Day 19: Who are we, how we suffer, when we believe the story

We can be ‘right” until we’re blue in the face. And Katie’s third question helps us face what the consequences of being attached to our thought. Question #3: How do I react (feel, act, react, live, exist in my body, behave around others) when I attach to the thought?

So, we’re judged our somebody, ex-spouse, parents, evil co-worker, whomever. We’ve written it down in should or shouldn’t form. We’ve asked the firs two questions: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that this it true?

Now the third question, the consequence question, and this best calls for pencil and paper, also. We ask and then write down a list of how we react when we believe and attach to this thought.

All the consequences, we write down. “So and so should have been more ‘fair’ to me.” Write down how you react when you hold this one: is it sad, angry, withdrawing, vicious gossip, feeling the victim, whatever.

My mother/ father/ child “should” be more….

Again, get into believing it, and write down all that happens when you do.


This may be painful, but it’s what we already do to ourselves when we believe and attach to our opinions/ stories ‘ beliefs/ thoughts.


This is getting it clear, in front of our face.

So today, when unhappiness sneaks in, ask the first three questions and see what happens.

94: Question 3 again: How do I make Hell for Me?

The Work of Byron Katie, Question Three, again: the consequences. How do I react and how do I live when I attach to the thought/ belief/ story that…?

Take some person who has been bugging you. Write a couple of shoulds or shouldn’ts about them. Then ask questions one (Is it true?) and two (Can I absolutely know that it is true?), and then add question three. How do you react and live when you attach to the thought?

You’ve done this before.

And many a wise or semi-wise person has said something to the effect of: “It’s not the thing that happens, it’s your reaction to the thing that matters in your life and your emotional well being.”

So once more, pen or pencil in hand, write down this question #3 laundry list of what happens to you when you believe in, when you indulge in, when you take as truth and reality the thought.

Write the list down. Writing slows. Writing helps us see it rather than just “feel” it. Writing clues us into the how the piling up of one bad feeling and attitude and behavior can come from the attachment to the simplest of thoughts.

The list is a big set of possible ways of being bummed out by our reaction to life.

It will include feelings.

It will include physical states.

It will include behavior patterns.

It will include how you do or want to treat the other.


Let’s take an example: So and so shouldn’t be so critical.

You imagine them being critical and write what happens: maybe like this: I get scared. I get angry. I want to run away. I want to attack. I bad mouth them to others. I feel small. I feel like a child again. I lecture them. I am critical of their criticalness. I feel tight and hard to breathe inside. I give them “the look” when they come near me. I cringe when someone mentions their name. I avoid events that I know they will be at. I wonder what I “did wrong.” I obsess about what they are “doing wrong.”

And so on.

Let the list get so long and top heavy that it begin, almost, to crumble, of its own accord.

Good.