Focus on Facilitation: Adapting Inquiry to Alternative Learning Styles

The theory of multiple intelligences may be useful for facilitators of The Work of Byron Katie.

I have often used metaphors with my clients as a way of explaining how The Work works, but until last week, I never danced around the room!

Many of us are kinesthetic, musical or spatial learners; I know I am to an extent. I don't always understand abstract concepts right away, but if I can employ different senses and parts of my brain, find a tune to fit something I need to memorize, visual something concrete, I learn more quickly. As an educator, I was taught to use media and movement with my students as a way of helping them learn using different parts of the brain; for instance, getting some of my high school students to appreciate Robert Frost's poetry in print wasn't a happening thing, but they enjoyed listening to a recording of him reading "The Road Not Taken" (they were amused by his quavering voice and old-fashioned New England accent), which opened them to discussing the author's technique and intent. Similarly, when I was teaching elementary-school age English as a Second Language students, we sang songs in English which included lots of repetition; some kids who were not able to or interested in learning English in traditional ways soon were speaking in full sentences!

I have a client who, after several sessions, continued to have difficulty with question 3 of The Work, "Who would you be without this thought?" She gave me a clue about how to proceed by saying, "I have a hard time stepping out of the situation." I said, "So let's step out of it." Standing straight in front of her, I said, "Let's take a hypothetical situation. Say one day I left the house, went to work, and I was held up at gunpoint by a Croatian man in a warehouse, and now I can't go into warehouses, or be around men, or Croats, or hear Serbo-Croation being spoken, without getting panic attacks. My thought it, 'I'm too sick to work." (My apologies to men, Croats, and warehouses; nothing personal.) Because of her particular situation, which had nothing to do with being held up at gunpoint or men or Croatians, or warehouses, she actually related to the example.

I stepped to the left. "Prior to that incident, and that thought, I went to work each day, and had interactions with all kinds of people, and entered all kinds of buildings, without fear." She got that. I stepped back into the center.

"How do I react when I believe the thought, I'm too sick to work'? I tell a story about what happened, after the fact." I step to the right, facing the center. "I remember what happened over there, and from over here, my body tenses up, I feel faint. I break out into a cold sweat around men. I can't go into the basement at home; it looks too much like the warehouse. I'm sure that if I leave the house, it will happen again. My mind travels to someone pulling a gun on me and I die painfully." I go on like this for a bit more.

"Who would I be without this thought?" I move back to the center and take a step backwards." "Now I am taking myself out of the situation and looking at it, as it really happened, as if watching a movie, but without my spin on it. I see a man holding a woman at gunpoint and then letting me go. I, the woman, am okay, not dead yet. I notice I was always okay; he never hurt me.

"Now I need to use my imagination a little. Who would I be right now without this thought, applying for a job? I would go to the office building; I would fill out the application; I would be present, empowered and excited."

Click! Now my client sees that The Work is a way of observing the mechanisms of the mind; she doesn't have to deny what happened or even her experience of what happened; she gets to take on different vantage points and see if they can be equally valid. She has asked that we "somaticize" this portion of The Work this way from now on; and my guess is that we won't always need to, once she gets it "in the bones."


©2010 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

Can I Use The Work at My Job?

“Tell your boss what you really think of him and the truth shall set you free.”
—Patrick Murray

Beliefs may prevail regarding the appropriateness of self-inquiry in a business setting. We have been taught that it’s not professional (and also not safe) to expose our feelings at work; however, feelings are already abundantly apparent in every workplace, oftentimes expressed in unhealthy ways. It can be detrimental to a career or a business to react emotionally on the job and not explore our feelings sanely.

This doesn’t mean we have to air our dirty laundry in front of the boss or co-workers. Although group work may be preferable in certain instances (haven’t you noticed that what they really think of you is rarely as bad as what you thought they thought?), the beauty of The Work is that it is equally effective when done on one’s own in private, with others in a group setting, or one-on-one with a facilitator.

I have facilitated people who work in (and have been fired from) all kinds of business situations: coaches, therapists, and counselors…white, pink, and blue-collar workers…executives, managers, and home-based entrepreneurs…the overextended, and the underemployed or unemployed…those who can’t wait to retire, and those who feel unfulfilled in retirement. A pair of squabbling business partners were among my very first (and very satisfied) clients.

I have come to see that in every moment, even when I was temporarily disabled, lying flat on my back, and doing nothing but “being breathed,” I have always had the perfect job. I am always working with the right people. I have always been successful. Until I can see this as the truth 100%, my real work—the work of the heart—is not done.

“Your true job is to appreciate what is; your primary profession is to be clear.”
—Byron Katie


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

This article is an excerpt from the introduction to the new eBook, Transformational Inquiry: Working on Your Work.

If you order by midnight May 30, PST, you can still receive it for at the discounted pre-publication price of $9.95. On the 31st, I'm changing the settings to $14.95.

So don't wait. Be among the first to let this practical PDF guide enhance your experience of The Work as it applies to your professional life.

To learn more and to purchase your own copy, visit
http://www.clearlifesolutions.com/clearlifestore.htm



©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

Hot Tub Facilitation: Tips for Facilitators and Coaches

Last summer, I asked someone new to The Work to facilitate me in a hotel hot tub.

