IFS and The Work of Byron Katie
The Work of Byron Katie
My take on the IFS model is influenced by experiences with several modalities that preceded my introduction to the IFS model in 2016.
Many of my experiences formed the foundation for my understanding and application of the IFS model. I hope to strengthen and expand your understanding by explaining what I learned and how I learned it.
My story of personal healing and development began in 1982 when I was introduced to 12-step programs through Alcoholics Anonymous. The steps helped me rethink my life and inspired me to change. I wanted to be more honest, less self-centered, and feel more confident.
Getting and remaining sober was a great start. But gradually, I realized that far more would be required if I were ever to get past the effortful vigilance required to monitor and modify other problematic behaviors beyond my identified addiction to alcohol.
My personal development has unfolded in stages
Stage 1 - Perfection - Like everyone else who enters this physical world, I was born perfect, whole, and complete.
Stage 2 - Loss of Self- My belief system began to form around the idea that I was less than whole, perfect, and complete. I lost the sense of my True Self. I developed strategies designed to survive the loss of Self. These strategies, designed to protect me, backfired and generated chaos and dysfunction. : ? to age 46
Stage 3 - Stabilization -My life began to stabilize when I got sober in AA and was further supported by talk therapy and somatic therapy (Bioenergetics). Age 27 to 46
Stage 4 - Awakening - When I was introduced to The Work of Byron Katie I learned how to begin looking inside. During this period, I was also introduced to and supported by Landmark Education, Life Coaching, talk therapy, 12-step programs, self directed study, and coach training programs. Age 46 to 61
Stage 5 - Healing - After a sufficient period of learning to focus inside, I was ready to begin healing. I found some of this healing through The Work of Byron Katie and deepened the process when introduced to Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS) and IFS training. Age 61 to present.
Stage 6 - Growth and Expansion - With sufficient healing I now had the capacity to learn, grow, and expand. This has been supported by IFS, coaching and training. Age 61 to present.
As you read through these stages, where do you find yourself? Perhaps, like most of my clients, you are in the Stabilization stage and are looking for awakening, healing, growth, and expansion. Or you may be further along on the path. Regardless of where you are on your journey, it is my hope to save you years of suffering and struggle by sharing some of what I’ve learned.
Upgrades
Conscious personal development began for me in Stage 3 as I found higher ground while recovery began in Stage 4 with a massive shift in focus and perspective.
I had been clean and sober and participating in AA and ACA (attending meetings, working the steps to the best of my ability, and helping others) for over 19 years before I had the breakthrough that I needed to begin waking up. But it doesn’t have to take that long. Had I been armed with the information you will find in this book, my journey through the stages of conscious personal development would have been immeasurably expedited.
When I was introduced to The Work of Byron Katie in 2001, I discovered a method for shifting my focus from the events in my external world to my internal reactions.
Developing the ability to focus my attention inside was the upgrade I needed to begin to recover. This was life-changing and is, I believe, a fundamental requirement for healing, recovery, and personal development. I will say more about healing and recovery later in this book. For now, read on to fully recognize the profound impact that the ‘turnaround’ (as Byron Katie refers to it) or the ‘u-turn’ (as IFS calls it) can have for you. I believe it added years to my life and shifted the quality of my experiences from the relentless management of my suffering to freedom and joy.
The Work of Byron Katie
Understanding Byron Katie’s four questions and turnaround may add credence to the power of beliefs and thoughts. While we won’t spend a lot of time studying Byron Katie in this book, her emphasis on the relationship between suffering and beliefs is crucial to understanding the power of relating to your parts. Here’s the story of my introduction to The Work.
I was 34 years old and had been sober and participating in AA for seven years when my first wife, Lori, died of a brain tumor. I felt overwhelmed by the thought of taking care of our eight-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter without my wife.
People in AA were worried that I might get drunk, but I never thought about drinking. Instead, during the first two years after my wife died, I got involved with five different women. I married Jenny because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop the cycle. We blended our families, had a daughter together, and stayed married for nine years.
At the time, I didn’t realize that every romantic relationship had served as a distraction and buffer between me and my unhealed emotional wounds. The end of my second marriage was just the tip of the iceberg. Just below the surface lurked unhealed emotional wounds dating back to my early childhood.
