I am ready to continue to sit again with this mind, old thoughts, new group, and the dreams I’ve experienced that appear stressful.
Someone wrote and asked about cancer and seeing it with unconditional love.
One of my deepest inquiries, personally, has been whatever appears to show up as a matter of life or death.
What are the situations I see in my mind with cancer?
Sitting at the bedside of my father, a November where it’s been drizzling all day, and the darkness has now descended at 4:00pm in the afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. The time of death is near, after two years of many treatments. He will never get to see his grandchildren not yet born, or to retire.
My doctor looks serious when I return to her office about a large bump on my thigh that was biopsied two weeks earlier. “After I take the stitches out, we need to talk about this.” Adrenaline surges through my body.
One of my dearest friends since age 14. I’ve been visiting him weekly for many months. He doesn’t get out of bed anymore when I come. I see wide bumps on his back that look like they are full of liquid, as he moves to reach for a glass of water.
The father of my children and first husband lies in a very quiet low-lit room in the tall Swedish Hospital in the middle of our city. There’s a gorgeous view out the window of a warm summer sunset. Everyone who visited earlier has left. I didn’t know I’d be the only one in the hushed room. I feel choked up, and heart-broken, and awkward….but there, present.
This is horrible. Awful. Wrong. Terrible. Devastating. Something to be AGAINST. Death. Knowing death is coming. Body breaking down. They are going soon. Terrifying.
Is it true?
What?! What kind of question is that?
How could that NOT be true? Of course it’s terrible. Nobody likes dying, and especially of cancer.
I notice how sure the mind is that it’s right. I notice how it’s terrified of death, even when it’s inevitable for everyone.
Such certainty, all based on guesses.
Can you absolutely know this is true that this situation, dancing with cancer, is horrible, terrifying, wrong…for them, for me?
This is no small question. This is the greatest question in the world.
Can I know it’s true that death–and especially death by THIS thing called cancer–is the “worst” thing ever?
Can I know the pain is intolerable, wrong, devastating?
No.
I. Do. Not. Know.
When I experienced the cancerous tumor, it was cut off my leg and almost 50 stitches to sew the area back up. The pain I felt was a super sharp sting as they put in the lidocaine injections deep into my thigh. I was awake. There was no additional pain. I saw nothing but the surgeon wearing her mask and the assistants moving about, smoke rising from a cauterizer. I heard them talking.
With my loved ones, I was there with them, just being there. Except for my reaction to the image of them over there, looking like they were weak and hurting and almost dead (and my stories about death) the space was peaceful.
Actually, more than peaceful. It was sacred.
Holy.
Like I was present to the portal that opens between this world and another, perhaps.
Someone doing The Work with me once said with a choked throat and tears and despair “There might be nothing on the other side. It’s just over. It’s so sad.”
And I notice, I don’t know if it’s sad. If it’s over there would be no sadness. The sadness can only be in the mind, now.
How do you react when you believe this death approaching, this illness, is horrible?
How do you react when you’re against it?
Crushed.
Imagination run rampant with thoughts of how it would feel, of imagining pain, of comparing what is with what was or what should be.
Here, I’m aware this work of self-inquiry is not about moving speedy quick over these difficult feelings or the wildness and mystery of life and death.
It is not saying “never think about death” or pretending there is no feeling of falling.
There is no trying to get somewhere else really, at all, even though I must admit I came into The Work trying to get somewhere else, somewhere different that felt better.
But who would I be in the face of cancer and death, without my conditions? Who would I be without the belief it should be different…another way?
How did I get the idea?
I notice how much I love the world, love people, connections, life, wonder. Perhaps that’s where I got the idea.
I imagine this love, this awe of life and how strange, magnificent, weird and mysterious it all is….and I dream of it ending in the future, as other things have apparently ended, and I feel what I’m calling “sad”.
Without the thought of “horrible” though, I’m in the moment now, with these people and images, with this invisible thing called cancer, where bodies are changing.
I see how there’s a slow peaceful movement away from the symptoms into whatever death is.
Everything changing, shifting, moving.
Turning the thought around: MY THINKING is horrible. Awful. Wrong. Terrible. Devastating. Something to be AGAINST. Death. My thinking is coming. Mind breaking down. My thinking is going soon. My thinking is terrifying and terrified.
Could it be that except for my thinking, all is well?
Yes. I’m simply here, aware. Being here, winding up here without a plan–there was no plan.
Holding this person’s hand, sitting in the presence of What Is. Broken open. Broken open very wide.
Not too terrified to be here, witnessing. Of service, if I can be. Noticing I want to give time, attention, connection. Noticing I wouldn’t want to miss any of this.
Not too terrified to feel like falling to my knees and surrendering to All This and sobbing my heart out.
This is wonder-ful, bearable. Right. Happening. Affirming. Something to be in favor of. Life. Knowing death is coming is good. Body breaking down is OK, the way of it. We are all going soon. We get to make that mysterious journey. It is loving.
Could this be just as true, or truer?
I can find so many advantages.
What if all the “conditions” I’ve placed on loving and being loved, on accepting and being acceptable, on feeling happy and peaceful, on me being a “me” and you being a “you”…..
…..fell away and there was nothing more required, absolutely nothing, in order to experience and be love, or peace, or happiness itself?
Aren’t I most interested in No Conditions?
Isn’t my greatest choice, perhaps my only choice, the ending of all conditions for love, peace or happiness? Isn’t that what I’ve always wanted…to feel whole, joyful, free no matter what?
Isn’t that why I keep loving doing The Work?
Yes.
Without the thoughts about dying, disease and death….what is, is amazing.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Retreat starts in 2 days. For those of you asking about attending morning sessions only during this retreat since you’re in Europe, or evenings only if you’re in Australia, yes you can (good to have experience in The Work). Please consider the contribution of about $60-$80 per session to support us in our work. Institute for The Work ITW candidates receive 24 in-person credits (12 with me, 12 with Tom Compton–unless you’ve already gotten credit with us before). Join us here.
The orientation to dieting and getting to the right weight is so stressful. More stressful than we sometimes ever realize.
