Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's a dream or not. When
Speaker 1: we're believing it, it's real. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest today
Speaker 1: is Byron Kathleen Mitchell, better known as Byron Katie, an
Speaker 1: American speaker and author who teaches a method of self
Speaker 1: inquiry known as the Work of Byron Katie or simply
Speaker 1: as the Work. She is married to writer and translator
Speaker 1: Steven Mitchell. Byron is the founder of Byron Katie International
Speaker 1: or b k I, an organization that includes the school
Speaker 1: for the work and turnaround house in California. Here's the interview.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: say a little bit more about the one on one
Speaker 1: work that I'm doing. If you're the kind of person
Speaker 1: who says things like I'm just not a motivated person
Speaker 1: or I always start things and never finish, then sending
Speaker 1: an email to Eric at one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: and let's talk about it, because that's not the kind
Speaker 1: of person you are. That's just to behave usually been doing. Thanks, Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. Good to be here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to get you on. I've I've heard, I've had,
Speaker 1: interestingly a bunch of listeners who have suggested you as
Speaker 1: a guest many times. So I thought, it's finally time.
Speaker 1: Let's uh, let's do it. So I'm glad you were
Speaker 1: able to find the time. Well, that was easy to do.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the good that you do on this program
Speaker 1: and it's my privilege to contribute in any way. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. So we'll start the show off like I
Speaker 1: always do, with the parable of the two Wolves, and
Speaker 1: I'll then ask you kind of what that means to you.
Speaker 1: So there's the parable of two wolves, where there's a
Speaker 1: grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops,
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second. He looks at
Speaker 1: his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to ask you how that parable applies to you
Speaker 1: in your life and in the work that you do. Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's the one we feed, if it's the
Speaker 1: if it's the terrible one, and to my um way
Speaker 1: of thinking, it's equally as good as the other one.
Speaker 1: And here's what I mean by that. I use that
Speaker 1: as it's like I identified that as the very thing
Speaker 1: that I need to move in front of me to question.
Speaker 1: I need to question anything that would oppose what is
Speaker 1: good interesting. So it shows me the stumbling block. It
Speaker 1: shows me why I'm in a bad mood. It shows
Speaker 1: me why I'm depressed, It shows me why my um.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's a thinking disorder. So now that it's identified,
Speaker 1: like maybe I had the thought she doesn't care about me,
Speaker 1: she never liked me, and then I get, you know,
Speaker 1: wrapped up in this and maybe it's even a family member.
Speaker 1: But there's a there's a lot of around that happening,
Speaker 1: let's say, So the emotions wake me up to I'm on,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm wolfing. I'm I'm wolfing out of
Speaker 1: out of a direction that is going to go anywhere
Speaker 1: other than depression or stress. So now that it's identified,
Speaker 1: I can question using this inquiry that that um that
Speaker 1: is my life to offer to people. So I questioned it,
Speaker 1: and the next time that wolf arrives, I see it.
Speaker 1: It's laughable if I notice it at all, because I'm
Speaker 1: awake to what is true and what is not. And
Speaker 1: it leaves me in the position of life with this
Speaker 1: other wolf, the wolf, where the decisions I make are
Speaker 1: effortlessly good for me, good for you, you know, good
Speaker 1: for for my family, good for the world. Great. So
Speaker 1: let's let's jump into the work, which is actually what
Speaker 1: you're I'm not using that term generically, that's what you
Speaker 1: call what you do the work, and it's a you know,
Speaker 1: if I was to sum it up really briefly, it's
Speaker 1: a method of questioning our own thoughts to determine whether
Speaker 1: they're real or not. So can you kind of can
Speaker 1: we just start walking through how you know what that
Speaker 1: what that four step process looks like. Yes, let's let's
Speaker 1: say I had the thought she doesn't care about me?
Speaker 1: And then and I don't even know I'm having it.
Speaker 1: This is just real life. I'm just really sure of it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't care about me. Now the stress I'm experiencing,
Speaker 1: or the resentment or whatever, I'm going to feel it.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm just doing the dishes and this is
Speaker 1: all happening while I'm doing the dishes. So she doesn't
Speaker 1: care about me, and so I feel the stress. So
Speaker 1: now I'm going to question it she doesn't care about me?
