ByronKatie.com

I just received an email with this question: "What's the difference between the School for The Work and The Work?"

The Work is offered at no charge through many events, thework.com web site, and the booklet An Excerpt from Loving What Is.

The School for The Work on the other hand, is a nine-day event. It's for people who are tired of their suffering, people who long for freedom, who really want to know the truth and are ready for peace.

In the School for The Work, I take people through every nightmare I ever experienced. (No nightmare is foreign; we carry them all inside us.) I show them how to walk themselves through every one of their own fears, until they are confident that they have the key to the end of their own suffering alive within them. If they have a problem, real or imagined (all problems are imagined), we work with it. I take them into the depths of hell and out again. We travel. All are welcome, and I love that my staff is entirely made up of earlier participants in The School.

Imagine the most painful experiences you've ever had—with your parents, your partner, your friends, your children.

Now imagine your life without that pain.

How would things be different? What if you no longer felt attached to your fears, your self-judgments, or your disappointments? What if, for the rest of your life, you couldn't play the victim, and you even welcomed problems?

The School makes this a possibility. Only you can decide how The School will change your life. The deeper you go in, the more your world changes.

On the first evening, I sometimes ask the participants what they want to take home from The School. They say things like "I want peace of mind" or "I want to be free" or "I want to be a more loving person" or "I want to be less anxious about my problems" or "I want to be less self-absorbed" or "I want to live without fear" or "I want to be happy, whether I have a lover or not."

By the end of The School, they all say that they have found a way of to end their suffering, and that they got even more than what they originally wanted. People come out so changed that their families are entirely grateful and often astounded. The Work has awakened within every participant who comes with an open mind, and there is nothing that they can do to shut it down. Once the four questions are alive inside you, your mind becomes clear, and therefore the world you project becomes clear. This is more radical than anyone can possibly imagine.

You can listen to an MP3 clip in which staff members, a recent graduate of The School, and I answer questions about the School for The Work. I facilitate The Work with a women on her anger at God and with a man on his frustration with his wife's blaming.

The next School for The Work is being held October 20-29 in Los Angeles, California. Click here for details >>

Here's a dialog from this (hot) summer in Europe:

Participant: I’m angry at ***** because she didn't give me the job.

Katie: “She didn't give you the job”—is that true?

Participant: Yes.

Katie: Yes. She either gave you the job, or she didn't. So the answer’s yes.

Participant: Yes.

Katie: So how do you react when you think that thought—”She didn’t give me the job”? What happens when you believe it? What happens to your body, what happens to your mind?

Here's a letter from a friend about her children doing The Work. If any of you have stories about your children doing The Work, I invite you to post them.

Dear Katie,

I wanted to tell you about how we used the conflict resolution method of doing The Work with our children this Thanksgiving.

Claire, 15, and Zeffi, almost 9, were arguing, and the words and tones I heard from them felt tediously familiar. I started talking and my husband entered the room with his decisive, take-action energy and told me I had missed an entire episode of Claire-Zeffi dynamics the previous day. He asked them both what they planned to do about this, because an old pattern that we’d certainly looked at and talked about plenty just wasn’t budging. Everyone looked at him. Something they planned to do?

There was a confused moment when both girls started telling their story at once and Ravi stopped them and declared that we were absolutely not going to let this go on and we were going to do something about it right now. Both girls looked miserable. We had talked to them, pointed out patterns, pointed out alternatives to their habitual behaviors, asked how they would feel if . . ., and even done The Work with them separately on thoughts they had about each other.

I don’t know why I’d never thought of this before, probably because it seemed such a formal approach, but in that moment the conflict resolution approach to The Work rose to the surface of my awareness. So I said at once that all I could see for them to do was to fill out a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet about each other then do The Work together, with the parents facilitating. Ravi’s immediate reaction was “Let’s do it.” Zeffi agreed. Claire took a breath and said, “Ooooh-kay.”

She filled out her sheet where I was working toward our feast in the kitchen, and Zeffi went to the living room with Papa so that he could be her scribe. She cheerfully dictated all her judgments about Claire for him to write down.

Children are so good at filling out JYN sheets, and you don’t have to instruct them not to be spiritual or mature or nudge them toward pettiness. They’re just so happy to be completely honest. After Claire filled out hers, she did find herself a bit thrown off by the level of honesty she was reading back on her sheet. “This is mean,” she said. “I’m supposed to read this to her? I know I’m mean to Zeffi, but this is really mean to just sit here and read all this out loud to her.”

I told her that mean, just as she’d said, was the way she treated Z when she was living out of those thoughts she just wrote down. Everything on that sheet represented her thinking about Zeffi; the way she treated Zeffi didn’t come out of nowhere, it came out of those thoughts. The JYN sheet isn’t mean; it’s the place where we take the story in our mind and pin it down on paper. There, we can see it very clearly. Then when we do The Work on those thoughts, we’re on the road to seeing things differently. Behaving differently follows naturally.

So on Thanksgiving, as I chopped and sliced and mixed and spiced, my daughters sat with me and did The Work on each other. Ravi took the not-unpleasant job of playing with Gaelen in the living room to give us the space we needed.

Zeffi read her sheet first and Claire said thank-you for each item. I asked her to take each piece in and try to find it, and assured her she didn’t have to find it. She could just look and see what she saw. And whether she found it or not, she was to say thank-you. She did this. Sometimes she laughed at something Zeffi had written. I had to interpret Papa’s handwriting a couple of times. Claire was very patient with this.

Then Claire read hers to Zeffi. I saw what she meant about being mean and did have a few flashes of concern over how Zeffi would manage receiving harsh thoughts about herself. I found that what I had told Claire earlier held true: Zeffi had already received all of this in what she and Claire lived together. She was fine sitting there hearing “Zeffi is an annoying brat” and saying thank-you. None of the ways I’ve seen her melt into distress or fly into rage in response to Claire even began to show up here. Her face was open, her eyes were serious, she was fully present. And, as had happened with Claire, laughter just burst out of her a couple times: For her sister’s perception? Or the way it was phrased? I can’t say. I did have a strong sense of both girls being alive and alert.

Zeffi volunteered to be facilitated first. This was perfect. It addressed at the onset Claire’s frustration about having to work harder than Zeffi. In this story, Claire feels we, her parents, blame her more and expect her to take more responsibility. And in part, this is true. With The Work, both girls took turns looking at their thoughts and taking responsibility for them with the turnarounds. Both girls heard each other explore her own thinking and the effects of that thinking. They saw how the unhappy thoughts didn’t merely cause fighting between them but caused each girl to be unhappy in herself and usually to feel bad about herself and dislike her own behaviors. With The Work, both girls worked on themselves and their own thinking equally.

Claire explored her responsibility deeply, even before the turnarounds. She found that Zeffi couldn’t possibly tell on her but could only tell her story. When Claire ran after her to defend herself and tell her version, that was the moment it became “Zeffi telling on Claire.” Amazing clarity. She also looked deeply at the turnaround to herself—how she told on herself. Here and throughout The Work we did that morning, she was surprised to find that most of the statements she was exploring held something for her about her entire life, not just life with Zeffi. She found ways she told on herself with her friends, exposing or shaming herself by telling things about herself she would better keep to herself. She found ways that she told on herself to her parents, about things unrelated to Zeffi. At fifteen, Claire is fully capable of understanding the mirror principle, that Zeffi shows up only as her mirror so she can look at something in herself and see how it operates in every aspect of her life.

Zeffi’s Work was more directly about Claire. For her, the magic happens with finding very concrete answers to number 3 and very concrete examples of the turnarounds. One thing I love about doing The Work with Z at her age now is that it shows me the process at its simplest. We’re just asking and answering questions. The answers are simple and pure and honest: when I believe this thought, I get mad and I want to hit her and sometimes I do hit her. I try to make her mad. I ignore her when she says stop. I hate her. I feel bad. I don’t like myself.

I also love the purity of the answers to 4 in Work with a 9-year-old. Who would you be if you couldn’t believe that Claire excludes you with Gaelen? Zeffi shrugs. I’d be fine. I’d just go do something I want to do. It reminds me of how easy it all is, really.

I took Zeffi and Claire through one long exploration each. We did the first statement on Zeffi’s list, and Claire chose one that seemed the most potent to her. From there, we went through the sheets doing turnarounds, though I think I did a couple of quickies—when a statement seemed especially rich, or in a different vein from the others, I asked the four questions briefly and moved into the turnarounds from there.

Zeffi and Claire did not fall weeping into each other’s arms at the end of the process and swear to be sweet to each other for the rest of all time. What did happen was that they both left feeling very solid, present, and calm. They both had a lot to be with after the process, and it was fascinating how it was no longer about Claire and Zeffi. It was about Claire for Claire and it was about Zeffi for Zeffi. For me, it was about falling more in love with The Work and with my amazing daughters.

Zeffi had trouble staying put at some point in our process and actually wandered into the other room to see what Papa and Gaelen were doing. Claire and I were so focused on what we were then looking at that neither of us responded to this initially, then Claire said, “Uh, is Zeffi coming back?” I asked Z to bring in her drawing pad and pencils and told her to stay here with us during the process and to feel free to draw the whole time. Z is capable of drawing for at least two hours straight. This worked perfectly. The drawing gave her a focus and a structure that held her while she gave her mind to the inquiry process. I didn’t learn until days later that what she chose to draw was a picture of Claire going off with Gaelen and the dog, above which she wrote, “No you can’t play Zeffi Go that way.”

If we had done this four years ago I would have given Zeffi a catalog and a pair of scissors. She used to sit still for nothing except cutting. She could go-go-go and move and talk all day, but with a pair of scissors in hand she would drop into perfect stillness except for her little hands intently following the shapes as she extracted them from a page. I would now recommend to any parent sitting down with a serious inquiry project to find whatever works best for the particular child and use this tactic of keeping hands busy and eyes focused so that the mind and body can be still for The Work.

The one thing I noticed about doing The Work with Claire and Zeffi in this situation as compared to Working with two adults was that I gave them a lot of praise. I told them often they were doing great Work. I told them when I thought something they’d located was a great find, and then stayed quiet a moment for them to take that in. All of this was completely genuine.

