One of the greatest contributors to off-balance food, eating and hating your body is fear.
Not only does everyone feel fear at some points in life, but we also feel afraid of fear!
At least that was the case for me. I felt afraid, and I also felt afraid of feeling afraid.
Good heavens, that’s a hard orientation to have towards fear. I had to run, hide and duck constantly!!
The way I did that of course, was to eat. Secretly, quickly, sneakily. I didn’t eat out in the open (if I did, I was very, very careful).
But my fear itself caused a huge resistance to looking at fears, whether I felt terrified or even only a little nervous.
I wanted to either put my head in the ground like an ostrich and try not to think fearful thoughts OR I wanted to run, eat frantically, and isolate.
I really did not feel anyone would ever understand me or care about me if they really knew me and my fears.
When I felt listened to, accepted and loved anyway, that’s when I began to feel more free with food and eating and my body image. I no longer felt worried about being rejected and cut off, or that love would be withheld from me.
What do you feel afraid of?
I’m reading and listening here.
I’ve created an anonymous survey where you can feel comfortable answering questions around fears and dreams, and inner conflicts. It means so much for me to read what you share.
Your answers contribute to all of us accessing the peace we all crave so deeply, especially around compulsive eating behavior that seems so persistent and crazy and disappointing.
To answer the questions, click HERE. Very grateful for your honesty and sharing.
When you spend 4 days doing The Work with a group, something happens to everyone’s perspective. Instead of the daily routine of life, our view shifts into a broader awareness.
It’s like the feeling you get when watching a magnificent sunrise.
Or receiving and giving a hug. Holding someone’s hand when they’re ill or dying. Being at the birth of a baby. Suddenly being startled at a gorgeous lush tree full of blossoms.
Everyone has these kinds of moments, where you’re startled by the beauty or insight that’s just inserted itself into your present moment.
In this retreat, we looked and sat with one important question, pens in our hands, blank paper on our laps.
The question: what’s the worst thing that could ever happen in your life?
Whew.
What a question, right?
Holy smokes.
I watched as all the participants closed their eyes, wrote in their journals and notebooks.
Now….what do you think it would mean, if this terrible thing happened?
What would it mean about you, about them, about life?
For me, I’ve thought about a dreadful image when I’ve answered this question. The worst thing ever happening? My children dying. Oh jeez. Not that terrible image again. Ugh.
It’s almost weird to write about. Why go there? Why event mention this dreadful, horrible, ridiculous, not-true scenario? Is there something wrong with me? Why would I give this possibility the time of day? I must be some kind of masochistic weirdo to want to sit with this terrifying disturbance of losing my kids.
But it’s there, nevertheless. A fear. I think I couldn’t go on if this happened. I notice sometimes in the world, peoples’ kids die.
So I’m willing to take a look, since the thought scares me.
Which is what I love about The Work.
The invitation is to open up to the underworld, the terrifying, the thoughts already present, the worries, the fears, the dread.
Let’s get them HANDLED…says The Work. Even if you think four questions couldn’t possibly “handle” your greatest fears.
I invite you to see.
Write down what you think is the worst thing ever that could happen in your life. It’s often about some kind of deeply troubling loss. A relationship, an inability to function, rejection, abandonment, betrayal.
Let’s inquire.
It would be (or, lets face it…it already happened and it WAS) the WORST thing ever.
Is it true?
(First question of The Work).
We’re inquiring. In the grand scheme oft things, we’re opening up to the choice that we’re believers, or we question what we believe….there’s no other possibility.
So let’s question, since it’s an option.
Is it true this would be the worst thing ever?
Yes.
Hands down, yes.
I couldn’t live life ever again in the same way if my kids died.
But can you absolutely know it’s true that it’s the worst thing? Can you absolutely know you couldn’t go on living? Can you absolutely know you’d lose your mind in grief, or freak out, or NOT be able to handle it? Can you know you’d be engulfed in sorrow and wither away into nothing?
How do you react when you believe in this possibility? When you think this is the worst? When you scream at yourself not to think this thought, ever EVER (because it’s so scary)?
