ByronKatie.com

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

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

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

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

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

Now imagine your life without that pain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for allowing me to share this with our readers, Brian.

Dear Katie

I am a new subscriber to The Parlor, and have enjoyed the latest edition greatly, and am enjoying exploring the archive. I love the wisdom I'm finding there.

I just wanted to write to you to say thank you for sharing The Work. I am enjoying exploring this amazing process, and I'm feeling positive changes in my life already as a result. I want to deepen my practice, and am moving forward every day with it.

Just yesterday, I had a profound experience of The Work, after a difficult argument with my partner. It was amazing - I started from a position of such blazing anger, such self-righteousness, such belligerent indignance...and then I did The Work, and I felt all of that dissolve, leaving a humbling and beautiful sense of responsibility, compassion, and love. It felt as though I had traveled through time - the "calming down" period that would normally take a day or more, took only a few minutes. And it was more than just "calming", the natural settling down after a storm...it was like the storm clouds were actually clearing, leaving just the light and the fresh air. What a beautiful gift.

I very much hope to join you at an event in the near future - I live in the UK, and will certainly be looking out for any events near here which you scheduled in. I would love for you to come to England again...

With best wishes and much gratitude to you, in Love,

Brian

Here is a wonderful letter from Johannes about his experience during this summer's School at Bad Neuenahr and after. Originally published in last month's Parlor, it is worth reading again and again. Thank you, Johannes!

Dear Katie!
Sorry, that my English is so bad. Therefore I have to write in German. I hope, there is someone who can translate it for you.

[The rest of the letter is in German and has been translated (with some polishing by Stephen) by Gabriele Brunner, who does such an excellent job translating my words at the School for The Work in Germany. I highly recommend her. Her email address is gabribrunner [at] yahoo.de.]

I was a participant at the last School and am still full of gratitude for this great experience. I have invested a lot in my process of personal growth and spiritual development up to now, but what you gave me in the School certainly made it the best and most effective thing I have ever done. I got exactly the right tools for the rest of my life and I have the option now to explore to the depths the question “Who am I without my story?” and to find peace within myself.
My father was a Protestant minister like almost all my ancestors back to the seventeenth century. He was a man who was very torn inside, who could find no peace in God, but who fought as a warrior of faith against the evil world and wanted to convert it to his faith.
I was given my first name in honour of an eighteenth-century theologian who had written a catechism. I recently looked at the old book and discovered that, funnily enough, the theologians of the time did The Work in their own way to provide believers with answers to their religious questions. After each religious belief is stated, there is the question: “How can I know that this is true?” For example: “God created the world—How can I know that this is true?” And then comes the explanation.

When we did the exercise about the worst stories that had happened to us, I was dealing with my family history, the whole terrifying tradition of Christianity, all these warriors of faith and desperate God-seekers and how I ought to hold that. When I deleted the untrue thoughts from the story, I distilled it down to this: “Johannes Quistorp—the story of a family. His great-grandfather was manic-depressive, and he named his son Gottfried (peace in God). This man also named his first son Gottfried, and this Gottfried died at the age of eighteen. His second son (my father) was manic-depressive and gave his son the middle name of Gottfried name in memory of his brother. This Johannes-Gottfried (me) left the church, had himself sterilized and is doing The Work now. He is beginning like a child, over and over again, to find his peace in “God.”

I have to report another beautiful experience that happened during the School. I was in my room, still lying in bed when my roommate, Jim, came out of the bathroom and said something I misunderstood because my English is so bad. He said, “It’s all yours.” And my very first thought was: God shows Adam the Garden of Eden and says to him, “It’s all yours.”

During the morning walk, in the “Naming the World” exercise, I heard over and over again a voice within me saying, “It’s all yours.” It also crossed my mind that God had added a but: “But you may not eat from the Tree of Knowledge.” I had the feeling that once I had named the world with its original names, I had spat out the apple of the Tree of Knowledge.

Then, at breakfast, when I wanted to eat an apple I looked at the apple and looked at the world and said to myself, “It’s all yours.” I see the apple, I see the world and (!) I bite into the apple. I am no longer in the Garden of Eden, I have fallen into duality and this is why both are there: “It’s all yours” and the bite into the apple of knowledge—they’re equal and there are always both of them. I am a human being, who knows about the world and knows about where I come from, where my home is.

On another morning walk I had another exciting experience. We were walking down a street lined with trees, on the left and on the right, and after a while, when I looked exactly and saw “literally” what was happening, the truth was that it was not I who was walking down the street but the trees that were coming toward me, passing me and disappearing behind me: in other words, the world was passing through me and I was always exactly where I was. When I looked through the trees up to the sky the truth was that the trees were passing me as the movement happened, but the sky, just like me, always stayed in the same place. I am always connected to the sky when I am not hurrying through the world in search of some kind of experience, when I really am where I am.

The next morning, while we were walking in the woods, single file in a long line, I had the same perception and simultaneously felt deeply connected to the whole School family. You can also perceive the same thing when you drive your car in the countryside. The landscape comes toward you, passes you by and disappears in the rear view mirror, but I am in my auto (which literally translated means “self”), I always stay in my “auto,” in my self, and I am actually not moving.

During the next morning walk, I closed my eyes again and again in between naming things, to collect myself and to see the world with my inner vision. This resulted in the following rhythm: 2 steps—open eyes—breathe in / take in, 2 steps—close eyes—breathe out / give away—or vice versa. Or 4 steps—close eyes—breathe in and out, 4 steps—open eyes—breathe in an out, so that in the end the inner and outer vision, taking and giving, were one and there was no longer any difference between them.

Finally I would like to tell you about my experience sitting on a bench in Cologne. I closed my eyes, and in the beginning I was still identifying what I heard. Sometimes there were so many noises that I was not able to differentiate them: there was just space, listening and naming. Everything goes straight through me and I can collect myself. My ears turn more and more toward the inside and I become very vast. I hear/feel my heartbeat and I am all ears: I become one big ear. I am so open that even when there is a sudden loud noise, I notice, very precisely, that nothing contracts within me. At that moment an expression by the great German poet Rilke came to my mind—Rilke had named the experience so strikingly, with a single (!) word that is not a metaphor, but reality. He called it “worldinnerspace” - a true primal word for this experience.

Later I am standing at a spot close to the Rhine. I close my eyes again and listen to my heartbeat and feel that I am the center of my world. Many different sounds are coming from all sides. At first my closed eyes are still going in the direction where the sounds are coming from, but then they give in: the things outside fall into the inner world and pass through me as if there were no me at all. Outside and inside become transparent. The more I enter the receptive, the more subtly and clearly I can let everything through. All over my body I feel my heartbeat, every single heartbeat very precisely, then I open my eyes very slowly, slowly let my gaze go wherever it wants to go, always in contact with my heartbeat. And I see my heartbeat: the whole world moves in the rhythm of my heart. In the seeing I feel my heartbeat, each heartbeat, wordless seeing, without meaning. Moment by moment. When I look and feel my heartbeat, my inner world and the outer world remain directly connected with each other.

In front of the cathedral, in the midst of the many people, I stood again with closed eyes, and felt my heartbeat inside me. And there was a vast, open space and the world was flowing right through me. I have been living in and around Cologne for fourteen years, but in all these years I never perceived as much of the city as during these four hours. I was never so present in the city - and at the same time I saw nothing of Cologne: at the moment of the experience there was no Cologne, no city, no place. I was just in the world.

When I left Bad Neuenahr on the train and had to show my train ticket, I reached into my pocket and I accidentally gave the conductor the little yellow card with the four questions. I had to laugh out loud. That’s how I took The Work into my everyday life right away.

