Tag: sadness

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I was rejected

I wrote a long, friendly email. I sent it off. I expected a great response. A thumbs up. Instead….a no thank you. That won’t work for me.

Rejection.

Nothing like it.

We’re not talking failure. Or being forgotten. Or losing out.

REJECTION.

The word comes from the Latin word re, which means “back”, and jacere which means “to throw”. Throw back.

Like something you caught and you think…..ew. Gross. Get rid of it.

When we reject something, we notice it, and actually wish it was gone, or that we need to make it go away if at all possible.

Experiencing rejection is tough.

Energy coming from something else or someone else directed towards me, saying “get outta here!”

He rejected me. She rejected me. They rejected me.

Are you actually rejected though?

Can you absolutely be sure?

No.

Because I’m still existing. I live. I go about my daily life. They rejected me (I believe) but I’m still here, on planet earth. I can’t absolutely know I am rejected entirely, fundamentally, forever. I’m not even sure what that would look like….death? Banishment?

How do I react when I believe it’s possible to be rejected?

Ouch.

I’m very, very careful to never be rejected again. I’m cautious. I stay away from certain places, or people. I act non-rejectable. I get drawn to whatever people look like they are accepting, rather than rejecting.

I’m angry about rejection. I’m furious! I think righteously about that nasty person and what a nut-job they are. I defend myself. I’m the one who’s fine. THEY are the rejecting screw-ball. See what they’re like? I make a list of their faults. I reject them.

Who would I be without the belief they rejected me?

Wait, what?

But.

No really. Without the belief they rejected you? There they are being themselves, doing whatever they did, saying whatever they said….but you have no thought about it. You don’t know it means REJECTION.

What would that be like?

I’d see a person over there who’s acting frightened, maybe confused. Doing the best they can.

I’m over here, steady on, breathing, even open, curious.

Turning the thought around: they did NOT reject me. How could this be just as true, or truer? Even if they said “no” to you.

Well, I’m sitting in my lovely chair in my living room, looking out at the night sky beyond the window, noticing the quiet, the string lights illuminating the room. Not rejected. Living. Here.

I see that person was afraid, too. The one who I believe rejected me.

Turning it around again: I rejected myself. I rejected THEM. 

Oh wow.

How did I reject myself in this situation? How did I reject them?

This is not an exercise of aggression and self-criticism. It’s for taking a look at what could also be true, and seeing this energy called “rejection” and relaxing with it, instead of fighting it.

How could I have rejected myself, in that situation, and rejected that other person?

I did rip that person to shreds in my mind, calling them “needy” and “rude” and “too sensitive”. I rejected myself by finding criticism in the way I interacted with that other person. I had thoughts like “I should have known they would be rude” when I couldn’t ever have known what they were feeling. I had thoughts about myself like “I’m an idiot” when I really was just trying the best I could.

This rejection thing I did to me, to them….just as much as I believed they did it to me.

The best way I know to find peace with this thought about being rejected, is to question it, and then live the turnaround “I am accepted”.

How is it you are acceptable? How is it you are supported, claimed, held, loved? Even in the midst of that person who is supposedly doing a rejecting thing.

I am accepted. 

Can you keep finding examples?

“You need our approval, is it true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true you need our approval? What happens to your life when you believe you need our approval? Do you become the person THEY want you to be? You lose touch with yourself! The person you become, you don’t like. No wonder we don’t like ourselves. The person we don’t like isn’t us, it’s our facade. It’s what you pretended to be, to get our approval! But no matter what facade you put up, often you don’t get our approval anyway, and you certainly don’t get yours.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

P.S. Seattle area inquirers: this coming Sunday meetup 4-6 pm at Goldilocks Cottage! Drop in, open group by donation. Let’s do The Work! For information visit HERE.

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I’m Sad When They Are Sad

Today I’ve been enjoying reflecting on how much I’ve learned about self-inquiry and having my own business in the past several years.

I looked at a few emails I sent when I started my email list, in early 2011.

