Becoming Whole - Using The Work

Preface - Constraints upon what The Work can do

Initially, when I took up The Work, it seemed to be the answer to my dreams - a simple and direct means of speedily clearing all one's emotional and karmic issues and thus to move speedily to full self realization. However, over the months of intensive use of The Work, I had doubts arising. How was it that although initially it had seemed that with The Work I was clearing out whole issues at a stroke, I then found that the astral entities which kept attacking me were able to still use those same issues in their attacks on me, as though I hadn't cleared them at all? Also, I found that in some circumstances the entities actually used my use of The Work as part of some extremely severe attacks on me. So, increasingly I was coming to think that there had to be some better way.

In 2007, about a year after my taking up The Work, I came to understand what one very big problem was. Yes, within certain constraints The Work is indeed able to clear out ALL one's own emotional issues extremely efficiently and speedily. However, the vast majority of people who would use The Work would, unbeknown to themselves, have some parasitic 'lost' souls* attached to them at soul level, and the usually considerable load of stored traumas carried by those parasitic souls would be experienced pretty well as though they belonged to the person who they were attached to.

* For more about parasitic 'lost' souls, see Astral Entities - Interference and Attacks from 'The Dark Side'.

It is actually possible for the person to heal those traumas of the attached 'lost' souls, but that tends to be a very big load of material to heal, and healing that is nothing like as speedy or efficient as healing one's own material. Therefore inquiry sessions on particular issues or thoughts or beliefs relating to major issues are liable to need repeating a fair number of times over a period in order to clear them - and few people indeed would be enthusiastic about keeping on doing the same inquiry sessions again and again!

Also, even without the issue of attached 'lost' souls, very few people actually have the motivation and dogged willpower to use The Work for more than a little 'dabbling' to address some immediately pressing issue such as a difficult relationship. Vanishingly few people would be motivated to sit down every day for months and perhaps years on end, working systematically through inquiry on all their beliefs, judgements and stressful thoughts, taking themselves progressively towards full self realization. Indeed, even I myself was coming to find it tedious as a daily practice - though that was not my reason for ceasing to use it.

I thus came to the conclusion that, despite the great simplicity and ease of The Work, and the immediate great benefits of its inquiry process, few people who try it actually use it in a thoroughgoing and effective way which would reap such spectacular results as some people, including myself, had gained from it. Similarly, much the same could be said of any one of the other most simple and powerful emotional clearance methods. People could then claim in despair (or quite often in almost a sort of triumph!) that The Work (or other method) doesn't work for them - really because they were never fully using it in the first place. With a small number of exceptions, people generally have at least a certain resistance against really effectively addressing and resolving their emotional issues, even though in many cases on the intellectual level they want to do so.

Why is this? Are people really fundamentally so perverse?

No, not at all. There are actually two main sabotaging factors of which I'm aware:

• The rigid patterns that are a part of the manifestation of particular emotional issues tend to direct people to avoid facing and resolving those issues, and thus motivate a person to sabotage attempts to clear them. Such sabotage is easily achieved with The Work, through repeated failure to write down and put to inquiry the real key thoughts underlying the particular issues (while less important thoughts may be worked upon), or/and simply not being rigorous and thorough in the inquiry process. To give an idea about the latter, let's consider that when I myself put a real key thought to inquiry, the inquiry process on that one thought commonly takes me about 15 minutes, perhaps sometimes 20, with much pondering and some basic visualization.

• Almost all of us have some degree of  interference from troublesome entities - primarily astral ('dark') entities. These have an agenda of power and control and, as I intimate much further below, will fight strenuously to put people off using The Work (or any similarly powerful emotional clearance method), and, if they can't turn the person away from the method they would certainly seek to control the person in some way to make their use of the method ineffective. I have experienced this myself, though in my case I was very strong willed and persisted in carrying out my sessions very effectively despite strong pressures from the 'dark' beings.

So, despite my strongly recommending The Work as the most efficient and powerful non-yogic emotional clearance method of which I yet have experience, for anyone serious about clearing their emotional issues fully I recommend a 'belt and braces' approach in which at least one and preferably more additional 'fast track' emotional clearance methods are used. Most likely you'd find that different methods are more effective for you in different situations. Such additional methods can include the EFT and 3D Mind I myself in early 2007 came to be using the EFT as well as The Work.

However, having written this far, now it's time to tell you why I've ceased using The Work. It isn't because The Work is no good, but because in May 2007 I found something tremendously better, and once I was using that every day, although I was still theoretically open to using The Work for the odd things which cropped up, my new methods were clearing my emotional material so powerfully and efficiently - yes, including that of the exceptional load of 'lost' souls attached to me, which were themselves removed by these methods within the year - I simply have had nothing come up which has needed even one inquiry session!

For the most effective way forward, then, for self realization and clearance of all your emotional and karmic issues, see Healing and Self Realization - The Safest and Quickest Way. In particular, for clearance of emotional issues I particularly recommend Power Walking, which is fully described in Some Potent Self Realization / Healing Practices. You may well find for yourself that those self realization methods effectively declare The Work redundant in your life, regardless of its being in itself an excellent method.

Introduction

In March 2006 I started using The Work, developed by Byron Katie, following a recommendation from a friend who, together with his wife, had been using it for some six months with, according to him, "spectacular" results for both of them. The Work is a powerful self realization system for the clearance of all manner of personal issues and sorting out your life, using an inner inquiry process based on a sequence of four fundamental questions and one or more turnarounds to apply to each belief, judgement or stress-laden thought that you carry.

It is important to write each thought down before submitting it to inquiry, for this takes the thought out of the clutches of the mind's defences. Subjecting the thought to the process of inquiry is then beautifully easy and unstressful and can achieve amazing results without the mind going into defence at all and obstructing or weakening the process.

The Work in a nutshell

Write down a list of each belief, judgement and stressful thought relating to a person or an issue. For ongoing work it is most helpful to make out 'Judge xxxx' worksheets, where xxxx is any specific person or category of people (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses, 'black' people, paedophiles, politicians, 'white' middle-class people, doctors and so forth - whatever categories you have judgements upon).

Then apply the four questions followed by the turnaround(s). It is important to ponder each question and look deep within yourself for answers to these. Otherwise the most superficial, logical part of the mind would give answers that commonly don't take you forward much.

It's greatly helpful to think around each question and each answer you come up with, to gain insights into its relevance and meaning for you. The Facilitation Guide that you can download from Byron Katie's website gives you a non-exhaustive list of subsidiary questions which you can ponder for each of the main questions to assist you in the process.

