- The Work- Dear Katie 03.12In each month's e-newsletter, Katie will answer a question sent in by readers. We will post past questions and answers on this page. Join our mailing list to receive the e-newsletter. Katie invites you to send a question (she cannot respond personally to every question sent, but will answer the most commonly asked question each month in the e-newsletter.)December 2003Dear Katie,Im in a relationship with someone who is very self-centered. How can doing The Work help me? Dont I have to get him to take responsibility for his behavior and change?Thanks,JHDearest JH,I was once in a relationship with someone who was very self-centered, and it was me! It hurt! Now I am in a relationship with someone who is very self-centered, and its still me, and it doesnt hurt at all! And no, I didnt have to get anyone to take responsibility for himself. I cant. How would that be possible? If someone takes responsibility for himself because I nagged and manipulated him, and I take all the credit for his taking responsibility, then has he really taken responsibility for himself? No, I did ithe was simply the pawn, the one who acted out what he thought I wanted him to do.Look at how people have approached relationships since the beginning of time: You change, and then I'll change; you change and then Ill be happy. you become less self-centered (or less emotional, or more attentive, or more successful) and then Ill love you. Has this worked for you? What would you have if your partner were less self-centered and took responsibility for his behavior? Maybe you imagine him acting selflessly and think, Boy that would be great. Then Id be really satisfied in this relationship. So what we really want, when were being honest with ourselves, is a sense of security, happiness, and peace. We think we need him to change in order for us to have a happy life. In my experience, this is the long way around. And its hopeless, because just when he changes one thing, we'll find something else that needs to change.In my experience (and now this is the experience of thousands of others), we can be happy right now if we question our thoughts. Your partner is very self-centered. Is that true? When you believe it, your mind will find all the proof: He doesnt help me clean the house. He doesnt think about my part in things. He leaves the toilet seat up. You can write a book proving that you're right. So go deeper beneath the surface of the mind and take a closer look. Hes very self-centered. Is that true? Can you know that it's best for him to be different from the way he is right now? Can you really know that it's best for you, in the larger schemee of things, to be with someone who acts differently? Take your time and really sit with it.Once youve sat with the first two questions, you can ask yourself, How do you react when you think the thought, 'Hes very self-centered'?" How do you treat him? Do you pull away from him, thinking about yourself and how unfortunate your situation is? Do you tell your friends how self-centered he is so that they will center around you? Look at all the ways this unquestioned thought plays itself out in your relationships and in your life. Make a list. This is deep Work. Its how we bring ourselves out of victimhood and into reality.Who would you be without the thought, Hes very self-centered? What if you could never believe it again? What would you see when you look at his behavior? You might be open to seeing ways in which he does focus attention on you or others. You might be able to see that hes doing the best he can. And in the peace of seeing him without this story, you can show him what it is to truly live with greater awareness of others, starting with your awareness of who he is right now. Whereas when you believe what you think, you teach him how centered you are on his self-centeredness, and how it affects you. Can you see this, angel? I am always what I believe you to be in the moment I believe you are that.One turnaround is, Hes not very self-centered. Could that be as true or truer, sometimes? Make a list of the ways in which hes not very self-centered. You might begin to wake yourself up and really surprise yourself. Does he help pay for any of your expenses? Does he turn the volume of the TV down when you come into the room? Does he put the cap back on the toothpaste because he knows you prefer it that way? Even the small things can be the beginning of a new and honest focus.Another turnaround might be, Im very self-centered. Can you find that? Make a list. Look for ways in which you center on yourself at the expense of others, and where yo are dismissive or neglectful of him. If you find any, you may want to make amends (for your sake). And don't expect him to be interested, or to even listen.If I have a problem, then I need to question my thinking because someone else's behavior can never cause my pain. It cant even bother methats not possible. My unquestionedthoughts about their behaviorthats where my frustration comes from. When I sincerely question those thoughts and no longer believe them, I can see my partner clearly and open myself up to loving him for the countless ways he doesgive to me, even if only by his presence. So when we're clear, our partners do become who we want them to