Please read this blog after researching Byron Katie’s own
material. Read her book ‘Loving What Is’, visit her website www.thework.com and
see her you tube videos and best of all go and see her. Noting I can put down
here will match seeing the master in action.
So what is the big deal about The Work?
It is such a simple process but its effects are quite simply
life-changing, reducing stress, self- doubt and conflict . It allows us to get
a broader perspective on our suffering
and also to get a moment of insight into a happier approach to life. Practiced
often these momentary insights expand and we find ourselves being more open,
kind and happy with a stronger sense of self and our own values. This is a
state of mindfulness.
How can it do that ?
Well, a momentary insight can happen at any time in the
process. The first stage of The Work is to identify the thoughts that are
causing a problem. This in itself is a useful process. Most of us have a little
voice in our head that mutters at us creating a background negativity to our
thoughts. It is often fearful, judgemental and rigid and it has probably been saying
the same sort of thing to us for most of our lives. It may be reminding us that
we are really not good enough, that we will be found to be a fraud or that we
will fail. It may be telling us that we are unlovable, ugly, stupid or clumsy or
that we must try harder, do better and strive harder.
Simply shining the spotlight on these thoughts and making
them clear allows us sometimes to see that they are ungrounded, unhelpful and
have caused us a lot of unnecessary grief over the years. This can be painful
as we see how hard we have been on ourselves and what the thoughts have led us
to do.
How do the four questions help?
Sometimes we continue to believe the thought until we
reflect on it more deeply. The question ‘can you really know that is true’ or ‘if you had to answer yes or no can
you absolutely know it is true’ and taking the time to reflect a little on the belief will allow us to become a little
more flexible in our thinking around it.
So far this has all been an intellectual exercise, it feels a familiar and comfortable way to
work so it is one that most people will be happy to try. This is why I often
use The Work in a first session with a new client while I am still building
rapport and trust.
The next question can helps us to become a little more
critical about the thought. It sometimes feels like it loosens our attachment
to it, a bit like digging into the soil around the root of a well- established
plant and cutting through some of the roots. The question asks how thinking
(and believing) the thought makes us feel and behave and the knock-on effects
of this. It is good to spend some time on this as there are often many
secondary consequences to consider. It is important to keep the focus on the particular
thought and not to expand on it or begin to justify why we have it. Sometimes
we get an insight into why we have developed the thought, which is great and is
something to come back to after the process is complete.
It may be that we believe we need to keep hold of the
thought because it is protecting us from something, this is interesting to
notice but it is not necessary to pursue this line of enquiry as it often starts
to develop into a story and distracts from the power of the process. If this appears to be happening I tend to ask what
has been the cost of believing the thought. This can be a very hard hitting
question but it may be one that is needed to spark a massive realisation – a major
ah ha moment. I have had clients get very angry here.
So having nicely loosened the attachment to the thought it
is time to ask the big question: ‘And who would you be if you were free of it?’ The wording of this question may be important
and I do vary it a bit: ‘how would you feel if you were free of it’, ‘what
would life look like if you were free of it’, ‘how would you act if you simply
let go of that thought’ and, as Byron Katie says: ’I am not asking you to drop
the thought but if you did how would
you be?’ And for the very resistant ‘just
for the sake of curiosity just for a moment imagine how you would be if you no
longer had this thought’.
Once we have a glimpse of what it would be like to be
without the thought we can expand on it by repeating the question in different
forms. The more we can open into the experience of how free we are when we let
go of the thought the better. The mind then starts exploring possibilities for itself.
I might ask: ‘how would you be around so-and-so if you were free of the
thought?’, ‘ what else would happen’ and, a question I keep repeating because
it is a way in to other processes that I will want to use later: ‘how do you feel
in your body, in your being, when you are free of the thought?’
Byron Katie then employs the final question: the turn-around,
asking what is the opposite to the thought. This may be interpreted in several
ways and each version tends to be interesting. I then ask ‘and how would you be
if you believed this? How would it feel?’
What are some of the other ways that The Work helps us?
Byron Katie has provided us with an enquiry sheet which asks
us to explore our judgements around something. This is a great tool as it gives us time to
really go to town and allow a stream of hugely judgemental thought to pour out
on to the page. It is important that this is done without censure and without
our reasoning mind intervening as this will lessen the impact of the process.
As we become more familiar with The Work we can be aware of the judging aspect
of ourselves and we can be sure to allow this part alone to be expressed as we write.
Where the enquiry sheet has been about somebody else it is
great to use the sheet to aid the turn- around simply by exchanging the name of
the object of the exercise to our own. Hence ‘Jimmy never considers me and
makes allowances for my needs, he is unkind and thoughtless’ becomes ‘I never
consider myself and make allowance for my needs, I am unkind and thoughtless
[to myself]’ . This again can be a hard hitting exercise and often rings all
too true. But it shows us that we can take back our power: we do not have to depend
on someone else to provide for our needs, we can meet our own and this makes
for more adult, healthy relationships.
The main message of the work is that it shows us how
painful, damaging and distorting our own thoughts can be. Simply by questioning
them and dropping them if they are found to be less than true we become more
open, accepting and kind both to ourselves and to others. It gives us freedom
and flexibility in how we react to life but most importantly it breaks the
cycle of pain that many of us have become trapped within.
As Wayne Dyer said: ‘Loving people
live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.’
Clare Walters www.absolute-specialists.co.uk
