Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life

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Our interpretation of what’s going on is what causes us to stress about it – or not. So if we change our interpretation, we’llchange our definition of what’s stressful too! A pragmatic and simple way of getting people to take responsibility for their own problems' -- Time Magazine

He should stop blaming you? Is that true? Now you want to control his thinking, even who he should blame? You want to take over your son's whole mind. You know what's best for him. You know what he should be thinking. Excuse me Christopher. Don't think unless I've told you what to think, don't think until I want you to. And then let's work on your wife. And by the way I love you. However, all emotions are meaningful and necessary to becoming a more integrated human being. Stress, depression or unhappiness are the not our enemies, merely the signals that perhaps we are seeking to meet a need of ours through an inefficient or unrealistic strategy. And determining whether a strategy is inefficient or unrealistic is a very personal and intuitive process that requires a good amount of self-awareness and wisdom. This book has taught me that the rain isn't causing my irritation; my irritation is caused when I attach my belief that it shouldn't be raining. Who am I to determine whether or not it rains? It's not my business whether or not it's raining - that's Nature's business, not mine. How about I stay in my own business? How about I figure out what's really causing my irritation? Indeed, like I said, there are moments when Bob is actually a perfectly great guy. Both of these turnarounds feel a lot truer than my original statement, and I notice when I’m speaking the truth, I can relax. Embracing the Truth If you want to argue with what is, you will suffer. Period. In fact, “If you want reality to be different than what it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.” :)This technique is supposed to be very enlightening, but I can’t get it to work for me at all. Byron Katie can though. She’s like a therapist magician. She gets people up on stage and starts saying stuff like, “Everything is all your fault. You are just projecting your thoughts onto others.” Loving What Is by bestselling author Byron Katie is a simple, straightforward antidote to the suffering we unnecessarily create for ourselves and has inspired and help millions of people transform their pain into freedom. Written in an easy-to-follow, interactive and accessible way and drawing on illustrative case studies, reading this is the first step to turning your life around and achieving inner peace and harmony... When asking the first question, take your time. The answer is either yes or no. (If it’s no, move to question 3.) The Work is about discovering what is true from the deepest part of yourself. You are listening for your answers now, not other people’s, and not anything you have been taught. This can be very unsettling at first, because you’re entering the unknown. As you continue to dive deeper, allow the truth within you to rise and meet the question. Be gentle as you give yourself to inquiry. Let this experience have you completely. “ Can you absolutely know that it's true? Some aspects of the Turnaround have great application in the "beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye" kind of way. Again, I'm not comfortable with rejecting every "should" or "shouldn't" statement. The idea that "he shouldn't be dishonest" can be turned around to "I shouldn't be dishonest" and become a great opportunity to ponder my own personal commitment to honesty. The idea that "he should be dishonest" is simply not helpful or enlightening. In "The Work", Byron Katie takes us through the process of asking four fundamental questions to the difficult, aggravating, frustrating and painful situations in our lives, be it a relationship, a workplace or office situation, a personal dilemma, or an internal conflict. She calls it "putting it to inquiry".

So, if like in our hypothetical situation your thoughts revolve around a belief that your partner no longer loves you, turn those thoughts around and observe what happens. Can you really absolutely know that that's true?" is not a useful question. If the answer is always "no," which Byron Katie seems to believe it is, then there is absolutely no moral foundation. Whether she agrees or not, I believe there are some "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" in this world. People *should* be honest. Children *shouldn't* be brutalized, mutilated, beaten, starved, murdered, etc. Just because bad awful things happen, doesn't mean they *should*. The key, in my mind, is to accept that things that "shouldn't" happen sometimes do anyway, that you have no control over other people's choices, and that sometimes that really hurts, and then move on with a determination to try not to hurt others the same way, to ease pain instead of cause it, not to accept that bad things *should* happen because they did. This book is NOT for those who cannot self-analyze at all, or do not have the ability to challenge their way of thinking in insightful ways. For those, that do have the above abilities, and consider themselves extremely in touch with themselves.. this book may seem stupid and too simplistic on a cursory reading. The beauty of her method is that it can be as deep and insightful as you make it, or as simplistically stupid as you see it. The choice really is yours.

Can you be absolutely positive that you hate ALL fat people? Do you hate every single fat person in the entire world? What about nice fat people, do you hate them? Do you hate fat people who are just a little over weight? What if they are fat because they have a health condition?

In Non-Violent Communication they say that all judgments are tragic expressions of unmet needs. And this is why we can have compassion on judgments - the judgments of others and our own judgments. So that is the kind of understanding I have found to be most helpful. Whereas, what Katie seems to be suggesting is a judgment of the judgment and trying to resolve it by the mere realization that it seems to be causing us stress or may not be true from another perspective. Let’s start with the statement “Bob is a complete jerk.” If I ask myself the first question, “Is it true?” my first response might be “Yes! He didn’t do what he said he was going to do.” But if I’m honest, I have to admit he’s not a complete jerk — sometimes he can be cool, and I kind of like the way he talks about his kids. Until you see everything in the world as a friend,” Katie says — this includes fatal diagnoses as well as poor drivers in traffic — “your work is not done.” Sadly, you are not the only one. Many people feel the same, and think there is no alternative to their unhappy ways of living. Many times we cannot see the thoughts that trouble as. And even more often, all the stress blinds us to the fact that our thoughts are the ones who are causing our unease.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. Katie’s biggest Big Idea is The Work itself. It can apply to every perceived problem, from a hangnail to a hurricane. And the more willing you are to expose your most unenlightened beliefs to light, the more relief and freedom you’ll find. Consider these questions: “In this situation, can I absolutely know that it’s true that Paul isn’t listening to me? Can I ever really know when someone is listening or not? Am I sometimes listening even when I appear not to be?” If your answer to question 1 is yes, ask yourself, “Can I absolutely know that it’s true?” In many cases, the statement appears to be true. Of course it does. Your concepts are based on a lifetime of uninvestigated beliefs. In my experience there are many paths to go, and I dont believe there is a 'cure them all' or a saviour, or one and one only remedy for life's hardships or personal challenges.