Authentic Inquiry: Avoiding Forced Answers to Question 4 in The Work of Byron Katie

Sometimes a blockage. When I hit question four, who would I be without the thought? Um,

it is. Really hard to imagine who I would be without the thought sometimes. Um,

welcome to Wiggle Room, a podcast where we start with stress and look for ways to turn it around. I call it wiggle room because inside of all of us, in any situation, if you look for it, you will find some wiggle room. You will find some.

Ability to move some space, and that space is where your freedom lies. We use the work of Byron Katie as a way of accessing or pointing ourselves towards that space, which is always there. And as you begin to question the thoughts that you have in any particular situation, you may find your attachment to them loosening, and you may find yourself sitting more in that quiet.

Free place, which starts with just a little wiggle room.

I’m Todd Smith, and on the program today, we look closely at question four. If you’ve ever had the experience of starting to answer this question, who would you be? Without the thought in a particular situation, it can sometimes be a daunting question. Really, you’re up against your ego and it may be very attached to not answering that question.

And so we look at what you can do when you’re in a situation like that, where question four is just not going anywhere for you and you really don’t wanna force it or you want, you don’t wanna fake it. So we’ve got a nice discussion about that. And then after that, there’s another discussion about the question.

Are motives bad? You’ll hear me a lot of times inviting you to question your motives. And that that doesn’t mean like that, that I’m saying get rid of your motives. Uh, it sounds almost like, uh, you know, we use that in other terms, but. What does that really mean to question your motives and are motives really a bad thing and where’s the balance in all of this?

So that’s also a very interesting discussion. And then finally, I’ll be reading a newsletter article called How to Work With I’m Not Good Enough. Let’s dive into the work of Byron Katie together, A simple, powerful way to question what you think, what you believe, what is stressing you in any situation.

Here’s our latest weekly open session. As always, I share the unedited recording so you can experience this just the way we discussed it. Together. And I also encourage you to join us anytime and be a participant in these open sessions.

I have a question.

Yeah, sure.

Um, I know we worked on this a little bit in our, one of our individual sessions, but I’d like to see if we could, uh, take it a little bit deeper. There’s. Sometimes a blockage. When I hit question four, who would I be without the thought? Um,

it is really hard to imagine who I would be without the thought sometimes. Um, and you had mentioned, you know, maybe. I can’t remember your exact wording, but almost like, theoretically, who would someone be without The thought was one avenue, and that’s been working for me. Um, but I am still noticing that’s, that’s kind of an obstacle for me and, um, feels almost, um, like I am, uh, forcing the answer or like faking the answer or something like that.

Yeah, so that we don’t wanna fake the answer. We don’t wanna force the answer. Um, I’d rather just say, I can’t answer that and, and just move on to the turnaround if I need to. Um, honesty is the only. Thing that works in the work. The work is about our experience. And so we have to be honest to that. Even if there’s no answer, even if I don’t get an answer that happens for turnarounds, like, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know how that could be true.

And you’re left just kind of with a big question mark, and, and I’d rather leave it in that state than, um. Then give, like do lip service to it or try to give a, a quick answer that would, you know, look good from the outside. No one could tell the difference. You know, I’m using the right words and it sounds all right, but internally I know I’m just glossing over the, the, there’s something there that I’m not really taking the time with.

The beauty about leaving a question unanswered is that the mind doesn’t like an unanswered question, so it will just kind of work on it, um, on its own. Over days, sometimes or months, who knows? And sometimes, uh, it will come up with answers later on that you would not have expected. So the process of doing the work is the process of asking a question and then waiting, and I don’t know what I’ll find.

And sometimes, uh, it’s sometimes nothing comes up in the immediate, you know, in the immediate version while I’m doing the work. That being said, there are different ways to hold question four that can sometimes help to, um, to kind of. Find answers. You know, there’s places you can look or ways you can hold the question that may be less threatening to the ego.

