The Work
Based on Byron Katie's direct experience of how suffering is created and ended, her method of self-inquiry, called The Work, is an astonishingly simple process, accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, and requires nothing more than a pen and paper and an open mind. Through this process, anyone can learn to trace unhappiness to its source and eliminate it there. Katie not only shows that all the problems in the world originate in our thinking: she gives the tool to open our minds and set ourselves free.
The Work is based on four questions and a process called a "turnaround".
The four questions are:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
Her method can be done either by oneself or with another person.
When engaging in her method, first one identifies a belief or thought related to a topic that causes anxiety or unhappiness. Initially one is encouraged to choose something which feels important, which annoys or troubles you, that someone else does or did: for example "My mother never loved me," or "Tom shouldn't expect me to solve his problems." With each thing, one then asks himself or is asked each of the four questions listed above. When alone, one writes down their response, and with another person one speaks their answers aloud.
After the four questions, the thought is literally turned around to its opposite. For example: "My mother never loved me" turns around to "My mother always loved me," Then one sees if they can find ways that this new thought is equally true, or more true, than the original thought.
The turnaround also takes the form of turning the statement around to oneself: "I never loved my mother," or "I never loved myself."
Katie summarizes The Work as: "Judge your neighbor, write it down. Ask four questions, turn it around."
Katie has taught this technique for exploring painful beliefs across many topics including relationships, parenting, illness, death and trauma. She has facilitated the work with audiences in widely varying situations, from ordinary people dealing with financial worries to prison inmates and returning war veterans.
Her work is also described as presenting a view of nondualism.