You might as well try and teach a cat to bark as argue with reality,” Byron Katie
Facts are facts, right?
Your husband “shouldn’t forget your birthday/leave his dirty socks on the floor/get drunk and flirt with your best friend.”
Right?
Wrong!
He should be doing exactly those things – until he stops doing them.
Or let’s bring this closer to home in 2020 and the global #Coronavirus pandemic, causing #selfisolation, #coronavirus #stayathome concerns.
Listening to the news and getting into a panic or fear while hoping it will go away soon – will only stimulate your amagdyla for fear, fight or flight and do exactly the opposite of ACCEPTING WHAT IS.
What I learned from Katie working alongside her during her South African trip in 2003 is that there is NEVER an excuse for fighting the reality of life – complaining that this SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING.
LOVING WHAT IS
Arguing with reality is only going to make you angry, anxious and eventually depressed, ill, unhappy.
Put another way: “You might as well try and teach a cat to bark as argue with reality,” says Katie.
An extraordinary woman, teacher and best-selling author, Time Magazine called Katie “a visionary for the new millennium.” Watching her apply THE WORK in seminars countrywide, I knew I was in the presence of an enlightened master.
BACKGROUND TO BYRON KATIE
Katie’s life shifted overnight, in her mid-40s, from a downward spiral of chronic depression, addiction and rage to a place of joy, peace and acceptance.
Her life was in a mess. Sometimes, she says, she didn’t get out of bed for days on end. Eventually, she was booked into a rehab centre for eating disorders, feeling so low in self-worth that she was sleeping on the floor of her room.
Then something profound happened to change her life and how she saw reality.
She was awakened one night when a cockroach crawled over her foot. Suddenly, as if hit by a thunderbolt, the scales fell from her eyes. In a single moment, she realised that SHE herself – and not outer circumstances or other people – were the cause of ALL HER UNHAPPINESS AND PAIN.
PEACE REPLACED RAGE
In a moment, “All my rage, all the thoughts that had been troubling me, my whole world, the whole world, was gone,” she says. Laughter poured out.
She went back into life a completely changed woman. At first her family couldn’t believe that the “witch from hell” had become a “saint,” totally peaceful, loving and centred.
But as people began to follow her home from the supermarket, ask her advice and gather around her for healing of their own problems and pain – Katie’s WORK was born.
Thousands, possibly millions, worldwide have since flocked to Katie to heal emotional, mental and physical difficulties.
And her best-selling books Loving What is and I Need Your love – is it True – attest to life-changing AHAs that people experience when they question their thinking.
BENEFITS TO YOU re THE WORK
What’s great about THE WORK is that you get a practical tool to use and apply whenever your life goes topsy turvy or people are driving you crazy.
Neither esoteric nor psychological, The Work shows you how to heal your life by understanding your thoughts.
We simply ask, ‘”How do you react when you argue with reality? How does it feel?”
“Confusion is the only suffering,” says Katie. Confusion stems from wanting circumstances or people or who you are – to be different. To inquire deeply and deconstruct our faulty “stories” leaves us more peaceful and empowered.
The Key:
FOUR QUESTIONS AND A TURNAROUND
The questions:
Is it true?
Can you really know that it’s true?
How do you react when you think that thought?
Who or what would you be without that thought?
Turn the thought around.
THE PROMISE
The promise with The Work is that by questioning your faulty thinking – and seeing truth instead of lies – you may even end up laughing!
Happy! Free!
Free to be who you really are, in your own skin, comfortable with reality and able to love yourself.
And the cherry on the top – ACTIONS follow that are clear, focused and fearless.
What you learn from THE WORK of visionary Byron Katie is to QUESTION EVERY THOUGHT that is causing you pain.
Like a razor-sharp sword, The Work cuts through your “thinking” and “beliefs” which argue with reality or “what is.”
Yet you befriend your mind lovingly, “with open arms”.
But… but… but… I hear you objecting!
No buts – just suspend your disbelief for a minute while I give you an example of how THE WORK once set me free from a 16-month relationship that was causing me pain because it was “going nowhere.”
Valentine’s Day – I take pains to make a card for Mel, my longtime boyfriend and suggest we “celebrate” our love by affirming each other in special ways.
Instead, come Valentine’s Day, I sense him with-holding, uncomfortable…indifferent.
Not even a card or small gesture of love – I try and carry on as normal, refusing to let my expectations dampen a lovely day.
But I feel sick and let-down.
Hurt. Sad. Anger spills out unexpectedly to an “innocent” parking attendant who annoys me.
“Get a grip,” I tell myself. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. I’m angry at Mel – but also at myself for being too long in denial.
Our relationship is a dead duck.
I know what I must do.
“You know what, Mel, it’s over. Please go.” Crying, sad, I watch him go.
THEN I DID THE WORK
# Step 1 THE STATEMENT:
My lover should affirm and show his love for me – especially on Valentine’s Day.
# Step 2 Q: Is That True?
A: Of course it’s true – we have a history don’t we ? I have thousands of emails proving that a year ago he did say he
loved me.
He once sent me love poems, and … and… and.
Surely today he “shouldn’t” forget to say “I LOVE YOU “???
# Step 3 Q: Can you absolutely know it’s True?
A: Truthfully, I guess not. Maybe he stopped loving me somewhere along the way – at least in the way it began.
Hmmm. Didn’t he try and break it off six months ago, saying my efforts to affirm him were “putting him on a pedestal?”
And if I admit it, there were lots of other signs that he was cooling off.
AHA! As hurtful as it feels, when you stop the mind’s presumptions about how it “should be” you have to accept something deeper.
That maybe… he’s just not that into you… and therefore…it’s not true he “should be affirming you.” Valentine’s Day or any day.
# Step 4 Q: How do you react… thinking the thought that he “should affirm me more, especially Valentine’s Day?”
A: I feel furious at his arrogance; his refusal to see things my way…also rejected, unworthy and sad – ah like when I was 9 years old
and my own Mother – and family – forgot my birthday because it comes on December 30 – between Christmas and New Year…
#Step 5 Q: Who would you be without the Thought?
A: Well, I’d be peaceful, accepting, focused on getting on with my life in a more productive and less stressful way.
Not angry, sad and rejected. Maybe even meet someone who does want to affirm and love me…
Step 6 # TURN IT AROUND
First, find the “should” then turn the thought around to focus on YOU.
So… My partner “should” affirm me becomes…
I SHOULD AFFIRM ME
So I did.
I proceeded to lavish myself for many weeks with attention and affirmation – from alternative bodywork to a new hairstylist and a personal trainer!
I lost 10 kg and began to feel like a new woman. I also did lots of EFT Tapping energy work and Journeywork on myself to GET CLEAR on the old beliefs that had been operating all along.
DID IT WORK??
You bet!
I became upbeat about myself and my life again.
Within 3 months I met a man who treated me like a queen; lavished me with love, affirmations and attention.
He insisted I enjoy an all-paid 10-day holiday on his mountain-top estate in a paradise-dream destination where he made me
feel like royalty.
Other admiring suitors affirm me in many ways.
Download the free Judge Your Neighbour Worksheet available on Byron Katie’s website at www.thework.org
THE WORK works! Try it for yourself.
What have you got to lose – except your suffering?