Um, because why can’t I answer the question? Because I’m so attached to the thought usually that getting, letting go of that thought. I. It seems like that’s my lifeline and if I let go of that thought, I’m gonna be in danger, or I’m gonna lose something big, or it’s gonna be, uh, something bad, it’s gonna happen.

So that’s why we’re, that’s why we hold onto these thoughts. They’re stressful thoughts, but we hold on them to them because we think they’re protecting us, or we think it’d be worse if we didn’t hold onto that thought. And so we have to be respectful of that tenacity of the mind holding onto something.

But you can, you can do that. You can, you can be respectful of your own ego. Really, that’s what we’re doing here. Be respectful and bring in that question from different angles in a way that it’s not as threatening and that it might be willing to engage with and see, uh, see what it sees. So some examples of that can be like you mentioned.

Uh, who would someone else be? Right? That’s, that’s almost like you have to be someone else. And imagine yourself in the same situation as if you’re someone else. That’s one way you can do that. Another way is to, um, just, uh, think of it as a total pretend experience. Like who would I be as a, as a hypothetical, so.

I don’t have to change myself. I don’t have to let go of this grip that I have on the thought, but I can pretend anything, you know, I can pretend to be Superman or I can pretend to be, you know, a planet in our space. I can pretend whatever I want. Um, a fish in the ocean, I can pretend it’s like what kids do.

So even while holding onto the thought, I can imagine, I can pretend like just go off in a little side area and say. Well, who would I be? Let me imagine. Who would I be without that thought? And then just kind of brainstorm. And it may, some of it may sound like, uh, that doesn’t really resonate, but some of it may.

And you’re just giving yourself a chance to be kind of play devil’s advocate with yourself. Um, and that feels non-threatening to me, usually. And usually with my clients, it’s the same. So, so that can help. Um. You know, holding, I think that thing I said about respect to the ego is really important, uh, because the ego didn’t, the ego is being vulnerable with us when it says I hate him or something.

Right? And I’m, I’m like, really attached to something or I’m really embarrassed about something or I’m ashamed of my own thoughts. Uh, but the ego is. Being vulnerable and sharing that, and it’s being especially vulnerable because it knows we’re doing the work and the work means that it’s gonna get questioned on top of it.

So, um, I. It takes courage for the ego to actually do, to participate in this process. So I, as the kind of wiser part of me, the facilitator part of me, for my ego, I want to be as gentle and as understandable and as respectful of my ego as I can be, and that means not ripping, its precious. Attachment out of its hands, um, by any means, I’m never gonna do that to my ego.

That would be mean. It would be disrespectful and would cause my ego to never come back and do the work again with me. So I, I wanna say, Hey, you know what? Ego, you’re in charge. I, I love that you’re here and I wanna see what you find. And if you find some cool stuff, great. And if you don’t, totally cool.

I’m here for you, like I’m here to serve you. So that attitude can make the ego feel like, okay, yeah, I can, I can, I can at least explore, I can pretend like, who would I be without the thought? Oh, I can, I can pretend. Yeah. If I wasn’t like that, I, I, I can imagine. So that’s one piece of it. Another thing that can help is, um.

I sometimes modify the question slightly, depending on, on how attached I am or my clients are. I’ll be like, who would you be if the thought was not so front and center for you? Um, or who would you be if that thought, if you weren’t as attached to that thought or you weren’t? Weren’t as, um. If you, or who would you be if you weren’t holding that thought so tightly?

I love that, that particular wording as well. Um, those kind of things there, it’s still answering who would you be without the thought, but it’s not like black and white. I want, who would you be without the thought? It’s almost like without the thought at all, and this would be who would you be with a little bit out without the thought.

And so it gives you a little chance to. Explore again, without being feeling too threatened. Um, you know that it’s just gonna be your, your ego’s toys are gonna be taken away from it. Um, so yeah, I think the overall thing that I’m taking away from just what I’m saying here is just gentleness, um, making sure that you don’t have.