I gasp. I try to stop thinking it. I bat it away. I tell myself positive things. And I feel underlying fear. I see images of my kids dying. I think I’m the kind of person who might go through this horrible event, so I brace myself. I don’t know how to prevent it, so I feel frightened. I feel like the future is dim, not bright.
I start imagining that if I think this thought…I’ll invite it. Which just exacerbates and threatens even more, and brings on self-criticism in addition to the original fear. (What’s wrong with you? Stop thinking this!)
But who would I be without the thought my kids will die?
It’s a worthy question. To consider what it would be like to NOT THINK that dreadful thought?
This is not about pretending or denying they’ll die. It’s wondering who I’d be without the thought pounding in my brain that they will.
I’d be relaxed. I’d see what else is going on. I’d open up to other ideas. I’d notice what’s working, even though this could (or has) happened.
And what about if this terrible thing that COULD happen or already did happen…what if it’s OK that it happened? Or the best thing that could happen, instead of the worst?
I know it’s a little abrupt. I know the word “best” is a little weird. But in this world of duality, we’re interested in worst/best, good/bad, terrible/wonderful.
And we’re interested in shaking things up. Considering what good could come out of the “worst case scenario”. Is there anything you can think of that might be GOOD about that horrible thing happening?
Several years ago, I got cancer.
I had surgery, and was lying in bed at home one day later with 50 stitches in my thigh, doing The Work. I looked at my leg, and was amazed the place where the tumor was removed looked like a piece of pale cream-colored leather with a huge gash in it, stitched with a gray colored thread evenly spaced.
How could I think of this situation as the best thing that ever happened? Really? What? I couldn’t find it. There is NO turnaround for this. It’s awful, there’s no reason. Cancer truly sucks. Nothing good can come of this. All awful, all the time, 24 hours a day. It shouldn’t happen. I’ll probably die of cancer, even if it’s not THIS cancer.
Who would I be, without this story though, that it’s the worst thing ever?
Oh. You really want me to do The Work on THIS situation too? Seriously?
Yes. Because you can question anything. The Work is here to open your mind, no matter what’s going on. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care what situation you’re looking at.
Who would I be without my story, in that moment I was lying in bed with stitches in my leg from my cancer operation?
I’d notice when my estranged husband knocked on the door, with our two very young children, holding two-dozen pink roses.
We hadn’t been talking closely. He had left the marriage and we were on the way to divorce. And here he was, showing up while caring for our kids because of my surgery, bringing this gift of flowers. Caring.
Ah ha. I just found my turnaround inquiry.
Since this happened, the BEST thing that happened came next. Sweetness. A show of caring, when I thought he didn’t. (And we still got divorced, and that turned out to be a good thing too).
And so can I find a turnaround example for it being OK that my kids die?
Well….I wouldn’t have to worry about them going through global warming and suffering immensely because the earth is dying. I wouldn’t have to worry about them at all, in fact. They’d miss old age, which appears to be difficult at times (unless you do The Work of course). I’d be off the hook for leaving any inheritance. They’d enter the Great Beyond before I even did, wow. They’d get there without all this wondering and incessant seeking for Enlightenment and Truth.
This work is a little strange. I admit. Noticing your most resistant fears and thoughts about life.
But oh so worth it.
Because in the end, what I discovered I’m really worried most about it ME dying, if THEY died.
Me dying, however, may not be the troubling event I anticipate. Even if my body lived….my heart might mend in such a powerful way, I would recognize that what died was my ego, not love.
And just like my father who died so many years ago of leukemia, I’d notice he may not be here in physical form, but I think of him often, I consult with him, I feel his presence, he’s part of my DNA. So did he even die?
Who would I be without my story of WORST or BEST?
Unafraid. Free. Curious. Open.
“The Tao Te Ching says that the source of everything is called ‘darkness’. What a beautiful name (if we must have a name). Darkness is our source. In the end, it embraces everything. Its nature is love, and in our confusion we name it terror and ugliness, the unacceptable, the unbearable. All our stress results from what we imagine is in that darkness. We imagine darkness as separate from ourselves, and we project something terrible onto it. But in reality, the darkness is always benevolent.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy
Spring Mental Cleaning Retreat Seattle 2017 (Next retreat is Breitenbush in Oregon June 21-25, 2017 and Fall Retreat in Seattle is Oct 19-22, 2017)
Who would you be, in that serious situation, without the belief you’re in danger? Could you be supported?
