Tag: spirituality

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Trying To Be Detached

Most of us these days have thought about the term “Enlightenment”. In one of the online dictionaries it is defined as transcending suffering and desire.

That about sums up my determination in my late teens and throughout my twenties. The way I would handle not feeling confident, not having lots of money, not feeling happy, and constantly feeling empty and hungry and like actually eating tons of food or smoking and drinking a lot was that I would chase after every teacher, idea, book and philosophy that could teach me how to NOT WANT ANYTHING.

It seemed like being totally unattached would feel so free, painless, and easy.

Wouldn’t it be great to be detached and just be able to say honestly “uh, yeah, I don’t really care about eating anything right now. Whatever.”

Or, “I don’t care about having a boyfriend or a girlfriend, it doesn’t matter one way or the other.”

Or, “Who cares about my job, we’re all rats in the rat-race so I’ll just walk away from it or never get anything where I really have to do what the Man says”.

I like when the detachment chase becomes a little possible in some areas, and it seems like we’re conquering it. It feels so transcendent. “I’m beyond all this! It’s working! Hooray, I don’t care!”

The tricky part about this search for detachment is that it is just another strategy created by my mind. When something doesn’t work, the mind gets a bigger plan, says Katie. The new plan: Attain Enlightenment!!!!

The problem is, I was always there with my imperfect little self, making mistakes and having emotional ups and downs, sad then happy, angry then calm. Worried then not worried.

I think it’s called being a Regular Human.

It can feel like a weight is lifted off your entire world if you stop trying to “work” on your attachments. If you feel beyond them and like you get some distance, it feels so wonderful to not react.

But those of us who are drawn to detachment….like me….it’s good to be really honest and still find out what I care about, what I love, what I miss. Doing the Work doesn’t mean being passive and being detached and “loving what is” absolutely all the time without passion. It feels alive, aware, present, excited.

If you’ve been interested in Enlightenment and seeking it, write down all your concepts on what is good about it and what is wrong with you now, if you believe you’re not there yet.

I love what Adyashanti writes about seeking and trying to get to that state that we think is better than whatever is happening right now, whether it’s being detached like I used to want all the time, or feeling blissful:

“What does awakening mean for you? Do you want it because it sounds good? Then you’ve borrowed someone else’s idea of it. What is it that’s intrinsic to you? What’s been important to you your whole life? If you touch upon that, you are in touch with a force that no teacher or teaching could ever give you. You are quite on your own in finding it. No one can tell you what that is.”—Adyashanti

Love, Grace

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I Hate My J-O-B!

Yesterday I had a new client who has meditated, been on retreat and read extensively.

There was just one little problem with her life….she doesn’t like her home, the city she has moved to, and how much she misses her friends and family. All for a J-O-B!

She moved because she wanted health benefits, a steady income, and to help pay for her child’s education. So she accepted a new job in a new place.

Beliefs were coming out of the woodwork! All about the disappointment around work, income, money, worry about making a mistake in the future, not quitting, quitting, moving back, disappointing people, growing old without a plan….or health benefits.

My mind works this fast, too. Especially when it comes to work and money.

  • More money is better
  • You have to work REALLY HARD if you don’t have lots of money
  • You have to work for health insurance
  • Jobs are hard work, traps, and impose on MY time
  • My business should grow faster
  • Having money means: freedom, security, adventure

I have questioned beliefs about money and business and work often in the past couple of years. Wow, these are just some of the turnarounds I have found, it’s amazing to sit with them and find real examples of how they are just as true or truer.

  • I am already free, secure, and adventurous!
  • My business should grow s-l-o-w-l-y
  • Jobs are easy, places that offer fun and freedom
  • Jobs are not impositions, they are something I get to do
  • You have to “play” for health insurance
  • I DON’T have to work hard if I don’t have lots of money
  • Just the exact amount of money I have is just right

Eckhart Tolle has a wonderful quote “the primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it“.

