An Odd Thing To Do If You Know Someone Sad

Yesterday in our telegroup Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven we looked at a powerfully stressful thought that causes a lot of insanity on the planet…

She should be happy. He should be happy. Everyone should be happy!

All by itself, the idea that you want people to be happy, content, free, or peaceful is of course beautiful, true, and genuinely loving.

We love the world to be happy, all of us do.

But it’s so easy for this one to get twisted into multiple knots of confusion….

….and to bring great suffering upon yourself by wishing someone would be happy who really isn’t.

You know when the wish is stressful, because you feel pain inside your heart and an urgency that they change. You can feel the voices saying crazy mean things like “Get Happy Now, you miserable victim!” or “Snap out of it! Come on!” or “Gimme a smile!” or “Get yourself into therapy immediately!”

What if you first just slowed down this whole Race-For-Happiness thing and accepted that person’s bitter unhappiness, now.

Maybe your kid fell and cut her lip, maybe your friend is going on yet again about her awful boyfriend, maybe your dad is sitting in his chair staring out the window with a lost look, maybe another friend is going into a treatment program and acting suicidal, maybe someone you love lost someone very special.

That person cries, looks sad, sighs deeply, tells you their story. Maybe you’ve heard it before.

Then YOU feel sad, irritated, annoyed or anxious.

Stop.

Notice…who would you be without the belief they need to be happy?

Sometimes people feel guilty, just to imagine not having that belief.

I might skip along and ditch that person forever. I might be uncaring and never helpful. I might be completely self-centered. I might wind up alone, untethered, crazy. I might be abandoned. They might hate me.

I have to help other people become happy! I can’t just be happy and not care about them, that would be WEIRD.

Try it on, though….like you’re trying on a fabulous, interesting, creative new stress-free outfit.

Not having the belief that anyone else needs to be different than they are in this moment.

It doesn’t mean you don’t think they’ll be happier tomorrow, or that you hold in your heart that they arrive at happiness sooner than later, or that you want peace and awareness for them when they feel empty.

But there’s a sense of trust in this moment, here, now…that all that is being felt, including sadness, grief, rage or suicidal thoughts exist in reality….and that there is a path unfolding for everyone.

That’s life.

Without the belief that someone has to be happy in order for me to be at peace, I am free to return to my own happiness.

I can feel the wonder of Not Knowing and remain steady, my practice only to feel love, aliveness, joy in this moment now….even with that unhappy person sitting with me.

In fact, I notice I’m way more attentive, responsive, compassionate, and oddly enough, even more connected to this dear sad person.

It’s like I’m not afraid of sadness or grief or unhappiness in them. I can handle it. I know it’s temporary. I know there’s a substantive, deep pool of acceptance at the bottom of everything.

Even death, depression, failure, loss or hurt.

“Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power…..Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings.” ~ Byron Katie

I don’t have to feel hurt, dread, sad, terrified when someone I love is hurting. Their reactions to their life does not “hurt” me unless I believe my stressful thinking.

As I turn the thoughts around about other people and their pain, and what I think it means, I notice I trust that the universe has got this.

Not me.

I have no absolute answers. I can be here with them, joining closely with love, and not believe they should be any different.

I have no idea what their experience is for, I don’t know what it really means, I don’t know why it happened or didn’t happen.

And that’s OK. Completely.

What a bizarre and strange thing to do when someone else close to me is hurting: nothing. Except be there, without demanding they be different.

Or….maybe joining with them in their unhappiness was the really bizarre, strange move.

As an inquirer in the teleclass said as she described her family “they’re like crabs trying to climb out of a bucket–they pinch and crawl and keep pulling each other down–back into the dark bucket. No one able to get out.”

Who would I be without the thought that the bucket is sad, the crabs are unhappy, this is a terrible, desperate situation from hell?
Unknown. Open.
Who knows what will happen, next?
Much love,
Grace

Strangers Are Scary

Mini Retreat: Seattle 12/6 1:30-5:30 pm, full session in The Work from start to finish. Everyone will get to investigate at least one stressful situation from their lives, past or present.

Click here to read more and register to come. Limited to 12. 4 CEUs for mental health professionals.

********

Who would you be without your beliefs about Other People?

The other night I ventured out to a party at an old friend’s house, someone I’ve known since high school days.

Taking off for an event at someone’s house alone….a party, a gathering, a dinner….a social event of some kind….

….isn’t the easiest thing in the world for some people.

Well, I should speak for myself.

I once felt very anxious almost every time I approached the scene of a party.

The voices are coming out of the windows, there are cars parked up and down the street squeezed nose to fender, music wafting into the night air, bright lights from inside.

Lots-of-people sounds.

If you’re like I once was (and I still have ideas waft through like this for sure) you may notice you get nervous at that moment. People are going to look at you when you go inside! They might talk with you, too!

Twenty-five years ago I was in a therapy group.

Those scary, scary humans, OMG!

(It was one of the best things I ever did in my healing process, by the way).

I had been in this marvelous group for over a year.

