Tag: workwithgrace

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Wanting Money

For some of us, it’s hard to admit how much we desire money. In general, if anyone asked “hey, would you like some money?” we would say yes (or immediately start thinking “what’s the catch?”).

It seems like Money would always be welcome in bigger quantities. Unlike water. Most of us, if we are not thirsty, would not always drink more water if it was around or if it was offered.

I heard Byron Katie once doing a role play with someone about money getting exchanged between the person Katie was talking with, and someone they knew. Katie suggested that if someone said to her “here is 10 thousand dollars” and looked like they were giving it to her, she would say “what do you want by giving this?”

Excellent question. So simple if we just ask…..and the answer to this question is the crux of why we would NOT, in fact, just take more money without getting more details and seeing if it is really OK with us to make that exchange.

I myself used to be so opposed to “owing” people money or owing SOMETHING if I received their money, that I preferred to go without it. It wasn’t worth the worry about whether I had given enough, offered enough or satisfied the money-giver.

Yesterday in our Money, Work and Business class, we questioned the belief “what I do is not worth the fee”. Everyone could fill in the blank on what fee they were thinking about, and what they believed they were doing in order to get that fee, whether it was a job or their own business….it doesn’t matter.

I remember talking with a real estate agent once who made what some of us would think of as a big amount of money. He felt like what he actually did was NOT worth the money he made. But after years of making a living this way, he wasn’t even going to begin considering changing occupations. Too scary to consider having less money.

I also have talked with people (usually women) who feel dependent and so far have exchanged their services of running a home, doing laundry, cooking, taking care of kids in exchange for being supported by a money-getter. They want something more, but they aren’t sure what else to do, so they keep doing the same “job”.

There are so many thoughts that rise up, that are quite stressful, when we want money and we believe we need to do something other than really be ourselves in order to get it:

  • I need to make an impression
  • I can win people over
  • When someone else likes what I do for them, I get money from them
  • I must avoid offending other people
  • I need to be polite and have good manners
  • People will think I’m selfish if I ask for money
  • People will be jealous if they see how much I make

In Katie’s book I Need Your Love–Is That True? she writes about how we humans often get into situations where we believe we need to pretend things in order to succeed. This includes making money, for some of us. She mentions Dale Carnegie and his multi-million dollar best-seller classic book about making friends and influencing people and being a great sales person. And she asks us “how do you react when you believe the thought that you can find love and approval by making yourself more likeable?”

How do you react when you believe the thought that by being likeable, you will receive more money?

There is of course absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever with learning techniques to be a great salesperson…it is only when we find ourselves stressed and full of questions about our own integrity that we need to look more deeply.

What if we stopped pretending anything or thinking we need to shift our behavior in order to get money? What if we question what we believe we need to do in order to have a job, that is stressful? What if we stop thinking WE need to figure out how to help that person over there who is giving us money to be pleased with us?

I have found if I don’t need to make an impression, don’t need to win people over, have no concern with whether or not I am liked, connect to the center of my heart and soul, notice how full of joy I feel in giving and receiving, and question that it matters what other people think….then something has started to flow that is beyond all the ideas about whether or not what I do is “worth” any money.

When we question all our thoughts about money, we naturally become more likeable.

Start where you are, you don’t have to make any huge changes. Start by questioning what it would be like if you didn’t ever pretend….see what your thoughts are about yourself and receiving, giving, and earning money.

“In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”~Tao te Ching #8

Undoing the stressful thoughts about money and how I dance with it has been one of the most exciting, wonderful things in life. Money us such a wonderful friend. Money is so kind, coming and going as it will, being a form of exchange.

How do you know something is worth anything? Write it down and see what you believe about money. It could change your entire life if you question your painful thinking.

Love, Grace

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Attached To Praise

Many of us notice that we are attached to hearing praise. “Wow, you are so amazing, I love what you’re doing, your work is incredible, you did that so well, you get an A, you get a gold star, I would follow you anywhere, I’m madly in love with you, you’re just so perfect…”

Teachers say these kinds of things to students, parents to children, friends to their friends, lovers to each other, employees to bosses, bosses to employees. Anyone might say this who is trying to get the attention of the other person.