On the basis of my own working experience I recommend adding two questions to the beginning of the 'official' four, as follows:

• How did you come to have the thought originally?
  It's best to avoid getting into analysis, but a quick review of likely origins of the thought helps to establish an awareness that it's just a belief and not a statement of reality. It doesn't matter if you can't quickly think of any origin.

• Can you remember any life situations where that thought had particular significance?
  Again, this is just a quick review, picking out a few key situations, much as you would be doing for the turnarounds for the thought. The significances may appear to be positive, negative or neutral.

1. Is that true? The most that we can fully honestly say is that the statement appears to be true, so, a strictly correct answer is always 'no' or 'I don't know'. So, if you feel sure that the answer is 'yes', then you go to question 2; otherwise you skip that and go to question 3.

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true? The true answer to this is always 'no', because we cannot absolutely know anything. However, you do not have to give a 'no' answer; you simply do the best you can to be honest with yourself. With increasing experience you would gain the insight to realize that only a 'no' answer would be correct here.

3. How do you react when you think that thought? Take time to consider how you feel, act and generally live your life while that thought is running. This is most effective if you briefly allow yourself to feel all the feelings associated with believing that thought, rather than just intellectually acknowledging the feelings. It's fine and indeed beneficial to allow some emotional release to occur - such as crying, laughter, trembling, an angry bellow... - but it's best not to spend much time on it; the aim here is simply to get really into the feeling.

4. Who would you be without that thought?*
   Again you take your time, considering how you would feel, act and generally live your life - this time in the event of your being unable to think that thought.

   * You are not being asked to try to get rid of the thought - this is just for exploring a 'what if' scenario.

And then you do the turnaround(s) upon the thought. For each turnaround you consider carefully its possible relevance in your life, and a few of your life situations, whether current or far past, where it would be particularly relevant. Please note that the aim is not to indoctrinate yourself with any turnaround, but simply to examine what it could mean to you and in your life, whether true or untrue. You also consider for each turnaround whether it is as true as or truer than the original thought, and whether it is itself a belief that you had been carrying. In the case of a turnaround that is untrue but is or could be a belief which to some extent you have been carrying, then it is a good idea to write it down and go through inquiry on it too.

It is important not to take on a turnaround as a new belief. Any turnaround which is or could be a belief of yours is best written down and itself put to inquiry.

Here's an example of getting turnarounds from a thought. "She should listen to me" becomes:

• "She shouldn't listen to me";
• "She doesn't have to listen to me";
• "I should listen to her";
• "I should listen to me" - and even
• "I should me to me" - and even
• "I should me"!

And similarly, "I need her love" becomes:

• "I don't need her love";
• "She needs my love" (completely untrue and worth putting to inquiry, but prompting you to consider whether you're being all that loving towards her in imagining that you need her love);
• "I need my love";
• "I need me".

N.B. I recommend a much more radical use of the 'turnarounds to myself' than is normally used; in fact I don't yet know of anyone going to such extremes as I do. However, it is powerful to do this, even though at first it may look bizarre to bring one's series of turnarounds eventually to things like "I should me me to me me"!

The Work is a method of overriding importance for sorting out your life and opening it up - very much self realization rather than just 'self help'. For me personally it appeared to have rendered redundant all other emotional healing methods that I'd used. The methods that I have declared redundant include Re-evaluation Counselling, EFT* and various sorts of spiritual healing including Reiki in enhanced form and extra-powerful healing with sacred geometry healing wands. The Work is not just an improvement over any of these but a spectacular improvement - well, with the exception that some people get quite quite spectacular results with the EFT, but The Work is even easier and more direct.

* Later note (March 2007) - I have now resumed use of the EFT as I am finding it handy for dissolving attacks from 'dark' entities, and actually there are many situations where I find the EFT to come more naturally to me and to hold my attention better. When I originally abandoned the EFT in 2005, that was in the face of sustained and truly massive attacks from the entities, and at that time the EFT, although clearly an excellent technique for more normal circumstances, was proving not very effective for me. Now I'm much stronger against the entities and have far less painful emotional material which they could cause to surface in an attack, and so I'm finding the EFT useful for dissolving the more modest attacks I get now (prior to the completion of the clearance of the entities from me, which will presumably occur before long). I'm now most commonly using the EFT first on an issue or feeling which arises, then finishing off by inquiry using The Work.

As noted in the Preface above (added in January 2007), although it is theoretically possible to use solely The Work for clearance of all one's issues, for most people it's more realistic to use a combination of at least two methods if they're really serious about wanting to clear all their issues. I recount an instance of my using such a combination of methods on my EFT page.

The Work can be used by yourself on yourself or used by a counsellor ('facilitator') with a client. In the latter case it could be in the field of professional counselling but also, very rewardingly, carried out in peer co-counselling ('facilitation exchange') or group sessions. Couples can have regular facilitation exchanges to make the process particularly enjoyable and do wonders for their relationship. In other words The Work can be used in a great range of situations, each of which has its own advantages.

It's amazing how even big and seemingly intractable issues quickly unravel once you pick out the simple basic thoughts that had been underlying them - the only problem with the particular thoughts having been that you hadn't examined them to see if they were true and you'd thus believed them. With The Work you don't try to get rid of thoughts but you simply examine them in a way that enables you to see what the reality behind them was and is, and thus to let go of your attachment to the particular thoughts - to 'un-believe' them, if you like.

The Work is The Work and not The Magic Wand...

The Work is prosaically but well named. Its results are spectacular compared with other healing and self realization methods that I know, but you won't get self realization and clearance of major issues without diligent and ongoing use of The Work.

There's a huge number of people around who want a quick fix for their particular issues of which they are aware. People suffering from depression usually want a method that will be figuratively a magic wand, taking away their problems pretty well instantly, with more or less no work for them to do to achieve that end. In fact for true self healing and self realization to occur each person does have to take responsibility for himself and commit himself to a certain amount of ongoing work, no matter what method he uses.

People who are not willing to take that sort of personal responsibility and commit themselves to ongoing personal 'process' work cannot get much out of The Work, not because of anything lacking in The Work but because they are unwilling to use it.

You could have the fastest and most powerful car in the world, but it would drive at precisely 0 km/h unless you actually inserted and turned the ignition key and then drove the car. Similarly The Work will bring you forwards only to the extent that you actually use it. If, out of your feelings of depression or/and lack of a sense of self-responsibility, you just hear or read about The Work and have a half-hearted quick stab at it and then conclude that it doesn't work for you, that's like getting into that super-fast car and being so convinced that it won't work for you that you nervously drive the thing for a few metres in first gear at little more than walking pace and then pack it in and reject the car, claiming that it doesn't really work for you.

