My Account

Search
Close this search box.

What’s the Purpose of Questions Three and Four?

Would you eat nuts if you were allergic to them?

I Never Want to Hurt Myself

But sometimes I don’t realize what I’m doing. If I’ve got an allergy, and I’m unaware of it, I may be making myself miserable by eating what I’m allergic to.

I may even have good reasons to eat what I’m allergic to. After all, nuts are nutritious. And they taste great.

So letting go of eating nuts will never happen for me until I see my allergy. Then it happens automatically.

The Work Is About Seeing Allergies

Not allergies to nuts. But allergies to certain thoughts.

If I have a stressful reaction to a thought, I’ve probably got an “allergy.” But I have to see this clearly before I’m going to give up thinking something that I want to think.

I have good reasons to think what I think. After all, some thoughts make me feel like I’m in control. Some thoughts make me feel like I’m right. Some thoughts make me feel like I’m winning.

Letting go of those thoughts will never happen for me until I see my allergy. Then letting go happens automatically.

The Work Shows You Simple Cause and Effect

When you answer question 3 of The Work, “How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?” you get to see in living color the effect of believing a particular thought in a particular situation.

You get to see exactly how much havoc this thought is causing you. You see the effect of believing the thought on your emotions, and on your actions with others and with yourself.

And then, in question 4, “Who would you be without the thought?” you get to experience what it would feel like to be in the same situation without the thought.

This little experiment (with the thought/without the thought) allows you to see exactly what is the effect of believing the thought. It’s like testing for allergies.

And Once You See The Allergy, The Mind Starts to Open

Once you see this internal cause and effect, the mind opens to considering the opposite point of view: the turnarounds. Could the opposite of that thought be just as true, or truer?

That’s how, by exploring, and testing, the mind identifies what is causing all the pain. In this case, a thought. And once that’s clear, letting go is simple. In fact, you don’t have to let go, it happens automatically. Even those deeply ingrained thoughts like, “I want to win” fall away when I see how much pain it causes me to believe them.

The bottom line is I don’t like to hurt myself. The Work just helps me become aware of what I’m doing.

Have a great week,
Todd

“The Work is about internal cause and effect. It’s not about external things.” — Byron Katie, Question Your Thinking, Change The World, p. 140.

Get two new articles about The Work of Byron Katie every week, plus my checklist for the Judge-Your-Neighbor-Worksheet. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

If you like this article, feel free to forward the link to friends, family or colleagues. Or share the link on Facebook or other social media. If you have thoughts you’d like to share about it, please leave your comments below.

Todd Smith has been doing The Work of Byron Katie on an almost daily basis since 2007. He is just as excited about this simple process of self-inquiry today as he was when he first came across it. He also enjoys writing about The Work, and training others in the subtleties of this meditative process. Join Todd for The Work 101 online course, private sessions, virtual retreats, and his ongoing Inquiry Circle group.