It is VERY interesting to watch the place inside that likes the praise. I now like that person who likes me. I do NOT like that other person who does NOT say good things about me.

I remember when I first discovered that I would begin to “like” someone when they apparently liked me. Mostly with authority figures who seemed to think I was doing a good job. If I did a good job at something, then I should do MORE of that.

I did not want to speak up about things I saw at work or school that might take away that positive talk and reinforcement and good feeling I had. I felt safe, I didn’t want to mess up that safe feeling. They like me, oh good. Nothing bad will happen, like getting fired.

Later in life, I seemed to become interested in men who expressed romantic interest in me, attraction for me…although the suspicion of my own motives began to offer me perspective. Just because he wants me, can I detach from knowing that and ask myself if I want him?

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone who is expressing interest, offering praise, saying they appreciate you, speaking their adoration….this is about seeing that some us of start to FORGET what we like and don’t like, because of what is being expressed.

Most of us are deeply drawn to being truly free. No need to receive positive strokes, hear what others think and hope that it’s favorable. But it’s hard to give up and enter the world of NOT KNOWING and doing what pleases ourselves, what is most kind to ourselves.

Here is a most beautiful test, though, thought up by Anthony deMello, that offers a true awareness of what is possible beyond all this pushing and pulling and going towards and going away from others: pretend you’re ultimately in a conversation with God, Source, Reality, the Universe.

You’re talking to IT, the Bigness beyond you. Now notice what it’s like if you tell God or the Universe that you don’t need it/him/her, or any of the praise that Bigness offers. Hearing how perfect you are does not “make” you move towards God differently, does not make you depend on God or feel attached to God.

What if you could say and feel “I am perfectly happy without you. You are free, I am free.”

Perfectly happy with or without The Universe? But I can’t do this life without some encouragement, praise, being loved, being wanted! Bosses have to like me, partners have to adore me, friends have to say how likable I am, God has to accept me unconditionally. I know what all those things look like, and I need them. I will be lonely without enjoying praise. I will be too detached, that would be weird.

“The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there’s some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.”~ Pema Chodron

Adyashanti once said during retreat “Enlightenment is standing on your own two feet”.

I am scared of giving up attachment to hearing warm, lovely praise only because I am imagining that it might be frightening out on the open empty plains all alone with no certainty.

But that’s what many of us really, really want. Total freedom. Not allowing ourselves to be manipulated by anything. Open and wild, trusting it all.

Love, Grace

 

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Looking For Something Means I Don’t Like NOW

It seems true that everyone is looking for something. Whether in five minutes or in during this lifetime….we are looking for excitement, peace, creativity, safety, joy, balance, contentment.

Today, I am looking to get a lot of writing done. Some people are looking for a job, a special relationship, more money, adventure, inventing something new in their lives. Maybe you are looking forward to your kids succeeding or becoming really happy.

Perhaps you seek enlightenment, bliss, being awake. Or having the best in-shape awesome healthy body you could possibly have. Or looking for a cure for your cancer.

I have found, pure looking with my hands clapping together and exuberance…is so much fun. No stress. Simple pleasure, loving my desire, loving my imagination.

But it’s soooooooo easy to click over into feeling FRUSTRATED that we don’t have that thing we’re looking for. Enter disappointment, despair, depression, terror, or FURY!

How come those other people get to find what they’re looking for? How come I don’t have it yet? Why am I not satisfied? It seems like I work SO HARD but I’m still not THERE. I keep getting interrupted, bored, tired, abandoned, discouraged. I don’t have enough time!!

Within a matter of minutes (or seconds) we’re seeing what is lacking. NOT what is here in the present situation that is satisfying and good.

Dang it.

Here’s where investigation of the mind comes in, doing The Work so we have really simple questions (not always simple to answer). Oh good, I get to dive into that “difficulty” and see what it’s here for, see what’s going on.