This means, if I have no job at the moment….only my thoughts create unhappiness. If I get fired or laid off, then my job is being a person who has no “job” at the moment.

If I run my own business, my job is questioning my beliefs about whatever I think is not fun about doing this activity. The possibilities are endless!

What is the worst that could happen if my situation with money and work or business never changes? It’s all in the future, all images in my mind. That are not true, and never could be.

Even the most gruesome, horrible image of a terrible future is only imagination. If something “really terrible” happens….it won’t be the way you’re seeing it in your mind, anyway.

Might as well relax and question everything stressful. The next Money & Your Business teleclass starts on Saturdays in April! Join us!

Love, Grace

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Tornado Sirens or Temple Bells

This past week I worked with two clients who felt very, very discouraged after having the experience of an episode called “binge-eating”.

I remember it well, like it was yesterday even though the last “binge” episode I had was many years ago, compulsively overeating food, absolutely stuffing myself until my stomach hurt, feeling like I couldn’t stop or wouldn’t stop until I was in extreme pain, like something was taking over me, almost another personality!

In that state of mind, there were no obligations, no future, all rules broken, no control, no care for consequences, surrender to the craving.

What exactly is this thing called a Binge? The dictionary defines it as an uncontrolled period of excessive self-indulgence, immoderate, unrestrained. Humans go on spending sprees, gambling binges, eating orgies, crying jags!

It’s like we’re ON these things, as if they are a trip. A train is running and it feels like we can’t get off.

I find that there’s a really interesting flip-flop between being in control and out of control, and people with different kinds of personalities gravitate towards the two sides more or less. And some of us bouncing between both sides.

In control looks careful, regimented, disciplined. It gathers information and data, really uses the thinking mind. I used to live in this place when I was not bingeing. Reading, collecting, analyzing. It felt very mental. I couldn’t get enough information, go to enough workshops, or ponder the meaning of my life and my problems ENOUGH.

Then there would be the state of FEELINGS breaking through and what felt most dominant would be anger, grief, fear, anxiety….some kinds of very intense feelings that seemed overwhelming, serious, and so powerful. Unplanned, unexpected and sometimes very extreme behavior would become the dominant experience in this dramatic place.

But both experiences are reactions to stories. The stories are simple. They go something like this:

  • This could be better, things could be better, I could be better
  • This moment is not perfect, I am not perfect, my body is not perfect
  • Who is God? What’s going on? I NEED to KNOW!
  • My feelings are not perfect, I am angry, scared, sad.
  • I am not complete as is. I need a partner, more money, happiness, a better body, a better mind, more fun, more knowledge, success.
  • Death is terrible
  • Life is boring
  • I’m not good enough

When you can hold still and not react to things like they are an emergency to which need to be figured out, then you can see what’s on your list of stressful beliefs.

The fantastic news is that the more I have found out that what I believed is not actually true for me afterall, the more calm and peaceful I feel. Sometimes it’s pretty stormy inside my mind, but it never works its way up into a frenzy of a binge.

No controlling anything, no being on plans, budgets, rations. No flipping out and going wild as if escaping from a jail.

Byron Katie says that when we feel stress, we’re actually believing something that isn’t really true for us. Which means, when we really get down to it and look…we already know it’s not true. The stressful moment or feeling is the little temple bell ringing, a wake-up call.

OK, OK, tornado sirens for some of us!

It’s just saying “Woah, you’re really believing a story here. This story hurts. You’re forgetting that it’s a story, and that it isn’t true”. Like a little kid believing there is something terrible in the closet.

The next Horrible Food Wonderful Food class starts the first week of April. A great place for first identifying what you’re actually believing about food, eating, your body, and then questioning these thoughts.

Love, Grace

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Hating You Hating Me

Yesterday I got several emails from folks who have found that the one relationship that brings out the most stress in their lives is the one they have with someone from their job.

