What If Your Belief Isn’t Stressful—Just Limiting? Inner Work for HSPs Seeking Quiet Breakthroughs

In this episode, we do a little bit of exploration in terms of what is the stressful thought to question. This is often comes up when you’re doing the work of Byron Katie. This is the starting point. Where do I start? If you would like to explore more deeply the process that you can go through to identify the stressful thought, to find the stressful thought that’s actually bothering you in any situation.

Then check out my book called Finding the Door to Inquiry, and you’ll get a very thorough version of how to do this. We play with this in this session and I think you’ll find it helpful, but there’s more information that you can explore. If you go to the work as meditation.com and then go to finding the door to inquiry.

I am doing some exercises on guitar that require me to get faster and faster every time to get like to a certain speed. So I feel like the mindset just like starts there and then just keeps going through the rest of the things. He goes, oh, I need to get faster and all that. Welcome to Wiggle Room, a podcast where we start with stress and look for ways to turn it around.

Wiggle room is always available inside. You’re never completely stuck, no matter what’s going on around you, and that’s what this podcast is about. We use something called the work of Byron Katie, which is a way to question the thoughts that would tell you that you’re completely stuck. There’s always a difference between reality and your thoughts about reality.

I. Reality may have you confined. It may be you may be stuck in the outer reality, but on the inner side, in the inner experience of that, there’s always wiggle room and that’s what questioning your thoughts can open up for you. I’m Todd Smith, and on the program today we have a couple of questions, very interesting questions and a little bit of doing the work.

We’ll also be reading a newsletter. So the first question is, should I question a li limiting belief that is not stressful? Neat. This is a, leads to a very interesting discussion and I think you’ll enjoy that. Then how do you slow down when you’re in a rush? Very practical, also very interesting. And we do the work on, I want to get better now.

This is in recovering from a surgery. And then finally I’ll be reading an article called. Grief and guilt partners in crime. All this is about the work of Byron Katy, which is a simple, powerful way to question what you think and open your mind and your heart to experience a much more gentle, much more expanded and much more pleasant way of seeing things.

Here’s our latest weekly open session. As always, I record the, or I share the unintended recordings. So that you can experience this just as we did as we were together.

I have a question that I wrote down.

So I’m just gonna read it. That’s the most, okay. That’s the easiest for me.

I noticed that I regularly have thoughts that are limiting but not stressful. For example, I’m recovering from having worked so hard the last seven years that I overworked both body and mind. One of the effects is that I have a hard time doing some things on my own, like administration for the nonprofit organization, and before I never had a problem with that.

At the same time, it doesn’t really stress me. It feels like a fact that I just accept. I go with the thought that if I rest enough, it will solve itself. On the other hand, I can see it also limits me, and that too is not really stressful. It’s part of the fact and limiting. So now I starts to wonder whether I can become more free by doing the work on this kind of limiting, but not really stressful beliefs.

Or would that kind of wanting to be free be emotive that obstructs doing the work? Genuinely. Great question. Very great, very thought out. So the under the limiting belief is I overworked my body and mind like for the past years. And so that thought it limits you from doing things now because you don’t want to overwork your body again, isn’t it?

Am I understanding that correctly? Yes and no. In the sense that it’s really effect, you can see the effects in my body and mind, so I really have to, it’s like burnout, right? So it’s something that’s real to my body and mind, and since I consider it a fact. Just a matter of resting in love and it’s that.

Yeah. So the question is it really limiting you, yeah. ’cause I still want to do I feel like, come on, I, yeah. I’m only 64. Yeah. Yeah. I can still do a lot of things. So this is. Yeah, it’s a very interesting situation. It appears at first thought that the limiting belief is that I overworked my body, even though that’s a fact and it’s keeping me from doing other things now.

And it’s not stressful because you also know the truth of it and not, yeah. And because I allow myself to rest more now. So it seems like a limiting belief ’cause it’s limiting you from doing more things. But it could be, but what I’m hearing is it’s bringing balance. It’s not does, you’re not experiencing that as stress clear.

