The Work

I haven't spent a lot of time in psychological/counseling circles and sometimes the phrases that are thrown around sound foreign to me. One such phrase is "doing your work." I kept hearing it and in context it began to make sense but I'm a nerd and decided to research it.

Doing your work is about taking responsibility for your own actions and reactions.  Often we find ourselves in situations where we blame circumstances or other people for how we feel, think, and act.  We begin our work by recognizing unhealthy patterns and triggers, then work to uncover our feelings and reactions, and finally discover ways to break the unhealthy patterns.

Someone suggested that my husband read a book about "the work" and so he bought it.  And like many other books, I read it first.

The book Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie is not a typical read.  It has a general introduction to the concept of self-discovery that she calls "the work" and the rest of the book is a collection of stories about people doing "the work" along with some suggestions.  Katie is a little too new-agey for me but the general concepts are helpful.

So what is "the work"?  She asks you to isolate one distressing thought and ask yourself four questions.

1.  Is it true?
2.  Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3.  How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4.  Who would you be without that thought?

Then she asks you to turn the thought around.  Is the opposite as true or truer than the original thought?  Katie's example is about her husband - "My husband doesn't listen to me."  Possible turnarounds could be: "I don't listen to my husband." or "I don't listen to myself." or "My husband does listen to me."  If the original statement starts with "I never want...", then turn around may start with phrases such as: "I am willing to..." or "I look forward to..."

The point of "the work" is to find peace.  It helps you to let go of distressing thoughts that you are holding onto.  As a Christian, I believe the basic concept of "the work" is Biblical. "Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." (Philippians 4:8)  I don't buy into all of her philosophy about life and love.  However, I think the book has some helpful content for working through distressing thoughts.

I have a lot of distressing thoughts.  Most of them are the same over and over or slight variations on a theme.  My number one distressing thought is about my appearance: "I am fat and unattractive." or some variation of that.  My second most common distressing thought is about my marriage: "I am not enough for him." or "One day I will not be enough for him and he will leave me." or something similar.  It is really hard to let these thoughts go even though I know I would be happier person without them.  Obviously, I still have a lot of work to do.