to make things holy around here.

Love,
Grace
P.S. I eat papaya, mango, banana, honeydew, watermelon, sticky rice and meat on a stick almost every meal, it seems. OMG where are the green vegetables? “I’m supposed to eat tons of raw green veggies every day.” IS IT TRUE?
P.P.S. If you’re ready to question your stressful thoughts about food and eating, we start an 8 week telecourse soon on this topic–check out the website www.workwithgrace.com

That Person Is Too Fat

One of my most painful personal experiences of being judgmental has been around bodies.

Those bodies, the ones that look like THAT (fill in your own image) are beautiful, perfect, exciting, interesting, or attractive.

These other bodies, the ones that look NOT so perfect (fill in your other images) are anywhere from slightly unappealing to repulsive.

Beautiful/Ugly, Attractive/Repulsive, Fat/Thin, Defective/Working, Young/Old.

This area of analysis, judgment, criticism, and studying imperfection often felt compulsive and out-of-control. Even when I was a teenager, I would have not only the thought that something was ugly on a body…but also that I was stupid to be thinking that it was ugly.

I should control my judgmental thoughts about those other peoples’ bodies! And while we’re at it, I should also love my own body! Major Dismal Failure at NOT judging.

So there I was seeing the world and it was jam-packed with images of other bodies. What was ugly was anything too fat or too thin, too round or too sharp or pointy, too bumpy, to heavy, too tall. It was so quick, I could easily tell you what was beautiful and ugly in one-half of a second.

I KNEW UGLY AND I KNEW ATTRACTIVE.

I was learning, or had learned, VERY quickly, very young. As soon as I could hear what adults were saying around me. As soon as I could see what people were drawn to, and how they behaved, and who they rejected or praised. It was in the movies and on TV.

I KNEW already at the age of 8 that when I sat on a table one day, and my thighs spread out in a squished way with my legs hanging over the edge of the desk. I was shocked. “I have fat thighs?! I did not realize this! Terrible! They are ugly!”

“100 percent of your misery is brought on by your dishonest, unconscious thinking. That’s what a lie feels like….if you think you’re too fat, it’s not about your body, it’s about your mind. It’s about imagination running wild…The mind doesn’t have the question IS IT TRUE? to stop it, so that it can reconsider, so that it can bring itself to sanity. Sanity is a word I equate with love, with intelligence and maturity. An immature mind, is a mind that hates itself.” ~Byron Katie

This past week I watched my mind as it looked at bodies. I watched my mind then criticize ME for having these mundane, stupid, shallow, ridiculous thoughts about bodies.

I confess, I had the thought that someone was too fat. That person should lose weight. They should exercise. Something is wrong with how they are taking in food.

And then, more judgments: another person I love I thought of as waaaaaaaay too focused on the body (and it wasn’t me). She should get off this whole get-the-body-perfect thing. What a waste of energy, time, resources, focus! Jeez!

Thank goodness for doing The Work and an absolutely wonderful facilitator walking me through it. Without the facilitator, I might NOT have even stayed with this ridiculous, mean, superficial judgment and brought it out into the open.

Can you call up an image of someone you know who is “fat” and who you think shouldn’t be?

Is it true that they would be better off thinner? Is it true they are actually FAT?

Is it true that they represent everything that fatness means? That they are undisciplined, lazy, that they eat when they are not hungry, that they are unhealthy, scared, angry, pudgy, needy, unhappy, self-centered, or don’t love themselves? Are they really unattractive? Do people reject them, are they lonely? Are they less than spiritual, or unconscious? Really?

Um. I have no idea. In fact, no. It’s actually not true. At all.

I recognize the power of the “ego” or the little me, the one who thinks it knows, the one who is trying so hard, so sure that it is RIGHT, so nervous about rejection or imperfection, so full of striving. This thinking part is so sure bodies matter.

What is really the problem with anyone in this world being fat?

I’ve noticed that the world, the universe, Reality actually contains bodies which are of all different qualities. The variety is enormous, in fact, and actually infinite. Incredible.

I notice that without the thought that anyone’s Body should be different than the way it actually appears to me in this moment, then the creativity and variety is incredible. I am not against anything. No resistance. No need to change anything.

All these bodies everywhere being themselves….

Could it be that any way a body appears here, now, is just right? See how amazing it feels to be with this thought.

Back once again to leaving everything alone.

What was too fat, was my thinking. When I think someone is too fat, or anything about me is too fat, my thoughts are slow, full, repetitive, thick, heavy, extra, big, dark, overflowing, wide, depressing.

Fortunately, my thinking is not ME. Just like my body isn’t ME.

“God, or your essential nature, is not Something. Not Content. Not Form. The best description with words is to say what it is NOT….It can be known in the silent space of stillness which is in everyone…”~ Eckhart Tolle

What if you walked around today, or sat around, or maybe the body you appear to have is lying around…what if you were here and entirely and completely without the thought that what your body looks like or represents IS you?

What if you are much more than that. Or not even that, at all.

Love, Grace

P.S. At 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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