I shared with everyone during the little beginning check-in whats-going-on start of group that I was invited to a big huge party….but I didn’t really do so well at parties so I wasn’t going to go. Sometimes I drank too much alcohol. Staying in was better. Going out was risky.

One of the therapists stopped me.

“You know, there’s another option besides Not Going. You can go to a party and be completely honest.”

Gulp. What does she mean by that?

She went on:

“For example, you could walk in, look around, go stand near someone and say to them that you feel kind of nervous going to parties and you’re a super-extreme introvert.”

She said I could practice relaxing, not needing to “do” anything, see if a question comes to ask someone I encounter.

Oh.

Seriously?

With this other vision offered to me….it suddenly occurred to me that I had been locked into one story about large quantities of people all together in one place and what you were supposed to be like to be “successful” in that situation.

You were supposed to like attention, love talking with people, love asking and answering questions, and be entertaining, fun, pleasing and likable. You were supposed to be nice, friendly and polite.

But honest? About what you really thought and felt?

Woah. That had never ever occurred to me before.

Who would you be without your story that you are being watched by people with a critical eye, or they need to feel good around you, or you have to fake that you’re interested, or you’re going to “have” to talk to people and be nice?

Without that thought, I’d be totally free to take it all in, move in or out of conversations, or the rooms, connect with the human race, risk being perceived as weird, or quiet, or rude.

Sharing that I was nervous around big groups of people, with people, began a turnaround inside me, even though I didn’t know about Byron Katie yet.

I began practicing genuine honesty, and self-care, in large groups.

Sometimes I bumbled, it didn’t go so well, I screwed up, I got scared.

But then even though I felt shy, I’d try again.

The other night…I had such gratitude about humanity at that party.

The host who opened up his home and baked bread and chicken for guests, the band who played fabulous music, the old friends who I unexpectedly got to see after years and years, the new friends I met for fascinating conversations, the room, the lights, the chairs, the floor.

Even though there were tons of new faces and I had a little of that background of alarm when encountering the new and strange when I first walked in, I had the best time.

Keep questioning your beliefs that groups of people are scary, if you notice they are. Or boring, or irritating, or strange…whatever.

Maybe everyone you encounter is a friend, open, interested in sharing and connecting, curious, accepting, loving, kind, even if they’re also anxious. Maybe you belong everywhere.

Including this party.

Doesn’t that sound more fun, a bit lighter?

“There is only one nature, and it is friendly. If I am perceiving you as not friendly, it is THIS unfriendly mechanism [Katie points to head] that is perceiving the unfriendly….the only thing in that situation that needs to change is ME….Identify what you’re thinking and believing, wake yourself up, you’re in a dream!” ~ Byron Katie

Much love, Grace

When You Start At The Beginning, Where Should You Be?

When you're at the beginning, news flash: you may not be perfect.
When you’re at the beginning, news flash: you may not be perfect.

Oh boy.

Yesterday I took my first shot at recording a podcast (remember I mentioned my new Peace Talk Podcast many weeks ago)?

The project: create a five minute presentation about inquiry, peace work, peaceful thinking…and make it fun to listen to, for anyone interested in inner change.

I mean, awesome topic, right?

First, it took me awhile to figure out how you start a recording. I see where to plug in the microphone to the computer, but then, how do I use it?

Google. Youtube. Watch training. Look over notes.

Finally. OK.

Then…turn the thing on and start talking.

However, rambling away is not exactly interesting to other people, including me.

This is for inspiration and community!

This is to be of service, and have fun while doing it!

I listened, and said “that is DEFINITELY terrible” then pushed delete, then pushed re-record, then listened, then delete, then re-record again, then delete again, then re-record again…

…until…

“Who would I be without the thought that this five minute podcast needs to be fabulous, creative, hilarious, fun, enlightening, inspiring and moving?”

How the heck would I know, at this point, at the very beginning?

Without the thought….I notice I don’t delete the last take. I leave it. I stop that episode and consider what another different episode might look like.

I noticed I was taking it very seriously. Like listening to my own voice with such high expectations, nearly impossible to achieve.

Without the thought…I’m back to mediocre.

Which is what the underlying theme of the podcast is about in the first place.

Enlightenment, self-inquiry, awareness for the ordinary mediocre person.

Like me.

Suddenly I feel thrilled, excited. Life is bringing along yet another adventure in creativity.

Nothing special required, nothing extraordinary or beyond-human needed.

Only me and a greater community of people connecting.

I turn the beliefs around about what I’m imagining should happen, and instead imagine the opposite….hilarious!

I should sound like a dolt if I do, I don’t need to be like some brilliant luminary, I look forward to being boring, rambling or uninspiring. This may go nowhere, it may go somewhere, I’m only along for the ride. I have no idea how this exactly even came about as an option or an experiment, it just unfolded and here I am, recording something called a podcast on planet earth in the year 2014.

I’m at the BEGINNING.