To get anywhere with this question and that the ego or the self, or the stuck part of me, um, can take as much time as it wants and can, um, can even just imagine a little bit in that direction. Even just a tiny step in the direction of who would I be without the thought shows you everything. It shows you.

You would, I’ve, I’ve seen that myself, where just a tiny step in the, in the direction of who would I be without the thought? I’m feeling a little bit lighter and so that’s all I need to know from that question. Question four is not, its purpose is not to get rid of the thought. Not at all. Not at all. Its purpose is to do a comparison with, with the thought question three, so that you can see the effect of the thought, and then the mind understands that with the thought, it’s kind of stressful and painful, and without the thought, it might be a little bit easier, and it doesn’t have to be perfectly easy, but it might be even just a little easier.

And then it’s. Just seeing that the attachment loosens a little bit, and then you can play with turnarounds with a little more openness of mind. But worst case scenario, you can’t even find any openness. Just try the turnarounds, see if they go anywhere and if they don’t, you know what? You’ve done your work and you’ll just, that’s, that’s what the answers were This time.

Who knows, there might be more answers to come over time or you might revisit the thought, or life will give you a different situation that will cover the same material. So there’s really no pressure, um, to get, you know, to, to nail it or anything like that. That’s, that’s just a story that we all have of answering things right and right.

Might be no answer. Right. Might be. I’m way too attached to even consider this. Um. Which brings up another thought. Sometimes when you’re just completely blocked, you may have to just stop and, and write down what are your resistance thoughts to even answering this question and do a separate inquiry on that.

Like I, you know, if I answer question four, who would I be without the thought? I’m gonna be, uh, taken advantage of something, right? That could, that could be a real, real version of what’s holding me tight to that thought. And so I might. Work that thought separately, I’m gonna be taken advantage of if I answer question four.

You know, if I go, if I even imagine who I’d be without the thought, and then see if I can find, uh, any turnarounds for that before coming back in and doing this work. So, gentleness, gentleness, gentleness. That’s, that’s it.

Thank you. I like it. Thank you so much.

Yeah, you’re welcome. Wendy,

I just wanna let you know, I’m looking forward to the recording of what you just said.

Cool.

That was a lot and it was amazing and it like freed me up to look at things that I’ve not looked at. So Kristen, thanks for asking that. Wow.

Good stuff. Really good stuff. You know, this is that feeling of inquiry is exploration. And just because I set out to find some continent doesn’t mean I’m gonna find that continent.

I’m just gonna find whatever I find and that might actually be as good or better than finding what I thought I would find. And so I have to be free and have to be, have to be allowing for the process to run itself. But most importantly, for the. For the mind to be honest. Um, you know, otherwise you can’t fool yourself.

It doesn’t work.

Alright, so any other questions or anybody you want to do a little bit of the work?

Actually, I just remembered that, um, someone asked me something just the other day and. Was hoping that I would say something about this. It was kinda a question that he had about motives. You know, I talk about motives a fair bit, and I think the upshot of his question was, are motives bad? And I’m like, good question.

Um, so let, let’s just talk about that for a few minutes. Um, so motives are. Motives are things like, I want something or I need something, and they are sometimes stressful because they get in the way of me. I. Um, being objective or me being, uh, open to doing inquiry or even in life, just being they can, they can get in the way.

Um, it’s a strange thing. On the one hand, having a motive tells me where I want to go, and it’s honest and it shows me. Uh, my interest and points the direction. Uh, but on the other hand, when I get too caught up in a motive, it can end up, um, hampering my actual progress because I’m so focused on wanting that thing and wanting it, that I end up kind of blocking it in a way or not actually doing what I need to do to bring it into fulfillment.

Um, so motives, they’re not a bad thing. They just, um, I. I guess it depends on how you hold them. If you hold them tightly, then they can be, they can be a problem, they can be a pain. They can block you, they can make you feel stressed, but if you hold them lightly, they can just kind of point in a direction of interest and you can find yourself moving towards the fulfillment of your own desires, which is not a bad thing at all.

