Tag: regret

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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 Wish I Hadn’t Done That (+ Eating Peace Process Online open for registration)

The shame of wishing you hadn’t done that. What if what you think it means…isn’t true?

Have you ever had the thought about something you did….

.…Dang it. I wish I hadn’t done that.

Well, of course you have.

It would be almost strange to answer the question “No! I have never, ever wished I did anything differently than they way I did it!”

I’ve had this thought a million times. I’ve caught myself wishing I had not done something yesterday, last night, last week, last month, or twenty years ago…or how about forty.

I really wish I hadn’t done that.

The trouble is, it’s a very painful thought IF you believe it’s absolutely true.

If you absolutely believe you shouldn’t have done something in the past, something you did do, this belief brings up shame, guilt, horror, embarrassment, reprimand. For some people they’re so distressed about what they did, they feel like they don’t deserve to live.

Long ago, in a dorm room of a small liberal arts college with high prestige, I broke down and out of a semi-fast of several years of eating “perfectly”.

I was extremely strict about my diet and food plan, and followed it with great precision (although I could question what it means to be so precise, since I didn’t weigh my food after the first three months or so of being on this food plan-I simply copied/remembered what to eat and the approximate portions). I learned this food plan from 12 Step meetings I attended.

In the meetings, they meant very well, they were offering a very, very clear and uncluttered approach to eating. Lots of items in the world of food were eliminated. Things that commonly incited cravings and urges….gone from the plan. You simply did not ever eat those things and you weighed and measured every bite that went into your mouth. It was like giving up alcohol or drugs if you were alcoholic or a drug addict. The first thing to do: stop the activity of consuming. Just stop.

The problem for me was that I was bound to this food plan like a criminal in a maximum security prison. It was as if I had locked my cravings and urges and desires and conflicts about food and eating in a deep dark dungeon behind a massive concrete and barbed wire wall, never to be found (I hoped) again.  And then thrown into the bottom of the ocean, just to be on the safe side.

My attitude and beliefs about myself were that I could not be trusted. I could not eat (think) normally. I couldn’t feel normally. My emotions were tricksters, and often “wrong”.

The shout in the wilderness of it all was CONTROL YOURSELF FOR GOD’S SAKE!

Which is what I attempted to do.

People have this attitude towards many things they believe they shouldn’t have done.

The game plan is…..kill it. Control it. Deafen it. Quiet it down. Lock it away.

Not that many people related to eating the extreme way I did. But the energy below the surface, in many ways, had nothing to do with food or eating.

This may surprise you.

But have you ever decided you’re going to be a more generous, nicer or kinder person? Have you ever thought to yourself “I am going to get a handle on money”? Have you ever thought “I won’t criticize my spouse or get into an argument with my teenager”?

And then, sometime later (maybe the very next day) you yelled at someone you love, or said a mean nasty critical thing under your breath, or started fuming about your job, or you got super nervous about speaking up, or said yes when you meant no, or spent money you didn’t really have, or declined a new invitation, or decided to work longer and harder and wait on your vacation for another date and time…..when you PROMISED you wouldn’t keep doing this.

Maybe you tell yourself, like I did, that you should know better by now. You should have this figured out. You should have your act together in this department. You should be farther along…..well-spoken, calm, efficient, successful, the right weight, good at “x”, brilliant at “y”, resistant to “z”.

Another time I thought severely about myself the thought “I shouldn’t have done it” was after flirting very heavily with someone who wasn’t my primary partner at the time.

Ugh.

Or the time I lost my temper with my daughter. Or when I told myself I’d meditate daily. Or start yoga.

Or one of the worst situations of my life (it seemed at the time) I shouldn’t have had the abortion. There must be something wrong with me. So irresponsible. So wrong.

You shouldn’t have done it.

Is that true?

Yes, of course it’s true. There is no good reason to have done it, I already knew what would happen afterwards, I gave myself a terrible thing to live with!

Can you absolutely know it’s true?

No.

Now, this is amazing that I answer no. But I looked and looked over time. I can’t absolutely know it–not with any of these things I was so sure I shouldn’t have done. Was I the one ruling the universe? Did I really have an overall world-view of every element of the situation? Was I entirely in charge? Was the whole thing that went down my choice?

No.

Even if you answer “yes” keep going here.

How do you react when you believe you shouldn’t have done it, and you did do it?