Speaker 1: The first question is is it true? The second question
Speaker 1: is can I absolutely know that it's true? She doesn't
Speaker 1: care about me? And then the third question is how
Speaker 1: do I react? What happened the moment I believed that
Speaker 1: thought and I noticed I was doing my dishes and
Speaker 1: I was loving what is and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: that story hit me. Now, I'm not even in the room.
Speaker 1: I'm in the pastor future. I'm not even where I
Speaker 1: really am. So then I notice what happened when I
Speaker 1: believe the thought. And then the fourth question and the
Speaker 1: last question is who would I be without the thought?
Speaker 1: She doesn't care about me? And then that takes me
Speaker 1: back too, where I really am woman doing the dishes,
Speaker 1: looking out through the window at the sky and the trees,
Speaker 1: or at my next door neighbor, or you know, I'm present.
Speaker 1: And then I invite people to turn it around to
Speaker 1: find opposite. She doesn't care about me. When I find
Speaker 1: an opposite, she does care about me. So now I
Speaker 1: begin to notice what does that mean to me? She
Speaker 1: does care about me? And I begin to contemplate that
Speaker 1: and experience that and those moments when she was carrying
Speaker 1: and get into some of that reality. And it's not
Speaker 1: to change my mind, it's just to notice that, you know.
Speaker 1: It takes me back to a balance. And then another turnaround.
Speaker 1: I don't care about her, So I look at those situations.
Speaker 1: Where is it that I wasn't caring about her? Where
Speaker 1: is it that I said or did something that was unkind?
Speaker 1: And I just noticed that, And I just noticed it
Speaker 1: as I'm doing the dishes, and then there's another turnaround.
Speaker 1: The original is she doesn't care about me. Another turnaround
Speaker 1: is I don't care about me. Well, in that moment,
Speaker 1: where is it I wasn't caring about myself in that
Speaker 1: moment with her, And in the moment of doing the dishes,
Speaker 1: where is it that I wasn't caring about myself? Well,
Speaker 1: it's not kind to throw me into to throw myself
Speaker 1: into a state of stress and resentment when I'm simply
Speaker 1: doing the dishes and this wonderful moment. Now, this really
Speaker 1: the state of grace. And basically it leaves me to
Speaker 1: educate myself to what I'm believing. Einstein said, an unquestioned
Speaker 1: mind is an unquestioned life is not worth living. And
Speaker 1: I've Socrates, go ahead, thank you for that. And I've
Speaker 1: come to see that it's, you know, in in my experience,
Speaker 1: completely true. It is to believe what we think is
Speaker 1: is um the cause of all war. You know, prior
Speaker 1: to investigation, we can we can, we can be you know,
Speaker 1: we're wiser than that. And when we question what we believe,
Speaker 1: what's left is that wisdom, you know, the other wolf.
Speaker 1: I call it our true nature. And so how does
Speaker 1: how do we use that? Like that example makes sense
Speaker 1: because I might be totally making up that story, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: she doesn't, could be just someone that's something someone told me,
Speaker 1: even that I believed. What about situations I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of. Let me, I'm trying to think of something
Speaker 1: we could play with. It might be a little bit
Speaker 1: more challenging. Um, I heard part of something that was
Speaker 1: on your podcast and um it got cut off. I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened, but you were talking with a
Speaker 1: woman who had lost her daughter. Because if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: where I always go with these things as I go?
Speaker 1: Well that works for you know, Yeah, I came home
Speaker 1: from work and I misinterpreted my wife's glance. Right. But
Speaker 1: but then I go to but does it? How does
Speaker 1: it work on you know, more intense things? And I
Speaker 1: would have loved to hear the end of that conversation
Speaker 1: with her. On one hand, I agree very much that
Speaker 1: like how we feel is very much the product of
Speaker 1: our thoughts. Um, but I don't know, like you know,
Speaker 1: like if you lose somebody is is grieving a is
Speaker 1: that an inappropriate response? Is that it's not inappropriate at all?