I don’t know how long we hung in there exactly, but my husband and I both estimate two hours. This may sound like an insanely long time to do this with children, but they were fine with it. They were completely immersed in the process. Truly, they were just as tired of the issue as we were. And finally, they would rather do The Work for two hours than be on the receiving end of five minutes of tense and angry lecturing or fifteen minutes of restrained and reasonable lecturing from their parents. The children can see just as we can that The Work takes them through a process to know themselves that is actually interesting to them, leads them to new insights, and leaves them feeling better. Lecturing can sometimes lead to new insights, usually later when some bit of wisdom breaks off from the rest and sinks in, but they hate it. They feel attacked or at the very least overwhelmed and dictated to. In no way do they find it interesting and they do not feel better—sometimes feel worse—when it’s over.

That’s my report.

Love, Jaya

If this describes you during the holidays, it may help to know that you can call the HOTLINE service, offered at no charge by skilled facilitators who have completed the Nine-day School for The Work. These facilitators are available 24 hours a day to assist you with their love, dedication, and clarity.

Here are a few audio clips from the New Year's Mental Cleanse:

- My mother doesn't accept my African side...

- I don't want to be rejected by a woman again...

- I need my computer to always work perfectly...

Notice how our stories stop us from embracing reality.

A famous artist used to say that the best way to see things as they really are is to bend down, look back between your legs, and observe the world upside down. Because your mind doesn't recognize this "reality," it doesn't interpret or judge what you're looking at. Now you are free to see the world as it really is. Unfortunately, this kind of "ambush" on the mind doesn't last very long. Your mind catches up to you and brings back all the stories that you still believe in.

For me, reality is very simple. I begin and end with "Is it true?" And The Work follows.

The other night a friend of mine was discussing the Arabs/Jews event in 2006, and Stephen asked her to send it to him in an email. The following is one Israeli woman's view of that event.

It was a night like any other night—except it wasn’t and I knew it wasn’t—because I was greatly anticipating an event that was about to take place at the university. It was an evening designed especially for Arabs and Jews by Byron Katie, and all day long I felt I was thinking about it and wondering who the heck is going to show up, because on that same night Pink Floyd were getting back together again to play a concert for peace in Israel, and anyone who was even remotely interested in coming to the event with Katie decided, of course, to go to the concert instead.

Not me, though. I felt strongly that a truly fresh new thing would be happening, and there was no way I was going to miss this. I had heard Pink Floyd so many times, and as great as they are, it was history, and here was Katie, who I only saw on the web, coming to do something for peace that had never been done before, and I felt truly interested. So I managed to convince a good friend to join me, and off we went.

My friend let me know that she was only coming for that one night, just to keep me company, and anyway—the workshop Katie was offering for the next few days was sold out, and even the overflow room was sold out. As my friend was talking and while we were driving, we saw a young woman on the sidewalk who looked like she needed a ride, and I had a sense she was heading in our direction. “Stop,” I said. “Let’s give her a ride—I bet she is going to the event.” Sure enough, she was, and when she got into the car, she thanked my friend for the ride and said, “I’m in charge of the overflow room in the upcoming workshop, and I can add your name to the list of names, though the room is almost full.” Needless to say, my friend came.

When we entered the hall, it was completely full, and the whole front of it was filled with Arab villagers, Arab dignitaries, women with their faces totally covered in black (Katie had sponsored buses that brought them to the event), Jewish students, political activists who came because they saw it was an Arab-Jewish thing and had never heard of Katie before, and all kinds of other people—and the place was full and noisy. A man was standing on the stage speaking in Hebrew, and on the side of the stage I saw a woman standing, and I realized it was Katie (I recognized her face from her pictures).

Katie began working with an Arab man, the principal of a secondary school, who was dealing with his stressful thoughts over the Israeli occupation. The noise and restlessness in the hall was almost embarrassing to me. An Israeli left-wing political activist behind me was yelling at Katie, “Go home, you American, this is not a soap opera, this is a real occupation.” I turned to her and said, “Be quiet,” and my friend said, “You be quiet, you’re making more noise than anybody.” “My goodness, what a mess,” I thought, “what Katie must be thinking about us —probably that it’s such a third-world country.” In that moment Katie turned around to the audience and said, “Let’s just do the best we can with what we have. This is a first, and there are a lot of things to work through, but if we do, then from a resolution here, something will benefit the whole world, and in my experience what happens beyond what we can see is very powerful, so I am okay with the noise, and let’s just be with it.” Then she turned back to the man she was working with. I felt relieved and was able to hear and appreciate how hard Katie was working to hold the space so that the man on the stage could get a glimpse of the truth that it was his thoughts about the occupation that were causing his suffering. Finally, with Katie’s patient and gentle help, he did the turnaround: “The occupation is not the worst thing.” It was amazing to see him even consider this, because he seemed to believe with all his heart that it was the worst thing, and many of the Arabs were shouting that it was the worst thing. He had a hard time opening up in front of his peers, and yet he said, reluctantly, that maybe, just maybe, murdering somebody might be worse for him than the occupation. I don’t know what he understood in that moment, but he seemed to be very moved.

The second person to volunteer to do The Work was a Jewish Israeli who had been very angry at a group of Arabs (he called them “terrorists”) who had severely beaten him and his friend when they were fourteen years old.

“Tell us what happened, honey,” Katie said. So the young man began to describe his ordeal. He and his friend were walking through the field one sunny day when a group of Arabs jumped them and beat them up so badly that he had almost died. And he went into each and every gruesome detail. He spoke in a very calm tone in spite of the noise in the hall, and the audience became quieter so that they could hear him. He described how they broke his bones and put a knife through his neck.

“What were your thoughts in those moments, sweetheart?” Katie asked.

“Well”, said the young man, “all of a sudden, a thought flashed through my mind: ‘I’m going to die,’ and in a split second I found myself hovering over my body, looking down. I was just being a light or something. It was amazing. Meanwhile, the terrorists thought I was dead and ran away, and my friend ran off to get help, and in a flash, I was back in my body.”

“What if I told you, honey,” said Katie, “that the only way for you to experience that you are not the body was to go through this ordeal—would you be willing to go through it again?”

“Yes,” said the young man very clearly, and a total hush fell upon the audience. “I would go through it again in a second. It was the single most important experience of my life. I’ll never forget it. It totally shaped who I am.”

"Without the terrorists," Katie said, "how could you have had that experience? And did you send them a thank-you note?"

The young man smiled.

I felt that everyone, Jews and Arabs, came together in that moment, and that a new understanding was being born. There was total silence, and then there was loud applause. “My God,” I heard myself think. ”She did it. She penetrated something old and stale and got to people’s hearts. Unbelievable.” Even the rowdy activists in the crowd had to agree.

As we were leaving the hall, we were all much more relaxed. Arabs and Jews were even mingling. I found myself walking alongside the Arab school principal who had done The Work with Katie, and he said, “She is doing cognitive psychology. I am sure of that.” “Maybe,” I said. And we kept talking. Then all of a sudden, he said some political thing, and I could feel an argument rising up inside of me, but before I had a chance to say anything, the activist I thought of as “rowdy” came along and said to him—right in my face—“Don’t even bother talking to her” (meaning me). “She always has to be right.”

“You know,” said the Arab man, “you’re right. She has no active listening."

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and was just about to react when it occurred to me that maybe I needed to really hear what they had said. Maybe wisdom was speaking to me through these kind people and reminding me that we had just spent time in the company of a very wise teacher who had opened up a whole new way to communicate by listening inside, and I needed to listen. I backed off and thanked them for telling me that, and I left the event a much different person than the one I’d been when I came.

Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Disaster & Recovery is sponsoring two free teleconferences for survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to learn how to use The Work of Byron Katie, a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that is helping people all over the world find a greater sense of well-being in the context of life challenges such as hurricane recovery.

In this teleclass, facilitated by Dr. Maggie Carter, Ph.D., participants will have opportunities to fully experience the effectiveness of The Work and learn how to apply it to everyday situations in their own lives.

The free teleconference will be held March 15 from 7-8 p.m. CDT and March 22 from 7-8 p.m. CDT. Attendees simply need to call 218-486-1300 PIN 745633 at the time of their choice and be prepared to be transformed. They do not need to register in advance. (Thank you, Chi).

Dear All,

I’m sitting in front of my computer, listening for words that could give adequate voice to the life changing experience of visiting San Quentin. It’s been over half a year since I walked through the prison’s five security gates to enter the world “inside”, a world that unexpectedly opened my mind to understanding true freedom, a reality that took me inside my most prejudiced thoughts to meet the depths of my heart.

It was really my heart that called me to go to San Quentin in the first place. I was listening to Katie describe the Prison Project to a group of people and suddenly, something in my heart just moved me to volunteer if help was needed.

Love takes me to the most amazing places, and I’m learning to trust its lead completely.

What can I possibly say that would accurately describe the insights that continue to surface, the changes that take place still after sharing The Work with men in maximum security, on The Hill, and those living in the H block? I can tell you that their searching eyes and earnest, inquiring minds stay with me, inspiring me every day. Their dedication to seeing the truth and willingness to share honestly give me courage to do the same, no matter what the circumstances.

After a morning session in which Katie did The Work with incarcerated veterans living in maximum security, we all sat with one another for about twenty minutes.

The man next to me had lived on The Hill for sixteen years. I experienced him as a shy man, seemingly a dedicated worker by day at his job in prison, and artist by night while locked in his cell.

He looked deeply into my eyes as he quietly told me he had killed his brother in law, all those many years ago, and why. He told me how he could begin to see, for the first time, that the actions he had taken, though drastic, were directly caused by believing the thought that he was doing the right thing to protect his sister. He told me of how, for the first five years in jail, he felt as though he was in a nightmare, and couldn’t wake up; he couldn’t believe how everything had changed so radically and that he had actually killed someone.

Over many more years, he lived remorsefully with the realization that the action he thought was going to bring more peace to his family actually brought loss and generated even more confusion. Retrospectively, he saw that there were many other ways he might have been of help to his sister that didn’t require violence. After practicing just one morning of The Work, this man said that he couldn’t claim to know what was right for anyone else, ever again.

He spoke of how, whenever a possibility of parole came up, his nephew would angrily argue against it, saying that his uncle was a murderer and should pay the price, should stay safely locked up in jail. This insightful man told me that he could understand his nephew. He said, “He’s just doing what I used to do. He’s just like I used to be.”

