Abilities vs. Disabilities

Further Inside "The Center" - Abilities vs. Disabilities

The Center for the Work in Barstow, CA, conceived and run by Byron Katie, was a place where people from all over the world could come and learn how to view life differently from before. Through the process of inquiry, also known as The Work, everyday folks could turn normally unpleasant experiences into opportunities, and painful ideas into insights. The result was a small culture, full of people who moved peacefully and joyously through their lives no matter what was going on around them. Tremendous flexibility to change with changing circumstances was a natural outcropping of this new way of thinking and viewing adversity.

People well versed in The Work could quickly ascertain what their circumstances were, and move in accordance with the reality of their situation. As the situation changed, their movements would change with it. From the outside it appeared that there was little continuity in what these people were doing, for plans would change at a moment's notice.

Katie would move faster than anyone I know. This process had the appearance of "Katie is not consistent." But in truth she was staying absolutely consistent, consistent with doing what was best at the given time with the changing circumstances. She "changed her mind" as fast as circumstances changed.

She would make plans and share them with the staff. Then it was the staff's job to bring them to fruition. But as a situation changed, Katie's plan would change with it, and the staff's actions would change accordingly.

An example that comes to mind, which illustrates this point, was when we had a mailing to get out. We had a list of hundreds of names of people interested in the Work, and Katie was to make an appearance somewhere. We were to send out the announcement of her date, time and location. We worked up the postcard style announcement, printed up hundreds of copies, printed out the address labels of recipients, and got the labels on the postcards and had nearly all of them stamped. This process took a few days with many volunteers helping out. When we were nearly all done with the project, word came down that her plans had changed. She was not going there after all.

We had about five people working on the project when we got the news. We were to throw away those postcards and start on something similar reflecting her new plans.