“Only in this moment are we in reality. You and everyone can learn to live in the moment, as the moment, to love whatever is in front of you, to love it as you….The miracle of love comes to you in the presence of the uninterpreted moment.” ~ Byron Katie

The uninterpreted moment of woman sitting on couch with new orange microphone, talking out loud about inquiry, speaking honestly, hearing the voice that comes out like a melody, enjoying this fun story at the very first chapter perhaps, without a future.

No idea what will happen next. No need to know.

I’m where I should be, now.

Much love, Grace

How To End A Facebook Freakout!

Yesterday I rediscovered a cool picture I bought rights to as I combed through laptop files. I decided it needed to go into one of my online places.

Somehow, this led to completely reorganizing my website appearance by a new photo in my kitchen, changin’ up the pages…and then…

….suddenly deciding without having planned it to recreate my facebook page, the one connected to my private practice (click here to “like” it by the way)!

I was rockin’ it. Bad ass business page creative.

Yeah! DIY!

I got so excited I decided to share by creation on my regularfacebook profile, the one most people have for facebook with all your friends, family, events, connections, photos and all that stuff.

I said “Hey look at this cover photo thingy, I just made this on my business page!”

I was feeling proud.

Eight hours later, I was back on facebook quick looking up an address for an event.

There was my little share. From eight hours ago.

With not one comment, not one “like”, not one “cool” or “good job” or ANYTHING. Not even from my mom.

Hello?

A few thoughts kicked in immediately from the peanut gallery:

No one likes what I made! They think it’s ugly….it’s too pink, I knew it! Nobody cares about my work/business life, people are ignoring my business side!

Nobody cares! They’re rejecting me!

Oh. Heh heh.

Not you, BTW.

Who was I yelling at anyway?

Good question.

Fabulous for inquiry around business, money, being noticed, attention…just in case you ever have these kinds of stressful thoughts yourself.

I noticed the most stressful thoughts were not so much that no one had noticed my post….

….but assuming they ignored it intentionally for some reason. Like probably because it had to do with my business.

Sigh.

I’ve only looked at this 100 times when I first started my business and needed to figure out how to get my message out into the world but was mortified with embarrassment at doing so.

You shouldn’t ever brag, or talk about yourself, or request money for services…

…or proudly show people your new DIY facebook business page cover.

Being Mother Teresa and doing everything for free is better.

Is that true?

Yes. Wait. No. No!!

It’s not true!

Where did I get that idea that seems to run so deep?

How do I react when I believe I shouldn’t get too over-excited about my work, and I shouldn’t brag about doing a business type activity?

Furious. Misled. Full of self-doubt.

Who would I be without the belief that talking about business and money is a delicate subject?!

Joyfully moving forward! Learning like gangbusters! Bragging all over the place–in a good way! Inspiring other people! Trying new things (like learning picmonkey to create facebook cover thingies)!

I turn the thought around: I’m rejecting myself and others all because of a flash moment of inactivity on the web. 

Crazy.

“Spare yourself from seeking love, approval, or appreciation–from anyone. And watch what happens in reality, just for fun.” ~ Byron Katie

Even in a little moment of confusion, or wondering, or putting something out there that doesn’t get noticed….perhaps it doesn’t even get admired or well-received….

….who would you be if you spared yourself from seeking any approval?

Ahhhhhhh.

Much love, Grace

What Was Terrible Changed When I Questioned It

It’s a bright autumn day. Everyone’s bundled in winter coats, freshly taken out of the closet for the colder months ahead.

It’s a family outing to visit my son for parent’s weekend at college.

We run into a favorite professor and have a fabulous conversation, we walk past my son’s classrooms, he points out buildings, he talks about red square, the fountain that spouts water perfectly in unison with the measure of the wind, designed by engineering students, so nobody ever gets splashed by wayward drops while standing or sitting nearby.

Then my son winces.

He’s had an earache, he says, and he’s trying to ignore it.

Immediately I think “Gosh. Let’s head for the student health center!”

He agrees. He’s never been before.

He’s suffered from ear infections in the past. Good to catch it before they’re closed all weekend. Free healthcare.

The whole family, including grandma, assembles in the waiting room. We have a great time talking.

My son beckons to me to follow when his name is called in the waiting room. Just like old times when he was a kid.

Or, maybe I automatically rose out of my chair and went.

There’s a chair for me, the mom, and a chair for my son, and a chair for the nurse. This is a quick intake set-up get-you-in-the-system interview, blood pressure, other basics.

My son answers questions.

And then.

“Do you use marijuana?”

My son hesitates. He looks at me. He makes an oops hesitant smile like, uh-oh, ha-ha.

“Yes”.

“More than once a week?”

“No”.

On the outside I am cool.

Inside I’m having a heart attack.

All my fears of drugs, addiction, failure, horrors, OMG my son’s derailing into a terrible world, come screaming to the surface.

NOOOOOOOOO!

Clearing throat.

Yeah. It was that dramatic.

On the inside.

We leave, have a great evening with our family, enjoy dinner.