be:themselves as they are. (This doesn't necessarily mean that we stay with them, even though we love them.)If this sounds like a bit much, go slowly, and write down the things he does that push your buttons. Then investigatego in for the love of truth, not to fix your relationshipand watch all your relationships change. Let me know what you find.Loving what is, angel, and that would be you,kt- Robert TestimonialThe following letter was written by Robert, a graduate of The School for The Work in Los Angeles, Oct. 2003.I am one of those people who thinks he can do things without training or apprenticeship. Earlier in my life, as a lawyer, I hung my own shingle only three months after passing the bar exam. In my second career, as Robert the Guitar Guy, I work as a singer, guitarist, and songwriter for children self-taught of course! So when I bought Byron Katies Loving What Is from a Unity Church bookstore, I was confident that I could learn The Work right out of the book.Katies technology for questioning thoughtsthe four questions and turnaroundare attractive to a legal mind. With my logical training, I could maintain my focus on the original thought, answering if it was true, how I react to it, and envisioning freedom from it, without complicating the matter with more story. What worked against me was my old lawyer habit of having an instant answer to every conceivable question. (I had developed this trick long before I became a lawyer.) I could easily fill out a self-facilitation worksheet without looking within. This is Placebo Work. Doing Placebo Work almost caused me to quit before I had truly learned how to do The Work. After doing it regularly for months, I was on the verge of saying The Work doesnt work for me. On top of this, I was further handicapping myself by thinking, I am smart enough to know what answers I should be finding. Mercifully, Katies June visit to the Wainwright House in New York came just as I was wondering whether I should quit.I had never seen anything but a photograph of Katie before, and she came on stage wearing some long flowing thing, looking and moving like a movie star. I was star-struck. Katie called me up to do The Work with her. At the intermission, lots of people came over to me and said nice things. Then, over someones shoulder, I saw Katie approaching, and I was both excited and frightened. I told her that I was star-struck. She told me that now we were friends. I didnt believe her, but I was thrilled that we talked. Then Stephen Mitchell (Katies husband) came over, and I talked with him about his book The Gospel According to Jesus. It was like going to Disneyland.I signed up to attend Katies two-day June intensive in Manhattan, an hour south. I remember on the second day I noticed that certain revelations would cause participants to break out sobbing, and I made a mental note that I would not be one of them. Later, I was doing a piece of Work with a woman from Pennsylvania. She asked me a simple question. I answered, and without warning I convulsed into tears. Not a stoic trickle, but wrenching sobs. I felt not embarrassed but initiated. Finally, I had a clue! The chief gift I received from the intensive was the experience of truly listening to myself. All my life Id been a performer, wanting other people to listen to me. I deeply experienced that I was the one whom I wanted to listen. It was not the quantity of Work I did so much as the quality. If I could experience that inner quality of listening for just one question, it was more helpful than doing twenty worksheets without truly listening.Two days later, four of us gathered to do The Work at Unity. For the first time, I was able to close my eyes and just wait for the answers. I didnt care if I spent the entire allotted time waiting for one answer. And I still had the knack of going within, outside the physical presence of Katie! Immediately I applied for The School for The Work. There were many perceived obstacles to going, foremost, my wifes opposition. I could see her point. It did not seem fair to leave her with what would be a four-month-old baby to go to Los Angeles. I wrestled back and forth with the question and finally decided that it would be overwhelming for my wife to work full-time and take care of the baby alone for ten days. I emailed The School and turned down their acceptance. And I believed that I was at peace with that. One summer night, my wife, our baby, and I were meeting some friends at an outdoor concert. My wife took some things out of the car for me to carry the chairs, a cooler, and some baby accessories. I knew it was too much for me to comfortably carry but I did it anyway. Afterward, my old, sewed-up hernia ached. I had betrayed myself by not telling my wife what I knew was true for me. It occurred to me that this was just a reminder of a much bigger betrayal of myself. I sensed this, but could not grasp what it was. Sadness lingered with me into the next day. Finally, it hit me. The bigger betrayal was ignoring my strong intuition to attend The School. I told my wife that I was going, and she protested, but I sensed resignation in the protest.I could not relax for the first few days at The School. I seemed to be supplied with a continuous flow of pretexts to be nervous. When one abated, another