Torn into pieces internally. Self-hating. Hopeless. Frustrated. Punishing myself. Trying harder to control it. Deciding to go on severe diets because I can’t be trusted.

But who would you be without this thought that you shouldn’t have done it?

Wait for it.

The mind might have a hissy fit twisting itself in knots without this thought.

What??! Aren’t you letting yourself get away with murder? Destruction? Violence? Hurting others? Hurting yourself?

This isn’t about pretending you didn’t do something that had major consequences. It isn’t about forgetting reality.

But without the belief I shouldn’t have done something that has already been done…..I am a little lighter.

I can start here, from right now. I rest and relax. I notice I’m still breathing, still living, not struck by lightening. Perhaps I can bring some kindness into this moment, starting freshly. Now.

Turning the thought around: I should have done it.

How could this be just as true, or truer? Are there any advantages, genuine reasons why doing it led to this moment now, where you’re more awake?

In every single situation I’ve ever sat with in The Work where I believed I shouldn’t have done something, I can find a good reason for doing it. An advantage. An unexpected shift of awareness.

Long ago, in that dorm room, I was suddenly struck with the insanity of living with hyper-control, hardly aware of the homework or reading assigned in my classes, the lack of freedom and spontaneity and kindness, the loneliness and unhappiness I was experiencing.

Back then, I got on the next airplane home and never returned to that college campus. I started doing the internal work I really needed to do with my family, my own psyche, my relationship to food and eating, group therapy. Life has been a wonderful road questioning the slavery of stressful thinking.

Plus I saved my parents thousands in college tuition, and didn’t waste my time in a school better built for others, not for me. After a short time, I got a job on a ship which was a magnificent and difficult experience, and I’ll never forget it.

Doing that thing I *thought* I shouldn’t have done was a life-changer and a life-saver and put me firmly on a new and different path than the one I and my entire family had expected.

Another turnaround: it shouldn’t have done me.

That moment, that binge-eating episode, that act of unkindness, that meanness, that behavior, that situation….

….it shouldn’t have “done” me in. It shouldn’t have wrecked my entire world (well, it didn’t actually). It shouldn’t have become such a huge way for me to punish myself or condemn me for life to needing to control myself even more.

Instead, that act I committed, that experience I engaged in, that thing I did….it should be a teacher of love, showing me where not to go in the future, or showing me my confusion.

Byron Katie said in the School for The Work the first time I attended it that the thing I was most ashamed of doing, I could question if it really was as awful as I imagined.

I notice, the thing I shouldn’t have done….it ended. It’s over. It came to an end, despite my own thinking then, or now.

“The Work is about noticing our thoughts, not about changing them. When you work with the thinking, the doing naturally follows.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is

If I think you shouldn’t have?

Investigate. Understand what was going on. Listen to yourself in the most deep, powerful, empathetic way. Share with others, so they might hear you, too.

“There is no peace in the world until you find peace within yourself in this moment. Live these turnarounds, if you want to be free. That’s what Jesus did, what the Buddha did. That’s what all the famous great ones did, and all the unknown great ones who are just living it in their homes and communities, happy and in peace.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is

Despite all those mistakes you’ve made, making you very human by the way…..you are here, now.

What is peaceful about this moment? Certainly not thinking about how you screwed up in the past.

Just saying.

If you have a particular habit of moving towards food and eating when you aren’t hungry, or fighting cravings, or forcing yourself into off-balance diets, or feeling very unhappy about your body and your weight….and you’re ready to do a deep exploration for almost three months, I’m accepting enrollment for the Eating Peace Process which begins January 14th.

The eating peace process includes inquiry into stressful believing, about food, eating and body image….but also about all the other stressful beliefs you have that fuel off-balance eating.

Everyone in the program will have access to brand new slide presentations you can watch on your own time (plus two live optional calls per week) where we follow our thinking, question it, and learn practices that keep us steady, clear and learning what has kept us from the peace we truly want.

Everyone will find a rhythm of self-inquiry and commitment to their freedom and health, and I’ll be doing it all right alongside you.

This program does involve writing in a journal. We’ll do written exercises to help uncover our hidden commitments and fears, so we understand why and how we’ve moved off the peaceful path in the past when it comes to eating (and thinking).