I had seven dreams the week after, in which I did The Work, three of them in one night. Usually I was not able to go back to sleep afterward because I was so moved by them. In one of the dreams I was in a big group and did The Work with two people. The result at the end was: I can honestly see the way it is; I can honestly say the way it is; I can honestly leave it the way it is - no more and no less. In one of the dreams I did The Work on three issues and each time I emptied myself even more, layer after layer, until only an outer contour of myself was left and the inside was nothing but radiant emptiness. And when this image came up, I knew that I had succeeded in the real turnaround: I am You and You are Me. I am just amazed and I am full of gratitude for how much I have obviously integrated The Work inside me already.

Many many thanks to the translator for her effort, since the letter has gotten pretty long.

Dearest Katie, I hug you full of gratitude

In love,
Johannes

A beautiful note from a friend in Phoenix:

"Kent and Carol in Phoenix are 84 and 80. They recently discovered The Work and are as excited as anyone I've met about it. They purchased the first two seats at the Phoenix event and were there in the front row. Kent has asked his daughter and son-in-law, who have done the School, to do The Work with their family at an upcoming family reunion. They had over 35 family members in attendance at the Phoenix event. Kent carries Loving What Is with him and quotes from it. At a recent family gathering, he read aloud the several pages regarding "my business, your business, and God's business." He loves that!! He also loves the story of Katie and her children's socks. He was so inspired by it that he decided to stop mentally complaining about his neighbor's overgrown lawn and go over and mow it. Which he did! He just giggled as he told us the story. At 84, he is discovering "Loving What Is" and I am not just talking about the book."

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

Dear Katie,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s my report.

Love, Jaya

Another wonderful letter from a friend of The Work:

I was thinking about the conversation that we had about my own experience with the School of You in L.A. last October . . . and about sharing a little of that with you before the Cleanse.

What was so remarkable about my experience with the School is that my miracle was so unexpected.

In fact, as I consider where I was in consciousness at that time, I'm quite surprised that I even noticed anything miraculous had occurred at all.

I went with two primary thoughts: the first was that I was about to spend a week learning a superficial intellectual tool and calling it deep work (by the way, I was wrong about that!!). The second was that I was dying, and that I would rather die with an intact secret than experience the shame of revelation. I have spent the whole of my adult life as a lung doctor who was a secret and closet smoker. I preached against, in the daytime, that which I practiced under cover of night. I had spent many years creating ritual around keeping my secret . . . and telling myself stories about how vilified I would be if I were discovered. Then, on the verge of leaving for the School, I discovered a lump in my neck . . . and I imagined the worst of everything. I was dying. I could not tell anyone about this lump because my shameful secret would be discovered. I was surrounded by a lifetime of friends who were doctors, and I did not dare speak a single word to any of them because I was ashamed. I thought I would rather die than let them know. It appeared I probably would die rather than let them know.

So I went to the School prepared to die and I will tell you that in the miracle of the School . . . in the doing of The Work . . . the cigarettes that had been my best and most secret friend for forty years said goodbye to me. I have not smoked a single cigarette since October 20, 2006. I am, miraculously, free of my attachment to smoking. Just as importantly, in the process of doing The Work, I realized that cigarettes supported my inner story of needing to be hidden and separated from the world. Each process taught me more and more about my lack of willingness to be revealed, to be integrated, to be intimate. Cigarettes had become the way for me to be separated, alone, outside the circle of tents. I share this with you not so much because I think my story needs to be heard, but because I can actually share it, now. Two months ago, I was unable to say any of this out loud to anyone. I would—remember—rather have died than tell anyone!

I came home from the School, called a friend, had some tests and found that the lump in my neck was absolutely nothing but an enlarged gland that appears to be attached to NOTHING (I loved THAT).

I can't describe the joy of liberation that I experience. Certainly I love being liberated from the habit of cigarette smoking. What I really love is being liberated from the shame and the separation I had lived with for so long. I am liberated from the belief that lung doctors don't smoke (Is that true? YES . . . IT'S TRUE FOR ME!! I DON'T SMOKE. O JOY!!)

With loving, Carla

Dear Katie,

I've come across The Work by chance, or so it seems. Was searching the web for something I completely forgot about afterwards (obviously wasn't important) and there was a link to your website. I was curious and went to have a look. I now often think that was not my decision, it was something decisive happening through me.

I was thrilled when I discovered The Work, and I started doing it immediately. It's already brought a tremendous opening in my life and I got somewhat "addicted" to it. Sometimes it's not easy to do it, it's not easy to look at the truth in the eye. I feel as though I have something to hold on to and, if I look thoroughly at it, as The Work always invites me to do(!), I'll be left with nothing. Only that's exciting too!

I'm deeply grateful. Thank you for keeping The Work available in the net, allowing all of us to share this fabulous experience! I've ordered your books through Amazon.com, because I'm fortunate enough to be able to read in English. And was a bit disappointed for not being able to share The Work with colleagues, friends and clients (I'm a Reiki and floral therapist) in a Portuguese translation. Can you imagine? I was doing some Christmas shopping and was absolutely speechless as I saw your book Loving What Is on a shelf . . . and in Portuguese, of course. It has been newly published here in Portugal, and I've already bought it as a Christmas present for a friend. Reality is indeed perfect!

My very best and grateful regards,

Emilia

The following is a list of the stressful holiday thoughts which we got from our vets. We had them draw 3 thoughts each out of a "treat jar," pair up, and apply the 4 questions and the turnarounds.

Love,
Jean

I have to go home.

I have to do all the work.

I don’t have a family.

I might not behave.

I have to buy gifts. (I have to have money for gifts.)

I have to be around people.

They might ask me to do something.

I don’t have enough money.

I won’t feel anything (joy).

I’m not being helpful.

I’ll be depressed.

I’ll be alone.

Shopping is a pain.

Cooking is a chore.

All the drunks will be on the road.

I’ll miss my family.

My mom died on Christmas.

I won’t be straight on Christmas.

I have to see family I don’t like.

I have to lie (about Christmas).

I can’t give them what they want.

The white Christmas doesn’t come. (It’s supposed to snow on Christmas.)

I can’t go home (and see certain family members).

I’m not wanted.

I have no input.

I will be judged.

Taking time off from work will put me behind.

I can’t participate.

I should have prepared for the holiday.

I have no girlfriend to share the holiday with.

They’ll be upset with me.

I wish the whole family could be together.

It takes too long to get there.

I might run out of booze.

I have to listen to my mom complain.

I have to stay longer than I want to.

The weather will be lousy.

I might steal the presents.

I have nothing to wear.

My friend was murdered on Thanksgiving eve. (I was supposed to be there.)

I haven’t talked to my family in a while.

The hospital is the loneliest place on a holiday.

They can’t be here. (We won’t be together.)

Talking on the phone makes me upset (miss them more).

I’ll miss my kids.

I have to go into detox. (I have to wait to get into Cat-5.)

I might use.

My family will think I’m relapsing.

I’ll be depressed if I can’t go home.

I’ll spend more money dining out and eating.

I can’t spend time with my kids. (They’re locked up.)

I have to go into my savings to purchase gifts.

Everyone should get together.

They’re not around. (I wish my family was around.)

I have to remember. (It’s disrespectful—it means I don’t care.)

I’ve never had a sober Christmas.

I can’t give my son what I would like.

I’m always the one giving. (I’d like to receive.)

Nobody thinks about me.

I can’t celebrate. (She died on Christmas.)

I have to shop.

Holidays are another reason to get high.

It’s too much.

It has to be perfect.

Everyone has to get along.