We sat then for a while in silence, just taking each other in. In those moments, something opened beyond my knowing to fully embrace our equality; it was subtle yet profound. It was as if I’d been humbled by his plain honesty and was left with only a sense of empty humility as a greater understanding of my own ignorance and innocence dawned. How often had unquestioned beliefs led me to reflexively take action based on fear? How many times had this confused mind justified drastic reactions in its search for security and happiness?

Suddenly, aversion toward people I had judged as scary or harmful melted away as I received a clearer understanding of projection and saw the futility of protection:

Any projection = reflection = possible “self” observation = an opening for introspection = connection = unification = love.

Protection = separation = defense against fear of imagined loss or harm = action to secure against loss or harm = conflict and opposition = suffering.
It was as if some tense and hidden little place within my mind took a deep breath and made space for a new world; instead of self protection and other projection, sitting face to face there, I felt only quiet love.

Then I shared how for many years, after having had four abortions, I carried the heavy burden of believing I was a murderer. In my mind, I had myself made out to be some kind of serial killer, even though doctors had told me the babies might be deformed or that I could lose my own life if I carried those pregnancies to term. I admitted how I had incarcerated myself with guilt and shame, how I hid my painful secret from the world and lived as though I deserved to be locked up and punished for the rest of my life. I was living a nightmare where life became more and more frightening as each new horrible thing that happened was proof of guilt in my mind. I was a fugitive on the run believing I was doomed to suffer and pay the price for the rest of my days.

There was more silence and an unfathomable sense of connection as we sat there, unmasked, our painful mistrust of life nakedly exposed between us. We shared a tender smile. Inside, it felt like such a relief to recognize and release the ancient illusion of control, to surrender the story of a past and plans for a better future, to love.

How can life know? How does love create the perfect circumstances and opportunities that allow me to see reality ever more clearly? How can the universe be so unfailingly kind? I needed to visit maximum security to find the one who could help me see beyond security, to maximum freedom.

What I really want to say is thank you. Some mornings, these days, tears just flow out of the gratitude that fills this heart. Thank you, Katie, and thank you to all kind souls who are, even at this moment, graciously, lovingly holding the space open for us to see through answering four questions, and turning our lives around.

I bow down…

In Love,
Mollie Shea

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which he has obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

Dear friends,

It is nighttime in Tel Aviv. In the last three days I have immersed myself in The Work here in Israel by attending all of Katie’s events. They were so impressive for me, and for everyone I have spoken with, to come face to face with someone who has taken total responsibility for her own thinking and to see how the whole world is changed as a result.

The events were so sweet and smooth. You couldn’t even tell that 1,200 people each day were in the hall; you could hear a pin drop, and anyone who knows Israelis knows that it’s highly unusual for them to be so quiet. Katie’s depth and amazing penetration blew everyone’s mind and swept us off our feet.

The first two people who did The Work with Katie were women who worked with her last year on sexual abuse in their family, and both were so grateful. One of them said how after not speaking for years with her father who had abused her, they are now on speaking terms again and are even able to hug each other, and she said that instead of meeting the monster, for the first time she met the human being who is her father.

All the people who came on to do The Work with Katie dared to expose their deepest fears in front of more than a thousand people. Among others, there was a mother who lost her son in a car accident and a girl with burn scars all over her face because a terrorist blew up the bus she was on. In working with these traumatized people, and with “normal” people as well, Katie was so skillful, so intelligent, so wise, she knew so well when to push hard and when to let go, and as my skeptical friend sitting next to me began to sob, I noticed how many other people in the audience crying as well.

That burnt girl—so innocent, so delicate, with such a complicated, sad story— rediscovered herself again right in front of our eyes, showing us and seeing for herself that in the midst of the suspicion that her mind created to protect her, her beautiful soul lives on and is entirely untouched by any of the outer scars. The power of her choosing life was overwhelming. I felt that no one in the audience was a bystander, that we were involved and doing our own Work.

The weekend culminated with a huge inquiry circle. More then 1500 people sat in pairs facing each other on the lawn outside under a beautiful blue Israeli sky. I was overtaken by the blue sky for a minute; then I noticed how involved Katie was, that she missed nothing: here she saw a person needing a partner, there she asked the Hebrew translator to wait a moment and she asked for an Arab translator as well, so that all would be included. I noticed how, just by watching her and her tremendous compassion and inclusiveness, I felt as if I was becoming more compassionate and inclusive myself, and I begin to feel love looking at itself as I looked around me.

Even the TV news people seemed touched and came to talk with the Arab translator, asking her to talk to them about The Work and how it had affected her life. “Well,” she said, “I’ll give you an example. Someone from Europe just asked me if I felt discrimination in Israel, and I noticed how different my answer is now after I have been doing The Work for a while. The charge is gone. Discrimination? Well, yeah, maybe, but it exists all over the world, not just here, and not just because I am Moslem, but everyone sees everyone else from their own world. And I can also find how I am prejudiced against all kinds of things, even toward some animals, so I guess you could say that I don’t take it so personally anymore. The Work freed up my energy, and I can do other more productive things with my time.”

The next day by 7:30 a.m. Katie was already visiting inmates at an Israeli prison, and at 10:30 had arrived at Baka-el-Garbiya, an Arab village, for a session dedicated to the Arab audience (although a few others like me snuck in). I was watching history in the making; it was nothing short of that.

The event for Arabs only was amazing. Hundreds of Arabs came, mostly women, and I recognized an important editor of a very well-known magazine hiding in the crowd. It was very impressive. She adapted so well to that tradition and so skillfully enabled everyone to understand the meaning of being kind to one’s self, how war starts with us, how we can also end it. We have a choice. It was so important.

I watched people get empowered as she was speaking and felt that everything she said was of outmost importance. The fact that Katie’s love and clarity could sound and reverberate in that space today, maybe for the very first time, enabling these people to find their way out of suffering, was a magical moment with immense proportions. I felt such a powerful focus develop in the audience, and it all seemed to penetrate and touch people’s hearts. Katie couldn’t contain her tears, it was moving to the depths.

Much love,

Orly

hey, my name is tamar and i don't really have a question right now. i would like this e-mail to be a direct line of gratitude to katie.

i had heard her name for the last few years, but never got deep into the work. last week i was at my father's home and saw a pamphlet of katie coming to israel. something deep in my being urged me to visit her web site when i got home, and I've been doing that daily since and starting to recognize the endless opportunities of the work. it is endless beauty for me, and i thank you for that.

the reason I'm writing this letter is that today was my first day of manifesting the work in my relationship with my lover. after talking to him and really listening to him and giving him the chance to be as he is and by that being me, i saw his beautiful essence. what became present since then is a sense of responsibility in my life, and even though I'm still new to this process, my being is at peace more than with any of the stories i have been telling myself for my 33 years of life (and believe me, they were big glorified stories attached to a never-satisfied ego).

thank you, katie, from the essence of my being. thank you, thank you, and thank me :-)
with love,
tamar

Recorded at a recent public event, this audio lets us listen to a couple doing The Work as they arrive at a new understanding of their relationship and lives together.

See also: Resolving Deep Family Resentments, a new 2 DVD set in the BKI webstore >>

The following is a letter from Jonathan M. Hartiens, Ph.D. Program Director at the Center for Addiction Treatment at the VA Medical Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Dr. Hartiens shares his experience with using The Work on Vietnam Veterans and a formerly incarcerated woman. (Patient names have been initialized for confidentiality.)

Dear Katie,
I’m delighted to share with you the progress on two veterans you met while here in Martinsburg. J* was a veteran you facilitated and you may recall his one liner was “I killed a child.” As you were processing him he left the room. I believe I shared with you how he continued to process this line with me in private using the four simple questions. Anyway, he recently discharged from CAT-5 and is doing simply wonderful. He moved into a great apartment, has a fantastic job here locally making very good money, and he has reconciled with his children. He has had no more nightmares and discontinued all his medications. In his exit interview with me, he credited much of his progress and success to “that day with Katie” and he wanted to express his gratitude for you being willing to taking on such an entrenched belief which held him hostage for so long.

Also, K, who came to the School in June, is doing great. She is preparing to discharge in December and move into a transitional house in the community we’re setting up for formerly incarcerated women. Due to the tremendous improvement she has made, her parole officer released her from VA, which allows her to stay in WV permanently where she can continue to stay close with us and process her beliefs using the Work.
I also wanted to thank you for your on-going support of our VA staff. G is beginning to realize that the thoughts which blocked his progression in LA are the same thoughts which block our patients from progressing here. I’m meeting with him weekly to review his thoughts and help him experience the power of questioning them. While he is moving at a slower pace than others, he is moving. And for that I’m grateful.

I look forward to seeing you in the Spring. Until then, may God continue to bless you. With gratitude for your service,
Jonathan

Dearest Katie,
This is the story of how The Work came into my life.

I was sitting alone at a table waiting for my meal in a guesthouse in Lilongwe, Malawi. I had recently arrived and had six weeks of research alone in this hot country ahead of me. I didn’t want to be there, although I didn’t want to admit this even to myself. I felt afraid, anxious and lonely.

A woman walked in to the restaurant. I noticed her as she kneeled down to greet the black cat that nobody paid attention to. Then she came over to my table and asked if she can join me. I said yes, and we started talking. When I asked what she was doing in Malawi she said “Have you heard about Byron Katie and The Work?” I told her I had read the book Loving What Is but questioning my mind like that wasn’t really my
thing.

Well, all that changed and during these weeks in Malawi I started
to get a hang of it! When I got stuck, she helped me through e-mail. I was sitting under my bed net at night, writing down every stressful thought I could find. At one point I could clearly see my thoughts as they passed by, (“my body needs to recover” “home is better than Malawi”) but they were no longer MY thoughts, only thoughts passing through this mind, and oh so innocent, just wanting a little bit of understanding, loving care and attention…
I called my mom and said I had met an angel!

This is how The Work came into my life. It’s one year ago now. It’s difficult to describe what it has meant because it has really changed everything and nothing at the same time. It’s so liberating not to identify with thoughts. Life becomes simple, beautiful and friendly. Of course stressful thoughts still pay me a visit but they are like rain drops on the surface of water, and from the peaceful place under the water I can question them: Is it true that men make women suffer? It looks like that sometimes. Can I absolutely know that it’s true? No. Now that I think about it, maybe women are not suffering… How do I react when I think that thought? I feel so much anger and resentment that I want to scream and break things. Who would I be without that thought?
I’d love everyone and everyone would love me. Turn it around: Women make men suffer… well, when they try to change them everyone is suffering :-) I make me suffer. Yes, when I believe my thoughts about a cold, violent, unfriendly world then I suffer. Without them there’s peace in my heart.

