Byron Katie - The Work of Byron Katie: An Introduction

The Work of Byron Katie
An Introduction

Byron Katie & Stephen Mitchell

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ePUB edition 2022, by Vibhatsu

No one can give you freedom but you. This little book will show you how.

Byron Katie

This booklet presents the essence of The Work of Byron Katie. Each year, thousands of these booklets are sent by request, at no charge, to non-profit organizations around the world, helping people discover the life-changing power of inquiry.

If you would like to explore this process further, we suggest you ask for Loving What Is wherever books are sold. The book version will take you deeper into The Work, and includes many examples of Katie facilitating people on issues such as fear, health, relationships, money, the body, and more. Loving What Is is also available as an audiobook, which offers you the invaluable experience of hearing Katie do The Work in live workshop recordings. The book and audiobook are available on our website as well, thework.com, or they can be ordered by calling 805.444.5799.

The Work of Byron Katie is a way to identify and question the thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It is a way to find peace with yourself and with the world. Anyone with an open mind can do this Work.

Byron Kathleen Reid became severely depressed while in her thirties. Over a ten-year period her depression deepened, and for the last two years Katie (as she is called) was seldom able to leave her bedroom. Then one morning, from the depths of despair, she experienced a life-changing realization.

Katie saw that when she believed her thoughts she suffered, and that when she didnt believe her thoughts she didnt suffer. What had been causing her depression was not the world around her, but what she believed about the world around her. In a flash of insight, she saw that our attempt to find happiness was backwardinstead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match our thoughts about how it should be, we can question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. As a result, a bedridden, suicidal woman became filled with love for everything life brings.

Katie developed a simple yet powerful method of inquiry, called The Work, that showed people how to free themselves. Her insight into the mind is consistent with leading-edge research in cognitive neuroscience, and The Work has been compared to the Socratic dialogue, Buddhist teachings, and twelvestep programs. But Katie developed her method without any knowledge of religion or psychology. The Work is based purely on one womans direct experience of how suffering is created and ended. It is astonishingly simple, accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, and requires nothing more than a pen and paper and a willingness to open the mind.

Katie saw right away that giving people her insights or answers was of little valueinstead, she offers a process that can give people their own answers. The first people exposed to her Work reported that the experience was transformational, and she soon began receiving invitations to teach the process publicly.

Since 1986 Katie has introduced The Work to millions of people around the world. In addition to public events, she has done The Work in corporations, universities, schools, churches, prisons, and hospitals. Katies joy and humor immediately put people at ease, and the deep insights and breakthroughs that participants quickly experience make the events captivating. Since 1998 Katie has directed the School for The Work, a nine-day curriculum offered several times a year. The School is an approved provider of continuing education units in the U.S., and many psychologists, counselors, and therapists report that The Work is becoming the most important part of their practice. Katie also presents a five-day No-Body Intensive and an annual New Years Mental Cleansea four-day program of continuous inquiry that takes place in Los Angeles at the end of December. She sometimes offers weekend workshops as well. Audio and video recordings of Katie facilitating The Work on a wide range of topics (sex, money, the body, parenting, etc.) are available at her events and on her website, thework.com.

Katie has written three bestselling books: Loving What Is, which was written with her husband, the distinguished writer Stephen Mitchell, and has been translated into twenty-nine languages; I Need Your LoveIs That True?, written with Michael Katz; and A Thousand Names for Joy, written with Stephen Mitchell. Her other books are Question Your Thinking, Change the World ; Who Would You Be Without Your Story? ; Peace in the Present Moment (selections from Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle, with photographs by Michele Penn); for children, Tiger-Tiger, Is It True?, illustrated by Hans Wilhelm; and her latest, A Friendly Universe , also illustrated by Hans Wilhelm.

Welcome to The Work.

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. You can try and try, and in the end the cat will look up at you and say, Meow. Wanting reality to be different than it is is hopeless.

And yet, if you pay attention, youll notice that you believe thoughts like this dozens of times a day. People should be kinder. Children should be well-behaved. My husband (or wife) should agree with me. I should be thinner (or prettier or more successful). These thoughts are ways of wanting reality to be different than it is. If you think that this sounds depressing, youre right. All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.

People new to The Work often say to me, But it would be disempowering to stop my argument with reality. If I simply accept reality, Ill become passive. I may even lose the desire to act. I answer them with a question:

Can you really know that thats true? Which is more empowering?I wish I hadnt lost my job or I lost my job; what intelligent solutions can I find right now?