ByronKatie.com

Katie: All physical pain is a projection of mind. But it doesn’t help to know that when you’re in pain.

Vanessa: I’ve done this several times also with my thinking, and it just doesn’t make much difference.

Katie: Yes. Physical pain, even though it’s projected, is pain. Read the next statement.

Vanessa: I’m saddened by my body because it makes me feel sickness, nausea and pain most of the time. Maybe it’s the same. Should I go to number two?

Katie: No. Turn it around to “my thinking.”

Vanessa: I’m saddened by my thinking because it makes me feel sickness, nausea and pain most of the time.

Katie: Is that also true?

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: Yes. So we’ll work with—we’ll continue to work with what we can work with. And doctors can deal with physical pain. It’s up to you. You could take so much medication to be out of the pain, and you don’t. Why?

Vanessa: Well, I do take things against the pain.

Katie: I hear that.

Vanessa: And the doctor gave me pills against the nausea, and they don’t seem to do the trick.

Katie: You could take so much medication that there’s nothing left of your mind, and where is the pain then?

Vanessa: Yes. Where am I then?

Katie: There’s nothing of the I. No story, no world.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: So you’re saving your world.

Vanessa: I see. Yes.

Katie: So let’s just work with the world you’re saving. Because you’re experiencing a great deal of physical pain to save this world that you’re perceiving.

Vanessa: True.

Katie: Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: I want my body to liberate itself of the cancer.

Katie: I hear that. And is that truly what you want?

Vanessa: No, what I really want is true freedom.

Katie: True freedom is freedom from the mind. You take the pills, you’re free from the mind. When the body no longer functions, the mind cannot identify as a this. Everyone gets free. Sooner or later. So let’s free ourselves of the mind.
The mind is only at war with itself. It’s as though on one side you have the terrified mind, the child, the I-know mind. “I’m so frightened, I’m so frightened! I have cancer, it’s so terrible, I know, I know, I know. I’m sick, I’m going to die.” And then over here, on the other side, we have the mind that is still and quiet and wise. This mind does not move. It rests in its own wisdom. When you put the questions in between them, it’s like a bridge for this one to travel over.
Through the questions, the frightened mind can open enough to let the other polarity of mind answer. And eventually this polarity of mind begins to trust that polarity, because it’s all mind; they’re not separate. Even the questions came out of mind. So eventually the mind can rest in itself; the war with itself has ended. And that’s the end of war.
When it’s no longer at war here, it’s no longer at war there—with the body, with cancer, with anybody. When we know we’re going to die, when we really get that, in that moment we realize that we’re not in control. And then we get to watch. We get to watch this beautiful way of it. And love it. And not miss our own death. Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: My body shouldn’t squeeze life out of me anymore.

Katie: “Your body is squeezing life out of you”—is that true?

Vanessa: Not really. I just can never breathe really deeply at the moment, you see.

Katie: So you just squeezed life into you—with that deep breath.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: I wonder if cancer has a problem with that. I wonder if it sees that the way you see it. Maybe cancer is not that unkind. Maybe it just does its job. You breathe in, and it just does what it does. Cancer has a right to life, too. Equal rights. What do the doctors say?

Vanessa: Basically the kind of cancer I have is not healable.

Katie: So now give me three wonderful things that come out of the fact that it’s not curable.

Vanessa: First of all, they can’t know it either. Second…

Katie: No chemotherapy.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: That’s a good thing.

Vanessa: Yes, because chemotherapy would knock me out, and make me very, very sick all the time, basically.

Katie: Basically they told you it wouldn’t help.

Vanessa: Yes, it was just to prolong life a little bit.

Katie: So no chemotherapy. That’s a wonderful thing.

Vanessa: Second might be… losing control gradually. I’m a control freak. Have been all my life. Totally. So this is a most incredible gift. I’m realizing that. Yes.

Katie: Life without control. It’s not every human being who has that privilege. You get to really live while you’re alive.

Vanessa: Yes. So the snag is that I’m still not quite at peace with feeling sick, you know?

Katie: That’s still the war with reality.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: And when you are that sick, what are your thoughts? You’re ready to throw up. It burns. It’s painful. You can’t keep anything down. What are your thoughts?

Vanessa: Well, my thoughts are “Poor me. God, how long does this have to go on? Please let it be enough now.”

Katie: So, How do you react when you believe those thoughts—“Why me, poor me”?

Vanessa: Well, again, it’s the reaction of the victim. The poor sufferer. The poor sinner.

Katie: That has been your role.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: Who would you be without the thought “Poor me”?