With love and gratitude,
Alessandra

Hi Katie,
I love The Work and have read your books. I was wondering: how does passive (and active) resistance fit into acceptance? Also, can we accept what is and focus and act on what we want to create in the future, or is that focus a form of resistance to what is?

Sincerely, B

Dearest B,

I do everything possible to end the war where I am internally, and the war around me ends immediately. Bigger things happen as a result of this—huge things. The troops in Iraq, just like all of us in the world (there is no them and us in this scenario), only have the power to do everything possible to end the war where they are. The way we end wars on this planet, our “defenses,” exactly mirror how we (the bad guy) start or create the war. This keeps us stuck and perpetually unevolved.

Let’s say, for example, a country has the thought to attack us and does attack us in order to put an end to “our” power, which they see as abusive, uncaring, and disrespectful. At this point we attack them for being abusive, uncaring, and disrespectful, and because both sides believe what they are thinking (and their thoughts are exactly the same on both sides), they are unwilling to negotiate. If we overpower them, we say that we have “won,” and we have used the same tactics and mindset that the other side used to start the war, the mindset that caused the attack. They were defending, that was the cause of their attack. We were defending, that was the cause of our attack. The ”enemy’s” mind is our own. If we believe that they shouldn’t have done it, then why can’t we see that we shouldn’t have done it? We are killing ourselves in our own belief system.

The death of our own and anyone’s son or daughter is a pretty obvious reality and yet we stay asleep. I say, “Stop errorism now!” It is internal war that must be ended if war is to end. Once the internal war ends, and therefore the external war ends, then armies will be armed with what they really want to be armed with, which is medicine, food, education, and good will and hearts that are allowed to do what they do best, armed with what is right and good. I invite all of you to find any justification for war that doesn’t mirror back the very same mindset of the “enemy.”

Thank you for the question, B, love.
xoxoxo, kt

Dear Katie,

Lately I had a client who had a fight with her husband a few months ago. She saw him drunk in the car of his company and she wanted him to be home and take care of the children. It happened often that he was drunk and now she was furious and she tried to hit him with a hammer. She missed and she was arrested by the police and spent the night in jail.

She became my client and she wanted to get out of the misery. She said her husband was not likely to cooperate and come with her to me. So a few weeks ago I explained to her the Mediation (conflict resolution) exercise and she would try to explain it to him and do the exercise together. Today she came back. She told me she spent a few days to explain the exercise to him.

Constantly, as she read her worksheet, he started to interrupt her with justifications, attacks and so on. Then, after a few days, he seemed to get it and they could both read their worksheet without being interrupted. My client said her world has changed since then. Now she can openly communicate with her husband, something she couldn't do since she met him five years ago.

She feels more peaceful inside and she said people told her she has changed. "The book is open", as she put it. We can now get along. I could hardly believe her enormous shift from the hammer to this peaceful way of communicating, which she said she experienced since she did the exercise with her husband. And they did it together at home, didn't even need me, the social worker. She told me she didn't want other sessions with me for some time, as she needed time to enter her new world.

Thank you for being there Katie and offering us these beautiful exercises (and The Work of course),

in gratitude and love,

R

You'll remember the work Kondwani has been doing in Malawi. Here's an example of the difference he is making:

Dear Byron Katie,

My name is James Matemba. I am a man aged 49, married with 4 kids. I am a Malawian by origin. All my parents was a born in Malawi and raised here in Malawi. For the past years in my life I had no information about this thing called the work, till the time when i was imprisoned for forgery.

I was working with a reputable bank here at home and seven years ago I was found myself in a problem when two people came to me at home. The forced me to witness the check which they brought to me. The check was worth MK2,760,000U (S$20,000.00) due to the preasure I had I did what they were demanding. I was told that if I try to do anything to catch them they are going to kill me within two days. With the love of my family and myself. I risked and do what they told me. The following morning they came to the bank with cheque and they withdraw the money through my authorisation of the cheque without calling the owners of the cheque. These people promised me to give me about 10% of the money after the whole exercise is done perfect. But suprsingly they did not even share me anything till the time I was called to the prison to answer the questions on authorising the cheque without the conset of the cheque owners. The issue went to court where I was sentenced 14 years with hard labour.

While I was there and my time was just coming close to get out from the prison cell. I was released before finishing up my sentence because the suspects were prehinded and brought to book, so instead of doing the gail term of 14 years I was told to do half of the term for the allowing the thevies to still the money and because the maney was not found till now. Then A certain Man came to our prison he distributed the small books to the prisoners, we were about 60 of them on that day but the prison where I was has a capacity of 550 prisoners. Infact the prison wa suppose to hold 200 prisoners but due to the luck of space, we were forced to sleep in a small cell with no space to breath or turn around to other place. The man who came to the prison was young than me, but I took a keen interest with him for what he was saying about the work. He went on facilitate to us about our life in and out of the prison cell. I liked it, though I had no time to meet the man after his session but I knew that with the book he gave me I will get intouch with him so that he can came to my house after my sentence so that we can chart and facilitate my family epecially my wife. Our marriege was about to come to an end when I was behind the bars with lots of stories I was hearing about my wife's movement with other men. I wa so furious that I wanted to kill the wife when I got out from the prison. That was the numver problem which I had in my mind. But things turnd around with my thoughts with this man. His facilitation changed my mind, I knew that if I got home and kill the wife, I will be behind the bars again for the atire of my life then my 4 children will suffer for the whole of thier life. I was ringering on what to do then. The day came when I was released from the prison that was three days ago. And the first thing which I did was to come to terms with my family and cerebrate my coming to the house again. Then I wanted to meet this man. But the problem is I have forgeten his name he didn't left us with his contact details apart from the book I have at home. I Finished reaing the small book within a day and I came across with the web address of the Work, www.thework.com. I am here now at the internet cafe I browsed the page and find this email address of the work.

Please supply me with the address of the man in Malawi who is doing this tremendous job of changing the life of the prisoners in Malawi. I wan to work with him so that we can reach other places and prisons here in Malawi. He don't know me as well so give him my email address so that we can communicate. My life has changed completely when I red the book. I have given it to my wife so that she can read also. Please write back to me so that I be assured that you have received my email. Though I am poor now all the money which I had all was finished in paying the lawers and the children school fees. I don't have work to do now. I don't know what to do.

Help me how I can live my life to come to normal again.

Yours faithfully,
James Matemba

The hotline is for anyone who wants to do The Work right away, by phone or online, with a trained facilitator who has graduated from the School for The Work with Byron Katie.

There is no fee for this service.

Calling Byron Katie's Hotline:

- Hotline Facilitators respect your wish to remain anonymous if desired.
- You must call the Hotline directly. No collect calls will be accepted.
- You are free to call any one of the listed Facilitators during the hours they are available. Please respect their specified availability and do not call any other time unless you have the Facilitator's direct permission.
- If all Hotline Facilitators are busy and your phone call goes to voicemail, please leave a message with your phone number. Hotline Facilitators will do their best to respond to your call.
- When you call, be prepared with a completed Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet and/or a One-liner, or a question about doing The Work.
- The length of your call depends on a variety of factors. Our intent is to make ourselves available to as many people as possible, and we love supporting you in this way.
- If you are in immediate danger of harming yourself or others, please call 911 or contact a local mental health organization.

Hotline Facilitator's Responsibilities

- It is the Facilitator's responsibility to walk you through The Work, not to give advice or therapy.
- The Hotline Facilitator is present to work with you when your intention is to meet the Four Questions and Turnarounds with honest answers.
- If the Hotline Facilitator feels that The Work is not being done honestly, they will let you know and the session will end.

Learn more about Byron Katie's Hotline for The Work >>

Hi,
My name is Jennifer, and I found The Work while online searching for a way to "unstick" my life. I didn't quite understand at first, but then I read the book Loving What Is, and followed the counsel, I found a new person inside me. I have begun applying The Work to many areas of my life, but tonight I hit a most poignant false story that I wanted to share.

As I did The Work tonight, on underlying beliefs that were triggered by frustrations at my sister, I unearthed a powerful story inside me. I had been telling myself that I should not commit sins, when in fact I have and I do. I have been plagued in my life with anxiety and being overly careful about everything, censoring every area of my life. All of my thoughts went to picking over what I'd done and what I could do in the future that was wrong.

When I realized that it's not true that I shouldn't commit sins, my eyes were opened and I can now see. I can see that I keep God's commandments because I love him, and that fear is not necessary for me to be obedient. When I discovered this, I put down my pen and just cried, because I could feel the love that God has for me, and I could feel the love I have for him, free of fear.

I was afraid that the fear in my former story was what was saving me. But when I considered for a brief moment that it wasn't true, I realized that my love for the Savior and his love for me are what really save me each and every moment of every day, and it brought me to tears.

And it's funny because in the moment that I knew that I should commit sins, the very things that have always tempted me seemed to disappear, forever.

God bless you, and thank you,
Jennifer

I just returned home from the 2-5pm event by Byron Katie in Huntsville, AL.

I wanted to say thank you thank you thank you, Katie. I was the Mom with 3 kids that sat in the second row, my Mom was there too.

You did the Work with all three of my kids, which was just amazing. I am hoping to make the Work a habit for me and for my kids, and I do believe that what you brought out of them in terms of fears and negative thoughts, and how to turn them around... was just what my family needed to hear.

It was a great event, I learned a lot and I'm so thankful that you have made yourself available to so many. My youngest that took a picture with you is just thrilled with you Katie, you made a big impression. The papers that we did the Work on were in the car as we were traveling home, and when my other daughter tried to move them, my youngest (Brenna) wouldn't let her take them away from her, she really likes the Work! We had to do it on the way home, too.

I know you must get tired of doing this over and over again, I just wanted to thank you for the personal attention we received, and for going all over the world spreading this information. My family will continue to inquire, and I will be passing along the message for others to check out www.thework.com also... thank you!

W

Dear Katie:

As I came back form the School in April I started to have fearful thoughts about my body, not at all like me before, so I began to see "dangerous moles"and had them checked, then I went to see another the Doctor who said he felt my heart energy low and I should go to see a cardiologist, in the meantime I watched my mind and I new something deeper was moving on without having any clue what it was about.

