Byron Katie
Byron Kathleen Mitchell, better known as Byron Katie, is an American speaker, writer, and founder of a method of self-inquiry called The Work of Byron Katie or simply The Work.
Katie became severely depressed in her early thirties. She was a businesswoman and mother who lived in Barstow, a small town in the high desert of southern California. For nearly a decade she spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom. Then, one morning in February 1986, while in a halfway house for women with eating disorders, she experienced a life-changing realization. In that moment, she says,
I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.
Soon afterward people started seeking her out and asking how they could find the freedom that they saw in her. As reports spread about the transformations they felt they were experiencing through The Work, she was invited to present it publicly elsewhere in California, then throughout the United States, and eventually in Europe and across the world.
The Work has been compared to the Socratic method and to Zen meditation, but Katie is not aligned with any religion or tradition. She describes self-inquiry as an embodiment, in words, of the wordless questioning that had woken up in her on that February morning. She has shared The Work with millions of people at public events, in prisons, hospitals, churches, V. A. treatment centers, corporations, universities, and schools. Participants at her weekend workshops, the nine-day School for The Work, and the twenty-eight-day residential Turnaround House report profound experiences and lasting transformations. “Katie’s events are riveting to watch,” the Times of London reported. Eckhart Tolle calls The Work “a great blessing for our planet.” And Time magazine named Katie a “spiritual innovator for the new millennium.”
Katie is married to the writer and translator Stephen Mitchell, who co-wrote Loving What Is, A Thousand Names for Joy, and A Mind at Home with Itself. I Need Your Love—Is That True? was written with Michael Katz, her literary agent at the time. Her other books are Question Your Thinking, Change The World; Who Would You Be Without Your Story?; Peace in the Present Moment, with Eckhart Tolle, A Friendly Universe, and, for children, Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? and The Four Questions. On her website thework.com, you will find detailed instructions about The Work; video and audio clips; Katie's calendar of events; event registration; free downloads, including the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet; interviews; apps for your iPhone, iPad, or Android; a free newsletter; a free helpline; and the online store. You might also want to visit Katie's Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages, and her live-streaming webcast page, livewithbyronkatie.com.
“We don't attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to tbe true in the moment.”
“Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings.”
“Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.”
“It's not your job to like me - it's mine”
“I love what I think, and I'm never tempted to believe it.”
“When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.”
“An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.”
“The only way I can be angry at you is when I have thought, said, or done something that is unkind in my own opinion.”
“How do you react when you think you need people's love? Do you become a slave for their approval? Do you live an inauthentic life because you can't bear the thought that they might disapprove of you? Do you try to figure out how they would like you to be, and then try to become that, like a chameleon? In fact, you never really get their love. You turn into someone you aren't, and then when they say "I love you," you can't believe it, because they're loving a facade. They're loving someone who doesn't even exist, the person you're pretending to be. It's difficult to seek other people's love. It's deadly. In seeking it, you lose what is genuine. This is the prison we create for ourselves as we seek what we already have.”
“I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.”
“Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to change the world so that they can be happy. This hasn’t ever worked, because it approaches the problem backward. What The Work gives us is a way to change the projector—mind—rather than the projected. It’s like when there’s a piece of lint on a projector’s lens. We think there’s a flaw on the screen, and we try to change this person and that person, whomever the flaw appears on next. But it’s futile to try to change the projected images. Once we realize where the lint is, we can clear the lens itself. This is the end of suffering, and the beginning of a little joy in paradise.”
“If you put your hand into a fire, does anyone have to tell you to move it? Do you have to decide? No: When your hand starts to burn, it moves. You don’t have to direct it; the hand moves itself. In the same way, once you understand, through inquiry, that an untrue thought causes suffering, you move away from it.”
“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.”
“As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.”
“There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not.”
“Being present means living without control and always having your needs met.”
“In my experience, we don't make thoughts appear, they just appear. One day, I noticed that their appearance just wasn't personal. Noticing that really makes it simpler to inquire.”
“Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don't want to know about ourselves, yet. They will point us to our freedom every time.”
“You are your only hope, because we're not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we're aware of it or not. The whole world is about you.”
“all the advice you ever gave your partner is for you to hear”
“Don't believe every thing you think.”
“Whatever it takes for you to find your freedom, that's what you've lived.”
“Don't be careful. You could hurt yourself.”
“Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it—that you are it.”
“When they attack you and you notice that you love them with all your heart, your Work is done.”
“Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing ever happened that didn't need to happen.”
“All I have is all I need and all I need is all I have in this moment.”
“Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them”
“When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.”
“You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer".”
“The miracle of love comes to you in the presence of the uninterpreted moment. If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life.”
“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.”