  • I’m not getting what I’m looking for fast enough
  • the sooner I find it, the better
  • I can’t really have fun, relax or completely enjoy myself until I find ___.
  • this moment/situation/experience could be improved if I had ___.

Things would be good if I had more money, more peace, a boyfriend, a wife….if I stayed on my diet, followed an exercise program, spent more time outdoors….if I meditated more, had time to study, found the right teacher….if I figured out the best tricks for my business growth, sold more products, launched a new offering….if my house was clean, my closet had space, the lawn was mowed.

Who would you be without the belief that you can’t relax, you can’t enjoy your desire, you can’t get what you want, you shouldn’t speak up and ask for help, or that NOW is not good enough?

But if I think that NOW is GOOD, then things will never improve! I will be a saintly pacifist with no accomplishments! I will be bummed out, never “trying” to go for anything. Life will be meaningless. NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE!!

Are you sure?

Could it be possible that I could be thrilled, full of wonder, contentedly happy, kind, and softly relaxed….right in the middle of dreaming about all that money I will have in the future and all the fun I will have in my business or job developments?

Could I be absolutely delighted right now, as I think with joy about my clean house, the mowed lawn, the work I will do on my computer, the open honest intimate conversation I will have with my spouse or my boss?

Could I be having an awesome rockin’ time dancing or attending a party by myself while excitedly thinking of how fun it is to have a date, a partner, a spouse?

Without the thoughts that something must happen, and THEN I will be really happy…I notice it’s possible to be ecstatic right now.

Even if something terrible is happening, like my father is dying….I notice without the thought that this shouldn’t be happening and that I am entirely against it, I cry and my grief flows like a river and I hold his hand and I do not feel desperate.

There is something present in every moment that is content, that is OK. Even the moments that need a slight adjustment, according to the mind, and the ones needing a major overhaul (like death and trauma).

“The plot twist changes. But underlying that, something is the same, and as far back as you can remember…….You think that enlightenment is something other than what is happening right now. This is your primary mistake”~ Adyashanti

If what is happening right now, for me, includes dreaming of running two glorious retreats full of curious, thoughtful people all doing The Work on their hatred or sadness with their imperfect bodies, and their painful addictions, then without a stressful thought about it, I feel such happiness right NOW. It’s SO FUN. I notice I start writing, I know what to do next, right in this moment.

Which way do you think you will get more of what you want? Being against what is happening right now, or being for it?

Love, Grace

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The Silence We All Have

One of the most comforting, interesting ideas that is repeated by many wise teachers is that we all have some part of us that is solid, unchanging, and kinda beyond this world, beyond the body, beyond whatever is happening.

I was listening to an interview with Stephen Covey, the man who wrote the popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People some time ago.

He said “People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them.”

Deepak Chopra said “in the midst of chaos and movement, there is a stillness inside you.”

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who wrote so famously on the subject of death and dying said “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose.”

I used to wonder what this silence was that people mentioned from time to time. When I closed my eyes and tried to meditate and be quiet, it was like a crowd chattering in all different languages, plus a jack-hammer going and some loud beeps like trucks make when they’re going backwards.

I would start thinking about everything. In fact, it even drove me nuts.

One of my favorite things about The Work is that I have questioned enough painful beliefs, it seems, that I began to feel a core inside me that was unchanging, and silent, and very solid and deep.

Great comfort with silence within is an absolutely amazing side-effect of The Work. Once I had questioned my thinking about the things I was most afraid of in all of my life for a couple of years, I decided to go on my first silent meditation retreat.

The first few days, I thought I might go completely bonkers. So many thoughts and voices talking, thoughts like “this is boring” or “I’m not doing this right” or replaying conversations with people I had known 20 years before.

The other day I was riding my bike and listening on my ipod to Katie talk with people about their greatest fears when they lose their jobs or can’t pay their bills. People were talking about how terrible it would be to have only a shopping cart on the street, to be homeless, to not be able to pay their utilities and have no heat or light.

Katie loves to ask “have you ever really NOT had enough? give me a time when you really didn’t have enough, what is that story, the absolute WORST moment.”

