Why We Believe, Part 4: The "Dr. Phil" Question

Sometimes we just love our beliefs because we are convinced they are working for us, evidence to the contrary. Let's look once again at the belief, "My husband shouldn't have affairs." The client says that if she didn't believe this thought, it would be akin to condoning her husband's affairs. Therefore, he would only continue to have affairs, and she'd be a doormat.

Now for the "big duh" question: Does this thought bring peace or stress into your life? The client is aware that this is a stressful belief and yet she can't make herself not believe what she beliefs...which is as it should be.

I ask the question, "Why do you hold this stressful belief; how is it serving you?" This is a nicer, and more thoughtful, way of asking the famous Dr. Phil question, "How's that workin' for ya?"

Is the thought "My husband shouldn't have affairs" doing the job my client wants it to do?

It's not preventing her from feeling like a doormat right now, never mind the future.

It certainly isn't giving her any control over her husband's behavior.

It isn't providing her with a roadmap to the future.

It's not protecting her, because she's still married to a philandering husband.

So, while the core beliefs underlying this one—the ones about relationships being sacred and people shouldn't cheat on their spouses—may have served this woman in the past, it doesn't look like they are serving her very well now, except to hold that stance of "I'm right, you're wrong" with a husband whose behavior she is tacitly condoning for now. That's enough for some people. Those people don't bring this particular belief to inquiry.

"Is there a peaceful reason to keep this thought?" The client can't find one and is now ready to move to question four, "Who would you be without this thought?"

What she finds is, as a woman whose husband is having affairs in reality, she can be in charge of her own life (which is what she wanted frim the belief, and couldn't get from it). She is free to stay or to go, to discuss the situation rationally with her husband (whether or not he is rational is none of her business and, again, not something she can micro-manage). She can state her needs and observations without shame and blame (instead of "You cheating #(*$@(*&!!, how dare you? You are dishonest, you don't love me, you want to hurt me, you broke our vows, this marriage is based on a lie!"

Instead, her conversation with him might begin with "I am aware that you are having sex outside of our marriage. I value fidelity and honesty in intimate relationships. I want to stay married to you and I don't know if I can if you are not going to be monogamous. Would you be willing to discuss what's going on for you and how we can move on from here?"

Try asking "How does this stressful belief serve you?" the next time you hit a sticky one...and let me know how it's workin' for ya.


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

Why We Believe, Part 3: Unmet Needs, or a Tantrum?

Our reasons (which are sometimes motives) for keeping a stressful belief can also be seen as a list of unmet needs: "I need to be right." "I need to be in control." "I need a purpose." "I need you to listen to me."

It's not a problem to have needs; it's fine to find ways to fulfill them. It's only a problem when we expect that the world will meet our needs when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary that this isn't going to happen. That's when you know that you're not experiencing the stress of an unmet need; you're throwing an inner tantrum.

Fighting with reality in the form of attachment to stressful beliefs that do not serve you (or no longer serve you) can never fulfill our needs. Identifying our needs (as opposed to our desires) is the first step towards understanding the source of a problem, as well as the first step towards the fulfillment of our needs.

Byron Katie likes to say that fighting with reality is about as effective as trying to teach a cat to bark. If you want a barking animal, how much easier would it be to simply get a dog! (Or, if you're allergic to dogs, a burglar alarm. Need fulfilled, cat off the hook!)

This has evolved into a cliche among people who do The Work: "How do I know I don't need ____? I don't have it, and I'm still breathing." That's true, but for most of us, it's not so easy to shrug off a perceived need with a "Katie-ism." We have to see it for ourselves. Still, the word "need" can be problematical.

I give workshops with a teacher of Nonviolent Communication who has a Buddhist background and also does The Work. In NVC, they use the term "need" a lot, especially around authentic communication of said needs. I told her that I wasn't comfortable with the word "need," as I could see where I always have what I need in the moment, that "I need" is a story of the future and therefore never real right now. She agreed that, from a Buddhist standpoint (and a Worked one), there are no real needs, so I could swap out "needs" with "values." For example, "I need connection" becomes "I value connection." That feels truer to me.

So, "I value a serene work environment," communicated peacefully, isn't "You play that stereo too loud! You should be more considerate of your neighbors!" That's a tantrum. Rather, as a practitioner of NVC, or anyone who has identified what they value, would say, "I am upstairs working and finding it difficult to concentrate. Would you be willing to lower the volume on your stereo? " This respects the needs, or values, of the person who likes loud music, without making them wrong. There's no manipulation in it; it's a request, one that may or may not result in the fulfillment of your needs.

