Same Answers Every Time? What It Means for Highly Sensitive People Doing The Work of Byron Katie

Client: Um, so, um, and just as a reminder, I’ve been doing this for a couple of months, um, relatively new to it. You know, I haven’t come across anything by Byron Katie addressing this in [00:04:00] her books. And, um, I just was wondering where your thoughts are as, as well. Um, and this, and the topic is, is it good to go back and reread your, you know, past?

Um, judge your neighbor worksheets, or if you’re stressed, is it better to just do another one? You know, as opposed to being like, well, I know I’ve done this one a bunch of times, and let me see what the evolution of it is and try to remind myself, you know, what the turnarounds were. And just in general about going back and, um, or even like, I don’t know if you’ve ever, um, thought about keeping a list of like your most relevant turnarounds or.

I know Baron Kedi says, live your turnarounds and just kind of, uh, yeah. Anything in that kind of ballpark there.

Todd: Okay. Yeah, it’s a great, uh, question and something that comes up from time to time. Uh, the [00:05:00] way I like to do it is to let the work work me and then. Whatever happens inside, it’s kind of an experience that happens when I do the work.

It changes something inside of me, usually on a heart level, uh, when I’m doing the work. And so I. What I usually like to do is just kind of after doing the work, forget about the work, forget about the paper that I was doing, and just go back into the world and see how I do in similar situations. Let’s just give it the acid test and see what’s left and life will show you.

It always does. So, um, I kind of let life be my, uh, my, my. Archivist, you know, my librarian, uh, I let life tell me what’s still to go, what needs to be worked, what’s already done. And so that way I don’t have to [00:06:00] kind of hold this inventory of worksheets and, and kind of keep checking back to see if I’m, how I’m doing.

Um, you can, and I know people that do. It’s not, it’s not bad. Uh, it’s just. Uh, for me, the work is experiential. It’s not, it’s not like studying in school. It’s not like, uh, where you’re learning something and, and you have to go back and review your notes and that will make it even stronger, and that will make it, you know, you’ll learn the material better if you keep reviewing.

That’s what you do when you’re in school. But with the work, we’re in a kind of different kind of school. It’s a. Instead of a school of learning, we’re in the school of unlearning. So, uh, you can, you don’t have to keep repeating, uh, what you learned, because if you’re reviewing constantly, it’s often from a more intellectual point of view, it’s like, okay, I’m trying to memorize something, [00:07:00] but in the work, I’m not trying to memorize something.

I’m trying to experience something differently. So each time I sit and do the work, it’s an opportunity for me to go through this process and possibly experience the same situation in a different way. Now I can take the same old worksheet I did from, you know, weeks ago or years ago, and I can do that work again today.

But if I take it as like a fresh new. Beginning and just work it as if I’d never worked it before. I’m gonna find different insights and it’s gonna be a different experience. So the key word is experience. When I’m doing the work, it’s an experience. When I’m reading and rereading or kind of trying to remember what my insights were, I’m, I’m using more of a.

More of a memory or intellectual capacity. It’s not as much from an experience point of view, I’m remembering an experience. That’s the difference. One is to [00:08:00] experience something and the other is to remember the experience of something, of the two. Experiencing something is number one. Uh, remembering an experience of something can help a little, but it’s not the same.

So, so yes. Um. In general, I do the work. I work through a worksheet as thoroughly as I’d want to, and then I let it go and I don’t really revisit it. That’s just my way. Um, you could go back and after a time, see, oh, is that still bothering me? It might be a way of looking at it, but personally I don’t. Um. On the other hand, you mentioned like living turnarounds, which are things that you can actually.

Do in real life. And yes, I’ve heard Byron Katie mention this and sometimes I’ve done this and I know other clients have done this. I don’t do it too often, [00:09:00] but sometimes I will actually write down the living turnaround and if I’m, if I know I’m going into a situation I might have that as my little cheat sheet of options that I could pull out in, in a pinch.