I have to wait to sort out how I feel about this *shocking* situation.

Later, I do The Work.

Who would I be without the belief that it is alarming, or awful, or an emergency that my son said YES to using marijuana?

Jeez. A thousand times calmer, that’s for sure.

Who would I be without the belief that this is terrible, terrible, terrible and something surely terrible, terrible, terrible will happen?

Noticing an inner silence that accepts all things, including every kind of drug created by humankind.

I turn the thought around: This is wonderful, interesting information. This is an opportunity. This is not terrible. I can be real, honest. No one is out of control (except my own dramatic thinking). I get to see what I think is so scary about the news. I get to inquire.

After inquiry, I text my son. It’s been three days. I ask if we can skype later, and as always he enthusiastically agrees.

When we’re looking at each other on screen, I say…”That was kinda awkward, right? But I’d love to talk about it with you. I got scared…and…I know you’re very adult and very awesome. I appreciated you telling the truth, that was cool. Can I ask you some questions? Do you have any questions for me?”

He says…”Oh, I almost forgot about that moment, that WAS awkward.” We laugh.

I tell him some interesting family history with drugs and alcohol.

He mentions, before I even ask (it was one of my questions) that he’s smoked pot twice this past year.

Oh.

Not quite as horrifically bad as I pictured.

Ha ha!

“What seemed terrible changes once you’ve questioned it. There is nothing terrible except your unquestioned thoughts about what you see. So whenever you suffer, inquire, look at the thoughts you’re thinking, and set yourself free. Be a child. Know nothing. Take your ignorance all the way to your freedom.” ~ Byron Katie

Even if the story went another way, and my son was experiencing pain and suffering…that would have its freedom, too.

Any situation offers innocence, peace and awareness. Just the right amount, for what I need.

Much love, Grace

Hardwood Floors, Splinters, and An Unquestioned Mind

I am safely back in Seattle, the place I apparently live.

Notice the word “safely”.

I’ve been thinking about fear lately, from the very slight nervous anxiety, to full blown trauma and terror, and everything in between.

Fear is a strange and fascinating energy and experience. And usually, it only comes alive when in a flash, the entire psyche mechanism thinks *something* is threatening.

I mean, right now, if a meteor crashed through my roof and I died mid-sentence….

….had I heard nothing, seen nothing, felt nothing, smelled nothing….I would have experienced no fear.

I’d be, simply, gone from this particular form. A pretty simple, quick, easy-going movement from one state of existence to the next, in whatever format that takes.

Fear, I notice, only happens when you get the chance to use your mind, to anticipate what COULD happen, and terrify yourself.

When I was eleven, my friend Anne had a slumber party for her birthday. She lived in a big white house near the tennis club. It looked a little like a castle. I was soooo excited.

In the basement where all the guests stayed, we had soft camping pads and sleeping bags. Some girls claimed the couches. The floor was beautiful shining hard wood, glossy and smooth.

I suggested a slip-n-slid sort of thing…without the water.

Put on your socks, run as fast as possible, then slide like a skiier all the way across the floor. We screamed for joy, and took turns sliding over and over. Our wool socks worked well on the smooth wood.

Until.

A small click sound, almost imperceptible. A stabbing pain shooting through my left foot, right through my thick sock. Pain stinging into the center of the middle soft part of my arch. Agony!

I pulled off the sock, and this sent another shooting extremely sharp pointed pain through my foot.

I gasped.

Right into the middle of my foot was a thick, wide splintered off piece of wooden floor the size of a large fireplace match. Horrified, I pulled at the end of the wood. It hurt so much and my skin just pulled up with the huge splinter, I released it.

Everyone came over to look.

A girl reached for my foot and I slapped her hand away “NO! Don’t touch it!” Fear pulsed through my body. I told everyone to keep away. “I’ll do it myself. Anne, do NOT tell your parents!”

I don’t know what I actually planned to do myself. I knew this thick piece of wood needed to come out of my foot, but my heart was pounding and I felt more panic at the thought of an adult yanking the thing out. There would be blood.

I had my knee bent, the bottom of my foot facing up towards me, like in the cross-legged position. Slowly I moved towards the splinter and pulled on the end.

Excruciating pain. It didn’t budge. The skin seemed stuck to the sides of this gigantic splinter.

I don’t remember how long it lasted. I kept shoeing girls away. “NO! Get away! I’ll be OK, just leave me alone! And DO NOT TELL ANY GROWN UPS!!”

All the girls had gone silent, watching and wondering what to do.

The place was dead quiet.

We were frozen in time, it seemed.

This is a deep way humans sometimes react to something threatening. Go into a cave bomb-shelter, close the hatch, and ignore all knocking from outside. Doomed. Terrified.

Who might I have been if I didn’t believe I would get more hurt if another human tried to help me? Who would I be if I had stopped pushing everyone away?

Little did I know, Anne in her nightgown and socks, snuck up the back stairs and off to somewhere in the house above where her parents were.

Suddenly, breaking the silence, was the voice of her father coming down the main staircase.

