The Work of Byron Katie: How-to Guide

[How to be wise]

If you follow this process for doing The Work, you will be guaranteed full emotional mastery, in just a few years.

Pick one moment in your history when you felt a strong negative emotion. The further back you go, the harder it gets to do, so start with something recent, and as you become more skilled over the months, keep going back in time. 

Write the worksheet on this one time and place only. Freeze time to just a few seconds, exactly when the pain hit you. It’s very important that you keep it specific to just a few seconds in that exact time.

After writing the worksheet, take a break, and come back to it later. 

Now, for The Work. Make sure to be in a meditation posture. The Work is meditation. Close your eyes. Go back to that exact time when the emotion hit you. Make sure you stay exactly in that moment; don’t move back or forward in time.

The first question, is it true? 

In every moment, there are two ways that you are experiencing reality: direct experience or concept. Direct experience is what you experience purely from the external world, and just in that moment. Concept is everything else that is going on in your mind, the past and future. Notice that you have never directly experienced the past or future! You are always only experiencing the present moment. 

So, when you ask, is it true, you are asking: Just in that moment, is it in my direct experience? And of course, the moment we are talking about is the moment that you have frozen into, in your past. Make sure that you visualise it as strong as possible. The past and future of that moment is not in your direct experience, hence it is not true.

Meditate and visualise this for several minutes until you are ready to decide on an answer. 

If your answer is yes, go to question 2: Can I absolutely know that it is true? Again, truth is only the direct experience of the moment. Spend a few minutes and come to a conclusion. It is perfectly fine if your answer is still ‘yes’. Don’t let that bum you out. Just move onto question 3. The Work will still work, I promise.

Question 3: how do you react when you believe this thought?

With your eyes closed, back in that time and specific moment, think about how you react when you are believing that thought. Consider the following points:

1. How do you act in that situation?

2. How do you feel when you are believing the thought? What sensations exactly? Where does the sensation occur? Explicitly name them, and feel where you feel them? Get in touch with the fact that believing that thought really brings you stress.

Question 4: who would you be without that thought?

This is one of my favourites. Still in that moment, how will you be if you didn’t believe that thought, just in that moment. How will you feel towards the situation? How will you act differently? Bask in that for as long as you want.

Turnarounds: 

There are three turnarounds: to the self, to the other, and to the opposite.

If the statement is something like ‘he did this to me’, the turnaround to the self will be ‘I did this to me.’ Now, still visualising that moment, think of three different examples where you did it to yourself. Force your mind to come up with examples. 

The turnaround to the other will be ‘I did this to him.’ Again, find three different examples.

The turnaround to the opposite is ‘he did not do this to me’. Find three different examples.

And that’s The Work. Ideally, start with a daily practice of 20 mins at least. As you become more peaceful, and free up more energy, increase your practice time gradually.

Good luck!

[Nahm]

@How to be wise ♥️

Explanation of the process......http://thework.com/en/do-work

Judge your neighbor worksheet......http://thework.com/sites/thework/downloads/worksheets/JudgeYourNeighbor_Worksheet.pdf

Facilitator guide.......http://thework.com/sites/thework/downloads/worksheets/facilitationguide_Eng.pdf

 

"I am the perpretor of my suffering
- but only all of it." 

~ Byron Katie ~

[Nahm]

@David Hammond I don’t have ‘pin’ power or I definitly would, but I featured it. Great idea. Thanks!

[JohnnyBravo]

Once one has played through all their dark memories, what is there next?

[Nahm]

@JohnnyBravo The Work doesn’t touch on memory so much as realizing how our beliefs are causing our suffering. 

[Nahm]

@How to be wise The Work serves to connect the dots ‘between’ the sought after peace sub, and emotional realization sub. There’s no duplicate mod feature though. If you want to, copy & paste the same post there, maybe? Then I’ll feature it as well. 

[How to be wise]

40 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@JohnnyBravo The Work doesn’t touch on memory so much as realizing how our beliefs are causing our suffering. 

The two are the same. All suffering comes from a misunderstood past, which is why The Work is extremely helpful. We look into the past, into our most painful experience, and come to realise that only our thoughts about the situation was causing our suffering.

[How to be wise]

48 minutes ago, JohnnyBravo said:

Once one has played through all their dark memories, what is there next?

Once you have worked through all dark memories, there is constant peace & bliss. Nothing will be able to move that. You will be living in heaven, literally.

[JohnnyBravo]

Something screams dogma to me here.

This is the magic formulae?

[How to be wise]

1 hour ago, JohnnyBravo said:

This is the magic formulae?

I’m speaking from direct experience. Yes.

[Surfingthewave]

Thank you @How to be wise I've read the book Loving What Is before and and I've been completing some of the work sheets.  With the turnarounds this is where I was getting stuck, so interesting that you have to use three examples. What is the idea behind using these examples - self, the other and opposite? 

 

[How to be wise]

@Surfingthewave to see that you are responsible for how you feel, not other people.

[Nahm]

@Surfingthewave To unstick someone from identification with one perspective which they believe is the truth. 

[SriBhagwanYogi]

@How to be wise Wazzup does it help on spiritual path, awkening rising awarness etc? 

[DrewNows]

This is great. What a wonderful process guiding us to really LOOK AT IT! (IT being that which pulls you out of the NOW) 

[Bluebird]

You can also do The Work on dreams that cause negative emotions just as powerfully as "real" experiences.

[Jordan94]

Thanks

 

Btw what do you think about Vipassana ? Is it just the same ? kinda simillar ?

[How to be wise]

12 hours ago, SriBhagwanYogi said:

@How to be wise Wazzup does it help on spiritual path, awkening rising awarness etc? 

Of course. 

2 hours ago, Jordan94 said:

Thanks

 

Btw what do you think about Vipassana ? Is it just the same ? kinda simillar ?

I don’t know the potential of vipassana since I haven’t done it long enough.

[okulele]

@How to be wise Great stuff! Thanks for sharing your insight

[okulele]

@How to be wise Is it better to do with a specific moment in history? What about working with compulsive thoughts that come almost daily? Would you pick one of the moments they occurred or just worked with the thought by itself?