“We don’t attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.”
― Byron Katie, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
Our beliefs show up in many different forms. At times, they arrive like bolts of lightning, triggered by a person, an environment or an event. They catapult us into action, before we barely have a chance to consider if we are embarking on the right course of action. At other times, they lurk stealthily in the shadows of our minds influencing our thinking and decision-making. Beliefs are powerful drivers of the engine of our lives. When we bring our beliefs fully into our awareness and consciousness, and examine their truth, we create an opportunity to be sure that we are driven by thoughts that truly serve us.
Speaker and author, Byron Katie, offers a simple framework of four questions, known as “The Work”, for challenging the beliefs that may be dominating and controlling our lives:
- “Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without that thought?”
Four simple questions that open the door to creating a personal template for living based on objectively unearthing what is really true and creating an authentic pathway for change. Try these questions with the following examples or choose your own:
- I am no good at my work.
- I don’t exercise, because I have no discipline.
These simple, powerful questions kindle the possibility and ignite the freedom to explore, in the words of the poet, Mary Oliver:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
