The Work is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question the thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you, and to address the cause of your problems with clarity.
People who do The Work as an ongoing practice commonly report:
- Alleviation of depression: Find resolution, even happiness, in situations that were once debilitating.
- Decreased stress: Learn how to live with less anxiety or fear.
- Improved relationships: Experience deeper connection and intimacy with your partner, your parents, your children, your friends, and yourself.
- Reduced anger: Understand what makes you angry and resentful, and become less reactive, less often, with less intensity.
- Increased mental clarity: Live and work more intelligently and effectively, with integrity.
- More energy: Experience a new sense of ongoing vigor and well-being.
- More peace: Discover how to become “a lover of what is.”
The first step in The Work is to pay attention and notice your stressful thoughts, and to write them down .
Investigate each of your thoughts/statements/concepts using the four questions. The Work is meditation. It’s about opening to your heart, not about trying to change your thoughts. Ask the questions, then go inside and wait for the deeper answers to surface.
- Is it true? (Yes or no. If no, move to 3.)
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (Yes or no.)
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without the thought?
The inquiry with the four questions is followed by the turnaround. The turnaround invites us to see what we could not see before and to open up to another side of reality.
Each turnaround is an opportunity to experience the opposite of what you originally believed.
A statement can be turned around to the self, to the other, and to the opposite (and sometimes to “my thinking,” when that feels appropriate). Find at least three specific, genuine examples of how each turnaround is true in your life, and then allow yourself the time and presence to feel them deeply.
More information and ressources on : thework.com