More often than not, though, I don’t even do that. I just wanna go back into the situation. Without any. Any extra support or paraphernalia and just see how I do. And then if I get stressed again, I’m gonna write a new judge, your neighbor worksheet. So I tend personally to write my worksheets as they come up in real life.

I sit down like, what am I gonna work on today? And sure enough, there it is. Um, or I’m living my life and something stresses me and I think, oh, I know I’ve worked this before, but this is gonna be a good worksheet. The cool thing about. The situation that came up today is it’s a different situation, similar but different from the original one that I worked, [00:10:00] and sometimes the insights can be slightly different.

The wording may be slightly different when I write my worksheet, and so I just tend to take it fresh each time and then, uh, trust that life is gonna give me, uh, what I need. And that’s pretty much where I leave it. The, the problem with, like worrying about all of the past worksheets is it can become quite an archive if you do the work a lot.

It can be like a, you know, you’re gonna need a librarian to keep track of all the different, uh, worksheets you’ve done and different stressful thoughts, and it can become like a catalog cataloging, pro project rather than just. Something that passed through and I’m done. And then what else is coming down the pipeline and then just keep dealing with it one after the other.

Um, yeah, so that’s my approach. I keep it simple. Um, I. I just trust that life’s gonna show me what shows up next and how do I know what needs to be worked. Maybe I’ve worked a thousand times this [00:11:00] thing, but if it got me again means I still don’t have quite have it. I still don’t quite see it. And so I trust that.

I trust my stress to show me what to work next.

Client: Thanks, Todd.

Todd: Yeah, welcome. Great question. Okay. Any other question or anybody want to do a little of the work?[00:12:00]

And even if you don’t have a statement ready to work, even if you just have a stressful situation, we can start from there, find the thought to question, and then do a little work after that.[00:13:00]

Client: Todd, I can ask another question. Sure, no problem. If no one, I mean, um, I mean, I prefer if someone else went, but, ’cause I don’t wanna hug all the time. But if no one else, don’t worry about it.

Todd: Yeah.

Client: Okay. Okay. So one thing I’ve kind of just notice is, and when I do the work, it’s like in question number four.

Um, the answer’s almost always just like, oh, I would feel relaxed or open. Or spacious. I mean, it’s some version of that, you know, I’d be more carefree and then, and so I guess it has come across my mind. I’m like, okay, am I not? Is is the, and that’s huge. You know? That’s how I wanna live my life, right? Is to [00:14:00] just feel freedom, I think.

Um, but then, yeah, it’s, because it’s kind of the same a, a lot, I’m kind of like, okay, is am I, am I going deep enough? And I don’t know, obviously it can change over time, but I mean, I’ve probably done the work probably, I’m guessing, like 80 times or something like that, you know, and it’s, and that’s what I’ve noticed so far.

Todd: Okay. Yeah, I think a lot of people experience that. I know I’ve had little bits of that as well. The answer is pretty much the same. There’s no, nothing too shockingly new, uh, here when you do the work. But at the same time, this is what I was mentioning, uh, earlier, is that it’s the experience that’s the most important thing.

So you might have the same words, but the fact that I’m experiencing more relaxation or experiencing more carefree. Experience in this situation [00:15:00] where I was feeling really stressed. That’s, that’s, um, you know, that’s on the cutting edge. That’s like really amazing. That’s a, that’s a breakthrough in a way.

Um, and so the mind will say, oh yeah, I already saw this, done this before. This is so familiar. Uh, and it will. Dismiss the, the hugeness of that actually. I mean, if I’m, if I’m triggered by something and, and I do the work on it, and I can find in the same trigger moment that I could be relaxed or without the thought, that’s like, like, whoa.

Like how, how? That’s amazing. Um, so. I think what makes it work is seeing it as an isolated ex, uh, kind of experiment or an isolated little, [00:16:00] uh, experience. And so each time I stumble across relaxed or free or um, less worried. In question four, just keep in mind that this is a new situation. This is a new.