Greater panic inside me. I decided I had to HIDE this injury! Everything in me was screaming “don’t let anyone see!”

I quickly shifted my hurt foot from the cross-legged position to sitting on my calves, the bottoms of my feet facing the ceiling behind me.

I sat frozen as Anne’s dad, mostly a stranger, was saying things to Anne on the stairs. “OK, honey, we’ll take a look. Who has the hurt foot?” his head poking around the corner of the room.

I felt around for the end of the splinter, desperately hoping to get it out before they descended on me. Even though it was an awkward position and I couldn’t see my foot really, my heels tucked up against my rear end.

I pulled.

The splinter slipped right out.

What?!

I brought it around to the front of me immediately, about an inch of it covered in blood with a very sharp red point. My foot was then bleeding from the hole, but I was so, so relieved.

Anne’s dad quickly got a towel, and said to get bandaids, and it was washed up and gauze put on my foot with medical tape.

It was over.

It had come out so easily when I moved the position of my foot to soft, with the foot relaxed and caved in towards the site of the injury. But I discovered this accidentally, trying to hide that I was hurt, trying to do it myself.

I had the entire slumber party wondering what the heck to do, the whole event stopped with no way to resolve the problem for what I remember was a very long time….refusing to let anyone help me….

….only to find relief when I switched position entirely and tried again from a different angle.

This is just what self-inquiry is like.

What if that moment was safe?

What if you felt it was safe for someone to help you? What if you were going to be OK, whatever happens?

You might save time. And a lot of agonizing and panic.

“The unquestioned mind is so loud, you don’t realize the happiness underneath that mind. You’re not in charge of it. It’s already there for you. I don’t have to do anything for my happiness; I just notice the world without my story, and in that I notice that I’m happy. It’s always supplied. The unquestioned mind fights with anything that would bring you joy.” ~ Byron Katie

You might notice that what REALLY happened was, you survived and all of it went well, every moment unfolded just fine. Despite your great fears, your panic, your pushing people away…you got help eventually.

You were supported.

You are OK now.

Can you see how that’s true?

Much love,

Grace

The Crack Is Where The Light Gets In

eruption_mount_st_helens_05-18-80When I was in my late teens, I discovered that people wrote books about recovering from suffering, finding peace, faith, understanding why we’re here, the meaning of life.

Before that, I thought all books were stories!

(Ha ha, you could say they all ARE stories, no matter what they’re about!)

One of the first authors who came across my world when I discovered people sharing their knowledge about life was M. Scott Peck who wrote The Road Less Traveled in 1978. I came across it when everyone was talking about it, maybe two years later.

Perfect timing for me….I just dropped out of college because of having a huge existential crisis about why I was there, what college was for, where I was going, and how to get rid of my horrible anxiety about it all.

And Mt. St. Helens had just blown up in my home state, too.

My way of handling all the stress was to think and plan and panic, kind of like somebody flailing about as they fall through open sky off a cliff.

The way I would relieve myself was to eat, eat, eat excess amounts of food. Then I’d relieve that activity by running and biking for miles and miles, or throwing up. And then I’d relieve THAT activity by sleeping and feeling depressed. And then I’d relieve THAT activity by thinking, analyzing and feeling anxious about something. And then I’d relieve THAT activity by eating….

….go back to jail, do not collect $200 (like the game of monopoly, without winning).

It got bad enough that I couldn’t concentrate on my classes anymore, or the text books we were reading. I didn’t like being graded, either. Too skittish about other peoples’ opinions, including my professors.

Oh, to have had more clear self-inquiry back then….

….but I also see it went the way it needed to go, in just the right order and timing.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeing deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” ~ M. Scott Peck

Who would you be without the belief that the time you remember in the past that was horrible and rotten, unfair and difficult…was all for nothing?

When Scott Peck spoke at the University of Colorado at Boulder when I lived near there, I immediately signed up to see him.

He may have been one of the first speakers I ever saw who was not playing music or acting on stage. He was just sharing his wisdom, over years of having conversations with people about their deepest woes.

I remember sitting in the audience and thinking “Wait. He’s a regular person! He has cigarettes in his front shirt pocket! What’s that all about!?”

Right then, I discovered that I had no idea what wisdom looked like. I had no idea what freedom really meant. I didn’t know what was really good or bad, right or wrong…all of it was all mixed up together and my thinking couldn’t sort it all out with firm answers.

I knew that Scott Peck was very imperfect, but he was a brilliant author and he helped many people, including me.

Who would you be without the belief that you have to have it all together, do it “right”, be good, even eat a certain way in order to be acceptable and worthy, in order to feel peace?

Whew.

I notice that what happened for me is…I stopped smoking cigarettes in my twenties because they made me feel like crap and being dominated by something like tobacco pissed me off (my own mind was bad enough, and I had a rebellious streak).

I stopped binge-eating because it slowly fell away as I studied my own anxiety and became as honest as possible about who I really was in any given moment, with or without food.