Today is the anniversary of my father’s death.
It was a very long time ago, and I’m so used to living without him being physically present in my life, there is no dreadful pain about his absence.
But it wasn’t always this way.
When he first got diagnosed with incurable, terminal cancer, a wave went driving through me of deep fear, anguish, and grief.
It was terrible, horrible news.
I was filled with dread.
In Year of Inquiry we’re really diving deep in our third month together into some great and profound questions, related to fear.
I remembered vividly, when I heard someone else’s work on the fear they had for their own child’s safety….
….the fear I felt when I learned my father was going to die.
Worrying about someone else is so stressful.
But here’s what I absolutely love about inquiry. It can open up your mind to seeing clearly, and seeing beyond the fear.
What is safety? Why do I feel so unsafe, in this situation? What am I expecting of myself, or of others, or of life….when I think it’s threatening?
And hey, wait a minute!
Where did I get this idea anyway, that something’s OFF and unsafe or dangerous?
Is it this situation, or Reality, that is off? Or my thinking?
We know intellectually that Byron Katie and other thought leaders and spiritual teachers are offering perspective on this whole “mind” and “thinking” thing, right?
Katie suggests our thinking is the cause of suffering, not the actual conditions of reality. She invites us to look, over and over, as a practice.
“Nothing terrible has ever happened, except in our thinking. Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares. The story we tell is the only nightmare that we have lived.” ~ Byron Katie
Holy Smokes….let’s test it out.
Let’s look at this very common and VERY troubling belief: I am not safe.
Notice you can only think you should be experiencing something different, this “safe” thing, if you believe you aren’t and it’s bad, bad, bad.
I am not safe (TERRIBLE)!
Is it true?
To really dig into this inquiry as you read, find a situation in which you felt unsafe. Emotionally, physically, spiritually–whatever your circumstance.
Is it true, you’re in danger?
Yes!
I remember the circumstances, many of them, when I felt unsafe.
The doctor is telling me the tumor on my leg is cancer. I’m in full-stop traffic miles away, with my 5 year old standing in the rain in the dark by himself, waiting. I’m reading an alarming text. I’m reading an email that says someone’s coming over NOW and they are desperate. I’m hearing a phone message where someone implies I’m a liar, and another phone message where someone says I’m not being a good friend.
I learn someone very close to me (like my dad) are very sick or going to die. I’m suddenly at the scene of a car accident right after it happened. I can’t reach the man I have a crush on, he’s not ever calling me back. I open the trunk of my car and see it’s empty–all my luggage has been stolen.
Not safe! Surely!
You are not safe.
Is it absolutely true for all time, beyond all doubt?
I pause, wondering about this moment, holding still.
Astonishingly, I notice I can’t know it’s absolutely true I am not safe. Even though I just injured myself, even though someone I love just received a diagnosis, even though my stuff is apparently gone (stolen) and I feel energy coursing through me. I can’t absolutely know I am not safe.
Wow.
How do you react when you believe “this is a threat, I am not safe, this is dangerous”?
I clench up tight. I stop breathing deeply. I want to quit everything, why bother trying in this dangerous world? I see pictures of how things will go (badly) and terrible scenes I imagine for the future, and sad memories from the past. I attack myself, or I attack the attackers in my mind.
I condemn nervousness or anxiety as bad and wrong, and I act tough. I avoid any place or any person who threatens me. THEY are the one making me feel this terrible feeling of danger, after all.
I treat myself like I’m meek and tiny, and unable to handle these feelings or this threat. I run.
So who would you be without this thought, this story of the lack of safety? What if you didn’t know this person, this situation, was dangerous?
Some people think, with this question….my God, I’d be crazy! I’d be walking right into something without fear, and not even know it.
Bingo.
And this isn’t about being passive, or being stupid and defying gravity or something.
You can still follow traffic rules, make lists of pros and cons for spending money, notice you drop everything and leave your house when you learn your kid has a broken wrist at school.
But you’re taking action without terror. You’ve moved, without personally believing it MUST go a certain way, or else.
You do the most efficient, kind, loving thing. That’s who you are, without panic. Someone who cares. Someone who moves to help, if you’re able.