Speaker 1: It is this. This seems radical, but I've really tested
Speaker 1: it and and come to understand that there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with grief. It's just that I've come to understand that
Speaker 1: grief is the effect of what I'm thinking and believing
Speaker 1: in the moment. So it's a it's an egoic state,
Speaker 1: no matter how loving and kind we um we see
Speaker 1: grief to be. So ultimately, is that sort of pointing
Speaker 1: at that idea of we are not these individual selves
Speaker 1: that we think we are. Well, yes, yes on on
Speaker 1: one hand or on both And but you know, if
Speaker 1: I'm grieving, Uh, if someone I love dies and I'm
Speaker 1: grieving and I get and I really explore that, I
Speaker 1: come to see that it's all about me, they won't
Speaker 1: be here for me. And so I am just this
Speaker 1: puddle of egoic tears getting sympathy from everyone I know
Speaker 1: if they really care about me, if they're really sensitive.
Speaker 1: So this egoic thing is being is being nurtured by
Speaker 1: the people around me because we really don't know how,
Speaker 1: you know, what to do with it other than that.
Speaker 1: So it's really as a kind act. But through this exploration,
Speaker 1: you know, question my thoughts um in these moments of grief,
Speaker 1: and I've come to see that that, um, it's all
Speaker 1: about me, and that stops me from being there for
Speaker 1: other people who are still frightened of death. That stops
Speaker 1: you from being there for them in what way to
Speaker 1: comfort them, to listen to them, to feed them, to
Speaker 1: clean their house, to serve in any possible way that
Speaker 1: I can. And you know, there when people it's for
Speaker 1: me it's a dream, and I know the pain of
Speaker 1: that and the sorrow of that. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: it's a dream or not. When we're believing it, it's real.
Speaker 1: And just because we get clear doesn't mean we get stupid.
Speaker 1: You know, our our nature is to serve and to
Speaker 1: love and to be there no matter what, unconditionally. I mean,
Speaker 1: what would stop me but fear right. And I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting we had, um, we had a guest on earlier.
Speaker 1: We were talking about that idea of when you have
Speaker 1: you have a transcendental view, or that that idea of
Speaker 1: duality falls away and you you sort of see the
Speaker 1: world as as this thing as you know, maybe a
Speaker 1: dream or whatever you would call it. And what he
Speaker 1: was talking about is how on one hand that experiences
Speaker 1: everything and then on the other hand, you still live
Speaker 1: most of your time in what does appear to be,
Speaker 1: you know, in in the world that most of us experience,
Speaker 1: and and is your belief that by doing the work
Speaker 1: consistently you see that other world more often. I can
Speaker 1: never see the world. I see the world as I
Speaker 1: imagine it to be. And and so you know, if
Speaker 1: you had a dream Eric where it was you were
Speaker 1: asleep at night and you were dreaming, and you were
Speaker 1: so awake to it, you were actually navigating through it,
Speaker 1: you understood it. And then there are some dreams that
Speaker 1: you have no control in and you're really happy you
Speaker 1: woke up, and or there are some really pleasant dreams
Speaker 1: that you didn't navigate in and you're just happy that
Speaker 1: it was a sweet dream. Mh. Well, in my experience
Speaker 1: living out of this question mind, I'm always in the dream,
Speaker 1: and I'm always navigating sweetly through it. There's no little
Speaker 1: blip or and and let's say there is like this
Speaker 1: major blip or just a little one in other words,
Speaker 1: unhappiness or fear, any any of that. I just identify
Speaker 1: what it is. I put it on a judge of
Speaker 1: Neighbor worksheet. Those are always free on the work dot
Speaker 1: com and then I question what I was believing in
Speaker 1: that situation, and I set myself free. And I don't
Speaker 1: do it to set myself free. I do it because
Speaker 1: I want to understand what's true and what's not, what
Speaker 1: is real and what isn't. I have I have a
Speaker 1: right to that as a as a loving, caring human being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are some of the main obstacles that would stop
Speaker 1: people from getting benefit out of doing the work or
Speaker 1: getting the full benefit out of it? Well, the one
Speaker 1: that comes to mind is is really un is your
Speaker 1: mind open to it or not? And so if if
Speaker 1: my mind weren't open to it, there's it's that's a
Speaker 1: dead end. But my mind, if my mind is open
Speaker 1: to the questions, then um, every time, it's like it's
Speaker 1: like magic. It's like a miracle, it's like the secret
Speaker 1: to life. It's just it's just all there. It's all there,
Speaker 1: a few minders and it's just a matter of authentically
Speaker 1: answering four questions. Do you find that the work is
Speaker 1: still useful with varying degrees of open mindedness? That's not
Speaker 1: a bad thing, you know, it's not allowing yourself to
Speaker 1: be fooled. And I, you know, I have that same.