I would email the dates and time for anything I was about to teach, and months would go by between one email and the next.

Then….a really wonderful friend who also loves The Work (we met because he signed up for one of my teleclasses) kept prodding me to expose myself, wide open.

He knows a lot about marketing.

“Write about your own work”, he said.

I hemmed and hawed and he kept saying DO IT! He sent me examples, ideas, hints, encouragement.

Well….here’s an updated version of one of my first emails. I thought I’d share it with you all today as a way to revisit that old belief that reappears sometimes now and again.

Dear Inquirer,

Although it was scary at first (and still is at times), doing The Work with others and allowing them to see where I hide from the world and myself, is one of the most liberating things I’ve ever done…and continue to do….

…my heart…bare and naked!

So…

I share my work here for two reasons.

One is, to help dispel the myth that people who’ve been “in” The Work for a long time are in some way “different,” more “evolved,” or “superior.”

Wherever and whomever you are, is just right. There are no special answers, special qualities or special ways of being that happen with any guarantee whatsoever.

And I guess the 2nd reason is sort of the same.

To remind you that we’re all working on the same thoughts and can learn from each other’s work.

I continue to marvel at how everyone’s work in my classes…is MY work, too.

I’m also amazed at the courage, integrity, and innocence of “us.”

My clients and class members inspire me.

With that said, here’s a one-liner that reappeared with respect to someone I’m really close to recently:

“He/She should stop hurting.

I look out into the world, I talk with the most amazing, beautiful people, and sometimes I feel a sense of sadness that they are “hurting” or suffering; grieving, smoking, drinking, overeating, hopeless, full of despair, cheated, lost, desperate, suicidal, afraid…
They feel sad, so I feel sad.
Now that’s rather…funny really. I love how right in the moment that I am interpreting that person as unhappy, that I myself feel unhappy.
This happens often with parents. As a mom, I look at my kids and think wow…I really want them to be happy.
Who would you be without the thought that she/he is sad?
That question alone is so liberating. I realize immediately how sadness is not all they are….
….and it’s not all of me, either.
I’ll continue on this theme tomorrow.
We’re all in this together.

With much love, Grace

 

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They Shouldn’t Be So Sad

One of my favorite quotes is by Ram Dass when he suggests that we can feel blissful on retreat, or in our daily lives and in our practices….but go home for a week and see what happens.

Depression, irritation, anger, sadness! Argh! I thought I was free from all this!

Forms of stress and troubling emotions can sometimes enter the scene within minutes of encountering that person we have lots of memories with, those people who disappointed us, or who are not living their lives as we might have hoped.

We know what that person is like, and it’s downright difficult to be around them!

Even as we knock on the door of their home, or call them, or answer the telephone….we may feel a clench in the gut…ready to brace against that mean, abrasive, complaining, disheartening, unhappy person.

I love when once I realized, that every time I thought about my grandma, who has been dead for almost twenty years now, I saw her face all pinched and angry, her cigarette that was constantly burning, her sad look.

She rarely spoke.

“She shouldn’t have been so sad”.

That is so sad that she was so sad! What a funny thought really…but one I believed since I was a child. Every time I thought of her, I felt a little sad myself.

I wanted to shake my head….oh the waste of a precious life. A hurt, unhappy person, never resolving her life, never finding peace.

I realize how stressful that thought was, throughout my childhood, watching my father (her son) believe the thought, watching him try to help her feel better.

Even now my mind will still make guesses for how much abuse she must have suffered (which I don’t know is true) or how much self-criticism. I never saw her smile!

My mind loves to analyze “now WHY would someone be so sad and quiet, and rarely get up from her chair”.

But as I watch the scenario in my mind, allowing myself to remember very clearly a moment when I saw my sad grandmother in her chair….I realize that I don’t know what is happening in that situation.

I’m not even entirely sure that she IS sad. But even if she is, why is that sad for me?

People around me should be happy. Not sad. IS THAT TRUE?

Yes! It’s so much more fun! It’s easier! I don’t have to think about them! No worries!