I have to get the right thing for everyone or they won’t love me.

I have to like my gifts.

I’m supposed to like my gifts. (People should know what I like.)

Dearest Katie,

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever know that I would become what I am becoming. There are no words to say what is going on inside me. I am dancing a dance beyond what I could imagine. This morning I actually was dancing to some music, just me and the world, and I felt the deepest of joys and freedom. Because of The Work in my life. How can I ever thank you enough. Some of my friends stopped doing the work along the way, they got busy, thought maybe it was "over the top" or not for them and that is wonderful. But for me, I am "laughing all the way to the bank"...as they say! The work has only given me love I never knew.

You say "just when you think it can't get any better, it has too." YES. It is true. And I am just an ordinary woman! Katie, I get more and more of what you have every day.

Going into the grocery is the most amazing experience now because I feel so safe in the world and among true family wherever I go. I look into the eyes of the man who gets the carts and help him, I see the people and I am home with them all, watching them shop with a love so deep, as if I am that tender hearted God watching over them. They would never hurt me willingly, I understand this. I sense they would die for me if needed. I look at a man on the way out and we smile. I feel a oneness not known before. When I go to my women's 12 step meeting we laugh and laugh, this new self is contagious. I am a new person at my meetings, bringing in joy and a knowing that all is well without having to say it, and sometimes sharing that. It is true Katie when you say "If you are in a hurry to get to heaven, this is the way." When I started doing the work 2 and a half years ago, I thought at times it seemed slow, or that some thoughts would never go away. Today my deepest sorrow i s gratitude unable to be spoken. I met with you recently at Kripalu, sitting with you and honoring your loving presence.

I must thank you for your tireless travel to people everywhere to give them The Work. You are, to me, the most amazing, humble person I have ever met. This must be what love must do. Every time I go to your workshops you remember my name and always have time to talk with me. And now, it seems I am off to the woman's prison to offer The Work. I notice that I want to do that. Not perfectly. Not sure how it will turn out but what else can I do Katie! As I become free I am more here to help out, wherever I can. I have a long way to go, lots of stressful thoughts yet to welcome. I am not complete, however, I have paper and pen and 4 questions.

You are one of the greatest blessings to our planet, even when some people don't recognize that.

And yes, you are right when you say "we all love each other, we may not always recognize that." Thank you for you.

Loving you always, Sandra K.

Dear Katie,

I spoke with you on the book tour in Asheville about using the work during my political campaign and you asked me to send a note about it, so here it is.

I live in a fairly conservative county in North Carolina, at least as far as elected officials go. I believe the idea that politics are local and that the best place to start is where you are. In my county we have not had a Democrat elected to 7 of the 9 seats on the board of education in 15 years and the belief was that it can not be done.Many good and well connected people had tried. I filed anyway and several others did as well. I ran a co-ordinated campaign with 2 other candidates and focused on the ideas rather than personality. I was an unknown, never having been involved in politics before.

The short story is I won, getting over 34,000 votes and am now having the time of my life being on the school board.

The work was amazing for me as a way through the process. >From the idea, it can't be done, to I don't have enough support, I need more money, I don't know what I need to know, on and on I would work with my WONDERFUL round robin partner George. He worked with me the month before the election as a special favor and kept the process not only sane but possible. How do I react when I think that thought? what would I do without that thought? It kept me on track only doing the one next thing. The great joy on election night, was having done the whole thing beginning to end, the outcome was really secondary. Being faithful came first. I learned so much about bringing myself back into present time and not believing all the scary thoughts. It was also a great way to find the beliefs that I had used to limit myself in the past.

It also prepared me for what followed. Of a field of really great candidate challengers I alone won. The thought I should not be the only one, is it true? etc. I have learned that we all won, it just looks like me sitting in the seat. I am making friends with all the people I ran "against" and am seeing all the goodness in their hearts. and the children! my goodness I go into the 74 schools we have and they are all mine! sometimes I cry for joy, their beautiful faces like flowers and I am so grateful that I can do my best to serve them.

I never thought of doing this before. nor imagined what a privilege it could be. When I thought about this I heard your sweet voice saying " you're the one". What's so amazing to me is how being the one has dissolved into being the no one, only playing for all of us.

Thank you so much for the great gift of the work and thank everyone for creating this great game we call living.

Loving you,
Elizabeth

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

Dear Katie,

I met you at your workshop in Las Vegas' "I Can Do It" conference last week and loved every second and decided to do a feature about it in my book column.

I write reviews every month for www.sheunlimited.com, an international women's magazine, and asked you after the workshop, when taking pictures, if I may publish my picture as well as write about the workshop and you graciously gave me permission to do so.

We just hit the front page today and I sincerely hope you like my review and wanted to let you know that it was a huge joy and honor to meet you!

You mentioned that you are going to my native Berlin soon and I wish you a very good trip and thanks for bringing your light to my city!

With very warm regards and Love from your
Maren Springsteen

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

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

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

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 >>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With love and gratitude,
Alessandra

Dear Katie and The Work,

My 29 year old son died November 19th of a heroin overdose. I had been doing the Work on my own the last time I saw him, ten days before he died. I picked him up to go for lunch at an Indian restaurant and saw that he looked liked maybe he was using again, but I just watched that thought and thoughts like it during my last hours with him, and was really present to his beautiful blue eyes, to his happiness over his job, his thoughts of being in a band soon, how he was going to buy his nieces and nephew Christmas presents... As the days go by after his death, I live with little guilt, no shame, and much love, loving what is.

People think I am in shock because, although I have pain and cry in it, it is not consuming nor constant. I credit The Work for that.

Thank you.

I once went to Toronto to see Katie for a few hours but have never gone to the School. I hope to do so one day. I happened to be quitting my job the hour my other son found his brother dead, so I probably won't be going to the school soon... Maybe it is not necessary, as I am living through this by doing the work on my own - I don't even have to do anything but notice my stressful thoughts and they vanish. Love is so lovely!

Debbie

Anil Coumar, MBBS, MA, is the Director of the Hall Health Mental Health Clinic at University of Washington. He is introducing The Work to his peers (read his success story about the "fear of eating" below):

Dear Colleagues,

Most of us who have personally experienced The Work would agree that it is a simple, effective method to end suffering. Many of us who have experienced the powerful effects of this inquiry are making an effort to introduce The Work to our professional colleagues, as well as to our clients. We realize there are some obstacles and challenges as we attempt to do this, and we ask for your help.

You are invited to fill out a brief online survey designed to help us learn more about how to best bring the power and simplicity of The Work into mental health settings. Your input will help us to understand the needs of, and obstacles faced by, clinicians as we design a training seminar for mental health professionals using The Work in clinical settings.

The survey will take about 20 minutes of your time. You can take the survey by clicking on this link>>

In addition to participating in the survey, we hope you will also join the online forum for mental health professionals at instituteforthework.com. This forum was created to help clinicians communicate with each other, share resources and success stories, and get help from each other as we move The Work in clinical settings. Your input is greatly appreciated.

In closing, I would like to share a success story with you. A few weeks ago, a physician referred to me a young patient of his, a woman with an intense fear of eating. After a few choking episodes, she became terrified to swallow food. If you treat people with psychosomatic problems, you may be aware that the symptoms are often resistant to psychological interventions. In the past, I would have resorted to long explorations of her history to find out the underlying psychological explanations for these symptoms. Instead, this time I gently introduced her to The Work and guided her in self-inquiry. She was able to see how her stressful thoughts (for example, "Something terrible is going to happen") caused psychological and physiological stress and led to her symptoms. She visibly relaxed in the session as she questioned her fear.