The challenge to you, then, if you are wanting a quick fix, is to commit yourself instead to ongoing work, preferably with daily inquiry sessions, and taking on board the truth that you are fully using The Work when you have integrated its inquiry process into your life permanently. For starters I would recommend putting to inquiry such thoughts as "I need a quick fix / instant cure for my problem(s)"; otherwise such a belief could well be your biggest obstacle to ever resolving your issues in this lifetime by any method.

End-gaining is an obstacle

Similarly it can be unhelpful to try using The Work with the specific intention to resolve a particular issue rather than to bring about overall improvement in your life. True, putting any thoughts at all to inquiry is beneficial, and it's fine and often helpful to be aware of particular issues that you want to clear, but the end-gaining approach which seeks a specific result in a specified timeframe would be relatively ineffective, for when you are in such end-gaining mode you are not really opening yourself to reality and are allowing yourself to be driven by underlying thoughts which themselves are unexamined stressful ones which are prime candidates for putting to inquiry. That end-gaining approach presupposes that other issues are less important or indeed unimportant or even nonexistent.

In fact only through inquiry can you find your truth about this. If you have an end-gaining attitude to The Work, then it is worth asking yourself questions such as "Is it true, that I have no other issues which are important enough to put to inquiry?", "Is it true, that when I have resolved that issue there will be no point in my putting anything else to inquiry?" and "Is it true, that it will be more helpful to me to use The Work for this specific issue than to use it for overall improvement in my life?", and to take those thoughts through the inquiry process.

So, even with specific issues which you want to resolve quickly, The Work is most effective - at least in the early stages of your use of it - when used in a broad, open-ended and ongoing manner, putting to inquiry all judgements, beliefs and stress-laden thoughts, and with an open mind about specific outcomes and their timing. That way you get surprised again and again at all manner of improvements in your life in aspects and areas where you didn't even realize that such change could occur.

There is another important reason for the advisability of working on a broad front. If you restrict yourself to working on a specific issue you are not allowing for the interconnectedness of your various emotional issues, both major and minor. That way, you would be denying yourself many important 'handles' on that one issue which would be found when working on the multitude of thoughts that come up in everyday life.

In any case, by working methodically through an ongoing series of 'judge my neighbour' worksheets for people who bug or have bugged you (more about that below), you would be addressing your most pressing issues anyway. Indeed some of the most effective 'handles' on the issue that you so eagerly want to resolve may be ones that would only turn up serendipitously while you are apparently working on entirely different material. I've had this happen for myself, so I speak from experience.

Strategies for making The Work not work (!)

This note, written in December 2006, is based on my accumulating observations of people and their interactions with The Work. In my great enthusiasm for a self realization method that had worked so spectacularly for myself I'd assumed that large numbers of other people would jump for the opportunity to speedily clear their emotional issues and live lives of enlightenment, peace and happiness. Not so, however!

It's amazing, the resistance that nearly everyone has towards any real possibility of their speedy self liberation - even most of the people who claim to be dying for just that! People are addicted to their ways, even if they know really that there is a much better way for them.

In my experience, one fairly common response of people to being introduced to The Work is in the nature of "Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. In fact it's really what I've been doing for myself for quite a few years now - except of course I didn't call it The Work or 'inquiry'. So, there's no need for me to take up The Work because I'm actually already doing it."

How do I know that such people have been kidding themselves? --Simple! After however many years they claimed to have been doing it, they still have major emotional issues and are far from enlightenment! True, they may well have been helping themselves a bit by doing a certain level of inquiry on the odd very stressful thoughts - but they had not been applying themselves in the rigorous and systematic way to inquiry which would actually have liberated them quickly from all their emotional issues and put them on the doorstep of enlightenment.

Likewise, I still personally know only one person apart from myself, who has had results from The Work which could be described as 'spectacular'*. Reason? All the other people have minimized the effectiveness of The Work by not being methodical and regular in their inquiry sessions, conveniently omitting to put to inquiry many of the very thoughts which most needed to be put to inquiry! Talk of beating about the bush!

* To be fully correct, I do know one other person who seemed to be more dedicated than most in his approach to The Work and might possibly be in the same league. However, I shan't know how he's getting on till I eventually get the odd progress report from him.

A common means to get minimum benefit from The Work is to restrict one's inquiry to particular thoughts that come up at times of stress, such as in a difficult relationship, and neglect systematic processing of 'Judge xxxx' worksheets, or just to 'do' one particularly bothersome issue and nothing else. That's no good at all, except for a real slow track!

I myself am now at the stage of just putting the occasional stressful thoughts to inquiry as they come up, but that's only because I'd already used The Work well, with a daily hour of inquiry, working through a whole succession of "Judge xxxx" worksheets (occasionally branching out briefly to work on specific issues), and with that consistent diligence of doing my inquiry work I experienced dramatic improvements. Even now I'm still poised to write out a worksheet on any particular person or people who bug me in any way. My inquiry work was initially kept on a broad front despite my being aware of certain pressing issues, and it was this consistent and systematic way of working on a broad front which brought me through so quickly.

ANYONE else could achieve likewise if they would truly do likewise. Therein lies the catch and my big challenge to you.

My own big leap forward with The Work

After just a few weeks with daily sessions of inner inquiry using The Work I was already feeling dramatically different. I found that a great deal of change occurred in me too through my reading Byron Katie's other classic book, I Need Your Love - Is That True?. I'm feeling love much more strongly now, particularly for myself, this giving all my life experience a radiant and very stable happiness which is still steadily increasing.

I spent some 10 to 15 minutes on inquiry on the basic thoughts which underlay the different big separation / isolation traumas in my different lifetimes to the present time (a very major issue for me up to the time I took up The Work), and similarly for the formidable night terrors traumas*. This work cleared out the sense of isolation and loneliness and a lot of deep fear from close to its origin, and has been incredibly simple, easy and quick work. There's been no need to go trawling about in my incarnational history for more details of what happened - it's just been a matter of my attending to those major traumas of which I was already aware. Through 'liberating' my experience of the most major ancient traumas I would be also 'liberating' a plethora of other, related experiences right up to the present day from their content of separation / isolation trauma. It's like having identified and pulled out a thread, resulting in the whole sense of trauma unravelling and the energy being freed.

* Later note (January 2008) - This was actually a misunderstanding of the real situation, which related to the massive load of severely traumatized 'lost' souls which were actually attached to me. I counsel that anyone who has had night terrors not waste time with The Work at all (sorry!) and take up the powerful self realization methods given or pointed to in Healing and Self Realization - The Safest and Quickest Way and Some Potent Self Realization / Healing Practices. They are the really effective way forward to clearing all that extremely troublesome astral-entity-related material.

