Resistance Is Utile

Estragon: I can't go on like this.
Vladimir: That's what you think.

—Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

In A Thousand Names for Joy, Byron Katie says, "When you know how to question your thoughts, there's no resistance. You look forward to your worst nightmare, because it turns out to be nothing but an illusion, and the four questions of The Work provide you with the technology to go inside and realize that."

You may be thinking, "I know how to do The Work; why, then, do I still resist what is? Am I doing this wrong?"

Not at all. You are merely witnessing a function of the mind. If you're doing The Work regularly, you have no resistance to the idea of inquiry; you're just reluctant to be wrong or to not know, sometimes. Some of us who have been examining our thoughts for many years still find areas where we don't want to surrender our righteous rightness.

"Yeahbuts" serve a very important function. For example, they let us know when...

1. We're not ready to know the truth; which is perfectly okay. You can't make yourself believe what you don't believe, or disbelieve what you do believe. "Children should not oppose their parents," for example; if you've got a kid with oppositional disorder, this one's hard to reverse, even if you know that "resistance is futile." (If you've noticed, so is resisting their behavior!)

2. We're not hitting the underlying beliefs that are keeping the central belief in place. So it's time to go more deeply into the thought and see what lies beneath. "I want my husband to stop cheating on me." It feels true, absolutely...because "Marriage is sacred." Or because "it means that...I'm losing him; I'll be alone; I'm not attractive enough."

3. We're defending something that doesn't exist. That's cosmic, but that's what's happening...and it's good news. Mind knows its days are numbers and it's not going without a fight. The introduction of the book A Course In Miracles famously says, "Nothing real can be threatened; nothing unreal exists." Ultimately the ego itself doesn't exist; we can know this when we question what we believe and the story of "I" changes. (Example: "I need" becomes "I don't need." Or, "I'm too fat" becomes "I'm not too fat." So what happened to that "I?" Poof!)

Resistance is one of those "compassionate alarm clocks" that lets us know we're in the nightmare of beliefs that are not true for us. Katie says, "If you feel any resistance to a thought, your Work is not done. When you can honestly look forward to experiences that have been uncomfortable, there is no longer anything to fear in life; you see everything as a gift that can bring you self-realization."

That's why "I (Heart) My Resistance." It brings me home, every time.

Deepening Transformational Inquiry: Name That Fear

Find a tough one, a thought that you believe to be true, absolutely. As you hold it against the four questions, notice if there is a fear to lose the belief. Name it: what's the worst thing that could happen if you no longer believed this thought?

Then, investigate that belief.

Example: if I still believe my body is too fat, after using the four questions and turnarounds (and three ways), I can ask myself, "What do I fear would happen if I no longer believed this thought?" You will come up with underlying beliefs that are holding your central belief firmly in place. Write them down and question them.

Fear named: I will always be heavy.

Fear named: I will die young.

Further deepening:

"I will die young, and it means that...I will not have lived a full life, I won't be there for my children, my wife will be devastated."

Thoughts to investigate:

I haven't lived a full life.

My children need me.

My wife will be devastated without me.

For more assistance with deepening inquiry, read the sourcebook for The Work: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell.

"No story: no resistance.
The story is what we resist, not the experience."
—Byron Katie

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

The Power of Willingness, Part II: "Yeahbuts" and "Whatifs"

"There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets
in." --Leonard Cohen

Resistance is a funny thing. Ultimately it exists to defend what does
not exist. It knows its days are numbered, and the reason it knows this
is because behind every resistance is the possibility of willingness.

People who are committed to knowing their own truth share in common a
willingness to be wrong...to listen...to consider other angles...and
most especially to question their "yeahbuts" and "whatifs," the two
bodyguards of the mind whose job it is to keep the identified self from
dissolving.

When we are invested in wanting to be right, there is nothing to be
done. Thankfully, most of us have a breaking point, where we are willing
to seek relief at any cost. Some of my clients come to inquiry with a
huge arsenal of "yeahbuts" and "whatifs," and yet they come away from
sessions and workshops at least partially disarmed. Why? Because
willingness--even a tiny bit of it--is more powerful than any defense. Where
there is willingness there is potential for transformation

Lacey was a client of mine, a young woman who was in love with an
unavailable man. He claimed to love her, but he was married and had a family
and would not leave them. She, too, was married and was scared to
forfeit her financial security. For several sessions, I listened to Lacey's
litany of "yeahbuts" and "whatifs." "Yeah, but with my limited skills
set, I can't enough to support myself." "Yeah, but no one will ever
love me like he [Mr. Unavailable] does." "What if I make a mistake and my
husband won't take me back?" Lacey continually veered away from
answering the inquiry questions, yet she kept coming to sessions for months.
That told me that she had a tiny bit of willingness. People who know
they are right don't even attempt to question their reality. They don't
hire facilitators.

