A transcript of a coaching exchange in which Byron Katie guides Eric through examining the belief "I won't find someone to create a life with." Using her inquiry method, they test the thought ("Is it true?"), explore how believing it affects Eric (closing off, choosing 'safe' relationships, substituting work), imagine who he would be without the thought (lighter, open, available), and try turnarounds (e.g., "I need to find someone" and seeing himself as his own life partner). The session emphasizes how past betrayal narrows perception and how inquiry can end loneliness by opening to connection.
Chapters
Foreign. So, Eric, what. What concept did you move from the judge and neighbor worksheet to your one belief at a time worksheet? And when you work through it, just clue us in.
Okay, what did.
What did you write for the first one?
I wrote because A past experience of betrayal. I don't trust I'll find someone to create a life with.
Okay, so you won't find out. You won't find someone to create a life with. Okay, so did you. Did you ask the first question, is it true?
Yeah, and I. Right away, I said, no, it's not true.
Yeah. So did you contemplate it? You're a meditator. Did you give it a little time?
It didn't really take that much time.
Okay, so it's a big question. Yeah. I won't find someone to share a life with.
I mean, so many things come up that make it not. Not feel true. Like the idea that I need to. I need that. That I need to share or to create a life. I have a life, but yet my actions don't support that.
Okay, now you hear the logic, and it's. It's down logic in the world. But I won't find someone to create a life with. Is that true?
No, no.
I'm still at the don't know. I'm still in the don't know. I want to test it and give it equal time to. I know. I know the answer.
It's how do you. Well, one of the things I wrote down where it says, how do you treat yourself? Or how do you feel? I said, I don't know. Yeah, I'm confused. Or I act indifferent.
Okay, so now let's move from is it true to. To the third question. How do you react? What happens when you believe the thought that you won't find someone to create a life with?
I close myself off. I enter relationships that are safe in quotes.
Oh, my goodness.
How about that? That's interesting. And I substitute my desire for connection with work or something that involves me.
And who would you be without the thought that you won't find someone to create a life with? Who would you be with? With women without the thought. Oh, I wrote like all women without the thought.
It'd be lighter, be available, free to love, open. Be like. I don't know. I keep this image that keeps coming up in my head. I'd be like that little kid.
Now compare that to how you react when you believe the thought.
When I believe the thought, walls go up, you know?
And notice the numbers of women who don't qualify in your mind. Mm.
No one qualifies. And it's not just there. It could be anything. Yeah, because I'm pointing back to a past experience where I felt like I was betrayed, you know, lied to.
So you're betraying all those women because, you know, not you. You're this and you're that and you're this and you're that.
Yeah.
When you don't know that much about someone that you don't know that much about someone.
So what do we do?
Well, I'm still contemplating it. This is a good one. You know, in my world, like, I'm married to Stephen, but everyone is in. Every man, every woman, every child, every. I'm connected. I don't have to marry them.
And I point to an experience where I was willing to share my life with somebody.
So you're missing all the potentials.
Yeah.
Believing is a hard life.
And what's strange is, though, it's. I can tell myself I don't believe that, but yet my actions would suggest that I do believe that.
Well, you're looking at yourself now, and that's. I mean, you're looking at your life, and you let everyone in, you know, without the thought. Everyone's in. You're. You're. You're open. And you don't have to date them. You can or not, but you're open to half of the human race.
Hmm. Yeah. I have a feeling my turnaround thought isn't as accurate now either.
Okay, so I won't find someone to create a life with. Turn it around.
Well, I wrote I don't need to find someone to create a life with, but now I think it's not even really necessarily that.
But need wasn't the original, so we stay with the same. That's why I love this. We take that same one. I don't need to find someone to create a life with.
Oh, I need.
Wow.
That's the opposite of what I wrote. Yeah.
So just try it on. I need.
That's. Yeah. That's scary to even say.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You've been burned. You think.
I need to find someone to create life with.
Yeah. So if you let us all in, you've got just this amazing life.
Yes. Yeah. It's overwhelming. That's beautiful.
It is beautiful. It's so beautiful.
There's so much love in that.
Yeah. It's the end of loneliness.
Yeah. I can feel that. Yeah.
And wherever you look, there's a life partner. You smile, wave, they go their way, you go yours.
That's true.
Yeah.
For a moment. Yeah. Yeah. That feels right.
You never run out of them.
Yeah. And I don't have to expect or anticipate.
Yeah.
Yeah. That was there. That was there for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. So now what I'm experiencing in you is that you have, in some way found your life partner. And it's yourself that's the partner you can never get. You sleep with him, you wake up with them, you live with him.
And it's like, I love him, but part of me doesn't want to share.
When you block us out, that's what's blocking yourself is what's blocking. So to get yourself back, it's like connection with everyone, everything. Your heart's too big to shut down. Nothing can shut it down. You know, it doesn't. But what we're thinking and believing, it strangles. It feels like being strangled, like cutting off of your life force.
Well, I was looking at it the opposite way. I was looking at it like, I don't need. And that was just a way. Another safety strategy. It was just like another way.
To.
Protect myself when actually the opposite is true.