Piece of work that you’re doing, and even though the answers sound similar, the words sound similar. This is a new. Thing because I’m experiencing it in a situation where I had never experienced it before, or where I haven’t experienced it very much. And, um, so yeah, it’s, it’s still a valid experience. It’s almost like, you know, if you have the same, you could, you could be thinking, oh, here comes Christmas again.

You know, same old rotten Christmas. Here comes, uh, you know, whatever it is you like. Same old. Something amazing you think is you think, oh, it’s just boring, but it’s not boring because it’s something you enjoy. Um, so [00:17:00] I think with question four, the tendency is to, uh, is to judge what we’re actually reporting instead of just reporting.

Honestly, what would I, what do I, who would I be? Who would I be? Hmm. Let me see. I see myself in that situation. Would I be without that thought? Oh, yeah. A little more relaxed. And what I like to do personally is describe it in a little more detail. Like, okay, I’d be more relaxed. I, I, I see some things that I wasn’t seeing before.

I’m seeing that other person more clearly. I’m seeing that they’re not as threatening as I thought they were, and I noticed my breath is changing. Uh, you know, these are the signs of relaxation, but I’m describing exactly what I’m feeling, what I’m noticing, what I’m experiencing in that moment, and that’s [00:18:00] what doing the work is all about.

I could just put this on autopilot and say, create a little app that does my work for me, and it’ll always come out with more relaxed, carefree, everything’s just like auto, uh, the words might be the same, uh, but I. The work in itself is me asking that question of myself, being in the situation where I was feeling stressed and imagining who I would be without the thought.

And then experiencing that. That’s a meditation and there’s no, there’s almost no words for it, but we use words like relaxed or carefree. Uh, so I would say. What helps me with that is to be reporting my actual experience using whatever words come to mind. And maybe I’ll use relaxed. Maybe I’ll use free.

Maybe I’ll use just a little lighter. [00:19:00] I’ll use different words, different times, and I sometimes notice myself. Being, seeing if I can be more creative in the words that I choose. ’cause there are a lot of words that I could use. And if I’m always using the same word, I feel peace, then what does that piece look like?

What does, what do I mean by that? And I might start finding more creative ways of saying the same thing in different ways. And that can keep me from feeling like I’m, I’m in a trite kind of response or, uh, kind of a. Cliche response, uh, because that can turn you off. Uh, but regardless of what the words are, it’s the experience that makes the difference.

So follow your experience. And sometimes I’ve even had the experience in question four where I don’t really even have words like, who would I be?

I can’t describe it, but I feel it as good enough for me. I’m there. [00:20:00] I don’t have to have words. So I. Yeah, the mind is what is gonna judge the words you choose, but, uh, the experience is primary and as long as you keep it primary, then the mind after a while will sort of be like, okay, he is just doing his thing.

And sometimes he uses the same words, but it’s still pretty cool because I’m seeing the difference between with the thought and without the thought, and that’s huge. So those are a few thoughts. I don’t know if that, uh, like you were saying, am I going deep enough? I guess that’s the other part of your question.

And I think, um, that all depends. If you feel like you’re not going deep enough, then ask yourself, am I going deep enough? Uh, and what is deep enough? And am I being just, am I just doing lip service to the question, oh, who would you be without the thought? Oh, I’d be peaceful. I know people that say that every time, oh, I’d be peaceful.

That’s it. [00:21:00] Is that enough? If not, then ask yourself some more questions. Okay? What do you see when you’re without that thought? Look at the other person without that thought. What’s, what do you notice? Uh, what’s it like in your body? What do you, what do you see around you? What, like, literally pay attention.

To your experience, that’s what I call deep enough. Um, it doesn’t have to feel deep, it’s just. Honest reporting of an experience, and as long as you’re doing that, I don’t care if you use the word same words every time, that’s not the important part. The important part is am I there? Am I actually present?

Am I imagining that situation without the thought? And am I seeing anything? And if so, I report that and that’s all the deep that I need.

