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Use the following four questions and sub-questions to investigate a stressful belief-for example, "My mother doesn't love me." (Some of the sub-questions may not apply.)

1. Is it true?

(Close your eyes,be still, go deeply as you contemplate your answer.
If your answer is no, continue to Question 3.)

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?

- Can you know more than God/reality?
- Can you really know what's best in the long run for his/her/your own path?
- Can you absolutely know that you would be happier if you got what you wanted?

3. How do you react when you think that thought? (When you believe that thought?)

- Where does the feeling hit you, where do you feel it in your body when you believe that thought? How far does the feeling travel? Describe it.
- What pictures do you see when you believe that thought? Watch it, be still, notice.
- When did that thought first occur to you?
- How do you treat others when you believe that thought? What do you say to them? What do you do? Whom does your mind attack and how? Be specific.
- How do you treat yourself when you believe that thought? Is this where addictions kick in and you reach for food, alcohol, credit cards, the TV remote? Do thoughts of self-hatred occur? What are they?
- How have you lived your life because you believed that thought? Be specific. Close your eyes, watch your past.
- Does this thought bring peace or stress into your life?
- Where does your mind travel when you believe that thought? (List any underlying beliefs, and inquire later.)
- Whose business are you in when you think that thought?
- What do you get for holding onto that belief?
- Can you find a peaceful reason to keep that thought?
- What terrible thing do you assume would happen if you didn't believe that thought? Write down the terrible thought, and turn it around to the opposite and test it for yourself - is the opposite as true or truer?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

- How would you live life differently if you didn't believe that thought? Close your eyes and imagine life without it.
Imagine you are meeting this person for the very first time with no story. What do you see?
- Who are you right now, sitting here without that thought?

Turn the thought around.

(Statements can be turned around to yourself, to the other, to the opposite, and to "my thinking," wherever it applies. Find a minimum of three genuine examples in your life where each turnaround is as true as or truer than your original statement.)

- If you lived this turnaround, what would you do, or how would you live your life, differently?
- Do you see any other turnarounds that seem as true or truer?

The turnarounds allow you to see the best course of action for you.

The key to experiencing The Work is to go beyond the quick answers of the intellect and tap into a deeper wisdom. Ask, then be still and wait for an inner voice to respond. With practice, this will become easier. You will learn to rely on yourself—not the world—to see what's true for you.

The following dialog appears in Loving What Is.

NOTE: Byron Katie's response to reader comments on this post may be read here>>

Mary, reading the statements from her Worksheet: I hate my husband because he drives me crazy — everything about him, including the way he breathes. What disappoints me is that I don’t love him anymore and our relationship is a charade. I want him to be more successful, to not want to have sex with me, to get in shape, to get a life outside of me and the children, to not touch me anymore, and to be powerful. My husband shouldn’t fool himself that he’s good at our business. He should create more success. My husband is a wimp. He’s needy, and lazy. He’s fooling himself. I refuse to keep living a lie. I refuse to keep living my relationship as an imposter.

Katie: Does that pretty well sum it up? [The audience bursts into laughter, and Mary laughs along with them.] By the sound of the laughter, it seems as though you speak for a lot of people in this room. So, let’s start at the top and see if we can begin to understand what going on.

Mary: I hate my husband because he drives me crazy — everything about him, including the way he breathes.

Katie: "Your husband drives you crazy" — is it true? [This is the first of the four questions: Is it true?]

Mary: Yes.

Katie: Okay. What’s an example of that, sweetheart?… He breathes?

Mary: He breathes. When we’re doing conference calls for our business, I can hear his breath on the other end of the telephone, and I want to scream.

Katie: So his breath drives you crazy — is that true?

For those of you who have similar issues, ask yourself:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

Download the written facilitation Worksheet (PDF) here or view an online version here >>

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 >>

Sometimes we get stuck in the prison of our own mind...

Terrorism at the World Trade Center: A Dialogue in Cambridge, September 13, 2001

I was scheduled to be in New York on 9/11/01. The morning I was to travel from Long Island, the planes hit the towers, bridges were closed and highways shut down before I could enter the city. I was free, however, to get to my event in Cambridge two days later. I worked with a woman who was terrified. She gave voice to the fears that many people were feeling. Amazingly, by the end of our dialogue, she was smiling. Her whole attitude had changed. Stephen and I wanted to include this dialogue in Loving What Is, but our publisher said that it was too hard for most people to believe. They wouldn't accept that such a major transformation could happen so quickly.

Deborah: I'm afraid that this is the beginning of the end. Our lives will become a living hell. We'll suffer just like all the people we've seen on TV. The terrorists will continue; we can't stop them. We have too many enemies. We've brought this on ourselves. Everyone hates us because we're Americans, we're rich, we have freedom. I might lose my life, my kids, my grandkids. I might never see them again. We're just at the beginning of the attack. Wait till they start chemical warfare.

Katie: Thank you, sweetheart. You're giving voice to many people's thoughts about what happened on Tuesday. Now let's look at what you've written, one thought at a time. This is the beginning of the end-is that true?

Deborah: It could be.

Katie: Can you absolutely know that that's true?

Deborah: No.

Katie: How do you react when you think the thought "This is the beginning of the end"?

Deborah: I get really scared and sad.

Katie: And then where does your mind go? Where does it travel when you think the thought "This is the beginning of the end"?

Deborah: It accelerates scary thoughts. I start thinking that I'll never see my family again.

Katie: That's what has to happen, because mind's job is to prove that it's right. When you believe the thought "This is the beginning of the end," you have to deny everything else that you see that's evidence to the contrary, and you have to be very selective. Does this thought bring peace or stress into your life?

Deborah: Oh, it's a very stressful thought.

Katie: Who would you be without that thought?

Deborah: Someone who can enjoy things.

Katie: That's really nice because there are a lot of things to enjoy. But only in reality. You hear the sounds of the people singing outside this church, you see the lights, the candle burning, the flowers in the vase, and if that's not enough, you have the smells, your feet on the floor, the people sitting beside you. Reality right here is really fine. It feels much nicer than the trip you just took into the end of the world. So, what I am learning from you-and I see you as an expert-is that with the thought, you experience stress as though two planes have crashed into your building and you collapse, and without the thought, you stand. So, how can anything that happens be responsible for your stress or your peace? "This is the beginning of the end"-how would you turn that around?

Deborah, laughing: What happened is the end of the beginning. I'm not sure what that means.

Katie: Feel it. I see that, whatever it means, it brings laughter to your face.

Deborah: Yeah. The end of the beginning… Well, something new is happening. It's the end of that. That disaster actually ended on Tuesday. I feel a little guilty saying that.

Katie: Of course, because you're a traitor to the story that causes suffering. You're not going to be very popular in the world. [The audience laughs.] You're going to be very happy, but you won't have a lot of friends in the government. Who would you be without the story? A vibrant listener, because there's no terrorist attacking you from the inside. A thought appears: "This is the beginning of the end." And without investigation, you're terrorized, you're war-torn. It was just a thought. We don't know how to meet our inner terrorists. Until we can meet these thoughts with unconditional love, we're going to suffer in the name of the world. Let's hear your next thought.

Deborah: Our lives will become a living hell.

Katie: "Our lives will become a living hell"-is that true?

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?

Download the written facilitation worksheet (PDF) here or view an online version here >>

Participant: I’m hurt by K**** because he left me.

Katie: So “He left you”—is that true?

Participant: Not really; in my heart he is there all the time.

Katie: So how do you react when you think the thought “He left me”? What happens? You're living your life, you're very happy, and then the thought hits, “Crrrrgh!”—“He left me.”

Participant: I feel inferior, or worthless. I feel very much alone, helpless, and I just don't know what to do.

