Customer Reviews

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life

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this would be it. I'm an ordained Christian minister, and I'd give out *this* book before the Bible itself. That's how powerful her simple approach IS. It is literally the key to end all suffering. Sounds too good to be true? It isn't. I have been a student of psychology, personality and spirituality ever since I was a young girl. I studied theology in college, minored in psychology, have dozens of self-help and self-discovery books on my shelves, been a student of cognitive psychology and Toltec Wisdom (ala "The Toltec Way" by Gregg and "The Four Agreements" by Ruiz)...

From these, I came to believe that my own thoughts create my own suffering. It's never the person or situation that causes me grief; it's the story I *tell* myself *about* the person or situation that is the problem! Yet, although I knew this intellectually, I had a hard time dismantling all my core beliefs and judgments. My intellect likes mind candy and the accumulating of knowledge, but it wasn't enough to put me over the edge to freedom.

But this book did. It is all the above disciplines combined, but MUCH more. I was having anxiety attacks and an irrational fear of death and dying; this book helped snap me out of it immediately (along with the grace of God). Loving What Is is not by a counselor or some New Age guru; it's by a normal woman who was on the floor of a half way house, feeling bitter and angry, who had an epiphany when she asked herself a series of 4 simple questions. Her depression lifted, and she was a new woman in ONE instant. Since then (1986) she has shared her message, and it's changed thousands of lives.

To see what The Work is about, visit her website at http://thework.com This book is a life changer. The information it contains can replace all self-help books...it's that transformational. It's also an easy read, and very engaging. After all, she's just a "normal" woman like you and I who stumbled on 4 basic questions called Inquiry that will change your life forever.

If you are looking for answers to "why", are tired of feeling tired, angry, depressed, alone, cheated, sad, or confused, please get this book today.

Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book: Picture the Past, Experience the Cards, Understand the Present (coming Fall 2008 from Hampton Roads Publishing)

This book doesn't tell you what's what. It has no real philosophy in it. It simply gives you a simple way to discover your own truth.

I was very skeptical about even reading this book. Somehow I ordered it and it sat around in my collection of thousands of books. I was searching for a "spiritual solution" to my feeling terrible and this was one of many books I ordered.

Then one day, in emotional pain, I picked it up after reading many others. I started reading it.

I read and re-read. I went each chapter again and again and again.

A year and a half later, it is the only self-help book that I really care about. I have done "The Work" many many times and made it a part of me. I have purchased audio tapes of other people doing The Work.

My wife has asked me for help in The Work and my son also.

Here is what has happened to me: I suffer much less. I view every challenge in life as an opportunity for deeper self-realization. I am more comfortable with myself and my life. Things bother me less and less.

Bottom line: I am more in love with the truth than I ever was. I am still less than honest but I am more honest than I was, and loving the truth more and more as time goes on.

The truth does appear to set me free. Reading this book can help you see the truth for you. If you are interested then read this book.

This may be the first self-help book I've ever read all the way through. I was attracted to it by the name "Stephen Mitchell" on the cover. His paraphrase/translation of the Tao te Ching was my previous Most Influential Book. In his introduction we learn that Byron Katie is his wife. They appear to share a sort of Zen/Taoist outlook.

The tag line on the cover of the book reads "Four questions that can change your life." I like the use of the word "can." It's not that the questions "could" or "may" or "might" change your life: they "can" if you use them. I know because my life has changed.

But it's not just the questions that have changed my life. Rather, it's the outlook expressed in the book's title: "Loving What Is." My suffering comes from arguing with my reality. Peace comes from accepting and even loving my reality, whatever my situation.

I had a story. It wasn't a happy story. It was about an abusive childhoood. I wore that story like a pair of sunglasses. I saw my world through that story. I kept spoiling my present with those past experiences.

"The Work" a process contained in this book is the only system that allowed me to really get to the truth of my story - ah - the story under such examination just started dropping away.

This book is not in competition with any other. No other book can take its place. The niche is unique. In A Course in Miracles you are told forgiveness is the key but no one gives you a road map for how to do that - Byron Katies does. In The Power of Now Eckhardt Tolle tells us to be fully in the present moment and just be aware of the pain body - Byron Katie tells you to investigate that pain body so that it can drop away.

For me, this was the single best book that I've experienced that genuinely helped me...I went to A Course in Miracles classes for over 7 years - no real change - I read and am doing The Work in Loving What Is - major changes in two weeks....

I'm very thankful for this book, this work.

I'd like to say that now I wear sunglasses so that people won't be blinded by the light coming from my eyes...but that's stretching it a bit - I'm just a lot happier!

