At last someone who has made the connection between Byron Katie's four questions and the principle of memory reconsolidation. Many health professionals refuse to look at some of the methods offered by the self-help community because these often lack a scientific basis or are quite simplistic. But this is, I think, a shame because there are a lot of exceptions to this rule and Byron Katie's method is one of them. This method is such an obvious facilitator of mismatch experiences and I think that combining her method with the science of memory reconsolidation and distribute this as a 'therapeutic pamphlet' would make for a very strong message to people who don't know or belief that change is really achievable.
At this level, you're actively asking yourself questions about the correctness of the schema. You're not looking for any particular answers to these questions, or trying to get any result, you're simply holding the questions and seeing what comes up.
When coaching and teaching workshops, I find that questioning techniques are the most consistently successful at creating memory reconsolidation. They seem to strike the optimal balance of challenge and non-judgement.
They seem to work by actively directing our attention towards areas where the schemas may not match up with reality, without provoking any resistance by actively suggesting the schemas are wrong. For this reason, it's quite important that you don't actively try to "find answers" to these questions, as this starts to move into countering territory, and sticking at the questioning level can often work to change schemas that active countering cannot.
Questioning Evidence
The Lefkoe Belief Questions
The Lefkoe Belief Process is a process for finding different meanings for our evidence than the ones currently in our schema. Although the lefkoe belief process actually involves actively challenging the meaning, I've reworked it into a series of questions that simply allow you to question the evidence and draw your attention to ways that it might be interpreted differently.
The questions are:
1. What is this memory evidence of?
2. Is it possible that there are other interpretations of this memory?
3. What are some other possible interpretations of this memory?
4. How would my belief change if this memory no longer counted as evidence?
Remember, the goal is not to look for any specific answers, rather to simply hold these questions one by one in relation to the schema and see what comes up for you.
Questioning Beliefs
The Work of Byron Katie
The Work of Byron Katie is a method for questioning semantic beliefs, especially those related to "shoulds". The first part of the method involves a series of four questions related to your belief:
1. Is this true?
2. Can I be absolutely sure its' true?
3. How do I react, what happens when I believe that thought?
4. Who or what would I be without this thought?
Remember, the goal is not to look for any specific answers, rather to simply hold these questions one by one in relation to the schema and see what comes up for you.
Questioning Felt Senses
The Sedona Method
The Sedona Method is a 3 step process for questioning the need to hold on to a particular felt sense. Because the first step is asking one of 3 questions, you can repeat steps 2 and 3 for each question, for a total of 9 questions.
1. Ask yourself one of the following questions:
1a. Could I let this feeling go?
1b. Could I allow this feeling to be here?
1c. Could I welcome this feeling?
2. Would I? (AKA, Am I willing to let this go, allow it to be here, or welcome it).
3. When? (When am I willing to let go, allow it to be here, or welcome it).
Questioning Metaphors
I actually haven't found a good existing process for questioning metaphors, nor have I developed my own process. If you have done either of these things, let me know in the comments, and I'll edit the post!