you need opposites….to fly

goodbye1
goodbye and hello you must have two wings to fly

As always, a little shuffling goes on in September for the Year of Inquiry program that just began. One person joined last week, one decided to leave, one switched to Eating Peace two weeks ago.

I suddenly realized something, with some of the thoughts in my brain about shuffling, in and out, joining and departing: I’m feeling unhappy about the instability, the lack of guarantee, the comings and goings….namely the “goings” part.

Again. Oh jeez.

I know that may sound like….well, of course. This is something to be unhappy about if someone withdraws, leaves or goes.

But it also sounded to me like the echoes of a belief I’ve questioned before about people leaving in general, and I thought “oh brother, here we go again.”

I need to know who’s in and who’s out. I need to know when, how, and where.

Temporariness is hard to live with, it seems, to my human mind.

But is it? Is this actually true?

The most gigantic temporariness I ever realized was under the spell of something to be feared, worried about, horrified with….

….was Endings.

In the form of death especially.

A huge Nooooooo shouted up at the sky for the “ending” of something. Over. Finished. Done. Wail!

This doesn’t have to be about the Big One (death). It can be about a relationship break-up, a job ending, the family home being sold, divorce, the end of a vacation, or like I mentioned the whispering sadness of a lovely person dropping a course.

Goodbyes are hard.

Is that true?

How do you feel, speak, react when you believe goodbyes are difficult, or unbearable, or an emergency, or must be stopped?

I’ve worked with so many people on this topic.

Huge inner stress.

This past week, I’ve been in northern Ontario province of Canada with a brilliant group of learners all gathering to talk about and inquire into wisdom, death and dying, connection, temporariness, life and living.

One topic brought forth was the act of saying goodbye.

Here comes the voice, the thought…I can’t stand goodbyes. I don’t like parting ways. I don’t want this to end. This shouldn’t be this way. I need it to keep going, and never stop.

Is this actually true?

Because, I notice, reality has goodbye and hello and goodbye and hello over and over again. Constantly.

Which means even if someone has not left, they might. So even worrying about something departing later, in the future, becomes frightening, and how I react….when I continue to believe that departures are bad.

I clutch. I grab.

I often looked at money this way. It needs to stay, and grow, and never say goodbye.

Is it even true that you need to keep the thing you’re worried about diminishing later?

You don’t have enough love (when this person leaves your life). Is that true?

You don’t have enough money, energy, support. True?

You don’t have enough clients, work, people in your retreat.

Is this actually true?

No. I find over and over again…..no, not true.

Perhaps very drilled into our bones, though. Such a common stress. I’ve experienced it time and again. I’ll look at so many little things like it isn’t enough, compared to “that” over there. I need to keep this, I need more, I need to take, I need to be connected, I need to have.

And I notice, when I think my empty nest house right now is not as good as the full house with a “complete” family in it, I suffer.

But can you really be sure goodbyes are sad, or bad, or to be avoided? Are you positive you don’t have enough people around, or love, or support? (Even if you’re sitting in a room by yourself)?

No.

How do you react when you believe “Goodbyes are bad!” (In my case, I’m thinking about people withdrawing from something I’m offering).

Woah is me. Pity party. I quit. Cancel everything. I can’t do it right. Why continue to bother.

Now….who would you be without this story?

Without any thought at all that what’s happening isn’t enough right now, that it’s off, that more would be better, or it was better before these changes? Without the belief that goodbyes are hard, or intolerable, or to be avoided?

I would be so much more clear. More present, more aware, more alive. More feeling full of the heart-break of departure and the joy of reunion, but somehow trusting it all and knowing it’s not up to me, and I can make a clean “goodbye”, or hear one, without regret. With trust.

I might even be laughing, without the thought that goodbyes are bad.

Without the belief in Bad Goodbye’s Good Hello’s I would notice the tide going in and out, and the emptiness of any moment, also full, in this world of both/two/duality/multitudes.

Maybe even laughing and then crying, almost at the same time, and allowing even this to be as it is.

Without the belief that goodbyes are ultimately bad, I’m aware of the equal and opposite advantages for any given moment, I become excited. Turnarounds are so thrilling and wild to try on!

This goodbye is not hard. I like this goodbye. I like this hello into something new that doesn’t involve the same format as before. This is NOT goodbye.

