About The Work
The Work is a meditative inquiry practice that anyone can use to find freedom from the turmoil that stressful/ repetitive/ anxious/ fearful/ distressing thoughts cause, through asking 4 simple questions and turnarounds. It is a psychospiritual tool developed by the founder Byron Katie after she had a spiritual experience that enlightened her in 1986. Over the decades, millions of people have found relief using the technique to come out of their troubles - from the trivial to the devastating - about relationships, work, money, health, and every realm of life. This is because thoughts arise in every realm of life, and the method works with a deep & compassionate knowing about the nature of thoughts and the mind born from Katie’s experience.
The Work involves isolating the stressful beliefs that cause us discomfort and gently questioning them using the 4 questions:-
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Is it True?
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Can you absolutely know that it's true?
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How do you react, what happens when you believe the thought?
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Who would you be without the thought?
And then, finding turnarounds to the original statement, and genuine examples for how the turnarounds might be true or truer than the original statement.
There are many free resources to learn more about the Work available at Byron Katie’s website:- www.thework.com. Katie still does the Work with participants every Mon, Tues, Wed live on Zoom, has authored several books, and offered several Schools and training programs for participants to experience and deepen the practice in the Work.
For the analytically inclined - here is some research that points to the efficacy of the Work:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2787459
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1744388117304851
There is more available online, and for subscription upon searching using the words “Inquiry based stress reduction”.
BUT, how would I know if this works for me, you ask? That’s great, you are not a believer! There’s only one way to know - come, let's “taste” it out 🙂