wishing – The Work of Byron Katie with Grace

July 18, 2016

Are you sure it’s disappointing?

if you're disappointed....time to question your thoughts — if you’re disappointed….time to question your thoughts

In the past year, I’ve received a few questions from people connected to the Institute for The Work (ITW) about credits for programs I offer, but especially Year of Inquiry.

(In case you’re not familiar with ITW, it’s a very thorough in-depth training and certification program in Facilitation of The Work created by Byron Katie and many others in 2008).

I finally decided to write to the institute friends and ask about whether or not Year of Inquiry could offer more credits for these folks training to become certified facilitators.

Just the other day, I found out….not yet.

First, I need to offer some of their teleclasses inside the Institute, and teach their curriculum.

It makes sense. They need to see me in action as a teacher, get evaluations from people taking the courses, get super familiar with the curriculum inside ITW.

I had this little let-down though.

I had gotten all excited. They ran it by Katie. It sounded like I might very well be able to call my one year program the equivalent to a 9 day School for The Work plus 80 more hours of partner training in facilitation.

That would have been a lot of credits people could get, for taking Year of Inquiry!

Have you ever found out some exciting, maybe unexpected news….and thought Oh Cool! That sounds great!

You get excited and have visions of the way it will be.

It was like a little journey inside the head….I might be able to offer ALL THOSE CREDITS to people….wowwee!

Imagination goes off on thrilled tangent at how awesome it is because more people will like this and sign up, it will help them, this is an acknowledgement of the beauty of the program.

Then….wait. No, it turns out. Not gonna happen.

Imagination goes off on a disappointed tangent. Too bad because now no one will sign up, people like credits so they won’t like this, I’m doing it wrong.

It is HILARIOUS how the mind runs rampant with one new idea, and what it thinks it means, all in a course of literally a few days.

Now, here’s the great, great, great and I mean great news about all this.

There was a strong part of me, a place I was looking from the whole time, that was unmoved and completely undisturbed.

It had no idea what would be best here. It watched with a neutral eye.

It’s like there was a twinkle of fun in the whole thing.

And I notice plans for Year of Inquiry moving forward, with joy, with or without credits.

How do I know I’m supposed to carry on, and for now it doesn’t matter? It feels right. It feels brilliant and exciting.

It feels like the perfect format for some people, those who don’t care about certification credits (just like it’s always been so far) who want to keep returning to The Work over and over, week after week, every month, all year.

Year of Inquiry is for those who want to answer the four questions deeply without giving up or quitting, or dreaming of doing The Work without DOING it.

I organized it because I needed it, and I still love it.

The most remarkable people tend to show up. This is not surprising. People who know they want to quiet themselves down, slow their minds down, and become more loving and kind with the world and with themselves.

Who would I be without the story that having mega-credits to offer participants in Year of Inquiry would have been the better outcome?

Trusting. Happy. Laughing.

Thrilled to implement the newer format I have planned, and the longer 4 day retreats for both autumn and spring, and the new webinar that’ll be at the beginning of each month on the topic with guidance through a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet, and the more in-depth partner work for those who want it, and the monthly in-person group again.

Who would you be, right in this moment, without the belief that it should have gone that other way? The way you were hoping it might go, even if just for awhile?

Who would you be without the belief that you should have been with that other partner, or it would have been better in the other job or position, or it would have been better if you got the second house instead of the first, or it would be better if you had a possible $25 instead of the $10 in your hand right now, or you had gotten the green one instead of the red one?

Turning the thought around: the way it’s going is perfect. Everything unfolding in just the right timing, in just the right way, for the highest good for all.

Can you find this feeling within, for your situation?

How could this be as true, or truer, for the Year of Inquiry program?

Well, I don’t have to evaluate others on their facilitation skills or their awareness, or for any reason at all. I don’t need to “grade” anyone. Or myself. I’m learning from everyone there.

People can come to Year of Inquiry to immerse themselves in however much inquiry they want, it’s all optional, there’s nothing mandatory or required. It’s sooooo easy for me (and what I’ve been learning is true about life–that nothing’s required–even when I think something is).