When Lacey and I worked together, I would ask her to notice each time
she used a "yeahbut" and a "whatif" to avoid seeing the truth. "You can
be right later," I assured her. "For now, let's see if what you are
saying and believing is really true."

Eventually, Lacey began to question her beliefs while putting the
"whatifs" and "yeahbuts" on hold. We didn't banish them; that never works.
We just asked them to hang back for a bit while we did our work. Lacey
came to see that she could not absolutely know that she needed the
unavailable man in her life, or that she needed her husband's financial
support, or that she'd never find another great love. She was willing to
consider being wrong, or at least to stop needing to know everything in
all certainty. Ultimately she gave up on the lover and separated from
her husband for awhile. She got a good job and gave herself a chance to
get to know the true love of her life: herself.

The mind really wants to know the truth, even as it fights for the
survival of its sacred beliefs. When we're out of integrity, we feel it,
and the pain is excruciating. So try this: the next time you encounter
great resistance, don't try to banish the "yeahbuts" and "whatifs," but
instead invite them to wait in the wings; you can pick them up again
later if you like. Treat your yeahbuts and whatifs with gentle
understanding; they're lovingly doing their job, trying to protect you from
dissolution. Then, allow Willingness have its life...and see what happens.
You may discover that what you thought needed defending is the very thing
that has held you back from what you really want: true strength,
authenticity and happiness.

Deepening Transformational Inquiry: "I know I should, but...."

Is there something you believe you "should" be doing? For example:

"I should clean out the garage."
"I should get started early on my taxes."
"I should work out at least three times a week."

One way to work with "shoulds' is to question them directly: e.g. "You
should work out three times a week; is that true? What is the reality
of it, do you? Can you absolutely know you'd be better off if you worked
out three times a week?"

Another way is to look at your reasons (or excuses) for not doing what
you "should" be doing. These are the "yeahbuts" and "whatifs."

"Every time I clean out the garage, my husband yells at me for throwing
out something he needed."
"With the holidays coming I don't have time to start on my taxes. I
should have started them earlier."
"If I go to the gym that often, I look better but I get so tired; then
how am I going to clean out the garage and do my taxes?"

We dislike our "shoulds" because they make us feel like we're doing it
wrong. We love our "yeahbuts" because they lead us to believe we are
right in not addressing the "shoulds."

The trouble is, whether we are "shoulding" ourselves to death or
"yeahbutting" ourselves into complacency, it generally doesn't feel very
good. That's because when we attach to shoulds and yeahbuts, we are not
living in the present moment. "Shoulds" are stories of a nonexistent
future. "Yeahbuts" are horror stories based on past assumptions. "Whatifs"
are horror stories, period.

The yeahbuts and whatifs underlying our "shoulds" are like the legs of
a table. The tabletop cannot remain stable unless it has four good
legs. While inquiring into the validity of a "should" belief, notice any
wobbly legs holding up the table and make a mental note or written
sidebar about them to question later.

©2006 Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

The Power of Willingness

We already know about the power of resistance; we're experts at that. Resistance is the mind's way of protecting itself from ever appearing wrong or unsure. When we are challenged to move from our comfort zone -- and the worst depression or the fiercest rage can be comfortable if that's all we've ever known -- the mind offers resistance in the form of "yeahbuts" and "whatifs," in saying "no" instead of "yes" and in proclaiming "I know" instead of "maybe I don't absolutely know."

Transformational Inquiry with The Work of Byron Katie is a way of opening the mind through answering questions and exploring alternate perspectives. It is not the questions in and of themselves that are so powerful -- they are really quite simple. The power of inquiry lies in your willingness to answer to these questions with penetrating honesty. The effectiveness of Transformational Inquiry depends on a willingness to know the truth, as opposed to an insistance on being right. The results can be quite amazing...and I know this from my personal experience of using inquiry in my own life and work.

For the better part of 43 years, my middle name was "No." Because of this stubbornness on my part, I suffered to the point where it was difficult to get out of bed and face each day. I was an unhappy and very willful child. In my teen years I suffered from massive depression, turning to food and sleep to dull the pain. I had been in therapy for all of my adult life, and for several years I needed medication in order to function at all. I had my own home, I had relationships, and at one time I had a very successful home-based business...but each day, for many years, I was plagued by feelings of hopelessness. In my thirties, I was diagnosed with biochemical depression, and a respected psychiatrist told me that I would need therapy and drugs for the rest of my life. Something in me rebelled at hearing that...something that I now see as a willingness to be okay.