You know the serenity prayer, "God grant me the grace to accept what I cannot change, to change what I cannot accept, and the wisdom to tell the difference"? This book is a thousand times longer, and only gets a through a tiny part of the prayer. It could really be boiled down to one word: "Accept!". I certainly agree that acceptance is a useful tool for finding inner peace, but the author is holding a hammer and nailing down everything in sight.

I have a basic philosophical problem with her premise. I believe that vulnerability to others and suffering are a fundamental, and sometimes valuable, part of human existence. My fiance was murdered, and I grieve tremendously for him. I don't want to suffer for the sake of it, but my guess is that Rophie would tell me that I don't need to be sad at all. In my opinion, this is not only ridiculous, it's unhealthy. It's human nature to object to loss, and to pretend otherwise ultimately impedes healing. Rophie claims that you shouldn't need anything from other people, that you can give it all to yourself. I say bollocks! We are biologically designed to need each other. Babies who aren't held and loved can't thrive, and it's not because they're telling themselves sad stories.

Like other reviewers, I found her claims of "open inquiry" disingenuous. It was clear in every transcript that she was steering her client to an answer she'd decided upon herself. The author also implies that there's no possibility of healthy disagreement with her perspective. Either you see things her way, or you're unready for "The Work."

I've edited my review because on reflection, this is the biggest problem I have with the book. When you're writing a spiritual book, particularly a book about personal reality, you really ought to make room for the possibility that there might be other approaches that work as well or better for different people. Stating that your book is the end-all, be-all and implying that anyone who isn't helped just isn't doing it right doesn't jibe with that darned "open inquiry" thing. I find it a little amusing that this attitude is reflected by a lot of her fans too. Many positive reviews here openly say that if you don't love this book, there's something wrong with you. How's that for enlightenment? The only thing that really helped me get through the death of my love was group therapy. Some people in the group left it because they didn't find it helpful. One friend of mine cured his depression by becoming a devoted student of Tai Chi. Different things work for different people. THAT'S what an open mind is, not insisting that what worked for you works for the rest of the world.

As for the person who criticized another reviewer for not reading every line in the book: my hat's off to those of you who could. The parts that weren't offensively smug were horrifically dull. She says her book ENDS suffering? I've had more fun reading tax forms.

I will say that several people I respect say this book changed their lives, so it may have value for the new reader. Just make sure you give it a good once over in the bookstore before you fork over your cash.

While the book offers some insights into how cognitive therapy can relieve psychological pain, the obsessive way in which Byron Katie tries to solve everyone's problems by thinking them away strikes me as a form of dissociation.

First of all the cognitive therapy ideas that she offers up as astoundingly original ideas have been around long before the author "invented" them. She probably had years of this type of therapy before "realizing" that she was the founder of such insights.

However, the author's egotism isn't the problem. If she had just stuck to explaining a cognitive therapy approach, her work might have been useful. The problem is how she distorts cognitive therapy. Basically, Katie preaches a form of detachment therapy. No matter what has happened to a person, Katie figures out a way so that the person doesn't have to feel bad. Since Katie figured out her approach to problem-solving while in the middle of a severe depression, I can understand that she felt desperate to turn off her terrible feelings. And it seems to me that she figured out a mind game to do it. No matter what the circumstances, Katie can rationalize away all bad feelings. But, in doing so, she must deny all dependency needs on other people. She acts as if disappointment in others or rage at others is just a story that can be rewritten. It's as if she ended her depression by ending all sense of emotional dependence on others. Now maybe for her own personal reasons, she is incapable of enduring the "bad" feelings that come with emotional intimacy. But, spending all one's time and effort into stopping such feelings seems like a defense mechanism rather then a grand, final truth.

I read her interview with a teen who was in a large family and was struggling with disappointments and resentments towards his family. Rather than validating his feelings and empathizing with his struggles and then maybe offering some coping strategies, she focuses exclusively on getting him to think away his difficult feelings.

The worst part of her approach is how she takes it to such an extreme. It doesn't matter if someone was raped, she will "turnaround" the situation, so that the victim shouldn't feel bad about what happened. Often people in extremely destructive relationships discount their feelings of despair, and her ideas could certainly encourage such discounting.

I think her approach stems more from fear of strong feelings than anything else. She doesn't offer wisdom about how to manage difficult relationships, rather she offers a highly intellectual method for dissociating from them.