No doubt there's more inquiry work to do there yet, but already I feel a great relief and release, and I see my whole incarnational history* in a different light now - not as a catalogue of horrendous things that happened to me in the role of a victim or martyr, but as a sequence of learning opportunities in which I had caused myself tremendous suffering by not examining my thoughts and establishing the reality of each situation - a sequence of innocent misunderstandings, in fact.

* Later note (January 2008) - I now have come to understand that the notion of a linear sequential incarnational history for myself is incorrect (I am apparently an incarnation of a new soul), and much of what may appear to be one's own past life experiences and memories may be something else altogether, - so I now do not engage with stories of what may have happened for me before this lifetime. See Astral Entities - Interference and Attacks from 'The Dark Side'.

However, for healing purposes it's still helpful to work on an apparent past life issue, if it presents itself, as though it were just that, but only for the purpose of releasing present-time issues - and it is best then to let go of it as 'just story' and not hang onto it as any indication of what actually happened to oneself. Indeed, it may have related to memories or traumas of one or more parasitic lost souls attached to oneself.

So, by having changed my perception now and holding up to inquiry the previously believed thoughts which had been hurting me I've rapidly cleared out the whole sense of trauma from all my lifetimes. It's a tremendous liberation to find that I can take responsibility for my suffering everywhere it's occurred and release it just by examining the faulty thinking of mine which had caused the suffering - the sense of trauma - at the time.

Because The Work deals with basic concepts in one's thinking and not the details of particular situations, it's completely unnecessary to use regression or any other means to find out precise details of a supposed past life trauma. It is also unnecessary to know for sure whether the experiences were historical fact. If they're part of one's experience, then it's beneficial to work on them as though they had happened historically, but then to let go of the experiences as 'just story' which may or may not have happened to you. Indeed, that is true for any healing or emotional clearance method.

I do not mean by any of this that everyone using The Work should work on past life experiences. Not at all. My point is simply that where a person is already aware of or becomes aware of what appear to be particular past life traumas or issues, then it's quick and highly beneficial to 'liberate' those experiences by subjecting their underlying thoughts to inquiry. That would be bound to have a strong positive impact on all current life issues which are underlain by similar thoughts.

Getting started in The Work

Judge your neighbour!

As I've already remarked, you can learn all the basics from Byron Katie's book Loving What Is. The normal way to get started actually using The Work is through making out a succession of 'Judge Your Neighbour' worksheets. You can download printed worksheet templates and facilitation guide sheets (i.e. guide for the inquiry process) from Byron Katie's website.

To fill in a worksheet, what you do is write down all your uncensored judgements and negative opinions and shoulds and shouldn'ts - however mean, petty and unreasonable - about a particular person who in some way bugs or has been bugging you. It's best to keep each statement short, breaking up longer thoughts into a series of short statements which you can subject to inquiry individually. You then subject each of those written-down thoughts to inquiry. Taking your time about this (pondering on each question), you work thus through worksheets for any- and everyone who bugs or has bugged you, giving priority to those who've bugged you the most. Very likely, as you progress with this work some people will cease bugging you before you ever get to doing a worksheet on them.

For full effect, the written-down judgements and other thoughts generally need to be in the present tense. In other words, for the purpose of inquiry you imagine that you are at whatever time in your life that the particular thought was most relevant (or when it originated, if you know that). That is still true if it was, say, a judgement upon a parent who died when you were tiny. Imagine you are still tiny and judge that parent from that perspective. Similarly for thoughts and beliefs that you know or suspect to have been taken up in a previous lifetime. There are some exceptions, however, such as the self recriminatory thought "I shouldn't have done that", which is very much worth putting to inquiry in addition to its present-tense equivalent.

It is not so helpful to try the judging exercise upon yourself, at least in the early stages of using The Work, because your mind can do tricks to avoid the most important issues from being addressed. The smart thing about going into judgement upon somebody else who bugs you is that we are all effectively mirrors to each other. If somebody bugs you in some way, then that is because that person is reflecting something about yourself which is, perhaps unawarely, bugging you. The aim here is not to get into criticizing yourself in a negative way, but to examine your thoughts and see how they do or don't tally with reality.

In the case of written down statements that do not include the self deception words "should", "shouldn't" or "need", it is greatly helpful to additionally write down and put to inquiry versions of the statements rephrased to contain one of those words. Thus "He doesn't listen to me" produces also "He should listen to me" and "I need him to listen to me". Each of those three will work a bit differently when put to inquiry, and so for the most effective working all three would be processed.

I describe "should", "shouldn't" or "need" as 'self deception' words, because they are generally used for the purpose of arguing or struggling against reality. In reality, nothing should or shouldn't anything. Things simply are as they are, or 'whatever is' is. You use the words "should" or "shouldn't" when you are causing yourself (and others) stress by being in conflict with reality, wanting reality to be other than how it is. Similarly with the notion of need. We have very few true needs - air, water, enough of the right food to live on, a surface to stand, sit or lie upon, appropriate shelter from the elements... The rest of our sense of need is fighting against reality and causing ourselves untold stress and suffering. So, all thoughts that can be expressed with a "should", "shouldn't" or "I need..." (the latter with the exceptions just mentioned) are inherently untrue.

I'd rather not do this...

You may well feel a certain defensive feeling - even overt fear - about certain thoughts or issues being put to inquiry. Or you may strongly feel that you are right in a particular view that you are holding, so it shouldn't be put to inquiry. In fact all such feelings are the most wonderful friends because they are your messengers which are telling you that those particular thoughts are especially important ones to put to inquiry - including those ones which you feel convinced are 'right' and shouldn't be put to inquiry. I find repeatedly, as do others, that when I go ahead and put to inquiry those very thoughts about which I was feeling a resistance or defensive fear, I experience a great relief when it comes to the turnaround(s), and often even break out into laughter as I see once again that what had seemed to be such a problem area had really been based in a completely innocent misunderstanding, which I could now embrace with love and a new level of happiness.

What a tremendous relief, then, as you discover again and again that there is nothing after all within yourself which you'd ever needed to defend or hide, and that you can thus become totally free, open and honest!

Everyday use of inquiry

For my first few months of using The Work I took about an hour daily to carry out formal inquiry, working through a succession of 'Judge xxxx' worksheets. Actually I found the layout of the printed worksheets quite awkward and simply used one as a prompt for my writing down my judgements and stress-laden thoughts on a blank sheet.

