About the Path of Self-Inquiry

Welcome to Soul Surgery!

I intend this blog to reflect my thoughts and experiences of self-inquiry. My writings are meant to serve those who use or are interested in exploring a wonderful life-shifting process called The Work of Byron Katie. I facilitate this process, which I call Transformational Inquiry. If you are interested in practical tools for using The Work in your life, welcome. If you want to laugh, we laugh here. If you are interested in nonduality but find yourself caught in the limitations of the "advaita shuffle," this is the place for you, and Transformational Inquiry may be your path to an "open mind, clear life."

This poem was channeled through me, perhaps courtesy of the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi, just before New Year's eve, after days steeped in self-inquiry.

I look forward to fully understanding, one day, the lesson it (not I) so clearly teaches. I look forward to your comments and sharings about self-inquiry also.

To learn more about my professional services involving The Work, please visit my website.

Love, Carol


Exploratory Surgery 12/30/04
Carol L. Skolnick

It is a lengthy operation.
Might last a lifetime...or a minute.
Best not to numb the area.
You don't want to miss
The exquisite pain
Of the deepest cuts
Where you discover what the seasoned surgeon knows:
All malignancies are benign.

An oyster's prize is nothing more
Than an irritation made beautiful.

So too is your grain of sand, your shard,
your shrapnel.
When cradled in the heart, it gets coated in kindness
And grows lovely and lovable.

Let it rest there, and when the time is right,
You, soul surgeon,
Will find what you were looking for
In your open heart
And extract from your suffering
A pearl beyond price.

©2005 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

"Confusion is the only suffering." —Byron Katie