If I've done my Work, and I'm clear that I don't need my neighbor to do what I want, and she doesn't turn down the bass, I have a choice to put on noise-reducing headphones, work somewhere else, ask her again...and not go to war with her or with my life, even if it means that eventually I will call the management company to let them know there's a noise "problem."

Next, how a TV cliche can help free us further: Part 4, The "Dr. Phil" Question.


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

Why We Believe, Part 2: When the Payoff Is Hard to Find

When a client (or I myself) can't easily answer the Question Three subquestion, "Why do you hold this belief? How is it serving you?" I use this additional subquestion: "What do you fear would happen if you didn't believe this thought?" This is another way to reveal how the client has been using the stressful thought to attain or to avoid something.

Example: The client' statement is, "My husband shouldn't have affairs." After doing some inquiry, she still believes this is true. I ask her if the thought is peaceful or stressful and she says, "It's a peaceful thought. We took marriage vows. I didn't agree to his being unfaithful."

"Okay," I ask, "And what is the reality of it? Is he having affairs?" "Yes." "Is that peaceful or stressful for you?" "Well, of course that is stressful."

"It is stressful,' I say, "because it is what is true—he is having affairs—and you want that to be different from what it is."

"I can see where fighting with reality is driving me crazy."

"Then why do you hold the belief that he shouldn't have affairs, when he is? How is this thought serving you?" The client says the belief isn't serving her at all, and yet she believes it, and because she relies on her husband for financial support for her and her children, she won't leave him.

Mext, I ask her what she fears would happen if she didn't continue to believe this stressful thought. Her answer: "If I didn't believe that my husband shouldn't have affairs, I'd be a doormat; he'd just cheat on me forever and I would have to pretend it didn't matter."

Usually, the client's answer to this subquestion points to what is already happening, if only in his/her mind. In this case, my client is complaining about a man who is already having sex outside of their marriage. She already feels like a doormat with the thought that he shouldn't, because it flies in the face of what's true: he does. And she is already pretending nothing terrible is happening, so as to spare her children any grief.

So again, I ask, what is it the payoff for holding this belief? She hopes it will help her not to feel like a doormat. She thinks it gives her some control over her husband's behavior. ("He'd cheat on me forever" is another thought that the client could question.)

The client sees how she has been causing herself stress in the name of trying to get peace. It's an honest mistake, one that I daresay most of us make quite often. It doesn't mean she has to condone her husband's behavior, or divorce him, or stay with him. This is just a window on her inner world.

What followed was that the client realized she didn't really care that her husband had sex with other women (in fact she was relieved that he wasn't pressuring her into sex); only that his doing so would mean she might be deprived of his support. "If he cheats on me, he'll leave me, and it means that I will be without support."

Now, seeing that her "shouldn't" thought was a projection into a frightening and non-existent future (could it be that he wouldn't leave her, or that if he did, she would still be supported?), she was able to be, if not sanguine, at least saner about the situation, aware that she had choices and did not have to be a victim of her husband's behavior.

But what if you believe you really do need things to be different? In Part 3 of this series, we'll look at whether our thoughts are really about needs...or if they are merely tantrums.


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

Why We Believe, Part 1: Are You Being Served?

In question number three of The Work of Byron Katie, "How do you react when you believe this thought?" we sometimes use a subquestion, "Why do you hold this (stressful) belief?" In other words, what is the payoff for holding that belief? How is that belief serving you? Is there a peaceful reason to keep this thought, one that does not bring you stress, suffering or pain?

Many times, a client's initial response to this subquestion is, "There is no payoff; it's not serving me." When I hear that, I ask the client to sit with that question for few moments and see if anything comes to them.

In my experience, we never attach to a stressful thought unless we believe it is going to do something for us. That "something" might not be a very good benefit, or it may be outmoded...but there always is some reason why we continue to believe what we believe, even if it feels terrible.

Here are some motives for keeping a stressful thought: (You may have others; if you do, and you'd like to share them, please write your motives in the comments.)

-I get to be right.
-I get to feel superior.
-I get a sense of control (over a person, a situation, the universe).
-I get to blame someone or something else for my unhappiness.
-I don't have to look at my part in the problem.
-I don't have to change.
-I get a sense of security or safety.
-I don't have to take responsibility.
-I get a purpose in life.
-I get to keep a familiar identity, a "me" by which I have always defined myself.
-I get to know something.
-I am protecting myself from future disappointment.
-I get an escape clause; I'm out of here!
-The thought may motivate me to do something. (Example: I think that believing "I am too fat" will motivate me to lose weight.)
-I will avoid further pain and suffering.

Some people don't like the word "motive." They think it is a "negative" word. I want to point out that I don't think having motives is inherently bad—a motive can certainly be sincere or for a seemingly kind reason—but it might also cause unnecessary stress.

