Barrier #1 in the recent masterclass presentation I gave, on where we get snagged when doing The Work of Byron Katie, is maybe the biggest, most widespread, most fog-inducing, discouraging barrier of them all.
The short version is, it’s the I-Hate-Myself barrier.
When you feel at war with reality, but mostly, with the reality of YOU.
Here’s a Peace Talk about it I made for you.
Who are you, without your thoughts about you?
(Can you hear the silence and not-knowing-how-to-answer this question?)
Now, here’s the strange thing about this very deep and cosmic question:
I would have never come to wondering who I was without thoughts about even myself, were it not for doing The Work on many other things and people and circumstances and situations besides myself.
Doing The Work on others was the key.
As I’ve been kind of repeating lately, excited about what Byron Katie invites us to….do The Work on Mother, Father, Sister, Brother!
Doing The Work on everything else under the sun, and going way back-back-back….
….is the way forward.
In the upcoming Year of Inquiry (some incredible people are signing up OMG I’m so excited) we have a topic every single month, for ten months….
….with a free-for-all Summer Camp session in the summer of daily inquiry on anything, for everyone.
I mention this because people have been asking me how I came up with topics for Year of Inquiry, and why do we do The Work on others anyway?
So many people hear about The Work and get this sense of freedom, and immediately think “I’ll apply it to ME, I’ll finally change, I’ll improve myself and stop being so full of complaints.”
But it doesn’t work so well, oddly enough, to do The Work on yourself.
It’s so much easier and more profound, and so much more clearly and paradoxically ON YOURSELF when you do The Work on other people, places, topics and things. You can see these other things easily, with lazer sharp clarity and precision.
So in Year of Inquiry, we start with what annoys you in any way whatsoever. Anything. You name it. You call it.
The first month, we start with what you notice is disturbing, and it doesn’t even matter what it is.
After kicking it off with just where we are, we move into FOO.
Family of Origin.
And from there, many other common topics all of which create fear, worry, irritation, and sadness.
We look at our Complaints, Hurt-Anger-Fear, Money, Body, Love, Goals & Desires, The Worst That Could Happen, and Loss.
How did I come up with these topics?
I listened to all the clients, groups and retreats (and my own worksheets) filled with people who have come to inquire over the years. The same themes come up over and over.
So we start at the very beginning (I always hear Maria in the Sound of Music singing when I say this) followed by looking at FOO, as I already mentioned….and then we continue by noticing what we complain about, daily, weekly, yearly, or every time we run into that person? What’s going on when we complain?
As we move through complaints, we become more comfortable with feeling our stress, and seeing the feelings as useful pointers to our thinking. What happens when we feel hurt, angry, or afraid? What brings these emotions out in our lives?
What about money? What’s enough? Who has it, and why, or why not? What makes it so scary, or disappointing? Where did I get the money I use–is it OK with me? Do I like to receive? Do I like to work? What is money, to me?
And of course, the body is an area filled with stressful concern. We look at the Body in our sixth month. What do I dislike about this body I seem to live in? Whose body is it? What happens when it gets injured, or feels pain? What about other peoples’ bodies?
Then there’s love….oh my…love. (Huge topic of stressful thinking). Who have I loved, been attracted to, bonded with, slept with, broken up with?
In the seventh month in Year of Inquiry, we explore Goals and Desires, because these are so expected, wanted, planned for so many of us. How can we have a goal, and love what is, at the same time? We get to take a look at what we’re thinking and believing that’s painful when it comes to having dreams for the future, and working towards something.
Finally, we spend basically the last two months before Summer Camp diving deeply into a powerful and troubling topic: The Worst That Could Happen. We’re basically looking at our terrible fears. We’re asking, when it comes to any situation we encounter that feels uncomfortable, no matter how “light”….what we’re most afraid of, in our situation?
All of these are huge, wide-open areas of human suffering, and as a human (for those of you who are humans reading this) then you’ve probably experienced concern in any of these common areas of discord, worry or fear.
Something’s going wrong.
I shouldn’t have to experience this.
Strangely….only by combing through what appears as a concern outside of me, in all these areas, have I ever been able to actually stop all those self-critical nasty thoughts about myself, and let go of agonizing about what is.
Practicing The Work unravels stressful thinking. It unravels suffering.
Who would we be without our stories? About others, and most importantly about ourselves?
What I have found, is we would be pure love, and peace, and freedom.
If you want to do The Work in a dedicated, committed group of inquirers for an entire year, then join me in this gift of inquiry.
Early Bird sign up lasts until August 19th, so you’ve got time to think about it (there is no urgency and no emergency) and after that it’s still a very inexpensive way to get and stay connected to dedicated time for self-inquiry through every season of an entire year.
Everyone in Year of Inquiry has sixty days to fully participate in the experience before making a final decision—there’s only a fee of $100 for the first month, or another $100 for the second month of the program, if you choose to withdraw….even if you didn’t decide to withdraw until Halloween you’d only pay $200.
I do this on purpose because I want only people to continue through the year who deeply know they like the process of inquiry, not just the idea of inquiry.
Everyone gets two whole months to sample and sink into the experience of this meditative work by participating in all the telesessions, our first two monthly webinars (September and October), and partnering if they choose with other members of YOI.
After two months of seeing what it’s like, most people get the sense of what doing The Work regularly, every week, may do for their inner world and their lives. If it’s not for them now, it’s OK.
What I know is….when I came into The Work all I wanted to do was question thoughts about myself and what I had done wrong (I’ll tell you more about my first true inquiry session in the next Grace Note).
Then I followed the simple invitation from Byron Katie and the steps of The Work to identify judgments I had about other people, the world, money, bodies, being alive, love, and what I thought of as reality.
Looking at all of these, I truly did The Work on myself.
Freedom didn’t happen in an instant. It unfolds daily, with every time I ask “is it true?”
This Work gives the mind something it loves to do: rest.
To not rely so heavily on “figuring” everything out. But instead, to wonder what it’s like without thinking.
How fun is that?
“To have a way to see beyond illusion is the greatest gift.” ~ Byron Katie in Loving What Is