I have done this worst-case scenario thinking many, many times. My mind loves to think of scary things and present them, sort of like a fashion show of possibilities. Like my mind is saying “you thought that one was scary? How about this one!”

What a relief to have the question “who would I be without this thought, that this scene or outcome would be TERRIBLE?”

What if everything that happens offers something beautiful?

Katie says “Life will give you everything you need to go deeper.”

I love the deep places, the place inside that is very silent and expansive. All those pictures my mind invents about a scary future or annoying moment in the future, I know they are not real. They’re in my imagination.

Right there in meditation, as my mind is thinking loudly, I can realize that what I’m imagining is not even true, and remember who I would be without this story.

From Loving What Is “how do I know I don’t need two arms [fill in the blank on what you think is missing]? I only have one. There’s no mistake in the universe. The story ‘I need two arms’ is where the suffering begins, because it argues with reality. Without the story…I’m complete with no right arm…”

Wow, if I think about something I thought was missing, like more money for example, and then I drop the story that it is missing….there is an alive, open, buzzing, happy unknown space in the center of me….silent, trusting.

We all have it.

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You Must Not Want It Bad Enough!

Stephen Mitchell, the author and translator of many ancient mystical texts (and married to Byron Katie), writes about non-action in his forward to his translation of the Tao Te Ching: A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will.

All of us have this kind of experience in our lives, when things came together without our “trying” to make it happen. We know we want to be “over there”; for example, on a trip to a distant country, at a different point in our career, to change the shape of our body, to stop smoking, to reach peace in a vital relationship, to be on time, to win the competition.

And one day, we are there. Why now?

The thought that I can Do Something and Will myself to go in a certain direction, or will someone else to go in a certain direction, is very difficult to give up, especially if we are the type of person who loves discipline and structure.

Sometimes the sense of a lack of will power is the reason people hire life coaches or health coaches or personal trainers. They say things like “I’m gonna hire that coach so they kick my butt into shape” or “I need some accountability”. There is the person who is the whip-driver and the person who “needs” to get whipped. Power is perceived to be missing from the whippee. Something needs to be done. Things are very serious.

The deal these two people make often assumes that the person getting coached needs to make their will stronger, and to destroy some other loser part of themselves.

  • winners never quit and quitters never win
  • no pain, no gain
  • I’m going to get there, or die trying
  • get MAD!
  • you must not want it bad enough!

Have you noticed that the more you push, cajole, fight, twist, criticize, battle or attack something, the more energy it takes? The more you try to build up power inside yourself using force, the more tired you feel, or more unhappy, or more doubtful, and endlessly dissatisfied?

It does not feel stress-free, peaceful, or fun.

I remember giving up diets forever. They never, ever worked for me anyway. I got as thin as possible and it excellent physical condition, and then there was more effort, and a sense of being imprisoned and having to be alert at all times, cravings and anger at certain foods.

I wanted true freedom. Honest freedom. I wanted to be like I was when I was a child, when I barely remember food. I wanted my natural will, the way it was, to be effortless. I wanted to not have to work on my will power at all, to not think of myself as so lacking.

I had a lot of painful beliefs and thinking to question and Un-Do in order to get back to an uninhibited life around eating and my body. They were base-level core painful beliefs that were not true, like “I am unlovable, my appetite is too big, my feelings are too dramatic, I am greedy.”

Most importantly, I noticed that all of those kinds of thoughts about being fierce, aggressively holding the line, getting mad, or thinking I should be forcing myself to success were the opposite of loving and kind, and not the way I wanted to live.

If I could do it with food and eating, anyone can do it. I took my behavior and thinking to the extreme edges, which helped it all crash and burn. Total surrender. Total loss. Complete failure.

When it is not so serious and you give up fighting, instead of losing, you might find that playing comes alive. Joy, excitement, open to anything. Willing to have a body that does what it does.

