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June 12, 2009 Last evening I attended our Toastmaster’s Club final meeting of the season. It was a very spirited meeting with three well prepared and delivered speeches. But there was one speech that particularly resonated with me. In her speech, the speaker asks, “What is the one thing that we can do by tonight that will make our lives a little better?” Fortunately, earlier in the speech, she mentioned a technique that was introduced by Byron Katie that had a significant effect on her life. In essence, by using this technique it had transformed a very poor lifetime relationship with her father to a good relationship for the final few years of his life and allowed her to be at peace after his passing. Byron Katie’s method includes asking ourselves these four questions in regards to a matter that is causing us concern. 1. Is it true? 2. Can you absolutely know that it's true? 3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 4. Who would you be without the thought? To demonstrate this technique, let’s say we believe our boss does not value us. We need to ask oursef, "Is it true?" We quickly respond to ourselves, "of course it's true! The boss never has time to speak with me." But we then ask ourselves, "Can you absolutely know it’s true?" We then start to think about other possibilities..."perhaps, the boss is too busy to talk to me or they know I am doing my job and I will go see her if I have an issue." How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? I might answer that I get tense, defensive when she speaks to me. I feel that I cannot be open nor do I feel motivated to do my best work. Who would I be without these thoughts? I would be the person/employee that I believe that I am; that is, enjoying my work, confident, being proactive, etc. Byron Katie uses the term turnaround. It is very much a turnaround in our thoughts and beliefs. I have been using similar techniques with some of my clients and it has had similar results as it did with the toastmaster delivering this powerful speech last evening. However, it was very inspirational to hear this message and reinforced the power of changing our mindset. I also appreciated the courage that it took for her to share this very personal story. So what is the one thing that we could do by tonight that would make our lives a little better? By challenging our thoughts and beliefs, we may be able to make our lives more than a little better (even by tonight)!
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