In pointing out these underlying motives to the client (or to yourself, if you are doing The Work yourself), we are not setting out to make the client wrong for having them. A belief that no longer serves could well have served the client in the past. It may have been a matter of survival to believe, for example, "I'm not safe" if, as a child, you lived in a high-crime neighborhood, or if your parents were violent towards each other or to you. It probably kept you alert to some real danger. If you're applying it to your life now, when in reality you are just fine—and the belief causes you distress when it comes up as the story of a nonexistent past or future—
you may want to investigate the thought and see if you still need it.

What if you can't identify the perceived payoff? Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series: What We Believe: When the Payoff Is Hard to Find.


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

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.

When We Change Our Thoughts, Our Memories Change

Last week, I stayed with friends over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and found myself reminiscing about my parents a lot, telling uplifting and funny stories about our lives together. My friends found this remarkable; they have known me for years and never heard me say so many nice things about my mother and father. (I haven't heard me do that very much either!)

Apparently, in recent years, there has been a shift in the way I remember life events. In the past, the sad stories crowded out the happy ones. I knew I had an unhappy childhood, that nobody loved me, that there was something wrong with me, that my parents did everything wrong, and that I was scarred for life by broken romances, physical problems, nasty bosses, cult brainwashing, emotional and sexual abuse, the 9-11 terror attacks. These days, I remember a lot more of the "happy dreams"...so much so that, when I'm reminded of my former ways of being and thinking, it's as if I'm experiencing my life as a movie I once saw, or a book I once read, in which there was a character I no longer recognize as myself. There's no denial in it; it's just that I don't see a problem. You could call it "post-traumatic peace order." And that's amazing, because for about 30 years, I was a poster child for PTSD.

Why are upsetting events generally more memorable than happy or neutral ones? I just read this in the December 1, 2007 issue of Bottom Line newsletter:

"Negative emotions, such as fear and sadness, cause increased activity in a part of the brain linked to memories, so bad memories are recalled easily. Positive emotions don't have the same effect. Possible reason: In evolutionary terms, it makes sense to focus on potentially threatening information to protect against future dangers." —Elizabeth Kensinger, PhD., assistant professor, department of psychology, Boston College

A subquestion of Question Three of The Work, "What do you get for holding this belief?"—what is the payoff, or how does believing this thought serve you?—speaks to this phenomenon. The most common answer to this question is, in a word, protection. "I don't have to face the unknown," for example, or "I reject myself before he rejects me," or "I'll be prepared for the worst," or "It motivates me to work hard and avert disaster," or "I shield myself from blame."


Perhaps when we realize that the motive for holding stressful beliefs doesn't eliminate the fear—and therefore, the beliefs don't actually protect us from anything—there's no real reason to cling to them. At this point we can also notice that there was nothing to protect against: in this moment, all is well, unless and until we say differently. The "negative" memory loses its power to direct the course of our relationships and our lives.

We get further reinforcement from the turnarounds, where we provide genuine examples, from our experience, that demonstrate the opposite of our original beliefs. As we continue to inquire, thoughts that used to be habitual don't arise as frequently or with as much "charge."

I'm no neurobiologist, but I'd wager that this process of inquiry somehow overrides or re-circuits the brain's hard-wiring for memory so that there is no need to vigilantly refer to what was previously so upsetting. That is why the memory itself can appear to change.

Case in point: while staffing the School for The Work not long ago, I heard Byron Katie give some specifics about how confused she had been before "getting a clue" in 1986. She said, for example, that if she moved one hand one way, she would have to move the other hand the same way; otherwise she felt unbalanced. She also shared that there was always a song in her head. She mentioned a few more OCD symptoms she'd had, and as I listened to her, I remembered, as if in a dream, a miserable and frightened 43-year-old woman attending her first School for The Work in 2001, who'd had the exact same "quirks" since childhood. Katie was describing herself prior to her "undoing," and she was also describing me, prior to questioning my thoughts. I'd forgotten some of those behaviors and symptoms I used to have.

Later I told her this, and also that I used to have to breathe in rhythm to the songs in my head.

"Oh, sweetheart," she responded, with tears in her eyes, "the breathing thing." She'd had it too...and, like me, she had forgotten.

Lately the "earworm' (repetitive song in the head) has come back to visit; triggered, perhaps, by a few weeks of rehearsing tunes for a show I performed in. As I lie awake at night, waiting for sleep to come, a song is there, or it's not; it's not a problem. I am being breathed; there's no rhythm to it, I'm not doing it. The memory of a song sings itself. I see my mother and father in my mind. They are doing what they did—is it true?—and I notice, as I never did when they were alive, how much I love them.


©2007 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.