Katie: And I would put “I don't know what to do” on a separate piece of paper, and Work it later. So, “He left me”—who would you be without that thought? Who are you without that thought as you live your life?

Participant: I feel free, secure, content.

Katie: So close your eyes. Now watch you, going to the market, doing the dishes, without the thought “He left me.” What do you see? Watch your life.

Participant: I see many people, and I join with them in a very good time, and I have freedom inside.

Katie: Yes, you have your life back.

Participant: Yes.

Katie: “He left me”—turn it around.

If you live with the uninvestigated thought “I need my money to be safe and secure,” you’re living in a hopeless state of mind. Banks fail. Stock markets crash. Currencies deflate. People lie, bend contracts, and break their promises. In this confused state of mind, you can make millions of dollars and still be insecure and unhappy.

Here's an article from the Japan Times about Nina and Ashik Peter Lynch as they move The Work in Japan. I can't thank them enough.

The Work: Four Questions for a Peaceful Mind
By Angela Jeffs

Nina Lynch and her husband, Ashik, share The Work of Byron Katie, a simple method to change our views of our lives from negative to positive, and so make better lives.

As Nina explains: "[Byron Katie] was able to see that her suffering continued as long as she believed her stressful thoughts, and when she questioned them she discovered that reality, truth, or 'that which is,' was much kinder and more benign than she'd been experiencing." In that realization, Byron Katie found a simple technique based on four questions that can be used by anyone to question their thoughts and radically change their lives. She calls it The Work.

Nina found The Work while staying in Kyoto some years ago. "A friend gave me Byron Katie's book Loving What Is. Having read it, I did The Work, then attended workshops, and the nine-day intensive School with Katie in Los Angeles."

Since then Nina has staffed Katie's schools and weekend workshops and takes every opportunity to participate in her events as well as working as a volunteer on the hotline, which is available to anyone through Katie's Web site. "If you have stress in your life, if you worry about money, if you have relationship issues, are depressed, unhappy, are an unsatisfied seeker of truth, or are in any way discontented with your life, The Work is for you.

"It's changed my life," she continues. "I'm a happier, more productive person and I know that life is kind and good to me. My deepest wish is to share The Work with anyone who wants to experience truth and be free from suffering."

Nina does sessions and worldwide teleclasses of The Work from her home. After introducing The Work informally to small groups in Tokyo in July, she and Ashik will be presenting The Work at Circle of Light in Tokyo's Ogikubo on Sept. 17, and then will facilitate a weekend workshop in Omote-sando on the 23rd and 24th, "The Way to a Peaceful Mind." The workshop will be primarily in English, though there will be Japanese translators available, and Nina and Ashik can be helpful in Japanese, German, French and Spanish if necessary.

"We're available in Tokyo from Sept. 15th to the 30th for in-person sessions, for individuals, groups and couples, and we do phone sessions, both classes and individually, with people from all over the world. For the teleclasses we use Skype Internet telephony."

Nina has always been a seeker. Her first memory of looking for answers was when at age 11 she went to every church in her hometown of Oxford, England, asking how to find God.

From then until now, Nina has not stopped searching "for myself, for peace of mind, enlightenment, whatever you call it." She began the study of meditation in India 30 years ago, and it's been a part of her daily life ever since. Since India she has traveled all over Europe and North America, where she now makes her home, and lived in Japan for four years.
"When I met Byron Katie and started to do The Work daily, my internal and external life totally changed. It is the key that I needed to unlock my meditation. Now my mind is clearer, stress is disappearing, joy is abundant."

Nina continues to do The Work on an everyday basis. Personally I learned how after commenting on a statement she made in an e-mail, "This house is a wonderful sanctuary up here in the mountains and it helps to make my life much easier," and asked her, "Why did you feel your life was hard?" Her reply gave me an idea of how The Work works, just four questions followed by a turning around of the original thought to its opposite:

"My life is hard. Is that true?

"Yes, sometimes I feel it is.

“Can I absolutely know that it is true?

"No, I can't know that it's true beyond any doubt at all.

"How do I react when I think that thought?

"I think of the things that I think are difficult, like: getting enough money, my feet hurt sometimes because I have stiff joints in my toes and sometimes it is harder to walk than other times, then that means I put on more weight and am not so healthy. Sometimes I think that living with Ashik is hard because, like me, he's not always easy. Or I think that life in America is hard because of all the negatives I can so easily get into . . . and so on, so I can end up feeling more unhappy."

Nina now turns her stressful thought around to its opposite: "Who would I be without that thought?

"I'd see my comfortable bed that I sleep on, that I slept on really well last night. I would see a fridge full of food, vegetables growing in the garden, friends close by who I trust, and we're supportive and helpful to each other. My blood family, though they live far away, don't give up on me, and one of my sisters is coming to visit soon. I'd see how many things are actually fine and perfect as they are and I'd feel full of gratitude."

Nina then looks for at least three examples of this opposite, which turn out to be actual examples of how reality is different, and more peaceful, than the stories her mind had decided to attach itself to:

"One, my life is easy, because I have a wonderful man in my life who is currently fixing the lights in our living room, something that I can't do, and it would take me a lot of time and energy to learn, so it's very convenient that he does it.

"Two, I have always been taken care of; it was only my thinking that said life was hard. For example, though I grew up being poor in England, we never starved, we always had enough.

"Three, when I first went to live in Japan, and arrived with no language and no money, people offered help, gave me a place to stay, took care of me."

Nina believes The Work can be just as much a powerful tool toward healing in Japan as in the English-speaking world. She is producing a Japanese edition of extracts from Katie's book, which is already available as a download from Katie's Web site.

Nina quotes Katie as saying that there are only three things we actually do in life: sit, stand or lie horizontal. All the rest is a story.

"The Work always leaves you with less of a story. Who would you be without your story? You never know until you inquire. There is no story that is you or that leads to you. Every story leads away from you. Turn it around, undo it. You are what exists before all stories. You are what remains when the story is understood."

The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious. Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed. It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.

But some people take the insight that the world is perfect and make it into a concept, and then they conclude that there’s no need to get involved in politics or social action. That’s separation. If someone came to you and said, “I’m suffering. Please help me,” would you answer, “You’re perfect just the way you are,” and turn away? Our heart naturally responds to people and animals in need.

Realization has no value until it’s lived. I would travel to the ends of the earth for the sake of one person who is suffering. The desperate, the hopeless, are unenlightened cells of my own body. It’s my own body I’m talking about—the body of the world is my body. Would I let myself drown in water that doesn’t exist? Would I let myself die in an imagined torture chamber? My God, I think, there’s someone out there who really believes there’s a problem. I remember when I used to think there was a problem. How can I say no when that person asks for help? That would be saying no to myself. So I say yes and I go, if I can. It’s a privilege. It’s more than that: it’s self-love.

People are perfect just the way they are, however deeply they’re suffering, but they don’t realize that yet. So when I meet someone who’s suffering, I don’t say, “Oh, there’s no problem, everything is perfect.” Though I can see that there’s never a problem, and I’m available to help him see that, telling him what I see would be unkind. That part of my body is suffering, everything is not perfect for him, because he believes it’s not. I, too, have been trapped in the torture chamber of the mind. I hear what he thinks he needs, I hear his sadness or despair, and I’m available. That’s full-blown activism. In the presence of someone who doesn’t see a problem, the problem falls away—which shows you that there isn’t a problem.

People ask me, “How can you listen to all these problems, day after day, year after year? Doesn’t it drain your energy?” Well, it doesn’t. I’ve questioned my stressful thoughts, and I’ve seen that every single one of them is untrue. Every thought that used to look like a poisonous snake is actually a rope. I could stand over that rope for a thousand years, and never be frightened of it again. I see clearly what some people don’t yet see for themselves. Everyone in the world might come upon that rope and run screaming the other way, and I wouldn’t be afraid for them, feel sorry for them, or worry about them at all, because I realize that they’re not in danger, they’re absolutely not in harm’s way. As they cry snake, I see only rope.