Can I absolutely know that it’s true, that people around me should be happy? That my grandma should have been happier in her life? Or that she wasn’t?

No.

The way I react when I see someone and think they are sad, and that this is a sad thing, is that I myself get sad and I want to help them. My throat gets achy, I reach out, I try to make them smile.

There’s all this effort moving towards that person, away from me. As Byron Katie would say, I am in that person’s business, and out of my own business. In other words, I am focused big time on them, not me. And I want them to change.

Whew, it’s a lot of work.

Who would I be without the thought that it’s sad when someone is sad? That people should be happy around me?

For a moment, it may feel heartless. What do you mean, NOT have that thought! I would be careless, disconnected, too detached, selfish, self-centered!

They would suffer even more, I would pay no attention, I wouldn’t CARE, they might even die!

Are you sure?

Turn the thought around: it is NOT sad when that person is sad. People should be sad around me, not happy, if that’s what they are. I myself should not be so sad when that other person I love is sad. 

My grandma was just right, perfect the way she was. A human being with an entire life with huge parts in it that I had no idea about. Only a few small pictures in my mind of her really.

As I remember her, I realize that I don’t actually know if she WAS sad all the time in the first place. She lived a long, long life with tons of experiences, perhaps many of them very happy.

I’m not even sure that my dad was upset about my grandma being sad, really, or that it was a bad thing that he felt helpless and unhappy about her predicament.

I realize I know very little….I have simply assumed that the person over there with a sad look, or who is crying, must be consoled and assisted and comforted, or else.

“I’ve heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they’re afraid that without them they wouldn’t be activists for peace. “If I feel peaceful,” they say, “why would I bother taking action at all?” My answer is “Because that’s what love does.” To think that we need sadness or outrage to motivate us to do what’s right is insane. As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become. As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day with drool running down her chin. My experience is the opposite. Love is action.” ~ Byron Katie

I love imagining living the turnaround that my clarity and happiness brings kindness, and the most easy wonderful, loving action with that sad person I know (who, by the way, I am not sure really IS sad anymore).

I don’t have to make special plans for that person, or worry about them, or anxiously hope for their mood to change. I will know what to do, with love.

You will too.

Love, Grace

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Clarity Does Not Suffer

It’s funny how along the path of life, a sentence, or a few words, or a situation will appear, and profoundly affect us.

There is the flash of someone saying a few words, and then the way they said it, their facial expression, repeats itself as a memory.

The other day I was walking down the street and the face of someone I once knew appeared in my mind.

This happens to people all the time, it’s a normal life event.

Why that moment, in that way, at that hour…we can’t say.

One moment nothing, only noticing pavement, trees, yellow flowers, fence, blue sky…the next moment the memory of that person, then perhaps an emotional sensation.

I felt sad.

Then I felt appreciation, even though that friendship is forever over. I felt a sort of melancholy smile, like all is well, was well and will be well.

A little while later, I looked at the fascinating thought “I felt sad”.

That was a core basic descriptive sentence for what happened after I had the memory image float through my mind.

But the sentence “I felt sad” talks about an “I” and then a feeling, and then what kind of feeling (sad).

The Work or self-inquiry is looking at anything with an open and investigative mind that feels uncomfortable.

So I asked myself…“I felt sad, is that true?”

Yes, that’s true. I am communicating the sensations that rose up after I saw the image in my mind of that person’s face.

That was SADNESS. Yessirree!

My throat felt tight, my stomach felt tight, my heart felt full and sort of broken (whatever that is exactly, I’m not sure).

But if I really try to answer that question….as if I just landed on the planet and didn’t really know anything? If I was coming at it from a very new, fresh place?

I can only say those were sad feelings because I’ve learned that’s what other people call them here.

I’m actually not sure what all those feelings were. Because they shifted and morphed and became feelings of gratitude, and a peacefulness came over me rather than pain.

Can I absolutely know that was true, that I was feeling sadness?

And while we’re at it, what is the “I” that was feeling the sadness, or that saw the image?

