Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie (3)
Borked Pseudo Mailed
Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie
Carol L. Skolnick
At 43, years of therapy and spiritual pursuits had kept me from going off the deep end, but I recognized Katie's pain all too well. I wanted her freedom for myself, but at the same time, did not. Who would I be without my pain, my depression... my story?
Instantly, I saw the workings of grace in my friend's insistence that I borrow this book.
After finishing the book, I spent a long night reading everything on it and listening to every audio clip. And I despaired. “Not another guru,” I moaned inwardly. Because I had spent many years in the company of a charismatic leader, and ultimately had become disillusioned by that path, I had sworn off gurus; or at least, I'd tried to.
Of course, there was Amma, Sri Karunamayi, an Indian teacher I loved and trusted...and Pamela, my advaita satsang-giving friend...and all the other mahatmas I liked from a variety of traditions...but I wasn't surrendered to any of them or laying my co-op apartment at their feet or anything. I'd learned my lesson about losing oneself to another, I thought.
I also knew it was possible that if I got involved with The Work, I'd change – a lot.
And I so loved my limited little outline of a self and its pitiful tale. It's all I had to define me. If her method erased my chalk mark I'd be... nothing?
Free?
Was that the same thing?
Scared, in love, scared, in love I felt the pull of these energies and knew I had to do something about it, to reach out to Katie if nothing else, so I shot off an e-mail to her explaining everything: that I couldn't do The Work if my life depended on it, that I was at once fascinated and repelled by it.
That I had lived in a depressive mess for most of my life. That due to my involvement in a cultic group, I now felt I had to hold onto my sense of self for dear life. That I felt connected to her anyway, loved that she was out there doing what she was doing even if I couldn't do it, and for some reason I wanted her to know.
That was February 4, 2001. I posted the e-mail, and did not dare hope for a reply.
I got my first answer from within, in a dream; a series of dreams really, in the course of a week, featuring many of my spiritual mentors, past and current. In each dream, I received love, or teachings – how to be, how to live, how to work, how to eat. In one dream, I just sat in silence near the teacher's feet and felt safe.
The second dream in the “series” was about Katie; she was clearing her calendar to make time and space for me, as if I were the only thing that mattered in that moment.
I was so moved when I awoke; convinced I was entirely cared for, and filled with gratitude. As if in response to that, on February 12 I received an e-mail from Katie in reply to my earlier letter. She called me Sweetheart and Angel, as is her wont, and made a simple but powerful suggestion: “Work with the cult system running in your
head and put it up against The Work ever so gently and lovingly.”
I burst into tears. I'd fought with and raged about my “cult experience” for so many years... tried to let it go and get on with my life, but it had never really let go of me.
It had never occurred to me to look at it lovingly. I'd never considered that the “cult system” was something running through my head and nothing but that.
That was it...exactly what I'd been looking for, for so long.
“Love is the answer and it is within you,” Katie wrote in closing. “I love that we meet through the web site, angel. Lovingly, bk.”
Katie's “love, love, love” silenced my inner critic. No redundancy; love was le mot juste.
Sitting in a puddle of tears, I wrote back, in gratitude, telling her about my dream, that I was tired of my story and wanted freedom, and that I hoped to meet her soon. A member of her staff wrote back to let me know when Katie would next be in New York.
Two days later, I received yet another reply from Katie herself, thanking me for exposing my heart. She asked me to take her hand and identify myself at the New York event; and said that she looked forward to that connection also. Signed, “Loving you, as you, sweetheart, bk.”
Again, I was moved to tears by her kindness and caring. I began to think Katie had come into my life to help me process my mother-issues. I had no idea that there would be more, so much more.
“It's a marvelous thing when you have a listener. You hear yourself.”
-Byron Katie, 3/4/01
I couldn't wait for Katie's arrival, even while I assiduously avoided writing The Work.
Something was cooking though. As I counted the days till March 4, I had the experience early one morning of waking up with the understanding that I was part of a vast continuum of time and space and matter... that all was well and nothing was separate from me. It was not an ‘Aha!’ moment; it felt natural, as if everything I didn't need – every worry, every identity, every sorrow, every attachment – had fallen away.
I went back to sleep and when I woke up, the feeling was gone, but I didn't forget. I wondered if The Work was working me despite my resistance.
On the day of Katie's program, I arrived early at the Lighthouse on East 59th Street, a venue with about 500 seats. The auditorium was already filling up. I recognized several people from various guru groups and spiritual gatherings, including Smriti's roommate, Curt, who came over to sit with me.. but the atmosphere was not one of incense and meditative energy. It seemed almost businesslike, with folding chairs in neat rows facing a raised platform with two chairs and a table where Katie would do her thing.
Katie arrived at about 10:15, dressed simply in an off-black jersey dress and sensible shoes, her hair short and naturally silver. Her pale blue-grey eyes, artfully accented, looked beautiful and penetrating even from a great distance.
Some have likened Katie to a saint, an enlightened being, or a “walk-in.” I questioned that; she seemed warm and appealing but grounded and natural, not otherworldly. No halo, aura or power-vibe, no guru-trip.
Before approaching the makeshift stage, Katie embraced a couple of male friends for lengthy stretches.
I watched my mind as it assumed she only liked men, steeling myself for abandonment by this person who had once been so much like the mother who emotionally abandoned me: my precious story.
I wondered whether I'd get to talk to Katie unless I got up on that stage, and there was no way I was doing that. I had heard short audio clips of actual Work sessions; I was unprepared to bare my soul and go deeply within as those people had. So I settled back, in learning mode, to listen to the first person chosen to do The Work, an attractive thirtyish woman.
My first impulse upon observing the process was to run far and run fast. I felt like I needed to cry, to wail, loudly.
The young woman was throwing out all of her most objectionable stuff: judgments, impatience, desires. Everyone in her life was stupid, inefficient. Men she liked didn't like her. As she revealed her life story and turned it around, she looked soft and vulnerable.
Her tall, slender frame appeared to shrink in the chair; her eyes were redand welling with tears; and Katie was moving full speed ahead, not ignoring the pain, but cutting deeper and deeper to get at the pus. That's the unstated agreement; if you sit in the chair, you do The Work all the way until your concepts are crushed. “You don't go in for partial surgery,” Katie has said.
“These thoughts are the obstacle between you and love,” Katie explained.
“Unconditional love: ‘I see you're inefficient. Good!’”
At one point the weeping young woman seemed overwhelmed by painful feelings.
Katie halted The Work, went over to her, and held her for some time. Maybe that's part of The Work too, I reasoned: surgery, then salve. I knew I wanted to hold that girl too. Probably we all did. We were she.
Two more people did The Work with Katie: an actor with a jealous friend, a woman with a difficult mother. My seatmate and I sobbed throughout; these were our stories too, everyone's stories.
During each person's process, Katie would break here and there to face the audience and involve us in The Work, ask for feedback, and draw from her ever-ready arsenal of aphorisms, wisecracks, and cut-to-the-chase questions.
Confusion is the only suffering.”
“God is reality because it rules. Have you noticed?”
“Love thy neighbor as thyself. I always have. I hated me; I hated you.”