I love parting ways….with my old outdated thinking and stories. I want this to end. This should be this way. I need this to happen, just the way it is.

With the story of Not Enough-ness or “OH NO!”….

….I’m taking in information about what is, and maybe I make adjustments and changes not only to this moment as I inquire, but also to my program(s). Something new is created. I feel the “hello” along with the “goodbye”.

Without this story of being against What Is, I learn to move with the flow, and the sheer joy of this life not being mine.

This is not “mine”. Departures or communions, both not guaranteed to go as I think they should. Both not “mine”. Both definitely happening. Both in the hands of something that knows more than I do.

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings. God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.” ~ Rumi

Much love, Grace

P.S. Fall Retreat is sold out full, but there is a spot in Year of Inquiry. We have only just begun Month 2 out of 12. Write to me if you’re seriously interested. If you join YOI then we can squeeze you in to Fall Retreat, or you can join YOI for telesessions-only if you’re not able to attend retreats.

What Is The Advantage of This Sucky Thing?

When I was 19 I went to my first therapist. Arranged by my parents. “You need help”.

My parents didn’t know how to help me, but they truly believed there had to be a way. They may have been very worried and had many stressful thoughts about me, but they also had the thought that any human being is capable of finding happiness, and stability.

I knew it too. I remember thinking, in the middle of extreme suffering and wondering if it was worth living, that I just HAD to be born with the same abilities as the next human to achieve peace or balance.

Part of me was extremely determined to reach enlightenment, or die trying. Like the Little Engine That Could “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”

In fact, it isn’t possible that a human being would be born with the absolute inability to achieve happiness or peace.

Even Hitler, Vincent VanGogh, or your mean grandma.

But for some of us humans, we’re caught in the mine fields of fear, hatred, defense or sadness. Believing that there isn’t a way out, we’re trapped, stuck, hopeless.

If it goes on for awhile in time, we think of it as lasting forever, even more hopeless.

For me, that first extreme depression in my teens led to me dropping out of college, becoming totally OCD with food and eating (turning into a borderline anorexic) and then struggling with bulimic episodes for a decade.

It seemed like the worst of times. If you had asked me the honest truth, in my opinion, about whether or not I was happy and peaceful, I might have told you “NEVER! I am NEVER happy or peaceful!!”

But that was actually not true.

Here we are in this world, floating around on a big ball of rock, living our lives, and we may have the idea that we aren’t having a particularly good or amazing life all the time. We may really believe that we need help.

I have found this kind of moment, having the thought that I’m a mess, a wreck, I don’t like this situation, I don’t like being here, I need help, to be an amazing time to do The Work.

This means questioning a stressful belief like “I can’t find peace” or “I am not capable of getting out of THIS” or “I can’t heal or help myself”.

First question: Is that true? Really absolutely 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt true that you have no way to get to peace? That you are not capable of getting beyond your situation? Or that you can’t get help or find healing?

If nothing changed, if you did nothing, if you just stopped worrying about what that person said, or your lack of help, or your inability to heal or find peace….what would that be like?

Who would you be without the thought that you need to find something that gets you peaceful? Who would you be without the thought that you don’t have what it takes to be truly happy right now?

Back when I was 19 I might have had the thoughts that I needed help, was not peaceful, and was deeply screwed up somehow…but I also can find examples of how all the opposite was also true: I am receiving help all the time, from the whole world, from my life. There is a part of me that is entirely peaceful no matter what is going on. I am healing, I am capable of getting beyond my situation. I am moving into balance. Even if things feel traumatic or worrisome, or destructive…there is peace, freedom and creativity here. Anything is possible.

Here at age 51 now, I find how amazing it was to experience disordered eating. Wow, that was extreme!! It forced me awake.

It was incredible to drop out of college, go to therapy with the help of my very loving parents, and begin to study life and freedom that has taken me into a spectacular journey.

“Life creates situations that push you to your edges, all with the effect of removing what is blocked inside of you.”~Michael Singer

The advantages to having such depression, addiction, and pain in my past was that I answered a call from the universe, God, the Tao to come to the middle of the storm, find the eye in the center, un-do my belief system that wasn’t working.

You are getting unblocked, no matter what your mind is telling you about your situation. Find out what is good about it.