I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead [Paperback]

Byron Katie (Author), Michael Katz (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 28, 2006

In Loving What Is, bestselling author Byron Katie introduced thousands of people to her simple and profound method of finding happiness through questioning the mind. Now, I Need Your Love—Is That True? examines a universal, age-old source of anxiety: our relationships with others. In this groundbreaking book, Katie helps you question everything you have been taught to do to gain love and approval. In doing this, you discover how to find genuine love and connection.

The usual advice offered in self-help books and reinforced by our culture advocates a stressful, all-consuming quest for love and approval. We are advised to learn self-marketing and manipulative skills—how to attract, impress, seduce, and often pretend to be something we aren’t. This approach doesn’t work. It leaves millions of walking wounded—those who, having failed to find love or appreciation, blame themselves and conclude that they are unworthy of love.

I Need Your Love—Is That True? helps you illuminate every area in your life where you seem to lack what you long for most—the love of your spouse, the respect of your child, a lover’s tenderness, or the esteem of your boss. Through its penetrating inquiry, you will quickly discover the falseness of the accepted ways of seeking love and approval, and also of the mythology that equates love with need. Using the method in this book, you will inquire into painful beliefs that you’ve based your whole life on—and be delighted to see them evaporate. Katie shows you how unraveling the knots in the search for love, approval, and appreciation brings real love and puts you in charge of your own happiness.


“Everyone agrees that love is wonderful, except when it’s terrible. People spend their whole lives tantalized by love—seeking it, trying to hold on to it, or trying to get over it. Not far behind love, as major preoccupations, come approval and appreciation. From childhood on, most people spend much of their energy in a relentless pursuit of these things, trying out different methods to be noticed, to please, to impress, and to win other people’s love, thinking that’s just the way life is. This effort can become so constant and unquestioned that we barely notice it anymore.

This book takes a close look at what works and what doesn’t in the quest for love and approval. It will help you find a way to be happier in love and more effective in all your relationships. What you learn here will bring fulfillment to all kinds of relationships, including romantic love, dating, marriage, work, and friendship.” —Byron Katie


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Katie reintroduces the form of self-questioning called "The Work" that she originally presented in Loving What Is, but here she tackles relationships—and what spoils them. According to Katie (writing with the help of Katz, who is also her agent), rather than seeking love and approval from others, you need to find them in yourself. What often blocks that love is one's perception of reality: "If you believe your stressful thoughts, your life is filled with stress. But if you question your thoughts, you come to love your life and everyone in it." "The Work" is central to the process of taking a judgmental thought—such as "my partner is supposed to make me happy"—and subjecting it to four powerful questions, such as "Is it true?" and "Who or what would I be without the thought?" Then Katie suggests turning the thought around and considering different options, such as making yourself happy and making your partner happy. Finally, she suggests ways to find love and acceptance in yourself. Katie's chatty style and her use of detailed dialogues and simple exercises will make many readers feel transformation is inevitable. (On sale Mar. 22)Forecast:A 15-city author tour should help launch this to the sales levels of Loving What Is (110,000 copies in cloth and paper).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Katie's first self-help book, Loving What Is (2001), was a best-seller. This volume applies her method, called "the Work," and uses it to help readers resolve issues concerning love. The Work consists of asking oneself three questions about a troubling issue and then turning the premise around and asking the opposite questions. Adherents of this technique who read the first book probably don't need this one, since it covers much of the same territory. As before, the text takes the form of dialogues between Katie and those practicing the Work, thus demonstrating how asking the questions and evaluating the answers yield results. For instance, a woman who felt her father didn't love her gains insights about her own attitudes toward him and herself through asking not why didn't he love her but why didn't she love him. This technique seems so simple that it's hard to make a whole book out of it, but like most self-help gurus, Katie, with the aid of coauthor Katz, manages just fine. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (November 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307345300
• ISBN-13: 978-0307345301
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Byron Katie (she was born Byron Kathleen Reid; everyone calls her Katie) has one job: to teach people how to end their own suffering. When Katie appears, lives change. As she guides people through her simple yet powerful process of inquiry, called The Work, they find that their stressful beliefs--about life, other people, or themselves--radically shift. Through this process, Katie gives people the tool to set themselves free.

In 1986, at the bottom of a ten-year fall into depression, rage, and self-loathing, Byron Katie woke up one morning to a state of constant joy that has never left her. She realized that when she believed her thoughts she suffered, but when she questioned them, she didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being.