I once remember Katie facilitating someone through their thought “I’m afraid of the cancer in my body!”
She asked the person; “Do you think the cancer is more likely to go away…if you hate it and fear it, or you don’t mind it’s there?”
Hmmm.
Without the belief that I’m threatened…..WOW. I’m wondering where this is going? I’m open. I’m stepping forward, even if it’s in the dark. I’m feeling about, I’m curious, even excited.
Even about the Big Fears, like death and loss and change.
Turning the thought around: I am not threatened in this situation, I am not in danger, I am safe.
Could this be just as true, or truer?
What part of you is OK?
I notice, I’m alive, I’m unhurt physically, I thought I was threatened but actually I only read words, or heard words. Bodies are temporary, and some last longer than others. Things are temporary, too.
Without the belief that I’m unsafe, as I hear troubling news from someone else, I might just sit, stay connected to the person, notice I have only kindness to offer and speaking isn’t necessary.
Turning it around even further: I am supported, all is well, everything is not only OK but brilliant, loving, wonderful.
I know that sounds a bit over the top, considering some of the human situations we find ourselves in. I’m not saying I’d be happy in some very grave, shocking news.
And yet….who knows what is possible?
I notice I would live, even if my child died. I notice I lived, even though my father did die. I notice I’m sitting in a very quiet room, with a heater humming hot air into the space, and a beautiful orange lamp shining, with a cup of peppermint tea and some apple slices sitting within reach. It is extremely safe.
It is as if, right now in this very moment, nothing terrible HAS ever happened, unless I remember or think about it.
It is true that I am only threatened if I THINK.
What I notice, too, is when I was in very apparently dangerous situations, I did not actually “think”.
Thinking happened afterwards. I took in what was happening, I moved, I ducked, I ran, I waited, I showed up, I left.
Who was I without my story?
Life in action. Human, being itself.
Human learning something different. Human discovering what it’s like to not believe it’s thoughts.
Human living with no requirements, conditions, demands (except in thought)….or true lack of safety, ever.
Human spinning through space on a small planet called earth, here for a few seconds by comparison to Reality.
Here, noticing what is sweet and lovely, and bitter and difficult, and noticing I’m not running this joint.
Thank God.
“The Master acts without doing anything and reaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.” ~ Tao Te Ching #2 (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Much love,
Grace
P.S. If you notice anxiety, fear, nerves, emptiness, boredom, anger when it comes to eating, food and body….I’m offering a MasterClass on Wednesday, November 23rd 1:00-2:30 pm. Eating Peace: How To Question Your Thoughts That Drive Off-Balance Eating. Register here.
In our Year of Inquiry group, this month we’re looking at The Worst That Could Happen.
Nice and cheery. (Ha ha).
But here’s the thing. Doing The Work on events we’ve found terrible, tragic, horrifying, difficult….seems to expand the mind to include not only the sense of being shattered (no denial of the event in other words) but MORE than only this.
How does that work, being shattered and yet alive, even whole?
It’s the strange paradox of life apparently, part of the duality everyone is speaking about.
(I don’t think of duality as a terrible thing, by the way, and like we all must get to NON-dual ASAP, or else….)
When our Year of Inquiry group is investigating terrible tragedy, or frightening images and visions (the worst that could happen) we notice there’s a never-ending supply of ideas the mind can come up with.
That’s not what this work is about….accumulating scary pictures and scaring ourselves with them, like watching horror movies on purpose.
What this exercise is about, for me, is addressing fear, and noticing what’s actually really true.
Almost every time I’ve considered something “horrifying” or a really bad terrible experience, it’s not as bad as I thought.
Long ago, I was driving on a long road trip with my former husband.
We were in the very last week of our 3 month adventure, driving through tall yellow wheat fields in California on a small blue highway. Rounding a corner in the late afternoon/early evening sun, we saw a truck turned up on its side, and two bodies lying on the earth some distance from the truck.
We stopped.
The bodies were moving. Everything came into consciousness very fast.
Woman, bloody head, turning from side to back, calling out. Small boy, no blood, lying face down quite a few feet away. We’re both jumping out of the car, doors slam, I run to woman, he runs to boy. High alert. Woman talking, moaning, drunk. Boy shaken opening eyes. My husband getting a blanket, boy standing up, lots of blood coming out of a big cut in woman’s forehead.
