Geneen Roth Session #4

OK, OK - so I am behind just a little bit and am doing 2 sessions in one day. :o) And the 5th session is in 2 days. So I am really behind. But that's OK. I guess I need to reflect and practice inquiry around why it is taking me this long to get to the classes. I think I know the answer - CHANGE and being afraid that this is just another thing that I am getting my hopes up about and it not working. So I am working on that.

It is so weird that I wrote the sentences above, started the recorded session and the first question that came up today was from a participant that is saying that she started feeling hopeful and now is feeling defeated and feeling like this is just something else to fail at. Very interesting. It's amazing how you think you are the only one feeling these feelings and you suddenly find out that it is so far from the truth.

Session #4 Topic - "Finding Your Enough"

Beginning Questions

1.) Things do not change in 4 weeks. Don't be impatient. The thought of wanting to change does not change us. Insight is not enough. Actions need to be taken that are different from what you have done before. Words alone do not change - you must take action!

2.) Align yourself with intention can feel like deprivation, but the follow through on intention is more of an undoing that a doing. Undoing of our habitual ways of being unconscious. We are going against our usual way of being unconscious.

3.) We are loyal to our old way of doing things. Dig in and determine who we are being loyal to.

4.) A lot of us have the longing to have someone else do this for us and to fix us. As we know though, no one can do this for us. This is the child inside of us coming out. Have compassion for this voice.

5.) Exercise - you can't shame yourself into working out and have it be good for you. Pay attention to the kind of movement that feels best for you. How would I like to move? What is the answer - go with that.

6.) Rest, contact, food and movement - the 4 things the body must have.

Today's Topic

1.) Each of us has an essence. We have lost this knowledge and feel homeless.

2.) We identify with our personality or ego - this is the small self that we take ourselves to be.

3.) Inquiry allows us to remove the barriers that are holding us back inside ourselves. We have unlimited potential.

4.) When you are not connected to who you really are - you feel broken, wounded. Until you understand yourself and connect with yourself - you will always feel lonely.

5.) If as a child we could have been able to stay connected to ourselves when someone else did something to us - the wound would not have happened. We would have been able to see that the action was about the other person and not ourselves. Because we were not able to do that as a child we separated from ourselves. We need to focus that this is still the case that it has to do with the other person and not ourselves. We need to learn the way back.

6.) Food is the doorway to your essence. It is the closest thing we have to our essence because it's the present link to it.

7.) We don't pay attention to our awareness, we pay attention to the thought itself.

8.) Determining your true self is not going to get you to an ultimate goal. It is just itself the nature of itself - you will be closer to yourself.

Practices for the Week

Eat what your body wants. - this is not what think you should be eating, deprivation, what you wanted as a child

Notice what you are loyal to.