A Focal Point Is Very Powerful
Because it allows the mind to go deeply in one direction. When there is a focal point in artwork, you feel drawn into the painting, or photograph, or music. When there is focus in writing, you want follow the author as they go deeply into what they are writing.
A focal point brings unity, coherence, and power to any creative work.
And a Focal Point Brings Power to The Work of Byron Katie as Well
When you are identifying stressful thoughts to question, you can go anywhere as you notice what thoughts are troubling you. There is complete freedom to explore.
But once you find something, there is also value in going deeply into that one point and finding everything that relates to it.
This Is The Value of Writing a Really Focused Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet
The Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet (JYNW) is a great way to identify stressful thoughts to question. You pick a person, or a thing, and write your judgments and stressful thoughts about them.
This can be done in a general way, which has the advantage of covering a broad spectrum of issues. Or a JYNW can be written in a very focused way. I find that the focused approach is what does most of the heavy lifting for me.
How Do you Narrow Down the Focus?
There are two ways to help focus your worksheet. One is to pick a specific instance where the person triggered you. And the other is to pick one specific offense within that trigger moment to focus on.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you have someone who frustrates you because they don’t listen very well.
You could write a general worksheet on this person about how they don’t listen. But if you want to increase the focus, you can pick one recent time when they didn’t listen to you and write your worksheet from that specific time and place. For example, you could focus on a time in the kitchen when you found out that they bought potatoes when you had asked them to buy sweet potatoes.
Picking a Time and Location Gives a Lot of Focus to a Worksheet
Now, you can fill in all six lines of the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet while focusing on that specific moment. Everything you write will naturally revolve around them coming home with potatoes instead of sweet potatoes.
But You Can Make the Focus Even Sharper
If you want to tighten the focus even more, you can zero in one particular offense within the situation. Maybe they committed several offenses within in that one moment in time. For example, “They didn’t listen to me,” “They don’t respect me,” “They don’t care about me,” and “They are being rebellious.”
Each of these Offenses Could Be a Focal Point within the Focal Point
Picking one offense narrows it down to just one issue. Now you can focus the entire worksheet on one, specific point.
Maybe you choose, “They don’t respect me.” Now everything you write on all six lines of the JYNW is going to be just about the respect issue. Nothing else. In this way, you can really deal with just that issue.
I usually just pick the main issue that is bothering me in a particular situation—the main offense. But sometimes I will write an extra worksheet focusing on a different offense from the same situation. For example, I could write a completely different worksheet on “They are rebellious.” And focus just on that issue.
So Why the Super Focus?
The advantage of this is that when I’m really clear what I’m focusing on, it becomes much simpler for me to unravel my stressful thinking about it. There are no distractions. I get right to the point in my inquiry.
Have a great weekend,
Todd
“People who have been in The Work for a while get pettier and pettier on their Worksheets, as they try to find the sticking-points that are left. Beliefs just get more subtle, more invisible, as problems dissolve. They’re just the last little children calling out, “Yoo-hoo! Here I am! Come and find me!” The more you do The Work, the more uncensored you become and the pettier you like to get, because it becomes hard to find something that will upset you. Eventually, you can’t find a problem. That’s an experience I hear from thousands of people.” Byron Katie, Loving What Is
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.
