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"Who Would You Be Without Your Story?"
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What
is The Work?
The Work is a simple yet powerful process
of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It's a way to
understand what's hurting you, and to address your problems with clarity.
People who do The Work as an ongoing practice report life-changing results.
- Alleviation of depression: Find resolution, and even happiness, in situations that were
once debilitating.
- Decreased stress: Learn how to live with less anxiety or fear.
- Improved relationships: Experience deeper connection and
intimacy with your partner, your parents, your children, your friends, and yourself.
- Reduced anger: Understand what makes you angry and resentful, and become less reactive, less often, with less intensity.
- Increased mental clarity: Live and work more intelligently and effectively, with integrity.
- More energy: Experience a new sense of ongoing vigor and well-being.
- More peace: Discover how to become "a lover of what is."
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How
to Do The Work
The simplest way to do The Work is outlined below:
1
Judge Your Neighbor
For thousands of years we’ve been told not
to judge, but we still do it all the time—how our friends should act,
whom our children should care about, what our parents should feel, do,
or say. In The Work, rather than suppress these judgments, we use them
as starting points for self-realization. By letting the judging
mind have its life on paper, we discover through the mirror of those around
us what we haven't yet realized about ourselves.
Fill in a Judge-Your-Neighbor worksheet.
You can download
one here, or simply use this online version [below]:
2
The Four Questions
Investigate each of your statements
from the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet using
the four questions and the turnaround below. The Work is
meditation. It’s about awareness, not about trying to change your thoughts.
Ask the questions, then take your time, go inside, and wait for the deeper
answers to surface. Download the blue sheet for use as a facilitation guide.
In its most basic form, The Work consists of four questions
and a turnaround. For example, the first thought that you might question
on the above Worksheet is "Paul doesn't listen to me." Find someone in
your life about whom you have had that thought, and let's do The Work.
"[Name] doesn't listen to me":
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?
Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and don't forget
to find three genuine examples of each turnaround.
3
Turn it
Around
After you've investigated your statement
with the four questions, you're ready to turn it around (the concept you are questioning).
Each turnaround is an opportunity
to experience the opposite of your original statement and see what you
and the person you've judged have in common.
A statement can be turned around to the opposite, to the other,
and to the self (and sometimes to "my thinking," wherever that
applies). Find a minimum of three genuine examples in your life where
each turnaround is true.
For example, "Paul doesn't understand me"
can be turned around to "Paul does understand me." Another turnaround
is "I don't understand Paul." A third is "I don't understand
myself."
Be creative with the turnarounds. They are revelations,
showing you previously unseen aspects of yourself reflected back through
others. Once you've found a turnaround, go inside and let yourself feel
it. Find a minimum of three genuine examples where the turnaround is true
in your life.
As I began living my turnarounds,
I noticed that I was everything I called you. You were merely my
projection. Now, instead of trying to change the world around me (this
didn't work, but only for 43 years), I can put the thoughts on paper,
investigate them, turn them around, and find that I am the very thing
I thought you were. In the moment I see you as selfish, I am selfish (deciding
how you should be). In the moment I see you as unkind, I am unkind. If
I believe you should stop waging war, I am waging war on you in my mind.
The turnarounds are your prescription
for happiness. Live the medicine you have been prescribing for others.
The world is waiting for just one person to live it. You're the one.
Examples of Turnarounds
Here are a few more examples of
turnarounds:
"He should understand me"
turns around to:
- He shouldn't understand me. (This is reality.)
- I should understand him.
- I should understand myself.
"I need him to be kind to
me" turns around to:
- I don't need him to be kind to me.
- I need me to be kind to him. (Can I live it?)
- I need me to be kind to myself.
"He is unloving to me"
turns around to:
- He is loving to me. (To the best of his ability)
- I am unloving to him. (Can I find it?)
- I am unloving to me (When I don't inquire.)
"Paul shouldn't shout at
me" turns around to:
- Paul should shout at me. (Obviously: In reality, he does sometimes.
Am I listening?)
- I shouldn't shout at Paul.
- I shouldn't shout at me.
(In my head, am I playing over and over again Paul's shouting? Who's more
merciful, Paul who shouted once, or me who replayed it a 100 times?)
Embracing Reality
After you have turned around the judgments in your answers
to numbers 1 through 5 on the Worksheet
(asking if they are as true or truer), turn number 6 around using
"I am willing ..." and "I look forward to ..."
For example, "I don't ever
want to experience an argument with Paul" turns around to "I
am willing to experience an argument with Paul" and "I look
forward to experiencing an argument with Paul." Why would you look
forward to it?
Number 6 is about fully embracing all of mind and
life without fear, and being open to reality. If you experience
an argument with Paul again, good. If it hurts, you can put your thoughts
on paper and investigate them. Uncomfortable feelings are merely the reminders
that we've attached to something that may not be true for us. They let
us know that it's time to do The Work.
Until you can see the enemy as
a friend, your Work is not done. This doesn't mean you must invite
him to dinner. Friendship is an internal experience. You may never see
him again, you may even divorce him, but as you think about him are you
feeling stress or peace?
In my experience, it takes only
one person to have a successful relationship. I like to say I have the
perfect marriage, and I can't really know what kind of marriage my husband
has (though he tells me he's happy too).
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Frequently Asked
Questions
I have a hard time
writing about others. I know the problem is me. Why can't I write about
myself?
If you want to know yourself, write about someone else. Point The Work
outward in the beginning, and you may come to see that everything outside
of you is a direct reflection of your thinking. It is only about you.