So. The only thing that causes stress as far as I can tell is attachment. When I’m attached to what I want, then I’ve got a problem. Or if I’m a, I’m attached to things going a certain way or things not happening a certain way, like when I am not flexible, when I am gripping, then then I feel stress. Um, and.

The interesting thing is that in the kind of regular world, if you will, like the outside world of action and accomplishment and all that stuff, a lot of times you can use brute force to get what you want. So you can keep attaching and just keep on going and just power through and you can actually kinda win the game if you will, um, on, on some level.

But when you get into. The subtle levels inside of yourself, that’s, that doesn’t work anymore. And what we’re interested here in doing the work of Byron Katie, we’re interested in inner peace, we’re interested in, in inner freedom. And that if you do any pushing on that level, it just pushes right back at you.

Um, and you can’t power through it because you can’t really power through it. Even when you’re doing. Forcing your way to be successful, say in the world or doing something external, even if you force there, you pay the consequence on the inside, you might end up being exhausted or you might end up being depressed, or you might end up feeling, um, stressed on some level or another.

And so. Even there, that motive can kind of backfire if you’re too attached to it. Um, but when you’re working and you’re doing the work and you’re doing inquiry, you’re doing meditation, then there is no external. You don’t even get an external win like that just doesn’t even hardly matter because what you’re interested in is the internal.

And so motives suddenly, um, can really just cloud, uh. The whole experience, it can make it be a difference between, um, something that you enjoy and something that becomes stressful. So there’s nothing wrong with motives. It’s how you hold them. And so I like to think of a motive as being, starting out as just me listening to myself, and that’s what I want.

Yeah, I want to go. You know, I wanna go to Europe or something. Okay, great. Let me hold that thought. And that’s interesting and I feel the joy of it and, and it’s a motive. And if I had strong enough, I’ll make the arrangements and I’ll actually go to Europe. Um, but I want to hold that lightly and let it inform me rather than me trying to force it into existence.

Um, and so when I’m. When I’m doing the work, I have a motive a lot of times to feel better or I have a motive to, um, stop being stressed about something or motive to be stop being angry about something and that motive got me to the work. So where’s the problem? That’s a good thing. But that his job finished when it got me to the work.

Now I can just drop it off and, and let the process go. As much as I can without a motive. Um, I’m not saying you can’t do the work with a motive. You can believe me, I, I think probably most of us do the work with a motive, me included. Um, but the lighter I hold that motive, the more effective I’m gonna be because I’m actually more listening in that regard.

The work is about listening. It’s not about pushing or it’s not about getting some outside accomplishment, even if that outside accomplishment is peace. So I. When I say question your motives, um, it’s just an invitation to loosen your attachment to the outcome that you’re doing the work for, or that you’re facilitating someone for, or that you’re even wanting to create something in the world for.

Loosen your attachments to that and then just follow your heart’s desire and that’s beautiful. Byron Katie even has a little instruction that I love. She says, um. Question anything that would stop you from following your heart’s desire. So that’s a motive, right? And a motive’s not a bad thing. She’s like, go for it.

In fact, question. Anything that would stop you from going for, from going for it, but at the same time, don’t get so stuck on it that you are not open to wherever life may actually be. Moving you. And so sometimes you start out in one direction and then it changes, and pretty soon you’re actually. More interested over here and you follow, you follow your own trail.

But if you get too stubborn, which is what attachment is, then you get locked on. I said I was gonna do this, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna have to force it. And by the time you arrive at whatever goal it was, you end up, um, just stressed and you know, what’s the point? Um, so that’s how motives can interfere with this process of doing the work or in, in some cases of actually fulfilling your own.