Then one morning I found myself lecturing my husband about how hard his silence was for me, as I thought I had finished and went to get ready start my day and got into the shower a thought came to me: "Oh, my husbands silence is killing me!" - then a quick turnaround hit me, "my silence is killing me?" with a big question mark attached to it because I talk a lot, then like if I had been hit by thunderbolt I saw that I have never ever been able to express to anyone my fears, needs or desires or to ask for anything at all.

How true it was that my silence was killing me! and I saw how I had used my body as a shield to protect that deep silence, going to the extreme of willing to sacrifice it before opening up, so I have had threatening health issues in the past. All of this happened at the speed of light without even doing the JYNWS.

Needless to say that I spent the rest of the day overtaken by the clarity of my mind and the true power of The Work. All my secretly hidden capacity to love is out to the world now.

God bless you Katie you are truly a gift to the World! All my love to you,

E.

Dear Katie

This is what happened to me after the certification workshop.

In the process of taken care of myself, I went to a mammography just for prevention purpose. On this particular day there was a very senior doctor instead of the usual staff. He immediately discovered very, tiny small changed and send me to the major hospital in Denmark for continual treatment. In these days there were strikes of the nurses in Denmark, so the hospital was on very low drive and my scheduled time was cancelled. A senior doctor took event and called me and said I had to come anyway. I was called in and had taken a biopsy by a very, very skilled doctor. I got the results a week later and it was cancer and they wanted to operate me as soon as possible – strike or not.

13 days later I came to the hospital and L, my friend from the work was waiting for me at the entrance, and All the busses were stopping and people would get out an in. She were her usual cap so it was just like meeting her in front of the crown plaza hotel in Los Angeles before school starts – amazing.
The operation next day was absolutely amazing – so full of love that I was overwhelmed. They had to put some needles in before the operation to be sure to pick out the right spot (to remove) and I almost fainted of pain and it was pure love. So many people offered there help and care and support- so I had this picture of an anthill. When you put a stick in there all the ants work together to repair the damage. How deeply we are connected (this is from someone who did not as far as she knows have that experience as a child).

Everything looked normal at the operation also the lymph nodes. And I am waiting for the final results from microscopy next week.

Amazing how this cancer- or what ever it is – I don’t know – has already given me the experience of love – that there is nothing else than that and how deeply we are connected in this –what ever it is.

In deeply gratitude Katie for what I have received from you.

Yours always,

P

We are thrilled to announce that a new book will be appearing on October 15.

It's called Who Would You Be Without Your Story?: Dialogues with Byron Katie, and you can pre-order it now.

Dear Katie,

I feel that I have created a shift in our dynamic that opens the door to healing for myself and for our family. I am grateful to myself for my persistence in seeking healing. I am grateful to you Katie for presenting TW in such an accessible way (I did in eight months what I had not been able to do in 30 years of various therapies and medications). I am eternally grateful to Charlotte for shepherding us through the work in the specific arena of Divorce and I am grateful to all of my classmates. I believe that our collective effort of doing TW contributes to the foundation that supports our growth and that the work will keep working in seen and unseen ways. Thank you.

5/02/08
Dear T,

When we were married I wasn’t able to find or acknowledge very much appreciation within me for anything, including you. In our 25+ years together I don’t believe I ever fully present with you and I don’t believe that I ever really truly saw you. There times when I came a little bit close
like when I watched you ski. Those were rare moments when I did not judge you. I felt love, I saw beauty and I really admired you.

I would like to express what I appreciate about you.

I appreciate that you made our children your first priority. I appreciate that you spent a lot of your time serving them like driving J to her horses, and cooking meals for all of us, doing research on a multitude of things and just being around for us and for me.

I appreciate your ability to see what is good in others, especially our children. You shared with me your wisdom in letting our children take risks, find their own answers and your wisdom in knowing they didn’t need punishment when they did things that hurt themselves or others.

I appreciate that you manage money well so that you could offer us not only security and stability but also many enriching opportunities like travel, private schools, horses, summers at the ranch. You willingly and freely gave me time away to pursue my interests and I thank you for that.

I appreciate your gentle nature, your desire to be helpful and your generosity in sharing your time and attention with me, our children, and others. I appreciate your loyalty during our marriage.

I appreciate that you did the best you knew how to make me happy and your willingness to go to counseling with me and try to make our marriage succeed.

I appreciate your patience and tolerance and your impressive ability to not hold onto grudges.

T, you have given me many gifts.

First and most important are our 3 perfect, wonderful and beautiful children X, Y, and Z.

You also gave me Freedom to explore and develop my interests and you have given me financial security before, during and after our marriage.

For these things I am forever grateful.

Recently I participated in an exercise that centered on someone we admired.

I admire you and I did that exercise with you in mind.

What I see and admire in you is:
Generosity, Willingness, Gentleness, Loyalty, Caring and Patience

T, during our marriage I did many things that hurt you.

I expected you to be competent in many ways and I held it against you and I was cold and critical of you when you didn’t meet my expectations.

I insinuated many times that you and what you were doing was not good enough and that you should change and I withheld love and affection when you didn’t understand and agree with me.

There were times when I didn’t act like a partner in our marriage like when I made decisions about things that affected both of us without consulting you.

There were times when I wanted you to do for me what I had a hard time doing myself like reaching out to others and being involved in the larger community.

I often ignored your attempts to reach out physically to me and I judged your efforts to be not enough. I had an affair and didn’t care how you felt and I left and didn’t care how you felt.

During our marriage I put a lot of pressure on you to change.

I didn't listen to you when you told me that you were content and didn't want to change. In equal measure, I put pressure on myself to change and pressure on our children to change. I was very hard on all of us and I didn't listen when you told me that.

When I carried the belief that I and or you needed to change, I put a great deal of attention on how I or you hadn't changed and I constantly pushed myself and you. I focused on what was missing in my life and in you. I compared me and you to others.

What I imagine that it cost you is many years of not receiving affection, collaboration, and support and not being given the opportunity to feel the joy of your partner receiving your affection and support.

It cost our children the opportunity to experience the unconditional love and support of their mother and many years of living in a stressful demanding environment.

It cost me the ability to see, experience and support your strengths and to know you. It cost me the opportunities to receive your love and caring. It cost me the experience of my own self-acceptance and the experience of giving unconditional love. It cost me my confidence and joy as a mother.

I had a motive for not listening and for continually pushing for change. My motive was fear. I had fears that I needed to do things right or others would judge me, reject me, leave me and not take me seriously. I was afraid of forever feeling fearful, alone and isolated. And I was fearful that our children would feel the isolation and pain that I felt in my life.

By extension, I believed you needed to do things right or I would be judged and left by others. And I see that when I believed you weren't doing it right, I judged, rejected, and left you in my mind and did not take you seriously. I equated your worth with what you did and how you did it.

I put you out of my heart. I equated my worth with what I did and how I did it. I put me out of my heart.

Again, in my experience, this cost you my love, affection, support, harmony, companionship and connection. It also cost me my love, affection, harmony, support, companionship and connection both to myself and to you.

I experienced it as causing separation, heaviness and stress in our family.

I am sorry that I didn't listen to you and that I put unachievable expectations on you and blamed you when you did not meet my expectations.

For the many times and the many years that I treated you unkindly I am sincerely sorry. If there are things that I did that hurt you and that you would like me to know about or acknowledge I am ready to listen and I would like to hear them.

I am profoundly sorry for the stress I have caused you and our children and am willing to do what ever I can to make it right.

I welcome your ideas. In the mean time I am committed to living my life differently than I did in the past. The ways that I have identified include:

1. To notice when I have the thought that someone else, particularly you or our children, should do or be in any particular way and then look at how I can be or do it myself. My goal is to never tell another person what they should be or do or how they should think or act and if I do to notice and make amends as quickly as possible.

2. Another way is to stop blaming anyone or anything for how I feel or experience life.

3. Also, when I notice that someone has contributed toward my wellbeing that I will acknowledge them verbally or in writing as soon as possible.

If you ever feel that I am blaming you, accusing you or criticizing you I ask that you point it out to me because I am sincerely working on not seeing you or anyone as my opponent or enemy.

T, I am grateful to you. I am grateful that you are the father of my children, You are a gem and I love you.

Love, C

Our goal is to get The Work out to everyone in a way which is simple, easy to use, and helpful.

Now anyone can Do The Work anytime, anywhere.

A special thanks to Doron and Shiri of Coaching Interactive for making this happen.

I’m currently a facilitator for a Coping Skills program for the Segregation inmates here at WCI a maximum-security prison. We currently do an 8-week group of 5 Segregation inmates. At WCI we focus on education and treatment to try and help inmates succeed in CP and stay out of Seg. I was introduced to a tape of The Work and thought it would greatly enhance the current training we offer. Once we viewed the video and tried it out in our current group we were hooked. The inmates were very excited about the group discussion brought about by The Work video and work sheet homework assignment.

I believe that getting properly trained in The Work will enable me to better serve the people I work with. I think that with all of the background knowledge and training that I’d be better able to present this material to the people that need it most. I was so excited once I saw the video I went directly to my supervisor and told him of all the potential I saw in this program.

- KB
A scholarship applicant for the 9-day School for The Work

Hi Katie,

Just wanted to thank you for The Work! It is truly amazing at shifting one's beliefs and allowing healing to happen!

I stumbled onto your website some time ago, and bookmarked it, thinking: "I might try this at some point."

Well, my Dad passed away a few weeks ago, and I've been having a very rough go of it since. My Mom passed away many years ago, so it stirred up stuff around her too.

Anyhow...before my Dad passed away, I had been struggling with this novel concept of looking after ME. I did some things to help me, and in the course of it, have gotten others very angry with me. So tonight, I found your website again, and printed off the worksheet with instructions. Then I happened to see your videos...and clicked on the one about 'Father'. Wow! As you were talking to the gentleman on the video, I was Working thru my stuff...and I cannot believe how much better I feel already! By the way, my issue was the same!

My Work is far from done, but I feel the shift already and am very excited about this 'new' knowledge I have of myself!

I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart!

J.

Dear Katie,
I am so pleased to know you . i am lily from China. and i just read some translation in Chinese of your articles on some blogs.

