My Path to The Work
Several years ago I was going through changes. I had separated from my wife and moved from Oakland to a small community East called Pleasant Hill. My father died.
I was doing well and then my work life changed radically. A new supervisor saw me in a completely different light. The one thing grounding me became an extreme stressor.
My work as a therapist feels integral to me. I can express myself and my creativity. It is something that I am meant to do. When that became threatened, I became desperate. I had been desperate before, but I knew that I couldn’t waste time being angry, crushed or depressed. I didn’t want to hang out there. I had worked too hard on myself.
I had been introduced to The Work by my ex-wife about 15 years ego. She introduced me to many great ideas. I saw Byron Katie facilitate The Work at a church in Berkeley, at Esalen Institute, and at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I had done The Work a few times. But it hadn’t had the impact it does now.
On that night of desperation something told me The Work was what to do. I contacted a facilitator through The Work website, and I have been working with her weekly ever since.
Doing The Work on my career situation during that first session, I discovered several things. First, I was going to be okay. I was going to get through this. Two, no situation can stress me out if I release my reactivity to that situation. Without my reactions, life and that situation are straight forward.
The Work showed me the situation wasn’t taking me down. My thoughts about my situation were taking me down. Before The Work, I was seeing the end of my career. I was seeing homelessness. I was seeing loss of reputation, poverty, crushed dreams and self-esteem. After The Work, I saw a work situation that was no longer working for me.
Within several months, I left that job (and a nice pension) to move on to a different job that is a thousand times better for me. And, I am starting this business. The Work gave me my life back. What I thought was bad and a disaster led me to my next steps. The Work keeps my mind clear so I can see through challenges to positive change.
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The Work is also called IBSR (Inquiry-based Stress Reduction). It has been shown clinically to be effective with depressed populations, the general population, and with teachers.
Here is a link to some articles of clinical trials and studies that show the effectiveness of The Work or IBSR
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25497228/
I believe The Work can help anyone, and the studies that are most effective are the ones that I conduct on myself.