A friend of mind literally put this book in my hands. I had been obsessing about someone for months. I have a meditation practice, a therapist, friends who had been listening to me patiently. But this book seems to be helping in a way nothing else has. This cool thing called "The Work"--where you have to write down what's bothering you and then ask four questions and turn your problem around--made me see that he had hurt me once, but I was hurting me every single day, with my thoughts, repeating the whole thing over and over, letting it take me over. I feel so much lighter about the whole thing now, even kind of amused at times by my own craziness. I really recommend this book to anyone who thinks too much. And I really want to meet Byron Katie someday--the way she talks about Reality being God--if only we were willing to truly see it, the way she talks in general is kind of startling, wakes you up. In person, she must be amazing.

"When you argue with reality, you lose-but only 100% of the time," Byron Katie says. To help us stop our painful and hopeless arguments with reality, Byron Katie gives us much more, or much less, than another psychological Band-Aid or superficial pep-talk. She gives us The Work, four penetrating questions that, when asked sincerely, can help anyone tear through years of painful beliefs -"I'm too fat." "My partner should love me more." etc.-leaving the peace and freedom that come naturally from "loving what is."

I found The Work a little slippery to understand the first time I heard of it (it's been spreading through word of mouth for years). How can asking myself some questions make any difference? But after I did it, I was blown away! Loving What Is makes learning this process fairly simple, through detailed instructional material, humorous anecdotes (Katie is famous for her sense of humor), and dozens of powerful examples of The Work in action. Co-author Stephen Mitchell's intelligence and precision are evident in the book's seamless structure, and in how naturally Katie's clarity and warmth make it to the page. This book still requires "active" reading-and you have to do The Work yourself in order to really get it-but for those who are willing to try something new, Loving What Is really could change your life. It changed mine. (I highly recommend the audiobook as well.)

You know how as you get older you start talking and acting like your parents in certain ways? You don't get up one day and decide you're going to be like your mother or father. It's a process that seems to happen on its own. Reading Byron Katie's Loving What Is, is like that.You easily pick-up on it and find yourself naturally, imperceptibly, using her methods.

This book takes the stuff of life -- family, marriage, children, money, addictions, friends, lovers, judgments of self and life, fear, pain, anger, worry, and the thoughts the mind is constantly generating -- and it shows you how to free yourself from the stresses they impose. It shows you how to take things that bother you and make them not bother you. It frees you from that.

The Work, as Katie's method is called, is easy to do. Nothing beyond the book is required.

In The Work, you start with the worksheet. The purpose of the worksheet is to bring your mind to paper. You start by judging people. Later you judge thoughts, issues, self-judgments. You start with a person. You write down what angers, saddens, disappoints you about that person. How do you want them to change? What do they need to give you? What do you think of this person? What don't you want to experience with this person again? These are only a few of the questions on the worksheet.

Next you investigate each statement in the worksheet by exposing it to four questions. For each statement you ask, (1) Is it true? (2) Can you absolutely know that it's true? (3) How do you react when you think that thought? (4) Who would you be without that thought?

The four questions allow one to look at the source of pain and stress.

Finally you turn around each statement so that instead of judging another person, you are judging yourself. "Bill angers me," can be turned around to, "I anger me," or "I anger Bill," or "Bill doesn't anger me." With the turnaround comes the key to healing because it is a look into reality.

The worksheet presents the situation of stress and pain. The four questions reveal the source of stress and pain. The turnaround shows what the reality is, and with this comes healing.

The book features in-depth examples of The Work in action. The most stressful and difficult human situations are handled. Loving What Is is also available in audio edition, which is an effective way of absorbing The Work.

The most important quality of The Work is that it feels natural. Katie says over and over again that she is a "lover of reality." The Work comes out of reality and takes the user to reality.

Jerry Katz
One: Essential Writings on Nonduality

I bought this book mainly because of my respect for Stephen Mitchell, Katie's husband, who provides a compelling forward. The idea of inquiry is valid and helpful, and I am definitely going to examine some relationships in my life by her method.

BUT...she carries the "work" to an extreme and tries to make it apply every time for every person. It crosses well over the border between peaceful acceptance and flat out denial. Like it or not, there are things in life that can't be rationalized away. The idea that "no person ever hurt another person" or did a wrong thing -- that's ludicrous. I agree that I have a choice about how I react when someone hits me in the head with a baseball bat, but that doesn't mean I can choose not to have a lump on my head or that I should convince myself that everything is groovy all the time. And I agree with another reveiwer who said that she pushes people toward answers that validate her methods, especially with the "should/should not" stuff. Saying "Bill hit me in the head with a baseball bat" is not the same as saying "Bill SHOULD hit me in the head with a baseball bat." Katie's assertion that everything is as it should be reminds me of the myopic schoolmaster in "Candide." (Life is happiness indeed!)

The so-called "work" is a potentially powerful tool. It's going to do a lot of people a lot of good -- but in certain situations, it could be very harmful. To hear an example of Katie in action, go to her website www.thework.org.