Boss, co-worker, employee, the person in the cubicle next door.

I love how Byron Katie says “things do not happen TO you, but FOR you”.

Really?!

When I used to feel angry, annoyed or ENRAGED with someone (what, me? enraged?) then one of my reactions when I believed that they really were horrible was that they should GO AWAY.

Be destroyed, get obliterated, get crushed, die, end, and never, ever come across my path again.

Just a little violence in my mind, not too horrible!

It seemed like before I knew how to pause and slow down, my mind got very carried away with the truth that this person was wrong, evil, and someone to stay away from eternally.

The only trouble is that I was just as violent with myself. We all are. We can’t help but start to think, “Was it me? Could I have done something different? Should I have said something else? Why did I get so mad? Or why didn’t I speak up? I could have done better!”

Some of us let the voice that attacks the Self get really loud. We’re just hooked up that way. If I only was calmer, if I only wasn’t as shy, if I only wasn’t so anxious….if I only was different, then I could have prevented this.

But whether you’re a big blamer of others, or a blamer of yourself, it really hurts! It’s really uncomfortable either way, and ranges from slightly bothersome to brutally painful.

What a huge relief to notice the mind’s tendency to do this, and to Stop. Just stop.

Then start with the one big repetitive thought “that should not have happened”. Then move into who you would be without that thought.

And find benefits or advantages to why it happened. Any genuine advantage, something that you know is true that came out of that difficult relationship or exchange that made life different, even in the smallest way, whether it’s a really close person in your life like your spouse, or that person you deal with all the time at your job.

There are advantages to everything.  Come find out the advantage of knowing that person or people who have irked you the most. The next teleclass Turning Relationship Hell to Heaven starts at the end of this month!

Love, Grace

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Some Radiant Pig

Charlotte, the wonderful spider who saved Wilbur’s life in Charlotte’s Web wrote the following words in her web:

Radiant. Humble. Terrific. Some Pig.

But Wilbur feels pretty normal, mediocre, and not very extra special. Certainly not “radiant”.

Radiant is defined in the dictionary as “sending out rays of light, bright, shining, glowing, beaming health, intense joy and happiness”.

None of us really feel that way all of the time. Maybe we’ve only had this feeling a few “peak” moments in our lives. Some of us have a hard time imagining feeling this way, ever.

It’s funny though, how I used to think my ultimate goal was to feel this way ALL THE TIME. Like, if I really got myself together emotionally, physically, spiritually….I would be experiencing bliss. And I would be healthy, intensely joyful, and rays of light might actually even beam out of me while I walked down the street. Enlightenment!

It would NOT be feeling bleak, dark, heavy, dull, gray, unhealthy, intense grief or unhappiness. If I felt THESE things (the opposites) then of course it meant I needed to get somewhere else, do something else, change something, read a better book, quit my job, meditate more, attend workshops, go to therapy, change my diet, earn more money, get a boyfriend, get single, get rid of my ego, discover my attachments and delete them, get married, get divorced, buy something, or move.

Feeling uncomfortable feelings of any kind = something is wrong with me = I need to find “it”, whatever it is, that will make me feel better. And it’s off to the races!

I start to seek, patrol, hunt, sort, analyze, gather, discard, blame. In that state of really feeling uncomfortable, it’s reeeeeeeeaally hard to stay and wait.

Pema Chodron writes and speaks about staying instead of starting to seek outside of yourself when something goes amiss. She says “whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to “stay” and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Discursive mind? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What’s for lunch? Stay! What am I doing here? Stay! I can’t stand this another minute! Stay!”

Staying right there in the middle of the uncomfortable feelings and writing down what you’re feeling…whether rage, despair, terror or all the variations of these in between, this is my favorite way to stay. It’s the first step of The Work. I question my concepts of what I think I need or want to do in order to “get away” from this feeling or situation or person or predicament.

I love one of the things that Adyashanti, one of my favorite teachers, says “enlightenment is standing on your own two feet”.