Slowly but surely, it seems my thoughts are less and less important because when I look at them directly, it’s hard to believe they are true.

But even when I believe them….and even if you believe yours….

….there is something OK, unknown, mysterious and beyond-you about it.

Keep going.

You don’t have to be perfect to be wise.

Neither do the people around you.

“Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack in everything 
That’s how the light gets in.” 

~ Leonard Cohen

If you’re interested in the upcoming Eat In Peace program, a 12 week journey of understanding our relationship to eating, food and our bodies….click HERE to get on the early-bird list for more information which is coming very soon.

Much love, Grace

Take A Break From The Self-Critical Bull

Do you ever put yourself down?

Oh man.

In the past, I’ve easily heard come right out of my mouth little phrases said under my breath TO myself, like “you idiot, what the hell were you thinking?” or “come on, pull it together, it’s not that big a deal” or “what the f*&% is wrong with you?”

It’s no secret that we’re sometimes super crazy harsh with ourselves.

My harsh voice used to be really vicious.

Geneen Roth, one of my favorite authors and teachers of inner freedom from the turmoil of eating troubles, calls it The Voice.

Or maybe it was her friend (who I also adore) Annie Lamott, who is also a writer.

Annie once said that The Voice was like KFCK radio station.

Turned on, it spouts obscenities, mean phrases, attacks, sarcasm and criticism, all directed at YOU, that no friend who ever cared about you would EVER say.

Many people who come to work with me say they really don’t think that many mean things about other people….

….it’s this KFCK radio station that’s the worst, and they want to do The Work on themselves instead of others.

The weird thing is….over time, I began to understand why Byron Katie suggests not doing The Work on yourself and your thoughts about who you are….

….but instead, to just point your finger outward and rip someone else to shreds.

It’s because when you look at yourself, your observations and perceptions are so completely insane, it’s often hard to find clarity or to perceive what the truth actually is for you.

You are in the soup, with yourself, and you can’t really ask your own mind easily to find a genuinely neutral, open-minded answerer.

Sometimes, when you’re tempted do The Work on yourself, you have a big motive.

You’re hoping you’ll CHANGE.

If you hope someone changes when you do The Work, INCLUDING YOU, then you’re setting yourself up for big fat disappointment.

I know it’s kind of counter-intuitive….to actually investigate a belief system or way of looking at something inside you (or others) without a secret wish that they will change.

Why do The Work?! I mean seriously! You mean I just have to ACCEPT EVERYTHING?!

All those nasty and imperfect qualities?!

Impossible! NEVER! I will fight for improvement of the person who I am until the day I die!

But what if you dropped the thought that you are missing something, you need to change, you KNOW that the quality you’re objecting to is bad and needs to be eliminated?

I love telling people about a conversation I had with Byron Katie once.

I said I did The Work over and over again, on the same few people, and I was still really freakin’ angry!

She replied “How do you know you’re supposed to be angry? YOU ARE!”

Oh! Huh.

Then it dawned on me how much I tried to be a never-angry person.

No wonder I used to eat food and throw up sometimes long ago, or run five miles super hard, or work overtime. My anger was getting trapped in an inner explosion in my stomach.

It didn’t mean it was time for me to start yelling at everyone else, instead of yelling at myself….that doesn’t feel good either (and I already did that, anyway, on the inside).

But just acknowledging the quality I disliked, and seeing how human I was, what a relief! I started to have an attitude of being open to how much it benefitted me to experience the quality of anger….or any other objectional quality, for that matter.

Anger was powerful, zesty, fervent, intense, passionate, exciting!

Who would you be without the belief that you should change?

It’s a seriously new thought for some people. They may have had the thought they should change since age three.

“As my mother used to say, “You’re like a bull in a china shop.” Did you ever hear that? If you let your mind imagine a bull getting loose in a china shop, that’s how the me is. It’s knocking things over, things like the most precious china. With a whisk of its tail, there goes . . . grandma’s four-generation-old antique china cups! Boom-they’re gone. When your me is operating, it’s like that bull. It tends to make a lot of noise because it’s always in a slightly adversarial relationship with its moment. It produces noisy thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or opinions. It also likes to search, moving its head around, scanning for the right emotion in the body, scanning through the mind for the right concept…Inside, there is something that is not creating nearly as much noise as the me. This something else, this openness, this awakeness, is not searching for the next moment or scanning for the right emotion or experience. You can get the sense of it now.” ~ Adyashanti

Right now. No scanning for what’s wrong. No criticism.

Just wait, and feel it.

If that feels hard to do, don’t worry. Even that is OK.

Much Love,  Grace

When I Started The Work, It Made Me Sick

Last night a wonderful group of people showed up to do The Work, rain pounding like it hardly ever does in Seattle.

The kind of rain where you can’t go from your door to the mailbox, you have to wait it out. Unless you don’t mind getting so wet, it’s like you were sprayed with a garden hose.

This meetup format I’ve been doing only a little bit now (this was the third time) is really interesting, and fun. People with every range of experience come to find out what The Work could be all about.