Client: Yeah, and I think I am having good experiences ’cause uh, and honestly if I didn’t, I don’t think I’d be able to keep [00:22:00] doing it, you know, um, as, as much, you know. Um, so I do feel like that there’s experience and insights there, you know, but that was all helpful information, so appreciate it.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, the work is an experiential thing. I say it over and over again, but that’s what it is. It’s, that’s what meditation means to me. It’s experiential as opposed to reading a book about something all the same. Wisdom is available in books, and you can, you can read it, and that’s also a valid way of gaining knowledge.

Um, but meditation is an experiential path. And so when you go through these questions and then. Notice your experiences and, and report them, almost doesn’t matter the words you use, but as long as you’re there and experiencing it, uh, it, it does something. And like you said, you can’t just keep on, I. You won’t put up with just doing [00:23:00] something superficial for too long.

It’s just like, ah, it doesn’t,

Client: well, and I guess I would say I, I mean, I usually write a lot on three. You know, I go to past future and how am I treating the other person? And so it’s almost like four is almost always a relief of like. I’m letting all that, you know, I can let all that go. And so really, no matter what the word is, there’s some, you know, sense of release there and just letting go from everything I’ve, um, you know.

Kind of written in three.

Todd: That’s it. That’s it. So may not have to have a lot of words there. It’s a contrast, you know, question three is, who are you with? The thought question four is, who are you without the thought? And by answering those questions, one after the other, you get to see the contrast. You get to see how much one thought is changing your experience.

That’s the glasses that you have on. [00:24:00] In that moment is that thought. You take the glasses off and you see completely a different thing. You have a different experience. That’s all. So if you have that, if you can see that, if you can experience that you’re, you’re answering questions three and four, uh, and getting everything out of them.

Um, one of the questions sometimes I’ll ask myself in question four is, and I’ll ask my clients this too. Uh, what do you see? When you look at that other person without the thought, and sometimes the thought is blocking me from seeing who they are over there. I can’t see, you know, when I have the thought on, I can’t see them at all when I have the thought off.

If they’re a pair of glasses, I’m like, oh my God. I see, I see how hard they’re trying. I see. What an amazing, uh, uh, like you, you see all kinds of things that you wouldn’t see when you’ve got that, that. Opaque [00:25:00] lens in front of you, which is a stressful thought. So that’s what question three and four are about, and they warm you up.

Once you see that, then you can go into the turnarounds and start to play with those without going through question three and four. When you go to the turnarounds, it may be hard to, to get anywhere with them, to, to access them because you’re still in this, you’re still in this stressful belief itself.

But once you see how that belief affects you, uh, then there’s a little loosening that happens and it’s more fun in playing with the turnarounds afterwards.

Client: Yeah.

Yeah. I think it might even be helpful, and I think you were kind of saying this, like to think of how you could treat the person without that thought. Yep. Yeah,

Todd: yeah, yeah. What, how do you treat the, how would you treat them? It’s the same question you use in question three. You know, how do you treat them?

Okay. How would you treat [00:26:00] them? How might you treat them differently if you didn’t have that thought? Um, yep. So you can play with all these things. Literally be there. That’s all be in the situation. This is why having a situation is so important. If I have a specific situation, I was sitting on the sofa talking with so-and-so, and this stressful interaction happened.

Now. Question three, how do I react in that situation when I’m sitting on the sofa and they said that all the images, how I treat them, what you know, how I treat myself, physical sensations, it’s all there. All I have to do is go back to that place on the sofa and report. Then question four, who would I be without the thought?

I also go back to that place on the sofa. I imagine everything the same. What do I see differently? What’s it like talking to that person? How am I hearing them differently? [00:27:00] What am I noticing? What’s the feeling inside? Uh, all of that. So what makes the work work is landing somewhere specific in time and space, a specific trigger moment, and then, uh, answering these questions from that place, standing there.

