“An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.”
—Byron Katie
What Is The Work of Byron Katie?
The Work of Byron Katie, which I call Transformational Inquiry, is a way to identify and question all thoughts that cause suffering, stress, reactivity and self-limitation. The Work is comprised simply of four basic questions, specific sub-questions and a reversal technique called the turnaround. Since Katie began sharing the process in 1986, The Work has helped hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to approach their problems from a practical, positive and realistic perspective.
Regular practice of this inquiry may result in better communication, increased efficiency and a state of clarity and inner peace that Katie calls “loving what is.” (Katie's source book for The Work, Loving What Is, may be ordered here.) For many, the effects are radical: relationships deepen, addictions fall away, stress-related health conditions improve, crises become opportunities, resentments and regrets lose their grip. Depression, fear and anxiety typically lessen and may even disappear.
Prior to questioning the mind, we humans tend towards what I call “conditional happiness.” We'll be okay, we think, in some nonexistent but fervently hoped-for future, when we get an appreciative boss, a bigger house or car, more money, better sex, physical health or beauty, a loving mother, compliant children, efficient employees, a different government or nicer weather. We try to bend the world to our will, to manipulate people and situations to satisfy our desires and our concepts of how we believe things ought to be. When we get what we think we want, we wonder why we still feel unfulfilled, unhealthy or afraid.
Astonishingly simple and accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, The Work is the result of one woman's experience of deep transformation in a moment of “not-knowing.” In 1986, at an all-time low point in her life, Byron Katie—then a 43-year-old wife, mother and successful businesswoman from the California high desert who for many years suffered from rage, depression, obesity, paranoia and alcoholism— experienced the profound realization that without our knee-jerk reactions to stressful beliefs, we are left with the very thing we hoped to find through wish fulfillment or grasping tightly to what we were afraid to lose. Prior to the mythology we’ve attached to is the truth—reality, what is—which is joyful, peaceful and attainable when we stop fighting with it or trying to change it.
Katie also saw right away that giving people her answers was of little value. Instead she offers a practical, investigative process for finding your own answers.
The Work of Byron Katie is an educational model; while it is not therapy, it is increasingly incorporated by therapists and has been called "a new royal road to the unconscious" by mental health specialists at the University of Washington, where it is offered at the student health center. (Download the article by Hidalgo and Coumar.) The Work has been used successfully by practitioners in Mind-Body Medicine programs at Stanford Medical Center and Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center in California to help patients deal with anxiety, depression, stress, infertility and chronic pain; and it is used by the West Virginia Veteran's Administration therapists to help returning soldiers deal with PTSD. California Institute of Integral Studies, one of the country's leading institutions integrating modern psychology with Eastern spirituality, has offered The Work as part of its training for psychotherapists. Renowned brain specialist Dr. Daniel Amen calls The Work "software" for optimal performance of the brain's "hardware."
The Work also offers the kinds of self-awareness and insight that previously required years of meditation and intense spiritual practice. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, has called The Work "a razor-sharp sword that cuts through the illusion and enables you to know for yourself the timeless essence of your being."
Transformational Inquiry with The Work of Byron Katie requires nothing more than a pen and paper and an open mind. It points us towards “the peace which passeth understanding”—a peace which is always available when we are willing to question what we believe. —Carol L. Skolnick
The Work of Byron Katie:
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know that it's true
- How do you react when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
Turn the thought around.
(Find three genuine examples of how the turnaround is as true or truer in your life.)
“I found Transformational Inquiry with The Work of Byron Katie to be a treasure for the soul. As Carol facilitates the inquiry process, she asks simple questions that help you examine the thoughts that cause you stuckness or misery. What I love about it is that it's about truth and freedom, not forcing any kind of change. I'm able to receive life differently, with more acceptance and openness to what is given rather than judging my experience so much.” —Lor Larsen,
Santa Cruz, CA
Print out a Worksheet and begin to practice The Work.
The Work ©2008 Byron Katie International.
