April 2022 week 3

Satya, truthfulness is our Yama this month and Sat Naam has been our intention and meditation guide. Truthfulness is tricky right? First we want to live an authentic, truthful life but that may interfere with what society would say is the “right” way to live. We want to speak our truth, but sometimes that is difficult to do and even worse sometimes our truthful words are hurtful when shared, bummer! The one thing for sure is with our yoga and meditation we are able to tap into our internal guide which is our source of truth for ourselves and then we can use all our tools to navigate our lives to the best of our ability. Byron Katie is famous for “The Work” as she calls it which is her pathway to meeting our Internal Wisdom. She says “The Work” is meditation. It is a method of inquiry born directly out of Byron Katie’s experience and her practice allows us to access the wisdom that always exists within us.

So what is “The Work?” On her website she says “The Work is a Practice. Every time you do The Work you are becoming enlightened to who and what you are, the true nature of being. To question what you believe is an amazing gift to give yourself, and you can have it all the days of your life. The answers are always inside you, just waiting to be heard.”

Here is a worksheet you can download and run through her steps anytime something is upsetting you and you want to connect with yourself about the situation. It is a beautiful practice of self exploration and the reason we gather as a Calm Crew is for just this reason - self inquiry and a deeper connection with our authentic selves. When life happens, it is not so much about the event, person or thing - it is about us and our reaction to what life is presenting us. We are the only part of life that we can control, all the rest we get to show up for, embrace, learn and grow.

Worksheet: https://thework.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/obaat_en_mod_6feb2019-r.pdf

The Work is based on:
A.First we Identify an uncomfortable belief - meditate and write it out
B.Next, We ask ourselves these 4 questions in relation to the belief
1. Is it true? (Yes or no. If no, move to question 3.)
2. Can we absolutely know that it’s true? (Yes or no.)
3. How do we react, what happens, when we believe that thought?
4. Who or what would we be without the thought?
C.Finally we need to turn the thought around and contemplate how each turnaround is as true or truer than the initial belief. Write out a turnaround statement or 2.

This is a nice complement to the work we did together in the 4 agreements and it actually applies to all 4:
Be Impeccable with your word - be truthful, but careful. Sometimes the uncomfortable belief (A above) is due to some drama we created with our words or mitote (thousands of voices) in our own minds that is creating internal drama and cutting us off from our connection with our authentic self.
Don’t take anything personally - sometimes the uncomfortable belief (A above) is not about us at all.
Don’t make assumptions - sometimes the uncomfortable belief (A above) is an assumption we make and isn’t necessarily true.
Always do your best - sometimes the uncomfortable belief (A above) is a feeling we generate when we are vibrating at a lower frequency because we are hungry, tired or maybe sick.

Give the worksheet a try and let me know what you think or if you have any questions! I love how all our work together leads to the same place - a deeper connection with ourselves as our path to personal freedom and peace!