The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

This poem resonates for me with all the amazing and courageous people that I have the honour of travelling with in my hosting of the Work. A deep bow to all of us in this mysterious journey to knowing ourselves.

Leadership and work with an open mind and heart

Self-Inquiry and the Work of Byron Katie
Caitlin Frost, Certified Facilitator and Trainer in the Work of Byron Katie

(first posted at: www.dalarinternational.com)

"Your most effective leadership tool is an open mind"
- Byron Katie

In the world of leadership and organizational work where we are aspiring to access new paradigms of and possibility, it is crucial to have personal practice for opening our minds and hearts in the places we get stuck. Fear, assumptions, judgements, limiting beliefs and stressful thinking can close us down – particularly in the face of change and challenging situations. 

Whether we are aware of them or not, our own limiting beliefs and thinking impact our actions, what we pay attention to, the choices we make, who we can work effectively with, and what we are able to see (or not see) as possible. Our own thinking can also have a strong effect on how much satisfaction and enjoyment we get from our work, and our ability to learn and grow.

The Work of Byron Katie is a simple yet powerful process of self-inquiry. It is a skillful process for working with your own thinking to open space where you find your mind and heart closing or closed. 

The effects of working with yourself in this way can be profound – allowing you to access your own intelligence, experience possibility that was unseen from the stuck place and experience authentic connection to yourself and others.

In my work as a leadership coach, facilitator and trainer in participatory processes – including Open Space Technology – I have found this Work to be profoundly powerful for myself as well as with my clients and colleagues. For me The Work is ‘family’ to all the other participatory and connecting group and leadership processes – and doing this work alongside them supports my ability to host that work at a deeper level. 

As leaders, facilitators and change agents, we want to step fearlessly into the challenges of change, conflict, and the unknown as we look for new ways to be in work and to ‘solve’ the problems of the world. We want to connect with each other deeply, listen and collaborate and be able work with a wide diversity of people – ‘whomever shows up’ – and to reach beyond that with a genuinely open mind and heart. We want to bring the very best of ourselves to our work and life and to hold truly open space for ourselves and others to do good work. 

And sometimes we hit a place where we close – where we are afraid, confused, overwhelmed, stressed, hurt, angry, or stuck. Where we are firmly attached to outcome. Where we are not ok with ‘whomever shows up’, or ‘when it is over..’. Where we are afraid and not feeling at all ‘prepared to be surprised’. When we are caught up in needing the approval of our client, or our boss, or our colleagues or we find a particular person or group difficult (or impossible) to work with and we are unable to listen and act wisely and compassionately. 

“It’s not our differences that divide us.
It’s our judgements about each other that do.”
Margaret Wheatley, Author: Leadership and the New Science; Turning to One Another

The Work of Byron Katie, offers a skillful and effective way to engage directly and compassionately with your own thinking in these places of closing. Through a process of self-inquiry, based on simple and powerful questions and your own honest answers – you have the opportunity to reconnect with your own clear mind and heart. From that place there is more opportunity to experience possibility, learning and authentic connection with ourselves, other people, our wisdom and life – and lead, collaborate and create from that place. 

"Inquiry helps the suffering mind move out of its arguments with reality. It helps us move into alignment with constant change. After all – the change is happening anyway, whether we like it or not. But when we’re attached to our thoughts about how that change should look, being out of control feels very uncomfortable"
- Byron Katie

The Four Questions and Turnarounds of “The Work”

Doing the Work consists of two parts. Identifying what you are thinking or believing when you are stressed or closing; and then taking your stressful thought or belief through a process of inquiry using the 4 questions and ‘turnarounds’ of The Work as your guide. Anyone willing to answer honestly can do this work, and it can be done with a facilitator asking you the questions, or as a journaling exercise where you write down your own answers.

(This Work is best understood by experiencing it for yourself. I invite you to give it a try with something that has you stressed or stuck.)

Working with one belief/thought at at time – you answer each of the 4 questions. This work is a meditation – and you are invited to open your mind and see what answers arise. Prepare to be surprised!