Last week, she came to the session and reported that not only is she able to eat now, she is also able to eat alone, something she has not done in a long time because of her fear of choking. And most important, she is now aware that whenever she becomes symptomatic, it is an opportunity for her to question her negative thinking patterns.

Sincerely yours,

Anil Coumar, MBBS, MA
Director, Hall Health Mental Health Clinic
University of Washington
Seattle, WA

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

The latest from Kathy Harris:

Dear Katie,
I just got off the phone with Antonio, who was recently paroled. The music on his cell phone was rap music with the words “It is what it is! Life is great!” He told me it’s his theme song—that it’s all about loving what is. He agreed to speak to the Rotary Club in Sausalito to tell them how The Work has changed his life. He is working at See’s Candy from 4 pm to 4 am & then goes to school to be a drug counselor and he intends to do The Work with his clients. He’s full of gratitude. He told me I’ll never know how much The Work Class has made a difference for him. The Court has agreed to his coming & giving testimony about the 17 year old who in a gang incident killed his (Antonio’s) son while he was in San Quentin taking The Work Class. The Work Class saved him from living in stories and rage. He wants this kid not to be put away for life. He wants him to have a life. He wants to be a part of stopping the anger & violence that comes from not questioning our thinking. Antonio is on fire, full of gratitude. His two case workers—Kenny, who you met at the Vet training & Ron—are both former inmates teachers at San Quentin now in Jacques’ program. They are helping Antonio with his drug counseling training & certification etc. It makes my heart sing to see this kind of support after someone leaves the prison. I said to Antonio maybe he wouldn’t be able to fit in The School with Katie in the spring because of his work & school & by then being a drug counselor. He said, “No way. I’m going to make the School happen, because it’s part of my training for working with drug counseling.”

I’m filled with joy & gratitude to see how The Work can make a difference in Antonio’s life. The first day I met him in The Work Class he sat there with his arms folded announcing he hated ignorance, judged his fellow inmates, said that life & others were making his life hell & that was the truth!!!!! To myself I’m thinking, “Oh boy, he’s going to be a lot of work.” And then he just took to The Work & I got to do my own piece of Work on judging him.

Sending love & gratitude,
Kathy

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

Dear Katie and Family,

I would like to share with you my journey through freedom.

After returning home from The School for The Work in October 07, I was driving on Interstate 95 at 6 a.m. going to work. The morning light was beginning to appear.To the left , a tractor-trailer, behind me a tractor-trailer--no problem, I drive the interstate daily. Suddenly , coming up along side of me was another tractor- trailer , speeding and out of control.

The driver overcorrected trying to get back in the lane in front of me, and the tractor-trailer jack-knifed and flipped over. Sliding on it's side on the asphalt, thick , black smoke emerged.

The sound from the metal scraping the asphalt was so consuming and loud, that it was silent. There was nothing but complete darkness.

Then it began- bright,white sparks appearing everywhere, shooting out in every direction-dancing and performing the most beautiful and welcoming light show.For me. It swiftly and graciously surrounded me as I kept driving, unable to see anything else.Life? Crossing over into death? It couldn't be any better than this. I'm going. Silence. Everything stopped.

The thick black smoke dissolved into the morning sky. I walked across the road (there was no reason to run), and came upon a man standing in the median.

I asked "Is the driver dead? Is he in there?" "No," replied the man, "I'm just fine, mam." I impulsively touched his arm with both hands. I felt warmth. I touched him again, and went on to work.

As I told my story, puzzled eyes connected with mine, trying to understand my excitement, gratitude, and freedom.

Death? No fear, none. No fear? Peace,freedom.

I noticed that there was no flash of my children, my family,my world. There was no white tunnel.

There was only living in that very moment, loving the reality, every second of it.

That evening as I was cleaning the barn, a very dear friend said, "I was late for work this morning. There was a big wreck on I-95. Held up traffic for two hours. They say two people died."
"Yes, I said, I know about that."

What a journey, Imagine that.

Thank You Katie--With love, Joanne

Dear Katie,

I just wanted to write and tell you that yesterday was my first time doing a seminar where I incorporated 'The Work of Byron Katie' into the area I usually cover. I was so excited. At first, beforehand, I got a bit nervous,but then I worked it and discovered that what I was feeling was excitement and not nervousness, as what was happening for me was that I was introducing you and who could feel anything but excited about that!

It was amazing. It felt like you were there with me. I'd do my bit and then talk about the work and say well let's hear what Katie has to say and show them extracts from your interview with Josh and some pieces from the videos on The Work.com. I did two meditations with them and you did one from the meditation DVDs.(!) They did JYN worksheets, one belief at a time worksheets and some work on accepting criticism. They loved it and really began to meet their difficult thoughts head on and watch them dissolve. We ended with the aim to get together and begin an inquiry circle. I hope that happens but I'm open to whatever comes.

It wasn't a big group - yet ;) - I live in a very small town in West Cork, Ireland and they were there because of what I do around my book Dance with Life. Though I did say this was an opportunity to experience The Work of Byron Katie as part of that, I wasn't sure as to how they would react and of course their reaction was wonderful. What other reaction could there have been?

I am so grateful to you and to the school as after the school training I felt so prepared to just be able to be still and trust the work to work without my input, interference or 'help'.

So I just wanted you to know that a part of you participated in a workshop here and through the awesome powers of internet and DVDs, some people in a small Irish town now have a connection to you and The Work. And most of all I wanted to thank you for that support and for all the ways you help me to move the work.

much love
Justina

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

Dear Byron Katie,

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

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

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

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

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

Yours faithfully,
James Matemba

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: one morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke.

As it happened—as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding— she studied and remembered every moment. Her explanation about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another is amazing.

Of course we don't all have to have a stroke to understand the beauty of things exactly as they are. The four questions and turnarounds are enough. You can end your own your suffering.

After watching this video, I emailed Dr. Jill:

Dear Dr. Jill,

When I saw the video of your wonderful description of your stroke of insight, I recognized your experience immediately. Although I didn't have a stroke or other physical triggering event, one morning in 1986 I died as a suffering 43-yr-old woman and woke up in a state of joy that has never left me. At first there was only laughter, as a wordless inquiry burned up every concept that I had lived by. I no longer believed my thoughts-or, as you might say it, the output of my left brain lost its hold on me forever.

In time the inquiry took a form that allows me to offer it to others and, when I saw that it's possible for anyone to live as I do, it became my full-time job to facilitate the process of what I call The Work. I have written about this in several bestselling books, and I would love it if you could visit my website, www.thework.com, where there are videos that show me doing The Work with a variety of people. I'm curious to know your reaction and hope we can meet in person someday.

Loving what is, and that would be you,
Katie

Her reply:

Dear Katie, thank you for this kind message.

Jill

Dearest Katie,

Today I went to the bank to have a talk with a new manager regarding my bank account and as we were talking she wanted to know what else I do besides working at the advertising agency so I told her a bit about you and the Work and she didn't quite get it and asked for an example. So I asked her if there was anything troubling her and she said yes. There was something on her mind regarding one of her employees and she felt hesitant in how to approach them. So I suggested we do the Work on that and I walked her through the 4 questions and the turnarounds and she totally opened and I could tell it really made things clear for her. All of the sudden she asked me to hold on and she picked up the phone and got someone on the line and asked him to meet with me. Turns out he is in charge of all the organizational consulting/coaching at this national bank and more. She said to him she would like for him to interview me because she feels what I have to offer might be very useful. So now I have an appointment with him on Wednesday in regards to offering the Work at this bank. Isn't that something? At the place where I work, since they do great power point presentations, I am thinking of creating one based on the small booklet to bring to this interview. What do you think, is the universe friendly or what??