Since then, she has worked with millions of people at free 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."

Byron Katie has written three bestselling books: Loving What Is, I Need Your Love--Is That True?, and A Thousand Names for Joy. Her other books are Question Your Thinking, Change The World; Who Would You Be Without Your Story?; and, for children, Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? She is married to the writer, scholar, and translator Stephen Mitchell.

On her website, www.thework.com, you will find basic information about Katie and The Work, Katie's blog, free materials to download, audio and video clips, a schedule of events, and a free helpline with a network of facilitators.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

166 of 176 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Transformative! June 22, 2005

By Janet Boyer HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

"When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result. Manipulation is separation, and separation is painful. Another person can love you totally in that moment, and you'd have no way of realizing it. If you act from fear, there's no way you can receive love, because you're trapped in a thought about what you have to do for love. Every stressful thought separates you from people." - Byron Katie

Now, more than ever, the "disease to please" runs rampant through every social, economic, and spiritual stratum. Whether seeking to please or appease a boss, parent, teacher, preacher, partner, child, friend, or god, many are on an all-consuming quest for love, appreciation, and approval. Even self-help books add to the striving, encouraging and teaching manipulative skills for attracting, impressing, and seducing others by pretending to be something we aren't.

To put it bluntly, these approaches do not work. Having failed to find love or appreciation from others, millions become the "walking wounded"-blaming themselves and concluding they are unworthy of love. Some authors or gurus go a step further, admonishing individuals to "love yourself" while never addressing the painful root that no amount of bubble baths, candles, or pampering can quell: uninvestigated thoughts.

Byron Katie's revolutionary process of inquiry has transformed thousands of lives across the globe. Featured in her first book Loving What Is - Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, "The Work" involves challenging the uninvestigated thoughts that rule our lives. These chaotic stories-which often begin with a "should"-are the source of havoc, discord, and suffering. When met with four simple questions, stressful thoughts and assumptions disappear, allowing individuals to see a situation-and the people in their lives-in an entirely different light.

In I Need Your Love - Is That True? Katie applies The Work to relationships and the pursuit of love, admiration and respect. Showing how to take charge of our own happiness, she provides a step-by-step process for inquiring into some of the most painful, foundational beliefs that entire lives are built upon. When exposing these thoughts to the bright light of inquiry, clarity, peace and authentic love emerges. We then realize that we already are everything we've been looking for. As Katie says:

"...once you question your thoughts, you discover that you don't have to do anything for love. It was all an innocent misunderstanding. When you want to impress people and win their approval, you're like a child who says, `Look at me! Look at me!' It all comes down to a needy child. When you can love that child and embrace it yourself, the seeking is over."

In the chapter titled The Relationship Workshop, Katie shares actual dialogues of inquiry where she asked the questions and people participating in her workshops and schools answered them. Here are a few of the assumptions they investigated together:

* My Husband Doesn't Care About Fixing Our Relationship
* I'm Unlovable
* My Parents Should Love and Appreciate Me
* My Spiritual Teacher Let Me Down
* I Want Tons of Approval
* My Father Treated Me Badly
* I'll Lose My Girlfriend if I Tell the Truth
* I Need Him to Understand Me
* My Love Should Give Me Sex

With penetrating wisdom, Katie shows us how to come to our own rescue and disentangle love from need. By embracing what is, we refuse to argue with reality. Ironically, we then realize that what we were pursuing was really there all along.

The Work has literally changed my life. One example has been with my son, who was diagnosed with PDD-NOS when he was 3 years old. On the autistic spectrum, my son's behavior-as well as my fretting about his future-brought me much grief and physical distress (including IBS). After investigating the expectations and edicts of "experts" and family, clear wisdom bubbled to the surface from inside. Peace replaced worry and confidence replaced paralysis. I am now able to meet my son with joy and acceptance, loving his uniqueness and beauty. His behavior has changed dramatically, and his amazing progress has been quantified by psychologists. (Not that it matters!) I am convinced that loving what is has provided an atmosphere where he can blossom and thrive-and so can my husband and myself.

Every time I experience a stressful thought that induces anxiety or suffering, I am armed with four simple questions that can literally turn a situation around on a dime.

The more you investigate your thoughts, the easier it gets. You begin to see things for what they really are-reclaiming an innocent, lovable self and the glorious life that you were meant to live. What I said of Katie's first book also holds true for I Need Your Love - Is That True?: it replaces all the self-help books on your shelf because inquiry is the key to emotional freedom and genuine, effortless love.