Actually, the ultimate favorite teacher I have is my own Self. The one who answers the questions.

Wow. I never thought I’d say that. Kind of makes me feel Radiant! Without the actual light beams. Just normal, regular. mediocre me. Kind of like Wilbur, a regular pig. Who lived.

Much love, Grace

P.S. Speaking of RADIANCE: There is a wonderful one-day event in Seattle

on Saturday, April 21st, 2012 next month called RealizeYourRadiance. I will

be presenting on healing a troubling relationship with food and eating using The

Work of Byron Katie. There are many wonderful presenters. Check it out here:

 

www.realizeyourradiance.com

 

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Natural Somersault Fun

Have you ever noticed your thinking going into the thought “what if I never _____?”

That state that feels like I am on a merry-go-round of doubt about not being successful, happy, accomplished, secure, satisfied.

What if I never write a book? What if I never make “x” amount of money? What if I never see Tahiti? What if I never heal this relationship with food? What if I never get married again? What if I can’t forgive someone?

The other day in my teleclass Our Wonderful Sexuality the thought we worked together was “I want them to think I’m special”.

Katie has a little story in Loving What Is, her first book, about how a child is playing on the playground doing somersaults and enjoying themselves, and then someone sees the child and claps, and people shout “wow, fantastic!”

The child then becomes more interested in doing the somersaults so that they can then attract a clapping audience. The clapping becomes more important than the original simple, blissful activity. That felt good to get attention! I want it again! I want MORE! When they think I’m special it is FABULOUS!!!!!

Of course this is not an all-or-nothing situation. Sometimes the strategy of the mind is to decide “I am NEVER going to want anyone to think I’m special. I am above and beyond all that”. In which case, when I’ve been in that mode, I’m low key, stay in the back row, and wind up not being genuinely myself either.

Have you ever heard of the game ping-pong? How about schizophrenia!?

All those things I’m worried about not happening (what if I never____?) are usually things I think that if I did them or had them, I would be happier, more peaceful, more loved, secure….I would be BETTER off than I am now.

So what’s wrong with NOW? I write it down and inquire. No book, no big bank account, never seen Tahiti, not a raw vegan (I do like burgers and french fries), divorced, mad at that person still whenever I think about them…

What is fabulous about not having any of these things? Why is this a good thing? What are the advantages?

Wow, what if none of those things really matter. This is not the “giving up” kind of not mattering where I decide I don’t care defiantly…this is really knowing it actually doesn’t matter! WOOHOO!

I notice I love to write every day, I see I have no debt and my bank account goes up and down like the tide but I’m never hungry, I start researching Tahiti on the internet, I find out I love eating seaweed, I get engaged to be married for a second time, and I remember that the person who I think I’m mad at…they are not here right now, and they are defnitely one of my biggest teachers.

Then I can just be happy, and I notice I do somersaults.

Much love, Grace

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Questioning Death

Byron Katie says that it’s not necessary to question your wonderful, happy stories. Your inspiring stories, your joyful stories. Those are working for us, we don’t worry about them. The Work is about looking at painful, stress-producing, terrible stories.

Still, one of Katie’s wonderful questions (and other philosophers and teachers as well) is “who would you be without your story?” It’s a pretty huge, wide open question. I find that both the “good” stories and the “bad” stories are becoming less easy to define the more I do The Work.

Some of the most amazing changes for me have come out of having cancer, recovering from an eating disorder, being in love and out of love, losing all my money and many of my possessions, or someone close to me to “dying”.

Last night I attended “Parent Night” for my 17 year old son’s driver’s education class. The teacher went over laws, how we parents should help with teaching our kids to drive, reminders of how the licensing system works.

And then he said “now we’re going to see a little movie about the dangers of inexperienced teens driving”.

Oh no…..I hate this story.