What an interesting few days I've had.

The appointment with the coaching organization which the Bank Manager has recommended me to was set for this Sunday.

As I left my house, Sunday morning, to go to that meeting , I thought of you and carried you with me in the form of a warm sweet feeling in my heart. I hailed a cab, and from afar something sparkled at me from the driver's face, I told him the address and half way there realized I left my cash at home in another purse. I didn't know what to do-turn back to get my money--that would make me late for the meeting and yet how would I pay for the ride? I said something out loud and the driver turns to me and says: "Honey, the meeting is what matters and I'll take you there, you don't need to pay me , after the meeting I can pick you up again and you can pay me then". "Thank you so much" I said, "but that means I'll have no change on me at all throughout the day and I really need some change on me." "that's no problem" said the driver "I'll give you some money and after work I'll pick you up, bring you home where you left your money and then you'll pay me." Something about this man was so honest and real with no agenda whatsoever. I accepted. I got to the appointment on time, feeling so ready, so supported. I introduced myself to the CEO, he then asked my permission to invite 2 more people to the meeting ( which means it was already OK) and I had a chance to tell all of them about you and the Work and demonstrated it on them so that they can experience what it is, I told them what you said how people in the company can fill a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet on one another and I found myself talking of the value of the turnarounds and in what fantastic ways they serve us. At he end they said they were very impressed and are interested in moving forward and start by giving me a slot for a 3 and a half hour workshop in a transportation company that they are coaching right now and as they get to know me better more will come.

I was elated and realized I can now also set my own appointments in other places as well and go and present what I know. The driver waited downstairs and took me to work and then at the end of the day came to take me home and I paid him for all this. It was like the universe was saying that if I do what I love the support will come, whether it's money, love, everything.

Yours,

Orly

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

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

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

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

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

God bless you, and thank you,
Jennifer

Hello Family:

What a wonderful experience you all gave me! I truly enjoyed each of you and I want to thank you for sharing with me all of your struggling joy of troubles along with mine. I honestly appreciated the encounters with my CRAZY family and will embrace you and this new journey of understanding that "Its All Good"! Please continue to pour your loving hearts in my direction as I realize how supportive we are to each other with just a simple "hello".

Katie has touched my heart in a way that I have never felt before nor truly believed could exist among people who are strangers to each other. Simply put, loving what is, expresses the beauty of living! Thank you family and to the staff family and especially to Katie!!!!

I love you all dearly.

Y

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

As Friday now begins, this will be my fifth day living here in the county of Humboldt. I feel so many lessons waiting for me here, so many stones unturned, so many teachers fast approaching. I love to notice how full of myself, how self-righteous, and how quick to judgment I am. It is so exciting to see how much work I still have to do. It fills me up with bursts of enthusiasm, as I reflect on anything in the day that felt like velcro in my body, any stressful thoughts that did not pass with ease, but instead stuck inside me and became hard. I had such a beautiful facilitation by my new friend D today. My stressful thought was "I don't fit in". I quickly came to realize it was my thinking that did not fit in here. It was my thinking that was creating all of the separation I was seeing. There is no separation until I believe it. Believing the thought I don't fit in makes me focus on where you and I are different. It only makes me want to see more ways that I can justify this belief that I indeed, do not fit in. That you are not like me, and that I am better. It's become such a game, between me, myself, and I. When I hear the thought swell up inside me "I'm better than you, or, I know more, or I'm on such a higher level" I meet it with giggles of joy. I now actually enjoy kicking myself off my own pedestal, it's become so impersonal. Somewhere along the path of committing to self-realization, it became self-enjoyment, and now there is no part of my mind I do not enjoy.

I am so appreciative for this continued commitment of inquiry with ongoing partners. I was quite resistant at first because I believed I didn't need it. I have had to sit with myself literally for an hour or more at a time to try and find one thought that was causing me stress before calling my partner. Sometimes I can't locate one at all. And I find that those are the days that inquiry is just simply fun and when the call ends I feel happy to have connected with someone from the school. And then there are days, like today, when I needed that call. I was feeling alone, isolated, and out of place here in my new place of residence. I got to talk it out with someone who uses the same language, someone who knew the work, someone who could just hold the space for me, ask the simple questions, and listen. It is priceless.

I've come to realize that I don't need The Work every day. I go days on end without a single stressful thought. And then something pops up and I discover a new stone, or an ancient stone, that hasn't full turned over and cleaned itself off yet. Those are the days that I go straight to inquiry and fall in love again, and again, and again. I can no longer locate a time I am not falling in love, whether it is with living without stressful thoughts, or living with a stressful thought and then asking it four simple questions and turning it around.

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

Hello,

I want to express my deep gratitude for the work of The Work, as I experienced it this morning, Sunday, August 10, 2008, through the Hotline.

Sonya (I apologize if I've misspelled her name) worked with me for over an hour. She was clear, patient, relaxed, and quite unexpectedly at the end, shared a bit of the impact that the work she made possible for me to do for myself, had on her. This is a gift, and I am grateful.

The experience is remarkable. I feel mentally and emotionally clearer, calm, cheerful, and lighter--to the point of being able to laugh, relaxed and at ease. She facilitated work, clarity, release about a specific problem; the clarity and relief seem to have generalized, quickly. Though we did not address this directly, I am also experiencing a decrease in the intensity of physical pain I'm in, and emotional relaxation about it and whatever my be the problem.

Sonya was direct, clear, patient, encouraging, thorough, caring. She shared her own laughter and tears.

What a amazing and healing experience.

Heartfelt thanks for Sonya and Katie's Work from

J.A.

Dear Katie,

I've been in Mexico for the past 13 days and we've given 3 workshops of The Work ever since. One in the city of Puebla and two in the city of Cuernavaca. This weekend we are giving another two day workshop here in Puebla.

It has been beautiful!

One story in particular I wanted to tell you about is the story of M, a psychologist who was very interested in The Work. She came to our first workshop because she had been suffering from pain in her face and head for 16 years. She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and much later was told it was the wrong diagnosis. She took anti-depressants for 15 years, and came to the workshop "desperate."

In the first day of the workshop, participants went home with a homework of doing a 'self facilitation worksheet' on a thought. On the second day they return to talk about their experience of doing The Work by themselves. M shared that the night before as she did her Work on herself, she found that she has been frustrated for 20 years because she didn't marry the man she loved and married another man instead. Amazed at what she discovered, she told us that, for the first time in 16 years, she didn't wake up with pain and was filled with joy. Even her face was completely transformed. She never thought she could find a tool that could free her from her pain and she was relieved to learn that didn't need a specialist to "fix" her.

I talked with M today and her pain has been gone ever since.

Big hug to you,
Mari

Mariana den Hollander is a certified facilitator of The Work

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

Dear Katie,

Robert

Dearest Robert,

Politicians say many things to get elected. I would ask you to question their statements. One way to find out is to visit a site like factcheck.org. Both campaigns have referenced the site at various times, and it is interesting to learn what the truth is, according to factcheck. I have been told that the site is nonpartisan. If it feels right, take a look. And have you noticed the negative McCain and Obama within you?

And if you think that one of the candidates is causing you stress, I invite you to do a Worksheet on him or her. In reality no politician—no one outside you—can cause your stress. The only thing that can do that is an unquestioned thought. So write all those thoughts on paper and don’t hold back. “I don’t trust Obama because he’s too young.” “I don’t trust McCain because he’s too old.” Question them, see how you react when you believe them, see who you are without them, turn them around, find examples, and notice, are you more informed about what really matters? That is the way to a clear, peaceful mind that can make sensible choices that affect us all.