“The best athlete wants his opponent at his best. The best general enters the mind of his enemy. The best businessman serves the communal good. The best leader follows the will of the people. All of them embody the virtue of non-competition. Not that they don’t love to compete, but they do it in the spirit of play. In this they are like children and in harmony with the Tao.”~Tao Te Ching #68

I want my aggressive big-appetite self to step out into the open, I want to enter and understand the mind of my obsessive self that gets fixed on things like an addict, I want to be open and supportive to every inch of my amazing body, I want to play with food and eating, explore my cravings, biting into yummy things and then moving on to something else the minute I’m full. In harmony with what is.

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Money Is Safety

What a fabulous class yesterday with the Money, Work and Business telegroup. We questioned the belief “money is safety”.

Now, I’ve done a LOT of inquiry work on money. My desperation for more of it, my sadness at losing it, my dismissive scoffing at it, like I could care less.

If Money was a person, they had every reason to stay far away from me in the past. I was really nasty about money, it did not seem to bring out the best qualities. I hated that I wanted it, it was just so uncomfortable to actually WANT something that much. I hated that I seemed to need it.

Diving in to the intricate mysterious world of all my beliefs about money, one thing I had to do was look with open eyes and a magnifying glass at it all.

WHY did I want it so much? I mean, really?

Well, one reason is this idea that having it creates safety. So, in other words, if I have money, then I am safe.

Safe from what? Here are some common beliefs, maybe they are the same for you:

  • with money, I am safe from being neglected when sick, injured, or old
  • with money, I am safe from having physical pain get worse
  • with money, I am safe from starvation, thirst, being dirty
  • with money, I am safe from boredom, from missing something fun
  • with money, I am safe from loneliness, meaninglessness
  • with money, I am safe from being stuck in unhappiness

It’s simple to find examples of people with loads of money who experience all these things sometimes….we can see that money doesn’t keep us safe from “bad” times. It’s also simple to decide to NOT really deal with money, to step away from it and not care about it (or pretend not to). Yet, it still seems stressful.

The turnaround to the opposite belief that money is safety is the concept “This here right now is safety”. This is interesting, this is considering it all in a different way. Right in that place where you MOST believed that with more money you would be safer….could it still be possible that you were safe?

There I was, without money, hungry. I wanted to eat (you can translate this to “I wanted to go on that vacation, I wanted that dress, I wanted that pedicure, I wanted to take that workshop”).

Can I be here, wanting, without the money, and remain safe? What’s the worst that could happen? That I ask for what I want and someone says NO?

“If you were willing to ask only ONE percent of the population for what you want, and have them all say NO, you’d be willing to listen to 70 million NOs. How many times do we ask for something and when we hear the first, second or third no, we feel defeated? It’s like the world is full of wells, and we allow ourselves to go thirsty because the first couple we find are dry.”~Benjamin Smythe

I notice that money isn’t safety. Having money is a protection device for me, so I don’t have to ask, I don’t have to receive, I don’t have to feel how much I want something, I don’t have to interact with humanity, or the unknown future.

“When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad…” Tao Te Ching #2 

Sometimes there is wanting…..and without believing that it is not safe, wanting is fun. Wanting is an exciting adventure, without fear. I act without expectations, trusting that the amount of money I have is just the right amount, for this moment.

Without “enough” money, I ask for a job, I ask if I can stay with you for awhile, I ask if you will lend me some, I ask for some food. I notice my surroundings and the sweetness of the world. I notice it doesn’t matter if I have the money or not.

I laugh in the joy of it all. Safe.

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You’ve Been Spared

One of my favorite all-time thoughts to look at, and to question, is “he left me”….”she left me.” The sadness, heart-ache, and desperation people feel when thinking this thought can be enormous.

Without questioning it, many of us think wildly about WHY someone left. Was it me? Was it her? What did I do? Where did it go wrong?

It’s not a happy situation. Someone was here, and now, they are not here. Someone was a close friend, a lover, a companion, a work mate, a neighbor…and now they are far away, we speak less often, we never see them….perhaps they have died.

The whole premise behind the thought, following the thought, is that in this “leaving” there is fear, loneliness, grief, anger, despair. It means something bad. It means there is Something Wrong.

The mind loves to find out what’s wrong. Oooh boy! A PROBLEM! (Hands wringing with glee).

