Archive for Wednesday 15th January 2002 - The Work
Can we bypass our troubles and woes? Is there a short-cut through the minefield of our relationships?

The solution may lie in the way you answer four simple questions discovered by writer Byron Katie.

Katie, a once-destitute Californian, discovered them in her darkest hour. By focusing on the answers she found her problems weren’t always ‘someone else’s fault’.

She recognised that much of her pain was in her own perceptions and thoughts, and that, in acknowledging this, she was able to see how things could work out differently. She found she could choose to change her life. And so began what she has called ‘The Work’.

Fundamental to her beliefs is that what we really want is our own reality, not false expectations and other people’s concepts of happiness. She says: “Only when we give up ‘what should be’ can we experience the profound peace of ‘what is’.”

How The Work works:
If you feel that your partner does not understand you. Ask yourself these four questions:
1. Is this true?
2. Can you absolutely know that this is true?
3. How do you react when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without that thought?
Once you let the answers come to you, you move to ‘turn-around’ mode. Consider the opposite: ‘I don’t understand my partner’. Or, ‘I should understand myself’. Or, ‘Why should my partner always understand me?’ Try it and see where it goes…
You can find out more, free, at www.thework.org

Mark Winter