would replace it. I told Katie, and she noted that the nervous me had plenty to be nervous about: it might well die here. From the beginning I had decided to blow my cover. I had been struggling with a physical problem that I was hesitant to reveal. But I hadnt come three thousand miles to keep secrets, so I blew my cover, again and again and again. This sharing connected me quickly and strongly with newfound friends. The honesty and intimacy we risked together was a chain reaction. It was like a turtle convention where we all got to wriggle around without our shells. Not only verbal intimacy but lots of hugs and non-sexual embraces. We were learning to ask for things. Can I have a hug? What a delight! By the third or fourth day, Id examined so many entrenched beliefs that werent really true for me, that I no longer felt nervous and uncomfortable.We were encouraged by Katie to experience different Work partners for the exercises. Without exception, each partner seemed to have been divinely selected to work with me on the matter at issue. The coincidences were bizarre. People who I had dismissed as being totally different from me turned out to be my long lost twin in a particular way. The ability to truly receive is so essential to The Work, and this theme was constantly developed. We were encouraged to spend at least one day in silence to experience what it was like only to receive and to give nothing in return. Hand-in-hand with receiving was an emphasis on experiencing the reality of earthly experience (always kinder than our thoughts). Built into The School experience is a graphic culmination of both these themes. This hands-on discovery changed the way I see this world and its inhabitants. Revealing it would not be a service to future students.Ive been amazed by how Ive been able to build on my School experience now that Im home. I feared that we were inhaling such rarefied air there (in L.A. no less!) that Id look back on it as a separate peace unrelated to my struggle at home. That has not been my experience. Through a Yahoo Group website created by one student, eighty-six alumni (and growing) are keeping in touch, sharing Work and support. Ive also been doing The Work with classmates all across the country about twice a week.Believe me, every thought I had before The School can still show up. Im completely capable of any kind of distortion, but you know, Im now also capable of freeing myself, and that is so sweet. With love, Robert M.Robert currently hosts an Inquiry Circle at the Unity Church in Norwalk, CT. You can find an Inquiry Circle near you in the Inquiry Circle database . - TrashTrash- Imported Notes- untitled- Dear Katie 03.12In each month's e-newsletter, Katie will answer a question sent in by readers. We will post past questions and answers on this page. Join our mailing list to receive the e-newsletter. Katie invites you to send a question (she cannot respond personally to every question sent, but will answer the most commonly asked question each month in the e-newsletter.)December 2003Dear Katie,Im in a relationship with someone who is very self-centered. How can doing The Work help me? Dont I have to get him to take responsibility for his behavior and change?Thanks,JHDearest JH,I was once in a relationship with someone who was very self-centered, and it was me! It hurt! Now I am in a relationship with someone who is very self-centered, and its still me, and it doesnt hurt at all! And no, I didnt have to get anyone to take responsibility for himself. I cant. How would that be possible? If someone takes responsibility for himself because I nagged and manipulated him, and I take all the credit for his taking responsibility, then has he really taken responsibility for himself? No, I did ithe was simply the pawn, the one who acted out what he thought I wanted him to do.Look at how people have approached relationships since the beginning of time: You change, and then I'll change; you change and then Ill be happy. you become less self-centered (or less emotional, or more attentive, or more successful) and then Ill love you. Has this worked for you? What would you have if your partner were less self-centered and took responsibility for his behavior? Maybe you imagine him acting selflessly and think, Boy that would be great. Then Id be really satisfied in this relationship. So what we really want, when were being honest with ourselves, is a sense of security, happiness, and peace. We think we need him to change in order for us to have a happy life. In my experience, this is the long way around. And its hopeless, because just when he changes one thing, we'll find something else that needs to change.In my experience (and now this is the experience of thousands of others), we can be happy right now if we question our thoughts. Your partner is very self-centered. Is that true? When you believe it, your mind will find all the proof: He doesnt help me clean the house. He doesnt think about my part in things. He leaves the toilet seat up. You can write a book proving that you're right. So go deeper beneath the surface of the mind and take a closer look. Hes very self-centered. Is that true? Can you know that it's best for him to be different from the way he is right now? Can you really know that it's best for