My father died many years ago. One of my first realizations with investigating by using The Work was to question “he left”. It seemed like he wasn’t here anymore. No body anywhere. I had been sad for so long about this.

Isn’t it amazing to turn this entire experience around, upside down, to the complete opposite. A person has “left”. Off they went to another place, another relationship, away from this life. I turn the feeling around inside myself and see if there is Joy present in this situation. What if this is a good thing? How could that possibly be true? Can I look, just to see?

Byron Katie has a wonderful comment she offers to people who are upset about someone or something moving away from them: “You’ve been spared”.

Sinking in to this, it is not about finding all the faults you could ever list about that other person, who is no longer present.  Although it can be a place to begin. Did you really love and adore absolutely everything about that person 100% of the time? Noticing that you didn’t can be a little step towards willingness to see this all differently.

But don’t get trapped there. Attacking the person who left takes energy, attachment, focus….and continued suffering. We get stuck doing this.

My father was an incredible man. Kind and loving, thoughtful. I had no thoughts about difficult qualities I was now spared from. But still, how could it be that there were advantages to his passing, just at the moment he did?

Truly considering being spared from that path means I come back to the center of myself, being here with me….all me. Person gone, even a beloved being who has died. No imaginary stories about how it would be better if they were here in person.

You moan, “she left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.
~Rumi, from “A Community of The Spirit”

It would be a little weird if my father just kept living, since apparently what happens around here is that we’re born, we’re tiny babies, we grown into adults, and then we die.

I mean, when would be the “best” time for him to move on? I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision.

And how about all the other people who have supposedly “left” during my lifetime? What has been important about those partings?

I get to live back in the center, the mysterious unknown, here with myself. Trusting all that is. It’s a Friendly Universe. Adventure, Possibility….seeing what is next. My conversation is with God, with Source, with Reality, the way it is.

My father leaving? It was time for me to make peace with a career, to know that I was enough, all by myself. I went to graduate school. I decided to have a baby. Major life decisions became very clear and simple.

Other people leaving? No more drama. Freedom to come and go as I please, silence in my home, doing all the things I love to do without anyone else’s influence. I go to a movie, I’m the one who picked it. I eat some food, I’m the one who cooked it.

Empty space, open to all kinds of possibilities. Total JOY with my own company. Noticing that I am such a fun person to hang out with, no one else is necessary. At all.

“If you open yourself to the Tao, you are at one with the Tao and you can embody it completely. If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.”~Tao Te Ching #23

Love, Grace

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My First Bulimic Episode

I was 18 years old and knew I would be attending a small liberal arts college so far away from my family home that it took 26 hours to drive there, or several hours by plane.

I knew the date I would be leaving home, in 3 weeks. Not going to this small academic college would have been an option, I suppose, but a terrible one (in my mind). In our family, people go to college. It means success. My father was a professor, my mother had an advanced degree and spoke fluent Spanish.

It never occurred to me that I might not want to go. People fail who don’t attend college. They work at low-income jobs for the rest of their lives. They don’t meet new friends who are also on a path to success.

I already had several years of practice in not understanding or expressing my own feelings. What I felt, I believed, was not important, and actually, would lead to disaster. My beliefs about Feelings went something like this:

  • people who cry or sob are way too dramatic
  • people who are angry need to control themselves and hold it in
  • “losing” ones temper means you are not mature or patient
  • people with big feelings are childish, disrespectful, and self-centered
  • having anxiety is a sign of weakness
  • people who have “negative” scowls instead of “positive” happy faces will fail in life

Unfortunately, I had already encountered anxiety, anger, irritation, sadness and any other feelings most human beings feel as they live their lives….along with learning what I was supposed to do with them. Which was generally NOT SHOW THEM.

When you have such judgment towards showing feelings….then when you have one, it takes energy to hide it, but you do everything you can to make sure you succeed.

The groundwork was perfectly laid for me to be drawn to use something, anything, to regulate myself.

My parents had a celebration send-off dinner for me in our back yard. Many people were there, although I can’t remember who, now that over 30 years have passed. What I do remember is that there was a ton of delicious homemade food, and I ate. That was the one thing that looked appealing.