And then question four, go back. Stand there in that place. And when you do that, your answers are gonna be real. They’re gonna be alive, they’re gonna be meaningful. And it almost doesn’t matter what words you use to describe them.

Client: Yeah, that was, that was really helpful. ’cause I, I don’t think I do as much. Um, I guess like. Imagination in four, which I think that’s a, a good, good. Something I can, you know, deepen my practice with.

Todd: Yeah. Something you can play with. Question four is an imagination question. Who would you be without the thought, but [00:28:00] the key is.

In the situation where you originally were, so hold that part steady, be there and then look around, like explore. What would it be like, oh, what would, what do I see when I hear them saying those same words? Oh, wow. So like a different perspective comes in and it’s fun, it’s, it’s imaginative, it’s fun, it’s creative, and it shows the effect of.

A particular thought when it’s not there. With it. Without it. With it, without it. That’s question three and question four.

Client: Thank you, Todd.

Todd: You’re welcome. All right. Anyone else have a question or anything to follow up on that I.[00:29:00]

Yeah, Meg.

Client 2: Yeah, just to add to that is that I find it really helpful and for to ask the same questions that I was really charged about in three, like this morning I was doing the work and it was about this man. And when with the thought I was judging his wife for even being married to him, you know, and, and then later in four it was like, how would I be without that thought?

And it was like, well, I certainly be judging her about being married to him. It was like, I see how I brought her into it. And then, you know, it was, it was not helpful to anybody.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. So what I think you’re saying is revisiting some of the things you found in question three, but imagining who you’d be without the, you know, without that thought, to see if any of those things change a little bit.

Um, without the thought. Yeah. Yeah.

Contrasting, [00:30:00] contrasting experiences. Question four. I sometimes say it’s like a scientific experiment. If you ever studied science in school, it was science. The scientific method is you take a, you know, hypothesis and then you test it, and you test it with. In one situation, and then you test it again, but you just change one thing and then you see what’s the difference with the, once you’ve changed that one thing and you keep everything else the same, like everything.

That’s the control group, right? And then there’s the experimental group. So what we’re doing, question four is we’re keeping everything the same except for one thing, who would you be without that one thought? But everything else is the same. And when you, when you do that, you can see the difference. You can see the effect.

Of the thought by, uh, that little thought experiment. So [00:31:00] yeah, anything that, that you were paying attention to in question three, you can go back and pay attention to, uh, pay attention to again in question four and just see if there’s any, uh, difference there. Yeah. And there may or may not be, uh, we’re not, there’s no preconceived notion of where this is going, which brings me all the way back around to.

You know, you were saying the answer comes up so commonly I would feel peaceful. I feel relaxed. I feel carefree in question four. Sometimes it happens. I’ve had this happen and I’ve had clients had this happen where without the thought, I don’t actually feel that that peaceful. I notice other thoughts coming in immediately to fill in the gap.

So I. Who am I without the thought? Well, maybe I am a little bit more peaceful ’cause I’m not worried about that one thing. But I’m [00:32:00] at the same time, I am immediately starting to think about other thoughts that, uh, have popped in. So sometimes I was angry. I do the work and who would I be without the anger?

I might notice I’m actually sad or something like that. It’s like, whoa, okay, well that’s not exactly peace, but I’ve peeled away a layer of stress there and I’m more able to experience, uh, what’s really going on. And that’s also interesting. And you can feel the difference. It’s a, it’s a removal of a layer still.

It’s in the direction of less stress. But the experience may not be, uh, nirvana. Uh, uh, as you might imagine. It’s not just like, oh, so peaceful. I’m just, and we’re looking for just the effect of this thought. What’s the effect of, without this thought, I’d be a little bit more peaceful, but I may not be, you know, a hundred percent peaceful and carefree.

Just be [00:33:00] honest as you’re doing your work, that’s important.

If you would like to participate in open sessions like the one you heard just now, then go to the work as meditation.com and go to the open sessions page. There you can see what the schedule is. You can see what it is in your time zone, and you can also. Begin to, uh, you, you can sign up and begin to participate in these sessions where you can ask your questions, you can do the work with me.

