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What is The Work? How to Do The Work FAQs Resources Support The Work

What is The Work?

The Work is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question the stressful thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It's a way to understand what's hurting you, a way to end all your stress and suffering.

People who do The Work faithfully report life-changing results.

• Eliminate stress: Live without anxiety or fear
• Improve relationships: Have a new sense of connection and intimacy with your husband or wife, your parents, your children, and with yourself
• Reduce anger: Get angry less often and less intensely, and eventually not at all
• Eliminate depression: See perfection in situations that were once debilitating
• Clarity: Act more intelligently and effectively
• Energy: Experience a new sense of vigor and well-being
• Peace: Learn how to love what is, and find lasting inner peace

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How to Do The Work

The simplest way to do The Work is outlined below:

1

Judge Your Neighbor

For thousands of years we’ve been told not to judge, but we still do it all the time—how our friends should act, whom our children should care about, what our parents should feel, do, or say. In The Work, rather than suppress these judgments, we use them as starting points for self-realization. By letting the judging mind have its life on paper, we discover through the mirror of those around us what we haven't yet realized about ourselves.

Fill in a Judge-Your-Neighbor worksheet. You can download one here, or simply use this online version [below]:

2

The Four Questions

Investigate each of your statements from the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet using the four questions and the turnaround below. 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. Use the blue sheet below as a facilitation guide. (You can download the bluesheet here).

In its most basic form, The Work consists of four questions and a turnaround. For example, the first thought that you might question on the above Worksheet is "Paul doesn't listen to me." Find someone in your life about whom you have had that thought, and let's do The Work. "[Name] doesn't listen to me":

Is it true?

Can you absolutely know that it's true?

How do you react when you think that thought?

Who would you be without the thought?

Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and don't forget to find three genuine examples of each turnaround.

3

Turn it Around

After you've investigated your statement with the four questions, you're ready to turn it around (the concept you are questioning).

Each turnaround is an opportunity to experience the opposite of your original statement and see what you and the person you've judged have in common.

A statement can be turned around to the opposite, to the other, and to the self (and sometimes to "my thinking," wherever that applies). Find a minimum of three genuine examples in your life where each turnaround is true.

For example, "Paul doesn't understand me" can be turned around to "Paul does understand me." Another turnaround is "I don't understand Paul." A third is "I don't understand myself."

Be creative with the turnarounds. They are revelations, showing you previously unseen aspects of yourself reflected back through others. Once you've found a turnaround, go inside and let yourself feel it. Find a minimum of three genuine examples where the turnaround is true in your life.

As I began living my turnarounds, I noticed that I was everything I called you. You were merely my projection. Now, instead of trying to change the world around me (this didn't work, but only for 43 years), I can put the thoughts on paper, investigate them, turn them around, and find that I am the very thing I thought you were. In the moment I see you as selfish, I am selfish (deciding how you should be). In the moment I see you as unkind, I am unkind. If I believe you should stop waging war, I am waging war on you in my mind.

The turnarounds are your prescription for happiness. Live the medicine you have been prescribing for others. The world is waiting for just one person to live it. You're the one.

Examples of Turnarounds

Here are a few more examples of turnarounds:

"He should understand me" turns around to:
- He shouldn't understand me. (This is reality.)
- I should understand him.
- I should understand myself.

"I need him to be kind to me" turns around to:
- I don't need him to be kind to me.
- I need me to be kind to him. (Can I live it?)
- I need me to be kind to myself.

"He is unloving to me" turns around to:
- He is loving to me. (To the best of his ability)
- I am unloving to him. (Can I find it?)
- I am unloving to me (When I don't inquire.)

"Paul shouldn't shout at me" turns around to:
- Paul should shout at me. (Obviously: In reality, he does sometimes. Am I listening?)
- I shouldn't shout at Paul.
- I shouldn't shout at me.
(In my head, am I playing over and over again Paul's shouting? Who's more merciful, Paul who shouted once, or me who replayed it a 100 times?)

Embracing Reality

After you have turned around the judgments in your answers to numbers 1 through 5 on the Worksheet (asking if they are as true or truer), turn number 6 around using "I am willing ..." and "I look forward to ..."

For example, "I don't ever want to experience an argument with Paul" turns around to "I am willing to experience an argument with Paul" and "I look forward to experiencing an argument with Paul." Why would you look forward to it?

Number 6 is about fully embracing all of mind and life without fear, and being open to reality. If you experience an argument with Paul again, good. If it hurts, you can put your thoughts on paper and investigate them. Uncomfortable feelings are merely the reminders that we've attached to something that may not be true for us. They let us know that it's time to do The Work.

Until you can see the enemy as a friend, your Work is not done. This doesn't mean you must invite him to dinner. Friendship is an internal experience. You may never see him again, you may even divorce him, but as you think about him are you feeling stress or peace?

In my experience, it takes only one person to have a successful relationship. I like to say I have the perfect marriage, and I can't really know what kind of marriage my husband has (though he tells me he's happy too).