I ate, and ate, and ate. It was like I couldn’t stop and it didn’t matter anyway….My first full-blown Binge episode. And then, excusing myself to go up to the bathroom and disengage from the intensity. Horrified at my lack of control. Hearing all the guests voices floating up in the summer air past the open window. Feeling such pain in my stomach and wondering how I could possibly have eaten so much that I was nauseated and my stomach hurt. Desperate. Wanting to sob, wanting help.

That evening, I decided that I would accomplish the task that I had imagined for quite awhile, I would force myself to throw up like the people who ate poison accidentally. I had never heard the word “bulimia”. But that’s what it was called, I later learned.

Thus began a long and interesting journey of having to admit there was a “problem”. Something off. And discovering that my feelings were not only important to understand and express, but that they were the golden key to understanding what I was believing and thinking about myself, the people around me, and about life.

As Byron Katie says, any stress is a “temple bell” waking you up to something. As I’ve said before, my stress was like a set of large cymbals crashing together. During a nap.

“Express yourself completely, then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature: when it blows, there is only wind; when it rains, there is only rain; when the clouds pass, the sun shines through…..Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.”~ Tao Te Ching #23

If feelings are present, don’t futz with them. Don’t fight against them, criticism them, call yourself “out of control” or attack others for having them. But feeling them with respect, curiosity, openness….this is opening to the Tao, no judgment, no resistance. Allowing them, they move, they teach, and the clouds part.

Love, Grace

 

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Grace Bell, MA, Certified Counselor WA

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Posted on

Seeing The Light Without Looking

Only a few minutes after waking up this morning, I began to sort minutes and time mentally while still lying down in bed. Let’s see, it is now 7:04 am. When I rise, in 2 minutes, I will begin the list of ideas and activities. Some concern about leaving the house by 8:30 am. Flashes of thought, images of staying on track.

Oriented towards the immediate future. What will happen next. Mind busy with planning.

Then at perhaps 7:05, or perhaps simultaneously sort of mixed in with the future focus, memory of a fascinating speech I listened to on YouTube by Sam Harris on the absence of Free Will yesterday afternoon.

Then the mind thinking about itself right now, interested in what is beyond this “thinking” place. Aware of emptiness and vast space, here all the time. The question “who am I?” and the questions “what is going on right now…what is this whole thing, this life?”

Here comes another memory flash, it’s still 7:05 am. I recall reading an article many years ago about a spiritual teacher who asks a very troubled teenager to find who or what she really is, in the overall center of herself.

The teenager says “what the hell are you talking about?” So the teacher says, “OK, point to your leg”. She points. “Point to your elbow”. She points. “Point to your nose”. She points. “Point to Whoever or Whatever is pointing”. The teenager smiles really big and says “OH! I hadn’t thought about that before! Cool! OMG that’s been here the whole time!”

I myself, the reader at the time, kept thinking “what did she see exactly?” Because it looks like a huge, vast space to me. I can’t exactly point to it. And it also evaporates and has no edges. And my mind seems to be very, very small in comparison.

At 7:06 I decide I want to get up and do some computer research, before writing, on what other people say about the vast, empty space thing.

There are a lot of teachers and speakers, workshop leaders and trainers. Classes, retreats, programs, degrees, speeches, books.

So much information that it is impossible I would ever be able to take it all in, read every book, work with every idea or approach, meet every fascinating human, listen to every one of them speak.

So quickly the mind moves, I notice the thoughts enter, those rascally little busy ones always looking for New and Improved…..”I need more information” or “I must Get This” or “I should be aware of the vast-empty-space thing at all times” or “my life would be even better if….”

“Without opening your door, you can open your heart to the world. Without looking out your window, you can see the essence of the Tao. The more you know, the less you understand. The Master arrives without leaving, sees the light without looking, achieves without doing a thing. ~ Tao te Ching #47

There’s the mind, chattering away. There’s the Silence, always present.

No need to read anything, turn on the computer, do something, go fast. Being in the Tao, the middle, the space, the quiet…nothing matters. No trying necessary. Letting go.