If you have a problem with people or with the state of the world, I invite you to put your stressful thoughts on paper and question them, and to do it for the love of truth, not in order to save the world. Turn it around: save your own world. Isn’t that why you want to save the world in the first place? So that you can be happy? Well, skip the middleman, and be happy from here! You’re it. You’re the one. In this turnaround you remain active, but there’s no fear in it, no internal war. So it ceases to be war trying to teach peace. War can’t teach peace. Only peace can.

From A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

Just mention the holidays and it’s enough to send some people’s stress levels off the charts.

If this describes you during the holidays, it may help to know that you can call the HOTLINE service any time.

The hotline is for people who want to have a one-on-one experience with The Work now, and is offered at no charge by skilled and extraordinarily generous 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.

Those of us who chase after money to find happiness never have enough. And in the process we create stress for ourselves and for others around us. Sometimes we worry ourselves sick.

Those of us who see money as unspiritual have trouble charging for our services or feel guilty when we do make money. This is the flip side of greed, and it is just as painful. What stories we assign to pieces of paper!

Rich or poor, we believe the same stories over and over again. Isn’t it time for you to end that suffering?

Financial freedom is not about manifesting new cars or high-paying jobs. It is about being absolutely secure and loving whatever reality brings you.

The truth is that you're supposed to have exactly as much money as you have right now. No more, no less.

How do you know when you're supposed to have more? When you do.

How do you know when you're supposed to have less? When you do.

Realizing this is true abundance. It leaves you without a care in the world.

However much money you have, do you love it yet? If not, I look forward to seeing you in Los Angeles in January...

Participant: I’m mad at me because these days I don't succeed in earning my living on my own.

Katie: Is that true? “You don't earn a living on your own”—is that true?

Participant: I’m supported by my husband, and there's scarcely anyone in my practice these days.

Katie: So sweetheart, do you make your husband support you?

Participant: Yes.

Katie: So he does not have a choice?

Participant: Yes, he has a choice.

Katie: Yes. He doesn't have to support you. So “You are not making a living on your own”—is that true? Few people come to your practice, your husband never has to support you, and you're supported—on your own!

Participant: Right now, I’m so much in my mind.

Katie: And are you supported?

Participant: I am supported, yes.

Katie: So “You're not supported on your own”—is that true?

Participant: I can't understand right now.

Katie: Okay . . . so, thank you. Who would like to do The Work? And I hope everyone in this audience just did “I am not supported on my own.” Is there anyone in this room that has never been supported? Including you, sweetheart? I invite everyone in this room to find one time when you were not supported. It's not possible. There's no time in your life when you have not been supported. I’ve never met any human being that can find one moment that they were not supported. On your own! With or without a job. Can anyone find one moment when they were not supported? [Pause] I can't either. So sweetheart, sit with it for a little while and we can come back to you. Because I hear from you that you’re having trouble putting it together.

Participant: I’m afraid of not being able to financially keep up my existence. I’m mad at me because I don’t succeed at standing on my own feet financially. I reproach myself for not having sought a job during the year of separation that would provide a living for me. And I don't forgive myself for having spent the money I got from my husband—the biggest part of it.

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.

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).

Steve Maraboli will interview Stephen and me on his "Empowered Living" show on Monday, March 19th at 10am Pacific (1pm Eastern).

You can listen to it through the Internet here; and it will be archived there as well, available as an on-demand podcast.

The topic? A Thousand Names for Joy.

Listen to this short audio excerpt (MP3) from Your Inner Awakening: The Work of Byron Katie: Four Questions That Will Transform Your Life

An uncomfortable feeling is not an enemy. It’s a gift that says, "Get honest; inquire." We reach out for alcohol, or television, or credit cards, so we can focus out there and not have to look at the feeling. And that's as it should be, because in our innocence we haven't known how. So now what we can do is reach out for a paper and a pencil, write thought down, and investigate.

Another short audio excerpt (MP3) from Your Inner Awakening: The Work of Byron Katie: Four Questions That Will Transform Your Life

Dear Katie,
I’ve been hoping “The Secret” craze would pass as quickly as the Hula-Hoop, then this afternoon I saw it featured on Oprah.

Please consider commenting on this movie/book in the Parlor.
Much love,
Susan

Dearest Susan,

Here are Stephen’s thoughts:

The Secret: “You can have whatever you want.”
The Work: “You can want whatever you have.”

The Secret: “My will be done. I know what’s best for me.”
The Work: “Thy will be done (=Thy will is done). What’s best for me is what actually happens.” (In A Thousand Names for Joy, Katie says, “God’s will and your will are the same, whether you notice it or not.”)

The Secret: “You can control your thoughts.”
The Work: “You are not the thinker. It’s not possible to suppress your stressful thoughts. But when you question them, they let go of you.”

The Secret: “You can manifest your positive thoughts as reality.” The Work: “Reality already is the best thing that could be manifested. When you realize this, you’re home free.”

Thank you, Susan, for your work during the Los Angeles relationships weekend, and thank Gayle also for being so amazingly generous and present as she gives the Work to people in this world through her excellent recordings. I and thousands of others are so very grateful.

The Secret? So, let’s discover for ourselves if there really is a secret, if in fact one exists. “There is a secret”—is it true? I don’t know, I just don’t know, could be, and how would I know when I have found it? Wouldn’t it mean (if it were really powerful) that when I truly found it, my life and the lives of everyone I love, which is everyone on the planet without exception, would be perfect? That I and all of us would no longer have to suffer from needing, wanting, and shoulding, and would be excited and grateful for what we have as we watch more and more flow in as we need it and always on time, just loving what is here for us right now in this moment? Hmmm. Okay, let’s keep moving.

“There is a secret”—can I absolutely know that it's true that there is a secret which, if known, would give me the key to having everything that I want and need that I don’t have now in life? One that will give me later what I don’t have now (examples: a BMW, the necklace that I really want, weight loss, a bike)? No, I can’t know. How do I react when I think the thought that there is a secret and others know it and I don’t? I must live in a past and future that don’t exist as anything other than unfulfilled imagination, yearning for what I don’t have and believing that material wealth and better health are the key to my happiness, left out, isolated, unhappy, trying my best to get the things that I want and often failing and feeling like a failure. I begin to believe that I cannot harness this “secret” and end up with the same life that I started with in the first place, with or without material success. Who would I be without believing that there is “the secret?” Loving life, being “the obvious,” rather than being the secretive.

There is a secret? Now it’s time to look for the turnarounds that are as true or truer for you, dear Parlor family. The one-liner is “There is a secret.” What turnarounds do you see and are willing to share with us? Post your comments below, at the end of this post.

If I believe it and cannot find it, see it, bring it in as fact, then I cannot prove it to “myself” in this world. There is nothing that isn’t manifested by mind, everything is as we see it, and that isn’t much of a secret. It is only when time and ownership of “things” (and body is also a thing) are misunderstood that you attempt to dictate and manipulate these two factors (time and ownership).

The secret is that wanting what I don’t have leaves me wanting what I don’t have again when I have what I thought I wanted then. I don’t need to map out a plan for the future, and I would if it made sense to me or if I needed to, but I would have to distrust the nature of the universe and myself first, and I trust “myself” totally without question to love all of life. There is never a limit as to what to do now, as what “I do” is what we all get, and it accumulates because I don’t argue, I follow the simple directions that are always kind. I don’t do later what I am to do now, and no one does. Later is now.