For me, going on a diet and wishing I was thinner set me up for major and massive obsessing about food.
If we want the body to balance out in its own way, gently, we need to allow it to follow the peaceful thinking, peaceful behaviors….in its own time.
Like a little boat sailing across the ocean makes a small change in its navigation, shifting a tiny bit to the left or right can make a bigger change than we ever imagine in the future.
Meanwhile, the stressful belief: I know what weight I SHOULD be. This number I’m reading today is the wrong number.
Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true?
Hmmm. It seems like it would be really fantastic if I were that “ideal” number.
But who said so?
How do you react when you believe your weight is wrong today? When the number should be another number?
Wow, horrible. I put my life on hold waiting for the future when my body is “right” weighing. I go nuts on my strategies for eating and food.
I think about food all the time.
So who would you be without this story: “I know what my weight should be!”??
Wow.
So freeing.
You mean I don’t have to think endlessly about what weight I should be at, that’s never the weight I’m actually at? I can be myself today?
Yes. I’d be a person not thinking about how I have to endlessly tweak my food.
Let’s turn the thought around.
TurnAround: I do not know what my weight should be. It is the right number today.
Why is this the case? Why is it OK that my weight is this weight today? How does this number support me? What do I notice is OK within, no matter what weight I am?
TA: My thoughts are too weighty today (my thoughts are very heavy). My thoughts are at the “wrong” number.
So true. Except for my thinking, I’d be happily in the body I’m in, going about my life.
“When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself — that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control. ~ Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
First (before today’s inquiry) an accidental merging of my mailing lists (in case you haven’t read the news): I pressed a button and all Eating Peace subscribers were combined with regular Grace Note subscribers.
But I figure this has lead to something perfect: you updating your subscription with what you want to receive from Work With Grace, and what you don’t.
Grace Notes (like the email you’re reading) come out 1-3 times a week with the The Work on some stressful thought (plus all upcoming events are announced, the Peace Talk podcast updates, and First Friday monthly free sessions).
Eating Peace Notes are all about eating, self-inquiry, and ending troubled relationships with food and our bodies (and especially our minds) and comes out once every 7-10 days with a youtube video.
How to update: scroll down to the link at the very bottom of this email (or any email you ever receive from me) and click the Update Profile link. It’s in tiny pale letters.
The whole list debacle makes me think of fessing of up to mistakes made, and how this goes in the world whether between two people, or huge groups, or whole countries.
It can be incredibly powerful to admit your part in an interaction gone “wrong”. Or to tell the honest truth when you’re asked a question directly.
“The answer is…..” “I have something to tell you….”, “I must admit that….” “I’m worried about saying this, but the truth is….” “I’d like to have a heart-to-heart conversation about….”
The other day, my husband, who is a school teacher, stood in the kitchen looking into a bag of fabric someone donated to him for his classroom.
“Oh look!” he said with delight, “this design is so beautiful! And this one looks like a picnic table!”
He continued to scrounge through the huge bag of large and small fabric pieces.
Then he pulled out some kind of white mesh thing with sticky sides and held it up and looked towards me, sitting over in the living room.
“Do you know what this is?”
I stood up and came over to look.
I had no idea. Some kind of backing perhaps, something used in sewing.
My husband left it on the counter.
Several hours later I was back in the kitchen making a cup of tea, cleaning everything up the way I do while the water boiled, emptying the dishwasher, wiping counters, putting things away where they belong.
I held up the folded white mesh thing-we-didn’t-know-what-it-was, paused, hesitated, and then threw it in the garbage.
Um. Heh. Yah, I did that. (It’s not the first time).
That evening, my husband poked his head into where I was reading. “Do you know where that white meshing stuff is from the donation bag?”
Oh.
“I’ll get it!”
I noticed myself jump up, go into the kitchen and fish the stuff out of the garbage, with him following me and seeing me do it. I kinda wish he wasn’t following me, if you know what I mean.
What did I think, earlier? That he’d never notice? (Yes, and I remember hesitating with the gut feeling to ask him first).
“You threw it out?!”
Fortunately for me, I have the dearest most patient husband in the world. The stuff was slightly moist in one area from a tea bag, but intact.
While in this situation part of me knew to take the time to ask first….I’ve been in situations before where I deleted documents, broke something, lost my wallet or keys, forgot an appointment….and I didn’t “mean” to do it. This one I actually basically knew not to, and did it anyway.
One underlying thing was happening in all of them: wanting to go fast. Wanting it to be easy, and done. Finished. Over. Task Complete. Problem Solved. Kaput.
Being someone who was once bulimic, literally, with a raging eating disorder, I watch the underlying belief in axing things, or purging, still arise.
It happens so quickly, because speed is involved.
Get this out of here, cut this off, remove it from my sight, off with his head!!
Have you ever handled relationships with others like this?
Jobs. Romances gone sideways. First husband when he said he wanted to end the marriage.
People sometimes cut off their family members using this “delete” strategy rather than tell the full and honest truth, and listen to the other tell theirs. Which takes time, patience, slowing down, willingness to share together and speak and discover what it’s like for the other.
But here’s the thing: For me, it’s always good to do The Work first, before such an intimate conversation.
It’s worth it.
It’s literally one million times easier to share honestly with someone you love than to hold it in, pretend things are OK, repress, be super careful. Even better if you discover your own fears, motive or agenda beforehand, by doing The Work.
I know, I know….that other person may not want to speak with you even if you get to the place where you do. That’s OK. The best feeling is being open and willing. You can let them know you are (if you are) so they know you’ll be ready when they are.
Meanwhile, I love the four questions.
I can just throw this away, and the counter will be clean. (I can just shut down, isolate, withhold the truth, and go on about my life leaving the past entirely behind…)
Is it true?
Um. Rats. There may be a few steps in between. These steps might look like feeling our full feelings, willingness, inquiry, learning, honesty, clarity, awareness, love, surrender, peace.
So, no. It’s not true that throwing it away will clean it up, forever…or with no consequence.
How do I react when I believe safety lies in cutting something off? Or my goal will be realized if I throw something out (even if it’s not mine)?
I move fast. I toss it away.