Question 1. “Is it True?”
It seems like an obvious question, but we often don’t stop long enough to really consider it. Especially when we are stressed. Take your time to contemplate it – and then land on a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. There is no ‘right’ answer – the power is in inviting the question in and opening your mind to find your own honest answer – not what you have been told by others or assume, but what is true for you when you get still and access your own deeper wisdom about it.

Question 2. “Can you absolutely know that it is true?”
Similar to question one – this gives you another chance to contemplate if your answer was yes to the first question. Again a simple yes or no is invited – and either is fine. Again the gift is taking the time to drop a little deeper and consider the possibility of both yes and no – invite some balance – and see what shows up.

“The CEO needs to be at the meeting”. Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it is true that we need her to be there?

“We need more money”. Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it is true – that we can’t do this without more money?

“They don’t listen to me”…. Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it is true that they are not listening – can I know that for sure?

Question 3. How do you react, what happens when you believe that thought?
This question invites you to notice the effect of attaching to the thought/belief. How do I feel? How do I act? How do I treat myself and other people? What am I not able to do? Again it is a meditation – not a judgment – just watching and learning.
For example How do I react and show up when I believe that they don’t listen to me? What does that feel like? What happens?

Question 4. Who would you be without that thought?
This question invites you to see – just for a moment – , who you would be in that same situation if you were not believing that thought. Again just open your mind and see what you experience.
For example: Who would I be in that same situation without attaching to the thought “they don’t listen to me.” What would that feel and look like?

The Turnarounds:
And then there is a playful part of the Work called the ‘turnarounds’ where you take the initial stressful or stuck thought/belief and ‘turn it around’ in different ways to explore where the opposites or other perspectives could be equally or more true. Another very specific to the situation way to open your mind. To open space for balance in perspective.

For example: If I am working with the thought: “They don’t listen to me”

Turned around to the opposite - They do listen to me (and then I really consider where this could have truth and find examples.)

Turned around to the ‘other’ – I don’t listen to them (and then I get to see where this could also be true – where am I not listening?)

Turned around to myself – I don’t listen to myself (where do I not even listen to myself in this situation? possibly because I am so worried about what they will say or do I am not really listening to me either.)

And then I allow some silence to sit with myself in what I have answered and found.

There is no specific advice or ‘to do’ as an ‘outcome’ of doing this work. I just find that I am more open on the other side of it, and from that place I am often able to connect where I couldn’t, or see options where I didn’t, and experience more peace. Sometimes the effect is immediately profound, other times it is subtle. Sometimes I don’t realize what it has shifted until later and then I notice somewhere I was stuck and I am not anymore, or someone who triggered me just doesn’t anymore. This Work invites me out of my “I know mind” and into a place of presence and connection with what is really happening and what else is possible. 

The questions are simple – and I have found they can take me to very deep places of learning and transformation in work and life. I have been doing this Work for more than 10 years – myself and with others – and it still amazes and moves me on a regular basis. 

If you are curious and want to know yourself more deeply in the places you are stuck, give it a try.

The Work @ work - what's holding YOU back in your professional life?

A weekend in the Work focussed on professional life and leadership.

I was very excited to finally offer this full weekend in Edmonton with the focus on professional ‘work’, as the application of The Work to this important part of life is a real passion for me. It has, and continues to be, a core practice for me in supporting learning and stepping forward in my own professional life. I regularly witness profound and powerful shifts for my professional coaching clients when we apply this Work to places they are stuck – where they are having difficulty working with a particular person, or particularly where they are in patterns that are causing stress and overwhelm, or fear is holding them back from that next level of their own work in the world (whatever that is – a promotion, a new or bigger project, a larger stage, a new job or a new way of doing things…)

It is very powerful for me to witness what unfolds for people (and myself) when we move out of our own way (that would be the ‘way’ of our limited thinking and fears) and allow our strength and gifts to really flow. Bold projects get launched and led with confidence; new ways of doing things become visible and are manifested; books get written and published; films get finished; jobs interviews flow with clarity and authenticity; ‘disasters’ get survived and can flow into valuable learning and ‘what is next..’; teams work together with more clarity; and sometimes whole systems can shift because someone in leadership deeply questioned their own fears and is able to move and lead with grace and clarity.