The secret is to love what is. I love what is because this “what is” right now is all that is and all that ever will be! Right now, not later, all my needs are met, all my desires, my wants are visibly in plain sight and my eyes are open to it, and the feeling is love and gratitude for all that is right now at my beck and call without beckoning or calling or having even asked for it, prayed for it, planned for it.

I didn’t see Oprah’s show hosting the Secret guests, I was traveling, but I have heard from others that they more or less ended the show with two, maybe three, of the Secret guests showing their prior plans and desires, wishes, wants, imagining, imaging, making real in their minds whatever it took to “manifest” themselves as guests on the Oprah show and that is why it worked. There may be millions of people doing the same thing, just wanting to meet Oprah in person. They may really want to meet her with all their heart, and it isn’t enough. This could easily move into despairing thoughts such as “It doesn’t work for me, I’m doing it wrong,” and for some of you that I have met on the book tour, this opens the door to “I created my own cancer,” “What did I do to create this cancer?” “If I knew what I did to create my cancer I could uncreate it, and if I can do that it means that I never have to suffer again. I must know the secret or suffer and die unnecessarily,” “I am going to die if I don’t know the Secret; after all, the doctors say they can’t save me. What did I do to create this in me?”

True creation is like this: There is no cancer until the doctor tells someone that they have cancer and then until they believe it they can’t have it. If they have never heard of cancer before, they must first be taught that it exists, and then they can believe that they have it, and that must be taught too. If they don’t believe it from the doctor, then the family has to teach them. We teach them to have it and then we teach them to try and get rid of it, and if they can’t, then they die. We have to teach them that they live first, though. If we haven’t been taught, how can we believe? And we ourselves create “it” (cancer, everything) the moment we believe. All the evidence shows that it’s true, and that is how the belief is held in place. The mind goes from nothing to crazy with fear (really crazy, sometimes). This is the way people create, reinforce, and maintain their beliefs: “I am going to die, they can’t save me, my children can’t make it without me, God is punishing me, I don’t know how to unmanifest my cancer,” on and on. When the phone rings and it is someone you love talking to, you are laughing, talking, enjoying life in that moment: where is the cancer in that moment? Do you have cancer or are you absolutely cancer-free in that moment? Of course, we are absolutely cancer-free until the mind brings back the unquestioned cancer story into reality. I use the term “absolutely” on purpose. The mind creates who and what we are when we believe our thoughts and experience the concepts, feelings, and images in our heads in the moment. This isn’t right or wrong, it is just so in the moment we believe what we seem to be experiencing as our identity.

In my world, cancer has a right to live or die. Everything has a right to life and death, because I know what everything is, and its true nature. If “I” have cancer, that is my identity (that is who mind identifies me as) and as that identity, I may choose to have chemotherapy, do alternative medical practices, medical practices, change my diet, think positively, even though we continue to believe the “negative” unquestioned thoughts, the opposites of what we want to believe, even though we don’t want to believe them. We believe them until we don’t, and inquiry breaks the spell of “negative” thoughts and therefore what we negatively feel and believe. The negative thoughts, unless we question them, override the positive thoughts that we want to believe, and negative thoughts win out, and the positive thoughts are just powerful and ring true enough to make us feel better occasionally. They don’t work when we really are believing the stressful ones, the one that we don’t want to believe: “I have cancer, I’m going to die, they can’t heal me, my condition is hopeless, it’s not fair, I have created this,” etc. With or without cancer, my life is what it is, and I am grateful for that. With or without cancer, I am still sitting in this chair writing to you, and there are two ways to sit here. One is happy, and the other is stressed out.

I look forward to the turnarounds and examples from you, dear family. I want everyone to come to understand what so many of you are coming to understand about the ease of internal life. Please share your secret thoughts with all of us.

Loving you all,
kt

Katie,

Christine

I felt transformed. I was transformed. It was a miracle. I know there is more work to do--every day of my life. But it doesn't feel like work to me. I feel like a different person, except that I simply found the person that was already there.

Richard

This came in via the Parlor >>

I'd like to share how the work has been helping me lately. Often a picture will come into my mind and tempt me. Something like a Braum's burger, fries, and an ice cream cone sundae. This may sound silly, but I am often a slave to such thoughts. So what I've been doing lately is to focus on that tempting image- what it is I believe I want. Then I pose the question that this picture implies to myself. This items promises that if I engage it,it will give me pleasure, it will be a good experience. It also demands that I satisfy it immediately, because I can not survive with out it. I'm am hopelessly incomplete without it. I take that false promise to inquiry.

When I believe that thought, I leave my perfect universe and battle this temptation. Believing the thought, and struggling against it is the war BK speaks of. Far better to doubt the thought & never struggle! Also I've been testing it- for instance, I disobeyed the thought and found that I was still breathing and in fact was very happy! Wow, without Braums too! :)

I find that I have a same pattern to my aversions that I have with my desires. For me a project that I'm behind on starts to represent something bad, to be avoided. Why? B/C when I look at it, what I actually perceive is a promise that if I tackle it, I will be frustrated, overwhelmed and
incapable. Yet when do I actually tackle such projects, I experience the opposite in reality.

I realized that I created a whole universe in my head this way. I create a personal relationship with everything in my mind- I call this thing a "goodie" and this other thing something terrible- aweful. In this way, I am driven, emprisoned by my desires and aversions.

The crazy part is that I'm almost always wrong in my attributions. Things I dread turn out to be great, and things I desire aren't that great. I always hate it when someone tells me how great a movie is before I watch it. If they build it up too much, I leave disappointed- at a great movie too!

I'm back from West Virginia, where I was at the veterans’ hospital to work with clinicians who want to know the what and how of The Work—to train them, answer questions about The Work as applied to Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, addiction treatment, rehabilitation, and more. What a privilege to represent all of us and to speak about what is, for so many of us, the miracle of The Work and how it works. It is a war-torn veteran’s dream! It works quickly, and they love it.

I visited Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. with Patricia Parrott and her daughter Becky, as well as our own Tina from BKI, and introduced The Work to veterans, clinicians, nurses, etc. They were amazing! I hope to see some of them at the East Coast School in a couple of weeks. Also, some of you came to the two-day intensive in D. C. to work with more than a hundred veterans and clinicians from surrounding V. A. hospitals in three states. There is an amazing team of doctors in this area who are into what is cutting edge, and The Work is the one method that works well and fast, that holds, and that is simple to process patients with.

Thank you, family, for being there.

Also, thanks for traveling with me also to West Virginia to continue to process these amazing men and women who have returned from Iraq as well as those in the hospital. One veteran, William, told me that he had been living on the streets just to be sure that he could be at all three days of the event. The hospital could only bus people in on Saturday, and he had read Loving What Is and had to experience The Work with us.

The following is a compilation of April 2007 School participants' answers regarding "Aftercare." The questions they were asked were:

1. Have you kept The Work alive since leaving The School through the partnering exercise? If yes, what was your experience?

2. Do you have any specific questions for Katie about integrating The Work into your daily life? (As Katie did not have enough time to answer the conference call questions below, she has invited all of you to jump in with your own answers and to serve others with your own experience.)

3. Any general comments?

Dear Family, I would love that your responses go up on the blog, and that you answer through your own experience, enlightenment, and generosity, to share with anyone who may want to learn from you what you have come to see for yourself.

UPDATE: the archived teleconference is here >>

June 5, 2007 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. (Pacific Time)
Phone No. 646-519-5860 (PIN 6741#)
Guest Facilitator - Kathleen Sepeda

Join us as Kathleen shares how she moves The Work. She will answer questions and facilitate a volunteer from the caller audience.

