04.27.07
The Work
I’ve been reading a new book by Byron Katie called A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony With the Way Things Are. It’s an amazing book about coming to know and accept what is in the present moment. Reading it has been challenging for me–she’s responding to the Tao Te Ching and her experience of life is so foreign to me that each chapter takes a while to sink in. 
I read a little bit, and then I wait a day or two and notice that what it said is popping into my brain in various situations. Then I know that I need to continue. I love that this book came into my life now because it’s all about a way to change our stories (and if you’ve read even half of the posts I’ve made on this blog since January, you know how much I love the idea of changing our stories!)
The power of her book comes from a process of questioning that she calls The Work or inquiry. Through this process, we pick out thoughts (i.e. stories) that cause us stress or pain and take a look at these thoughts one by one to investigate if what we’ve been telling ourselves is really true. If you approach this process with an open heart and really go inside yourself to answer the questions as fully as you can, it is extremely powerful work. I invite you to go read about this process on her website and then watch the videos (in the right hand sidebar) to see it in action so you have a better understanding of how to approach the inquiry process. I wasn’t really sure until I saw those videos and then it just blew me away.
I find myself thinking, “Is that true?” naturally when thoughts pop into my head since I began reading her book and thinking about this process. Just that moment of questioning is powerful. It has made me a more conscious and deliberate person. This inquiry fits in so nicely with the questions I posed at the end of my last post. If you read those questions and are having a hard time investigating them, this may be a good way for you to get at them.
Registered members of the Uncover Your Bliss Community can discuss this book and/or The Work here.
