Have you ever struggled, like me, with an unwanted thought that you just can't seem to control? Have you ever just wished you could have a few simple steps to get rid of your depression/sadness and just be happy and at peace again? If so, according to Byron Katie, The Work may be your answered prayer! I would love to believe her website claims, that suffering is optional, and dependent on changing your thoughts. She says her joy hasn't left her "for even a single moment" since doing The Work! She declares this
can be true for every human being, and that freedom is as simple as changing your thoughts.
can be true for every human being, and that freedom is as simple as changing your thoughts.I found out about this program as I was listening to a friend process her counseling appointment about changing depressive, and perfectionistic thought patterns and feelings. Her counselor encouraged her to learn to ask herself 4 questions to change her thinking. She shared with me that she was really struggling with the concept of such great change being found in the 4 simple questions. Counseling supposes that there is an ideal self. It is interesting to see how many people claim they have found the way to get there! From what I've read of author Jay Adams in the book, How To Help People Change, I think he would scoff and have a field day with this suggested change process. His belief is that the heart needs alteration before any substantial change can happen, and not simply one's changed thoughts. But aren't they connected?
In class we have been discussing the immaterial aspects of a person and their ideal functioning. I am wresting with what our thoughts, and the heart actually are, how they have become so corrupt, and how change takes place in each. I think that it is not an either/or situation and that when either aspect changes, there is overlap. I know the Bible says that the heart is deceitful and in need of God, but it also addresses clearly how we need to take captive our thoughts. I think that our thoughts are a product of the state of our heart. The Work doesn't appear to come from Biblical motivation, yet it has worked for many, and in my opinion the 4 step process is Biblically based. Is this an example of all truth ulitimately being God's truth?
This website suggest following the four questions with the "Turn it around" step. It states that "each turnaround is an opportunity to experience the opposite of what you originally believed. A Statement can be turned around to the opposite, to the other, and to the self" The Examples they use are hilarious, but it made me think of the power of the spoken word. In Neil Anderson's book, the steps have to be verbally rejected, renounced, to experience freedom in Christ. Jay Adams speaks of the need to identify our sins and I believe this turnaround step is doing both. Although it seems silly I think is important to use the turnaround step to acknowledge our part in a situation that is affecting us, and to also re-phrase it verbally.
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