After I moved out, my second wife seemed to be committed to dumping her anger and hurt on me at every opportunity. I attempted to avoid her, afraid that if I spoke with her, she would attack me. But I’d left my seven-year-old daughter in our family home with her and was concerned that I might miss an important message about my daughter’s welfare. I was under the impression that my wife, a recovering addict, had remained clean and sober throughout our marriage. But the day I moved out, she began to openly and excessively drink alcohol. Her alcohol use quickly expanded to other mind-altering substances and behaviors, and I began to fear for my daughter’s safety.
My divorce attorney convinced me I had no recourse to protect my daughter unless something bad happened. For the next year, I felt completely at Jenny’s mercy as she exploited my concerns for our daughter, knowing I would listen to her critical and shaming voicemails and read her texts.
The depth of my suffering during this period seemed bottomless. AA meetings were no longer the soothing balm they had been when I first got sober. My fear of repeating the mistakes of the past kept me from using relationships to distract and numb. My commitment to sobriety was total. I consciously deprived myself of all distractions and comforts and was faced with the raw pain of the unresolved past.
I wanted to end the suffering for good. I wasn’t suicidal. I was convinced that my suffering would continue until I healed my past. Remembering the surprising emotional healing I’d experienced in Bioenergetics therapy, I began searching for a method that might accomplish a similar permanent transformation.
When an old friend told me that he would be driving to Seattle for a Bryon Katie event, I joined him. He and I were on similar paths, both seeking methods and practices for managing our internal distress. Byron Katie, he told me, had been recommended by people who followed Eckhart Tolle. Since Seattle was less than five hours away and I was free for the weekend, I decided to go along.
When we arrived at the event, we were handed “Judge Your Neighbor” worksheets and asked to fill them out. We had arrived early and sat right up front. The room was packed by the time Katie stepped in front of the room and began to give some instructions for filling out the worksheet.
On the stage were two comfortable-looking chairs with a small table and a bouquet of flowers between them. Katie sat and relaxed in one of the chairs, a microphone attached to an ear. With an easy and non-pretentious voice, she encouraged us to be petty and to avoid being spiritual as we filled out the worksheet.
The first statement on the worksheet was, “I am (emotion) with (who or what) because _______________.”
When Katie asked for volunteers to read from their sheets, I raised my hand. A runner brought me a microphone, and I read my first statement aloud. “I am angry with Jenny because she is a bit#@.”
“What is it that Jenny does or did that has you judge her this way?”Katie asked. I didn’t expect the question. My brain locked up, and I couldn’t think of a single example of Jenny’s abuse. It wasn’t until several months later, after using Katie’s method to question my own thoughts, that I realized she had skipped two of her four questions, “Is it true?” and “Can you absolutely know it’s true?” Since labeling someone with a derogatory term was a judgment rather than a statement of fact, my thought couldn’t be true. Now, she was trying to help me see that the true source of my suffering was my thinking.
She paused before saying. “Isn’t it interesting that you see her that way but can’t think of a single example to explain your judgment?” I felt a rush of heat in my face and was about to hand the microphone back when I found a way to convince her that I was right about Jenny. Katie had already turned away and was looking for the next raised hand when I blurted a little too loudly into the microphone, “She told me I destroyed the family!”
Turning back to me, Katie asked, “Was she right?”
“No!” I said, feeling angry and defensive. The divorce was, in my mind, entirely Jenny’s fault.
“Who left?” Katie pressed. “I did,” I said with defiant, justified conviction.
“Who was in the family before you left?” she continued.
“There was me, Jenny, my two kids, her son, and our child together,” I answered, now smelling a trap.
“So, she is right then. You left and destroyed the family,” she concluded. I felt misunderstood and judged.
My brain locked up again. I sat back down, my face and ears burning with anger and humiliation. I decided to stay put until the next break. I had an impulse to run out of the room but didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.
My mind raced, dulling comprehension as Katie continued to talk with others in the audience. Over the next hour or so, I watched and listened as Katie talked with several people in the room. At one point she asked someone, “Do you believe everything you think?”
There was something illuminating about the question. It had never occurred to me that my thoughts may not accurately reflect the truth. Until that point in my life, I believed every thought that crossed my mind and acted accordingly.
The Work of Byron Katie caught fire inside me that day and began to change every part of my life. Over time, as I applied her method to my thinking, The Work changed my relationships with people, money, time, the past, the future and with myself. Her four questions and turnaround process helped me learn how to free myself from suffering and access freedom, wisdom, peace and joy.