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Frequently Asked Questions

I have a hard time writing about others. I know the problem is me. Why can't I write about myself?
If you want to know yourself, write about someone else. Point The Work outward in the beginning, and you may come to see that everything outside of you is a direct reflection of your thinking. It is only about you. Most of us have been pointing our criticism and judgments at ourselves for years, and it hasn't solved anything yet. When you judge someone else, inquire, and turn it around (the concept you are questioning). This is the fast path to understanding and self-realization.

It is extremely difficult to judge yourself. Some of us are very invested in our identifications; our ideas about ourselves-how we should look, how we should feel, what we should or shouldn't be doing-are so strong that we may not be able to answer the four questions and turnarounds honestly. If you are new to The Work and feel that you must judge yourself, please call the hotline and ask a certified facilitator to walk you through your Worksheet.

Do I have to write? Can't I just ask the questions and turn it around in my head when I have a problem?
Mind's job is to be right, and it can justify itself faster than the speed of light. Stop the portion of your thinking that is the source of your fear, anger, sadness, or resentment by transferring it to paper. Once the mind is stopped on paper, it's much easier to investigate. Eventually The Work begins to undo you automatically without writing.

What if I don't have a problem with people? Can I write about things, like my body?
Yes. Do The Work on any subject that is stressful. As you become familiar with the four questions and the turnaround, you may choose subjects such as the body, disease, career, or even God. Then simply use the term "my thinking" in place of the subject when you do the turnarounds.

Example: "My body should be strong, healthy, and flexible" becomes "My thinking should be strong, healthy, and flexible."

Isn't that what you really want—a balanced, healthy mind? Has a sick body ever been a problem, or is it your thinking about the body that causes the problem? Investigate. Let your doctor take care of your body as you take care of your thinking. I have a friend who can't move his body, and he is loving life. Freedom does not require a healthy body. Free your mind.

I've heard you say you're a lover of reality. What about war and rape and all the terrible things in the world? Are you condoning that?
Quite the opposite. I notice that if I believe it shouldn't exist when it does exist, I suffer. Can I just end the war in me? Can I stop raping myself and others with my abusive thoughts and actions? Otherwise I'm continuing through me the very thing I want to end in the world. I start with ending my own suffering, my own war. This is a life's work.

So what you're saying is that I should just accept reality as it is and not argue with it. Is that right?
The Work doesn't say what anyone should or shouldn't do. We simply ask: What is the effect of arguing with reality? How does it feel? This Work explores the cause and effect of attaching to painful thoughts, and in that investigation we find our freedom. To simply say that we shouldn't argue with reality is just to add another story, another philosophy or religion. It hasn't ever worked.

I don't believe in God. Can I still benefit from The Work?
Yes. Atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan—we all have one thing in common: We want happiness and peace. If you are tired of suffering, I invite you to The Work.

Is there a way I can go deeper with The Work?
I often say, if you really want to be free, have The Work for breakfast. Have it for lunch. Have it for dinner. The more you do inquiry, the more it undoes you. Some people prefer to do The Work as part of an organized program, so I offer the School for The Work, an intense and life-changing journey through your own mind, with aftercare and an extraordinary support system

I understand the process of inquiry intellectually, but I don't really feel anything shifting when I do it. What am I missing?
If you answer the questions superficially with the thinking mind, the process will leave you feeling disconnected. Try asking the question and going deeper. You may have to ask the question a few times to stay focused, but as you practice this, an answer will slowly rise. When the answer comes from inside you, the realizations (and shifts) follow naturally.

I've been using the turnarounds whenever I make judgments, and somehow it doesn't do anything but make me depressed and confused. What's going on?
To simply turn thoughts around keeps the process intellectual and is of little value. The invitation is to go beyond the intellect. The questions are like probes that dive into the mind, bringing deeper knowledge to the surface. Ask the questions first, and then wait. Once the answers have risen, then do the turnarounds. The surface mind and the deeper mind (I call it the heart) meet, and the turnarounds feel like true discoveries.

The Work doesn't work for me. Why not?
The moment you stop genuinely answering the questions and begin to justify or defend the statement you are investigating, The Work doesn't work. In that moment you are using the hopeless method that people have been using from the beginning of the human mind. When you begin to justify or defend your position or go into a story, simply notice what you are doing, then return to the inquiry again. The mind's war with itself is the old way. If you can't stop the war within, you can't stop the war outside. Welcome to the new way. Welcome to peace.

I have been trying to find a therapist in my area that has similar philosophies to Byron Katie. How can I locate someone?
Please go to www.thework.com, click on Facilitators, and look for a Licensed Facilitator near you. Some facilitators are therapist, psychiatrist, psychologists, and other health professionals, and are all excellent facilitators for The Work, trained personally by Byron Katie. These professionals are available by phone, email, Skype, and private "one-on-one" sessions as well. We at BKI are at your service. Should you retain one of these fine facilitators, please send your recommendations, complaints and/or experience to certification@thework.com. Your freedom, health and happiness are our business.

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Resources

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Support The Work

Learn how you can help move The Work in the world >>

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The Work in Action

"I'm too fat"

cancer	body
mother	father
rejection	empathy
loss	money
son	daughter
partner	pressure