Long ago, when I was trying to follow spiritual principles I was gathering from anything I could possibly read, I decided giving all my possessions away would put me into a state of wonder and lack of burden.
I literally took everything, including photo albums with all my own baby and childhood photos, to the dump. I watched everything I owned practically go over the edge by my own hands into the pit.
I still think about that purging. The desire to purge my mind of myself. The desire to be something that was Not Me. Really believing it would bring me to freedom, or peace.
It didn’t.
Who would you be without the belief that throwing something, someone, that issue….into the garbage or out of your sight, will make things easier? Quicker? Handled? Safer?
Sigh.
I’d ask my husband if he wanted the thing, or not. If he said “no” I might even put it in the Goodwill box and treat it as something of value. (I still do love giving away things I don’t use very often, and prefer the more minimalist life of a little house, fewer clothes, just-right amount of pots and pans, one bookshelf of books).
Who would I be without the belief that tossing it away would clean it up? Including a relationship?
I’d be doing The Work. Checking my inner clenching. Watching “my” resistance. Noticing the fear at the human level and the absence of fear at a place beyond.
I’d make contact with an open mind, with the other person. I’d share my inner life, and connect with them, without expectation.
Turning the thought around: I can’t throw this away and expect the counter will be clean. I can’t just shut down, isolate, withhold the truth, and go on about my life leaving the past entirely behind…
Could this be just as true or truer? What’s the reality?
I notice the mind, and the heart, want to catch up with each other and understand together what’s going on. I notice I want to connect with others in a really honest, open-hearted way and this takes time. Willing to listen, speaking the truth in response, sharing until it feels empty.
I notice I can’t throw my thinking away about something that happened that I found disturbing. I can’t just shut it down, isolate it and go on about my life without inquiry and understanding.
It takes as long as it takes. It takes reflection, having an honest conversation with myself. Willing to be wrong or misunderstood. Willing to Not Be The Victim.
And here’s the good news: you don’t have to have the other person say “yes” to a conversation, you don’t have to keep a job that’s really not right for you, you don’t have to keep the white mesh thingie on the counter when you want the counter cleaned off.
It’s a clarity dance.
I love slowing down, with the help of The Work. I love noticing the way the mind believes Fast or Over is better, instead of Slow and Steady.
Best of all, it’s a work in progress, this dawning of awareness. It’s underway. Happening. Doing what it needs to do.
“I see people and things, and when it comes to me to move toward them or away from them, I move without argument, because I have no believable story about why I shouldn’t. It’s always perfect. A decision would give me less, always less. So ‘it’ makes its own decision, and I follow. And what I love is that it’s always kind.” ~ Byron Katie
If you’d like to question your thoughts about a relationship that ended (divorce, break-up, separation) then join me January 6th on Sundays at 11:00 am Pacific Time for 6 sessions (no class January 13th). Sign up here.
Eating Peace Retreat is also coming soon. Three spots left. This is a deep and powerful immersion in questioning thought, behaviors, relationship with food, reactions, compulsion, betrayal, disappointment. We start Weds night Jan 9th and end Monday morning January 14th. Life changing.
My eating was war-like because my thinking was war-like and oppositional and fearful, and so were my feelings.
Eating was grounding, a way to push the pause button. You have to slow down to chew and swallow, and enter a world of doing something for apparently “no reason”.
When I was eating, I wasn’t doing something “good” or getting tasks done from my endless to-do list, or saving the world, or writing a book, or even being good.
I was simply focusing and taking in for myself alone, and processing my troubled thoughts in a way (although, not permanently).
So instead of feeling so upset and ashamed at how rotten and selfish I was, and entering the self-criticism mode about me….
….I connected with others so that I could talk, share, express, and say what I was troubled about. And oh boy was I troubled.
I had deeply stressful thoughts about careers, jobs, bosses, work, money, survival, pain, fear of hurt, family, relationships, mother, father, sisters, competition, being left out, feeling muted.
What brought me the greatest freedom, was beginning to look at each of these experiences of suffering in my past.
Eating peace is born from thinking peace.
The most simple, lazer-sharp way to do it that I’ve found is with The Work of Byron Katie.
Find one troubling experience, and begin today. It can feel frightening, but it’s better than pushing it down with food, I can guarantee it.
P.S. Four day Mental Spring Cleaning Retreat. We’ll be clearly identifying what’s felt so painful in our experience, and with the power of The Work of Byron Katie and our slowing down, we’ll discover answers that were waiting inside us the whole time. For more information visit HERE.
It’s so common to think your body is ugly, or some part of it is ugly, that I used to not even notice I was thinking it.
It was automatic. Like…of COURSE that needs improvement. Of COURSE that’s gross.
But after I learned how to do The Work of Byron Katie and question my stressful thoughts, I applied it to the belief “this is ugly”.
Wow.
In today’s video I share something I saw on my body not long ago, and I stared at it in fascination (a scar). In the past I would have thought of it as ugly, but on the inside I didn’t feel that old pain at all.
I give credit for that freedom to The Work.
You can do this, too.
Eating Peace: Do you think something about your body is ugly? You can find peace with this kind of thinking.
Words can’t describe how happy I am to be back to doing The Work with a small group of people who desire freedom from believing their stressful thoughts.
If you’re interested, you can plunk down a full fee for the year and call it done–you’re making time for yourself for slowing life down and questioning the mind and the way it thinks everything is true. You can also pay monthly.
All I know is….thank God (whatever you see as this mystery) for The Work and for the simplicity of the way Byron Katie formatted and came up with her process of questioning.
Self-inquiry has really been around for centuries, perhaps thousands of years.
OK, probably since humans and minds and thought have existed.
There have been questions.
Why? How? What is this for? Where are we? What do I do? Where do I go? What does this mean? Who am I? Who are you?
Socrates, the great philosopher who lived almost 2,500 years ago became known for his method of inquiry. He loved stimulating discussions in the form of questions and answers and debate.
He loved circles and seminars and people gathering together to discuss and ponder these great questions about the world, about humanity, about life and whatever is beyond life–he wanted to understand the truth, whatever this might be.
Socrates, in fact, realized along the way that he didn’t really “know” anything.