She and I were alone in the Jacuzzi and while we were soaking, she introduced herself. Seeing an opening, the woman began pouring out her heart to me. She was in town to help her college-age daughter, a violent young woman who had recently dropped out of school, started hanging out with criminals and was now addicted to chrystal meth. The daughter was living with the woman's elderly parents, stealing belongings and money from them and possibly from other peoples' homes. The young woman had already threatened to kill her mother and had broken into her computer and stolen her credit card passwords; that's why her mother had moved into the hotel.

My new friend was deathly afraid her child would do something permanently self-destructive, go to prison or get herself killed. She was also a cancer patient and certain that the situation with her daughter was making her sicker.

I told her I had something that had helped me and that might help her to stay sane while dealing with her daughter. She was anxious to hear about it. As I described The Work, she nodded a lot and said she was already enlightened to what I was saying. I said that was wonderful...and since I happened to have Byron Katie's "little book" with me, would she ask me the four questions on a one-liner of mine? She was delighted to be of service. I was delighted too; I got to work on a "sticky one."

The woman was impressed by the process of The Work...so we worked a bit on how she wanted her daughter to change. She shed some tears over her turnarounds: "I want me to change." (Especially with regards to my daughter; not to be an enabler, not to be afraid.) "I want my thinking to change" — the thinking that made her ill and unable to properly help her daughter or herself. My friend took the booklet back to her room and expressed interest in Byron Katie's "Addictions" CD, which I promised to send her. Later that day she called me; she had read the little book and felt that God had sent her an angel.

I figured if having someone in a hot tub facilitate me so effectively moved The Work, taking on the client's role would be a wonderful way to involve newcomers at workshops also...as well as on the DoTheWork NetWork hotline. At an introductory program I gave at a bookstore the following September, instead of first asking for a volunteer to do The Work, I requested that someone facilitate me. It was a wonderful way both to level the field and to model the process of "client." People eagerly volunteered to be facilitated after that. This has worked so well that I have been the "client" at the start of every workshop ever since.

Coincidentally, not long afterwards, Hotline volunteers were asked to invite "newbies" to facilitate us. I had that opportunity recently with someone who is very new to The Work and who has a very quick mind. (My sister!) She didn't have a one-liner handy because her mind was filled with issues about so many things: her family, the cult she had just left, her finances. She began to tell her stories and when I requested we do The Work on one of them, she only wanted to work on herself because "I know it's all about me."

I asked the client if she would ask me the four questions first; she agreed. I worked on the one-liner “She is shallow." In this way, she saw the value of "judging your neighbor."

After some probing, we found a one-liner for the client to work on: “My sister tries to take over my life,” which we navigated rockily! She still wanted to tell her stories and to defend and "yeahbut." However, at the end of the session she said she could see that the work was valuable and that it would serve her.

The client sent me an email later that day to let me know she appreciated the opportunity both to facilitate The Work and to answer the questions. She was off to buy a copy of Loving What Is and to delve more deeply into the process.

When a new client has the opportunity to be the facilitator right away, there are multiple benefits. The client gets to observe the power of The Work when there is willingness to go deeply and find the truth. As questioners and listeners, clients quickly discover The Work's simplicity: four simple questions and a turnaround. At the same time, the facilitator is seen as someone like them, not as some "grand inquisitor" who knows something the client doesn't know. This levels the field.

How does this benefit you, the facilitator? You get a more receptive client...and a golden opportunity to do The Work yourself!


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

Want a Great Facilitator? Just Answer the Freakin' Questions...

Over the years as a practitioner and facilitator of Transformational Inquiry with The Work of Byron Katie, I've formed very definite opinions of what constitutes "good" facilitation. I thought I preferred experienced facilitators to newcomers...or the personality of one experienced facilitator to that of another. When I have swapped facilitation with a partner in the past, I have sometimes rather impatiently felt the need to direct his or her facilitation and to "salvage" the experience for myself as a client.

At the most recent School for The Work, staff and participants were invited to take part in an aftercare exercise, where, in order to keep The Work working in our lives, we rotated facilitation partners in seven four-day shifts after we returned home. Even though we had all been to the school and learned the same process, everyone (me
too) has their own way of asking the questions; Katie calls this our "fingerprint." All month, as I worked with different people, I watched my mind concoct its preferences and objections and make its comparisons: "He doesn't give me enough time." "She's doing therapy." "They should follow the facilitation guidelines as written." However, I soon realized that no matter what I thought, each partner was holding the perfect space for inquiry if only I did my part, which is simply to go within and answer the questions.

I'm not sure how to explain what happened except to say that in each case, as long as I was willing, mind always enlightened itself in the presence of apparent "other:" and it could not have been better if "they" had done it differently. It was as if different parts of the brain were stimulated by those different facilitation styles; I experienced deep eepiphanies and deep peace with each of my partners, without having to micro-manage them or myself.

I have a little sticky note over my desk that I glance at when I'm facilitating, which says "Ask the questions, hold the space." I could post another that says, "The space is held; answer the questions."

Thanks to all of my facilitators who so lovingly held the space.

©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.