The starting point for me of doing the work is looking for the stress because that shows me where the imbalance is. And if I’m not noticing stress in that particular regard. Then even though it is limiting me it may not be limiting me in a bad way because it’s bringing balance. I’m just not used to that.

And so I probably wouldn’t question that. It’s like when you’re doing the work and you find a turnaround that turnaround is a new direction and. You can question the turnaround, but you may not need to question the turnaround. Maybe you need to take the medicine that the turnaround is giving for a while and then see where things go, wait until some new stress starts to come up, and then follow the lead of that stress to show you where you can question the interesting.

Yeah, the interesting thing when you said about that limiting those limits actually bring balance. That’s interesting because apparently I don’t have that mindset. Apparently a limit is something bad to me. Yeah, exactly. So that’s the thought to question for. Yeah, I think so. Yes. Yeah, is to be limited is not a good thing.

That’s right. That’s right. That the, that’s where you’re arguing with reality a little bit. ’cause reality is this limit is bringing you rest and yeah. And it’s not stressful, but there’s still some thinking that, oh, it’s not good to be limited so something’s wrong. Because at the same time, I used my situation to allow myself to rest.

Because normally to be limited is not good. Yeah. Now, because my body and mind just ask to be, to be able to risk. That’s what I feel. Yeah. Yeah. So another piece of this, like another way that you can do the work is whatever that, that desire to do things like the desire. Any attachment to desire to keep doing things without limits, that’s the one that I would start to question like, I really, I need to finish this project, or I need to start this project.

And then I would question that is, is it true? And then come to a place where it’s okay, I’m not as attached to doing that project. I might still do it, but I’m not forgetting about, I’m not for I’m not seeing the limit as a bad thing because I don’t, I’m not gonna push beyond my balance point.

Yeah. So I overworked my body and mind is just a fact. You did. And it’s limiting you because you don’t wanna do that again. And the body is saying no. But that may not be a bad thing. It’s the only stress is if you believe you shouldn’t have limits or that if you’re too attached to doing something that will put you back overworking.

Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. Thank you. Great question. Okay. Any other questions or anyone wanna do the work?

Todd, I have a question about the so to speak piece that you feel after doing the work. Like how do you get to the point where you’re able to slow down everything? Because I’ve had that feeling before, but for some reason, like recently I didn’t have that. So I feel like I’m in a rush, but I notice that when I’m thinking about it, it’s oh yeah, it’s, it feels like I’m in a rush and I’m not really slowing everything down.

And when I do, it feels really good. So what is your process to like slow things down when doing the work and like making sure like you’re getting that peace or at least that mindset of doing it and giving you, give you the chance of doing it that way. So you’re talking about. During when, during the work itself, when you’re actually doing the work, or are you talking about in life in general when slowing things down?

Right now it’s it’s working in both for me. Okay. So it affects, affects both. If I’m in the slowdown kind of motion, like everything, including the work feels like I can flow down and pay more attention to everything and feels like natural and. I’m at a point right now where every, everything feels like it’ll rush a little bit, but I don’t, while I’m doing it, it doesn’t, I don’t notice that.

Until later on. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. I was playing pickleball last night and everything was just slow and I was hitting every shot, like it was just because I was watching the ball, I was waiting and hitting. Everything was just slow motion. It was really amazing.

But there are other times when I’m just in a rush and I’m hitting it all over the place, and that’s just an analogy for everything in life. It’s easy to get into a rush. So I think the question for me is, why do we get into a rush? Like, where is that coming from? ’cause I can’t always seem to control it.

Oh, I shouldn’t be in a rush. That doesn’t feel quite peaceful either. I’m either in a rush or I’m not in a rush, and the way I see it is I’m in a rush, is how I react when I’m believing something else. So what is that? What am I believing that’s gonna make me react and start coming into being more in a rush and pushing and that kind of thing?

