Why do The Work? (+ early bird YOI closes tonight at midnight PT)

I am beyond-excited about the new participants who have registered for Year of Inquiry 2016-2017.

I feel so touched that people raise their hand for such a long commitment….an entire year.

One of the biggest considerations people have is wondering if this process of doing The Work steadily will “work”.

It’s kind of a funny question to answer.

Because, if you know anything about this brilliant process called The Work of Byron Katie, you know it’s powerful, deep, simple and liberating….and there are no guarantees.

When someone asks me if I think doing The Work will work, whether they’re thinking about Year of Inquiry or any other program involving self-inquiry, I actually want to find out more and ask them questions.

What do you need it to “work” for?

What are you having troubles with? What do you object to about your life? What else have you tried? How will you know if it’s worked? How will you know if it hasn’t worked?

What I’ve noticed about my own life, is when I have Great Expectations for something and really feel a deep conviction that something MUST WORK, I’ve got a bit of fear.

Or a lot of it.

I remember this was my feeling the first time I called a therapist, and scheduled an appointment. Ok, Ok, my mom called the therapist. But I felt utterly desperate. I so wanted to understand myself, to heal my crazed eating patterns, to quell my anxiety, to see if I could relax and find hope about my world.

This was also my feeling….fear, desperation….when I first attended a Twelve Step Meeting for people suffering from addictive drinking, although I was there because of my eating (they didn’t have an Overeaters Anonymous in the place I was temporarily living at the time, but they did have AA and someone said to go anyway).

It seemed like extreme suffering, secrecy, pain and shame drove me to seek help.

Those two processes–therapy and 12 Steps–changed everything for me. It was like some lights got turned on in a very dark room. I found support, care, love and new ways of sharing I never imagined possible.

I started connecting with the world more more, rather than being such a reclusive scaredy cat, especially amount my emotional life.

Fast forward to about twenty years later.

I’ve graduated with a master’s degree in Applied Behavioral Science because I’m just so dang fascinated with the human mind, human actions, human thought.

I’ve gotten married, stayed at one job for several years, bought a house, made friends, had two beautiful children (home births), taken writing classes, and no longer ate my head off when I was upset.

I was clearly not desperate and terrified anymore.

Not like that other dreadful way, that felt like I was small, lost, suicidal and frightened in a big enormous and strange world.

And yet….

….I had a kind of feeling of deep angst within, if I really thought about it, when it came to my true spirit.

I still had a constant question inside. I still felt uncertain, troubled and like life was one big fat question mark–and I didn’t like it.

What is life for? Is this happiness? If you stop feeling broken, is that all there is? What about deep peace? What is this place (earth)? Why am I here? Why was I so screwed up in my twenties? Can I make sure my kids don’t suffer as much as I did? What is God? What is faith? Did I make a mistake? What would I have faith “in” if I had it? Did I do enough today? Why do terrible things happen? Why don’t I like that person?

How can I understand All This?

Because I didn’t really feel like all there was to life was getting over feeling mentally ill (eating disorder, depression, anxiety) and being “normal”, whatever that was.

Right?

Over the years I read volumes of books on spirituality, religion, peace and self-improvement or personal development. I went to est. After my master’s degree, I spent another $15K on a one year Life Coach training program. I bought all the books on “success”. I watched the movie the Secret.

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those—they were all great, actually.

But then, I came across the book “Loving What Is”.

I was sooooo intrigued.

There was no cheerleading, no positive affirmations, no creating plans, no training for a future, more successful moment later on.

It was about this moment, here, now. No matter what was happening in it.

And what I thought of it.

No guru, no teacher, no key, no special religion, no right answer needed.

Only the time to consider and contemplate, to wonder about my thinking, to meditate on situations I thought of as horrible….

….and take them through four questions, and then find turnarounds, just as an experiment, not as anything I “should” do or “better” do, or else.

The invitation was peace.

True peace was something I still dearly wanted.

And it’s been an amazing journey. (Not over yet, I notice).

What I love about The Work is best described at the very beginning of the book Loving What Is:

“The deeper you go into The Work, the more powerful you realize it is. People who have been practicing inquiry for a while often say, ‘The Work is no longer something I do. It is doing me.’ They describe how, without any conscious intention, the mind notices each stressful thought and undoes it before it can cause any suffering. Their internal argument with reality has disappeared, and they find that what remains is love—love for themselves, for other people, and for whatever life brings. The title of this book describes their experience: Loving what is becomes as easy and natural as breathing.” ~ Stephen Mitchell, husband to Byron Katie, Introduction to Loving What Is

After reading Loving What Is, it took me awhile to really “do” The Work. I didn’t have patience for it one minute when I tried it on my own.

I also developed a raging inexplicable fever the first time I went to see Byron Katie. (I was trying The Work on one thing I was most ashamed about in my entire life–an abortion. Next time remind me to start out a little slower).

I went to the School for The Work and had insight after insight popping in my mind, so stunned I didn’t sleep more than four hours a night for 9 months.

You mean, all my suffering could be altered, my experience of life completely changed, by identifying my painful thinking and asking if it was really true? Seriously?!

WOW.

But I still wouldn’t sit down and DO The Work all by myself.

Then someone touched my arm at a Byron Katie event and said “can I hire you as a facilitator?”

Oh. Hire me. Um. Well. Hire me?

Yes.

She worked with me for three years straight. A brilliant inquirer.

Or should I say….I worked with her for three years straight.

Because that’s what every person who shows up to work with me is. Someone to do The Work with. My work. My teacher, my family, my guide, my coach, my friend, my colleague, my companion.

They are a part of my world….and this world has become absolutely brilliant.

Now, THAT, is a story worth keeping.

As people in The Work for awhile joke, “This is my (new) story, and I’m stickin’ to it!”

We really have no idea where this story is going.

But it’ll probably be better than anything we could have ever imagined.

Considering that, all hatred driven hence, 

~ William Butler Yeats(printed in Loving What Is, by Byron Katie)

If you find yourself drawn, and yet you do not “do” The Work as deeply as you’d like whether on your own or with others, then maybe Year of Inquiry is for you. We start September 1st with Orientation, and September 8th is our very first call.

It’s for those who love self-inquiry, have seen the joy it brings, and who need to connect with others to keep it alive and shining.

For people like me.

Much love,