Like, what’s the fuss, anyway?

Because of talking with people regularly who are very new to The Work, I remembered my own journey with it more deeply last night.

And my resistance to it….but oddly fascinated at the same time.

It was a lot longer journey than you might think.

First, there was seeing the book Loving What Is in a bookstore and waiting until it came out in paperback.

Then, there was finally reading it.

Around that time, either during or after reading Loving What Is, there was the discovery that Byron Katie was coming to Seattle, my home town.

She would be in a huge hall downtown in the Seattle Center, for two full days, a Saturday and a Sunday.

I signed up.

I remember when I entered on Saturday morning, someone handed me a red rose. I didn’t go with anyone I knew. My usual approach to things. Just sign up and go on my own. I never wanted to talk to anyone else if it was something I was seriously contemplating or wanting to understand.

(Still like that a lot of the time).

I took a seat amidst a huge crowd, sort of towards the back left side, facing the stage in the distance. On every seat was a blank Judge Your Neighbor worksheet and one of those little pencils.

I stared at this worksheet.

What do I write about?

In some ways, there’s so much I’m upset with, in other ways, it’s just a few key terrible incidents and situations.

Where do I begin?

Katie said something about picking one person I was very upset with.

Visions of ME floated through my head. It was so hard, it seemed, to think of other people I felt upset with and actually write those secret, horrible thoughts down on paper.

Aren’t I trying to forget all about those thoughts?

Katie said to write about something terrible that happened, something difficult, an argument.

I wrote about an abortion I had, only a year previously. I considered it the most horrible thing I had ever gone through, the inner war, the sick stomach, the indecision, the self-hatred.

My hand was shaking as I wrote. I could only write one, short, crisp sentence for every question on the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet. I wrote almost the same thing, repeatedly.

(A few years later, I was writing first drafts of JYNs with an entire page for every question, which I then carefully combed through for understanding and clarity, and then wrote a “final” shorter JYN).

Then Katie said “turn to the person next to you and read your Judge Your Neighbor worksheet to them out loud”.

Wait. What??!

I came alone for a reason! I came alone on purpose! It’s called Not Talking To Anybody!

My head started getting hot.

I read the worksheet to a total stranger man who was about ten years younger than me. He nodded and was very accepting and kind. His worksheet was on his girlfriend.

But an hour later, my throat was hurting. I took ibuprofen. My ears were ringing. It felt like I was getting a fever.

I was.

I didn’t hear much more that day.

But I went back Sunday morning. With a fever of 103, with tylenol and ibuprofen coursing through my system. I did not want to miss the second day. I wanted to understand.

I could hardly speak.

Katie asked who would like to do The Work. There was no way in hell I would ever have raised my hand. Certainly not in that condition, with a fever and pounding ears.

And then a woman, far across the room, standing up so everyone could see her, holding a microphone (!) began to read her worksheet.

I am horrified with myself because I had an abortion. I want to un-do the entire thing. I shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have gotten pregnant….

My back, arms and legs were shaky and my head and ears were burning, my body chilled. I held my head in my two hands, propping it up like it weighed 800 pounds.

I don’t even remember what the woman looked like, but I heard Katie facilitate her through one thought, as she stood and answered the four questions in front of all those people.

Then I got up, and left at the next break, and drove home.

It seemed like nothing happened for me on the inside, around “getting” what this was all about, about inquiring into one’s thinking.

All I could do was to go to bed and sleep until the next day.

But I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of an absolute transformation in my inner world, my perception of all of reality. It was the beginning of true forgiveness, of realizing that my thoughts and presence are not unique, or separate…and that I was innocent.

Out of all those people in that huge auditorium, that woman who stood up and read what she was most ashamed of was the very same as me.

Turned out, I didn’t have to raise my hand, finish the event, meet anyone, make any new friends, or even feel well.

I got what I needed, anyway.

“Eventually, realization is experienced automatically, as a way of life. Peace and joy naturally, inevitably, and irreversibly make their way into every corner of your mind, into every relationship and experience. The process is so subtle that you may not even have any conscious awareness of it. You may only know that you used to hurt and now you don’t.” ~ Byron Katie

It took a little more time before I actually spoke with anyone about questioning one’s thinking and doing The Work, and then more time before I went to The School.

That’s the way it went for me. One little step at a time.

Like the light getting turned up brighter, brighter, brighter. So slowly, I didn’t even realize it until one day, I looked around and was astonished.

And although I’ve shared this before…for some reason, it’s time to share it again.

Sit for four minutes with me, and listen (click the link right below). You can do it, even if it makes you feverish and sick. Questioning your beliefs can show you what is really true for you.

It’s good.

Click here: Leave Everything You Know Behind

Much Love,

Grace

I’m The Only One Who Does This

I had to chuckle yesterday….because two men wrote me who are interested in joining Year of Inquiry but they were worried about being the only man.

Men are so welcome!

In fact, they are often a part of retreats, meetups, and many teleclasses I’ve taught over time.