you, in the larger schemee of things, to be with someone who acts differently? Take your time and really sit with it.Once youve sat with the first two questions, you can ask yourself, How do you react when you think the thought, 'Hes very self-centered'?" How do you treat him? Do you pull away from him, thinking about yourself and how unfortunate your situation is? Do you tell your friends how self-centered he is so that they will center around you? Look at all the ways this unquestioned thought plays itself out in your relationships and in your life. Make a list. This is deep Work. Its how we bring ourselves out of victimhood and into reality.Who would you be without the thought, Hes very self-centered? What if you could never believe it again? What would you see when you look at his behavior? You might be open to seeing ways in which he does focus attention on you or others. You might be able to see that hes doing the best he can. And in the peace of seeing him without this story, you can show him what it is to truly live with greater awareness of others, starting with your awareness of who he is right now. Whereas when you believe what you think, you teach him how centered you are on his self-centeredness, and how it affects you. Can you see this, angel? I am always what I believe you to be in the moment I believe you are that.One turnaround is, Hes not very self-centered. Could that be as true or truer, sometimes? Make a list of the ways in which hes not very self-centered. You might begin to wake yourself up and really surprise yourself. Does he help pay for any of your expenses? Does he turn the volume of the TV down when you come into the room? Does he put the cap back on the toothpaste because he knows you prefer it that way? Even the small things can be the beginning of a new and honest focus.Another turnaround might be, Im very self-centered. Can you find that? Make a list. Look for ways in which you center on yourself at the expense of others, and where yo are dismissive or neglectful of him. If you find any, you may want to make amends (for your sake). And don't expect him to be interested, or to even listen.If I have a problem, then I need to question my thinking because someone else's behavior can never cause my pain. It cant even bother methats not possible. My unquestionedthoughts about their behaviorthats where my frustration comes from. When I sincerely question those thoughts and no longer believe them, I can see my partner clearly and open myself up to loving him for the countless ways he doesgive to me, even if only by his presence. So when we're clear, our partners do become who we want them to be:themselves as they are. (This doesn't necessarily mean that we stay with them, even though we love them.)If this sounds like a bit much, go slowly, and write down the things he does that push your buttons. Then investigatego in for the love of truth, not to fix your relationshipand watch all your relationships change. Let me know what you find.Loving what is, angel, and that would be you,kt- New Note- Robert TestimonialThe following letter was written by Robert, a graduate of The School for The Work in Los Angeles, Oct. 2003.I am one of those people who thinks he can do things without training or apprenticeship. Earlier in my life, as a lawyer, I hung my own shingle only three months after passing the bar exam. In my second career, as Robert the Guitar Guy, I work as a singer, guitarist, and songwriter for children self-taught of course! So when I bought Byron Katies Loving What Is from a Unity Church bookstore, I was confident that I could learn The Work right out of the book.Katies technology for questioning thoughtsthe four questions and turnaroundare attractive to a legal mind. With my logical training, I could maintain my focus on the original thought, answering if it was true, how I react to it, and envisioning freedom from it, without complicating the matter with more story. What worked against me was my old lawyer habit of having an instant answer to every conceivable question. (I had developed this trick long before I became a lawyer.) I could easily fill out a self-facilitation worksheet without looking within. This is Placebo Work. Doing Placebo Work almost caused me to quit before I had truly learned how to do The Work. After doing it regularly for months, I was on the verge of saying The Work doesnt work for me. On top of this, I was further handicapping myself by thinking, I am smart enough to know what answers I should be finding. Mercifully, Katies June visit to the Wainwright House in New York came just as I was wondering whether I should quit.I had never seen anything but a photograph of Katie before, and she came on stage wearing some long flowing thing, looking and moving like a movie star. I was star-struck. Katie called me up to do The Work with her. At the intermission, lots of people came over to me and said nice things. Then, over someones shoulder, I saw Katie approaching, and I was both excited and frightened. I told her that I was star-struck. She told me that now we were friends. I didnt believe her, but I was thrilled that we talked. Then Stephen Mitchell (Katies husband) came over, and I talked with him about his book The Gospel According to Jesus. It was like going to