And for me, usually some kind of want want or a need, right? A motive. What is the motive fraction something I want or I need. And so I look for that. What am I wanting when I’m doing the work? Maybe I will just want peace, so I’m pushing. I gotta get peace. So I’ll just go faster and pretty soon I’m in a big rush while I’m doing this meditative process.

It doesn’t work that great. Or, yeah, okay, now I did the work. I’m gonna go do everything else in my life and I’m. I’m like, oh, I better hurry up because I want to get everything done, or I want to, I wanna finish this project, or I want to make more money, or I want to, take care of my health in a better way.

Like rush. These motives what I want or what I think I need. That’s what puts me into a rush. And so if I can identify a few of those kind of wants or needs, and then question them. Then it can slow down. And it might start with what I’m wanting in the work self, like what I’m actually wanting in the while I’m doing the work.

But either way, the principle is the same. The motive for action is what I’m desiring. And if I’m attached, I’m overly attached to what I’m desiring, then I’m going to tend to push myself. That’s one of the ways I can react. So that’s my first thoughts on it. Does that resonate in any way with your experience?

Actually a lot. Like first I was thinking like I’m doing some exercises on guitar that require me to get faster and faster every time to get like to a certain speed. So I feel like the mindset just like starts there and then just keeps going through the rest of the things because oh, I need to get faster and all that.

But then as you were talking, it was like I noticed too. That because I’m recovering from my shoulder, like I’m also wanting to get better now so I can go back to do the things I used to do right away. Because that’s part of one of the things that it’s making me slower too, is that I’m not fully there yet with the recovery process.

So it’s oh, I wanna get better now because I need to just go back to being faster and improving. So yeah, makes a lot of sense. So that will make you wanna rush, right? I need to get better now. Okay, what do I do? What do I do? Keep going and, and then combination of already doing a exercise that’s faster and faster on the guitar that starts making you get in that mode, which is great.

But then you have to remember that’s for the guitar. It doesn’t mean now you have to eat faster and walk faster and check your email faster. No, it’s just, it’s for the guitar. Yeah, so it’s that’s how the mind works. It has a thought, I wanna be faster, and it just doesn’t question it. It just thinks, oh, that’s faster is good.

So everything should be faster. And it’s always if you slow that down and question it oh yeah, faster is good in bad context, but in another context it might be slower is better or. I want to get better now. Do I really need to get better now? Maybe taking my time now doing more rest now will actually help the getting better now.

So it’s all ironic, but as always, it’s the attachment to what I’m wanting that makes me start to push or makes me want to, gives me this kind of stressful reactions. So if you question one of those, like I want to get better now. Then you may find a little more space. In fact, we can do that if you want to.

We could question that. Yeah, sure. It’s a let’s do arctic question, but yeah, I want to get better now. I think a lot of people can relate to this. So the, you just re you’re recovering from a shoulder injury. So shoulder surgery, I know that. And you wanna get better. Now is it true?

Yes. And can you absolutely know it’s true. You want to get better now?

Yeah. That one right there. True and true. Okay, cool. So how do you react? What happens when you believe this thought, when you think this thought, when it comes in your mind? I want to get better now.

I feel frustrated and I feel like I start comparing like it’s weird because I’m in like in a rollercoaster of emotions and like physical feeling. So I compare that to yesterday when I went to sleep that I was feeling great and this morning when I woke up and I was not feeling that good and I couldn’t even play or do pretty much anything.

I keep comparing it. Why if that was yesterday that I was feeling better? Why today that it’s a day later with more rest, I’m feeling worse than yesterday. So it’s kinda like I struggle with that. Like it doesn’t make any sense to me and I try to even go back before the accident and not go to play and not get hurt.

Playing with that idea of not having to go through a recovery at all. Yeah, I feel like it’s lower than what it should be. I feel like

taking a long time and I feel like it’s

weird because like it feels like it should be better by now, but it’s not. So there’s like a weird thing, try to fight reality there, but reality sometimes is better than other times. So it’s like this weird feeling of I’m like, yeah, I was better, but now I’m not. So yeah, that’s an interesting reaction.

