Years ago I would walk my dog past my neighbor’s house and catch whiffs of pot smoke coming from his porch.  Immediately I jumped to conclusions and judgment:  how irresponsible, how immature, he has kids, what kind of role model is he, etc.  I had all kinds of stories about who this person was based on a smell.   Months later, after I’d gotten to know the guy better, it felt lousy to learn that he would occasionally smoke pot to deal with the ravaging side effects from chemotherapy.  I’d had no idea he was sick.

So often we "make up" reality based on limited information.

A friend of mine is looking for a new job.  As she networks, she frequently worries that her contacts are blowing her off when they don’t reply to an email or phone call.  She worries that they think she’s flaky because she has been looking for a new job on-and-off for about a year now, and that she isn’t worth their time because she doesn’t have "anything to offer" them right now.  She makes up the brush off before it even happens. 

As a result, my friend limits her contacts out of fear of judgment and rejection.  Serious stuff considering how it hog-ties her ability to network successfully, not to mention the blows to her self esteem. 

Is it true?  Is my friend a loser?  Of course not!  How often have you let an email slip through the crack or failed to return a call promptly because your child was home sick?  We just never know what’s really going on in another’s life. Yet it’s so easy to jump to conclusions about what we experience.

We all make up stories in some form.  We do it daily!  The trick is to catch ourselves at it, and ask, Is it true?

The Work of Byron Katie has great application in this process.  At the core of her approach are 4 questions to ask yourself about your assumption:

1. Is it true?
2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do I react when I believe that thought?
4. Who would I be without that thought?

The 4 part inquiry is followed by a "turn around" in which you test your assumption by flipping it into opposite statements to see if they are possibly more true to you than the original.  For example, the original conclusion, "Pete doesn’t call me back because he doesn’t want to speak with me." could turn into "I don’t want to speak with Pete because he doesn’t call me back."  Do you see how the second might be MORE true than the first?

While I’m not trained in Byron Katie’s process, I see that her approach can be extremely useful for those of us who are starting to notice how our beliefs run us — whether based in reality or not.  Check out Byron Katie’s website and books, particularly, Loving What Is which outlines the process of using the 4 questions to change your life. 

Exercise:  For one week pay attention and list all the assumptions you are making (particularly those based on incomplete information.)  Choose one that is limiting your life in some way and ask yourself Byron Katie’s 4 questions + the turn around.  What do you learn about yourself?