In my own experience, when a particular trauma or stressful feeling (such as fear or loneliness) grabs my attention this can be worked upon directly by seeking out the most basic thoughts underlying the feeling. I've already given two examples of this above in the blue panel. Never mind how complex or unusual the experiences involved (what Byron Katie refers to as one's story), the underlying thoughts that require putting to inquiry tend to be ones that pretty well everybody has. For example, all manner of relationship issues, however 'heavy', complex or unusual, have as their basis unexamined thoughts in the nature of "I need that person's [or people's] love". We subject to inquiry those underlying concepts, and leave the complexities of the story out of it. So simple!

One of the many wonderful things about using The Work, even when you are just starting, is that upsets and apparently hurtful words from anyone can now be recognised as friends. When somebody has 'hurt' you, what has actually happened is that the person has been doing their job as a mirror for you and put you in touch with an unexamined thought which YOU then have been using to go hurting YOURSELF.

Just think about that. Here's an example. You feel hurt because a friend has remarked out of the blue that you're a bit selfish. Your friend said that to you just once, but how many times did you then go on repeating that to yourself? If you hadn't been doing so you would have gained no sense of hurt from what your friend said. So, in truth, who hurt you? YOU did! Your friend did you a favour in pointing out to you something of yours which you needed to put to inquiry.

So, the simple answer to each such situation is to write down and put to inquiry as soon as possible the thought(s) underlying that hurt. That not only transforms the hurt into a positive experience in itself, but it more generally advances your self realization so that you are more open and happy and less likely to feel hurt in the future.

Inquiry in action - an example of my working on myself

I include here an instructive example of my working on myself, and will probably add one or two more examples. I show here how the inquiry process can be followed through a chain of related thoughts. Working in this way, you can sometimes temporarily branch off from a Judge xxxx worksheet to address and resolve a whole issue.

The written-down thought was "I need friends to agree with me".

Question 1: Is it true?

No, because I have extremely few true needs and that isn't one of them. In fact true needs are not stressful thoughts and the above thought definitely is, for it is a sort of craving that seeks to be comforted.

(Because of the 'no' answer I skip Question 2 and go to Question 3.)

Question 3: How do I react when I think that thought?

I feel weak, powerless and lonely, craving for friends to comfort me in that situation. I feel hurt and betrayed when friends don't agree or particularly when they openly disagree with me. I feel trapped and held back in my life because I'm feeling beholden upon my friends for agreement and approval in order to feel comfortable and strong. I doubt myself and feel in constant inner stress.

(Actually the thought and my responses to it are mostly in the past, so I'm taking my strongest and most irrational attachment and responses to that thought from earlier times in my life, and in my mind I review them in the present tense, as if I'd placed myself back in those times.)

Question 4: Who would I be if I could never think that thought again?

I would feel free and have self confidence. I'd be able to act and change things in my life according to my good sense without waiting upon friends to agree with me. I'd be able to listen to disagreeing communications from friends and take on board any useful information therein. I'd enjoy the company of my friends regardless of whether they agreed with me on particular points. I'd feel much more 'connected' and in harmony.

The Turnarounds

I don't need friends to agree with me

I need friends to disagree with me (when my thinking is faulty, i.e. based on unexamined thoughts which I'd do well to put to inquiry)

I need me to agree with me

This actually has two possible meanings for me: 

1. I need me (higher consciousness) to agree with me (ordinary mind) 
2. I need me (ordinary mind) to agree with me (higher consciousness). 

The former is actually in the same fold as the original thought and therefore in its meaning it is not a turnaround, for there my faulty-thinking lower mind is seeking to have my wiser higher consciousness agree with it! However, in the second meaning of that turnaround I am seeking to come to agreement with my deeper wisdom.

In fact both these meanings of the particular turnaround are important and I review the relevance of both to various of my life situations. The first is an unhelpful thought which was undoubtedly often running, trying to convince me that I was right when more deeply I knew I wasn't and so causing me inner disharmony and stress. The second is the configuration that would have so often helped me, eliminating inner conflict and stress, and indeed it would have made me act more wisely and give less cause for friends to disagree with me in the first place.

Question 1: Is it true?

No. Again, I may want this but I don't need it.

Question 3: How do I react when I think that thought?

I feel uncomfortable, weak and needy. I feel that I'm lacking something, and I need friends to help cover up that lack. I feel out of harmony with myself. I either seek out friends to try and get that comfort or (usually) I feel isolated and apparently needing a sort of support which I'm not getting. I often cannot enjoy the company of friends because they do not always make me feel comfortable / good.

Question 4: Who would I be if I could never think that thought again?

I'd feel in harmony with myself and have trust in my ability to feel good and comfortable without waiting upon others for this. I would then enjoy the company of friends without the stress of expecting them to be my comforters.

The Turnarounds

I don't need friends to make me feel comfortable / good

I need friends to make me uncomfortable or feel bad (i.e. to draw my attention to thoughts of mine which would do well to be put to inquiry)

I need me to make me feel comfortable / good

This has two possible meanings for me:

1. I need me (rather than anyone else) to make me feel comfortable / good
2. I need me to make me feel comfortable / good (emphasis on being made comfortable / good)

Question 1: Is it true?

No. Again, I may want this but I don't need it.

Question 3: How do I react when I think that thought?

I feel uncomfortable and in disharmony, for I know inwardly that in wanting to be comfortable I'm really wanting to cover up various issues which would be better faced and resolved.

Question 4: Who would I be if I could never think that thought again?

I would face all my issues fearlessly and resolve them, and by doing so I'd progressively find the real peace, comfort and happiness of being in harmony with myself and indeed reality.

The Turnarounds

I don't need to feel comfortable / good

I need to feel uncomfortable / bad (i.e. to draw my attention to thoughts of mine which would do well to be put to inquiry)

I need me

I often add this turnaround for "I need..." statements. When I am thinking "I need xxxx", I'm placing part of my awareness out there, away from myself, in my attachment to xxxx. So, by embracing the turnaround "I need me", I'm opening myself to the reality that all my apparent needs apart from a few real physical needs are actually properly met by myself.

In embracing this reality, I'm bringing back to myself that part of my awareness which had been 'out there', attached to xxxx, and consequently I feel altogether more 'present' with myself, more whole and more happy.

Spontaneous inquiry

After some weeks of ongoing formal inquiry sessions, increasingly the inquiry process occurs spontaneously upon various beliefs and stressful thoughts that arise in the mind. I'm already noticing this myself. Sometimes I'm aware of a thought and a very quick inquiry process proceeding upon it in the background, but I'm also noticing sometimes a thought just beginning to emerge and at once a wonderful sense of release and new clarity occurring as that thought becomes re-evaluated and disappears without my even knowing what the particular thought had been.