I get to relax and see who shows up, and notice how quiet, peaceful and silent this moment is right now….no matter what’s going on in the mind.

I can do whatever I want, make changes whenever I want, take suggestions and new ideas whenever I want. Last year we started an in-person group because someone in YOI wanted more face-to-face contact. Bam. It was created.

How would I ever possibly be able to know that the other alternative I was dreaming of for a few days….would have been better?

How do I know it wasn’t supposed to happen? It didn’t.

That goes for everything that didn’t happen.

Wow.

“The past is an illusion (over). The future is an illusion (not happened yet) so any time you’re worried, you’re worried over….Nothing. That’s how friendly the Universe is.” ~ Byron Katie in Being With Byron Katie 2016

“Return is the movement of the Tao. Yielding is the way of the Tao.” ~ Tao Te Ching #40

Much love,

Grace

P.S. If you have the idea you might love doing The Work for a year with other marvelous and interesting people….and you wonder if The Work could really be helpful for you….I’ll be offering two live masterclass webinars in August on how to dissolve barriers to your process in The Work, when Year of Inquiry is still open for early-bird registration. August 4 or August 9. More soon. Just a little heads-up special for Grace Note readers.

June 26, 2016

Do you ever want a Do-Over, for a day, a week….a decade?

Feeling peaceful....no need for any do-overs, appreciating the way it went the first time (reality) — Feeling peaceful….no need for any do-overs, appreciating the way it went the first time (reality)

On Saturday night, the last night together at the annual Breitenbush retreat, we dance.

People have been deeply examining their thinking since Wednesday….

….walking through the memories, experiences, or relationships with others they’ve found hopeless, depressing, frightening or sad.

It’s courageous work.

I’m sometimes amazed, literally astonished, that people show up to investigate something painful they’d rather not look at. The death of a husband, the heroin addiction of a son, a painful divorce, needing to lay off people at the company, having insomnia for years, a mother’s death very early in life.

All these situations came to these woods at Breitenbush.

And The Work, the Four Questions plus Turnarounds, was all that was needed to open people to other alternatives and possibilities, to feeling love and self-compassion.

Not just love for the self, but love and acceptance for others. Even the ones who hurt us.

What many beliefs boil down to, suggests Byron Katie in Loving What is, is the deep conviction that I shouldn’t have had to experience something, and it shouldn’t have happened.

“I want an alternative life, where I don’t have to experience THAT (insert rough experience)”.

You might think….

….BUT….

….I really DO think my life would be better, and I’d be a better person, if I didn’t have to go through “x”. That experience made things worse than they could have been. It was a waste of time!

I’d be further along by now, if it hadn’t have happened. More confident. More of service. Calmer.

I wouldn’t have had to spend all those years in therapy. I could have just lived a more “normal” life. I might have a better condition NOW, if I hadn’t experienced that other thing THEN.

I want a do-over!!

(Remember yelling this when you were a kid playing a card game, or trying to shoot baskets, or trying to hit the bullseye, or making a batch of cookies and forgetting the baking soda?)

But can you absolutely know this is true, you want a do-over of some part of your life?

For me, I’ve thought often that much of my life from age 18 through 30 I could do without.

Visions come to mind of dropping out of college because I was too sick with addiction, bulimia, borderline anorexia, compulsive over-exercising, too anxiety-riddled, smoking cigarettes, occasionally over-drinking, isolated, and disassociated. Mind full of violent thoughts like “you’re such an idiot” or “what a fool you are” or “there’s something wrong with you” that covered up the ability to look more closely at my beliefs about what I feared. I lost my dad in that time period, too.

Is it true I want a do-over of that decade beginning with going to college?

Whew. It sure does seem like it would be better if I hadn’t dropped out of an awesome school, returned home to my parents, spent thousands of their dollars on therapy, struggled becoming a grown up, or lived with a tortured mind.

Can I absolutely know it’s true though?

No.

As one woman at the Breitenbush retreat discovered, unexpectedly, about her difficult past with her father….

….without her experience with her dad, she might still be living in the suburbs where she grew up, living an uncreative, boring, unimaginative, dissatisfying life. Instead, she moved across the entire country, married someone with opposite traits to dad, and raised two amazing kids.

