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Do you Zoom Through Line 5 of a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet?

succulent flower
Being a photographer taught me to slow down and see the detail that I’d miss otherwise.

The Tendency Is to Speed Up at the End

If you’ve been working through a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet for a while, you may naturally start speeding up as you get to the end. So when you come to Line 5 of the worksheet, it’s natural to want to zoom through it. But I encourage you to slow it down.

Line 5 Is a List of Judgments

These are your underlying judgments of the person you’re writing about in the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet.

These are actually core beliefs, lying at the heart of your stressful story about the person in this situation. It’s worth taking time to examine them carefully.

Instead, What Many People Do Is To Breeze Through Them

For example, If my Line 5 is, “He is uncaring, insensitive, out of line, a bully,” I might be tempted to just turn the whole line around to myself and be done.

I might say, “I’m uncaring, insensitive, out of line, a bully.” Maybe I find a few examples of these. Maybe I don’t. Then I move to Line 6.

But Here’s What I Miss

If I just do the turnarounds to myself, I miss the turnarounds to the opposite, “He is caring, sensitive, not out of line, not a bully.”

And if I move too fast, then I don’t really challenge my beliefs. My focus instead has shifted to being done with the worksheet, instead of on doing my inquiry.

Here’s How I Like to Do Line 5

I start with the first judgment, “He is uncaring,” and I go through all four questions starting with “Is it true?”
Then I find the turnaround to the self and find a few examples, then the turnaround to the opposite and find a few examples, and maybe even find the yahoo turnaround and find a few examples. Then I move to the next judgment, “He is insensitive,” and do the same thing.

But I Make One Exception

When I ask myself, “He is uncaring, is that true?” if I find it is a very clear no based on my previous work in this worksheet, then I skip the four questions and go straight to turnarounds. And sometimes, if it’s really clear, I just find one example for each turnaround. But this is only when it’s clear that I’m just not believing my story anymore.

If I’m still kind of believing that “he is uncaring,” then I slow it down and go through all four questions and find all the turnarounds and examples.

Have a great weekend,
Todd

“If you answer the questions superficially with the thinking mind, the process will leave you feeling disconnected. Try asking the question and going deeper. You may have to ask the question a few times to stay focused, but as you practice this, an answer will slowly arise. When the answer comes from inside you, the realizations and shifts follow naturally.” Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy

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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.