Speaker 1: I'm a skeptic, so say I was saying, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not willing you know, I'm not quite at the place
Speaker 1: where I believe that everything is a dream. But I
Speaker 1: do believe that a lot of the thoughts that I
Speaker 1: have about what's going on in my life and around
Speaker 1: me are thoughts that are um either a not true
Speaker 1: or be probably caused me and the people around me
Speaker 1: a lot of pain. It seems like there's still a
Speaker 1: lot of benefit in this more formal method of interrogating
Speaker 1: my thoughts. It's a very powerful thing. Just four questions
Speaker 1: and then um, just being open to opposites and done.
Speaker 1: You had a quote that I thought was an interesting
Speaker 1: one where in one of your talks you said something
Speaker 1: to the extent of that, you know, all guilt is suffering.
Speaker 1: And I thought about that for a minute, and then
Speaker 1: I thought, but I also, isn't guilt sometimes a way
Speaker 1: of knowing that a thought that's useful to us in
Speaker 1: understanding that maybe we're not living according to the things
Speaker 1: we value. And so how do how do those two
Speaker 1: how do those two coincide in your mind? If I'm
Speaker 1: feeling guilty on it's like an like in in to
Speaker 1: my way of thinking. It's like an ancient, ancient, ancient,
Speaker 1: on mechanical way of of pushing myself to be good, okay,
Speaker 1: and it it hurts. And if I question what I'm believing,
Speaker 1: I find myself just doing good. In other words, I
Speaker 1: began to question what I was believing, question my thoughts,
Speaker 1: and smoking, quit me, anger, quit me. It's just the
Speaker 1: effect of right mind. So I saw clearly that guilt
Speaker 1: isn't necessary, that there is another way, but it is
Speaker 1: necessary until we find until we find another way. So
Speaker 1: in that case, I'm feeling guilty about something, and I
Speaker 1: can say, all right, I feel guilty because I did X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z, and then the question is is that true? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: in that case, I would just get very still, and
Speaker 1: I'd noticed the situation. I'm feeling guilty over maybe someone
Speaker 1: hurt me, and and I lashed out because it wasn't fair,
Speaker 1: it wasn't right, and I lashed out. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether I was right or wrong. When I lash
Speaker 1: out at another human being, then I am going to
Speaker 1: feel guilt cause and effect. Okay, So I lash out
Speaker 1: of another human being, I feel that guilt. So I
Speaker 1: go to that situation and I identify on a Judge
Speaker 1: of Neighbor worksheet what I was thinking and believing in
Speaker 1: that situation. So when I question those thoughts on the
Speaker 1: Judge of Neighbor worksheet, it changes everything, radically changes everything.
Speaker 1: So the Judge your Neighbor Worksheet, which is a great
Speaker 1: title by the way, it's both funny and and uh
Speaker 1: interested at the same time. So that's a little bit
Speaker 1: different than do I do I write down what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking and believing and then run that through the four questions.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of how that works? Is that a
Speaker 1: slightly separate process. That's one way of doing it. But
Speaker 1: you question that, and then you have all these other
Speaker 1: things you were believing on top of it. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: let's say they're below it because you're clear about what
Speaker 1: you quest and and then this, there's this I call
Speaker 1: it the underworld. So you have this whole underworld. So
Speaker 1: you realize your error. Here you've done one concept and
Speaker 1: this whole thing, this underworld here will override that wisdom
Speaker 1: that you got in touch with. But on the Judge
Speaker 1: your Neighbor worksheet, you have the whole story. You have
Speaker 1: the thing you were going to question, and you have
Speaker 1: all the thoughts that we're holding it up, keeping it
Speaker 1: in place, and so then we start working through potentially
Speaker 1: each of those thoughts individually. Is this thought true? You know?
