WORKWORK14: Byron Katie’s Four Questions in Action
Inner Work: Question your thoughts through inquiry. You might just find love. Outer Work: Until next time.
Inner Work
Happy Wednesday. I am writing this WORKWORK from Paris, France and I’m emanating joy and love your way :)
The fourth, and most recent, WORKWORK dedicated to Byron Katie, takes all the reasons we learned we suffer and turns them into inquiry. In inquiry, we question all of the thoughts that bring us pain in an effort to reach a more true thought. The goal is to love what is in the world and be free.
On my last coaching call, my coach emphasized that we have 60,000-70,000 thoughts a day (yes, A DAY!). Of course, a lot of those thoughts are fluff and don’t have any impact other than passing through our brain, but some of them might really impact your day (or worse, longer). So, when we have thoughts that carry an extra amount of energy and we attach to them, the best thing we can do is take the time to put them against inquiry to find something more aligned with the reality we want to create.
Byron Katie created what she calls, The Work, which includes four questions and a turnaround. The Work has changed my entire perspective of things and created quiet confidence and happiness in my life. I have the questions written on the screensaver of my phone so that I can turn to them whenever I am feeling anything should be different than how it is.
Here’s The Work. You start by writing down a thought you have, then you answer the following four questions, and turn it around.
Is it true?
Can you absolutely be sure that it’s true?
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?
The Turnaround: you flip the thought in a few different directions and write ways that each version of the thought could be true. Then, determine which thought is truer than the original thought. I’ll walk through an example below to help bring this idea to life.
When you ask yourself question one, your mind begins to open. Even to consider that a thought may not be true will let a little light in your mind. - Byron Katie
Now, before I jump into a recent, real, and incredibly impactful personal example of this, I want to emphasize two important notes:
The Work only works if you are actively interested in getting closer to the truth. I initially explored Byron Katie’s: The Work when I was going through a tough time in 2017/2018, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t really want to have a different truth. I wanted to see my world as it was and suffer the way I was suffering. Today, I am constantly putting my thoughts up to inquiry and joyfully seeing entirely new realities in my life because I am more interested in loving what is, than being right, or attaching to sometimes addictive, emotional feelings.
If you begin the process of inquiry, it’s so important to start by writing your answers down and not answering them in your head only. You are more thorough, more complete, and seeing the words on paper or a screen is much more powerful.
Ok so let’s get into my personal example.
Nick, my love and partner in life, has been traveling a lot for work this year. It’s been a big adjustment coming out of covid where we were attached at the hip. In April, we went on a family vacation to Jamaica with his family. In the weeks prior to that, he had been traveling more than usual and I had more than usual lonely moments. When we arrived in Jamaica, the first day he was playing tennis and hanging out with his family and the thought “Nick should want to spend more time with me” popped into my brain. I felt it in my chest, fiery and intense. And with that physical and emotional reaction, I knew I needed to put it against inquiry:
Thought: Nick should want to spend more time with me.
Is it true?: Well yes, he’s my partner. He’s been away a lot recently and we are finally on vacation, he should want to spend more time with me.
Can I absolutely be sure that it’s true?: No. We are with his family, of course, he wants to spend time with them too! And he has been traveling, it’s been a strain on him as well, he probably wants to take care of himself in ways he hasn’t been able to. Plus the reality is what it is: he is spending his time the way he wants to. (keep in mind it wasn’t like he was avoiding me lol I was just wanting to be around him every moment)
How do you react when you believe that thought?: I feel lonely and insecure. I feel like he isn’t as committed to our relationship as me. I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel a lack of agency or control over my time. I feel sad and angry at the same time.
Who would you be without the thought?: I would be less lonely. I would be happier. I would be more confident and secure in myself. I would be more free. I would be kinder to him and his family.
The turnaround. There are four ways to turn this statement around. Here are all four:
I should want to spend more time with me.
Nick should not want to spend more time with me.
I should want to spend more time with Nick.
Nick does spend more time with me.
Now with each of these, I wrote down two ways that the new statement could be true. I promise there are at least two ways that every single one of these variations was true, but there was one that very clearly stood out as being much, much, truer. I felt it in my core. I should want to spend more time with me. Holy shit. I’m over here stressing about Nick not spending enough time with me when 1) that’s his business and 2) I’m mentally not even with myself when I’m thinking about him not spending enough time with me. I actually started to tear up at this moment. With all of Nick’s travel and my feeling frustrated that I couldn’t be with him, I had abandoned myself. I had made myself feel like I wasn’t worthy of being around - that I wasn’t good enough alone to spend time with myself. I immediately felt a sense of kindness, care, and love for myself that I had been neglecting, and during the remainder of our family vacation, I took joy in the little moments with myself: taking a shower, doing my makeup, reading my book. It was beyond refreshing.
What’s fun is that this one single thought ended up having a much deeper impact on my day-to-day and recent life decisions. As I thought more about this concept, I realized how much of my life has been spent not enjoying being with me. I have never liked to be alone. So, now I’ve been actively finding joy in spending time with myself, having more agency over my own life, and falling in love with me again through learning more about myself. In fact, it’s a big reason I am in Paris right now. I had a couple of things I could be in Europe for; one, at the beginning of June, and one at the end, and I decided I should stay and explore on my own. I was terrified at first, and now, sitting by myself writing this piece at a cafe in Paris, I couldn’t be happier with this decision.
I encourage you to take that thought that’s bugging you and put it up to inquiry. You just might find that you love every single thing that is in your life <3
Outer Work
I think the Inner Work is enough work for today :) I’ll share more Outer Work in the next WORKWORK. I’m learning a lot of new growth arbitrage tactics on the b2b side of marketing that is keeping me busy and nerdy :)