Love always,
kt

Dearest Katie,

My 25 year old daughter is in prison in California at CIW-California Institution for Women - just south of Ontario. This is my story and my request.

I am so grateful for The Work. The Work came to me in April of 2007. I came to The School that June in Trumbull and then again that October 07 in LA. I flew back to the Bay Area (I have moved to Nevada) to see my daughter in September 2007. She has been involved in meth addiction for the past 10 years and doesn't make contact very often. I was able to get in touch with her and we had the most amazing time. She wanted to know what I was doing because I was so different and she wanted to spend more time with me. She loved what I told her about you and The Work. I shared this with you that first night at the school in LA. You said she sounded like someone who really wanted to know the truth. She does!!

So then she went off on her way and got in more trouble and was arrested Feb 08. When she wrote to me she asked if I would help her understand why she kept living this destructive lifestyle, so I sent her your books- Loving What Is and I Need Your Love. Her response was pure amazement and joy.

I will share a few things with you here that she wrote to me while reading the books:

"Mom, this is so awesome-without all the f-ed up thoughts I can be without anxiety."

"Since reading Katie she's taught me not to let it mess up my train of thought
or f- me up in the head & get me angry."

"Mom, I've had to do a lot of The Work from Katie's book on our last phone call but it worked. I feel so much more connected to you and to myself. The miracle of Katie I found is my thinking pattern changes even before a bunch of The Work is done on paper. I finished Loving What Is and started I Need Your Love yesterday. In Loving What Is on page 203 I did the 6 page exercise and oh my goodness was it intense. I still have The Work to reflect on. 'Doing time' is a whole different experience than the first time. The other women in here are miserable and I choose to feel my feelings and rid myself of nasty thoughts. The first book really showed me how you can overcome anything bad that's happened to you. The pages toward the end were super deep with 9/11, Mom didn't stop the incest, and the one on the daughter's addiction. Mom, I love my mind, body and spirit. I must learn to forgive myself."

"So it's like this-I'm really loving the Katie books. This is so amazing--so worries aren't real they are like leaves in the wind and like raindrops. 'Why argue with a raindrop?' What has me in shock is that I can live in complete happiness and be okay just as I am. Mom, the past two days of reading I already feel like a weight lifted, the stress lifted. So I am really understanding the not being attached to our thoughts. It's cool Mom. I love it."

Then she related another story and said: "What I did was without even noticing at first, I felt the thought and then I turned it around and laughed realizing that I don't have to feel that thought and how happy I could be without it. Mom, this Rocks!"

I love that she is loving The Work!!

My daughter was incarcerated Feb 11 in San Mateo County Jail and remained there several weeks. She was then sent to Valley State in Chowchilla- where everyone goes and most stay. It's a maximum security prison and none of women's prisons are segregated by crime level or race or gangs like the men's are. A got to experience several things here for 10 weeks. Then she was transferred to CIW women's prison and has just entered the SAP drug treatment program there this week.

I got to visit her for the first time in prison at CIW at the end of August. We had a glorious visit-Fri-Sat-Sun for several hours each day in a crowed noisy room. We were so connected. We did The Work together. It was wonderful. I will get to visit her again Oct 31-Nov 3 only this time we get to stay together 24/7 in the family housing unit-a prison slumber party!! We have a 2 bedroom apartment for the weekend and they have a CD player. She wants me to bring all of your CDs and lots of blank worksheets!!

She is also loving Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and A New Earth. She has done all the workbook assignments and sent them to me. She is just so ready and eager to begin again. She choose to go into the drug program as opposed to Fire Camp, where she was also accepted, because she realized even though it was a really "cool" thing to do and she got out of prison to train, be at camp, and then would be released 4 months early from her sentence--that after all of that it would have left her in the same space-dealing with her addiction and being out again-without having addressed her issues. So she opted for drug treatment, full sentence, and requested an additional 5 month residential treatment program after her release date of July 2 09, -so she will be complete Dec 2, 09. She stays at CIW until March 09 and then goes to one of the Drug Treatment Facilities until July 2. Then to another location for the residential program. She wants to come to your School and the Turnaround House, too!

My daughter just keeps teaching me. She is my greatest teacher. I really feel moved to enter your Facilitator Training program. I am completing an intensive horticulture training right now, ending in November, I am hoping to work with other Master Gardeners here in Nevada with the prison landscape training programs and establish gardens for the inmates. Then, hopefully after being accepted and completing my Facilitator Training with BKI, I would love to be able to take The Work to the jails and prisons here as well.

I am doing The Work and doing my best to look at all my stuff around this whole situation. I feel I am pretty clear that whatever she does when she gets out is her business. (0K----I do have a wish list!! I want her to come home and have another chance at the life she says she wants). I am just so grateful to have my daughter back for whatever period of time that may be. Since she asked for my help and support and since she is so loving The Work, I of course want her to have all the support possible in understanding how to do The Work and discovering what she was believing that kept her going back to the meth use and this lifestyle. She has told me that she wants to start a new beautiful life free of this addiction.

Much Love and Gratitude,

M
P.S. My daughter is now reading A 1000 Names for Joy and I am sending her Stephen's Tao Te Ching and the book A Million Little Pieces.

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

After hearing Byron Katie on Oprah's XM radio station, I was immediately hooked. Can't say enough how much this has helped me and I have read virtually every self-help book, metaphysical, new age, etc. but this did it for me----thank you.

I don't feel the need to continue reading book after book any more. Now I feel the peace I've searched for for years.

Thank you very much,

I

Dear Katie,

About a month ago, I was listening to a book-on-tape called "Miracles" by Stuart Wilde. In it he tells the story of a young woman who, like me, was searching for a miracle. As she was walking down the street, a truck drove by and dropped a book. That book changed her life dramatically for the better.

I was praying for just such a miracle in a book. I was in a thrift store called "My Lucky Day" wandering around aimlessly, lost, confused, and in so much pain. I kept saying, "I feel like I'm dying." My therapist wanted me to commit myself. I've done that once before and it was like putting a band aid over a gaping wound.

I wanted to turn this break-down into a break-through. I was determined to! Air Force Training instructors told us, "we're breaking you down so we can build you back the way we want you."

I don't want to be a war machine anymore though. I want the sparkle back in my eye, the bounce in my step that Mom said was gone when I got back from the war. And it's my heart's desire to help others do the same! I found your book Katie -- Loving What Is -- for 50 cents and that was my miracle and continues to be so!

Thank you!

With gratitude.

A

Dear Dear Katie,

How are you? I want to share some things with you:

In the last month there are so many challenges on my path: I “lost” a lot of money because of the credit crisis. It is about ¾ of the money I had, so there is almost no money left. When I replace the concept money with the concept love, and when I do the turnarounds on all the concepts I have about “loosing money," I feel very creative, alive, strong and free.

Also with my health: Again the doctors probably found some cancer cells in my breast. And when I heard it first I started to cry, but then, that same evening, did The Work, and I experienced a complete other person: loving, strong, caring. Without the cancer story I feel so grateful. Life goes on. Also, at the hospital when they did an examination that same afternoon, I could bear it as I did The Work on “this is my body." Turning that around I came to “this is not my body," and wow is that true!? It is none of my business, certainly not when the doctor is doing the examination-- I could concentrate and relax with no more stories about terrible treatments.

Thanks to this Work, I can deal with all of these challenges. I can trust that what I need now is what I have. This is what the credit crisis is teaching me and giving me.

