Inquiring Minds

I've been reading "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie and doing the inquiry process she calls "The Work," a process of investigating your thoughts with four simple questions and then a "turnaround," seeing if an opposite thought is as true or truer than the original statement. The process is remarkably simple and produces astounding insights, but as she says, it's not quick fix. It requires repeated effort. I am finding through doing this that all relationships are a mirror for what we think and feel about ourselves. It's shocking and amazing and liberating to discover. All my judgements about others contain a message I'm wanting to tell myself.

"She shouldn't criticize other writers so harshly" for me becomes "I shouldn't criticize my own writing so harshly" and also "I shouldn't criticize other writers so harshly." Illuminating. "He should do more to pursue his own happiness and not be so resigned about life" becomes "I should do more to pursue my own happiness and not be so resigned about life." Oh my god, it's true. But it's not about just doing the turnarounds, because as Byron Katie says, it's important to ask the questions first.

This morning feelings of frustration, impatience and sadness arise about my life: I'm sad that I'm alone, I don't have enough money, I'm tired of being in debt, my work is boring and unpleasant, I'm tired of the relentless pattern of my days.

"I'm alone"--is it true? Well, no, not really. Can we ever really be alone? Aren't we all intimately connected to everything? Who would I be in this moment alone in my house without the thought, "I'm sad that I'm alone"? Oh, wow, I would be enjoying the moment, sitting with the fire, writing in my journal, not making a story about poor me, I'm so alone.

"I don't have enough money"--is it true? For what? I have the amount I have. Is it enough? Well, yes, I guess it is. I'm not starving. Nothing terrible is happening in this moment. How do I react when I think the thought "I don't have enough money"? I get tense, worried, upset, frustrated, fearful. Is that helping anything? Without the thought I am able to be more fluid, responsive to life, work with the money I do have, find solutions. Doesn't it always work out somehow? So I do have enough money. Isn't that as true or truer?

"If I weren't in debt, I'd be happy"--is it true? Can I think of a time when I wasn't in debt and I was equally or more unhappy? Can I know that if I didn't have debt, things would be better, easier? No, I could actually be more poor with no debt.

I'm tired of the relentless pattern of my days." Do my days have a relentless pattern or are they actually amazingly varied? Isn't every moment utterly new and different? What's much more true is "I'm tired of the relentless pattern of my thoughts."

I'm not doing the whole process here, I'm skipping ahead, giving examples from just this morning as I woke up in a funky mood and then did the inquiry process on my thoughts. I didn't want to start, didn't want to look at what thoughts were behind the feelings of frustration and sadness, but once I did, something opened up.

Putting the thoughts up to inquiry takes discipline, and there is some resistance. It's not a quick fix, but it does help. The feelings arise again, they aren't just gone, but they lose a little power each time. I can't quite believe them with the full force of my conviction. I've seen holes in the argument.

There's a strange feeling that comes with exploding the thoughts--lightness, disorientation, as if the top of my head were coming off. Realizing that so much more is possible than my stories of reality would have me believe, that i am choosing this and can make other choices. No one's holding a gun to my head, telling me what to do. So then the tension and upset inside ease up. It doesn't seem so awful, dire, serious or even true. I am a free agent. This moment is new, instead of a repetition of the same story played over and over. "I am tired of the relentless pattern of my thoughts" is a much truer thought than the one about my days.

Letting light in to a dark, airless room, breath of fresh air--that's what inquiry does, exposing the unquestioned thoughts and assumptions. Who am i without my thoughts? Does it matter? I am free, in the flow. And then they come again, and i have another opportunity to question them and find freedom.