Quote

37 - Downsides of The Work

[janakisstory.wordpress.com]

There are people who think they are doing The Work wrong, because they still get angry or sad. After all, Katie says she hasn’t gotten angry or sad since 1986, and she is the role model for The Work.

She also says that unless you love your enemy like your dearest friend, your work isn’t done. These are lovely words, but they paint a picture of what you should look and be like in order to reach the final destination.

If you don’t, then the implication would be that you haven’t understood it properly or haven’t mastered it yet.

I have met people who use The Work to shame themselves with the turnarounds.

I have met people who use The Work to make right what isn’t.

A friend told me recently that someone scraped together $ 20.000 to attend the Turnaround House in Spain. This person’s sole reason for doing this is because he wanted to be close to Katie for a month, because he loves her so much. Apparently it was never clear through the marketing for this particular Turnaround house that Katie wouldn’t attend this event in person. Unless of course they counted her Skype sessions as being actually present.

Personally speaking, if this were my reason for attending such an event and I had to borrow a lot of money to do this, I would definitely make sure, before transferring the money, that Katie would actually be there in person.

But what really baffled me is this, my friend then told me that this person did The Work a lot to make this feel right again. And my thought was, ‘so that is what people use it for? Wow’. And I can also see the bigger picture. Doing The Work could bring him to the place where he thought he had to spend a lot of money so as to get something. There is no doubt about that. However, I think they should have been very clear in their marketing that Katie wouldn’t be physically present in this particular Turnaround House.

Another person has done The Work for a very long time and is very dedicated to the cause of spreading The Work worldwide. She had sold her house, moved to another country and became miserable. I was on the phone with her once and I said to her, ‘I bet you are writing worksheets all day long, then you do The Work, you feel good for about a minute, and then it starts all over again’. She told me that that was exactly what was happening.

I know people who made the conscious decision to stop doing The Work and who felt greatly relieved.

One particular person I am referring to here was doing The Work all day long, to get out of her anxiety. She said that she found a therapist who claims that he is treating a lot of people whom he has advised to stop doing The Work because it doesn’t seem to help them and it increases their sense of shame and guilt.

There was a girl in one of the recent Schools in the States. During one of the sessions Katie had done The Work with someone. Afterwards this girl stood up and gave Katie feedback. She commented that she actually didn’t experience Katie as kind and that she also didn’t feel it was very appropriate what Katie had said. Later on in her room, she was visited by a staff member who gave her the message that Katie wanted her to pack her bags and leave immediately. I personally have witnessed this before, that people were asked to leave a School. Katie’s explanation was, ‘it can hurt the curriculum’.

What I have seen around Katie, is that this kind of behavior is being justified by, if they don’t like it, they can always do The Work.

Quote
solea13
Must there always be an endless series of questions, turnarounds, talks, excercises and workshops? It seems that a significant portion of one's money and time must go into maintaing the proper non-dual perspective ... talk about navel-gazing!

Quote
corboy
Pilot, I owe you an apology. I let myself get rattled, after the troll visits weve had.

Quote
helpme2times
I second that apology. I feel deeply appreciative that Pilot has contributed some incredibly helpful information. Who knows how many people will be helped by it. Especially those who have "worked" for Byron Katie, as Janaki did, and got deeply burned.

Thank you so much, Pilot.

Quote
corboy
Pilot, I owe you an apology. I let myself get rattled, after the troll visits weve had.

Your directing us to Janaki's blog has been a huge, huge, help.

This is the saddest thing about troll attacks. It leads us (certainly me) to get nervous and then hit out at friends.

Quote
Pilot
Thank you hm2t, I am learning a lot here. With the internet, these gurus can't hide and get away with stuff anymore, it's great. The first time I saw ex-SYDA blogs I reacted like my friend did about BK, it's not about her, it's the practice, you don't get it. Hearing a story from an insider that details exactly the process of indoctrination on such a scale humbles me, in a good way.

This has just been fascinating and a real education.

Quote
quackdave

Quote
The Anticult

One wonders, are there other blogs out there, which are telling the truth about Byron Katie that have not been mentioned?

For example, there is this one..
IGOTSCHOOLED
[igotschooled.blogspot.com]

Thanks, TAC. That's some very interesting, and heartening, reading. It appears that there are some folks out there who are being careful about their identity, but telling their story boldly. Did you just find it in the usual Googling fashion?

qd

Quote
The Anticult
Yes, that blog was mentioned here before, I think.
If anyone has a few minutes from time to time, maye they could search Google blog search, and see if any new interesting Byron Katie related blogs come up?
They can use the words in quotes, to make a better search...as in...

"byron katie"

Quote
Pilot
... She's already getting hit with followers telling her she hasn't done enough "work". meh, if anybody has done it to death it's her, sounds like, she started her own modified version of it with the corporate training stuff and bk decided to rein her in, why?? bk is a megalomaniac. maybe some other of her long time followers who do a lot of "volunteering" will pipe up now that Janaki has opened the door.
she can't be the only one who got burned like that.

Quote
corboy
Anyone visiting Janaki's blog, read the articles--and do take care to read the comments.

At least one person has written expressing tremendous concern for a loved one. Janaki has written of people making severe and serious sacrifices of time and money, includng one man who who pulled together many thousands of dollars to attend a BK workshop just to be with her, not knowing she wasnt going to be physically present.