What Is Your Story? – Part 3
The Turnaround
Finally, Katie has developed The Turnaround, which is the hardest part of The Work because it requires an open mind and heart. In this process, you take what you’ve written of others and see if your words are as true or truer when it applies to YOU. As long as you think the cause of your stress is “out there”, your problems will never be solved because you’re not in your own business and therefore have no control. You’re forever in the role of victim when you blame the external.
The turnaround is done in 3 steps and you don’t have to believe them – they just open your mind to seeing other options that may be as true or truer for you. If some statements are too hard to accept, add “sometimes” and see if it’s true, or substitute a different but related word. Then list examples of how they could be true for you.
The 3 steps are: [all turnarounds below are applied to the example worksheet statement]
1] Turn it around to YOURSELF • “I should pick up after MYSELF”. Is this true? We all should. Am I setting a good example?] • “I don’t respect ME”. Is this as true for me as I think it is for my kids?
2] Turn it around for the PERSON • “My kids SHOULDN’T pick up after themselves.” They shouldn’t because they don’t – this is reality. Deal with this first. • “My kids SHOULDN’T respect me”. Why should I EXPECT anybody else to respect me or love me? I can’t control that and it’s MY job to respect and love me. Cut out the middle man. If you want something you’re not getting, give it to yourself – that way, you get exactly what you want.
[3] Turn it around to the OPPOSITE • “I should respect me.” Yes. • “My kids should pick up after ME.”[HA HA] • “I don’t HAVE to pick up after them because I don’t have to do anything I don’t decide to do.” • “I’m not outraged – on the scale of the outrageous, this is a 2.”
Katie suggests that you always do the 4 inquiries BEFORE a turnaround because without them to open up your mind to other possibilities, the turnaround can feel harsh and shameful. The judgment turned back unto yourself can set up self-defensiveness, which closes your mind to solving anything. If you’re open to the questions and see other sides to the issue, then the turnaround will be additional revelations rather than mental gymnastics.
Once you’ve learned to go inside for your own answers and opened yourself to turnaround, you’ll see that most everything you think you see on the outside is really a projection of your own mind. We see who we are by seeing who we think other people are. In discovering the innocence of the people you judge, you’ll come to recognize your own innocence.
Katie says after successfully doing The Work for a while, you’ll actually LOOK FORWARD to problems that pop up so that you can process them without stress and defensiveness, and without hopelessly applying willpower to force to eradicate the situation from your life. If you live with the person you’ve judged, you may as well look forward to the problems as you go – it makes life easier. If you don’t live with the person, you probably find yourself living with them in your MIND, so you may as well look forward to it. It’s no longer necessary to wait for people or situations to change in order to experience peace and harmony. Whether you go through life with lots of stress or with peace and acceptance, the trip is the same – the difference is HOW the journey is made.
Only after you’ve done The Work on other people, Katie suggests you can do it on yourself. She says this order is important because the ego will put up defenses if you start with yourself, so you need practice first. We have 20/20 insight vision about other people, but not ourselves.
TRYING to love and approve of yourself can be just as painful as seeking the love of others, and the results are just as unsatisfying. You think other people think there’s something wrong with you because YOU think there’s something wrong with you. By seeking to gain other’s approval, you’re trying to stop them from thinking what YOU are thinking. In every inquiry about painful relationships, you discover that the stress is caused by your own thinking. Katie says “If you haven’t undone painful thoughts about yourself, you can get into a bubble bath, light candles, recite positive affirmations and pamper yourself in every way – and once you’re out of the tub, the same thoughts will come back to haunt you. It’s like staging a seduction, only you’re the one trying to seduce you”
A good place to start in questioning the parts about YOURSELF that stress you out is questioning what you’re most ASHAMED of. Secrets cry out for inquiry – you can’t be free if you’re hiding from yourself.
Step 1: Write down “what I’m most ashamed of is” or “what I don’t want you to know about me is___________” [Applied to our worksheet statement: “What I’m most ashamed of is that I sometimes hate my kids and I look for excuses to gripe at them. I like being a martyr and try to make my kids feel guilty.] Step 2: Write down what you think this means: “…and that means that__________” [Ex: “…and that means that I think I’m a bad mother and person.] Step 3: Inquire into each meaning. Is it true that I’m a bad mother and person for feeling this way sometimes? Ask yourself for your own truth – treat each question as a deep meditation – ask and gently wait for the heart’s answer to surface. Step 4: Turnaround your responses, even if they are difficult, and find 3 genuine ways in which the opposite is as true or truer – you may discover that everything you thought it meant isn’t necessarily true. [Ex: “I don’t think I’m a bad mother. I’m not ashamed that I sometimes hate my kids. I’m not supposed to always love my kids until I do.” Is this as true or truer? This inquiry allows the mind to give you other truths that can set you free to love them or not, and to be a very good parent regardless of what you’re feeling about them at the moment. By freeing yourself of parental guilt, you can find your love naturally, and you can really hear your children and be with them, and you don’t have to do anything or be anything you’re not.
Katie has a great quote about being ourselves that can be turned into a meditation: “I am the perfect one to be me and no one else can be it. I must be this height to be me, exactly this weight, exactly this age. That is the requirement to be me. There are 2 ways of being me: one is to hate it and one is to love it. Since I don’t have a choice but to be me, which will it be? I am perfectly myself”. When you love yourself, you love the person you are always with.
Katie says that if you really want to be free, CRITICISM from others can be a gift. Feeling hurt or wanting to defend yourself means there’s something you don’t accept and love about yourself – it’s the part you want to hide. The worst that can happen is that you’re hearing the truth. Isn’t that what you want? No matter what anyone says to or about you, if you experience stress, then you are the one who’s suffering in the moment. Stress is the signal that it’s time to question your own thinking. When someone criticizes you, don’t try to rebut and defend. Settle into it and ask yourself “Is it true? Could she be right? Can I see how someone might see me that way?” An interesting response would be “Thank you for letting me know. You could be right.” Notice what that does to the argument and feelings involved.
The saying goes that friends are people who agree with you. Enemies -and family – are people who don’t.
Quote: “For the personality or ego, love is nothing more than agreement. If I agree with you, you love me. And the minute I don’t agree with you, the minute I question one of your sacred beliefs, I become your enemy. You divorce me in your mind. Then you start looking for reasons why you’re right, and you stay focused outside yourself – when you’ve focused outside yourself and believe that your problem is caused by someone else, rather than by your attachment to the story you’re believing in the moment, then you are your own victim.”
A couple of things to keep in mind about criticism: 1] The person who is criticizing you is telling you what they think – telling a person they shouldn’t think that or feel that way is futile. We think what we think and feel what we feel. Their opinions of you are just their observations and they don’t have any meaning for you except that which you give it, which is true of everything in our lives. You’re out of your own business when you worry about what others think of you. If you live your life and let people form whatever impression they want about you, without your engineering – and that’s what they’re doing anyway – you open yourself to be responsible for your own happiness and live the highest you know.
The 2nd thing to keep in mind: When criticism isn’t true of you, it’s probably a projection from the other person. It’s about them, not you.
Finally, a word about FORGIVENESS. Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past can be different. FORGIVENESS and inner PEACE is possible when you realize the truth about projections, about your underlying beliefs, about your reactions to others actions based on your past experiences, about minding your own business, and about the fact that we’re all doing our best. You realize that your suffering is largely your own doing. Look at your thoughts, ask questions, see what applies to you, and set yourself free.
I’ll end with a quote from the I Ching: “It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are without any self-deception or illusion that a light will develop out of events by which the path to success may be recognized.”
Aug 10, 2026
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