Kathleen Sepeda is a Deputy Probation Officer at The Justice Center in Boulder, Colorado and a student of New Ventures West Personal Coaching Program. She has been a student of The Work since March of 2004. She has been in the process of self-observation since 1997. She facilitates The Work Group in the Jury Assembly Room at The Boulder JC every Monday afternoon. The participants are teenage girls who are on probation.

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

Hi Katie,

I've just got back from attending today's event with you in London, and I'm so full of gratitude to you and to everyone involved and present (including me!) for making it possible, and for giving the gift of a wonderful, open-minded experience.

I was particularly moved by the Work of the gentleman who had the thought "my father shouldn't have died when I was 9 years old". As I listened and watched, I did the Work for myself, because my mum died when I was 9 years old (is it true?).

Soon, I found tears of gratitude flowing, because it gave me the opportunity to remember what I had discovered when I worked that very thought: the joy of my memories of my mum, and of how they are always with me (and so SHE is always with me); the privilege of becoming closer to my dad, and of being a comfort to him in his own grief; the amazing experience of getting to know my stepmother (and falling absolutely in love with her - I always say I had one wonderful mother for the first nine years of my life, and I've had another wonderful mother since I was eleven!); of learning, through my bond with my stepmother (and her family) that water is JUST as thick as blood; of becoming independent at a young age, learning that "I can make it" which stood me in such good stead when I moved away from home and came out as a gay man.....the list really is endless. And in all of that, my love for my (first) mum remains absolute and unbroken, yet I am able to be open to the amazing realisation that her death was a gift, just as her life was a gift.

(I would love for you to publish this email in your blog, or in The Parlor, in the hope that that gentleman may be reading. I'd like to extend my thanks to him.)

It was also wonderful to see you "for real" for the first time, although I found myself smiling to think that thought, because when you walked on stage, I had also the thought "oh, I've met her before, she's a friend of mine"! Thank God for YouTube! I had the same thought with everyone who joined you on that stage too! Truly - no new thoughts.

I continue to do The Work. I've been making use of the resources on your wonderful website. The Hotline, the Round Robin....thank you for them.

I hope you'll come back to the UK again soon. I echo one of the questions you were asked at the end - "when will you bring the School to the UK?", and on the one hand I repeat it in earnest - it would be so wonderful to have it and you here, reaching so many people who may not "find" it otherwise - and on the other, I hear your answer: "when you answer the four questions for yourself, in your own mind, whenever you need to". What a hoot!!

Thank you Katie, it was an amazing day, and I'm coming to realise, bit by bit, that they all are.

I love you, and your Work.

Brian
x

This is from Jaya Walsh. It came with a note: "To my imagination, this could be used to stir up more interest in the upcoming Workshop for parents and children."

Children are very good at following the simple directions: "I’m hot, I’m thirsty, there are popsicles in the freezer—let’s ask Mom." It’s a simple question: “Can we have a Popsicle?” But Mom has no simple answer because she is operating under the delusion “I should be consistent with my children.”

She leaves the present and travels to the past: What do I know about Popsicles? What have I told them before about Popsicles? What have we said about when we can have them and when we can’t? She travels to the future: What will happen later if I give them a Popsicle now? What will happen if this isn’t when I said I’d give them a Popsicle? What patterns are being created or broken here?

Mom looks down at the children’s little faces and sees the enemy looking back. They will run over me if I don’t defend myself against them with consistency. I must maintain a sense of power and control with consistency. I know what they’re thinking: “We want as many Popsicles as we can get, no matter what it does to our relationship.” They don’t know any better.

She is now totally disconnected from them and totally disconnected from herself. The search engine of her brain is so muddled as it sifts through the data around “Popsicles and consistency” that she can’t make a simple decision. She can’t trust herself as a parent to make a good decision—about Popsicles—and she has a moral imperative to make a good decision, because the ramifications are huge and far-reaching and she needs to weigh them out carefully before she can give a balanced answer.

Chances are good that by the time she chokes out an answer through the clutter of thoughts—“Well, no, this doesn’t seem like the right time”—it’s going to feel disconnected to the children. So they ask a question to get clarity—“Isn’t this when we always have a snack?” They might even add more data because, obviously, Mom needs help here—“It’s really hot and we haven’t had any sweets yet today.” Now, anything they say becomes the proof that they’re manipulating her!

What’s really going on here? They asked a simple question and their mother left the planet. She’s trying to show she’s a reliable person by being consistent about Popsicles but all they’re seeing is a total lack of presence. Is it any wonder everyone’s confused and cross?

A Canadian mom named Caitlin, who loves questioning her parenting notions with The Work, noticed that her stance on consistency was creating what she was trying to avoid: internal muddle, confused, combative discussions, stern tones in her voice, and whining, complaining tones in her children’s. What she was especially after was being present, staying connected to her children, and living out of integrity. Instead, she was gone, disconnected, confused.

She took the statement “I should be consistent with my children” to The Work. This exploration revealed to her all the behaviors and thoughts from the Popsicle story above. She found that the belief was founded on distrust: she couldn’t trust her children to have authentic interactions with her, and she couldn’t trust herself to be a good parent to her children in the moment. As she witnessed her life following this session of inquiry, she noticed how many times a day a new opportunity arose for “I should be consistent.” Only now she was no longer believing the thought.

Caitlin’s inquiry led her to trust herself to simply check in and give an answer in the moment. “I can be consistently myself,” she realized. “I can show up in each moment and trust that.” What followed was a new ease in her interactions with her children. The ease was in herself, with a huge reduction in mental work and no more separation—which feels dense and heavy. Now her children ask a question and she gives a response after a two-second check-in. Caitlin’s new modus operandi is “Put in the question and see what it says. It knows the answer.”

In the moments when the answer doesn’t come right away, she notices that now curiosity arises instead of confusion and panic. She tells her children, “I don’t know yet. Can you come ask again in about ten minutes?” Then she does The Work to get back to clarity. The children respond well to this: they, too, seem to prefer the clear mother with the clear answers.

Caitlin marvels at how often her children simply trust her answer these days. When they get a no, they’re more likely to carry right on with what they were doing than to argue about it. Sometimes they do have a response: “I’ll say, ‘No, I don’t want you to have a Popsicle.’ They’ll say, ‘We didn’t have one in the last couple of days, what do you think?’” Then she checks in again—new moment, new information. In her mind, she doesn’t go to, I’ve answered. I have to be consistent or it will mean . . . What she loves is that her children present the new information in a very peaceful way. They don’t speak with the charge they used to put into it, with a torrent of “It’s not fair . . . You said . . . We never get . . . That’s not the way . . .”

And then there are still those moments when a child really doesn’t like the parental answer and responds with tears, anger, and accusations. Even this has become welcome in Caitlin’s world because she doesn’t feel instant anger well up inside herself, worry about or judge the child, question her decision or whether or not she’s a good parent—all the confused craziness this response used to yield for her. Her daughter was raging recently when Caitlin’s answer was “Yes, in ten minutes,” instead of the desired “Yes, I’m jumping up right away.” Caitlin found no judgment or anger in herself as she met her daughter’s response. What she found was true love for her daughter and a clear holding to her true “Yes, in ten minutes.” Her daughter’s emotions spent themselves quickly and, ten minutes later, both were happily engaged in their shared activity. And Caitlin spent the interim ten minutes at peace in her own mind.

A bonus she has discovered in her new way of being is that her children involve her more in their processes. They trust her to be present and simply curious with them about whatever they’re dealing with. Together, they come up with ideas and create solutions to problems and conflicts. “They know I’m with them—present in the moment and not gone, lost in all those thoughts as I search for my Parenting Plan and Theory on Popsicles. In that clear place we can really hear each other and connect, and there are so many more options and possibilities.”

Finally, trust has moved into their home: mom trusting herself, children trusting themselves, and all trusting one another. It’s a good life—and it’s amazing how consistent it looks once the religion of consistency is dropped.