Disneyland.I signed up to attend Katies two-day June intensive in Manhattan, an hour south. I remember on the second day I noticed that certain revelations would cause participants to break out sobbing, and I made a mental note that I would not be one of them. Later, I was doing a piece of Work with a woman from Pennsylvania. She asked me a simple question. I answered, and without warning I convulsed into tears. Not a stoic trickle, but wrenching sobs. I felt not embarrassed but initiated. Finally, I had a clue! The chief gift I received from the intensive was the experience of truly listening to myself. All my life Id been a performer, wanting other people to listen to me. I deeply experienced that I was the one whom I wanted to listen. It was not the quantity of Work I did so much as the quality. If I could experience that inner quality of listening for just one question, it was more helpful than doing twenty worksheets without truly listening.Two days later, four of us gathered to do The Work at Unity. For the first time, I was able to close my eyes and just wait for the answers. I didnt care if I spent the entire allotted time waiting for one answer. And I still had the knack of going within, outside the physical presence of Katie! Immediately I applied for The School for The Work. There were many perceived obstacles to going, foremost, my wifes opposition. I could see her point. It did not seem fair to leave her with what would be a four-month-old baby to go to Los Angeles. I wrestled back and forth with the question and finally decided that it would be overwhelming for my wife to work full-time and take care of the baby alone for ten days. I emailed The School and turned down their acceptance. And I believed that I was at peace with that. One summer night, my wife, our baby, and I were meeting some friends at an outdoor concert. My wife took some things out of the car for me to carry the chairs, a cooler, and some baby accessories. I knew it was too much for me to comfortably carry but I did it anyway. Afterward, my old, sewed-up hernia ached. I had betrayed myself by not telling my wife what I knew was true for me. It occurred to me that this was just a reminder of a much bigger betrayal of myself. I sensed this, but could not grasp what it was. Sadness lingered with me into the next day. Finally, it hit me. The bigger betrayal was ignoring my strong intuition to attend The School. I told my wife that I was going, and she protested, but I sensed resignation in the protest.I could not relax for the first few days at The School. I seemed to be supplied with a continuous flow of pretexts to be nervous. When one abated, another would replace it. I told Katie, and she noted that the nervous me had plenty to be nervous about: it might well die here. From the beginning I had decided to blow my cover. I had been struggling with a physical problem that I was hesitant to reveal. But I hadnt come three thousand miles to keep secrets, so I blew my cover, again and again and again. This sharing connected me quickly and strongly with newfound friends. The honesty and intimacy we risked together was a chain reaction. It was like a turtle convention where we all got to wriggle around without our shells. Not only verbal intimacy but lots of hugs and non-sexual embraces. We were learning to ask for things. Can I have a hug? What a delight! By the third or fourth day, Id examined so many entrenched beliefs that werent really true for me, that I no longer felt nervous and uncomfortable.We were encouraged by Katie to experience different Work partners for the exercises. Without exception, each partner seemed to have been divinely selected to work with me on the matter at issue. The coincidences were bizarre. People who I had dismissed as being totally different from me turned out to be my long lost twin in a particular way. The ability to truly receive is so essential to The Work, and this theme was constantly developed. We were encouraged to spend at least one day in silence to experience what it was like only to receive and to give nothing in return. Hand-in-hand with receiving was an emphasis on experiencing the reality of earthly experience (always kinder than our thoughts). Built into The School experience is a graphic culmination of both these themes. This hands-on discovery changed the way I see this world and its inhabitants. Revealing it would not be a service to future students.Ive been amazed by how Ive been able to build on my School experience now that Im home. I feared that we were inhaling such rarefied air there (in L.A. no less!) that Id look back on it as a separate peace unrelated to my struggle at home. That has not been my experience. Through a Yahoo Group website created by one student, eighty-six alumni (and growing) are keeping in touch, sharing Work and support. Ive also been doing The Work with classmates all across the country about twice a week.Believe me, every thought I had before The School can still show up. Im completely capable of any kind of distortion, but you know, Im now also capable of freeing myself, and that is so sweet. With love, Robert M.Robert currently hosts an Inquiry Circle at the Unity Church in Norwalk, CT. You can find an Inquiry Circle near you in the Inquiry Circle database . - New Note