I love to read those words and the dialogues. and i even read them everyday. when i read any paragraph anytime, i will feel happy, peaceful, and joyful. and one day, i have some suggestions for my mom. but my mom gets angry after she hear my thoughts and suggestions. I feel angry and little lost , because i think my suggestions are the best for her. my mom still think she is what she react. she would never change. then we stopped talking. at that moment, i get a pen , write down my thoughts,---those stressful thoughts, make my mom and me both unhappy. they are:
she shouldn't care other's business?
she shouldn't behave so smart?
she should not like to please people.
she should not expect other people saying that she is a kind and nice person.
because she must be unhappy and sad or angry if somebody she cared says she is bad or not good.
she is afraid of people not approval.
she works hard on approval, so when she works too much , and there's still somebody do not like her, or just saying she is bad. she will be unhappy and sad.

...........
wow, i just use the questions, and turnarounds. i found that oh my god, who am i talking about? it is me.
yes, that was me indeed. i actually act like her. no wonder there's a saying , every person will be a teacher, and a mirror. we can see the real ourselves in the reality.

when i don't believe those thoughts, i will be happy when with my mom.

thank you so much, katie. love you so much.!
God bless you and us both!
sincerely yours
Lily from China

Here's a letter from someone in Texas:

Dear Katie,

love, J

Dear J,

Let’s start with you offering your friends the one-liner “Obama is going to take away our guns—is that true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true?” Etc. But only if they are open to it.

And for your sake, I invite you to personally work with “Obama is going to take away our guns” and see what it might be like to walk in your friends’ minds, world, and internal life and fears. I invite you to look at taking away the gun that you are aiming at your friends, the judgments that you are shooting at them inside you. Also, try working with “There is something wrong with these people,” “They need to wake up,” “I need to do something to change them,” and “They are not decent people when it comes to politics.” For now, let’s look at “These friends of mine are narrow-minded and racist.”

Is this true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true that your friends are narrow-minded and racist? Notice that your mind wants to defend your position, to justify, to show proof of why it is true. Notice this and return to a simple yes or a no. Commit to one answer or the other. The Work stops working the moment your mind moves away from the questions and into its old pattern of justification and defense, winning and losing. Just notice these tendencies and continue to answer the questions. Give them a respectful amount of time; you are worth it. There is wisdom beneath the the surface answers, there are answers that are pure gold to you, and they offer freedom that you cannot imagine. When you have given the first two questions plenty of time and answered them, please gently move to the third question.

How do you react when you believe the thought “My friends are narrow-minded and racist”? Do you feel sick to your stomach, disgusted, sad, even frightened for them? For you? Do you see images of them using the guns? Notice how you react when you believe that thought. Do you see yourself as superior to them? How do you treat yourself when you believe this thought, how do you treat them? Give this question some time, be still with it for a while.

Who would you be without the thought “My friends are narrow-minded and racist”? Would you be less frightened, less separated from them, lighter, easier of mind, less judgmental? Would you be happier thinking of and being with your friends, a closer listener, really hearing their minds, hearts, and fears without separating yourself from them?

Now turn it around. Are you being narrow-minded, sweetheart? Have you ever experienced yourself as racist, even a tiny bit? Have you been prejudiced against prejudiced people? Are you seeing these friends of yours as less enlightened than you, less rational, less wise, less open?

Another turnaround: My friends are open-minded and (what is the opposite of”racist”?) open-hearted. Let’s try that one. Where have these friends been more open to you than you were to them? To yourself? How narrow-minded are you when it comes to self-judgments? Where are these friends more open in other areas in life than you are? Find at least three examples of each turnaround, and continue with the next turnaround, and/or begin to work with another judgment that you are holding on to. Because until you do, you are the cause of the separation that is happening in the human race and that separation in the world is what you are putting out there, it is what you teach those in contact with you.

Help yourself. Understand your stressful thoughts. I cannot teach others until I have taken on my own narrow mind and my own racism. And if you need to make new friends, look to yourself. You may consider yourself a much better friend to wake up with after you have taken yourself where you really want to go. For me, I want to deal with anything within me that would separate me from anyone or anything. This is intimacy, oneness, love.

Loving what is, and that would be you,
kt

Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed within a 100 days. It was a genocide of Tutsis perpetrated by the Hutus.

We have received several letters and emails from you, our dear readers, asking us to explain more about Rwanda, and how The Work can be used to help Rwandans.

The five Rwandans came to School saying they were Tutsis, but just before the end of School one of them admitted to all of us that he was a Hutu and expressed his shame about the genocide. It was an amazing moment. He made amends and spoke of dedicating his life to taking The Work to the Hutus to help end genocide and the ideas that are the cause of genocide, in the name of peace and in the hope that it will never happen again. He, like the others, wanted to heal the wounds of all Rwandans.

Here is an audio clip (MP3 download) of the Rwandans speaking at The School.

The genocide in Rwanda has been documented in detail by the UN and Human Rights Watch, so that "the horrors recorded here must remain alive in our heads and hearts; only in that way can we hope to resist the next wave of evil."

Meanwhile, the madness continues in the Congo.

How do you overcame these beliefs?

The truth is your beliefs are your religion (MP3 download), one belief by one by one.

It’s impossible to change as long as you believe the negative thoughts that you yourself are thinking.

In this case, the beliefs of the Hutus led them to genocide: “Tutsis are evil,” “Tutsis are tyrants,” “Tutsis are cockroaches,” “Tutsis are our enemies.” What other ideas do you see as contributing to the cause of such violence and fear?

Remember, peace on Earth begins with you. And the four questions and the turnarounds and your examples of these turnarounds are there, within you, to enlighten you and bring you peace.

Before we judge others, let’s remind ourselves that in our thoughts, we all experience what the Hutus were thinking anytime we hate or fear another human being, even ourselves.

For those of you keeping up with our Rwandan family, here is another letter (unedited) from our dear Costa:

My Dears love,
I am always thinking about you. I was very fortunate to know you from the School for The Work. You are part of my entire family and my entire Rwandan community.

Let this coming year be the year,
Full of Love: love which provides opportunity of knowing ourselves,
Love which wipes up all beliefs which were guiding our lives,
Love of reconciliation,
Love which dominates our bad thoughts,
Love which provides to us peace and relax,
Love which multiply the number of friends and reduces the number of enemies.
Who are my enemies? They were there dwelling in my minds, teaching me hatred, teaching me that what I have is mine and no one have access on it, teaching me that, that one is black or that one is white, teaching that, that one is Christian and the other is not so we are different, teaching me that, I am thin and I cannot negotiate with the obese, I am Obese, I am scared to join other, teaching me that, I am HIV and AIDS positive, I cannot negotiate with the Sero-negatives,
BUT I CAN QUESTION MY THINKING AND STOP TEACHING ME THAT. I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT YOU ARE NOT MY ENEMIES, YOU ARE NOT THE ONES TORTURING MY LIFE. IT WAS ONLY MY UNQUESTONED MIND.

OOOOOH, WHAT THIS YEAR CAN BE A YEAR OF LOVE, WHICH PRODUCES SMILES AND SMILES. I LOVE YOU ALL. DO YOU REMEMBER WHY KATIE GAVE US A MIRROR TO WHATCH?
SUCCESS AND LOVE.
FROM YOUR DEAR AND LOVELY RELATIVE
Costa NDAYISABYE NZARAMBA
RWANDA

Unity and Peace for Development Cooperative-Friendship programme

Chapter 3 from Who Would You Be Without Your Story >>

Are you trying to spare someone’s feelings by denying yourself? Free yourself from that prison. How can you know that they’ll disapprove? And if they do, whose business is that?

Rebecca: I’m very new at this; a friend just invited me to come to your event today, and voilà! Here I am. My question refers to the parent-child relationship. Actually, it sort of stems from a problem that I have with my mother. And I lied when I filled in the Worksheet. The problem was not with [choking back tears] relationships that I have now. It’s . . . probably something that I didn’t work out with her . . . probably am unable to.

Katie: So what is it with your mother that you haven’t worked out yet?

Rebecca: Well, I come from a conservative Jamaican family, and I’ve been living in America now for twelve years, so I don’t have my family with me. And I have to depend on myself, to pat myself on the back and say, “You’re doing okay!” I find myself, though . . .

Katie: Sweetheart, what’s the problem with your mother?

Rebecca: I’m not certain I can get her approval to do what I really, really want to do.

Katie: And what is that?

Rebecca: Well, it’s music . . . yes. They’ve told me in the past that I shouldn’t. In a conservative family, you do something practical.

Katie: So if your life became all about music as an occupation . . .

Rebecca: Well, I can’t even imagine that. I think of it all the time, and it’s . . . [She chokes back tears.]

Katie: . . . and it’s overflowing.

Rebecca: I teach business English, and my business is going very well, and this is something my mother approves of, especially when I’m so far away.

Katie: So what is it she would not approve of?

Rebecca: Doing something impractical, something that’s so risky.

Katie: Like what?

Rebecca: Singing . . . yes.

Katie: Singing where, how? As an occupation?

Rebecca: Possibly, yes.

Katie: So “if you dropped your profession . . .

Rebecca: I dare not.

Katie: . . . and you became a singer, your mother wouldn’t approve”—is that true?

Rebecca: She would kill herself with worry.

Dear Ms. Katie,

Thank you for saving my 17 years of marriage with I Need Your Love—Is That True?

I read your book in a mountain inn as I was ready to leave my husband. I cried and realized it was all me. Just to let you know that we are happily married because I have changed.

Thanks and God bless you.

S.

We recently received the following comment on this blog:

Dear Katie,

Sheila

Dearest Sheila,

How to stop worrying? I invite you to all four questions and to consider any genuine examples discovered after each turnaround.

Question your stressful thought, “My brothers have been shot.”

Ask yourself:

1. Is it true? Yes or no?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? Answer with either a yes or a no after you consider the question. Take your time. Notice that your mind tends to justify or defend what it is believing, and gently return to “Is it true? Can I really know that it’s true that they have been shot?”

3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe the thought “My brothers have been shot”? Do you see images in your mind’s eye of them being shot? Do you see them bleeding on a sidewalk, maybe? Maybe you them dead in your mind’s eye? Are they really your brothers or are they images in your head? I am inviting you to notice. Are your emotions being produced as a result of your brothers being shot in reality, or are your emotions the result of what is appearing, now, only in your mind’s dream? I invite you to realize for yourself the difference between mind and reality, the differences between the images in your mind and the state of grace of reality, this moment now and its gifts.