It is interesting that not as many men show up as women to do The Work…and there could be all kinds of reasons.

But who would you be without your thoughts about men, or women, or fitting in?

When I first began doing The Work in earnest it was soooo powerful to do The Work on my perceptions of people, including groups of people….all men, all women, rich people, poor people, indigenous people, vegetarian people, midwesterners, New Yorkers, people from every race and culture all over the planet.

It’s funny how the mind loves to define a group, and categorize them, and add descriptors the more you learn and know.

Then you use those descriptors as definitions to match up against some other situation, another moment, in which those people are doing what they’re doing. And BAM, you have proof of the truth.

It’s The Way They Are.

Instead…when you have a global collection of thoughts about a type of person…you could question it.

Why question it?

Because it’s so incredibly fun on the other side. So mind-blowing, so opening, so expansive, so mysterious and unknown and wild on the other side of belief.

So you have a thought “I will be the only one (man, woman, white, black, asian, divorced, old, short, straight)”. 

Along with that kind of thought you feel separated, uncomfortable, like you’re in foreign territory.

How do you react when you have that “I’m the only one” belief?

A memory.

I’m pulling into the school parking lot. My hands suddenly feel shaky. I sound fake-chipper as I say “OK kids!” but my children are already getting out of the car, opening both doors in the back, jumping out.

They disappear across the playground. I stand beside the car for a moment, watching my children until they disappear, and then continue to watch all the kids stream in from buses, cars, heading for classroom doors.

I’m volunteering today, for the first time in over two years. Helping in the classroom for an hour.

I haven’t been here in awhile.

I have the thought “everyone will know I’m divorced.”

I’m the rotten, unlucky, loser mother who couldn’t stay married. They’ll have questions in their eyes, but they won’t ask because it’s not polite. They’ll feel sorry for me. The administrative staff won’t expect me to be around much. They’ll think I’m unreliable. Even if they don’t know what happened, they will think it’s bad. No one will want to get to know me.

How do you think I behaved when I believed that thought?

Quiet, smiling too much, unsteady and very uncertain anxiety all around me. Totally uncomfortable.

Who might I have been without all those separating stressful beliefs as I entered the school?

Who would you be without the thought that you’re the only one? That you know what they are thinking…and it’s bad?

Without the belief that I know what other people are thinking about me, I calm way down. I vibrate much slower, calmer, gentler.

When I hold still, and feel what it’s like without these kinds of worrisome thoughts, I notice something quite amazing.

I notice I adore these people. Without my beliefs about what they think of me, I find them beautiful. I feel joy about being with them, a centered, grounded, calm happiness.

Even with strangers, this happens! How remarkable!

Turning the thoughts around: I am not alone, I am infinitely connected and a part of a great, living, whole universe.

I am connected to the secretary, the teacher, the other parents I see in the hallways, the kids running by, the carpet, the windows, the table, the sounds of voices, the colors.

Without the thought that I am alone, the only one, the one who is different…I feel trusting, I let go.

I am grateful.

I turn the thought around again….I am the one who is believing I am bad. I am the one who is worried, upset, ashamed, nervous about who I am.

I am the one who thinks I am a failure, that I did something wrong, that I could be doing better.

Turn it around:

I’m the fresh, lucky, winning mother who did not to stay married. They will or won’t have questions, and some will easily ask and others won’t even think of it, no big deal. They’ll feel excited for me. They’ll expect great things with me and for me. They’ll think I’m reliable. Even if they don’t know what happened, they will think it’s wonderful. Everyone will want to get to know me. 

Haha, now isn’t that more fun? And just as possible?

It’s all imagination.

“Think left and think right and think low and think high! Oh the things you can think up if only you try!” ~ Dr. Seuss

That’s what we do with The Work. We question our stressful, all-alone thinking, and open up to a whole new world of possibility.

Even if someone has said directly to you that you are an awful person and they hate you….can you start to imagine who you would be without the belief that it’s true?

You don’t have to go all the way to ecstatic gratitude or a huge feeling of love. This is open, blank, unknown awareness.

But you may be surprised. It may be easier than you think.

“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world.” ~ Malcolm Gladwell

It all starts with questioning your painful thoughts.

If you are thinking of Year of Inquiry, there are still those two spots left…and these can be filled by any gender, any race, any age, any country, any time zone.

If you aren’t able to afford YOI right now, or wouldn’t be able to commit to a whole year, I have other ways you can be supported by The Work: shorter classes and calls you can join, meetups in Seattle and online retreats coming soon.

You can get what you need to question your troubling thoughts. You really can.

“I’ve been in many of Grace’s groups over the last 3 years, and am often the only “guy.” But it’s been fabulous on so many levels…to heal my own issues about relationships with both women AND men…and myself. I love Grace. And the groups are so supportive. I don’t know what I would have done with so many major changes in my life over the last few years. Hi to all the friends I’ve made as we’ve continued our life journeys together.” ~ Jack, Year of Inquiry 2013 

Much Love, Grace