Let’s use a thought from that day in Seattle when I first met Byron Katie as an example. One of my thoughts was, “Jenny wants to hurt me.” Here are the four questions and turnarounds with my answers:
Question 1. Is it true that Jenny wants to hurt me? (YES!)
Question 2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true that Jenny wants to hurt me? (No, I can’t absolutely know it’s true.)
Question 3. How do I react when I think the thought, “Jenny wants to hurt me?” (I avoid her, I criticize her behind her back, my heart races and I have an anxiety attack when she calls or when I see a car that looks like hers. I yell at her when she criticizes me. I blame her for how I feel. I justify treating her badly. My energy is sapped. I can’t focus. I’m upset.)
Question 4. Who would I be without the thought, “Jenny wants to hurt me?” (Free. Peaceful. Focused. Responsible. A listener. Present.)
Next is the “turnaround” Turn the thought around and find examples to show how the turnarounds are true.
Examples of turnarounds:
Thought: Jenny wants to hurt me.
Turnaround: I want to hurt Jenny.
Is this thought as true or more true than the original thought? Yes, when I talk about her behind her back, when I ignore her calls, when I refuse to listen to her, when I yell at her. When I think about her, I'm doing all of this because I want to hurt her.
Thought: Jenny wants to hurt me.
Turnaround: Jenny doesn’t want to hurt me.
Is this thought as true or more true than the original thought? Maybe. I still don’t know about that. She seems pretty angry.
Thought: Jenny wants to hurt me.
Turnaround: Jenny wants to love me.
Is this thought as true or more true than the original thought? Hmm. When she married me she said she loved me. Maybe that is why she is so hurt and acts the way she does. She wants to love me and I won’t let her because I think she wants to hurt me. Could that be true?
I probably did over 100 Judge Your Neighbor worksheets on my thoughts about Jenny. Gradually, my fear and anger diminished as I grew more aware and more honest. Through this form of inquiry, my judgments were quickly transformed into peace and freedom.
As I practiced using The Work to transform my inner state, Jenny continued to blame, shame, and criticize me but I was decreasingly reactive. My phone notified me of an incoming call one day. The caller ID read, “Jenny.” My heart raced and I felt panicky. I realized I had been reacting to my story about Jenny. A phone alert simply told me that she was trying to call. My stories about what would happen if I answered made me feel panicky.
I used Byron Katie’s inquiry process and quickly shifted to an internal state of peace. This worked every single time. Soon, I realized that the power to determine my emotional state belonged to me and no one else. I changed the settings on my phone so that when she called or sent me a text, the caller ID displayed, “The Gift.” From that day forward, she no longer had the power to make me suffer.
Katie says we can only do one of two things with our thoughts; believe them or question them.
Reconciling The Work with IFS
Now that I have been trained and certified in the IFS model, I rarely use Byron Katie’s process. As helpful as it was, it fell short of recognizing that the thoughts that caused my suffering were the thoughts of some of my burdened parts.
A burdened part is a part that remains burdened with the unresolved past. The burdens of parts include beliefs, emotions, rules, judgments, and responsibilities taken on during shaming, scary, or otherwise painful events in the past. Until burdened parts become unburdened (healed), they have the potential to blend their perspective with yours and influence your thoughts, emotions, impulses, choices, and actions.
Katie asks, “Do you believe everything you think?” IFS helps me ask deeper questions. Who is the ‘you’ that thinks and believes the thought? And who notices the thought and the impact of believing it?
If the part I am blended with is still burdened by the unresolved past, my thoughts will not align with present reality. This causes disconnection, confusion, and suffering. By learning to unblend from burdened parts, I gain clarity and connection and respond to life in ways that align with present reality.
Parts don’t care what we know until they know we care
Theodore Roosevelt said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This seems to be true of our parts as well.
Richard Schwartz wrote an excellent book about parts called, “No Bad Parts.” Our parts have positive intentions for us. If we don’t take the time to develop a relationship with a part before challenging what the part believes, the part has no choice but to double its efforts and defend itself. However, when we approach parts with curiosity and take the time to see, know, witness, understand, and appreciate the intentions of a part, we begin to build a trust based relationship with it.
As our parts begin to trust us, they gradually become interested in what we know and how we can help.