Most of all, the Eating Peace Process is a way to practice resting. Not putting yourself into a straightjacket. It’s a way to understand ourselves and what prevents deep change and transformation.

To read more about the Eating Peace Process, visit here. I’ll be doing some webinars and sharing more about it if you’re on the eating peace mailing list (update your profile below in the teeny small print to see if you’re on the eating peace list).

Today, whatever you fight, whatever you wish you didn’t do….even if it isn’t food and eating, but other things you’ve felt ashamed of and frustrated about….

….you can do The Work, in this new moment, now.

“All suffering is an invitation to deep acceptance of the present moment.” ~ Jeff Foster in The Deepest Acceptance

Much love,

Grace

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Do you ever want a Do-Over, for a day, a week….a decade?

Feeling peaceful....no need for any do-overs, appreciating the way it went the first time (reality)
Feeling peaceful….no need for any do-overs, appreciating the way it went the first time (reality)

On Saturday night, the last night together at the annual Breitenbush retreat, we dance.

People have been deeply examining their thinking since Wednesday….

….walking through the memories, experiences, or relationships with others they’ve found hopeless, depressing, frightening or sad.

It’s courageous work.

I’m sometimes amazed, literally astonished, that people show up to investigate something painful they’d rather not look at. The death of a husband, the heroin addiction of a son, a painful divorce, needing to lay off people at the company, having insomnia for years, a mother’s death very early in life.

All these situations came to these woods at Breitenbush.

And The Work, the Four Questions plus Turnarounds, was all that was needed to open people to other alternatives and possibilities, to feeling love and self-compassion.

Not just love for the self, but love and acceptance for others. Even the ones who hurt us.

What many beliefs boil down to, suggests Byron Katie in Loving What is, is the deep conviction that I shouldn’t have had to experience something, and it shouldn’t have happened.

“I want an alternative life, where I don’t have to experience THAT (insert rough experience)”.

You might think….

….BUT….

….I really DO think my life would be better, and I’d be a better person, if I didn’t have to go through “x”. That experience made things worse than they could have been. It was a waste of time!

I’d be further along by now, if it hadn’t have happened. More confident. More of service. Calmer.

I wouldn’t have had to spend all those years in therapy. I could have just lived a more “normal” life. I might have a better condition NOW, if I hadn’t experienced that other thing THEN.

I want a do-over!!

(Remember yelling this when you were a kid playing a card game, or trying to shoot baskets, or trying to hit the bullseye, or making a batch of cookies and forgetting the baking soda?)

But can you absolutely know this is true, you want a do-over of some part of your life?

For me, I’ve thought often that much of my life from age 18 through 30 I could do without.

Visions come to mind of dropping out of college because I was too sick with addiction, bulimia, borderline anorexia, compulsive over-exercising, too anxiety-riddled, smoking cigarettes, occasionally over-drinking, isolated, and disassociated. Mind full of violent thoughts like “you’re such an idiot” or “what a fool you are” or “there’s something wrong with you” that covered up the ability to look more closely at my beliefs about what I feared. I lost my dad in that time period, too.

Is it true I want a do-over of that decade beginning with going to college?

Whew. It sure does seem like it would be better if I hadn’t dropped out of an awesome school, returned home to my parents, spent thousands of their dollars on therapy, struggled becoming a grown up, or lived with a tortured mind.

Can I absolutely know it’s true though?

No.

As one woman at the Breitenbush retreat discovered, unexpectedly, about her difficult past with her father….

….without her experience with her dad, she might still be living in the suburbs where she grew up, living an uncreative, boring, unimaginative, dissatisfying life. Instead, she moved across the entire country, married someone with opposite traits to dad, and raised two amazing kids.

I felt the same for my experience, and I felt the urge once again, to give a little bow to reality.

Without those ten years in my life that shaped my future in a completely different way than planned….

….I wouldn’t be at this retreat at Breitenbush, facilitating.

It was like my life, back then, showed the need to push the PAUSE button on my future direction.

More like CONTROL-ALT-DELETE, come to think of it.

That other imaginary version of the story, the one where I graduate from college with certainty and drive, and honors of course….and leave for Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar following in my dad’s footsteps…..plus write a screen play and land a leading role on stage somewhere….and invent something high-tech on the side that accidentally makes millions of dollars….

….THAT version of the story is, well, heh heh, fictional.

