What is The Work of Byron Katie?

The Work of Byron Katie is a simple, powerful practice of self-inquiry — a way of meeting the thoughts that cause us suffering and seeing, for ourselves, whether they are true.

It is four questions and a turnaround. You begin with a single stressful thought — my partner doesn't listen to me; I am not enough; they should have known better — and you write it down. Then you sit with it, and you ask four questions.

1. 01

   Is it true?

2. 02

   Can you absolutely know that it's true?

3. 03

   How do you react — what happens — when you believe that thought?

4. 04

   Who would you be without the thought?

Then you turn the thought around — finding its opposite, and other ways the original story could be reversed — and look for where each turnaround is as true, or truer, than the original. That is the whole practice. It is gentle. It is rigorous. And it changes things.

The Work was developed by Byron Katie, who came to it through her own experience in 1986 — discovering, as she has described it, that when she believed her thoughts she suffered, and when she questioned them she did not. What she found was not a doctrine to adopt but a method anyone can use.

So it asks nothing of your faith and contradicts none of it. It is not therapy, not positive thinking, not affirmations, and not a way to force a thought to change. It is inquiry — a quiet, honest look at what you are already thinking.

And it is free. Anyone can do The Work alone, with pen and paper. The Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet and the questions are always free at thework.com.

If you'd like a Certified Facilitator to support you while you look — someone to ask the questions and hold the space so you can simply answer — that is what I offer. You can read about what a session is like, or send me a note.