Modesty Can Slow your Progress
It takes courage to do The Work. It takes courage to open up your most sacred beliefs to questioning. It takes courage to expose your embarrassing, unenlightened thoughts to the light.
But it’s worth diving-in wholeheartedly in my opinion. And wholeheartedly to me means being as honest as you can when you do your work.
Here Are Three Places where Honesty Can Really Serve when Doing The Work
1. When choosing what to work
2. When writing out your Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet
3. When finding examples to your turnarounds
1. Honest when Choosing what to Work
You can literally work any stressful situation. Each time you sit down to do The Work you have a choice, “What will I work on this time?” When answering this question, it pays to be really honest with yourself.
There may be a nagging feeling inside to work on something. But you may opt to work on something else. Something easier maybe. Or something a little less scary. Or something more “important.” And your work will probably go just fine.
But sometimes that nagging feeling of what you really want to work on will distract you. Personally, I like to favor what my heart draws me to each time. I like to say, “Let the stress lead the way.”
It may be scary to follow this lead. It may not makes sense. But for me, this is where honesty pays it’s biggest dividends. This is where I end up working on what I really want to work. And this is when I put my whole heart into it.
I have a client who recently put all his cards on the table when doing The Work. Wow! Did he ever start turning things around!
2. Honest when Filling-in a Worksheet
Here’s a place where it’s easy to skim. If you’ve done The Work a few times, you may be thinking, “I don’t want to write that because it will be hard to turn around.” You may even skip writing your angry thoughts on your worksheet because you know they aren’t really true anyway.
But this step of putting your honest stressful thoughts down is essential for The Work to be of any value.
This is the time for the stressed parts of mind to have their say. The “wise” mind has been keeping them quiet with its intellectual wisdom. But identifying honest stress is the only way to get honest turnarounds.
If you are rigorously honest when you write your worksheet, then The Work can touch you. Otherwise, if you’re thinking about turnarounds, or trying to be wise when writing a worksheet, The Work remains superficial.
3. Honest when Finding Examples
One of the most powerful aspects of The Work is finding genuine examples of how the very opposite of what you believe could be as true, or truer, than what you originally wrote.
This is one place where it’s easy to try to B.S. your way through. But it is probably the most important place to resist the temptation. Examples come by asking and waiting, and looking. I would rather honestly accept the fact that I didn’t find any example for a turnaround than to try to fool myself with a fake example.
This takes time, but it is the real power of The Work for me. As soon as I find a real example of the turnaround, my mind loosens it’s grip on the original stressful thought. That, for me, is well worth the price of being honest, even if it takes some time.
Honesty is close to Truth
It is your truth. And your truth is what sets you free.
Have a great week,
Todd
“Don’t wait for the answer of anyone else, and don’t believe a word I say. Give yourself your own wisdom. You create your own suffering, and you can end it. It’s that simple.” — Byron Katie, Question Your Thinking, Change the World, p. xii.
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