Um, and I even offer a $50 coupon for every 10 sessions that you attend just as a thank you for participating. So it’s a great, uh, opportunity and I encourage you to check it out at the work as meditation.com, and then go to open sessions. And while you’re there, I also would love to invite you to participate in our online community called Inquiry Circle.

This is if you really wanna do the work and really want to [00:34:00] begin a practice of the work and want to understand how this work works, this can be an amazing support for going deeper in the work, getting training in the work, as well as a community of people who are all doing the same thing. They can encourage you to keep doing this over a long period of time.

As with any spiritual practice, it’s the ongoing practice of it that leads to the accumulation of results. So if you’re interested, inquiry Circle is my online community and it’s all about doing the work. And you can find it at the work as meditation.com and then go to community Next, I’m gonna read one of my newsletter articles called.

Have you picked a portal?

If you want to cross to the other side, you have to pick a portal and walk through. The work is about transcending the work. Takes me from one worldview [00:35:00] into another worldview. It is a process of moving beyond what I think I know, but transcending is difficult to do without a portal. A portal is a doorway to another world.

There are many portals, and in doing the work, any stressful situation with its corresponding stressful thought is a portal. If used properly, it can open up a completely different experience. I love the clarity this can bring. The first step in finding a portal is to look for a situation where a stressful emotion came up.

This is the indication that a portal portal is available. One just popped open and it’s ready for you to walk through. How do you know stress? I felt the emotion. Many times people want to roll all kinds of different stressful situations together and their thoughts about them all together into one big conglomerate.[00:36:00]

This is an approach, uh, that is very common when writing a judge. Your neighbor worksheet. The mind pulls from many different situations, different situations, and throws everything but the kitchen sink into the worksheet. So what you’re left with is. A bunch of stressful ideas all thrown at the paper, and it’s kind of a mess.

And there’s not just one portal. The result is a kind of muddled kind of worksheet. It contains, contains a little, this, a little of that, but, um, it’s, it’s not too focused. This is not a portal. A muddled worksheet contains lots of potential portals, but it doesn’t make it easy to pass through all of them.

If you try to pass through, if you think about passing through a portal, it’s like one little hole hole, a little doorway, and if you pick that doorway and you walk through it and you get to the other side, but if you have many portals and you’re trying to pass through all of them at the same time, it’d be like trying to pass through many doors at the same time.

It’s like trying to pass [00:37:00] through. Sea. Um, which is fine if you’re water and you can break up into many different parts and go through, but if you’re one person, you need to have one door in which to go through. So what happens is when you’re doing something with a lot of portals, you’ve got a really general idea of the work and you have lots of different situations all muddled together.

It’s like a bunch of doorways and you end up going through no, none of them. So like hitting a wall. So choosing a portal is the very first step of doing the work, even before writing a judge your neighbor worksheet, or making a list of one-liners to question, the first step is to land on one thing, otherwise, the mind will get blocked trying to pass through all the portals of the sieve simultaneously.

This means landing on one stressful thought if there are many, and landing on one exemplary stressful situation. If the stressful thought spans a lot of time. [00:38:00] It doesn’t matter if you start with a stressful thought and find the situation or start with a stressful situation and find the stressful thought, but either way, these are the two components of a portal, a specific moment in time and a specific thought about what’s happening in that moment.

Two ways of landing on a portal. One starting with a stressful situation. In this way of landing, life has brought me to a specific stressful situation without me doing anything, these kinds of situations show up all the time. I recognize them by the stressful emotions that arise in these moments. That’s when I start paying attention.

I ask myself, what’s going on here? What’s stressing me? And I start looking for the micro moment when I felt the stress often is not just one moment, but there can be several. For example, if I see someone I’m trying to avoid, the stressful moment could be when I first see them, or it could be later when I get trapped by [00:39:00] them in a conversation.