Like you notice every time that better oh great, it’s better. And then every time it’s not better. Oh no, it’s because you’re so focused on, I want to get better now. Then you’re taking, keeping track of the progress. Really tightly. Yeah. And every time I feel better, it’s oh, that means that tomorrow I’m going to be even better.

That’s exactly how I look at it. So when it doesn’t happen, I go to the bottom. It’s oh, it’s the worst I’ve felt in, I don’t know how long. That’s right. It’s a roller. It becomes a roller coaster when you’re leaving the thought. Yeah. Yeah, and then it’s I feel weird. It’s because I was pretty good at recovering before, or that’s what I thought, but then I never had an injury like this before.

Like that required surgery, so I didn’t really know what it was like before. It was like, yeah, I got hit and it hurts. And then a week after I’m doing better and then it goes up from there and that’s it. This time is a totally different. So yes, the comparison to the old injuries and this one should be like those.

Yeah. That’s also reaction. So who would you be without the thought that you want to get better now? She didn’t, she weren’t so focused on that or so, attached to that. What would it be like?

It feels like I would allow myself to feel the way I feel without expecting anything from it. In a way. Like you’re like, I’m not comparing it. To any other moment, I’m just, if I’m feeling a certain way, I’ll just go with it and see what I can do to get it better. But it feels like everything slows down and I’m just there not paying too much attention to what it was or what it will be.

Feels like I can listen to my body, actually. Oh that’s an interesting one,

right? Feels like before I was not listening to it and it just like what I wanted rather than listening to the body, oh, I need more rest and just take it. And so without the thought, it feels feels like if I need more rest, I’ll just take it. And then if I can do something, I’ll just do it rather than trying to do it while I need to rest, or my body’s asking me to rest someday.

Yeah. More in sync with your body itself. Like you say, listening to your body instead of imposing an idea that you want to get better now. Which puts you in a rush, which it right focuses on being faster and then dramatizes the wins and the losses. Oh, I’m getting closer. Oh no, I’m getting farther.

And, yeah. Yeah. So without all that, it’s just following the body.

And that makes a lot of sense because if I. Just follow my body, then that’s one less thing I have to worry about by trying to, oh, it’s just, I can just go with the flow of my body’s actually telling me you can do this and, or you can. It’s actually a pretty good communicator. Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool.

Okay, this is the effect of the thought. I want to get better now. Pushes you and dramatizes and without the thought, it’s it leaves you open to listening to your body. It’s less drama. So turn the thought around. I want to get better now.

I don’t want to get better now. Okay. Sounds funny, but you make any sense about it.

It actually makes sense. If I feel better now, I usually get ahead of myself in that area. So I’d be pushing it more than what I should be pushing it just because I feel that it’s better and that would be worse. The.

End up re-injuring your shoulder, right? Yep. Can happen. So how is the pace of your recovery good as it is instead of having to be done sooner? How is it good at this pace?

Again, because it is just the body. There’s no medicine that will make it go faster or anything else that you can do to actually, yeah, there’s certain things that you can do to improve it a little, but the only one that knows is the body. So it’s okay of the PA because that’s the pace that I have right now.

My body’s telling me exactly what it can do and what I need to be careful with, and so yeah, it’s good because I’m not listening. If I look at it from that perspective, I’m not letting the doctors decide if it’s right or not, and I’m not letting me decide if it’s right. I’m not. I’m just like, okay. Listen to the body and then just go with it and the body knows exactly if it’s right or not.

So it makes sense. If you imagine the body like that shoulder after the surgery, can you imagine or give any examples of what that body is needing to do during this time? What are the, all the things you think that it’s doing while you’re recovering? Oh my God. It’s doing a lot that I don’t see or pay attention to.