Dreams and desires. So my, my takeaway, my turnaround for this is I hold, I have desires, um, but I hold them very lightly and I, I even sometimes just let them go and I allow. That desire, if it’s truly natural to keep coming up and guiding me from time to time as it points me in the maybe ever changing right direction.

Um, so that’s openness. And when you have openness, it’s not incompatible with having a desire. It’s not incompatible with having a motive. Um, but that openness is what actually allows you to fulfill it in a way that is real, not just, uh, external only. Um, because if I’m only focused on motives and I’m just using that drive to do it, then yeah, I may hit some of my targets.

But at what cost? Um, and so I’m interested in the full experience from inner to outer. And if I had to choose one, I’d choose the inners, like the more important for me. So for me, holding a motive very lightly. That really works for me. Ironically, it actually is really effective on the outside world as well because it means you’re flexible.

You’re, you’ve got direction, but you’re flexible at the same time. Um, so coming back to where I started Yes. Question your motives. Why not to get rid of ’em. Not to get rid of ’em, to loosen the attachment that you have to them. It’s the attachment to those motives that makes them sticky. And when you, when you do the work, who are you?

What are you doing? Who would I be without the thought? You’re playing with a little bit of space there, you know, a little wiggle room as I like to say. Or you’re turning it around. I don’t want what I want. It’s not saying don’t, don’t want what you want. No, it’s saying well. Okay. There’s other things besides that, and if I’m open to it, maybe not getting what I want, could be as good as getting what I want.

And that leaves me in an open space. And so now the attachment has gotten loose, and now I’ve done exactly what works best for fulfilling desires in the, in the first place, which is having a loose hold on them.

You know?

And then, and then you can start. Instead of, you know what? When you’re so focused on holding onto a desire, it’s like all you can see is that desire, which is not even fulfilled, and you start almost feeling like you don’t have it.

You are almost starting to feel like you’re, you’re not good enough. It’s because you can’t fulfill that desire, or it’s taking too long, or it’s too hard. Or all you can see is the desire. The desire, the desire. You’re blinded to this. Way to get to the desire in reality, which is there once the mind gets more opened and less attached.

So it’s, it’s like a weird kind of obsession where we get so zoomed in on the goal that we forget how to take the steps to even move in that direction, um, let alone be open to maybe that wasn’t even where my end goal turned out to be anyway. How many times has that happened? So yes, question. Your stressful thoughts, and if a motive is stressful, that’s your clue that you’re more attached to it.

If it’s not stressful, if a motive is blissful, why question it? Maybe it’s probably already fairly loose, but you never know. It might be stressful. It might be attached to question your motive and then be with it and then see where you are. And then with that, um. You can be in a more easy place for any kind of action, any kind of, of inquiry, any kind of ability to, uh, be there for someone else, like when you’re facilitating.

So, so yeah, that’s, that’s a kind of, uh, random. Collection of thoughts there on motives. And I guess the bottom line is the motive itself is not bad. It’s how you hold it. And if you can hold it loose more loosely, you’re gonna have a lot more fun with motives. And the way to hold a thought more loosely is to question it, do the work, go through the four questions, the turnarounds, and.

When you do the turnarounds, don’t get rid of the original thought. Let it coexist with the turnaround or the turnarounds, and then you’ll have a 360 degree view and all possibilities are there, and that’s an open mind. And so many times I’ve questioned a motive, seeing how good it is for me not to get what I want.

Come to a place of understanding of that, and that’s really fine and still pursue my original motive because that still feels good because now it, it’s just coming from my heart and, but without the baggage of like, that’s the only way. And what it frees me up is if I can’t get there or if I don’t manage to accomplish that in some way.

There’s no problem because I’m also open to not accomplishing it and all the turnarounds that, um, I explored with it. So that’s the purpose of doing the work is just to find that open mind and, and then it really is a play. Then it really is fun to have a desire because you can, I. You can fuel it and move it and have so much fun with it, but you’re not attached to it, and then that’s the best of both worlds in my opinion.