In the movie was film footage from a car accident where there were only teens in the car. I see the body of a boy lying face down on the street, I notice his big athletic shoulders and white t-shirt, and there is a pool of blood extending far around him as his body lies still. A fireman puts a tarp over him, the camera keeps moving. There are other bodies, too.

Today I see the movie scene again in my mind. It’s how the mind seems to work. When something is particularly troubling, it seems to repeat the image over and over again. I saw the film clip once last night and that accident scene lasted probably 2 minutes…but now I’ve shown it to myself  probably 1000 times in the last 15 hours, and I was asleep for 7 of those hours!

I even hate telling this story, I don’t want to make others sad, remind them of troubling situations, or admit that I felt like crying and sobered just by seeing that film. But I  can only be worried about telling this story IF I really think it’s TRUE that it’s a entirely tragic story.

One of the most profound experiences in human life is when people overcome very horrifying, dramatic, powerful, life-changing events. What do we mean when we say “overcome”?

For me it feels like the deepest awareness of surrender, of not having control. Difficult events happen. Things that produce profound grief, mental anguish, torment. I can’t sleep, I think about it over and over. I feel numb. Before I had the Work this repeated itself for years. I’d wonder about the meaning of life itself, how can such things happen? It is all so frightening and terrible. Death is shocking, and an accident is a tragedy.

First question: Is It True? My answer: Yes!

I pause…Can I absolutely know that it’s true that the accident I viewed was 100% tragedy? Can I know that they all suffered, or the parents suffered constantly, or that those kids should have lived longer?

How do I react when I believe that this thing was such an awful story, was so terrible? When I think about it, I am overwhelmed with emotion, pain, stress, anger, grief. I think about never driving. I am actually scared, even though nothing has actually happened to me, personally.

So who would I be without the thought? This is not a form of denial, I’m not  pretending the accident didn’t happen….just questioning what would it be like if I could even just rest in the moment of not thinking of it as 100% horrific.

What kind of action do I take when I realize I’m actually entirely safe right now?

How do I live when I realize that every day, people die, some of them in car crashes, and I don’t know why, and will never know why. Some of them are teenagers. Have I noticed that people of all ages die? Have I actually noticed that EVERYONE dies? I am arguing with Reality by saying “that shouldn’t happen”.

“When you argue with Reality, you lose…” suggests Katie.

Tears come, and I feel grateful for being alive right now. Grateful for all the amazing people who arrive at accidents and help clean them up. Grateful that I’ve seen my children live, so far, all the way to teenagers. Grateful that now, my son is going on this adventure in life where he is learning to move his body from point A to point B in a really amazing thing called a car.

Who would we be without the thought that death is terrible and frightening?

Much love, Grace

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Admit What You Think About Angelina Jolie

Today I read an article about how many people reacted to Angelina Jolie’s apparently very skinny shape at the Oscars. The article was suggesting that people shouldn’t tweet things like “Dear Angelina Jolie….eat something.”

I remember my starvation days well. It’s true that if anyone said to me “eat something” it would have made ZERO difference in my behavior at the time. I would have written them off as being crass, ignorant, and rude. How dare they say that to me!

Everyone was suspect, everyone was either against me, unaware, too nosey, pushy, judgmental, uncaring, or needy. They did not understand. I was in control, and not eating was practically the only place I felt any personal control over my life.

The amount of energy it took to deny my own hunger and eat so little left almost no mental or emotional space to do anything but focus on NOT eating. Interacting with others was something I wanted to spend very little time doing, it was pretty scary for me. I was too afraid of people. I was too afraid of telling the truth!

I didn’t want to hear the truth from other people either. It felt too crushing.

Now, I have such gratitude for the people who spoke up and said something during the years I was “anorexic” and starving all the time.

I will never forget a fellow student in college who also ran cross-country on the team. I have no idea what her name was, and can hardly remember what she looked like. But one day at a meet she said to me “Have you ever been anorexic?” and as I looked at her in stunned silence (no one was supposed to ever mention this out loud) another team mate said “Don’t ask her that, jeez!”