It is attaching muscles. It is like try to build strength as much as it can. It’s fixing everything that was damaged by the surgery itself and by the injury. That’s a lot. It’s actually great. A lot more than what I thought. That’s like rebuilding a website from scratch. Or even worse, that worse fixing one that’s halfway broken, right?

That was like, there’s a lot of things going on there. So yeah, there’s a lot of small things going in the way. There’s all the veins and all the little muscles and the fibers and all the different things that I don’t even know the name for. I try to get back to what they were before the injury though.

Yeah, that’s a lot. So this just gives more supporting evidence or gives support for the idea that I don’t want to get better now. Because there’s a lot of things that need to be done between now and full recovery, I can forget about the injury really quickly. If I don’t feel anything on my shoulder, I could get hurt like badly because I think, oh, I’m fine now, so I’ll just go back to doing everything I was doing before. Yeah, and that’s that true. That’s right, it has to take its time, not just to do the first stage of healing, but do the full healing where it’s.

Really strong. In the end, an injury can end up being stronger than even what it was before because it’s had to really, work to make that strength there. But if you, until it gets to that point, it’s gonna be weaker than it was before and prone to more injury again. So we’re looking at the turnaround.

I don’t want to get better now. Is that, is it starting to make sense? Is there anything that’s landing for you? Makes a lot of sense because if not, I’ll just, like I said, I’ll get ahead of myself and start doing things I shouldn’t be doing with the risk of re-injury pretty quickly. Yeah. The idea is.

You want to get better. So if it takes longer and longer is better, then which would you choose? The longer or the shorter, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So is there any other turnaround? I don’t know if there is. I want to get better now. I.

Maybe my mind wants my shoulder to get better now. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. And another variation on that is I want my thinking about my shoulder to get better now. Ah, does that make any sense? Yep.

Am I thinking about my shoulder? Get better now.

To land on the acceptance of the injury rather than try to push it or make it like, oh, you have to be ready by this date, or something like that when there’s no deadline at all or anything at all. Like nothing. Yeah. That’s the thinking is what makes you feel stressed, what makes you feel in a rush, makes you want to, compare it to other injuries and all of that stuff.

So I want my thinking to get better now so that I can be patient with the body, which needs to take its time right to do this, and I can let that part go and just do its own thing without the mind being there. Oh, remember. Today, you have to be better there tomorrow than tomorrow. Come on. Come on. Oh yeah, but the body can’t, the body doesn’t listen to that. It still needs as much time as it needs to that. And if you push it now, you just, all you did was add some extra stress to the situation emotionally on top of the whole job that the body has to do physically. And now you made the job harder for the body.

Now it just make me see that like the mind is not even feeling what the body feels when it tries to move. So that’s why it’s saying oh, you should do this, or You should be able to do this by now. But it doesn’t have that feedback of oh, it hurts when I try to do that, so I can’t do it or not yet.

Yeah, so there’s like miscommunication there and that’s why it’s like trying to push it too. Exactly. That’s where the, that’s where the mind is not. Not better. It’s like something off with the mind. It’s not connecting with the body, it’s not paying attention to the reality of the situation. It’s caught in a theory, in a story that it should be better now.

And so it’s like living in this weird land that’s disconnected from reality and then it’s getting stressed, trying to control reality, but it doesn’t work that way. Correct. And it just made me look at things that it’s comparing my recovery to, like different injuries that have nothing to do with it, like different kind of minor stuff or things like that.

So it’s comparing it, oh, he was ready before a month. It’s yeah, but it’s not the same. And it’s like that. It’s discarding that big part of that equation. That’s right. This is just focusing on, oh, he got ready before a month. You should do the same. You should be ready now. Yeah. Very cool.

This is great work. Thank you for doing it, and thank you for bringing it up. It’s a really good subject. Thank you. Really cool. If you would like to participate in open sessions, like the one we heard just now, then go to the work as meditation.com and then go to the open sessions page. Then you can see the upcoming schedule there and sign up.