But that version would never have offered a collapse of the Know-It-All mind, that led to a sense of destruction, that led to a sense of devastation, that led to a sense of rebirth, that led to a sense of infinity and detachment, that led to a sense of peace beyond all stories and outcomes and plans and successes in this world, that led to a sense of unconditional love.

Nice.

Nevermind about the Do-Over.

Much love,

Grace

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Regretting The Past Hurts – Until You Question Your Thinking

A very painful human experience is the feeling of regret.

I know this because not only have I felt it myself, but also worked with so many people who felt very burdened by regret.

There is that situation I remember, and the present thoughts in the mind look like this:

  • I regret I didn’t spend more time with him/her
  • I regret that I said “yes”
  • I regret that I said “no”
  • I regret that my actions caused pain for other people
  • I regret that I stole, lied, hated, judged

The origin of the word “regret” partly comes from an old Norse word “grata” which means to groan.

Such a terrible feeling as I remember what happened that I silently groan with sorrow, wishing the outcome was better….replaying how it could have gone differently, full of lament.

And always, regret involves looking backwards, at memories, at the past.

It can be immensely powerful to look at what you regret in your life with a mind open to investigation of your painful situation…..rather than certainty that what you did was wrong.

When you recall a situation where you are sure you did something wrong, and you feel sick to your stomach, sorry, tainted for life, rotten, inadequate or deserving punishment….

….even in the middle of having the confusing, conflicted, desperate, despairing feelings….

….can you absolutely know that the way it went was truly 100% awful?

Can you know that you were wrong?

Yes, yes! I shouldn’t have done that. Everyone would agree.

A client I worked with was so upset with himself for being so angry with his father, for having the feeling of anger instead of love.

How do we react when we believe that we did it wrong?

I berate myself, I say I was stupid. I think about the other people involved or those who were distressed and either wish I had never met them, or wish they would go away forever. I criticize those people.

I criticize all of us.

When I believe that something, someone, did it wrong….then I feel anger, punishment, fear.

I say “I can’t believe I did that.”

Well who would I be without the thought that I did it wrong, or they did it wrong, or that the entire thing was wrong?

Without the thought that it went badly, that it was a disaster, that if only it went differently then it would have been much better?

I am immediately here in the present moment.

The memory I see of the past discretion, is only a picture in the mind. It came and went. It’s complete.

it’s over.

I feel excited about NOW.

“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?” ~ Eckhart Tolle 

Then I turn the thought around to the opposite: I did it right.

Really?

Naw. Not possible.

Hmmmm.

What if I stop being such a dictator towards myself, and I open up to the idea that I CAN believe I did that?

What if something about how it went was just right for that situation, that time and place?

What if I stop having such high, extreme, perfectionist, cutting expectations of myself…and I join the human race?

I did it right.

I take a deep breath, and begin to look how this may also be as true, or truer, than my original condemning thought that I did it wrong.

Yes, I did it right.

(It doesn’t mean I will ever do it that way again, which would be impossible anyway).

  • I spent exactly the right amount of time with him/her, I received all I needed, they received all they needed
  • I accept that I said “yes”, I see what I learned, I see what didn’t work and I made adjustments
  • I am content that I said “no”, I have infinite other options now
  • It was powerful that my actions caused pain for other people, and I notice that everyone is actually fine
  • When I stole, lied, hated, judged it showed me what I thought was real at the time, but wasn’t…it showed me how stuck I felt, how trapped

“Resist anything with regret, judgment or blame and you’re resisting your own full awakening, the embodiment of your realization of truth. Truth leaves nothing out, no one out, it includes everything and everyone, and every shitty thing that ever happened, and every shitty person you’ve ever known. Everything and everyone is serving your full awakening.  Deny this truth, and you are back in suffering.” ~ Adyashanti

Today, see if you can find an example of how it really is OK that you did that regretful thing, that it served your awakening in some way, that it taught you some piece of Truth for yourself.

See if you can feel how gentle it is that it’s OK that you are the human being who did that, that you were not perfect.

“…it could be that you’re believing something that you don’t believe. It could be that you’re trying very, very hard to believe what you don’t believe. You question what you’re trying to believe and give yourself a break. Cut yourself free and open up to life.” ~ Byron Katie

Love, Grace

P.S. If you notice many regretful or stressful thoughts about past relationships, then you may love joining the 8 week telecourse starting in September: Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven. A fabulous way to do the work with a small group. Question your thinking, change your relationships!