I never said a word. But I remember it now, 30 years later. I KNEW at the moment that young woman spoke that she was noticing how thin I was and watching the way I rarely ate and worked out a lot in my running.

I was seen. I had a love-hate relationship with being seen. I couldn’t pretend I was invisible and slowly wasting away into nothing when that woman spoke up. I was noticed.

Around the same time when visiting home, my father came to me with a small plate of sliced fresh pears. He said “won’t you please eat something, sweetheart?” He had no idea how to be with his daughter who was so thin, he was sad and scared. I said “No!” and left the room. But I knew he cared and I knew he was seeing me.

Byron Katie suggests that anything said to her is something she needed to hear in that moment. If it’s said loudly, she needed to hear it loud.

When I was at the School for The Work once, a man stood and talked about himself being sexually inappropriate with a child once many years before. He said how ashamed he was and how afraid he was of others’ judging him for being so awful. Another man in the same room, filled with several hundred people, shouted at him and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so loudly behind him that the walls shook.

 Katie then said something like “there goes one person who doesn’t like hearing what you are saying and may be judging you for being awful.”But that was one person, the rest stayed in the room.

The experience I have with the Work now is that my past actually feels different than it once did. I am now grateful for those people who spoke up and said something….even if I scoffed at it at the time. It was part of  what I needed to hear, right at that moment, just in that particular way.

If you notice judgments rise about Angelina Jolie, write them all down.

See what you think is “wrong” with her and her body. Go ahead and write it! Watch your mind fill with what it means that she has that body looking that particular way.

When you do The Work, your own answers may surprise you. One of my favorite exercises in the Horrible Food Wonderful Food teleclass or weekend workshop is judging those other people out there with their fat or thin bodies. Let’s get the judgments out on the table, because only then can they be set free and seen, sometimes even with gratitude.

Much love, Grace

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Yesterday’s Boring Post

Yesterday I sent out a little FB Page announcement. That’s “Facebook” for those of you who don’t shorten absolutely everything in print for texting, like I do with my teenagers.

The announcement was supposed to say that I’m scheduling $50 sessions from now until March 10th if you go over to the FaceBook page and “like” it. But that wasn’t what the post looked like.

The fantastic thing about The Work is that I automatically start to question even the littlest stressful beliefs or reactions to something. It just starts happening, almost on it’s own, despite my busy mind.

So today, I could say “that big blue Facebook announcement looked weird, said nothing in particular, and had nothing much to offer to any of the amazing and interesting people who read these posts”.

I could even add other little thoughts I have that come up right after I think about how that announcement didn’t look that great. Thoughts like “jeez, who cares about my FB page!”

Not caring was always one of the ways my mind went to “solve” a problem or quit worrying about something. I’ll stamp it out and turn off my interest in it, I’ll quit caring!

“I’ll quit wanting more money! Who cares about money! I’ll quit wanting food! Who cares about eating! Not me!

He or she can go to hell! I don’t care about them anymore!”

I have a wonderful little postcard of the famous artist Roy Lichtenstein whose cartoon illustrations always make me smile. It is on my wall in my kitchen, to remind me of how funny it is that one way I think of solving a problem is to cut it out of my life (the thing, the feeling, the person, the memory…etc, etc).

The postcard reads: “I DON’T CARE, I’D RATHER DROWN THAN CALL BRAD FOR HELP!” Oh the drama!

 

Here’s the most interesting thing about doing the Work when I really get down to business and write down everything I’m actually thinking and believing about a situation, and then go through all four questions and the turnarounds: I don’t have the reaction to decide not to care. It really feels peaceful and calm, not hostile or closed.

So this morning, when I had the thought that my little Facebook post was sort of boring, wasn’t my usual writing, and didn’t even have the announcement I thought I was including, I can ask myself why this bothers me, what I think it means, give it a little attention.