Every evening I go to bed with the MP3 player with the Mental Cleanse on it (what a brilliant idea!). I listen to the clarity of The Work and of you, and I fall asleep in peace-- peace is what I want in this lifetime, and there is a lot of work to do. I am very happy and starting to get balanced. I am so grateful that I could be a staff member this summer in Bad Neuenahr. I did not speak to you personally then, but I breathed in and out the wonderful, peaceful, clear atmosphere of the School. Everything so well organized, always someone to talk to and to ask a question, always availability. And from me, it just came out of me, without having to do so much. Just gratitude. Being able to experience it.

On my knees, thanking you and me for this gift of life.

Dear Katie, embracing you with love,

M

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

Hi my dearest Katie:

How are you? I am in a new wonderful adventure, we left Tijuana and now are living in México City, where all my family live.

What I am first learning is to meditate during traffic, it is so kind that people junk when it is time to go through, there is always support he he he. I love this!

You know girl that in México we do not have a special day for being thankful, and it is a beautiful way for stopping and appreciate and being greatful with the people who has touched my life.

I have decided to adopt this day.

So I just wanted you to know that I have been blessed since the day I met you, thank you for you being in this world, because of you my mother is the dearest, my sister has become the best instead of my enemy, I have fallen in love with my husband, Tijuana became the best city to live in, I returned with peace and joy to Mexico city, I am so excited to live now just with my clothes, a few pots and pans, and my bed and I don´t need any more!, that I see and feel abundance everywhere I go, and the best of all, I am at peace and in love with myself.

Thank you my master of love for your legacy and I am passing it on. Today I am in Guanajuato and on Sunday I am giving The Work. Next week I will be in Vegas giving a workshop in 4 days to some amazing Latino people over there.

This is moving, this is flowing, this . . . is love.

My heart is full of gratitude, thank you for the best gift I have ever received. I don´t say to God to bless you, now I do not dictate to him to whom he should bless. Instead I see that you are blessed

I love you and send you the kindest kiss to your beautiful heart.

Laura

Here's a letter from someone in Texas:

Dear Katie,

love, J

Dear J,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loving what is, and that would be you,
kt

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

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

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

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

Unity and Peace for Development Cooperative-Friendship programme

Katie:

Peace and Love,
JJ

Dearest JJ,

You do "yet" know how, The Work works when your dear mind is open to "what is next". You're not prepared for his death yet, is it true?

It sounds like your not prepared for his LIFE yet, he isn't dead, he is still living!!!!!! The dead or dying son in your heads image is not your son, it is an image. You are trading your sons life now, for images of death, not your sons life and it is "killing" your time with him and your life with him in joy. He has a right to believe that he is "not worth it", listen to him, he has a right to his opinion and it doesn't mean that he isn't worth everything to you, you can still honor his opinion. You don't have to agree, your opinion is your business unless you think that his life is not worth $1500. per mo and maybe you don't sense you don't believe that he is going to live anyway, and in an odd way it is understandable that the mind would take you there.

I love you JJ, don't let your unquestioned mind cost you one minute with that darling, dear, dearest son of yours. Is it sadness that you are feeling or love? Isn't it love, feel it as deeply as you can, let it live in you, allow it, let it cry you, take you over even, its okay, love is all powerful. Don't confuse feelings that you believe to be sadness with what love feels like, my dearest. I am with you, ask him to hold you for me.

with all of my heart,
kt

I ran away from a 29 year marriage with 2 suitcases and not much else. I was in such a state of fear/anxiety that I was shaking uncontrollably as I drove away from the house...fearing I might meet my husband on the road somewhere in the very rural small town setting where we lived.

I was forced to give up my medications for depression/anxiety because he chose not to work and to use all of our savings until we had none left and he applied for welfare. My attempt at suicide to escape the darkness, loneliness and utter fear/desperation failed--he left me lie unconscious for 3 days in our bed without ever calling 911. Somehow, when I awoke, he just yelled as usual that I "should go live in a f--in hole somewhere and not be so selfish to do something like that again!" This from a man who was a former CEO of a company and now due to his life choices, our family was on welfare and without any insurance or income.

My thoughts were in such a state of confusion, I couldn't think. I was just in survival mode there for months now. I left the state and ran to family for safety and relief. I spent the better part of the next year sobbing, unable to eat/sleep and barely functioning day-to-day. During the year, I tried talking to him, he was unwilling. I finally filed for divorce and after having to go back to the state again and see him (and him yelling abusively at me as though I had never left a year before, and this time in front of one of our children), I knew it was the only thing I could have done. After the divorce hearing and seeing him again was so devastating, returning back to my family again, I was inconsolable. I felt complete devastation and was consumed by suicidal thoughts. Unable again to eat/sleep/think I spent one night hugging the toilet bowl on the bathroom floor for 10 hours dry-heaving and sobbing. I didn't know what to do. I saw Byron Katie on YouTube and had had two of her books. It looked like relief. I picked up her book and couldn't even process the sentences in my head I was in such an awful place. I just continued to watch videos. Then, I found her website and wrote a letter about myself and my situation. I received a response almost immediately which helped me hang on. Katie invited me to Turnaround House and I gratefully accepted that invitation.

It was difficult for me to imagine attending the program, but I felt it was my only hope for a way out. On the way to California on the plane I finally read Katie's book Loving What Is and I felt so much better afterwards seeing how much her program had helped people who were confused and in fear to become at peace with themselves. I felt Katie could resonate with me personally as I was coming from a very similarly dark place that she had lived in herself before finding her way out through The Work. Although I had never met her, I trusted her completely.

I attended the Turnaround House program and am now home. To say this was life-changing is a serious understatement. Words cannot begin to describe that I am not the same person coming out that went into it. I am happy and have a peacefulness within my life which I have never known before. I know I will never need depression/anxiety medications again. I know now that LOVE heals. This program is LOVE. Katie and her staff were completely committed to loving me and helping me heal myself. Its all about self-realization and self-empowerment. I have the confidence to face whatever comes in life now.

I am so grateful to Katie for taking me into her heart and program and giving me the tools to have the life I now know I deserve and love. I love them all and I love me now too.

KB

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

Dearest Katie,

P.S. Thank you for sharing the Rwanda letter on the community site. A real blow away.

Dearest Grant,

Thank you for your letter. One of my grandsons says that he is attending the School for The Work this summer in Los Angeles. I would love that he gets what your son received at the School, and that is his own truest mind back, awake and responsible for his own life and best interest. We all adore your son! Let him know that he is cleared to staff a School if he wants to. I love watching even six- and seven-year-olds work with people who are sixty, seventy, twenty and every age in between at the events I get to facilitate as well.

For those of you asking about your children coming to the School during the upcoming summer break, the answer is, of course, "yes." Both my grandsons are fourteen, and I think of the fourteen-year-old daughter of one of the women at the last School (just a few days ago). This young lady wouldn't let anyone—not even her mother—get away, skate away, shift away, shrink away from the authentic self she could see in us. This darling and ruthless fourteen-year-old facilitator used her skills (the most ruthless skills always are our kindness, gentleness, caring, and the most unmoving integrity in the face of the one in denial, the facilitated) to tear open a lot of stuck minds and lives. As I am not traveling out of the country this summer (thank you all for supporting my visit to London and Copenhagen in January) and many of you are wanting your children to come to the School during summer break, and of course I am very happy about that, I will be there as usual, from early morning to late at night, all day, every day, watching awareness shift from the fear-based self into another paradigm, the new one, the kinder one, yours. I hope to see not only my grandson but who knows?—maybe both my grandsons as well as your children and grandchildren at the summer School for The Work in Los Angeles.

loving you,
BK

Katie,

You probably will not remember me...I remember you from Barstow Ca. Back in the late 90s I started getting 'newsletters' from you...haven't a clue where you got my information, i lived in Phoenix. It was always a good read and I looked forward to them every month. It was a very humble beginning it seemed...and now you are a world figure for sure. You have taken so many people to a more beautiful place. You take on the 'tuff' issues, the dark side and bring it all to light...most other organizations would have these people, who bare their deepest soul secrets, reported to the 'police' and sent to prison...and because you free them from there own prisons they change. I remember listening to such a seminar on one of your DVDs. We could probably use a few judges (reactive minds at work), on the bench who could offer the work to the misguided in orange jump suits...ha!

