The Work of Byron Katie / Inquiry-Based Stress Reduction / IBSR
The Work of Byron Katie is a simple yet powerful method of inquiry—self-questioning—that helps people identify and examine the thoughts causing their suffering. You can question anything, from mild irritation or confusion to relationships or situations that bring deep sadness and distress. Byron Katie describes it as a way to “end suffering” by changing our relationship to our thoughts. The Work is an embodied approach because it puts a person in contact with their feelings, body sensations as well as thoughts, so it is holistic. It must be experienced to be understood. The process increases empathy for oneself and others, creates insight, can help foster healthier relationships with others and with oneself.
Thoughts happen constantly. No one—not even great spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle or scientists—can fully define what a thought is or where it comes from. They simply arise, often out of nowhere like clouds in the sky. You might be in your kitchen preparing dinner when, suddenly, an angry or upsetting memory from twenty years ago surfaces vividly. Old feelings flood back, and the story takes over, you are in a trance. In that moment, you are no longer present in the kitchen, grounded in your body—you are entirely in your mind-mind identified. Many people don’t even notice when this happens or what the trigger is because they are so often in the past or future, rather than in the present moment.
The Work helps you notice these moments, the trigger for the troubling thought and catch it as it happens by identifying the exact moment in time, the place it happened and the situation, then to work with it, through this profound and simple method. Stressful thoughts become a kind of temple bell, waking you up to what’s unresolved and calling for your attention. The process involves revisiting a specific moment in time with someone you haven’t fully forgiven—returning to it from the present moment, in presence. You take your time to meditate on where you were, when it happened and what happened. I call it the three w’s.
You can either come to a session with a situation in mind and I can assist you in filling in a One-Belief-At-A-Time sheet or fill out a Judge- Your-Neighbor worksheet. Or prior to our session come with a worksheet filled in, writing short, simple sentences. You will read the sheet to me and afterwards you choose the sentence with the most emotional energy in the moment, and we do The Work on that statement—using the Four Questions, the Turnarounds, and related sub-questions. It is a powerful process reading your sheet out-loud when someone is deeply listening in a completely present way.
By sitting with the situation from a place of witnessing consciousness, new answers and insights emerge that can be extremely surprising, illuminating and sometimes wonderfully emotionalizing and cathartic. What once felt like a fixed story—filled with judgments about how it should have gone—begins to shift naturally. You may discover you’ve been arguing with reality for a very long time, and in that recognition, a new understanding opens up, new neural pathways are formed and your perspective shifts often bringing aha moments and a peacefulness.
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The foundational belief behind The Work is:
“It’s not the problem that causes our suffering; it’s our thinking about the problem.”
Katie teaches that by examining our thoughts and beliefs, especially the painful ones, we can experience greater clarity, peace, and freedom.
The Process
The Work consists of two main parts:
1. Identify the Thought
You begin by writing down a stressful belief or judgment, usually about another person or situation — for example:
“He doesn’t respect me.”
2. Ask the Four Questions
These four questions help dismantle the belief:
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react — what happens — when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?
These questions aren’t meant to be answered quickly. Katie encourages a meditative, honest approach - really sitting with each question. You wait for the answer to meet the question.
Turnarounds
After the four questions, you "turn the thought around" — flipping the original statement to its opposite. For example:
Original:
“He doesn’t respect me.”
Turnarounds:
“I don’t respect him.”
“I don’t respect myself.”
“He does respect me.”
You then explore how these alternative perspectives might be as true or more true than the original thought.
Purpose & Benefits
Less stress and anxiety
Improved relationships
Greater self-awareness
A deeper sense of peace
The Work is a tool for self-inquiry that anyone can use at any time, and it requires nothing but a true willingness to be honest, find more freedom from difficult conditioned thoughts, pen/pencil and paper.
Core Concepts of The Work
— Resources for Doing The Work —
Click the buttons below to download each worksheet.
“One Belief at a Time”
“The Work - 1, 2, 3”
“Judge Your Neighbor”
I’m going to share a personal story of how The Work helped me in a profound way. It was approximately twenty-three years ago when I was living in Westwood and I was studying at The Drama Therapy Institute of Los Angeles with a brilliant professor, Dr. Pam Dunne. The Institute was just up the street from my sweet, little, green and white cottage on Greenfield Avenue. I was deeply and madly in love with someone I had known since I was eighteen. We had known each other over a long period and were finally together after an on and off, long distance relationship for many years. Although we were together almost all the time, he would not fully commit to a full life living together. When I would have courage to question him about it, he always had some reason why not. At first, he said I was too messy and not organized enough and he did not like it. So, I worked on this. I became much more tidy, much more organized and made sure the little cottage was always very clean. I brought this positive change to his attention, but nothing changed. I asked him months later about moving in and he said there was no space for his truck and motorcycle. Shortly thereafter a tenant moved out who had used two garages, and the manager let me have them with only a little increase in rent and I was elated. He came over and I excitedly showed him the empty garages, telling him now there was plenty of room for his truck and motorcycle but noticed little enthusiasm from him which completely confused and deflated me. Then, he complained that there were not enough long stretches of time when we did not argue, that he wanted more stretches of time with full harmony. However, I noticed that when there was harmony, he would often take issue with something very small and I would become upset, saddened, reactive, confused that I had made all the changes he said he wanted yet there was always something else. Through that relationship I really learned a lot about communicating my feelings, thoughts and wishes even if it was really scary.