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)

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "It only takes one clear person to have a good relationship - and you are the one." February 22, 2006

By Lisa Biskup

Format:Audio CD

Katie is such a gift in this world! From a depressed, angry, fearful businesswoman and mother of three, living in the desert of California, to one of the most genuinely loving and real humans around, Katie offers us the opportunity to meet all our stresful thoughts with simple understanding and shows us how to achieve inner peace and clarity. In her first book, Loving What Is, Katie taught us a simple method of self-inquiry she calls The Work. The Work is four questions and what Katie calls a turnaround that can be applied to any thought that causes you stress, pain, frustration, anger and any negative emotion. If peace and happiness is what you are after, The Work is a fast ticket to that wonderful destination. The basic idea is that when we believe what we think, without asking ourselves, we suffer, and when we use The Work to question stressful thoughts, our mind opens and the effect of that is the heart opens as well.

In this new book, I Need Your Love - Is That True? Katie gives us lots of real-life examples of how The Work is being applied to relationship issues. No matter what type of relationship you are in, you may notice that you spend a lot of time wishing things were different. Does your boyfriend leave his dirty underwear lying on the floor? Does your girlfriend spend too much time with her friends and not you? Does your mom criticize you? Is your child "out of control?" These and so many other thoughts come into our mind and when we attach to them, thinking that "s/he or they" should be different, we suffer. And, the interesting part is that this hasn't really ever been very successful. Has anybody ever really changed because you thought they should? Because YOU"D be happier (you think) if they did?

Katie shows us, with so much love and humor, that when we take the time to question these thoughts, thoughts that we never even created, we meet them with understanding. When you notice that you do the same thing you are accusing your husband of doing (sometimes), your mind opens and rather than the typical frustration and anger you feel, you may experience understanding and peace, and you may find that your heart just opens wide up and you feel the love - the unconditional love that so many people speak of.

If you are interested in improving ALL your relationships, I highly recommend I Need Your Love - Is That True? When you realize you are the only one who can make you happy, life gets juicy and so much more fun and interesting. When you realize you are not a victim, you are empowered and the creative, infinite mind begins to take over and whooah hoo - baby! Just kick back and enjoy the ride.

I also recommend attending an event with Katie. She is quite amazing and they are so much fun - life changing for most people and incredibly inspiring as well.

85 of 96 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Something to Consider January 29, 2006

By Casey Dawes

Format:Hardcover

I Need Your Love -- Is That True by Byron Katie with Michael Katz, published by Harmony Books, 2005 (ISBN 1-4000-5107-X)

A client and friend sent me this book as a gift. We had touched on Byron Katie's work during our sessions, so it was appropriate. After reading it, I find I have moments of profound agreement with what Byron Katie says, and yet, I'm not 100% totally comfortable with it.

This book builds on Byron's earlier work in Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life.

I Need Your Love brings these questions to relationships. They are good questions because all too often we assume in relationships. We believe certain things should be true when they obviously aren't. We assume the motive behind what someone does when we haven't the foggiest idea of it's true. I don't know about you, but I've carried on whole conversations with people entirely in my head and been darn mad at them -- even before they've opened their mouths!

Byron also questions our own motives in a relationship. Are we trying to get our partner to do the work on ourselves that we should be doing? Are we needy and seeking approval all the time? Or are we untrue to ourselves because we are doing whatever it takes to get the approval of the other person?

The issue I have with the book is that I come away with the feeling that the entire fabric of a relationship is dependent on me. I also think that the book gives short shrift to real problems in relationships, such as emotional and physical abuse, addictions, etc. If there are children in a relationship, we need to be very aware of the lessons we are teaching them when we do our relationship work. If it's at all possible to make a relationship better, or salvage one that's going through difficulties, Byron's work may help. However, there are times when deciding to end a relationship is appropriate.

We also have our own needs and desires which need to be taken into account. If we have a need to be touched frequently and our spouse is uncomfortable with physical expression of love, it can cause many problems. Saying "He should touch us," isn't a true statement," doesn't solve the problem.

All-in-all, I believe that the book is worth reading, perhaps borrowed from a friend or the library prior to purchase. Byron's work just doesn't resonate with some people. I think it also needs to be read in conjunction with other books on relationships because it isn't a total solution. If your relationship is having serious difficulties, it's also important to reach out to a helping professional.