4. Who would you be without that thought, “My brothers have been shot”? Free to notice the grace of this moment, right here, right now. Able to watch television or YouTube or Twitter without fear. Perhaps appreciating the courage and bravery of the students without feeling panic, learning from them as you watch their courage, a courage that is also within you any time you become aware that everything you fear about the future are things you cannot know. Perhaps speaking out clearly in the protests in your part of the world (for me “protest” means to offer up intelligent solutions and examples of why what you believe to be true is a wiser, kinder way of governing). Perhaps reaching out without fear to a friend or relative who is also worried.

Now consider turnarounds to the thought “My brothers have been shot.”

What are some alternatives? One turnaround would be “My brothers have not been shot.” Give yourself examples of why this turnaround might be true.

Another turnaround: “I am shooting my brothers.” In your mind, aren’t you shooting them? And are you using their enemies to shoot them? What is the point of creating your brothers’ death and using their “enemies” to do it with, in your mind, over and over, when you don’t really know what is happening or even what they are doing right here from where you are, right now? The reality is that they are alive, as far as you can know, until you learn otherwise. When you accept reality just as it is, right here, right now, there is nothing between you and reality that would cost you the ability to serve what you can serve and to change what you can from where you are, right here, right now. This is just one of the advantages of the fearless, loving mind wherever you are. (Does fear feel kind to you when you’re in it? Is that what you use to motivate you into action? Fear is limiting; test it yourself.) As it is, you are superimposing your thought onto reality. To project your fears and experience them as real is often self-defeating and terrifying. Your blood pressure, your health, your energy, your right to the gift of real life is imagined away and replaced by unchecked imagination. Your physical health and the health of those around you are affected when you are lost in imagination as though it were real, swept away in the dream of what isn’t, right here, right now. Unquestioned thoughts are the root cause of all suffering and can be debilitating. It is a wonderful thing to question one’s mind, to do The Work and wake up to, be transformed into, what has been referred to as “the peace of God,” “the peace that passeth all understanding,” and be left with “What can I do to help from here, right now?” The Work offers each of us the opportunity to wake up from the nightmare, to wake up into what is real. Thank you, dearest, and let me know what you hear of your brothers.

Also, please do The Work on this: “My brothers are hurting.”

And there is another turnaround that I challenge you to consider through examples: ”My brothers have shot someone else” or “My brothers are shooting someone else.” Be gentle with this one. Though it may sound like a horrific concept to consider, to Work this thought can bring great insight and much peace. Those of you who have brothers sisters or friends in your life that you worry about in this kind of situation, I invite you to Work the turnaround, “My brothers are hurting,” and to get back to Sheila with what you find to be true. Please feel free to use the One-Belief-at-a-Time Worksheets; they are also a free download on thework.com. I invite all of you interested in Working this concept the opportunity to type in your response on this blog in the "comments" section below.

In love as you are, waiting for you to wake up to you as I see you to be,

Love,
kt

Dearest Family,

We have received many phone calls asking the same question: "Is there still room for me at the School?"

There is always room for you at the School.

I would love to see everyone at the School of You this Friday, early evening. If you want to attend, click here to register, or call 1-888-98-KATIE (52843). (And for those of you unable to attend, all life is “the School,” and I love that no one has to miss it.)

And for those of you who would like a sneak preview of the School, here is Richard Lawrence Cohen's first-hand account of his journey.

Dear Katie,

I do not know if you will get this, but I must thank you for your book Loving What Is. I was left by my girlfriend and baby and alone in Mexico with only hate mail and lawyer papers emailed to me, and no clue as to where my now past family was. As I travelled back to Canada I was terribly sad and could hardly hold back the desperation and sadness as I flew from Cancun to Minneapolis. I knew instinctively at the time that I had to be okay with them being gone, and me being alone and not able to see my child as a restraining order had been placed on me and there were so many unknowns. I went to a book store and picked up a few books and then I saw the title of yours Loving What Is; this caught my attention immediately, so I purchased the book. When I was sitting in the airport in the same eating area near a pizza place that my girlfriend and baby had eaten at not 9 months earlier, I was overwhelmed with remorse. So I left the area and found a chair and opened your book and started reading. It wasn't 30 minutes and I was suddenly sitting taller and feeling free from the pain. I continued to read and even as my hunger grew I went back to the pizza place and ordered the same mini pizza I had eaten when with my family. I sat there reading and eating that amazing pizza, which it turns out was "humble pie" pizza which I thought fitting later on as I found the receipt in my wallet and had a good laugh.

As I was reading, I started posing the 4 questions to my thoughts "she should not have left me", "I should be able to see my baby", "she should not be able to take my baby", "she should be more understanding and forgiving", the answers came quickly and so did the turnarounds. It was like seeing for the first time, I had absolutely thought myself into depression, suicide, abuse and bankruptcy and then being left alone. I do not know how to describe the feelings that welled up inside me, but it was an awakening or epiphany, or whatever other way one could describe it. As I sat there I started to smile and enjoy my pizza, and it tasted so good, I was talking to the person next to me an simply felt good in that moment.

By the time I was flying to Winnipeg, I was so happy in the moment, for I realized everything I believed true about my life had been a lie and a deception from stories I had created for myself without knowing it. I realized so quickly that I was simply a kind, loving man sitting on a plane flying to Winnipeg, and as I reminisced with a fellow passenger, I knew from that moment on in my life I had finally come to understand what it was that was crushing me into oblivion. When I got to Winnipeg my sister was there waiting for me at the airport, and as I approached they were uncertain to as my state of depression or sadness and were unsure of how to act, I was smiling like the day my baby girl was born and I gave my sister a big hug and was laughing and joking and having a great time all the way home. They were none the less surprised, when asked why I was this way, I had said I had found this book, not sure what the title is though. For a few days my sister continued to ask me if the book was by Byron Katie, and I was like, I don't have a clue. As I am more about substance than the title or author, sort of like the way I am with a good movie, no idea what it's called, but it was good. She asked me if there was a blond lady on the front of the book, and I still had no idea, and as I talked about it she went and found the book in my carry on bag and showed me the book. And there it was, Byron Katie and a beautiful blond on the cover! We had a good laugh, and she started to tell me how she had been reading your stuff for a couple of years.

I thank you for your strategies in understanding our thoughts, it has changed my life. I have not seen my daughter or girlfriend in 3 months, and I am happy every day now, this would not have been possible 3 months ago. I would have cratered and fallen deeper into sadness and depression. Now I feel so free, my thoughts no longer lead the way, I lead them and decide on what to believe and how. It takes work, but I am so thankful I met your amazing Work through your book. I hope to come to a workshop someday when I have the money and I am on my feet, and look forward to meeting the woman who forever changed my life.

God bless you!

Sincerely,
David

Here is a letter from a young woman who was falling into despair.

Your generous donations to the Work Foundation allow me to offer her (and so many people like her) scholarships to the School for The Work and Turnaround House, and I am so very grateful for that.

Hello,

Thanks, S.

Again, thank you, family, for supporting this Work as it enters the lives of so many families.
Love, kt

Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? is a story about a little tiger who thinks that his whole world is falling apart: his parents don’t love him, his friends have abandoned him, and life is unfair. But a wise turtle asks him four questions, and everything changes. He realizes that all his problems are not caused by things, but by his thoughts about things; and that when he questions his thoughts, life becomes wonderful again.

Order the book here >>

Studies show that people who forgive are happier and healthier than those who hold resentments. The first study to look at how forgiveness improves physical health discovered that when people think about forgiving an offender it leads to improved functioning in their cardiovascular and nervous systems. Another study at the University of Wisconsin found the more forgiving people were, the less they suffered from a wide range of illnesses. The less forgiving people reported a greater number of health problems.

Whether you are having difficulty forgiving your partner, feeling frustrated with yourself, your children, are angry with your parents, or are simply tired of feeling stuck and anxious about relationships in your life, this extraordinary forgiveness workshop is for you.

Schedule
Friday, September 18, 6:00pm - 9:00 pm
Saturday, September 19, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday, September 20, 9:30 am - 12:30 pm

Location
The Center for The Work
213 N. Montgomery Street
Ojai, California

Cost
$495 (Workshop only)
View our listing of local accommodations and services

Registration
Register for the Forgiveness Workshop
or call 1-805-444-5799 or
1-800-98-KATIE (52843)
International: (001) 805-444-5799

Questions? Email: eventquestions@thework.com

Thank you for passing on peace by being who you are without your old unquestioned beliefs. I love to pass on to you the invitation to do The Work with any and all unkind thoughts that arise within your mind and to continue, for the love of peace, to undream your unkind world, by questioning what you are believing. The Work leaves your world always kinder, kinder, kinder as the world arises in your experience. Do you gossip? Do you criticize others before you test it within yourself and take care of your own chaos? You can finally change us by changing yourself, and the Work is the key to the changes for us that you have always wanted.

The next School of You is coming up in just a few days. Click here to register, or call 1-888-98-KATIE (52843). There are several payment options available for this October School—just ask.

On 09-10-09, I attended Byron Katie’s workshop. The participants were asked, “What is the thing you are most ashamed of in your life?”

Like many of my incarcerated peers, I found myself answering Ms. Katie’s question by stating my crime, enduring the labels associated with my crime (i.e. murderer), and the domino effects that my crime has had on so many other people. This would include my victim, my victim’s family, my community, my own family members, and my own unmet potentials in life.

A week later I read A Thousand Names for Joy. Through Ms. Katie’s work with my incarcerated peers, many of whom are lifers like me, and after reading this book, I am better able to “turn it around.” I rewrote my initial statement, as if it was written about me by someone else. I redescribed my problem of believing outdated labels (i.e. prisoner, lifer, murderer, etc.). This all resulted in my embracing myself in a more positive manner. I even looked at myself in the mirror, inside my prison cell, and for the first time in my 31 years of incarceration, I came to a more meaningful sense of serenity (peace of mind) and self-realization of who I am as a man. I no longer fear tomorrow, nor carry the weight of yesterday. Instead, I swim in the pool of today’s reality, swimming with the current of today, and even wearing a smile throughout my worthwhile day.

Thank you, Ms. Katie for the workshop. Please come back soon and help us help ourselves.

C.

Learn more >>

The landscape of Rwanda is deceptive, hiding a mass grave under beautiful green grass, for example, or abject despair just beneath a smiling face.

Some of you have followed the story of Costa in Rwanda - as his family and friends have worked hard to rebuild their country. The Work that Costa is doing is making a difference, as Pamela Grace, Brenda Becker Goodell, Jon Newbill, Isabelle Stahl, Richard Lawrence Cohen, Christina Syndikus, and Paige Tuhey all found out when they visited Costa recently.