I started using The Work in early March 2006, just after my last attendance of term for a rehearsal with a local choral society. When I turned up for the first rehearsal of the next term - on 27th April - it was an amazing experience for me, because such a familiar occasion felt so hugely different. I felt massively more clarity and centredness in stable happiness and love, without feelings of needing to try to make anything happen. My troublesome entities seemed much more distant and were screaming in more frustration and fury than ever.

My understanding is that I was experiencing not just the static difference between my state on those two evenings about 1½ months apart - although that was very great - but also on that second occasion I was experiencing a massive re-evaluation of many thoughts which were triggered by the situation and all the people present.

The thoughts, although triggered and starting to surface, were all ones that were unexamined but related to thoughts that I had previously written down and subjected to inquiry. These new thoughts, then, were spontaneously re-evaluated in relation to the similar thoughts which I'd previous subjected to inquiry, and then each had dissolved back into my naked awareness as though it too had been subjected to inquiry, so that I was never aware of these thoughts as such. Just a breathtaking experience of a new freedom and clarity.

Write it down!

Although a lot of spontaneous inquiry and re-evaluation of thoughts does start happening, according to Byron Katie it is still best to write down your thoughts for inquiry whenever possible, however experienced you are with The Work. Apparently by doing this you outwit various mental habits that can otherwise make the inquiry process less effective.

However, in my own experience some of my most powerful inquiry sessions have occurred when I was getting on with some physical task and was unable to write the particular thoughts down at that time. To ensure that I got everything possible from those sessions I later wrote the thoughts down and then repeated the inquiry upon them.

Flexible use of inquiry

I find that the inquiry process works most efficiently if I do not remain tied to just working ritualistically through the list of judgements on the worksheet that I'm currently processing, and instead on occasion I follow logical pathways of inquiry and association. Let's take a few examples of how I've been able to maximize the power of the inquiry process.

Example 1.

On my worksheet for judging a particular radio news presenter whose interviewing style greatly irritated me, one of the statements was "He's a little person full of his own importance". The turnarounds that I got from this were "He's not a little person full of his own importance", "He's a big person without self importance" and "I'm a little person full of my own importance".

I realized that it was the latter statement that had special significance for me. This did not mean that I am fundamentally a little person full of my own importance, but rather, that throughout my adult life it had been an underlying thought which I'd been carrying and which had made me feel uptight, resentful and rivalrous about anyone else's apparent self importance pattern. This had then made me feel and act at those times like a little person full of his own importance. So, I thought of a number of occasions where that thought had been relevant and had caused me to feel or even act uptight and rivalrous about particular people's self importance and approval-seeking patterns.

Then I wrote down on a 'Miscellaneous' worksheet the statement "I'm a little person full of my own importance" and then put that to inquiry. The important turnaround I got this time was "I'm a big person without self importance". That is in reality the truth not only about me but also about every person when unexamined thoughts are not causing them to act otherwise. I looked again at situations involving particular people at different times in my life, including the abovementioned news presenter, in the light of my new understanding of what had been going on for me and what similar things would have been going on for them.

Example 2.

Many of the thoughts written down on my 'Judge My Father' worksheet related to his compulsively criticizing me and virtually never having an openly positive word to say to me about myself. Frequently, therefore, while I was applying inquiry to my judgements upon him I would have a 'loaded' thought about myself or other people come up. Each time that happened I wrote the thought down on my 'Miscellaneous' worksheet and put that to inquiry before continuing on the 'Judge My Father' sheet. Again, sometimes it was a turnaround of one of my judgements on my father which was a statement about me which I then wrote down on the 'Miscellaneous' sheet and put to inquiry. The same happened a lot with my worksheets for judging my mother and my brother. I was thus able to work on particular judgements as issues in their own right in many aspects of my life and resolve them then and there.

There was one case, the details of which I don't remember at the moment, where I wrote down a turnaround statement about myself, put that to inquiry, and got out of that yet another turnaround which was an issue for me so that I put that too to inquiry, and one particular turnaround I got out of that had very strong application in many of my life experiences, especially when I was young.

Example 3.

When putting to inquiry a statement that the person xxxx should or shouldn't do something or be a certain way, commonly I add an identical statement to the sheet for processing, with "people" and sometimes other named people substituted for xxxx. This ensures that I deal with the particular issue with some thoroughness at that time, rather than having the same issue keeping cropping up for inquiry relating to different people over a longer timespan.

Getting the most out of the turnarounds

Here are a few tips based on my own experience.

As true as or truer...?
I strongly recommend that for EVERY turnaround which is a statement about you, you look at ALL grains of possible truth or relevance for you that it may contain, even if some of the turnarounds appear on the surface to be less true than the original thought or even quite nonsensical. I do this and get a LOT of mileage out of them this way. I find that often even a seemingly very untrue turnaround, upon a little reflection, can be found to apply to the odd experiences in my life, even if only in a symbolic way.

Less true or not true for me...?
You wrote down the thought "He keeps shouting at me", and got the turnaround "I keep shouting at him". Maybe you never physically shouted at him and this turnaround looks nonsensical, but in an important sense that turnaround is very likely true for you, for haven't you at times shouted at him in your mind? This is just one of the many ways that a superficially untrue turnaround may actually have some important truth for you. You may think of yourself as completely non-violent, yet how many people have you beaten up or been very harsh with in your mind?

Is this turnaround at least possibly a belief or stress-laden idea for me...?
If so, great benefit will come through writing it down and going through inquiry on it.

That's definitely not true for me, so I can dismiss that one...?
But why dismiss it just because at that time you cannot see truth in it? If you do that you're closing a door and taking on a belief again - "I haven't acted like this" or "I'm not like that". No, I find MUCH more liberation through acknowledging that there might be some truth in the turnaround even if I haven't spotted it yet. In any case, that untrue statement could still be a belief that you've been unawarely carrying.

I find this opening up to the truth of my own Great Unknown to be a great liberation and act of self love.

The truth is that each of us doesn't absolutely know anything at all - except the innermost nature of experience, which is beyond concepts and cannot be accurately described. Therefore, the more that we acknowledge that we really don't know, the more we are in harmony and alignment with reality.

"I've cleared that issue so I don't need to put any more thoughts about that to inquiry"

Many people seek to go into denial of their emotional issues at the first opportunity. You can never absolutely know that an issue has been cleared 100%, and so it's important that you continue to put to inquiry any beliefs, judgements or stress-laden thoughts, whatever they are about - and that includes the thought "I've cleared that issue so I don't need to put any more thoughts about that to inquiry".