When I finally learned about The Work of Byron Katie, I knew it held the key to my freedom...and still I was resistant. Being right had served me very well for many years. It was a protection, and an excuse: if I knew I couldn't do better, then I didn't have to keep trying so hard, and it wasn't my fault. Resistance saved me from having to face my fears, and as a wise person once said, fear is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing as Real.

With willingness, I might have had to see that I'd always had at least a small part in my own failures and disapointments. With willingness, I had no one else to blame, not even God, my ultimate whipping boy and scapegoat. However, with willingness, I would also have had to consider that everything that had happened in my life was for a reason, there to teach me something, to nourish me, to put me on the path to self-realization. That was the carrot I lusted after, because deep down I knew that God didn't love me less than the rest of creation. Beneath the clutter of my sad stories, I knew I could be okay...more than okay.

The process of The Work's four basic questions -- "Is it true?" "Can you absolutely know that it's true?" "How do you react when you believe that thought?" "Who would you be without this thought?" -- is a way of getting very honest with onesself. When the questions are held in the mind the answers come from the heart, and the answers can be astounding. One of my cherished life-long beliefs was that I was a failure. I had a long, long list of proof for that one: I wasn't married, I wasn't a mother, I didn't have a million dollars in the bank, I didn't go to an Ivy League college, I hadn't written and published a bestseller.

Now, I could think of many, many examples of successful people who aren't married, or parents, or millionaires, or Ivy League grads, or bestselling authors...but, you see, I was SUPPOSED to have done all of these things by my 30th birthday. This is called, "being at war with reality."

At first, when I approached the questions, I would answer them out of the mind's habitual thinking, very quickly: yes, it's true, yes I can absolutely know that I'm right, and I react with depression, duh, how else should I react?...and I have no idea who or what I would be without this thought because I have always thought it and believed it because it's TRUE!

What I noticed was that it felt terrible to approach self-inquiry out of a place of resistance. And that noticing the feelings was the beginning of willingness. How much longer did I want to feel like the living dead? Not one second longer.

So I would ask myself the questions again...or, when I felt too afraid or resistant to do it alone, I would ask someone else to ask me.

"I'm a failure, is it true? It sure feels that way right now."

"I'm a failure, can I absolutely know that it's true?" And I'd wait, and I'd let the heart answer. "No. No, I cannot absolutely know that it's true. I have succeeded in many ways, great and small. I am successfully sitting here and answering these questions now."

"How do I react when I think that I am a failure?" And I'd revisit the way I'd lived my life...how I'd batted away praise, spurned affection, missed opportunities out of fear, lived in the past and the future but never in the present...how I'd let my health suffer...how I'd shamed myself...how much joy I denied myself as a result of believing this incredible lie.

"Who would I be without this thought?" I realized that with a little willingness, I could visualize myself without the "failure facade"...and I saw a woman who just keeps moving...who celebrates her successes of all sizes...who doesn't say "I can't" or "I'll never"...who has no regrets...and who feels comfortable in her own skin. I could see a lover, a listener, an available partner, a friend, one with open ears and open arms and an open mind. I could see someone with an immense and contagious sense of humor. With practice, I came to see that, without my tales of woe, I already was that resilient, loving and courageous woman. You can't even concieve of it if you're not it. The person I was without the belief in failure was - is - a more peaceful person. And peace is our true nature.

When I feel resistance now, it might stick around for a few days at most. In my life, willingness has become the conjoined twin of resistance, always on the other side of it, closer than close, sharing its life's blood. While once it was the weaker twin, having flexed its muscles, it is now the stronger one, and it will have its way.

Many clients show initial resistance to the process of self-inquiry, and what they -- what all of us have in common -- is this powerful willingness that ultimately brings us home. It is willingness that allows us to relax...to listen...to wait...to stop defending...to stop needing to know everything...to stop trying to manipulate the world to conform to our idea of perfection. Willingness is what turns nervous wrecks, hotheads and sadsacks into lovers of reality. Willingness is what turns enemies into friends, tragedies into comedies, crises into opportunities, fear into courage. Willingness is the "yes" on the other side of "no." Willingness brings you your own answers to the questions the heart has been asking forever. It is within you, waiting to take birth. I invite you to give it its life.

Click here to hear Carol repeat this message at EmpoweringMessages.com.

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