But maybe there are several different moments within that conversation where I felt especially stressed, each of these moments could be a different portal. So just because you have one person, just ’cause you’ve narrowed it down to one situation that happened over five or 10 minutes, doesn’t mean you’ve actually found a portal.

You’ve found a kind of portal, but you can get a little closer, and that’s what I encourage you to do. The thought I identify is going to be directly related to what they were saying in that moment. Now I’m getting closer. I’m starting to move into the portal now. Then I continue into the portal by writing my whole judger neighbor worksheet on this main one thing that’s bothering me in that one moment, in that one millisecond.

When they said that one remark. Now I’ve landed. Now I have a portal, and now I can write a judger, nab neighbor worksheet that is gonna just shoot me right through that portal when I [00:40:00] do my work. So the other way of landing on a portal is to start with a stressful thought. This is different from starting with a stressful situation.

Once you find the situation, then you can easily find the thought, but sometimes you start with a thought and work backwards to find a situation. In this case, I start with a general thought about someone or something. I may not have a specific moment in mind yet. Maybe it’s something they do all the time, or maybe it’s more of an abstract conclusion arising from observing them over time.

I. I can question that thought in general, but it’s often hard to get very far without finding something more specific. In fact, if I do make a breakthrough while working with a general thought, I usually notice that I have unconsciously been touching on specifics while working. I’ve been slipping through one or more specific portals, and that’s what’s actually [00:41:00] making the general work work.

So it’s the specific that gives the power to the work. I can do this unconsciously. Uh, but I prefer to do it consciously. And the way I do it is to look at my general stressful thought before I start questioning it and see if I can find a specific instance when it was activated. Maybe it’s a general belief about someone, um, you know, maybe I scan through my mind and I’m looking for, for, uh, I see this general idea about somebody their, their particular way.

Maybe they’re mean or something. And then I look for a specific instance. If I can find it, when was the last time they were mean to me? Or what is the one that stands out in my mind? Find a specific instance. And then, uh, when I do, I have that kind of proof. This is the, the one instance that proves my theory that is more general.

So go to that specific. [00:42:00] When I find an instance, then I use the same approach as in method one, which is now I have a situation and I can even narrow it down tighter. Maybe I can, maybe I can’t, but I’ll get as specifics as I can and I’ll end up with a moment to hold where that person said or did something or thought something that, uh, has set me off.

And so I do my work on this general theory now in a very specific. Situation. I’ve now found a portal once again to slip through. So have you picked a portal or have you just picked a pick of pickle peppers? I invite you to experiment with this approach and to land on just one thing. This is so important.

I can’t think of anything that makes the work work better than this one idea. Pick a portal, pick a situation, find a specific moment, and find a specific thought. That you were thinking in that particular [00:43:00] moment about that particular person or thing? Just one thought within one moment, and this allows the work to take you through to the other side once you’ve entered through this portal and have begun to do your work.

If you’d like to get hands-on practice about writing worksheets like this with clear instructions, then I invite you to take the work one-on-one course, which is a part of my Inquiry Circle group, and it can be a great way to deepen your practice and just get even more effective in your ability to identify your stressful thoughts and then question them.

And I’ll end with a quote from Byron Katie’s book, A thousand Names for Joy. When we go inside and truly meet those thoughts with understanding the thoughts, change they’re seen through, and then if they ever rise again, we just experience clarity, a clarity that includes everyone.[00:44:00]

So thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. Share it with a friend, post something on social media, leave a review for it. Uh, wherever you get your podcast. And stop by the work as meditation.com to get my newsletter or to participate in open sessions like the one you heard here today.

And you’ll also find hundreds of articles there on the work of Byron Katie, as well as information about the work 1 0 1 that I mentioned about Inquiry Circle, which I also mentioned. And I also have many other things, including private sessions, the Living with Money course. And other programs that I continue to offer.

So thanks again for being here. Uh, until next time, have a wonderful [00:45:00] week.