A friend of his even asked the wise Oracle of Delphi (the priestess who could answer great questions) if there was anyone wiser than Socrates.
The Oracle answered “no”.
Socrates believed the answer was a sort of paradox, because he was discovering that he really knew nothing in the end, absolutely.
He felt he was not wise at all.
And that in this knowing was actually great wisdom.
Isn’t it amazing to think that if you don’t know the answer to something about your life, or about anything, this may be the most wise position you could take?
Even if it’s difficult and agonizing at times?
Socrates began to test out the idea of wisdom by asking all the great people of Athens–including politicians, poets, artists–what they thought of the Oracle’s pronouncement that no one was wiser than he, and what they thought “wisdom” meant and who had the deepest or truest answers.
What became clear was that no one knew what the answer was.
They might think they were wise and knowledgeable, or they might not, but their opinions didn’t really matter.
In the end, no one knew.
Life was a mystery. A great contemplation. Full of pain and full of joy, full of life as well as death.
Since Socrates knew that he didn’t really “know” anything absolutely, he concluded and laughed that the Oracle must be right–because most other people felt they DID know the truth, and therefore they had blind spots and anger and suffering.
Socrates, as you may well know, was put on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens and of not believing in the Gods.
It was in his trial that he uttered the famous quote “I know that I know nothing.”
It is told that at his trial, he was asked what he thought his punishment should be, for being so influential and defying the status quo and not seeing anyone or anything as all-knowing, even himself.
Socrates said his punishment should be free dinners for life and a wage paid by the government.
I guess he had a sense of humor, too.
He was found guilty and put to death.
I love the Socrates story, although some would see it as quite tragic as many legal acts have been throughout human history when people defy the system and appear to be threatening.
But he was not willing to step down for the sake of saving his own life and speaking what the politicians and rulers wanted to hear.
He even may have been interested in death, certainly not afraid of it.
He was certainly willing to see how things unfolded, while continuously saying what was true for him–that he didn’t know what was really true.
Today, my thought is that we have greater capacity to be with the unknown.
Sort of.
What I mean by that is….it’s far more acceptable, and obvious sometimes, that we really don’t know why we are here.
We don’t know what created us precisely, we don’t know when we’re going to die, we don’t have answers for specifically why we were born.
Even if you believe in God or use the word God (which I love, personally) and have a religion, you know it’s a mysterious force.
Our lives are really very mysterious.
This process of questioning is very mysterious.
And yet, we as inquirers are willing to enter the mystery, most of us.
We’re sooooo curious.
We are willing to consider that we may not have answers to our “problems” and we might not even know how we got into this pickle we’re in, if we’re in a pickle (most of us are at some point, right)?
All of us have our dilemmas, and our thoughts about what needs to happen in order for us to be happy.
Or what we’re missing, or what we need to be worried about.
Our minds are so brilliant, they move so quickly, we don’t even catch our thoughts most of the time.
Things happen in our environments, and we decide almost instantly what these things mean.
We react.
Which is where The Work comes in as a brilliant tool.
When my reaction is stressful…..I know what to do.
Question my thinking. Ask if it is true? Ask who I would be without this thought?
And what I have found over time, is that when things happen, and I question them deeply with the four questions known as The Work of Byron Katie, I see what happened before differently.
More openly.
I see what happened with curiosity. I wonder.
I may even have appreciation and fascination, rather than horror.
And then what happens?
Wow, this is the most wonderful thing, and why I continue to inquire into the meaning I put on life and relationships and all things…..
…..because what happens after inquiry is the next time something similar occurs I have a different reaction.
I simply do not react so quickly.
I remember that I don’t know what I think I know. I’m aware that my thoughts are not absolutely true, I don’t have the complete and total “truth” and the full picture.
I react maybe with laughter. I respond with greater peace, and less anxiety.
Without even planning it.
I begin to see things as more mysterious, more full of unknowns, and I’m somehow willing to stay there without certainty, not because I’m trying to stay there, but because I REALLY AM UNCERTAIN!
Today someone shared that on Byron Katie’s facebook page there was this quote:
“The moment you project what’s going to happen, it costs you your life.”
I can so relate.
I have many thoughts about what might happen. I think about what might happen in an hour, or later this evening. Pictures flash through my head about what might happen next week, or in ten years.
I have thoughts all the time like….
I have to get A done and B done before C (and C is critically important)
My kid needs D or else E
My relationship isn’t working because F
If I don’t change G then my life will look like H in the future
I need more J
I need less Q
This isn’t good
This is fantastic (yes I included this one because believing it can be very stressful and make you grabby, right?)
I know what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong and I must implement it
What if instead of believing any of it is true (if you pause and ask if what you’re thinking is true, and walk through the four questions, you may find you can’t believe it) you are open to Not Knowing?
What if you trusted, somehow, that your answers may not be the complete package?
What if instead of your ideas, and being the one responsible (it’s quite a burden) you let go of having to figure it out and you let the world surprise you?
Because that’s what I find, almost every time I question my stressful thinking.
Life starts having a sweet flow, like I’m on a rowboat without oars and I’m floating down a gorgeous stream.
OK. I admit, sometimes the stream becomes a wild chaotic waterfall and it feels like it’s an emergency. Not so gorgeous, OK.
However, if I then question the emergency of going over waterfalls, and dying, and I find that even Death is not necessarily what I think is true about it….
….even these hard times I notice become soft again.
Even “death” is just a thought.
Without answers, without really knowing what it is until I get there.
All of this doesn’t mean I don’t take action, and move to another room when it’s really loud in this one, or run away if someone’s coming at me with a knife.
Maybe that’s the way of it. Running occurs.
But it does seem like less frantic running ever happens, now that I do The Work.
I am surrounded by amazing people who love to contemplate their thinking, and see what happens, and report in to each other the way things change and move.
Astonishing and inspiring events occur, in the mystery of all this, when gathered in a group of inquiring people (and when gathered in a group of non-inquiry people, for that matter).
That’s why I’m so happy to begin with everyone tonight, and many days every month, with schedule inquiry time.
I get to hear what happens in their lives, what they are learning, how things shift.
