How does The Work of Byron Katie work?
As with anything else in life, it’s ultimately a mystery. But we can also say a few things about it.
Here is some things I have noticed:
It’s a confession, and we are seen by another without (or with less) judgment. And that, in itself, is somewhat healing.
And then there are some elements nearly explicit in the process itself.
We get to identify our stressful beliefs about a situation, someone else, life, or ourselves. We get to pinpoint the close (proximal) cause of our stress and suffering.
We get to see that our thoughts about it may not be as true as we initially thought. Our mind opens a bit to other possibilities, and to hold it a bit lighter.
We get to see what happens when we hold onto the thought as true. We get to see the stress and suffering it creates for ourselves, and what it does to our life and our relationship to others.
We get to imagine how it would be if we didn’t hold onto it as true. We get to imagine feeling it.
We get to consider and see the validity in the reversals of the thought, and that the initial thought, as well as its reversals, all have some limited validity to them. This also helps soften our grip on the initial thought.
We get to pick one reversal and see how it is to bring it into our life and how it is to live from it in daily life.
So we get to identify and question our initial stressful thought. Our mind is invited to soften its grip on it, and consider the validity in the reversals. And, as mentioned above, we – in the best case, if we work with an experienced facilitator – feel seen, met, understood, and not judged by another human being, and that in itself is healing, and shows us that we can do the same towards ourselves.
Another way The Work works is that it can give us clarity to act on something in our life that requires our action, and to do so with more clarity, kindness, and hopefully wisdom.