Doing The Work is a pleasure in many different ways, including the simplicity in how life itself shows me which stories to work on. I notice stress, identify the story behind it, and inquire into it to find what is more true for me than the initial belief.
After a while, many of the low hanging fruits have been harvested and the remaining ones may be more hidden from view. So what to do? Exploring underlying beliefs can be very helpful here. Taking a surface belief, and then find underlying beliefs by asking why?, what is not OK about that?, where does my mind go?, what do I fear would happen if I didn’t have that belief?, and so on.
Also, I have found that imagining the beliefs of others, and then taking them on as my own for the sake of inquiry, can be very helpful. After all, I am the one imagining the beliefs of others, and those stories – that I see over there – are really my own. And after exploring the dynamics around those beliefs, I see more clearly how I hold the same ones in my own life.
They may have looked quite different on the surface, but very similar when investigated.
As a bonus, there is often a new understanding of where the other person may be coming from, a sense of being in the same boat, and also of a sense of kindness towards the other person and myself.