Sometimes the shifts are big, sometimes very small and subtle.
People don’t even always catch how things are changing in their lives with inquiry.
But you can see it by staying steadily in inquiry over time, especially if you’re with other people also doing inquiry.
You can see the magnificent, quiet, beautiful silence of Not Knowing that begins to enter someone’s life and allow them to relax.
Some close friends of mine call me an Energizer Bunny.
At “worst” (we could question worse/better/bad/good of course), I am a huge over-achiever, driven, compulsive, fast, kind of crazed about the process of “doing” and thinking and understanding once and for all.
Heh heh.
But at best I am in deep service to Silence and coming over and over to the conclusion that my thoughts do not have the answers and that I am clearly not calling the shots or in control.
It’s hilarious really.
This wonderful wild balance of being alive and participating in the middle of an incredible Life Force of Reality.
Undefinable.
Being comfortable with Not Knowing is the greatest experience I could ever practice.
I get to practice every single day.
And what I see is that The Work becomes a way of life.
It becomes steadily alive in the background of everything to wonder if what I’m seeing is real, or true, and to open up to new possibilities and new thoughts.
Wow.
This is the exciting place, where fresh new insights happen. Where very thrilling creative ideas come along, never before encountered.
Doing The Work with a group over a long period of time (like a whole Year, for example) allows me personally to see the change, the shift, the wonder of humanity and the way waking up happens.
It happens in a pace that’s just right for you, for me.
Sometimes it feels troubling, for sure. Sometimes it feels as expansive as if you just found out you can fly, and you didn’t know it until today.
I love remembering what Byron Katie suggests today in her awesome quote (that I’m grateful someone pointed out to me on facebook a few hours ago) that it costs me my life when I project what will happen into my day, or week, or year.
Instead, I can be with the opposite of all my thinking, and then…..
…..beyond the opposite and into Not Knowing.
Then, this is what becomes possible and true:
I do not have to get anything done and nothing is critically important
My kid does not need me, and his/her path is OK for him/her
My relationship is working just right, and it will change when it’s required
If I change, or don’t change, my life will look incredible in the future
I do not need more of anything
I need less thinking/believing my thinking
This is good
This is fantastic and it’s fine if it goes away–in fact, it will change
I do not know what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong and I am not implementing anything alone
Doesn’t that feel a little lighter?
Isn’t all this just as possible as the stressful thinking?
Flip flop into duality and two sides and opposites of everything, that’s what mind and thought can do.
Really, it’s pretty genius.
Who made all this up?
Oh. Right.
Just like Socrates discovered thousands of years ago, and many wise people afterwards, and Byron Katie in the 1980s…..
…..I don’t know.
Is this good news for you, or bad news?
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” ~ English nursery rhyme
Doing The Work is the rowing. It helps Not Knowing become very, very good news.
Much Love,
Grace
P.S. Year of Inquiry starts today at 5 pm Pacific with the very first phone call. We’ve also got one tomorrow, then Thursday, then Friday. It’s the beginning of a wonderful year of tapping into the power of a group, and structured time for your inquiring life. Won’t you join me gently rowing down the stream?
Do The Work in your journal, notice heaven within, notice heaven all around…..home again.
I have to admit it.
I haven’t done The Work in writing in almost 3 weeks, until today.
And let me tell you, questioning stressful thought on paper is stunning.
I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but first…..
…..I can’t wait to start questioning thoughts that create suffering again with Year of Inquiry folks next week.
Everyone enrolled will receive an email from me with all the dial-in information on Monday.
You’ll have four time choices to come on board and do The Work–and yes, this will be your opportunity almost every single week for the entire year. (The last week of every month we generally don’t meet, so we can breathe, connect with our facilitation partners if we have them, digest, and….notice what it’s like WITHOUT inquiry).
The best way to stay in touch with the experience of inquiring into my sadness, irritation, anger, resentment or fear about anything in life is to have some scheduled regular consistent time to do it.
In Year of Inquiry, that’s what we’ve got together: Tuesdays 5 pm Pacific, Weds noon PT, Thursday 9 am PT, Fridays 10 am PT.
Come to one, or come to all.
Me? I’ll be at all of the inquiry sessions every single week, since I’m the organizer…..
…..and since, for some odd reason, life has unfolded so that this person called Grace Bell gets to do The Work a lot, and not quit.
I never planned this.
But because I have this role in life, doing The Work and being so deeply interested over and over again in questioning thought….
….there’s a freedom about being here as a human being that is brilliant and wild and truly astonishing that I always, always had but couldn’t see before (even though it was always there).
I created Year of Inquiry because I can hardly believe how helpful, how life-changing, doing The Work became for me over ten years ago, when I dipped my toe in the water.
And lately, like I said, I have NOT been doing The Work with pen and paper for nearly 3 weeks.
Yes, not one time of sitting down, writing out my thoughts, and considering what’s happening in my mind that’s affecting my actions, behavior, mood, connection with my environment or connection with silence in the rich, slow way offered by The Work.
There’s Good News and there’s Bad News about the way life’s gone without doing The Work daily, as I usually do when I’m living in the same place every day.
(I’ve been traveling for 3 weeks and my computer crashed, and my cell phone has spotty wi-fi reception and I didn’t bring a notebook or journal and I’ve been very busy seeing important things….and who knows what other excuses I can list all very legitimate).
I’ll start with the Bad News.
Because that’s where The Work starts.
We’re not trying to be positive or happy-happy or stiff-upper-lip or getting a new technique that will be The One that works for all time to allow us to be wonderful amazing productive successful people, like we always dreamed to be.
No.
The Work starts with the juicy, sometimes ugly, chaotic and wild beliefs passed on from generation to generation through being a human being and having a mind and the capacity to think, and feel.
The Work starts with feeling.
Feeling bad. Feeling upset.
And then, instead of trying to smash down, or get away, or escape, or go to war with the reality of this discomfort–sometimes heart-breaking agony–we wait.
We slow it way down.
We get to investigate what’s being “thought” and concluded and assumed. We get to identify the ideas and pictures and the feelings we carry within from experiences or interactions that feel threatening or difficult.