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 >>

Dear Katie:

I used to be terrified of flying and I would do a really weird thing with my mind. I would practice being prepared for the plane to fall, trying to exercise bravery as I imagined how it would feel. As you may imagine, I spent the whole flight in terrified misery. Before I went to the School and met Katie, I switched my thinking: the plane is NOT going to fall, and I decided to believe this as much as the other. This helped as long as the plane did not begin to do the jig in the air.

Then, I was flying home from my second School in Bad Neuenahr, Germany, and the pilot announced very rough weather approaching Madrid. My body tensed. The first jolt hit about 20 minutes out and I could feel the fear pour into my stomach. Then, suddenly, I remembered something Katie had said and I asked myself: Is anything happening to me right now? I went to my body, felt it sitting tightly in the seat, and the answer from my body was immediately NO. I questioned: “The plane is going to fall”— IS THAT TRUE? CAN I ABSOLUTELY KNOW THAT IT IS TRUE? Again the answer was NO. I felt my body relax. I opened the window blind (it was night time), and the cosmos was there in all its splendor, the stars, flashes of lightning on the horizon, infinite sky black… it was so beautiful, so breathtaking, that all I could feel was love and gratitude. The plane continued shaking like a Waring blender, but suddenly to me it felt like a rocking cradle, I was filled with joy and so relaxed that I actually nodded off for a few minutes while the craft joggled me softly to sleep. We arrived safely in Madrid and I did NOT suffer 20 minutes of panic. It was wonderful. Thank you so much for The Work.

Love, Brianda

P.S. I have never shared with you the actual moment of my transformation, and as I read the Parlor letters, I suddenly thought that I would like to do that. I had been through so many years of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, alternative therapies, and what have you and still I wasn't happy, I wasn't satisfied, still I thought that I was missing something in life. Still searching. I found The Work, thanks to a friend; I did the School and immediately began using The Work with myself and with others that asked me for it. I realized it was working for me, I felt better, I lived better, I was softer, kinder to myself. Then one day, I can't remember why, I decided to work on one of my core beliefs about my childhood. MY PARENTS PUSHED ME ASIDE was more or less how it went (I did my work in Spanish and it is MARGINARON or marginalized me). Is that true? I closed my eyes and suddenly the following scene appeared in front of me: My parents getting up in the morning, looking at each other from either side of the bed and saying: "Today let's push Brianda aside so she suffers". I burst out laughing, it was delightful. What a comedy scene!!!! I continued to do The Work and when I got to the turnarounds, I found the pain: I PUSHED MYSELF ASIDE, oh yes, I certainly could find that when I locked myself in my room and refused to join my parents, and I PUSHED THEM ASIDE, even truer when I decided that I wouldn't share my life with them or tell them anything about me. Tears of loss welled up at all the missed opportunities to share with my parents my growing up, and love, love for them and all they had given me. And then the miracle happened. The STORY disappeared, my past vanished. There was no longer anything to be reclaimed, anything to be repaired, anything to be regretted. It was gone. I began living in the present, grateful for everything I have and have had always. Since then it has been a beautiful life, and I love sharing it with you and with others as they ask for it or come into my life.

Thank you Katie. And when people ask, I say that in my experience psychotherapy brings you to ACCEPT your story, and THE WORK makes it disappear!!! KABOOM!!!

Much love and gratitude, Brianda

Dear Friends,

My ten-year-old daughter Aine and I are still glowing from our experience at the Workshop for Children and Parents. It was such a beautiful experience for us together and individually. It is very profound how it has impacted her/our life experience, and I can see how different it is in subtle yet crucial ways to how many children in our culture (big ones too) are taught to process experience - 'rejection' being called names, 'failure', sadness, fear..... and how she was processing them in the past (me too - I just notice the new shift with her after the workshop and I have been at it for a while). The conversations we have had since the workshop are so beautiful and deep, and so much more full of curiosity and questions that set ideas. She told me that it seems more like she understands life now in a way that makes more sense to her heart, and that it is like she has been given a key to life - like she was carrying a load of rocks on her back and now there are fewer, and she knows how to put the others down when she is ready. What a relief. We are both very grateful for what we have found together in The Work and in ourselves.

I have been doing The Work myself for about five years and so the effects definitely live in my family. I had offered on occasion to share The Work more directly with Aine but she didn't want to, she said it didn't feel like time. When the invitation for the Ventura workshop came - it felt so right for both of us and we knew to come together. When I asked her if she wanted to learn The Work process before we went she said no - she wanted to just arrive with an open mind. She did, and Katie was there to meet it with hers.

Last night Aine and I were watching a documentary about a group of students in the U.S. who started a paper clip project as a way of learning about diversity and studying the Holocaust. It was her first real exposure to more that basic information about the Holocaust. It had much more detail than I had anticipated when we borrowed the movie from the library and it was very moving - with interviews with death-camp survivors speaking of their experience and pictures of the camps. I would have thought this would be overwhelming for her, and when I asked her, she reached for my hand and with tears in here eyes, said, ‘This is important for me to know.’ She wiped the tears from my eyes and said, ‘Remember, Mom, if the universe is friendly, there must be good in this also, even if we can't know what it is’. There was no fear in that moment or afterwards as I would have anticipated, no blaming, panic, hatred - just a very deep and clear sense of love. Wow.

A number of Aine's friends asked here about it, and when she told them that it is learning about how not to believe your stressful thoughts - they respond immediately and want to know how to do that. They get it that it is suffering they don't want. We are sharing our materials and what we learned as best we can and I can also feel how amazing it would be to have a DVD set on The Work for Children - speaking directly to children and sharing examples of Katie working with children, children working with each other and parents and children working together. There was something very powerful about hearing Katie speak, and witnessing other children doing the work and voicing their fears and stressful thoughts, that was profound for Aine, and I would love to be able to share that experience much more widely than those who can make it to the workshop. If something like that is possible I would be willing to help it happen in any way that I can - I can feel the amazing potential in my community and I am sure with others.

Thanks so much for all the amazing work you continue to do to share this gift with more and more people in the world and of all sizes.

Love,
Caitlin

photos: C. Pratte

photos: C. Pratte

From Facilitator of The Work, Kondwani, in Africa: The whole of last week I was doing the work with women in Malawi. Stella, in the green golf shirt has been inviting friends to read The Little Book and telling them what The Work is all about. I facilitated two women last week and they are free from their problem. One of them was abandoned by her husband 16 months ago. She is left with baby twins, about 8 months each. She was married some three years ago and now, the husband is nowhere to be found. She was telling me her story, though so sad, she doesn't have any support for the babies, and she depends on well wishers.She lives about 12 miles away and she traveled all the way just to hear about the wonder of The Work.

Some of the women don't even know how to write and read and we have been reading them the contents of The Little Book and explaining it sentence by sentence, and we do oral facilitation with them. Some do write and read and I am planning to print out some worksheets so that they practice how to fill it in and also practice asking the four questions and turning around their thought.

Learn more about Kondwani's efforts in Malawi here >>

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

My granddog Zion does The Work on "The other dogs don't like me." If Zion can do it, you can do it.

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 >>

As a graduate of the April School for the Work in LA, I am bursting with enthusiasm to share The Work. I had the opportunity last weekend to give a 40 minute introduction to 120 women gathered for the national convention (16th anniversary) of the Women's Federation for World Peace, of which I'm a district leader.

The title of the convention, held in NJ, was "Securing Peace Through a Culture of Heart". I'm grateful to that organization for building my presentation into the program. Even in those few minutes, many of the women told me they could see how "awesome" the Work can be.