As the wounds of Rwanda heal, we are reminded that the suffering caused by our thoughts is often worse than physical suffering. The victims relive their anguish over and over again, until they are able to question their thoughts and move on with life.

The last newsletter gave us a glimpse of what the experience was like, thanks to photos and accounts from Pamela Grace, Brenda Becker Goodell, Christina Syndikus, and Richard Lawrence Cohen.

You can sign up for the Byron Katie Newsletter here >>

Start the New Year with greater clarity and freedom. The New Year’s Mental Cleanse is a rare opportunity to spend four enjoyable and transformative days immersed in the power of inquiry with Byron Katie and friends from all over the world.

Katie’s untiring commitment, her total accessibility, and the casual atmosphere of the Mental Cleanse are some of the reasons why it has become an eagerly anticipated annual tradition.

Sign up now >>

Dear Katie,

Dearest David,

You can’t create a no-mind, a don’t-know mind; it already exists, and it doesn’t need to be created. In my experience, as we question our stressful thoughts, we begin to experience the no-mind, without effort. It ceases to be something we’re trying to do and begins to be experienced as a natural state of being.

Question any thoughts about the future that come to your mind. If the mind believes a stressful thought that is even thirty seconds in the future, it will naturally leave you out of the now, frightened, depressed and lonely. Here are some things you may sometimes feel in your situation. You can question any of them that seem relevant:

I’ll never get through this.

I don’t know what I’m doing here.

This is never going to end.

I can’t handle it.

I want to go home.

I’m going to die here.

It’s very important when you’re using the four questions to understand that the moment you stop answering the questions, The Work stops working; for example, as you’re answering, when you notice your mind wanting to defend or justify the concept that you’re questioning, with something like, "Yes, because" or "No, but." Just allow the answers to the first two questions to be your own honest yes or no only, and even though you may be sure that your truth is "yes," for example, allow the "no" equal rights, test it as well, against the first two questions and allow your answer to drop in, to fall into the depths of yourself. Give your answer time to live in you before you continue on to the next question. Allow your feelings fully in the third question, give them time to express themselves completely. Watch, witness, experience how you react when you believe that thought. Be still with the fourth question as well. Notice who you would be without that thought. Who would you be in life if you didn’t believe the thought that you are questioning? Also, when you’re doing the turnarounds, with each turnaround it’s important to find examples of how each turnaround is true in your life. The turnarounds are not meant to be "positive affirmations"; they have to be genuine and real, not manufactured as feel-good (even though some of them really shift your life to an authentic state of "feel-goodness").

There is no internal or external war that cannot be worked through, if peace is your goal. The Work works for those whose minds are open to it, whatever the circumstances. I love that you do The Work for the love of truth, for the love of peace and no other motive.

Also, if you fill in Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheets, there are people within the Institute for The Work whose hearts’ desire it would be to facilitate you, at no charge, as a service to you as a soldier. (You can do this through Skype.) Freedom from fear is possible in a war zone, even on a battlefield. I love that you understand that the world, including war zones, is not the problem; what we’re believing about the world is the problem. Our beliefs create our internal war zone, and the end of suffering is possible, one belief at a time, for everyone whose mind is open to this inquiry, The Work.

I send you my love and gratitude for your life in this world, and anything that I can do to serve you, please return this email with your request.

In deepest gratitude,

Loving what is, and that would be you,

Byron Katie

Dear Katie,
I am forever grateful for your email. I really appreciate the fact that you took the time out of your busy schedule for me, it really means a lot! The questions that you mentioned all applied to me, especially the one that states "I'm going to die here." The danger that I have been exposed to has brought up feelings of stress and anxiety. But I have never felt more compelled to be present and at peace, to share love and compassion with fellow service members, locals, and even the enemy. As we all know, war is a terrible unconscious act of humanity as a whole. My acceptance and surrender to this is becoming more apparent every day. Your teachings have really helped me find the tranquility that I have longed for. Thanks again.

Sincerely,
David

The following text was written to Zahid from Bahawalpur, Pakistan, by a 27-year-old woman with two young children. (She uses her mobile phone to get on the Internet.) Here is the translation:

Dear Zahid,
I just went though Katie’s little book. It’s amazing. Now it’s time for the Worksheets, but before filing in those I’m going to read them out peacefully. The insight about staying in my own business is superb, I have generally sorted out that most of my transactions are really not my business at all...it’s really funny. Tell me one thing: What can I do with little kids, I mean they are totally dependant on me and isn’t a mother’s duty to defend them or solve their problems?

I really understand what you want to say and the joy that one has in the heart. I didn’t really know about presentation of this method in Pakistan, but one thing is true: Pakistan and the Pakistanis are suffering a lot and most of them really need counseling because their depressions are getting wild with each passing day. I love the statement "being born again," in fact I want to be born again and that miracle is happening.

It’s true, it’s true! Within two days of knowing The Work, it is...really out of this world! I never realized how near happiness was. I’m going mad about jumping into Worksheets, but I have to sit calmly to sort out what is most stressful. It seems that Allah has blessed me with an angel in your form whom I can trust due to knowing my parents and family and letting me know what I was searching for until now. You know what my reaction would be to see Katie. Just jumping at her and kissing her on her forehead like buddha: amazing! Lots of love, lots of love, lots of love, I’ve never ever gone though such deep replies because whenever I asked anyone they replied but most of that was related to philosophy. And I rather didn’t understand Sakeel, Urdu, or Persian or difficult things. Blessings to you and her.

You know what? Whenever I want to do a Worksheet a wish from inside comes to pick up that small book you sent and read it. It’s the fourth time I’m reading it and I want to share something very great...When I think of myself and close my eyes...or when I tell somebody about The Work, I feel like a light coming out right from the middle of my heart and spreading like sunlight.

Here is a letter from a woman in Europe kind enough to write to Katie even though her first language isn’t English.

For twenty years i've been married with my husband and you know, I had for twenty years resentment in this and I couldn’t get through it. I did The Work on it last August, I sent a letter, and still my resentment didn't resolve till now. I couldn’t find what i wasfighting.....was it my illusion to fight.......I don't love him or was it my heart telling me it wasn't the right man. I did the work on it and I couldn't come to a point and then............

So now I have to get used to a life with nice points of views in my marriage and this feels rather funny.

Thank you for writing, dearest, and I don’t call it The Work for nothing! Daily maintenance can give a life of joy and understanding to all situations, in my experience and freedom to love is your birthright. I invite you to check into possibilities of enrolling in the Institute for The Work. I developed this ongoing life school for those people who have been to the School for The Work and choose to do The Work as a daily practice. I like to say, “Do the work for breakfast and have a great life.” I am so very happy that you know how to find the way to your heart, husband, family, world, and peace. Thank you, angel. In love and gratitude for your humor, love, and light.

xoxo
kt

Who Would You Be Without Your Story?
July 16 - 17, 2010
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Loving What Is: The End of Suffering
July 20, 2010
Paris, France

Who Would You Be Without Your Story?
July 24, 2010
London, England

Loving What Is: Lieben Was Ist
July 27, 2010
Cologne, Germany

School for The Work
July 30 - August 8, 2010
Bad Neuenahr, Germany

Details here >>

Learn more about The School for The Work >>

Buy it from Amazon or the The Work Store >>

(freely translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a confused mind,
trouble will follow you as certainly
as a cart follows the ox that pulls it.

Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a clear mind,
happiness will follow you as certainly
as your own shadow in sunlight.

"It’s his fault." "She shouldn’t have done that."
Believe such thoughts, and you live in resentment.

"It’s his fault." "She shouldn’t have done that."
Question such thoughts, and you live in freedom.

Anger teaches anger.
Fear results in more fear.
Only understanding can lead to peace.
This is the ancient law.

He hasn't paid child-support in six and a half years. Is it true? Watch as a wife and mother finds that she has the perfect husband and father of her children, if only her mind wouldn't tell her otherwise.

Learn more about The Work >>

Does stress follow you around the Workplace? And do you bring it home?

A man is afraid that no one will come to his event because he has given it the wrong name. He's made the "wrong decision."

Is it true?

Watch as he imagines the worst thing that could happen at his event and discovers the possibility of freedom, right here and right now.

Who is The Work for? It’s for everyone who wants to end their own suffering and whose mind is open to questioning what they believe to be true. If you’d rather be free than right, I invite you to The Work of Byron Katie.

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Not wanting to change what is comes a state of mind that is literally unimaginable. There’s no sacrifice in it, no deprivation— quite the opposite, in fact. It means to gain everything, the everything that is already yours, and the effect is peace. People who use The Work at home as a practice tell me that they find their own freedom. There is such joy in that, such peace, and it’s a story that can’t be told.

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The enlightened mind is the mind that you can find no valid reason to shut down.The mind is a seeker. It just wants to know what is real and what isn’t. It’s fascinated by itself. So if you love everything you think, you love everything everyone thinks, and you love everything people say. It’s all mind.

So if someone says, “You’re unkind,” I might say, “Oh my goodness, really? Tell me specifically where I was unkind” (if I haven’t already noticed it, I want to hear what I have missed). I apologize and make it right with that person and to myself where I’m able to. And here we both are, working on my problem, both working on me and not separate. The enlightened mind is never separate from another mind, as there really is only one mind (if any). Not ever. The open mind always understands its own nature and is always open to more understanding, in the ever-shifting expansion of its own creation.

~ ~ ~

To understand our own thinking is to understand all thinking.The mind falls in love with itself, and this amazing love affair is not just the end of war, it’s the beginning of a whole new paradigm. It creates out of a space that is so unlimited in its self-love that it doesn’t ever have to be told or proven or seen. It is its own experience. And it’s happy—in that all.

~ ~ ~

Let’s say someone you love dies. If you’re doing The Work and feel any sadness about it, you may want to ask yourself, “Why is that death a good thing for him or her? Why is it a good thing for me? Why is it a good thing for the world?” But if you don’t question your thinking, someone dies and it’s all about you. You may think it has to do with them and with how much you love them, but if you look more closely, it’s really pure ego. I love to say, “No one can leave me. They don’t have that power.” .” If you are fearful, you’re living in the future, if you are depressed, you’re living in the past When your mind is clear, no one lives beyond identity and that is the end of what has never lived. It is the end of “death.”