One of my beliefs is “it’s embarrassing to promote my FB page.” It shows I need help or that I care. Another is that I need to offer something fabulous. Another is that I only have so many appointment times open anyway over the next 2 weeks so I may not be able to work with everyone who wants to!

Oh horrors! It’s getting worse the more I consider it! Wouldn’t it be easier to just NOT CARE/ shut down/ cancel out/ move on/ divorce/ squash out/ ignore/ or pretend it doesn’t exist!!!??!!

Instead I question that it’s embarrassing to send out a boring post, that has no obvious benefit to the reader. Is that true that it is actually embarrassing? Like something I’d rather not do, not talk about, and not suggest afterall? Is it terrible to need help? Or to show that I care about my own business success and growth? Or that I care about making helpful offers to people?

After doing The Work, I can ask myself in a really neutral, open way, what would I like doing now? Well, I’d like to say “Hey fabulous people! I’d love to work with you and I’m offering really crazy inexpensive $50 sessions!!”

And I actually have no idea if getting the Page “liked” on FB matters much, some people seem to think it may be helpful, like taking vitamins (which I enjoy). And it’s wonderful to have an online page so I can hear from you and stay connected.

The next teleclass on business and marketing, where you can really get help seeing what your beliefs are about Facebook, Google, marketing, emails, posts, blogs, money and your business, starts on Saturdays, April 7th.

Much love, Grace

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Sneaky Deceptive Liars

Today in my morning teleclass on sexuality, we questioned the age-old concept that feels so very true “he/she shouldn’t have been deceptive”.

One of the first times I heard Byron Katie she was speaking to the whole audience about common stressful beliefs. She said “people shouldn’t lie….on what planet??!”

I got that Katie was saying that here on this planet, ever since humans have existed, there have been people who are deceptive. People tell outright lies, people invent elaborate cons, people also exaggerate, diminish, or modify the truth. People withhold important information from others. People don’t say what they really mean. People get scared, even little children, and they hide or keep secrets.

Getting angry that humans do these things is really painful. And it’s an ARGUMENT with REALITY, as Katie says. The reality is, is that people are deceptive. There are people that steal, cheat, hide, manipulate and withhold the truth.

But let’s get down to the bottom of why it makes us absolutely sure that it’s true that people should NOT be deceptive.

It’s because I shouldn’t be deceptive.

Have you ever told a lie, or smoothed over the real truth, or avoided saying what you really feel because you know it might hurt someone’s feelings? I notice that it doesn’t feel that great for the one being deceptive.

In Dostoyevsky’s famous novel Crime and Punishment the main character gets away with murder and believes he will do good deeds with the riches he obtains. But he is tortured, he knows something is off. Woody Allen’s movie Match Point also shows the torture of crime by the criminal. The character can’t believe he’s gotten away with it. He loses all faith in the human condition, that no one is “catching” him and punishing him.

I read a book recently called “Radical Honesty” by Brad Blanton. He suggests saying everything and telling everyone the real truth, because it makes for an intimate, passionate, REAL life worth living.

If you feel sad or angry about someone who has misrepresented themselves, or been deceitful or deceptive….turn it around for yourself, for your own sake.

I shouldn’t be deceptive. Maybe even with that person who I perceived was dishonest. How was I deceptive with that person? Well….I laughed when what was being said wasn’t that funny, I didn’t speak up when I disagreed, I pretended I had something else to do instead of saying I didn’t really want to get together.

Now, the next step is being compassionate with yourself, and finding out what you were believing that made you think you needed to be deceptive in the first place….

Every little deception is there for a reason, it is there because the person engaged in it thinks it’s better to be deceptive than truthful. If I told the truth, that person would hate me, attack me, be enraged with me, talk about me to other people, be hurt….and if all those things happened….I would be all alone.

Ahhhh, now I can question “I need other peoples’ love”—is that true??!

With love and radical honesty, Grace