"Getting out of your own way" is a great idea in theory – but without a specific practice to open space and access our talents and intelligence in those stuck areas of limiting beliefs and fear – it often doesn’t happen, and work life becomes a chore, or place to burn out, or wait for retirement, or is that thing that we always wanted to do that never quite happened. 

I remember sitting in an Art of Hosting Intergenerational Conversations that Matter Module at the Authentic Leadership in Action residential in Halifax – and a colleague Thomas Arthur spoke powerfully to this group of emerging leaders – “If you have a gift, offer it now! There is no time to lose. The world needs your work.” That heartfelt appeal has stuck with me, and been a source of inspiration to me to do the Work I need to do to clear the space to offer what I can to the world. And it has been a sweet motivation to me to offer this powerful inquiry tool that helps people actually do that with more clarity and courage.

I have offered this work for many years as one part of leadership retreats and Art of Hosting workshops, as well as in my private coaching practice, and it was powerful and exciting to have a whole weekend to focus in this area.

What seemed particularly valuable about having the full weekend was having the time to really dive into some of those stuck places, and to approach them from the different angles of the exercises and inquiry. Participants commented that they were able to more clearly see into patterns that had them stuck, sometimes for decades, and experience shift and see a path forward into new possibility. 

We had the time to look at interpersonal stuck places (working with those ‘difficult’ people); to dive into places of fear holding us back from our next level of work in the world, and to revisit past challenges. We looked at our patterns of approval seeking that can throw us out of our integrity in our work, and keep us small, and the many core beliefs that attached to and unquestioned, can stifle creativity and good, enjoyable and collaborative work.

Thanks much to Mary Johnson of Bridgeworks Consulting in Edmonton who invited me, and organized this event. That ground work is such an important part of making things happen. And to the amazing group of people that attended and participated so fully. 

I am very much looking forward to offering this workshop again, perhaps in Vancouver in the spring of 2013 and elsewhere as invited. If you are interested to have this offering in your community, contact me and we can explore possibility together.

I will also be offering a Telecourse in “The Work @ work – Getting out of your own way” with the professional/work life focus in the fall on WebEX. More info on that on my website soon, and if you would like to be on the wait list for that class feel free to email me. I am currently looking at Tuesday afternoons Pacific Time (evenings Central, Eastern and Atlantic Time) and will consider adding an additional class at another time if there is interest.

Looking forward to the adventure.

Caitlin

Working with fear

In my deep immersion of this Work for more than 14 years now it continues to amaze me and humble me how powerful fear thinking can be in over riding our clear thinking and ability to act from a wise, integrated space. How it can so profoundly block connection, seeing and hearing – and creative thinking.

There is so often what we “know” we value, and all the wisdom we have learned along the way – and then when we are in the grip of a fearful belief, that wisdom is nowhere to be found and we find ourself acting out of the fear movie in some habitual way or shutting down or fleeing the scene. Missing the support or other valuable information reality might have to offer in that moment.

We ‘know’ that wise stuff. And then in another moment, we don’t. We have capacity to think creatively one moment, and then in the grip of a fearful belief – we lose access to it.

I have been talking about it lately as the fearful mind ‘override’. Noticing with compassion how it can happen to all of us. Fear thinking is powerful, and the responses it triggers make it even harder to simply think or problem solve our way out of it.  Without a way to directly engage with the fears that set our reaction off, those patterns stay in place, even if our best intentions are to act from a more grounded place.

Our minds have a powerful ability to project a reality, figure things out (make a story) – and I believe a core function of survival – and those things together with fear can create a lot of confusion in how we process what is happening and how we see the immediate or distant future.  Our minds also have an amazing capacity for curiosity and learning, when the right conditions are in place. I have noticed that fear thinking closes that space down, and inquiry and some pause for contemplation wakes the inquiring mind back up.