Speaker 1: I do? I know it's true? Uh huh? And how
Speaker 1: do you react when you believe the thought? To me,
Speaker 1: it seems to boil down to I believe in questioning
Speaker 1: our thoughts, it's very important. And this is just a
Speaker 1: very formal method al I mean maybe very formal is
Speaker 1: the wrong word, but a structured methodology in which to
Speaker 1: do that, so that I kind of it leads me
Speaker 1: around those thoughts kind of on all angles eventually see
Speaker 1: all the various things that are there. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: I refer to it as checkmate. It's un it's all there,
Speaker 1: it's all there, it's all there. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: rap for the mind, nothing missing, and it's um. It's
Speaker 1: so simple. Anyone can do it if their mind is
Speaker 1: open to it. And it's not something anyone has to do.
Speaker 1: You know, to be alone with ourselves is not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to do, and it's it's kind of new.
Speaker 1: And we're coming through it through um through mindfulness practice
Speaker 1: and the practice of of getting still. And for me
Speaker 1: to get still in one of these questions. You might
Speaker 1: contemplate that for three or four days, just that one question,
Speaker 1: and just you know, walk around with it, and notice
Speaker 1: how I react when I believe the thought, and then
Speaker 1: consider that conversation, and then other conversations will come in,
Speaker 1: maybe converse stations where someone thought you could do better
Speaker 1: at school, but you're just is it true? Experiencing is
Speaker 1: it true? So it's not um and then and then
Speaker 1: noticing how you react when you believe the thought over
Speaker 1: period a week, a month. You know, there's no hurry here.
Speaker 1: Suffering is suffering until it's not. There's no shortage of it,
Speaker 1: no shortage, so we proceed through it. Right, So the
Speaker 1: first question is is it true? And if I contemplate
Speaker 1: that for a while and I go, yeah, I do
Speaker 1: think that's true, then I'm onto I sort of question again,
Speaker 1: how do I really know? You know? Am I absolutely sure? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And then if the answer is still yes, that's okay. Right,
Speaker 1: you just moved to the third question. Notice how you
Speaker 1: react when you believe that thought in that situation and
Speaker 1: that was troublesome for you? And then the fourth question,
Speaker 1: who would you be in that same situation without the thought?
Speaker 1: And then you just witness yourself and that other person
Speaker 1: or those people you just witness without the thought, and
Speaker 1: it's amazing to see yourself in that position. Compassion replaces frustration,
Speaker 1: anything that throws us off balance. And then the turnarounds
Speaker 1: are there. Set turnarounds. So one of them was, um,
Speaker 1: you know, if I say he's not doing well enough.
Speaker 1: The other one would be he is doing well enough, yes,
Speaker 1: And then you contemplate what does that mean to you.
Speaker 1: Then you'll have a list, maybe just one thing on
Speaker 1: the list, maybe five or six things on the list,
Speaker 1: but then you can have a conversation with them, you know,
Speaker 1: on sweetheart, I had the thought you weren't doing well
Speaker 1: enough in school, and then I've got a list here
Speaker 1: where you are doing well enough in school. And I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about the areas that I've missed your
Speaker 1: personal experience where you really feel you're doing well enough
Speaker 1: in school. And this is where the our children enlighten us.
Speaker 1: And if we're doing it not on one of our children,
Speaker 1: but on a friend or someone we even perceived as
Speaker 1: an enemy, it all starts shifting. We see it so
Speaker 1: differently because we're being informed. We've got information that we
Speaker 1: have been overlooking or actually didn't have. So our children
Speaker 1: are are there. Really, When they trust us, they'll start
Speaker 1: giving us pieces of their life that we had no
Speaker 1: way of of of understanding or even knowing that that
Speaker 1: they were doing that. Well, they'll give us a list
Speaker 1: if they trust us. And so this isn't a This
Speaker 1: isn't an exercise and positive thinking. This is an exercise
Speaker 1: and understanding what I really deeply believe and how those
Speaker 1: beliefs are influencing the way I see an act in
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, this is the real deal. We cannot
Speaker 1: fool ourselves, and we know no matter how we try
Speaker 1: to convince ourselves something that's true. Stress guilt, let's us
Speaker 1: know that we're out of our integrity and that's not Again,
Speaker 1: that's not right or wrong. It's just how the mind
Speaker 1: works and how the body mirrors set back. Here's a
Speaker 1: question for you that listeners of the show will know.
