2023: A Year of Un-Thinking

Happy New Year, everyone!

I know January is almost over but New Year’s Day comes too fast for me after the thrill and busyness of Thanksgiving and Christmas, that I need more time to decompress and relax before commemorating the new year. 

As such, I like to mentally begin the new year on the Lunar New Year date, which this year, falls on Sunday, January 22nd.

For the past few weeks, I’ve given myself much needed space to see what I may want to focus on this upcoming year. 

Nothing much stood out to me.

Then, out of the blue, it came. I can’t wait to share about it with you but, first! A quick recap of Christmas! 

After leading the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services at my church and spending the rest of Christmas Day with my extended family, the four of us carried on with our annual tradition and hopped on a plane to the east coast to celebrate Christmas with my husband’s side of the family. My husband’s parents bought a retirement home along the coast of Massachusetts amidst tall trees and forest trails so the following ten days consisted of daily walks to the beach or nature paths around their house. We had lazy mornings and lived in stretchy, comfy, cozy clothes. I brought makeup but it stayed tucked away in my suitcase for the entirety of the trip. 

Sometimes, we don’t realize the importance of rest and unplugging until we feel the effects of it afterwards. Upon our return, I led the church service the following Sunday and my body felt like its battery had been recharged. I was filled with both energy and peace.

Out of that reminder, I decided to set aside four times in 2023 to go away either in the form of a family vacation or a solo prayer/writing trip, which leads me to my next topic of new year resolutions.

Many years ago, I dropped the idea of goals and instead, focused on something like setting a vision or choosing a word that works as a guiding light for the year.

For 2023, I played with a few different visions and words. For instance, one of the big tasks for me this year is writing my book as the deadline for the first draft is in October. So, one of the first words I thought of was “balance” since I want to balance several different priorities without getting burned out. And I came up with a new schedule with my husband to facilitate more balance and productivity. 

But, that word and set-up for the year didn’t excite me. Which, is fine, I don’t always need to be fired up about my new year vision or word. 

Then, unexpectedly, I came across the work of Byron Katie. I had encountered her self-inquiry method called “The Work” before but it resonated with me more profoundly this time around and I started using her worksheet constantly.

Much of her information isn’t new to me, like detaching from one’s thoughts. This basic idea is foundational to much self-help and spiritual literature like Buddhist spirituality and Echart Tolle’s work.

However, Byron Katie adds two final pieces to this way of thinking that snapped everything together in a more transformational way for me. She invites us to ask: “Who would I be without this thought?” And then, she invites us to turn around the statement and look for evidence to support the turnaround statement.

So, let me provide a small example from my own personal life: 

Here’s a thought I’ve had that has led to conflicts between my husband and me.

I’m upset with James (my husband) because he spoke to me in an aggressive manner.

In the past, I would have dealt with this hurt by trying to detach from that thought by feeling my pain and dropping the story. And then, maybe if it felt right, conversing with him in a way that wasn’t so charged so that we could reconcile. He would have gotten a chance to share his side of the story, like he was distracted and had no intention of hurting me, etc. 

With Byron Katie’s method though, talking to him about it isn’t at all necessary as I find the equilibrium within myself by reflecting upon the question, “who would I be without the thought, ‘he spoke to me in an aggressive manner’”? Answering this question helps me tap into the infinite well of love and compassion within me that feels inaccessible when I’m tied to this rigid belief, “he spoke to me in an aggressive manner.” 

And then, in her second set of instructions, she asks us to turn it around. So I would write, “James doesn’t speak to me in an aggressive manner,” to which I would provide several examples for. This next step further enables me to cultivate even more love for him when I would normally be very upset because I’m reminded of the millions of other times he’s tender and gentle. 

Finally, the step that really takes me for a ride is to turn around the statement by pointing to me. Such as: “I speak to James in an aggressive manner,” and then provide examples for that. WOAH. And then, he’s no longer the perpetrator, but rather, I realize that we all have moments when we’re short-tempered or distracted. This final step generates humility and withholding of judgment—exactly what Jesus describes all throughout the gospels. 

“The Work” is designed to pull out the negative thoughts that fills our brains and informs our actions, place them before us and examine them from all angles so that we don’t blindly follow and believe them.

I’ve been using her method through her worksheet for several stressful situations in my life and the results are profound. 

Besides me being happier and having better relationships, there are other unexpected effects like, my skin has cleared up (I don’t experience much acne but I always have hormonal acne before my menstrual cycles and that has ceased), my sleeping has improved immensely and my biweekly migraines, which I thought were weather related, have disappeared. I can only point to this practice as the cause of these effects because I haven’t changed anything else in my life (e.g. diet, work schedule, exercise, etc.). 

Our unexamined thoughts truly are the cause of so much of our suffering (*note, I didn’t write “our thoughts,” but “our unexamined thoughts”). Spiritual teachers past and present have taught this and medieval Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: “God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction,” subtracting and unlearning what fills our brains like our doubts, fears, cynicism, and other blocks.

We come into the world as clean slates, knowing we are good and infinitely loved but then, we go through the world which teaches us the very opposite: we must prove our worth, we must judge others if they cannot perform in the ways we need them to perform to make us feel good about ourselves. 

So 2023, I’ve decided, will be my year of un-learning. Of subtracting. Of taking each of my stressful thoughts through Byron Katie’s self-inquiry process.

What about our positive thoughts? Those thoughts that make us feel good? Thoughts like, I’m so grateful for my husband! I love my home! This food is delicious. Do positive thoughts need to be questioned as well? 

Here’s what Byron Katie would say, and I agree. 

Leave the happy thoughts alone! Let them be! If they help us return to our natural intended state of joy and peace, then those thoughts are gifts. Just do “The Work” on the thoughts that provoke and stress and anger. 

Then, by the end of 2023, we’ll see what happens. I’m guessing our lives will be totally different. Why? Because our thoughts create our actions and our actions create our lives. 

Comments? Questions? Thoughts? Respond below or shoot me an email at lydia@revlydia.com