However, what you will notice if you are regularly using The Work is that the number of thoughts presenting themselves for inquiry will greatly diminish over the weeks and months as your life transforms greatly for the better.

"I'm desperate with my problems - please help me!"

The Work can work spectacularly for people who have major and apparently intractable issues. However, a stumbling block is often a sort of addiction to one's suffering and feelings of helplessness - so that you feel desperate to be helped, not understanding that the most important thing is for you to learn to help yourself. No method will help you all that much if you are unwilling to get taking charge of your life and your self healing process and are waiting upon others to 'help' you. Getting some help from others, balanced with also helping oneself is healthy and takes you forward, but just wanting to be helped all the time keeps you stuck in your rut.

In such a case, not much progress is likely to be made until such thoughts as "I need help" or "I can't cope with this on my own" are put to inquiry. It's not at all that you shouldn't seek some assistance, as I say, but rather, that any assistance (such as sessions with a facilitator for The Work) is best sought as an adjunct to your managing your own self healing process. Self empowerment is the key - not constantly 'being helped', which is generally disempowering.

I therefore strongly recommend that care workers and counsellors who are using The Work with clients who want to be helped but aren't yet open to helping themselves put a priority on guiding their clients through inquiry on their helplessness, powerlessness and neediness beliefs as suggested in the previous paragraph.

Should I put positive beliefs to inquiry?

Of course there is no 'should' about anything, but this is an interesting point. When asked about that, Byron Katie scoffed at the idea of doing such a thing, while acknowledging that at least it would be harmless to do. However, I have a different 'take' on the situation - for the following reason.

As already noted, when you put a thought to inquiry you are not trying to get rid of the thought, but you are dissolving your attachment to it. As long as you are attached to a thought (i.e. you believe it) your awareness is constrained and you are out of harmony with reality and so are under stress from that disharmony. In the case of beliefs that are positive the same still holds true, even though the amount of stress that they are causing may be very small and go unnoticed. They still limit your awareness and your openness to change and to understanding yourself and other people and the Universe.

Therefore it is definitely beneficial to put any belief to inquiry, no matter whether it is negative or positive. However, realistically, normally your negative beliefs would have a higher priority for putting to inquiry, and so on the face of it, it would make sense for only the most 'clear' people to trouble to put positive beliefs to inquiry. On the other hand, sometimes what is perceived as a positive belief is not so positive under the surface because it's involved with going into denial about something. Religion-based 'positive' beliefs can often be like this, and are in fact high priority for putting to inquiry.

You will never lose anything truly positive by putting an apparently positive belief to inquiry; you'll simply become still more in touch with reality and therefore still happier and more at peace.

A flexible approach - addressing specific issues, and piecemeal working

I have so far outlined the way I started into The Work, and it is, generally speaking, by far the best way to use The Work initially if that is your only emotional clearance method. But supposing you're using one or more other rapid emotional clearance methods in addition, as I recommend? Do you really have to go having ongoing frequent sessions of ploughing through 'Judge xxxx' worksheets as well as using your other methods? Or if you started in The Work that way, does it have to go on that way (it can get tedious over the months or years!)?

My answer here is a definite 'no', for actually you can use The Work in various ways. Yes, there are real advantages to be gained from doing some worksheets, particularly on the people who bug you most - especially any partner of yours, abusive parents and so forth. But there is no Divine rule that says that you've got to do that. You can address specific issues as well as or instead of doing 'Judge xxxx' worksheets. However, although any inquiry work, properly carried out, will be extremely beneficial, you cannot expect a piecemeal use of The Work to clear all your issues. On the other hand, if you are using other similarly powerful methods as well (such as the EFT), then a more piecemeal use of The Work would make great practical sense.

This can work both ways. If you are using, say, the EFT regularly, then doing some 'Judge xxxx' worksheets for 'critical' people in your life would very likely enable you to reveal and get resolving buried issues which had not been accessible through your other method(s), and also you could complete the clearance of issues which you'd not quite fully resolved when using the other method(s). Writing down your judgements on particular people is a sure way of revealing issues which other methods just wouldn't pick up on or hadn't fully cleared.

On the other hand, if you have mental clarity and know particular issues that you want to clear, you can simply locate the main thoughts which underly those particular issues, write them down on a mini-worksheet per issue and put those to inquiry. Indeed, once you are skilled with The Work it's possible, if you have sufficient mental clarity, to recognise the one or two key thoughts in a short list which you've written down for a particular issue, and then to clear the issue just by putting those one or two key thoughts to inquiry (most of the rest would spontaneously re-evaluate). That indeed is how I've been using The Work after my first 5 months of daily inquiry sessions.

Currently (January 2007) I'm going through a full clearance process of all my entities and other 'external energetic interferences' (EEIs), and this is occurring over probably two or perhaps three months. I've found that during clearance sessions certain things - especially inappropriate cords - could not be cleared at the time because there was still karma to be cleared relating to those. Karma is simply one's load of 'unlearned lessons', so actually clearing karma doesn't require the great performance of 'karmic healing' or reliving past experiences or carrying out penances which so many people believe. All you need to do to clear a 'karmic knot' in your healing or clearance process is just to learn the particular lesson which was not learnt when the issue originally arose.

How much simpler to clear such 'karmic knots' as they arise in one's EEI clearance process simply by looking at the particular issue, writing down perhaps 6 or so key underlying thoughts and then picking out the two most fundamental ones and putting them to inquiry? That way you learn all that you ever needed to learn in order to clear that karma and free yourself of that issue and that obstruction to your healing process.

That's precisely what I've been doing, and each time it has resulted in virtually instant dissolution of those blocks to my EEI clearance process so that the latter could then continue powerfully. I should stress, however, that when you work in this way it is particularly important to take your time over the inquiry which you do carry out, and to ponder each question and turnaround thoroughly. I make successive turnarounds 'to myself' which each replace one further element of the thought with 'I', 'me' or 'myself', till I get simple statements like "I am me", "I me me to me me" or simply "Me!". That is a much more radical use of turnarounds than I'm aware of anyone else doing, and it is very powerful. Typically, my inquiry on one of those really fundamental thoughts in order to clear a whole issue takes about 15 minutes - occasionally 20. That's small beer for a karmic clearance which most people would regard as requiring major, lengthy and maybe difficult work.

When an issue won't clear

I'm not referring here to people simply not using The Work properly - an issue I've already commented on - but the non-clearance of an issue for an experienced and skilled user.