Speaker 1: I offer often. I'm just interested in seeing it through
Speaker 1: the lens that you have. So we talked about we
Speaker 1: have an emotion, right, and there seems to be a
Speaker 1: couple of responses to that. One response is to kind
Speaker 1: of roll around in it and live in it and
Speaker 1: feel sorry for ourselves and just really feel all of
Speaker 1: it um. And then the other is to sort of
Speaker 1: just try and find some way to make it go away,
Speaker 1: whether we simply um, whether we drown it in say
Speaker 1: a very overt way like alcohol, or we repress it
Speaker 1: in some other way which says like, oh, all is
Speaker 1: well with the world. Everything happens for a reason, you know,
Speaker 1: and which is sort of you know, there's still there's
Speaker 1: still a repression element there. How would you answer that question?
Speaker 1: How do you find the right balance there? When I
Speaker 1: experience emotions, let's say the ones you describe and as
Speaker 1: I as I understood it. So I experienced those emotions,
Speaker 1: and I want to honor those emotions. I don't want them.
Speaker 1: I don't want to addict them away, in other words, chocolate,
Speaker 1: cake them away, smoke them away, alcohol them it's it's
Speaker 1: it shifts the focus, but the problem is still there
Speaker 1: and and and that's the cause, is what I'm thinking
Speaker 1: and believing in the moment, that it's what brings on
Speaker 1: the stress. So I opened my mind and experience to
Speaker 1: the emotions and feel them as I contemplate that moment
Speaker 1: in time and identify what I was thinking and believing
Speaker 1: and then I write it on paper because my mind
Speaker 1: will talk me out of it later. So I I
Speaker 1: put those identified thoughts down and then I question them,
Speaker 1: and I can take all the time in the world
Speaker 1: to question them. And I have amazing certified facilitators there
Speaker 1: their experience. They have really done their work, and they're
Speaker 1: on the work dot com as well. But how to
Speaker 1: do the work is from start to finish is free
Speaker 1: at the work dot Com. And it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: the suffering in my life was so great I just
Speaker 1: kind of it became so great that I just kind
Speaker 1: of popped out of it. And in that moment in time,
Speaker 1: I saw that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered,
Speaker 1: but when I questioned them, I didn't suffer. And I've
Speaker 1: come to see that this is true for every human being.
Speaker 1: So you know, it belongs to everyone, and there it is,
Speaker 1: and we don't have to use it. It's just one
Speaker 1: of the many amazing things we have in the world
Speaker 1: today to find peace. Are there times that doing the
Speaker 1: work makes sense and other times where maybe it's not
Speaker 1: the right time to do it. And where I'm kind
Speaker 1: of going with that is it's easy. Sometimes I'll find
Speaker 1: myself and you know, I know a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: get into this where you know, the term is rumination. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck in this thought pattern. And on one hand,
Speaker 1: it seems like the work is a great way to
Speaker 1: break that thought pattern by i'm i'm, I'm interrupting it.
Speaker 1: Are there times where you're just you're just too far
Speaker 1: down in the in the swirl that it's better to
Speaker 1: get out of the swirl and then approach the work
Speaker 1: from a clearer place. Sure, yeah, it's just you know,
Speaker 1: we just wait until we can just get through it
Speaker 1: enough to go back and take a take another look
Speaker 1: at it and filling that judge of Neighbor worksheet. But
Speaker 1: you know when when when I believe my thoughts, they
Speaker 1: I strike out at me or you, and then I
Speaker 1: feel guilty about that. And let's say I strike out
Speaker 1: at you. My mind just tears you to shreds. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you're on the other side of the
Speaker 1: world distance wise, business over here, and I'm just attacking you.