Vanessa: I would just be grateful.

Katie: Experiencing.

Vanessa: Yes. Accompanying all that’s happening, being with it. Yes, that’s what I would like. Accompanying what is happening, being with it, and yes, being in the moment with what is happening.

Katie [to the audience]: I invite you all to track this, if you can.
[To Vanessa] Now sweetheart, close your eyes, and go to the place where you are very, very ill. You feel like vomiting. You’re in terrible nausea. Now see if you can locate the place that doesn’t care. The place that really isn’t bothered by it. It’s there. See if you can locate it—the part of you that is unaffected. The part of you that just watches. Go back to the last time you were in so much pain and see if you can locate it.

Vanessa: I think so.

Katie: Go back with it again. It’s a part—no matter how much pain you’re in—it’s witnessing, watching. [A long pause.] Good. That’s the one that cares nothing for control. So let that one grow. It cares nothing for control.
[To the audience] How many of you were able to locate that? That’s a wonderful place to rest. In the place that cares nothing for control. It’s wonderfully objective. It’s not confused.
[To Vanessa] Read it again, honey.

Vanessa: My body shouldn’t squeeze life out of me—that was the one.

Katie: My thinking…

Vanessa: My thinking shouldn’t squeeze life out of me anymore.

Katie: There’s another turnaround.

Vanessa: I shouldn’t squeeze life out of my body anymore.

Katie: How do you do that?

Vanessa: Well, yes, in wanting to control.

Katie: There’s no rest in it.

Vanessa: And thinking it should stop.

Katie: Hopeless. And that doesn’t mean that it won’t!

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: It has its own life! Beyond doctors, beyond your control. “Cancer shouldn’t squeeze life out of me”—turned around, “Cancer should…”

Vanessa: Yes. Cancer should squeeze life out of me.

Katie: That life of control.

Vanessa: Yes. That’s why I got it. I needed something like that because I was just so crrrg.

Katie: Yes, like you’re running everything. Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: I need my body to become healthy and allow me to eat normally again. [She laughs.]

Katie: That thought is way out of control!

Vanessa: Yes. Hopeless.

Katie: Hopeless. Read the first part again.

Vanessa: I need my body to become healthy.

Katie: “Your body is not healthy”—is that true?

Vanessa: No.

Katie: It’s perfectly healthy to be you.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: This body isn’t healthy enough to be him, or her, or her, or him. But it’s perfectly healthy enough to be yours. This is the perfect health for you. Not this healthy, not that healthy: just perfectly healthy. That’s the way of it. If someone says, “Are you healthy?” you can say, “I’m healthy enough to be me.” Not very many people understand that. They have the dream to be some other body. And when this body doesn’t match that body—the body of our dreams—the mind begins to attack the beauty of what is.

Vanessa: I have a lot of experience with that. And what I’m noticing through this process also is that it’s falling away. Yes, it’s falling away, that wanting to be this one or that one.

Katie: Most people miss their own death. Most people miss their own life. So turn it around.

Vanessa: I need my thinking to become healthy. Yes.

Katie: Read it the way you wrote it again.

Vanessa: I need my body to become healthy.

Katie: I don’t…

Vanessa: I don’t need my body to become healthy. Yes.

Katie: Feel that. Feel the excitement that can come with that. This is unconditional love. Sick or well, you just love it. And be just as gentle as you can with it. And follow the doctor’s directions when that feels right to you. And have a wonderful life, as you watch your death. Now let’s look at death. “You’re going to die”—how is that possible?

Vanessa: I don’t believe I’m going to die. It’s not possible.

Katie: So tell me. Why is it that you can’t die?

Vanessa: Because life is not die-able. I mean, it’s only if I identify with the body, I’m afraid of death.

Katie: What happens to the body?

Vanessa: It just disappears.

Katie: Maybe it does more than that. You know, when they study things, they find that it’s all alive. So maybe when there’s no identification, when mind leaves this body, then it just goes on. I could be the fertilizer that produces something as beautiful as this. [Katie points to a flower.]

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: It could even be this. Or the clouds, or the rain, or the fire.

Vanessa: Yes, recycled.

Katie: Mindlessly. It is what it is. And without identification, mind cannot exist. Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: Number five? My body is a teacher of how to give up control; it is long-suffering.

Katie: “Your body is long-suffering”—it’s going to suffer for a long time.

Vanessa: I meant to say it has already.

Katie: And I moved it.

Vanessa: I mean, it’s supported my mind for a long time.

