The Work

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

I haven't posted here in quite some time.......but, I've come

across something that I've been having some really good results

with. It's called The Work, and it was created by Byron Katie. Her

site is www.thework.org. I had ordered her CD set called Loving What

Is, recommended to me by two different people. They said not to get

the book, that the CD set was of an actual seminar, and was easier

to grasp. Basically, Katie's program involves running your painful

thoughts and beliefs thru 4 questions and then doing a turn-around

with your belief. It sounded too easy to be worthwhile, but to my

amazement, doing The Work on my obssessive thoughts halted them in

their tracks, I was able to release emotional pain very quickly, and

diminish my anxiety to a level where I actually was peaceful, tho

everything seemed to be falling apart around me.

I don't know how everyone else's mind works....but mine has

always ruminated over painful thoughts and worries until my whole

body hurt....headache, chest feeling weird, shaky hands, etc, etc. I

was never able to successfully take antidepressants....tho I did

always like it that they would get my mind to shut up so that I

could get some peace.....meditation?...forget it.....I have just

enough ADD to make that a joke.

Anyway, I had really been experiencing alot of pain in my

chest....8 months of serious marriage difficulties, daily fighting,

fears, etc....I felt like I was heartsick and that I was dying

inside. I started doing The Work on, not only the situation, but

eventually my underlying beliefs generated from as far back as age

5, and almost immediately had a release in my heart area....and

actually it felt Empty after the release, so I focussed on Love, and

felt that it was healing.

I have some serious disagreements with two or three of the

statements that Katie makes...beliefs that she carries, but the

overall program has worked really well for me. I also added in a

little EFT to give it an extra boost...the self-sabotague thing is

almost a superstitious ritual I have to perform before doing

Anything self-exploratory any more.

I don't see The Work as an end-all program...for me it was a

bridge that helped me cross the vast ocean of unresolved childhood

pain so that I could actually Truly understand and experience some

of the things I had been trying to Get from Dyer's newest work, and

Zukav's newest book. I think the Strongest point in The Work, is

being able to physically experience the illusions that you create to

live in. Which sounds kind of weird, I know.....I always read thru

the 'you create your own reality' with a 'yeah, right' kind of

attitude, because it just didn't seem to work that way for me.

However, I started Playing with thoughts after I started clearing

out all my mental debris, and found out that I could choose a

negative thought, focus on it, and see the results in my physical

world....it seemed to form around my thought, and not only that, but

people were responding to that thinking, too....and my mind would

immediately ante up with any thought it needed to, to support the

original negative thought that I was focussing on.

During the time I was heavily involved in doing this, I was also

completely hooked on a book by Gay Hendricks called Conscious

Living. He has an exercise in there that seemed kind of silly and

stupid to me when I first did it, but turned out to be quite

powerful in the manifestation arena. You were supposed to write down

all of the things that you hate about yourself and then, one at a

time, spend a few seconds sending love to whatever it was. I did it

to add to the other things I was doing to heal myself, but I noticed

that it had an almost immediate effect on my world in general...I

mean, people wanted to talk to me, give me things, make special

deals for me, etc. And all I did was focus love on those parts of

myself that I hated....and try to love Myself. That's been pretty

interesting. Isn't it amazing that sometimes you end up with

wonderful gifts from going thru a tortuous melodrama? Almost makes

me thankful to have my marriage on the rocks...Ha! Renee

[Guest guest]

Renee (and others)...

 

> It's called The Work, and it was created by Byron Katie. Her

> site is www.thework.org. I had ordered her CD set called

> Loving What Is, recommended to me by two different people.

> They said not to get the book, that the CD set was of an actual

> seminar, and was easier to grasp.

 

I found the book a lot easier to follow than I did the parts of the CD

set I have heard. " The Work " presents a powerful strategy for unmasking

the basic psychological defenses (denial, projection, rationalization,

justification, etc.). The four questions are both subtle and powerful.

 

" Conscious Living " is a good book, too. The other book by Kathleen and

Gay Hendricks, " The Conscious Heart, " is also worth reading.

 

Both the Byron Katie material and one of the central themes in the

Hendricks' books (telling the " microscopic truth " ) fit nicely with the

first of Ruiz's Four Agreements in the book by that name: Be impeccable

with your word.

 

______________________________

Joel P. Bowman, Ph.D.

Haworth College of Business

Western Michigan University

Kalamazoo, MI 49008

Voice: 269-387-5358

Fax: 269-387-5710

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bowman