My presentation on The Work went like this:

- A few words on how The Work is a revolutionary process.
- We listened to a beautiful love song.
- All filled out Judge Your Neighbor Worksheets, which each woman read to a partner.
- The "I Know Mind", the "Heart Mind", and how the questions are an invitation for the heart to answer (I love that part!)
- How to isolate a thought.
- As a group, the audience answered the 4 questions around the one-liner "people should listen to me".
- Demonstration of facilitation with an audience member asking me the 4 questions.
- Partners facilitated each other, using the little yellow cards.
- Audience commented how they found the inquiry experience to be "calming, empowering, etc."
- Gave information about the website, books, other resources.

I'm so happy to have been able to share this gift, and my hope is that many of the women will learn to enjoy the amazing benefits of The Work. I'm attaching a few pictures. Thank you, Katie!

G

The Work doesn’t help anyone; it’s your answers that help you.

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

I visited my dermatologist last Friday for a skin check-up. After checking my back he noticed a little blue lump on my chest. It has been there for quite some time but it had never bothered me so I've never had it checked out. He suggested it might be a basal cell carcinoma, which I know are not dangerous and do not metastasize but he suggested we biopsy it. I agreed. He told me not to worry. This meant- "don't worry." Nevertheless, I went home feeling a very slight anxiety which continued into Sunday when it blossomed into a really uncomfortable feeling of depression.

I began three separate "One belief at a time" worksheets with different titles. One that I was particularly fond of I titled- I am not a lover of what is. In each one I included a pretty fulsome of what I everything I was experiencing. It was all embarrassingly like all the things I'd previously written about others when I judge my neighbors. Curiously, when I got to the turnaround portion, I didn't couldn't come up with anything I believed.

My daughter was becoming annoyed with me and my wife was becoming slightly alarmed. I rather dramatically informed her that I thought something was amiss with my brain chemistry and perhaps I needed medication. She wisely rejected this suggestion as well, idiotic. She asked me if this had anything to do with my doctor's appointment and I denied that it did.

Full of unnamed dread, I called for my biopsy results but, luckily, they weren't ready. After a couple of anxious hours the unexamined and unacknowledged belief popped into my head- "a biopsy means something really bad is going on." Then, the turnaround was obvious. I was imagining a carefree life pre-cancerous diagnosis as opposed to the dread filled after my diagnosis. I had been play acting a little pre-dread dread. It was actually pretty dreadful. Nonetheless, I look forward to another experience of fearing for my health. It was instructive.

M

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.

A while back a friend sent me the following quote, from the Indian Buddhist teacher Aryadeva. He wrote this almost 1900 years ago:

"To question that things might not be as they seem can shake the very foundation of habitual clinging. This questioning spirit is the starting point for self-reflection. Could it be that this tightly-knit sense of self is not what it seems? Do we really need to hold everything together, and can we? Is there life beyond self-importance? These kinds of questions open the door to investigating the cause of our suffering.

"Self-reflection is the common thread that runs through all traditions and lineages of Buddhist practice. It also takes us beyond the boundaries of formal practice. We can bring the questioning spirit of self-reflection to any situation, at any time. Self-reflection is an attitude, an approach, and a practice. In nutshell, it is a way to make practice come alive for us personally."

Interesting. The old is new, and the new old.

Back to the present. The phone rings.

I say yes or no.

There are not many ways to directly answer people's questions.

And as these answers flow out of what's true for me in this moment, out of this pure power within me, the world is shaped on the other side of the phone, mind is influenced, interpretations form, life moves this way or that as effect, it seems. How else could the world be created?

They say, "It's your fault," and I think, "Isn't it odd that after the fact they would hear a yes or a no in such a way?"

Or they say, "Thank you, thank you thank you," and I think, "Isn't it odd that such power is given to such simple answers, yes or no?"

The world is created as I sit here, it springs into being and is mirrored back to me as life. It's wonderful not to be the doer.

Everything is a story. The mind spins stories out and you believe what the mind tells you. Every time you are stressed out or fearful, you are believing what the mind is telling you. The Work is about discovering what is true and what is not true for you, the difference between reality and imagination.

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.

Listen in to Oprah and Friends Radio>>

August 2008
08/11/08 Suffering and Solitude
Why is it that a prisoner, locked away for his crime and left alone in his cell may weep, when a Buddhist Monk alone in the same cell would celebrate? Oprah talks with spiritual teacher Byron Katie, about the pain and suffering one can face when left alone with their thoughts. Plus, they talk about how you can be at peace with your thoughts and end your own suffering.

08/04/08 Learning 'The Work'
Are you ready to learn how to make the most of your life right now? Spiritual leader and author Byron Katie returns to talk with Oprah about the steps of Byron's revolutionary and transformative process called "The Work" and about her book Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life.

July 2008
07/28/08 Ending Your Suffering
Are you ready to end your suffering? According to spiritual teacher and best-selling author Byron Katie, happiness is within your reach. Oprah talks with Byron about her inquiry process called "The Work," which she says alleviates depression, decreases stress and improves relationships—all by answering four powerful questions that will turn your life around.

You can watch KT and Oprah on video here >>

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,

Jeremy

Dear Jeremy,

Keep questioning your mind, sweetheart. Know the difference between your business and our business, and stay in your business. And who knows? You may end up on November 4th in the voting booth, happy and free, knowing that you are doing what you can do.

Loving you,

kt

MP3 download here >>

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

What are the beliefs that are getting in the way of your job or your business?

In the same way as we do inquiry on our stressful thoughts about people in our lives, we can do business inquiry, questioning the assumptions we take to work and about our work or not having work. These assumptions may seem neutral to some of you, but they may in fact be causing a lot of stress in your life.

Why do we do things the same way over and over again and expect different results? Because we are believing our unquestioned thoughts over and over again in the same way, that's why. Simple.

What if we were to challenge our underlying beliefs, the beliefs about our work, the markets, our products and services, our customers, our partners, suppliers, our financial thinking, in fact everything we believe to be true about our jobs, the people we work with, our businesses?

Here's how.

(Notice how familiar this process is.)

Next:

Jerry's Business Inquiry >> "Having More Customers Means Having More Profits"

This is Jerry's Business Inquiry example: "Having more customers means having more profits"

Jerry: "I am a business development manager for a mid-size consumer goods company, and my team has a real hard time with this. We believe that 'having more customers means having more profit.' "

Next, Jerry questions the common business assumption held by his team. As you follow his inquiry, I invite you to notice your own experience in life when you believe this thought. (Maybe yours is, "Having more money means having a happier life." Or "having more friends means having more income." Or, "…….?")

Ask yourself: is it true? Is it true that "having more customers means having more profits"?
"Yes."

Can you absolutely know that it's true?
"No, we can't be 100% sure."

So how do you react when you believe the assumption that more customers equals more profit?
"Well, we go crazy trying to win new customers. We lower our prices, we go out of our way to sell. Sometimes our sales people push too hard. Sometimes they over-promise. Sometimes we fight with marketing or the product development team. . We stop trusting them, we begin to see it as "us," the good guys, versus "them," the bad guys, the ones not doing their jobs. We try to meet our quotas at all costs. Discounts, financing games. These hurt our business and our reputation."

Who would you be without that thought?
"We might have more time and energy to focus on the customers we do have, or on improving our product. We could work on getting closer to our best customers, helping them thrive. We could become more valuable to them. We could tailor some of our products for their customers, helping them stand out from their competitors. And if they're successful, we share in that success. They'll buy more, we'll sell more. We know their demographic quite well, and we could work together on making something of value for their customers. There's a side benefit there. We'll reduce our marketing costs if we can make the same revenue with fewer customers."

Turn the belief around.
"Having fewer customers means having more profit.'