Almost certainly, the problem would be that the issue is not that of the person at all and actually belongs to one or more attached parasitic 'lost' souls, and the answer is actually remarkably simple - skip The Work and use the superior methodology given in Healing and Self Realization - The Safest and Quickest Way and Some Potent Self Realization / Healing Practices. For more about parasitic 'lost' souls, see Astral Entities - Interference and Attacks from 'The Dark Side'.

Advantages of The Work over spiritual healing methods

The Work has two - indeed probably three - particular very important advantages over energy-work healing for the resolving of emotional issues, apart from its greater power, speed and simplicity:

• Grounding. People who are disposed to be healers are typically not very firmly anchored in the physical dimension - in healer parlance they are 'not well grounded'. There is an imbalance of their energy and awareness towards the non-physical dimensions. That is not a healthy state to be in, either emotionally or physically. Unfortunately spiritual healing and lightwork tend to aggravate this state, necessitating frequent 'grounding' practices. Grounding practices are all very well, but the ingrained habit of poor-groundedness tends to reassert itself in-between times. On the other hand The Work is an intrinsically grounding method, keeping your focus on the physical dimension and speedily bringing you in touch with physical reality. The Work thus gets all its users into the healthiest energy balance.

• Problematical entities. The Work is simply an inquiry process and so you NEVER need to channel guidance, open to higher perceptions or do anything which can attract or be hijacked by dark beings or indeed any other type of non-physical interference. Indeed, by rapidly unravelling and releasing emotional issues and traumas The Work makes you less and less attractive to such entities. The dark beings around me frantically sought to stop me using The Work because they could see that it was speedily undermining their presence with me.

• Soul retrieval. When a person experiences trauma, commonly - if not always - a part of that person's consciousness splits off, though remaining connected by an energy cord. In some cases these displaced 'soul fragments' even attach to another person and cause him/her problems. So, when the trauma is being healed it is necessary for the displaced part of the person's consciousness to be drawn back in and re-integrated with the main part of the consciousness. This process is generally known as soul retrieval [or recovery], and unfortunately the need for it is widely ignored in healing practice, except in shamanic traditions.

  My understanding is that in the course of normal spiritual healing soul retrieval does occur spontaneously, but may occur only very slowly or may be delayed or even impossible because of the soul fragment's having attached to something or somebody. Even where the process is occurring spontaneously, it may not occur quickly enough to prevent a problematical entity from occupying the space that is awaiting filling with the particular soul fragment and thus causing further problems as well as blocking the soul retrieval process. Appropriately scheduled soul retrieval healings are therefore strongly advisable wherever major emotional traumas are being healed quickly or attached entities are being sent off. However, most people are not taught soul retrieval, which is widely but wrongly regarded as an exotic or esoteric healing practice. That means that the full recovery process is unnecessarily slow and that some recipients of intensive emotional healing may end up with new entity attachments.

  My understanding is that when a strongly grounding emotional clearance method such as The Work is used to clear an issue, spontaneous soul retrieval generally starts immediately and occurs much more quickly so that special soul retrieval healings are usually unnecessary. The soul retrieval healings I'm referring to here are specifically those which have been made necessary by use of The Work; I don't mean to imply that The Work actually brings about soul retrieval which may be needed for other reasons.

However, The Work cannot replace spiritual healing methods for, e.g. directly healing physical conditions or injuries, immediate energizing / rebalancing of one's energy system or sending off entities and inappropriate energies - but it can relieve pain and also resolves the underlying cause of most energy blocks and imbalances, allowing them in turn to resolve, so that it is a tremendous holistic healing method and physical healing method in the longer term. Spiritual healing methods therefore still have their place, even with people who are consistently using The Work.

The Work in mental healthcare

Having had some stays in a psychiatric hospital owing to severe attacks from astral entities, and having also for a short while been in support groups for people with various 'mental health' issues, I have learnt first hand something of the pervasive lack of understanding and true healing that currently characterizes the mental healthcare services of my country (the UK). The whole system fails to recognise the simple fact that the vast majority of difficult personal issues that are presented and usually diagnosed with unhelpful medical labels can actually be fully resolved by enabling the release of the underlying emotional issues or traumas. Also, because of the tenaciously held materialist-reductionist belief system, the mental healthcare services generally refuse to recognise the broader dimensions of reality in which lie the original causes of many people's 'mental health' issues and consequently apply the totally inappropriate 'medical model' to them.

Psychiatry as we know it, and the mental health services pretty generally, therefore, are an intrinsic failure in terms of true healing and full resolution of problems. The practitioners in these fields, despite their best intentions, are limited to applying symptom suppression (particularly drugs and ECT) to try to hide people's problems. That is not healing at all.

The truth is that the vast majority of 'mental health' issues, including even various supposed personality disorders, are in essence NOT medical issues and can be resolved through ongoing use of The Work. However, because people have free choice and many people are currently addicted to their suffering and their helplessness and neediness patterns, not everyone would be willing or mentally oriented to use The Work or indeed any self empowerment method at all. On the other hand, if The Work came into use widely in the mental healthcare services, the change of emphasis would very likely start to rub off on some of those who initially didn't want to help themselves and were wanting to continue being 'patients' with supposedly medical problems.

I would thus particularly encourage mental health workers to take up The Work themselves, using it on themselves, and then to start applying it wherever possible in their professional work, so both improving their own lives and empowering their clients to take charge of their lives and stop being 'patients' or indeed even clients.

It is most important that such mental health workers use The Work on themselves consistently in their everyday lives. This is because an important part of their effectiveness in their assisting and inspiring others to use The Work rests in their being good role models through using it on themselves and being dedicated to positive change in their own lives. If they seek to assist clients to use The Work, or merely use The Work's methods in counselling, without continually using it on themselves, then they are perpetuating the disempowering "I'm okay and you're not okay" relationship (indeed, lie), and that would be much less effective.

To get the ball rolling I am willing on demand to run The Work workshops, particularly for mental health workers in my area (Exeter, UK).

I particularly want to have mental healthcare workers of all levels alongside service users in workshops, for our work together could then at last start eroding the pernicious divide between the supposedly mentally ill and the supposedly mentally well. With The Work we find ourselves ALL on a journey of self realization and we leave behind psychiatry and the very concept of mental illness.

It's important, however, to recognise that, as I have already indicated, there are distinct limits to what one can reasonably expect The Work to achieve - and so it is important that mental healthcare workers also take up the methodology that I give in Healing and Self Realization - The Safest and Quickest Way and Some Potent Self Realization / Healing Practices. Mental health services could be considerably transformed by their taking on both The Work and Power Walking, even if no other self realization methods were used.

This page will be updated as I gain more experience with The Work.