Welcome to the Commune podcast. My name is Jeff Krasnow. As we mark six years of the Commune

podcast, we are republishing some of our most popular interviews with teachers who now have

full-length courses over on the

Commune Course platform.

So this interview is from the early days of the show in 2019.

In 1986, Byron Katie had an epiphany.

She was in a counseling facility dealing with addiction to alcohol and codeine. She was agoraphobic.

Her self-esteem was so low that she didn't even think she deserved to sleep in a bed.

And one morning, there she was, asleep on the floor, when a cockroach climbed over her ankle.

She awoke, and in that brief moment moment she saw how the universe was created and the source of

all suffering.

She codified this vision into a method of inquiry called The Work, which has helped hundreds

of thousands of people overcome trauma and pain.

So the work is centered around four essential questions.

These questions are facilitated by a mentor or Katie herself upon a willing student.

The questions are, number one, is it true?

Number two, can you absolutely know that it's true? Number three, how do you react? What happens

when you believe that thought? And number four, who would you be without the thought? These four

questions are followed by turning around the thought to experience the opposite of it.

In considering how to display the power of this method,

I decided the best way would be to do the work with Katie, live on tape.

To say that this episode is vulnerable is an understatement.

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