Mind talking away, assessing, analyzing, doing its thing. Functioning like a little machine buzzing in the corner. Not that important, in a good way.

This Silence, Love, Peace has been here the whole time.

Love, Grace

Posted on

The Body Games

A very common experience of being in the human body is to criticize it, think it needs improvement. This body is too old, too round, too slow, too sick, too scarred, it hurts too much, too fat, too ugly, too wrinkled, too bumpy, too imperfect.

Olympic athletes are those of us humans who are zoning in on maximum human capacity for precision, speed, grace, power. By comparison, this group appears to be out there on the edge of the curve, the closest to perfect. Everyone shows up at the same place to compete, to do their absolute best. To win.

The thing is, it’s called the Olympic GAMES. But to a lot of people competing, or watching, it might not be a game exactly. At least it’s not fun. It’s REALLY SERIOUS.

I remember reading when I was a kid about the original Olympic Games being a fight to the death. That does seem quite serious.

Looking at our bodies for some of us becomes extremely life-and-death oriented. I see the flaws, I grip against that picture. I hate it. I decide to fix it, I’ll do anything to bring it up to More Perfect.

Samsara is the word in Sanskrit used for the activity of humans perceiving reality with an agitated or unsettled mind. A continuous flow of birth and death, never ending. Like being trapped in a strange and very creative dream where life repeats itself in different forms endlessly; suffering, achieving, ecstasy, devastation. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The idea enters for many of us, just like the ancient religions, that it would be nice to get off the treadmill of happy-sad, good-bad. To get past it somehow, feel peaceful and non-reactive to everything.

This includes this body. It gets injured, it changes, it ages, but I long to accept it anyway, to not be affected by its changes like when I’m believing it’s a matter of life or death and it’s freakin’ Very Serious.

But that’s easy to say, not so easy to actually do. Right?

I heard Adyashanti speak once of Samsara as being Closed.

Samsara is a movement AWAY from what is actually happening. It means I don’t like it, I want it to change, I find it unpleasant….I’m against or I want to avoid this person, this thing, this event, this situation. I want to avoid having an imperfect body.

To be truly open to this body, to let go of wanting it to be different…wow, that’s an amazing feat. But possible. Very possible!

In fact, even being willing to let go of wanting it to be different, is an amazing thing to experience.

I remember discovering that I imagined that if I didn’t have the thought that my body needed improvement, then it might become worse. Uglier, repulsive, sick, inadequate…dead.

I believed I had to keep the thought that the body needs to be improved, or else DISASTER. No winning the GAMES! Not even a chance.

What I found, however, was that the body runs itself in the most amazing way, without my improvement plan, without my criticism, without my harping, my judgment, my energy, my hatred, my anger, or my control or planning. This body lives, without me living in Samsara with it.

My critical thinking is not actually necessary for the body to be wonderful as it is. In fact, less thinking about the body has led to greater enjoyment of it.

Kind of like the world. It runs without my opinion. And I find it’s more peaceful the less I give an opinion, the less I judge it and criticize it.

The more Open I am to each moment, to every person I encounter, to the image I see in the mirror, the more power I actually have to facilitate change, beauty, clarity. Now how funny is that?!

The more I see it really as a GAME, a fun game, not a serious matter of life-or-death, the more I accomplish, the more I create.

“Governing a large country is like frying a small fish. You spoil it with too much poking. Center your country in the Tao an evil will have no power. Not that it isn’t there, but you’ll be able to step out of its way. Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself”~ Tao te Ching #60

Governing this body, I spoil it with too much mental poking. Criticism and comparison is all around in my consciousness, in the magazines with picture of models, in the news with pictures of amazing athletes. But I can step out of the way. I don’t oppose this body, I don’t attack it for being the way it is, and the hatred of it disappears.

At the moment of the performance, in the Olympics or otherwise, I am so much more in the flow without poking. I only get there by questioning what I think is true. By not believing it is True that this body isn’t good enough, all is empty around me, unknown, mysterious. A Fun Game.

Love, Grace