Also, check out the work 1 0 1 while you’re there. It’s a way to go deeper over 40 days, 40 lessons that will allow you to gain a lot of experience of doing the work in a very practical way, and you’ll be a part of our community called Inquiry Circle. While you do that, next I’m going to read one of my newsletter articles called Guilt, or, sorry, grief and Guilt.

Partners in crime.

Nothing withers life more than grief, yet. Grief rarely acts alone without its best buddy. Guilt. Questioning guilt and grief is a worthwhile meditation. When someone dies or when I have a loss of any kind, I can feel victimized. What I was depending on just collapsed. I am disoriented and the mind keeps circling back to what was or what could have then, which only intensifies the grief.

It’s like a broken record. She shouldn’t have died. She’s gone. I want her back. These hopeless thoughts are the fuel of grief as the mind tries to attack, but it can’t change. It reaches for something or someone to blame. Sometimes there are pers, there’s a person at fault, and the mind lands there.

Sometimes it’s life that I blame, but sometimes the mind circles back to blame myself. When it does, I feel guilt and it’s quest to avoid accepting the reality of the loss. The mind digs up all kinds of things. I should not have refused the package from mom that she sent to me so many years ago. That really hurt her feelings, or I should not have moved one time without telling her that hurt her as well.

If I dwell on these things that I did or didn’t do, I can become, I can start feeling very guilty. What does guilt accomplish For me? Guilt is a distraction, a kind of irrational way of trying to regain control if only I had accepted that package. Then I could let her go in peace. If only I had been a better communicator with her, then she would know without a doubt how much I loved her.

This is the mind’s way of trying to rewrite the past in order to have peace in the present. The problem is that’s impossible to do. The past is over. I have no control over the past. In fact, I like to think of the past as none of my business. So guilty thoughts basically lead nowhere, but back to grief, somehow the cycle of guilt and grief must be broken.

The problem with grief is that the loss really did happen, and the problem with guilt is that I often really did do some regretful things, so the mind meets with no resistance as it spins around in its little circle of grief and guilt. The only thing that can stop it is a bigger truth. Here’s my favorite way to look for a bigger perspective for my spinning mind called the work of Byron Katy.

And the work is a meditation that blows the mind down. It starts by picking a stressful thought, a guilt thought, for example. I write it down verbatim as it comes out of my mind. I should have told mom I was moving. I. Now the thought has been captured, and this alone goes a long way to stop the mind from spinning, but this is just the beginning.

The work of Byron Katie slows it down further by questioning the validity of the thought I should have told mom I was moving. Is it true? This is meditation, guilt and grief. Slow down when I find understanding for myself. When I go through this process of inquiry and look back on my life at the time, I find that I was actually desperately trying to stand up for myself in my twenties when I didn’t tell her that I was moving.

I went against my mom’s preferences for how I should live my life and moved without telling her, because that’s the only way I could see to stand up for myself. When I see it this way, I find understanding for myself. My guilt no longer grips me. This simple process of question, questioning my stressful thoughts is how I worked through the grief when my mom died.

One thought at a time, and I invite you to do the same.

And I’ll end with a quote from Byron Katie from her book A Thousand Names for Joy, humility. Is what happens when you’re caught and exposed to yourself and you realize that you’re no one and you’ve been trying to be someone. You just die and die into that truth, into the truth of that you die into what you have done and who you have been, and it’s a very sweet thing.

There’s no guilt or shame in it. You become totally vulnerable like a child. Defense and justification keep falling away and you die into the brilliance of what is real.

So thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. Share it with a friend, post something on social media and leave a review if you haven’t done that. And stop by the work as meditation.com where you can participate in these open sessions. You can participate in the one-on-one 1 0 1 course, the work one-on-one, where you can go deeply into this process and actually make some transformations in your life.

That’s what our community is about, and I invite you to join us. So thanks again for listening, and until next time, have a great week.