The way I always was before The Work is I noticed life and people and difficulties, and I thought what I was thinking was True.
Something terrible just happened. This is bad. It could happen again.
It hurts.
Quick, do anything and everything to make it not hurt. Make it go away. Please, make it go away.
Before I had The Work and knew what to do with stressful thinking, I was on a quest to feel better and end my suffering and I wanted angels, guides, wise mentors, a zap of lightening to the head, awakening, transformation, God, magic.
Anything to end the pain.
With The Work I see myself as having a spark of every single one of these qualities. It’s like I am my own guide, and I take me with myself everywhere I go.
Even if I am thousands of miles from my “home” (my home is really everywhere and nowhere) and I don’t know the people around me (not actually required or true, everyone is so beautiful and fascinating, and human).
These qualities of angelic guidance, wisdom, lightening zaps, awakening, transformation, God and magic are within me and available to me any time by becoming silent, slowing down, questioning what I’m thinking, asking if what I’m believing is really true.
They are available to me by doing The Work.
You have these qualities, too.
I cannot tell you today how happy I am to be able to borrow another computer (since mine crashed on Day #2 of this long journey) and sit down and do The Work.
I had thoughts zooming through. Stressful ones.
(You probably notice how fast the mind is….faster than the speed of light!)
My mind was giving me some Bad News.
Thoughts like “my son is going to get lost walking through the night-time dark streets of London to meet up later” or “my daughter is going to fall and hurt herself” or “when I get home, I need to get a regular job because this volatile income I can’t take anymore” or “the people staying in our house hate us because the dishwasher broke” or “they owe us because they broke the dishwasher!” or “the world is so full of human beings, what are we all doing here?” or “the weather is crap” or “traveling is overrated” or “I wanna go home.”
Now, because I have gotten to sit down and get quiet and spend time with my thoughts, I’m remembering the joy inquiring brings.
I’m remembering at a deep level the peace beyond all beliefs.
Being human means, apparently, I carry along a mind full of thoughts about everything I notice around me.
Which brings me to the Good News.
Remember I said there was some Good News?
The Good News about NOT doing The Work daily while traveling?
The good news is that in this moment AFTER doing The Work and questioning my very stressful beliefs, I have the most intense, deep, moving appreciation for investigating my thinking, and for this brilliant, powerful mind that goes along with me everywhere.
Here’s what I have found in my turnarounds today as I’ve taken time out to sit quietly:
“My son is going to be found walking through the dark nighttime streets of London to meet us later” and “my daughter is going to fall and then heal” and “when I get home, I already have an irregular job (facilitating The Work) and I CAN take it” and “the people staying in our house do NOT hate us because the dishwasher broke” or “no one owes me anything, hooray” and “the world is so full of human beings, it’s amazing we’re all here” and “the weather is gorgeous” and “traveling is just traveling” and “I am home, always.”
I notice how when I do The Work and I feel what it’s like without my stressful thoughts, and I find turnarounds, my thoughts all blend together and connect and expand.
I sink into a smile.
I am so, so grateful for The Work after noticing a pile-up of thinking without entering it more deeply.
It is no small thing to come across this simple way to question suffering.
Suffering appears to happen. Life bumps us up against hardship, physical pain, destruction, fear, confusion, and death.
There is no getting away from any of it.
But with The Work, I remember over and over again (just like I have today) that it doesn’t matter if I believe I can handle the suffering or not…..
…..I notice the truth is, I do.
If you’re here, you’ve handled it too.
Even if you think “that was too much, I’m too screwed up, it’s too painful, I can’t take it anymore” you can and you are.
You are amazing, really.
We all are.
The mind is busy, running on, doing it’s job of protecting and trying to understand and control the environment…..
…..and life unfolds as it does.
I notice my thoughts sometimes go to visions of bad events, or terrible things happening. My feelings sometimes move to sadness or terror.
But something brilliant and wild, beyond all thought, is at work.
Doing The Work, I realize for the thousandth time today, allows this mind to slow down, to rest, to Not Know what’s true.
It allows me to feel the Silence Present here where I sit (which happens to be rocking gently on a barge on the River Thames in London, England).
I remember, with The Work, that I have no idea what’s going to happen today. I can make a few educated guesses, but really, I have no idea.
With The Work, this is great news instead of alarming news.
The difference is so incredible, it’s hard to put into words.
All I know is, last night I was thinking “traveling is hard, expensive, pointless, tiring, scary.”
And now I’m open to the turnarounds “traveling is easy, priceless, expansive, restful, loving.”
It was my thinking that was hard, expensive, pointless, tiring and scary.
I even remember that traveling is wonderful, and not traveling is also wonderful.
It doesn’t really matter.
The most exciting traveling happens internally with The Work. It’s an exploration of the whole world of suffering and peace.
I hope you’ll join me for steady inquiry throughout a whole year, to learn, grow, rest, access silence and Not Knowing, refine your life journey no matter what age, circumstance or situation(s) you’re in.
I can’t wait to get started, and get back to regular inquiry again with others.
My appreciation after this gap in practicing The Work is bigger than ever.
If you know you’d also love the structure of group support and scheduled inquiry time, check out the Year of Inquiry (link below) and get ready for the greatest adventure ever (you won’t need to physically go anywhere, unless you come to our retreats in Seattle).
With The Work, I discover peace to be possible in every kind of place, in every situation. You don’t need to travel in the way I’ve been traveling, or do anything special, or find the golden key.
You question your stressful thinking, you Un-Believe the way you see your life, other people, and your world.
Your inner life becomes the Greatest Adventure on Earth.
Wow.
“So, how do you get back to heaven? To begin with, just notice the thoughts that take you away from it. You don’t have to believe everything your thoughts tell you. Just become familiar with the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness. It may seem strange at first to get to know yourself in this way, but becoming familiar with your stressful thoughts will show you the way home to everything you need.” ~ Byron Katie
Will you join me back at home, your home you carry everywhere but may sometimes miss due to stressful thoughts?
It may sound a little crazy, but all you need is a pen, paper, and to answer four questions.
What you discover can become your new world. Heaven right here on earth.
