“The Work” :
- A few basic principles:
- Notice when your thoughts argue with reality
- Stay in your own business (stay in the “I” rather than the “you” or “they”)
- Meet your thoughts with understand (be kind to yourself)
- Become aware of your stories that you tell yourself (they’re just stories)
- Look for the thought behind the suffering: your goal is to say, “How do I react when I have that thought that will not cause me to suffer?”
- Undoing your unhelpful judgements
- Put it all to paper
- Write your judgments down, just as you think of them
- It’s all ego, it’s ugly, it’s childish, it’s petty, and it’s okay
- Start with someone external that you haven’t totally yet forgiven – this is the most powerful place to start
- Don’t start on yourself, you need practice. Your answers will come with a motive and you’ll come up with solutions that won’t work.
- Later, explore judgments like money and work, but for now, let it be people
- The Worksheet
- Who angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you, and why? What is it about them that you don’t like?
- How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
- What is it that they should or shouldn’t do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer?
- Do you need anything from them? What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?
- What do you think of them? Make a list. Remember, be petty and judgmental.
- What is it that you don’t want to experience with that person again.
- The Work: 4 Questions and the Turnaround
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know what it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
- TURN IT AROUND: find 3 genuine examples of how the turnaround is true in your life. (He never listens to me – I never listen to him)
- You don’t have to ask the questions in that order, or in that exact way. You can really dive into the last question and ask “who would you be without that thought?” “Is there a reason to drop that thought?” “Can you find a stress-free reason to keep that thought?”
- It doesn’t matter how much you have to do this: you’re either attaching to the nightmare or investigating it. And as you investigate, you’re undoing.
- Another way to self investigate:
- Make the statement about what causes you pain.
- Is it true?
- What’s the reality?
- Rewrite the statement based off the last question.
- Can I really know that’s true?
- How do I react when I believe this thought?
- What does it feel like to believe this thought?
- How do I treat this person/myself/that thing because of this thought?
- How do I treat myself in reaction to having this thought?
- Can I see a reason to drop this thought?
- Can I find one stress-free reason to keep the thought?
- Rewritten statement turned around
- Original statement turned around.