Why We Believe: A New Series of Articles for Deepening Inquiry

Those of you who receive my newsletter may have noticed my Clear Life Solutions tag line, "Open your mind to a limitless life." That is an invitation to something I, as a work-in-progress, invite myself to as I invite you to it...and it is easier said than done!

As a practice for self-awareness , you won't find anything much simpler than the four basic questions and turnarounds of The Work of Byron Katie. But to say that something is simple is not to say it is easy.

It's definitely easy to ask oneself, or another, four questions. It's easy to answer questions. It's not always easy to open the mind as far as it can go, even when there is willingness. It's tempting to do The Work on the surface, to give obvious or easy answers, or to say, "Well, I've been over all this before and don't need to go there again." These are ways that I myself have let myself get away with crumbs and prevented myself from doing the real work of The Work.

Stressful beliefs can have incredible depth, which can, in turn, prevent us from fearlessly exploring and releasing ourselves from painful or limiting concepts that no longer serve us.

In a new series of articles on the Soul Surgery blog, I will explore the nature of belief—specifically why we tend to believe troublesome thoughts, even when we know they are troublesome. In doing so, I hope to make it easier for those of us doing The Work—whether as clients or facilitators—to untangle and loosen the tentacles of attachment to these thoughts.

As always, I invite your feedback, and your experience of deepening inquiry in your life.

You may also enjoy this post from a few years back, "What's the Payoff?"


©2009 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

Mind-blower for Facilitators

"The more enlightened you get, the less you believe your client believes [their thoughts]." —Byron Katie

Discuss.


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

The 20-minute Test

by Carol L. Skolnick

Why do we believe what we think? Often it's reflexive; we've just always felt this way. We don't question it. However, there are times when we believe something that might be worth looking into...such as those things which we procrastinate about or want to avoid. Why haven't we taken care of that? The stock response: "Because I don't feel like it."

If "I don't feel like it" feels stressful, there's a clue that it's not true. You do feel like it because you think you ought to be doing it.

Lately I've been applying something called "the 20-minute test" to The Work. The test was created by a life coach named Bruce Elkin, author of Simplicity and Success: Creating the Life You Long For [Trafford, 2003].

I have a gym membership and sometimes when I say "I don't want to go to the gym," I am lying. I do want to go; I joined the gym because I understood it was good for me. I truly enjoy doing things that are good for me and besides, it has a swimming pool and I love to swim. Staying at home in the moment to rest, work or catch up on my phone messages sometimes seems better and more important than sweating for two hours plus a half-hour of travel time round-trip.

In truth, it's fine not to go to the gym as long as it's fine with me. When it's really fine with me, I feel great. If not, I know I'm attaching to an untrue belief. In this instance, is definitely worth taking 20 minutes to "ask me" if I can save myself from 24 hours of self-flagellation for not going...even if it means deducting 20 minutes deducted from my time at the gym or from my time working on the Great American eBook.

"I don't feel like vacuuming the rug now." "I don't feel like sending out my e-zine." "I don't feel like making love." While it's true that I don't have to do any of these things ever again in my life, it has served me to ask myself if it's true that I don't I feel like doing them now. What are the underlying beliefs? I find that if I take just 20 minutes to find out, the answers are often very juicy. After inquiry, it could mean I get to have a clean floor, an e-zine (I took the 20-minute test today!), or a happy partner. If not, at least I'm very clear about my decision.

Here's a good one, one of my favorites: "I have nothing to write about." I've used that one, not only when I have a writing deadline, but also when I think I don't want to write out The Work. My reasoning: "Nothing's bothering me."

Is this one of yours? It may be true that nothing is bothering you right now and if so, bravo. You can always go back to the place in your life where something was bothersome. If there's any residue left there, don't you want to clean it up?

In fact, it's actually easier and very desirable to do The Work when there is no extreme stress in the moment. (I'll cover this in more detail in a future newsletter.) The great thing about self-awareness is that it compounds, like interest. If you can do 20 minutes of inquiry now, you may find you have a reserve of sanity for a "rainy day."

What a great deal: 20 minutes of your time here and there in exchange for a happier life and a clearer head.


Deepening Transformational Inquiry: Take the 20-minute Test

I like to put off doing things because "the weather's lousy." The other day I did not bring my water bottles to the store to refill then because it was cold out. Today it is a sunny day. What great excuse will I come up with this time?

"I don't feel like taking the bottles to the store." Is that true? Yeah!

Absolutely? Well, no. I'm running out of purified water, I'd rather not drink or cook with tap water, the empties are lined up by the door and it looks messy. So I really do want to go to the store. I just wish my triceps didn't hurt from working out yesterday, that I didn't promise myself I'd set up the new TV today, that my client had kept her original appointment, that there were more hours in the day, blah blah blah.... Okay, there goes the mind, which I steer gently back to inquiry. How do I live my life when I believe the thought that I don't want to go to the store...and I want water?

The bottom line is, I don't have to go to the store—and I'm going to. I do feel like it, because I want a neat kitchen and a well-stocked supply of water more than I want to avoid what I'm avoiding.


©2006 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

What's the Payoff?

The more I examine the life of the mind, the more I recognize the pure innocence of what we refer to—sometimes disparagingly—as the ego. The ego is that which gives us an identity as an "I." We wake up in the morning and the ego's job is to create a world and establish its place in it. "I am still tired." "I have to go to work." "It's going to be a busy day for me." "I wonder if the kids are still asleep." "I'm still upset about our argument last night." "He was wrong (and therefore "I" was right)."