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I Shouldn’t Have Done That

Dang it, I shouldn’t have done that!

How many times have you thought this? It’s a very common, almost automatic, kind of thought. A part of the evaluation process that the mind runs through when you feel regret, or are scared about the future.

The thought gets bigger, more intense, more serious the greater the risk. The greater the fear.

Five years ago I noticed a bump on my leg. It grew over a year, bigger and bigger until it looked the size of a pencil eraser poking up on my thigh. It turned out to be a cancerous tumor.

One of my thoughts was “I shouldn’t have waited as long as I did to get it biopsied”. I also thought “I shouldn’t have been so nervous about my divorce over the past year”.

Once I was dating someone, got involved for awhile, even after fairly quickly feeling this was a pretty wild, uncomfortable, unhealthy kind of dynamic…not calm and happy.

It seemed hard to end the relationship. I felt scared, angry.

I had the thought “I shouldn’t have done that.” I shouldn’t have even started in that relationship. I should have known better from the beginning.

In just about any moment with people I love when I’ve expressed anger, and felt stuck or trapped, and maybe yelled, or slammed a door….I’ve had the thought “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Anything ever perceived as a “mistake” means I am considering that the event, The Mistake, as an “error”, a problem. I shouldn’t have gone outside, I shouldn’t have changed lanes, I shouldn’t have left, I shouldn’t have stayed, I shouldn’t have been interested, I shouldn’t have encouraged him, I shouldn’t have been so self-critical, I shouldn’t have eaten that, I shouldn’t have purchased that, I shouldn’t have been so unaware….

The great assumption is that if I hadn’t done that, then this terrible CURRENT situation wouldn’t actually be terrible. This present moment, this experience here and now, is Yuck. I could have prevented it back there in the past.

But here we are in the present moment. Now is now, and all those images about how it could have been different, if only I had done it differently, are not real. They are made up. In fact, it’s basically completely insane to think we shouldn’t have done something we did in fact do.

So here, I come back to what is going on now, and I find out by looking very clearly, what I believe I don’t like about it: I don’t like the cancer tumor (I don’t like dying), I don’t like that other person’s anger and intensity, I don’t like that relationship, I don’t like the accident I had, I don’t like that the thing I bought broke, I don’t like my own anger, I don’t like feeling so full, I don’t like being lonely, I don’t like being stuck…

I notice what I am resistant to, the sense of lack, being Against what is happening, thinking this needs to change FEELS TERRIBLE!

My relationship to this current situation is defensive, uncomfortable, unhappy. My mind kicks into gear going over the Replays and pointing out where I should have known better. But that is distracting to just being here, in this present moment, and having to deal directly with what I really believe right here and now (plus, remember how I mentioned that the whole Replay thing is actually insane?).

So what IS so terrible about this, right now?

And a most amazing thing begins, when deeply considering what is truly terrible about THIS right now. I realize I am surviving this moment. It is possible that this moment is not so bad. It is possible that I do not have to DO anything. Maybe I’m not so sure about what is terrible.

Eckhart Tolle suggests that focusing on the past and the future, believing this present moment is not happy, not great, not the best, is what creates suffering.

What’s so great about this present moment?! It’s NOT what I want! Boring! Stupid! Awful! Painful! Agonizing! 

But what if this moment is actually the gateway to freedom? Not only do I see I am surviving it, and that it may not be so bad, but what if being entirely here, right now, is the place that I can finally see. Awareness.

Can you imagine being free of external conditions, including YOU doing something DIFFERENT last week, or last year?

“As long as you regard this moment as undesirable, an enemy, an obstacle, something to reject…then you will experience life the same way…This is what is. You HAVE to start with this.”~Eckhart Tolle 

If you find you repeatedly think that you shouldn’t have done something, turn it around and find advantages to why you SHOULD have done it. This is a readjustment of the path to this present moment.

I should have been there, done that. It didn’t kill me. It helped me enter into an opportunity to wake up. It was part of my evolution. It was the best I could do at the time. It led me to here. It helped me surrender, it’s helping me surrender right now. Something hurts, so I am having to look at all THIS. I am willing to see it differently. It’s allowing me to accept what is, to love what is. Now.

Love, Grace