Much Love,
Grace
P.S. Year of Inquiry starts on September 8th and you can attend once a week, twice a week, three times a week or four times a week. You can listen to the recordings. You can skip whole weeks altogether. I’ll work with you up to four times individually during the year, you decide when you need your individual sessions.
You do YOI your way. I create the scaffolding, you clean up your thinking at your own pace, what’s right for you.
When I left my very first School for The Work of Byron Katie in March 2005, my feet hardly touched the ground.
I looked at the whole world with a new pair of eyes.
I kept shaking my head in disbelief, thinking….
….wow.
I’ve never seen the sidewalk, people, carpet, airplanes, cars, water fountains, life….like this before.
I know that sounds a little cray-cray.
But there was an inner revolution happening called looking-without- certainty-what-I-think-is-true.
It’s not necessarily all roses and rainbows.
Not knowing what is true can be strange and disconcerting. At least for that mind that loves having a task, and Knowing Stuff.
Some of the floating, amazed, wondrous feeling I experienced, however, fizzled away just a bit over time.
I actually didn’t sleep more than 4-5 hours a night for 9 months.
I felt like I was riding a strange, unknown, wave….
….and my life was turning upside down.
The insight, when I look back, came first, before all the super-huge changes.
First, I raised my hand to do inquiry. I read Loving What Is, then I went to the School for nine days.
I knew I wanted to challenge my assumptions. I wanted to do this more than I wanted stability, certainty, or guarantees.
I was really moved by wanting to understand the truth for myself, not through any doctrine, or ideal, or religious or spiritual teaching (even though I loved the religious groups I had been a part of). I did not want to suffer. I had suffered so greatly, I wanted out.
I didn’t even want a special teacher. I didn’t want Katie herself to be my guru (and I soon realized she didn’t want that either).
I wanted life, and my own inner mystery and source, to be my guru.
But I really did want to take my newfound capacity to inquire, after that first school, into an alive, expanding practice.
I wanted to do The Work all the time.
What would that look like?
I noticed, after a little while, I didn’t do The Work every day like when I first got home.
I could hardly keep up, it sometimes seemed, with the quantity of stressful thoughts my mind would spew out.
Then more days stretched between reacting, and sitting down and doing The Work. More days would go by without me writing a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet on stressful experiences I encountered.
Sometimes I would sit down, though, and write with great concentration and depth about a situation that had disturbed me.
Then I would have such sweet awareness. I loved it so much, I loved the investigation. I loved the lightness.
I am so lucky.
A friend called, who I had met at that very same first school, and asked if I wanted to become partners in inquiry together.
I knew immediately to say yes.
We met on the phone every single Monday morning at 8 am Pacific Time. I was unemployed, looking for work, and she had Mondays off. She lived several states away.
We had no idea how long we would go, how much we wanted to do it, what would result.
It was amazingly good.
Almost every Monday, without fail, we met for two hours on the phone (I didn’t have skype yet or know what it was). Yes, I was actually holding a phone, putting it on speaker phone for some of the time, for two hours. We hardly missed a Monday for two years.
I inquired into my own very stressful and painful thoughts. She inquired into hers. We almost always had whole Judge Your Neighbor worksheets written out. We held each other to inquiry.
I also gathered with almost 20 people for a reunion, all of whom had been at that same very first School for The Work. Many of us traveled by plane and car to get to the home of the wonderful man who hosted us all.
We created our own Morning Walk (a silent walking meditation offered by Byron Katie). We partnered up for inquiry sessions. We shared meals and talked into the night about questioning thought.
It was brilliant to stay connected to others doing The Work, and to practice, practice, practice without it being a demand, or a chore, or something I was supposed to do.
I’m sure, today, having these experiences made me realize how gathering a group to join for inquiry practice is essential for some of us.
At least, if you’re like moi.
Creating a group format or structure is not just kinda nice, like a hobby or something….
….It’s a life changer.
It’s the difference between actually inquiring into stressful thought, and thinking it’s a good idea but not trying it.
Which is, I am sure, why I kept going and kept doing it and kept participating and kept pressing on.
Inquiry became so deeply interesting, it finally stuck inside in a way that grew more automatic.
But here’s the thing that may surprise you.
I STILL notice a gap between the stressful experience occurring in my life (an exchange with a person, an issue with money, trouble in the physical body) and beginning inquiry.
My mind kicks into gear with reaction, with contemplating something, noticing, wondering, uncertainty, fear, emptiness….
….and I’ll be following a trail of thoughts, maybe even down a rabbit hole within a few minutes….
….before *ping*….
….Grace, you could inquire. You could do The Work. Remember? The questions? Is it true? Are you sure?
Ohhhhh. Right.
Wow, that mind is a speedy one.
What a genius project manager!
Which is why I personally love entering inquiry every single day, with other people.
It’s incredible. It’s built into my daily life. For all I know, it’s saving my life.
I’m the one who needed, apparently, the constant contact of doing The Work with others. Groups, individuals, classes, meetups, retreats, intensives, immersions.
And one of my favorite things in all the world is being able to pick up my phone, or dial in with skype and my headphones, and have people show up from all over the world to answer the four questions together.
It’s a unified spirit of dissolving our personal suffering.
What could be more supportive and incredible than that?
Pretty soon, the Year of Inquiry program will open for applications and sign-ups. This is a collective spirit of coming together, with a new topic to guide us, every month for a year.
We start in September.
Our tele-sessions are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at three distinctly different hours so your time zone might fit. Come to one session, or come to all.
Retreats (optional) are in September 2015 and May 2016. (They’re awesome).
If you’ve been wondering how to stay in touch with your own inquiry, if you’d like to have a group to carry you through a year of identifying and expanding your mind to understand your own inner life (and outer life, too, I find) then consider joining us this year.
Curious and want to know details?
Click HERE to read all about it. (You can fill out the info/application form there if you’re ready. Decisions made by August 15th.)
The other day, as I listened to the people inquire on the Summer Camp call, I had the thought…..people are absolutely astonishing.
So awake, so full of wisdom.
People have taken a dive in for only the first week out of five, and not everyone can make it to every call of course….