Woman walking down the street, outside world, inside world, all of it mixed up together, blending….images popping up, air breathed, images seen with the eyes, images seen with the mind.

Then feelings apparently happening. Sensations in the body moving, being one way, changing to another way.

No. I can not absolutely know that I felt sadness when I remembered that person.

I’m not even exactly sure if there was a solid “I” there in the first place (in fact, I’m pretty sure there wasn’t, even though I keep using the word “I”).

How do I react when I have the thought “that is sooooo sad, I felt soooo sad, he felt sad, she felt sad, they feel sad….”?

I feel more sad. I feel unhappy. I want to help. I want to shift it. I think “oh this is terrible, this is uncomfortable!”

Who would I be without the thought that I felt sad, or feel sad now when I see that person in my mind again?

I’d be curious, open, and absolutely filled with love for that person.

I’d also be filled with love for myself, and the gorgeous day, and the presence and stuff all around me….and all the other little thoughts and images rolling through whatever I’m calling inside and outside of a “me”.

Without the thought that this memory is sad, I’d bask in it and allow it to be here, and tears might roll down my cheeks but it an active, moving, sweet, cleansing way.

I turn the thought around to the opposite “I felt happy”.

Wow. That is TRUE! Could it be just as true, or truer, than believing that what I felt was sadness?

Something moves through the throat, the chest, the face…the breath sucks in deeply to lungs, eyes follow sidewalk cracks, “it” sees, or somehow takes in houses, windows, trees, birds, mental images.

Here with this memory is silence, and joy, gratitude, love.

Nothing more is necessary right now. No live people needed, just the images. It’s OK.

“Clarity does not suffer.” ~Byron Katie

Love, Grace

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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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So Sad I Can’t Be Near That Person!

In the teleclass Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven this morning a participant brought us this concept for inquiry: “I can’t be near them”. She was thinking about her parents who were far away.

But everyone in the class could find where they had the same thought. Someone close to them had died, someone was physically far away,  a child had left home, a relationship had ended or never really blossomed.

This concept is only stressful of course if we believe we should be near them, or we want desperately to be near them, or that we are unhappy when we are NOT near them.

We have to be SURE that it is better if we are near them, or that there’s something sad about not being near them. We would be callous or uncaring….or weird, if we just didn’t mind one way or the other whether they were near or not. If we didn’t have stress, discomfort, unhappiness about how far away they are…..jeez! What kind of person would be that way!?!

J. Krishnamurti, an Indian writer and speaker who had many people who loved to listen to him during his life (he lived 1895-1986) once said “Do you want to know what my secret is? You see, I don’t mind what happens”. 

When I began to do The Work, I had so many things that I minded. To put it mildly. Not only were there people I wanted to be near (my father had died fairly young and I had thought of it as tragic) but I also wanted a LOT of changes!

I had a list, if God wouldn’t mind listening for a moment or two….which it seemed He wasn’t interested in (I wanted to be near him and thought I wasn’t). I love Katie’s little saying “Who needs God when we have your opinion?” Good point! Perhaps there was a chance that I was wrong?

Then I began to realize the relief in being wrong about my painful thoughts. If the universe was friendly instead of dangerous, then what an amazing feeling I found inside of myself. I wasn’t always sure…I still am not always sure. But even Not being SURE that it’s dangerous is a huge leap away from “I am positive that this place is dangerous”.

Seng-Ts’an was a great Chinese Buddhist teacher during the third patriarch who wrote these words as a part of a great poem:

The Great Way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences. Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear…..if you want to realize the truth, don’t be for or against. 

This doesn’t mean to delete all your preferences. It is natural to have them. I like blue most of the time more than red. We want things, we prefer things, we have joyful desires. We notice we enjoy being near certain people in our lives, so we want to be near them more. This is the way of it.

The Work helps us loosen the attachment to these preferences, this idea that seems true.

What if everything you think about being near that person isn’t true? What if Now is also OK? What if you can still be happy anyway, all by yourself?

From this vantage point, you can see the Great Way.

Lots of love, Grace