Food for thought.

As many of you know, my mom has recently opened her own practice as a health coach/therapist out of our home. The majority of her clients find her seeking guidance with weight loss, but her practice centers around 90% therapy and about 10% food. As a result of her newfound sense of purpose, my house has become riddled with various "self-help" books and weight-loss guides taken from an emotional and, at times, spiritual, approach rather than scientific. I stumbled upon one book that I found particularly intriguing and wanted to share with you all, called "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie (I know, I know... rainbows and unicorns). The book serves as a guide towards improving relationships with others and oneself by enabling the reader to identify harmful and stress-inducing thoughts that we all-too-often forget we have the ability to challenge. Much of our reality is based upon stories that our minds construct about ourselves and our environment, and often those stories are not self-serving. What Katie refers to as "The Work" is a method of meditation and reflection that doesn't ask one to change his thoughts, but rather explore them until a deeper understanding arises and the harmful thought can be released. It looks something like this:
Write down a statement about your life that is causing you stress/unhappiness. For example, "he doesn't understand me." Then ask yourself these 4 questions:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true? (the answer will almost always be no)
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? (belief in the thought almost always results in distress or unhappiness)
4. Who would you be without the thought? (FREE. the thought or faulty belief no longer has power over you)


After going through these 4 questions, Katie says to turn-around the concept you are questioning and then find 3 genuine reasons of how each turn-around is true in your life. Some potential turn-arounds might look something like this:
1. He does understand me (then list 3 examples of times when he has understood you)
2. I don't understand me (list 3 examples of when you haven't understood yourself)
3. I don't understand him (etc. etc.)

Then sit with these alternative explanations and let your intuition guide you. Very interesting and thought-provoking.