Two other cars stopping on the road. Someone shouting they’re going back to store to call 911. This was before anyone had a cell phone (1990). I stay with mother of the boy, holding her hand which she’s squeezing, trying to keep a towel on her bloody head and it’s not working well since she’s moving around, worried about her boy, not thinking clearly. Her leg is in a crazy twisted position and must be broken.
In the dusk, a helicopter. First aid men running. We can leave now.
Back in the car, everything was back to normal motion.
Can you believe that happened? We say to each other.
We’re far later traveling to our destination than anticipated. My sister’s place where she lives while she goes to school at Berkeley. We hear her worried voice when we stop to call and say what happened. She waits up.
We arrive at 11:00 pm. At midnight, I can’t sleep. At 1:00 am. At 2:00 am. at 3:30 am. I basically stay up all night, adrenaline coursing through me AFTER the whole thing was over. I was entirely safe. I was always entirely safe, but my mind is seriously freaking out, seeing the pictures of what happened over and over.
During the whole thing, I was waiting, calm but extremely awake. I never thought once that time was passing too slowly. I had no reference for time passing at all as we waited for help, as I held this woman’s hand and tried to stop the blood from her head and wondered if I should try to move her twisted leg and decided against it.
I can’t sleep more than 2 hours for 3 nights.
Then I start telling myself I shouldn’t be so freaked out, it didn’t even happen to me, no one died, what’s wrong with me am I too sensitive?
The truth is, that was a traumatic, sudden, surprising situation.
Often, sudden surprises like this are shocking….and they are The Worst That Could Happen.
But what I see now, from here, from doing The Work on this very situation even though it happened 26 years ago, was how everything was present there, including peace: support (the earth), first aid, me and my then-husband, a beautiful California night, my sister’s home, a quiet landscape with soft wind blowing.
Maybe it was the end of drinking for the mother, the end of her driving while drunk. Maybe it was the end of them not using seat belts.
I really don’t know what it meant in their story, all I can know is what I assumed it meant in mine. My entire psychic, physical, mental and emotional system held the belief “this is the worst, it should never happen, there is no good that can come out of this event or any event like it, the world is a dangerous place.”
Was it true?
Could I absolutely know that situation was 100% entirely dangerous, and no good could come from it?
No.
I’m here. Nothing fundamentally permanently terrible really happened, to be honest.
How did I react when I believed it was terrible, dangerous, horrifying?
Surged like an electric fence with anxiety. Repeating the event over and over and over in my head for days, then weeks, and even now I can remember it vividly.
Who would I be without the belief it was the worst that could happen, a terrible event….dangerous?
Huh? Weird.
Although I see, it’s only dangerous to my mind. This body was untouched. There were many healthy bodies all helping out. The hurt bodies of the boy and his mother appeared to be intact (not dead, that’s for sure).
What was in danger? My mind! My believing! Threatened! Scared! Panicked!
Who would I be without the thought the world is a dangerous place, as I consider that scene?
Somehow…..empty. But a good kind of empty, like a light unknowable, unknowing empty. It’s almost funny for some weird reason, right now.
Life went on. I have lived for 26 more years past that incident, and had many, many good times and awe-struck moments, and love, and peace, and awareness and difficulty and loss and clarity.
It seems we’re all here temporarily, I notice. What if this is a good thing? What if I trusted Reality?
Without the belief the world is dangerous, I notice I’m sitting at a table in a quiet living room, writing. I hear a lawn mower in the distance outside, and the refrigerator humming.
“Who or what would you be without this story? You’ve already been living the worst that could happen. Imagination without investigation. Lost in hell. No way out….But there’s not dark hole you can go into where inquiry won’t follow. Inquiry lives inside of you if you nurture it for awhile. Then it takes on its own life and automatically nurtures you. And you’re never given more pain than you can handle. You never, ever get more than you can take. That’s a promise.” ~ Byron Katie
When you spend 4 days doing The Work with a group, something happens to everyone’s perspective. Instead of the daily routine of life, our view shifts into a broader awareness.
