This is what The Work invites you to ask yourself about your thoughts:
Is that true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?
I spent two days reviewing those questions with the help of Byron Katie and about 300 other people this past weekend. I find that it’s not always easy to take an honest assessment of myself without having someone else there to be my witness, and to hear my stories (those very old, very tired, very tattered, and very alive stories that keep me in a place of suffering). According to The Work of Byron Katie web site, “The Work is meditation. It’s about awareness, not about trying to change your thoughts. Ask the questions, then take your time, go inside, and wait for the deeper answers to surface.”
What I discovered on Sunday was that I am unwilling (I’d like to say ‘at times’ here, but if I were to stick to a yes or no answer I have to say “Yes, I am unwilling”) to allow myself to have negative thoughts about certain things such as money, past relationships, and family. I spend an extraordinary amount of time trying NOT to have them when the fact is they are there in picture form in my mind, as words racing around my brain, as feelings stuck in my gut. There’s a war going on in my head when I try to push away thoughts that I judge as bad. What if I could, as the work invites, be willing to think, be open to having, and even look forward to experiencing those negative thoughts? That’s radical to me, and extremely liberating.
As I practice this new way of being I notice that there is much more space for me, for stillness, for listening, and for receiving. Yesterday I walked around Manhattan having thoughts as I always do, positive and negative, and not judging them, just watching them go by. What a relief! I feel like I have discovered a secret, one that I have been stalking for 16 years, one that I have had bits and pieces of but wasn’t quite ready to fully accept as truth. How exciting! What next?
Peace!
Joe
Fishing For Soul 
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