The I-identified mind (which is a story about who we are, rather than the truth of who we are) is like an organism separate from the body. Like any organism, it seeks homeostatis: a stability of its "normal" condition, equilibrium. "I" needs to know that "it" is okay.

In its innocence, the ego which identifies as an "I" may attach to a belief that results neither in equilibrium nor in peace. To the unquestioned mind, habitual thought patterns may at first seem safer than any alternative. Since the ego needs to be right in order to exist, it may fight for this false homeostasis at all costs. When this happens, a belief, no matter how upsetting, becomes hard to shake. In spite of the problematical nature of the thought, we may experience that it serves us...or that it used to.

That is why, in Transformational Inquiry, we don't try to drop or replace a thought. Only an ego thinks and believes, and as long as we believe we're an "I," there is no bypassing thought. "I have no thoughts" is still a thought! So instead of denying our thoughts, we engage with the ego-identified mind so as to unravel thought at its source.

When the process of inquiry becomes alive in us—which can happen very quickly—sometimes it is difficult to see why we would have ever held a stressful thought to begin with. When I am facilitating The Work of Byron Katie, I ask a two-pronged question: "What do you get for holding this belief? What is the payoff?" In general it's very easy to answer the first part of the question: "I get anxiety, I get to feel separate, I get to be superior, I get to experience war in my relationship." These are the "negative payoffs." The mind is not always so open to the "positive payoffs," or perceived benefits, of attachment to a belief.

When this happens to me while self-facilitating, I find it useful to ask myself a few more questions around my attachment. It has been my experience that stressful thoughts are usually fear-based: clinging to them provides a thinly protective membrane from which I may not be quite ready to emerge but which keeps me from experiencing reality directly.

As we question our beliefs we may recognize that there is no benefit to holding the belief and if so, that's wonderful. However, if the belief still feels sticky, I want to go deeper: any resistance to answering the question "What is the payoff?" is simply the ego-organism asserting its need for homeostasis! The cost of holding the belief is I get to stay in an artificial equilibrium, a facade of safety.

Byron Katie has said that there are only two kinds of fear; the fear of losing what you think you have, or the fear of not getting what you think you want. If there is stuckness regarding the question "What is the payoff," and I suspect the inability to answer is fear-based, I will move towards this question: "What is the worst thing that could happen if I no longer believed this thought? What is the fear that keeps me clinging to it?"


Deepening Transformational Inquiry: "It's not safe to disagree."

Have you ever been afraid to disagree with someone in your life? If so, please take the trip with me back to the place in your past (it might be five decades or even five minutes ago) where you held this belief.

Let's say I work for someone with a short fuse or who likes things to go her way (who doesn't?) and I think the thought, "It's not safe to disagree with her." (Not a stretch; I could go back to at least 10 working relationships where I felt this way, beginning 30 years ago with a job I held at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library the summer before I left for college.)

After I question the validity of the thought (Is it true?) and see how I live out of the belief (I avoid her, I kow-tow to her publicly, and secretly or not so secretly, I resent her for having this perceived power over my financial life, career success and "homeostasis" in the office), I ask myself whose business I'm in when I believe this thought (hers, because I'm presuming she'll erupt if I disagree).

Next, I ask myself, "What do I get for holding this belief? What's the payoff?"

The more obvious answers are: I get fear, separation, a reason to hate going to work in the morning. Or, the payoff may not be so obvious, other than "I get an excuse to eat chocolate in an attempt to soothe my jangled nerves." So I move to "What's the worst thing that could happen if I no longer believed this thought?" Well, I would not keep my opinions in check, and then she might fire me." (There's an old saying: "Tell your boss the truth, and the truth shall set you free.")

Why would I fear being fired? What do I have to lose? Her approval, my family and friends' approval, my paycheck, my standing in the community?

There are a whole lot of assumptions operating here: the assumption that someone will be angry with me and that this is not okay; the assumption that disagreement always results in banishment; the assumption that if I disagree, I will be cut off, shunned, alone, without support. I may look at how old this belief is: when did it first occur to me? Early childhood? Who was I trying to appease then? (Mom, Dad, the neighborhood bully, my older cousin, my first grade teacher, the family friend who was molesting me.)

Now I can see that there are perceived payoffs for thinking this thought: if I don't disagree, I get to stay in a no-conflict zone...for the moment. And of course, there is plenty of internal conflict, so this isn't really working for me. What else do I get? Support, which I think I could lose (a paycheck, health insurance). Approval, which I believe I need (friends who see me as responsible and mature; a family that gets upset when I'm not making money and now feels relieved; a boss who sees me as cooperative, reliable and easy to get along with and who may give me a raise and promotion). If nothing else, I think holding the belief lets me keep an identity that gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. ("I" have a job, "I" have a purpose.)

With further inquiry I may come to see that my "benefits plan" comes at too great of a cost. This is fabulous information; it frees me up to live in the present moment, a.k.a. the real world as opposed to the anticipated, unquestioned and therefore scary world of the ego's creation.

At the same time, I can sit with that ego-driven polarity of mind as if with a frightened child or a well-meaning if overprotective parent who just needs some reassurance that all is well. It is not the enemy; quite the contrary. It has simply been trying to protect me. With the clarity that comes from inquiry, I don't have to disown it; instead I can hold it by the hand, listen to all of its concerns, thank it and love it for its innocent good intentions.

What are your payoffs? And are they worth the cost?


©2006 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.