….but the thoughts being investigated for their truth are quite deep and expansive.
Here are a few of what we’ve been delving into so far:
I am (insert my name here)
I can’t stop with only one (cookie, kiss, thought)
I don’t want to be alone
I need more money
I need to be secure
When looking at stressful thought, we noticed how deeply and quickly it follows a dramatic trail of suffering sometimes.
One second, I’m on the couch being me, no worries.
The next second, a thought enters and I feel fear.
Something about this isn’t safe.
A participant in Summer Camp shared how she feels afraid so much of the time.
This basic very stressful thought is so powerful to question: I am not safe.
The first thing to do if you feel overwhelmed with fear, is to make a list of the top five things.
You might say “I have no idea, I just feel fear and anxiety! I’m an anxious sort of person! It’s terrible!”
Thank you for sharing, mind.
And now, pick just one thing you’ve found personally frightening in your life.
A specific situation.
This helps you get so very close and connected to that memory, that occurrence in your life….no matter how old.
You weren’t safe in that situation?
Is it true?
I notice when I have this belief that I wasn’t safe, every time, I survived.
Which is why I’m writing this now. I’m still here.
So no, it is not true that I wasn’t safe. Ever.
How do I react when I believe it’s possible to be threatened….
….and I have the proof of that particular situation I remember, the one where I thought I wasn’t safe?
I get all freaked out in the moment when I’m remembering it. I might even wake up at night, thinking. Even though I’m lying in bed, and it’s super safe.
Even though nothing is actually happening now….except thinking.
So who would I be without the belief in danger?
Alive. Laughing. Jumping in the water. Asking for help. Sharing. Slowing down. Watching.
Doing The Work.
Who would you be without the thoughts that you are (insert name here) or you need more of anything, or you can’t stop with just one, or you don’t want to be alone?
What if you turned all these around?
I am not (insert my name here)
I can stop with only one (cookie, kiss, thought)
I do want to be alone
I do not need more money
I already am secure
Could these be just as true, or truer?
I am already amazed by the wisdom and beauty of these fellow inquirers in Summer Camp For The Mind.Everyone brings to me the reminder, the joy and excitement, of what is available right here, right now.Freedom. Security. Safety. Silence. Mystery. Infinity. Trust.
“You’re imagining yourself right out of existence. It’s not a small thing we’re doing here….And there’s nothing that’s not good news, if your mind is right.” ~ Byron Katie speaking in Being With Byron Katie
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Summer Camp is still four more weeks starting Wednesday at noon. Click the link to see the schedule, and join us for the un-doing adventure. In a good way.
Doing The Work with others brings deep and powerful support and connection
Only 4 spots left for Being With Byron Katie, an unusual event where we’ll be watching Katie on screen via internet as she teaches a retreat in Switzerland July 11-14.
Because this event is via internet, the cost is only $165 for all four days. These last spots available are for commuters only (a mattress may be free for you if you want to sleep in our big private rented lodge). We’ll have a ball together (24 people total), share potluck lunch, and have one hour of silent sitting meditation each day at 2:30 pm.
A fantastic group of people interested in questioning stressful thinking. What could be more wonderful?
Perhaps Breitenbush Retreat June 24-29!
This is a deep intensive dive into your inner world of stressful thinking, where you will get to do The Work with me and the incredible group who always assembles for 4.5 days. We gather to declare peace through this powerful self-inquiry.
Breitenbush Hotsprings is a gorgeous conference center located in old growth forest in Oregon. This retreat also has 20 people registered (capacity is 28) so call soon to make your reservation 503-854-3320.
The Breitenbush Retreat offers mental health counselors 26 CEUs.
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Speaking of gatherings and retreats, it seems like a summer full of contemplative activities, doing this powerful work, is spread before me.
In only two weeks, all the people in Year of Inquiry who can come, plus some Year of Inquiry alumni, will be arriving in Seattle and coming to my cottage to do The Work for three days.
My hands are clapping!
I love that it doesn’t matter where you are for this work.
You can be deeply concerned, very frightened about a particular issue or situation or person….
….or concerned about something that seems petty and small, and unimportant in the big scheme of things.
Long ago, a dear friend and inquirer and I had made plans to exchange facilitation in The Work.
She had facilitated me through a worksheet I wrote on my impending divorce.
I felt sick to my stomach, almost every day.
I was terrified I would never find a job, my money was draining out of my bank account faster than the sinking Titanic, I was a bundle of pain and agony.
I felt a little lighter after she facilitated me. Like chipping away at a big block of granite, my beliefs about being supported in life getting broken into pieces one hammer-strike at a time.
Then we switched roles.
Now I would facilitate her.
Her stressful belief was on her kitchen drawer.
It wouldn’t open properly, after the recent remodel.
“It should open easily.”
Seriously??
As I asked her the four questions, I noticed with amazement the joy of doing this work on something so apparently insignificant.
I could feel the frustration having a thought like this, that sometimes made me want to bang something around, throw my hands up in frustration, lose my temper in a fury, slam a door, or a drawer, break something.
Who would you be without the belief that this drawer, or anything, should open more easily than it is opening?
What if everything, even a drawer, is exactly in place, doing what it does, without a need to argue with it, or against it?
As my friend answered the questions, it washed through me….
….what if my estranged husband shouldn’t open, either?
What if all was going along in the best way possible?
What if I didn’t get involved in being opposed to or in favor of thislife?
Turning the thought around….
….this dear friend found the opposite: “my mind should open easily”.
WOW!
I chuckled softly.
I could find this, too.
Later, after the phone call was over and we had hung up, I sat silently.
A sense of peace, quiet, and emptiness beyond all words, beyond all thinking, beyond needing to do something or fix anything, wrapped around me.
Everything was going to be OK.
It already was.
Thank you for inquiry, on a drawer in a kitchen that wasn’t even mine.
Sometimes inquiry works in the oddest ways.
“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, happily and in peace.” ~ Byron Katie
Do The Work on whatever you see around you that brings you stress. Begin with one situation at a time. Nothing more is required.
You can do this.
Come gather with a group on retreat, if you want support in getting there.