Katie: Yes. So now let’s move it up to the future.

Vanessa: Okay.

Katie: “You’re going to suffer for a long time.” When you feel very nauseated and you’re in a lot of pain, what happens when you believe that thought—“I’m going to suffer for a long time”?

Vanessa: Well, again, it’s the position of the victim, self-pity, and I feel I can’t bear it.

Katie: Yes. So “You can’t bear the pain”—how do you react when you believe that thought?

Vanessa: Well, I’m not present anymore. I’m not accompanying it anymore.

Katie: It’s war.

Vanessa: I want it to be different, so it’s war.

Katie: “I can’t stand it anymore.” Close your eyes and locate that place that witnesses. [There is a long pause and silence.] Yes. It’s a nice practice. After the pain, to go back and locate that place that knew. To make friends with that place. Begin to give that one bigger life, the one that doesn’t control. Read it again.

Vanessa: “I have to suffer for a long time.”

Katie: Yes, we moved it up. So “You’re going to suffer for a long time”—who would you be without that thought, when you’re suffering, when you’re so nauseated and in so much pain?

Vanessa: Well, I wouldn’t put a concept of future on it. I would just be with it now.

Katie: “You can’t bear it”—turn it around

Vanessa: I can bear it. I have done so far. Yes.

Katie: Yes, you can. And that’s what pain pills are for, that’s what medicine is for. And there is medicine that will take you out. But until you’re out, let’s continue to go in.

Vanessa: Yes.

Katie: Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: My body is very weakened.

Katie: “You need a stronger body”—for what?

Vanessa: Well, at this moment, I’m realizing I don’t need it. Yes. It’s most amazing also, how it seems this has happened. I’m totally carried by everybody. It’s absolutely overwhelming. Also, sort of letting go of control of everything. Yes.

Katie: That’s wonderful. Read it again.

Vanessa: My body is very weakened.

Katie: It’s wonderful to realize you don’t need more strength than you have, and to see what wonderful friends you have in that.

Vanessa: Yes, it was quite a revelation actually. I always thought I hadn’t really—wasn’t giving enough in order to have such friends.

Katie: That turned out to be a joke.

Vanessa: Absolutely.

Katie: Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: My body is exhausted.

Katie: So you need more energy to do what?

Vanessa: Sometimes it would be nice to be able to really sing again.

Katie: “You can’t sing”—is that true?

Vanessa: It’s not quite true.

Katie: Hmm. It won’t ever be true. But your singing… [To the audience] This woman is an opera singer. [To Vanessa] …your singing won’t be good enough for you, just as it hasn’t been good enough for you all your life.

Vanessa [laughing]: Ah, Katie. Yes. Well…

Katie: And who knows?

Vanessa: Who knows? Maybe.

Katie: Who knows? Maybe that last beautiful note out of your mouth…

Vanessa: The last one. My swan song.

Katie: …you might just love it.

Vanessa: I always thought maybe I would begin to love it before the last one. Somehow. When I’ve tried lately, I’ve felt it was changing. There’s already less control for that also. Yes.

Katie: That’s wonderful, sweetheart. You know, what’s important is that you love your song. And what I love is that you begin now. Let’s look at the next statement.

Vanessa: My body is doing incredible work.

Katie: Turn it around.

Vanessa: I’m doing incredible work. Yes.

Katie: Yes. The work of self-love. The next statement?

Vanessa: It is trying very hard to liberate itself from the cancer.

Katie: My mind is…

Vanessa: My mind is trying very hard to liberate itself from the cancer of self-hatred.

Katie: And the illusion of control.

Vanessa: Yes. Oh, yes.

Katie: The next statement?

Vanessa: Well, that would be number six. I don’t ever want to be so sick, weak, dilapidated, and suffering again.

Katie: I’m willing...

Vanessa: I’m willing to be so sick, weak, dilapidated and suffering again.

Katie: Yes. Just to see what control is left. Just to notice, just that little part that still sees itself as a victim. Because that’s what the pain is about: the victim. I look forward to…

Vanessa: I look forward to feeling so sick, weak, dilapidated, and suffering again.

Katie: Yes. Just to notice if there’s any victim left. So sweetheart, without standing up or any great presentation, would you just sing a song? [The audience applauds.]

Vanessa: I should try.

Katie: Don’t try to make it beautiful.

Vanessa: No.

Katie: Make every mistake you can possibly make. We’re old friends, we’ve been here before. And please do it wrong.

[Vanessa sings an aria from Dvořák. The audience breaks into wild applause.]