I appreciated all the growth I was having but I noticed I wanted a complete commitment into the future with him. I wanted to live together in the same house and had serious thoughts of marriage. I was still finding myself, a late bloomer and he an actor older by ten years had not reached the kind of success he longed for. One morning, in summertime, I took in the mail and was leafing through a Pottery Barn catalogue that had just arrived. They had lovely houseware items, and I had the clear, definite thought that I wanted to set up house in a fuller way. There was a page where couples could register for the items they wanted as their wedding gifts. This prompted me to want a straight, direct, verbal answer from him if he planned on a future together, no matter the answer, I needed to know. So, I called him up and told him that I was looking at this catalogue and it really made clear that I wanted to create a life together, that I loved and adored him and I wanted to know if he ever had any intention of living with me or marrying me. He was silent for a long time. He said how much he loved me and proceeded to give a list of things that were not yet perfect. I said you know me over a long period of time. I have improved on many things that bothered you. I address them right away, you know me to be honest and loving, I can continue to grow, we can grow together if you want to, but I want to move forward and would like a direct yes or no to a planned future together. He said I am already committed to you, we are together isn’t that enough? I said I need a simple, straightforward yes or no. He went into his song and dance, again which used to always confuse me, but in that moment, I was so clear. Yes, or no? A long silence on the other end of the phone. We had landlines then. More reasoning from him why now was not the right time. If you truly love me, please just a yes or no. A long silence, then he said, no. Another long silence as we both took in this truth. I thanked him profusely for his honesty, told him I loved him and that we were now officially broken up, then hung up the phone. I began to sob uncontrollably. You know the kind of heaving where you have trouble catching your breath. I wept with so much force my eyes became swollen right away. Tears streaming and snot running out of my nose as I laid on the floor by the kitchen clutching the Pottery Barn catalogue to my heart and then tore it up. I was totally heartbroken and wondered how I was going to live through this pain, it was excruciating.
I had been reading Byron Katies book Loving What Is - Four Questions That Can Change Your Life. Her first book. I had been doing the process of self-inquiry with myself and found it incredibly helpful. I don’t know how I found the strength to get up off the floor or how I found my way to the dining table with a piece of blank paper and a pencil and her open book and asked myself the questions meeting them with meditative inquiry and finding more and more clarity.
I remember the thought I wrote down, “I’m heartbroken because he doesn’t want to marry me”. Working with the statement after the because clause; “He doesn’t want to marry me.”
Is it true? Yes.
Can I absolutely know that it’s true? (I meditated in it) Yes.
What happens, how do I react when I believe the thought? He doesn’t want to marry me. I put it all on paper crying at the same time, noticing and writing all of the thoughts, feelings, reactions after the phone call when he said no. Writing it down was extremely cathartic and helpful. Really being with the experience in such a detailed, present, way.
Who or what would I be without the thought? “He doesn’t want to marry me”. I began to feel a little space from the situation, a type of witnessing consciousness subtly came in on its own. I saw an image of two people on the telephone, us, who loved each other deeply but wanted different things. Without the thought I was a woman holding the phone receiver, standing on a wood floor, in a place that I loved, suddenly fully inhabiting my body, waiting in silence.
Then I came to The Turnarounds:
A Turnaround for ‘he doesn’t want to marry me,’ - ‘I don’t want to marry him’. I asked myself how might this be true? I didn’t want to marry someone who didn’t want to marry me, I want to marry someone who feels excited and sure about me. Another truthful reason I don’t want to marry him is that I didn’t fully trust him to be faithful, a truth I had not allowed myself to face in a deeply conscious way. It was a big one.
Turnaround to The Self - ‘He doesn’t want to marry me,’ ‘I don’t want to marry me!!’ This finding hit me as deeply truthful and stunned me!!! I laughed and cried hysterically, at the same time, a rare emotional experience. It was an absolutely extraordinary feeling to meet this unplanned finding of truth.
I was still finding myself. Why would he want to marry me if I did not truly want to marry me at this time?? Maybe someone else would have but he did not. This was his truth, and he was perfectly allowed to not want what I wanted. This was an astonishing realization I had sitting at the kitchen table with bawled up tissues all around me, my eyes swollen and red. Staring at the paper in a profoundly, deep, stillness something shifted. I was sad and exhausted, but I was ok - really, truly ok. This insight that came so naturally and surprisingly initiated such a deep understanding of the situation that a healing and peace began to immediately companion my sorrow.
When he came to get his things weeks later, he saw something had changed in me and was awed by it. I told him about The Work.
More than 20 years later, I still occasionally think of him. If something old stirs, I do The Work and the troubling thought or feeling is met with understanding. Sometimes it leads to a tiny shift; other times, a big aha moment. I have learned that no situation is insignificant. I’ve done The Work with myself and many others, and I am always moved by the moment when they see something new - when a truth arises unexpectedly, just as it did for me at that kitchen table all those years ago.