Best of everything
D

Dear Ms. Katie,

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

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

Thanks and God bless you.

S.

We recently received the following comment on this blog:

Dear Katie,

Sheila

Dearest Sheila,

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

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

Ask yourself:

1. Is it true? Yes or no?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love,
kt

Dear Katie,

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

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

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

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

God bless you!

Sincerely,
David

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

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

Hello,

Thanks, S.

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

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

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

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

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

C.

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

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

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

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

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

Hello Katie and Staff from the school of the work October 2009,

My name is A and I was at the last School for the Work. I was the one who brought a companion and had bipolar. During the school I would often go to sleep early so I missed some School. I wanted to just let you know that the School was very beneficial and that I have kept up with my homework and done a lot of good work.

There are many things I could share but the main thing is that since the School I have severely reduced panic problems. Before the School I had what is called a Panic Disorder that developed after a severe seizure a couple years ago. My life had become small. I was very tired of suffering with it and I believed there was a better way - I wanted my life back!

It was a enormous thing just to get to the school and that in and of itself would have been enough of an accomplishment for me but there was more... something came loose during the graduation ceremony; like the hand that griped my heart just let go; like pulling off a silk scarf, it just slipped away. It happened the moment Sinead O'Connor sang: 'thank you for not hurting me".

It was a terrifying sensation, perhaps the worst thing I could imagine happening and so far from my home too. I went up stairs to my room and cried a beautiful cry and my panic disorder was dissipated from then on. For weeks after getting home I waited for it to wear off and for my panic to return; I waited for the other shoe to drop and 2.5 months later...still no problems, I've come to trust it! Can you believe it, its a miracle to me. I can go in the left hand turn lanes, in the drive through lanes, in an elevator, I can leave my house, be in group setting, go to the grocery store and more. I started volunteering at the Humane Society walking the dogs there every week! It is a great source of joy for me. I'm thinking about getting a job too. I just wanted you to know that I got what I came for and thank you for extending a scholarship to me.

I'm starting to get what you're teaching and I love you for it. I'm living it.
Many 'thank you's :)

A

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

Dear Katie,

B

Dearest B,

My goodness! The simple answer is, “I like them and wish to support them and I like me when I do that.” And no one is “supposed” to love what is, nor can they, until they are no longer fooled by their minds. I simply do love what is, because I have questioned my stressful thoughts thoroughly enough to know how the mind creates all the suffering in the world. For example, if I were to believe that the earthquake shouldn’t have happened, or if I were to imagine their pain and project it onto myself as though it were mine, it would be borrowing pain that isn’t mine, as well as costing me this amazing state of grace to be one who is freed up and in a position to help. I don’t want to add my false suffering as an aftershock to the Haitians. How would that help anyone? It certainly wouldn’t help them, and it wouldn’t help me be as someone compassionately available and aware enough to see myself and them clearly enough to send support. To send support when I know to do it allows me to join where I want to, and the affect is a guiltless state of mind, one that joins without fear. I realize that the earthquake should have happened, because it did happen (in this dream I call reality). What happened happened, and in my kindest world, what is the best-intentioned wanting? It is “How can I help you, add to you in your time of need when I have no need myself?” That’s it, and nothing in the world can change that truest reality of our most authentic and pure kind nature.

I don’t want earthquakes to happen before the fact; but once they happen, that’s what I want. I am a lover of reality. As I often say, when you argue with God, you lose—but only 100% of the time.

Stephen gashed his finger the other day and came in and asked me to drive him to the emergency room for stitches. The blood was really gushing out quite strongly. I didn’t say, “Oh, it’s good that it happened, now you can bleed all over your clothes and the rug.” Rather, we hopped into the car, I drove to the hospital, and he got five stitches in his left hand. Actually it was fun, really fun for both of us. The doctor turned out to be a neighbor whom we hadn’t met yet, and Stephen said that he learned something about blood that will be useful when he writes about the Iliad, which is quite bloody. (He is translating the Iliad from ancient Greek. He finds that great fun—which I find hilarious, and very dear.)

"Loving what is" doesn’t mean that you are passive. Love is action. It lives from the inside out. It is source. People who are suffering are me, they are my own old self being witnessed—that part of my old mind that hasn’t caught up yet, my mind being witnessed, or, in other words, my mind coming back at me to see what is love and what isn’t yet. My mind, your mind, all mind: the same.. I respond to them (people, mind) with the same kindness as I practice toward myself, when I get up and brush my teeth and feed and water this body of the woman people call Katie. Some believe it and some don’t.

When someone comes to me who is suffering, my internal mind’s response and experience is “How can I help?” I don’t think that they shouldn’t be suffering. They are suffering (in their experience, and that makes it real for them as it used to be for “me”). That’s their truth, for the moment and I have mine and theirs is the cause of their suffering until it isn’t. If they are angry or depressed or sad or resentful, I never think that they shouldn’t be feeling what they’re feeling, or that whatever happened to them (as they see it) shouldn’t have happened. I listen. I am available as a “humane” being and friend. I am there to help them question the mind that is creating their suffering. I love that they come to me with an open mind, if they do; and if their mind is not so open, I love that too. Everything is welcome here.

I sent money to Haiti because that seemed to me the kind, right-minded thing to do. I just knew to do it. It was a wholehearted response to an invitation to help. That asking is what is, just as the earthquake is what is. Now that the earthquake happened, I love that people asked me for help, and I love love in action and sending money is just one way. Are you metaphorically experiencing an earthquake within you? If so, let’s do The Work.

Love,
kt

PS - see Dr. Paul Farmer's Op-Ed >>

Question:
Katie, Every year I make New Years Resolutions only to break them a month later and feel bad. How can the Work help me when I break my resolutions? Is there any point to making them in the first place?

Katie:
Let’s say I wanted to be a kinder human being toward my children and I find myself frustrated, losing my temper, and giving them “the look.”

I would identify what I was believing during that behavior. And after identifying my thoughts I would write them down on paper. I would do The Work on those thoughts and I would also do The Work on “I raised my voice to my children.”

Then I would make a list, from the prompt “I raised my voice to my children and that means that...”

...that means that I’m a terrible person.
...that means that I’m a loser.
...that means that I will never get it right.
...that means that they will never forgive me.
...that means that I hurt them.

Then I would ask the four questions and do the turnarounds on each thought.

And that is what I did do for a few years after 1986. I became a kinder human being with no necessity to make New Year’s resolutions.

What am I resolved to do? Just answer the questions that you’re asking and enjoy this conversation with you right now and love that it would serve others the way that this process has served me.

What are some of the underlying beliefs in your experience that cause you to break your resolutions?

Below are responses from candidates in the Institute for The Work, who have been answering this question this month, and then doing The Work on the underlying beliefs they’ve uncovered:

There’s something wrong with me.
Things need to happen for me this year.
I need to get my life back together this year.
I am incapable of real love.
I am overwhelmed.
I can’t make the right decision.
I have no control.
I should know better and done better.

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

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

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

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

xoxo
kt

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.