As I sit here this morning, I feel the slight breeze across my calves, hear a wailing dog in the alley, and what sounds like a river running—though I know it’s the Eisenhower traffic. There’s also an achy twinge of dullness around my knee that’s got my attention.
Noticing the beautiful flowers on our back porch, I realize I love this scene—it’s so inviting, so calming—and I’d like this moment to never end. I’m savoring the experience, the sunshine, the mood.
All these experiences of mine are ‘real’ and sensory based; I know them in my body.
The research on immersion—that brain state where dopamine and oxytocin flood our system during meaningful connection—shows we need only six three-minute experiences daily to maintain positive mood and energy.
My husband arrives on the porch, urgently, talking about taking a dear friend to the ER, now.
Then he adds, “And I just fielded a call from hospice; my brother’s declining, quickly. My calendar’s full up this week, can you help with appointments?”
These, too, are ‘real,’ human, relational experiences where requests are made, and actions taken.
Yet, what happens when our thoughts about those experiences open a trap that captures us in cycles of “should,” “shouldn’t,” “if only,” “what if,” and “what then?”
Like mine started to do, just then as my husband grabbed his car keys.
“What if my knee pain continues?”
“Shouldn’t the doctor have called about our friend already?”
“What if I can’t get away to help? My calendar’s so full this week!”
We get caught up reacting to perceived demands because it’s the water we swim in every day.
We grapple with changes in hopes of wrestling them down, controlling the outcomes. Yet what if we let the natural order of nature inform us instead? What if we quit arguing with the reality at hand?
Embodied leadership requires such alertness and awareness to drop out of our overstuffed thinking minds—full of drama and detailed plans and philosophies—and into what is so.
Byron Katie, founder of The Work, came to a personal realization years ago. After an ongoing struggle with severe depression, she awoke one day with a blinding moment of insight: the only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is.
Costs of Arguing with Reality
Recent 2024 workplace trends paint a stark picture:
- 67% of executives feel burned out daily (Financial Times)
- 46% of Gen Z report chronic stress (Forbes)
- 50% of the global workforce would take a 20% pay cut in trade for a better quality of life (WorldatWork), including 64% for better mental health.
Whew! We’re more than trending towards burnout, writ large—we’re stuck in patterns of thinking that our biology interprets as life-threatening.
Our nervous systems don’t distinguish between the “what is” and “what then” at all. Our ancient biology equates a saber-tooth tiger stalking about with the mere thought that, “my team doesn’t respect me.”
Why? Both trigger the same cellular stress reaction that shortens our telomeres (those little biological suitcases at the end of our chromosomes that determine longevity) and depletes the very energy reserves we need to function well, to lead our lives.
And here’s where Byron Katie’s inquiry process becomes revolutionary for all, especially leaders. It doesn’t just help you work with your stress—it helps question the embodied thoughts that create the stress in the first place.
The Four Questions That Change Everything
Katie’s Work offers four deceptively simple questions:
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without that thought?
If it is true (1), and I know it absolutely (2), then comes the turnaround (3)—finding how the opposite might be equally true or truer. Then asking, who would I be without this thought? (4).
Take the thought that’s probably running through many leaders’ minds right now: “I don’t have time for well-being practices.”
Apply the inquiry.
Is it true? Can you absolutely know if it’s true? If not, you can drop it. If yes, ask, how do you react when you believe this thought?
Who would you be without it? What if the turnaround is actually more accurate: “I don’t have time NOT to prioritize well-being practices”?
The Biology of Inquiry Meets Presence
When we’re able to question a stressful thought and genuinely see it’s not actually true, something remarkable happens in your nervous system, the fight – flight – freeze – fawn reaction deactivates. Your prefrontal cortex comes back online. Your capacity for presence, creativity, and wise decision-making returns.
And it’s not mere positive thinking—it’s precise thinking.You’re not trying to believe something else; you’re seeing what’s actually true beneath the story about your experience that was causing suffering.
Beyond Surviving to Thriving
The ultimate leadership transformation happens when you realize you’re not managing reality—and don’t have to—you’re simply questioning your stories about reality.
When you stop arguing with what is, action becomes “simple, fluid, kind, and fearless,” as Katie puts it.
This isn’t about accepting dysfunction or avoiding necessary changes. But about making those changes from clarity rather than reactivity, from wisdom rather than fear, from a nervous system that’s regulated rather than hijacked.
Practices
Morning Inquiry Ritual– Before checking your phone, write down the thought that feels most stressful about the day ahead. Take it through the four questions. Notice how your energy shifts.
Stress Twist– For a day, write down every stressor you experience. But instead of just circling what you can control, question whether each stress-inducing thought is actually true. You might discover that many of your “problems” exist only in your thinking.
You can also experiment when frustrated with someone else’s behavior too. Ask: “How am I doing this exact same thing to them, to myself, or to others?”The insight might floor you.
Joy Bookend Your Day -At day’s end, instead of just reflecting on gratitude, question any thought that prevented you from experiencing more joy.
“This day was wasted,” becomes “Was it? How do I know? What good actually happened that I’m not seeing?”
Then let that good sink in, just like the beauty of our back porch.
The future doesn’t belong to those of us who can simply manage stress like we’re a contestant at a wrestling match.
The future belongs to those who feel themselves and their own experiences.And then question the thinking that creates unnecessary stress in the first place. In doing so, they unlock both their biological potential and their authentic power to lead.
Does this resonate with you? Can you identify a particular thought pattern that causes you suffering? I’d love to know more about your views of reality; reach me at drchris@q4-consulting.com.
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