I felt the same for my experience, and I felt the urge once again, to give a little bow to reality.

Without those ten years in my life that shaped my future in a completely different way than planned….

….I wouldn’t be at this retreat at Breitenbush, facilitating.

It was like my life, back then, showed the need to push the PAUSE button on my future direction.

More like CONTROL-ALT-DELETE, come to think of it.

That other imaginary version of the story, the one where I graduate from college with certainty and drive, and honors of course….and leave for Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar following in my dad’s footsteps…..plus write a screen play and land a leading role on stage somewhere….and invent something high-tech on the side that accidentally makes millions of dollars….

….THAT version of the story is, well, heh heh, fictional.

But that version would never have offered a collapse of the Know-It-All mind, that led to a sense of destruction, that led to a sense of devastation, that led to a sense of rebirth, that led to a sense of infinity and detachment, that led to a sense of peace beyond all stories and outcomes and plans and successes in this world, that led to a sense of unconditional love.

Nice.

Nevermind about the Do-Over.

Much love,

Grace

January 7, 2016

Full of longing? Good.

Longing.

I wish…..

If only…..

The floating images through the mind that dream, sometimes with great angst, of a different future.

We’ve all been there.

I wish I had a soul mate
I wish I was back with that Other life partner
I wish I had a million dollars
I wish I could lose weight
I wish I had a nice place to live
I wish I could win
I wish I could create that awesome thing (book, song, movie, Ted Talk, organization, law, new world order)

I love looking more deeply at wishes.

The passion of desire, especially the kind where you can’t help yourself, you just keep pursuing it…..

…..can be a Great Adventure.

And yes, sometimes quite infuriating and disappointing.

But what if you stopped, and considered what you really want that thing, that event, that experience, that person…..for?

What would it give you, if you had it?

For example, a million bucks.

What would I have, if I had a million dollars.

OK, here’s something hilarious that just happened–my mind immediately said make it 10 million and now we’re talking.

So, let’s multiply it by ten.

What would I have?

Wow Wee, I would have security, freedom, independence, fun, adventure, excitement. I would be able to give generously. I’d feel completely secure for life. I’d feel genius about taking care of my kids and offering the best possible opportunities.

I would finally be able to be fully creative and figure out the best most genius program ever for helping people end compulsive or addictive or dependent trances…..food or otherwise.

Honestly?

I’d probably move into a bigger house and get a nicer car that’s not about to break down. And new hard wood floors….in the current house. Which I’d keep.

Sigh.

My lifestyle is so much lower than when I grew up.

Fume.

Notice the comparison that happens, when I believe I want that other thing (visions of the past, or images from movies, magazines, friends, family, neighbors).

Over there it looks like THAT. (Lots of good, sparkly stuff).

Over here it looks like THIS. (Lots of run down, old, ugly stuff).

Wait.

Did she say something about ending “dependent trances”?

Hmmmmm. Right.

Let’s keep going.

Who would you be without the belief that ten million dollars would offer safety, fun, independence….and that I don’t already have contact with all of those things?

Am I safe? Check. Having fun? Check. Independent? Very. Enjoying myself? Weeee! Adventure? Amazing.

And the thing is….

….if I didn’t feel any of these things a whole lot, or I wanted to feel them more….

….I could turn the volume up on the sensations, and find examples of how true they are, and bask in them RIGHT NOW.

In the Work of Byron Katie we speak of “living turnarounds”.

The way to live the opposite of your stressful thinking, and celebrate peaceful, joyful thinking instead.

What would it look like?

What would you do, if you lived it?

What would it feel like, if you felt it?

Now that’s a fun exercise.

And I don’t have to wish, or wait, to enjoy what I really wanted to enjoy in the first place.

Awesome.

Longing, felt fully, carries us to belonging.

~ Tara Brach, in Radical Acceptance

Much love, Grace

P.S. If you want to enter the feeling of being someone who lives with Eating Peace….only two weeks from today we’ll be practicing and feeling it for three full days in Seattle. It can stop the discouraged pattern of overeating, comfort eating, boredom eating…and allow you to enter what it’s like to feel peace instead. Hit reply with questions about signing up.