Speaker 1: And then when the mind, the ego has done all
Speaker 1: it can do in that attack, it's got to stay
Speaker 1: identified as as I am, I am right, I am okay,
Speaker 1: So then it comes back and attacks me for attacking you.
Speaker 1: And then the addiction happens because it's gone as far
Speaker 1: as it can in both directions, let's say, and then
Speaker 1: it sees an image of that chocolate cake or that
Speaker 1: that drink, whatever it is. It sees an image. And
Speaker 1: and if you think of a lemon right now, like
Speaker 1: biting into like right now, imagine biting into a big,
Speaker 1: juicy lemon, and notice what happened physically, So you felt
Speaker 1: it and and it actually shifted the experience in your mouth,
Speaker 1: your body physically, and you didn't eat a limit, you
Speaker 1: didn't bite into it. So that's the power of mind.
Speaker 1: So for an alcoholic, if they see an image like
Speaker 1: I've attacked you, then I attacked me for attacking you,
Speaker 1: the mind has gone as far as it could. The
Speaker 1: lemon appears, in other words, the glass of alcohol. And
Speaker 1: if I'm an alcoholic, I just had my first drink
Speaker 1: because the effect is just like the lemon. Ye, So
Speaker 1: now I've had the first drink, and it shows me
Speaker 1: where the drink is. I saw it. It's in the cupboard,
Speaker 1: or it's in the refrigerator, or it's in the in
Speaker 1: the market. I saw where it is, and I saw
Speaker 1: me going there boom, just like that. In my mind's eye,
Speaker 1: it was all there. It's how I react when I
Speaker 1: believe that thought, when the mind starts attacking. Then we
Speaker 1: live it out in the world where at that point
Speaker 1: where really we really are sleep walking, and it's a
Speaker 1: hard it can be, it's a oh my goodness, it's
Speaker 1: a rough way to go. And and it's the same thing,
Speaker 1: the same it's the same way strike out of our children.
Speaker 1: It's how we react when we believe the thought or
Speaker 1: our spouse or you know, the people we love most
Speaker 1: in the world. Well, Katie, this has been very helpful.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time. I'll have links
Speaker 1: in the show notes to uh. It's easy to remember
Speaker 1: though the work dot com and our listeners can go
Speaker 1: out and take a look at all that if they're
Speaker 1: if they're interested. Is there any last thing you'd want
Speaker 1: to say as we kind of wrap up, Oh, just
Speaker 1: gratitude and on and that's suffering is optional, and that
Speaker 1: what we believe our thoughts, we suffer and when we
Speaker 1: question them, we don't. That brings me to another question.
Speaker 1: So we're not quite done. I've been making the distinction
Speaker 1: and I think I've learned it probably from some Buddhist
Speaker 1: tradition between pain and suffering. So pain is I break
Speaker 1: my arm and it hurts, and that's just you know,
Speaker 1: it hurts. But the suffering is what I layer on
Speaker 1: top of that, what I tell myself about, oh I'll
Speaker 1: never be able to you know, throw a ball right,
Speaker 1: or I'm such an idiot because I did that. Is that.
Speaker 1: What you're getting at here, too, is that there's certain
Speaker 1: pain that is that we is not going away. It's
Speaker 1: just that we minimize the suffering that we put on topic. Well,
Speaker 1: when you take care of the suffering. I worked with
Speaker 1: a woman yesterday on on a live webcam. She was
Speaker 1: in pain constantly, constantly, so we questioned it and she
Speaker 1: was not in paying constantly. And then I got on
Speaker 1: an email from her following that that she's just amazed
Speaker 1: at the freedom she's got. She thought she was in
Speaker 1: paying constantly and she's laughing about it now. But that's
Speaker 1: like the limit again, when we believe it, it it is excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you again for taking the time. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: This has been a fun conversation. Thank you for UM
Speaker 1: for being with so many people on supporting them in
Speaker 1: life's worth living. It's important, all right. Thank you, take care,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Eric, you too. You can learn more about
Speaker 1: this podcast and Byron Katie at one you feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash Katie