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 >>

Become mindful of how often your conversations focus on the past or future.

Be aware of the verbs you use: was, did, will, are going to, etc. To speak of the past in the present is to reawaken and recreate it fully in the present, if only in our minds, and then we are lost to what is present for us now. To speak of the future is to create and live with a fantasy.

If you want to experience fear, think of the future.

If you want to experience shame and guilt, think of the past.

Just focus on the dishes in front of you.

"Doing the dishes" is a practice of learning to love the action that is in front of you. Your inner voice or intuition guides you all day long to do simple things such as doing the dishes, driving to work, or sweeping the floor. Allow the sanctity of simplicity. Listening to your inner voice and then acting on its suggestions with implicit trust creates a life that is more graceful, effortless, and miraculous.

The miracle of now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 All,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I bow down…

In Love,
Mollie Shea

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

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

Dear Byron Katie,

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

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

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

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

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

Yours faithfully,
James Matemba

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

There is no fee for this service.

Calling Byron Katie's Hotline:

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

Hotline Facilitator's Responsibilities

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

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

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

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

Dear Katie,

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

5/02/08
Dear T,

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

I would like to express what I appreciate about you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

T, you have given me many gifts.

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

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

For these things I am forever grateful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, C

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

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.

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

Dearest Family,

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

There is always room for you at the School.

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

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

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

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

Hello,

Thanks, S.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C.

Learn more >>

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sign up now >>

Listen to this audio clip:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Details here >>

Learn more about The School for The Work >>

Buy it from Amazon or the The Work Store >>

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.

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

~ ~ ~

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

~ ~ ~

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

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

~ ~ ~

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

~ ~ ~

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