Most of us have been pointing our criticism and judgments at ourselves
for years, and it hasn't solved anything yet. When you judge someone else,
inquire, and turn it around (the concept you are questioning). This is the fast path to understanding and
self-realization.
It is extremely difficult
to judge yourself. Some of us are very invested in our identifications;
our ideas about ourselves-how we should look, how we should feel, what
we should or shouldn't be doing-are so strong that we may not be able
to answer the four questions and turnarounds honestly. If you are new
to The Work and feel that you must judge yourself, please call
the hotline and ask a certified facilitator to walk you through your Worksheet.
Do I have to write? Can't I just ask the questions and turn it around
in my head when I have a problem?
Mind's job is to be right, and it can justify itself faster than the speed
of light. Stop the portion of your thinking that is the source of your
fear, anger, sadness, or resentment by transferring it to paper. Once
the mind is stopped on paper, it's much easier to investigate. Eventually
The Work begins to undo you automatically without writing.
What if I don't have a problem with people? Can I write about things,
like my body?
Yes. Do The Work on
any subject that is stressful. As you become familiar with the four questions
and the turnaround, you may choose subjects such as the body, disease,
career, or even God. Then simply use the term "my thinking"
in place of the subject when you do the turnarounds.
Example: "My body should be
strong, healthy, and flexible" becomes "My thinking should be
strong, healthy, and flexible."
Isn't that what you really want—a
balanced, healthy mind? Has a sick body ever been a problem, or is it
your thinking about the body that causes the problem? Investigate. Let
your doctor take care of your body as you take care of your thinking.
I have a friend who can't move his body, and he is loving life. Freedom
does not require a healthy body. Free your mind.
I've heard you say you're a lover of reality. What about war and rape
and all the terrible things in the world? Are you condoning that?
Quite the opposite. I notice that if I believe it shouldn't exist when
it does exist, I suffer. Can I just end the war in me? Can I stop raping
myself and others with my abusive thoughts and actions? Otherwise I'm
continuing through me the very thing I want to end in the world. I start
with ending my own suffering, my own war. This is a life's work.
So what you're saying is that I should just accept reality as it is
and not argue with it. Is that right?
The Work doesn't say what anyone should or shouldn't do. We simply ask:
What is the effect of arguing with reality? How does it feel? This Work
explores the cause and effect of attaching to painful thoughts, and in
that investigation we find our freedom. To simply say that we shouldn't
argue with reality is just to add another story, another philosophy or
religion. It hasn't ever worked.
I don't believe in God. Can I still benefit from The Work?
Yes. Atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan—we
all have one thing in common: We want happiness and peace. If you are
tired of suffering, I invite you to The Work.
Is there a way I can go deeper with The Work?
I often say, if you really want to be free, have The Work for breakfast.
Have it for lunch. Have it for dinner. The more you do inquiry, the
more it undoes you. Some people prefer to do The Work as part of an
organized program, so I offer the School for
The Work,
an intense and life-changing journey through your own mind, with aftercare
and an extraordinary support system.
I understand the process of inquiry intellectually, but I don't really
feel anything shifting when I do it. What am I missing?
If you answer the questions superficially with the thinking mind, the
process will leave you feeling disconnected. Try asking the question and
going deeper. You may have to ask the question a few times to stay focused,
but as you practice this, an answer will slowly rise. When the answer
comes from inside you, the realizations (and shifts) follow naturally.
I've been using the turnarounds
whenever I make judgments, and somehow it doesn't do anything but make
me depressed and confused. What's going on?
To simply turn thoughts around keeps the process intellectual and is of
little value. The invitation is to go beyond the intellect. The questions
are like probes that dive into the mind, bringing deeper knowledge to
the surface. Ask the questions first, and then wait. Once the answers
have risen, then do the turnarounds. The surface mind and the deeper mind
(I call it the heart) meet, and the turnarounds feel like true discoveries.
Is there always a turnaround? What if I am having
trouble finding one?
Turn the statement around to the opposite, to the self, and to
the other. Sometimes you'll find more turnarounds, sometimes fewer. When you're dealing with
an object, such as the physical body, turn it around to the opposite and also to 'my thoughts'
or 'my thinking'--for example, 'My body is unhealthy' can be turned around to 'My thinking is
unhealthy.' And with all turnarounds, find examples (a minimum of three when possible) where
the turnaround is as true or truer.
The Work doesn't work for me. Why not?
The moment you stop genuinely answering the questions and begin to justify
or defend the statement you are investigating, The Work doesn't work.
In that moment you are using the hopeless method that people have been
using from the beginning of the human mind. When you begin to justify
or defend your position or go into a story, simply notice what you are
doing, then return to the inquiry again. The mind's war with itself is
the old way. If you can't stop the war within, you can't stop the war
outside. Welcome to the new way. Welcome to peace.
I have been trying to find a therapist in my area that has similar philosophies to Byron Katie. How can I locate someone?
Please go to www.thework.com, click on Facilitators, and look for a Certified
Facilitator near you. Some facilitators are therapists, psychiatrists,
psychologists, and other health professionals, and all are excellent
facilitators for The Work, trained personally by Byron Katie. These
professionals are available by phone, email, Skype, and private "one-on-one" sessions
as well. We at BKI are at your service. Should you retain one of these
fine facilitators, please send your recommendations, complaints and/or
experience to certification@thework.com.
Your freedom, health and happiness are our business.
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Resources
A list of Work-related resources is available here
>>
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Support The Work
Learn how
you can help move The Work in the world >>
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The Work in Action
"I'm
too fat"
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