Might that be as true as or truer than the original belief?
"I can see that it might be at least as true. It depends on what we are doing to get more customers, and on what we could do without trying so hard to get more. We could focus on our most profitable customers. We could get closer to our most valuable customers. We could definitely be integrated more tightly. We could focus on helping our customers' businesses do better."

Can you find three examples to make that a true statement?
"One, we could focus on the customers that have the strongest cash positions, the ones who are most likely to weather the recession.

"And three, we could stop serving customers that don't pay in a timely manner, the ones with poor payment history."

In this example, we see how challenging a simple but powerful belief in the sales team– that "having more customers mean having more profit" leads us to a new strategy to survive and profit in a recessionary economy. What's more, the customers we get closer too during these trying times are the ones who will appreciate and trust us when times get better. So by shrinking our customer base, we actually improve our long-term profitability.

Dear Katie,

B

Dear B,

Let's start with "the stress is unbearable." Is that true? Can you absolutely know that it's true?

How do you react, what happens, when you believe the thought "the stress is unbearable'? What are the images that flood your mind? Do you see yourself as never working again, as destitute, as a homeless person pushing a shopping cart on the street? How do you treat your wife when you believe this thought? How do you treat yourself? Does this thought bring peace or stress into your life? Anything else? Be still. Watch, notice, what else do you see. Notice and identify the emotions that are the response to the images that you experience as though they were real. What else do you see in the silence and stillness of observation?

Now ask yourself: Who would you be without the thought "the stress is unbearable"? Who would you be if you were incapable of thinking that thought in the midst of your emotions as they were happening? Just notice, go back into that space and look again. What did you miss?

Now turn the thought around. "The stress is not unbearable." Can you find three examples when the stress, at its worst, was not unbearable, and it felt to you like it was? Can you get out of bed? Is the stress too heavy for you to brush your teeth in the morning? Perhaps you went to the park for a walk with your wife. Maybe you were watching your favorite TV show, or simply sharing a joke. Find at least three specific, genuine examples. Who knows?—you may find dozens of them that are true for you every day. I have noticed that in the face of what we are believing, reality waits to be noticed; eventually we wake up to it or not. (Some choose not to and some can't yet, and it is until it's not.) The Work is about collapsing that time, that dream, that trance. The unquestioned I-know mind will lead you to believe that your stressful thought in the moment is not only true but it is true forever. A belief in the moment is more powerful than any "thing." It is powerful enough to create the entire world as you understand it to be.

The original thought, "the stress is unbearable," is itself the cause of stress. When you realize this, you may also realize that every untrue thought that you're believing creates not only life but a life with stress. And then you may realize that stress can only come from believing your thoughts about the world. It does not, it cannot, come from the world. Realizing this is a very major road to inner peace.

I invite you to write down your stressful thoughts as they occur, and investigate them. Use the four questions and the turnarounds, with examples of each turnaround. "We're going to lose our home." "I'll never get a job." "I'm a failure." "I'll be out on the streets." "My family will fall into ruin." "I can't survive on the streets." "I can't survive." "My family will leave me." " They will lose respect for me." And on and on.

What is is, but only because it is. Until you wake up to reality in the moment, it is very difficult, even impossible, to love what is. Have you noticed? The only thing that can cause you stress is the story of a past or a future. What I love about the past is that it's over! What I love about the future is that it doesn't exist. What I love about this moment now is that I can "be" this that I am awake to. No problem! I already am.

In this moment now, all the pain that was ever suffered in the world is past, and that is the grace that we cannot appreciate when we are believing our past/future stories. Because the mind is believing its thoughts, often we feel tortured now as we live in reality, a true state of grace in the moment. It's not right or wrong, it's just that reality is always kind. But the story we superimpose onto reality can be hell. So I invite all people directly to the wisdom inside them, and The Work can take you there anytime you are open to your own self, your own true wisdom. Find the way out of the nightmares that you experience by going in.

And if there's something to fear, wait until it happens and be fearful then. Why be frightened about a thought of a possible future when it is only a thought that is producing the movie?

Once you can think clearly, without the stress of your painful thoughts, the whole world, in all of its unlimited abundance and glory, will open up for you. A fearful mind is limited; it can see only a very few options. A clear mind can see many more options—unlimited options. It can act efficiently, effortlessly, intelligently, in the present moment, and not be stuck in its deadly stories of past and future.

My job is to extend the invitation to do The Work and to let you know that The Work works for everyone whose mind is open to it, and that the only thing that stands between you and a peaceful life is your unquestioned thinking. That's all. I invite you to question "We are barely scraping by." And to move to other turnarounds on the above concept, "the stress is unbearable." What is the opposite of "unbearable"? Have fun with that. Or what is the opposite of stress? "Joy"? The joy is unbearable?

I am loving what is in this moment now, "it" works,

bk

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.

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.

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

Learn more >>

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 >>

Listen to this audio clip:

It's a familiar story for many of us. Notice how suffering is always caused when we are believing our own stressful thoughts. And if you are feeling any stress, even the most minute amount of stress, I invite you to identify what you are believing and then to question those thoughts that are always the cause of that stress.

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

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 >>

Across the world, many of you have written me recently about money and finances and told me how worried you are about your jobs, your income, and the state of the economy in your country.

Here are two articles that may help:

- "I Lost My Job" (ByronKatie.com)
- 5 Way To Overcome The Job-Search Blues (US News & World Report)

How do you react, what happens, when you believe the thought "the stress is unbearable"?(All anger and frustration best belongs on paper!)

Find a situation, a moment in time, when you were thinking, “The stress is unbearable” about your finances, a lost job, or anything else in your life. Download a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet from thework.com and, without moving from that situation in your mind’s eye, fill in the Worksheet. Then, as you begin to question the thoughts identified on your Worksheet, notice the emotions you are experiencing, and the images that flood your mind. Do you see yourself as never working again, as unable to support yourself, as destitute, as a homeless person pushing a shopping cart on the street? How do you treat your loved ones when you believe that thought? How do you treat yourself? Does the thought bring peace or stress to your life. When you believe the thought, can you feel any addictions starting to form? Do you act on them?

Notice and identify the emotions that you feel when you believe the thought you are investigating. Anything else? Be still. Watch, notice. (If you can’t identify the emotions, look at the emotions list on thework.com)

Now spend time in the fourth question and experience who you would be, in that same situation, without the thought. Who would you be if you didn’t even have the ability to think the thought?

Then turn around the concept you are investigating, finding at least three specific, genuine examples for each turnaround.

What other stressful thoughts and situations come to your mind, if any, around jobs and finances? Do any of the following situations seem familiar? Do any of them need to be investigated on a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet?

“I’m angry at my boss because he fired me.”

“I’m devastated because we’re going to lose our home.”

“I’m depressed because I’ll never find a well-paying job again.”

“I’m disappointed because I’m a failure.”

“I’m (emotion) because without a home, I can’t survive on the streets.”

“I’m (emotion) because without a job I can’t survive.”

“I’m (emotion) because without a job, my family will leave me.”

“I’m (emotion) because without money, everyone will lose respect for me.”

Do you see other situations to write about?

I invite you to write down your stressful thoughts on a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet, as they occur, on each line within the Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet and investigate them one by one. Use the four questions and the turnarounds, with examples for each turnaround and how they are true.

I invite you to Work through your own real-life situations, thought by thought, as written on each line of your Worksheets, in the name of peace. I also invite you to locate a moment in time when you believed that you were not okay. Then, with your eyes closed, do The Work on that thought, in that situation. Going back into that situation, ask yourself, “‘I’m not okay’—is it true?” and continue inquiry until you find turnarounds and examples for each turnaround. Also, please thank yourself when you have completed this meditation, in the name of peace.

I love that you come to see that on the other side of these stressful thoughts freedom is, was, and will always be waiting to be discovered from within you. That freedom is, after all, your birthright.