Customer Reviews

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

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"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)

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.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in doing relationship work, or simply doing work with themselves. This book does not give you a solution to your problems, but a tool you can use to question your inner voice that has fed you deconstructive thoughts for all your life. This tool is so powerful, that you will soon feel that there is no relationship problem you can't master, doing the work. Of course you need to be willing to do the work and work it is every single time, but the results are so rewarding that you soon will almost be looking forward to another bad thought/feeling to attack you, so you can lay it at rest and know what YOU need to give to YOURSELF, in order to be happy. It's mostly the exact thing that you "think" other people are not willing to give you...

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.

When I first discovered Byron Katie and what she calls The Work in 1998, I gave it a cursory look and thought, "That seems like a nice technique." When I got to actually *experience* The Work, I realized that this is much more than some psychological or spiritual tool. What you can discover from investigating your thinking in the deceptively simple way Katie describes is infinitely profound.

This follow up to Katie's "Loving What Is" sheds light on one of most familiar ways of creating misery: seeking love, approval and appreciation. "I Need Your Love" reminds us of how we seek "LAA" in our work, in our intimate relationships, even with total strangers. It gives you a strong taste of the suffering that this seeking can create and, more importantly, an experience of freedom from that suffering. It's filled with examples of Katie doing The Work and people finding something beyond the stories they were living. It also has exercises that, if you do them (as I have) can radically change your life... just like the sub-title says, I found myself seeking less and HAVING more.

If you read only ONE book this year, read this one!
Not only is Byron Katie's clarity and depth of insight unsurpassed, she teaches us her simple and profound method of self-inquiry so we can get this clarity ourselves. After 35 years of concentrated personal and spiritual growth, it has been this book that has given me the keys to free myself from the emotional tensions in my marriage and the rest of my life. Where psychotherapy helps us to make the little jail cell in our head a little more comfortable, Katie helps us to dissolve the jail.
As a therapist, I see Katie's method and approach as a quantum leap to anything we had before. There is no other method I know that is as meticulous, as thorough, and as easy to use on yourself. Just reading the book will do it for you. And after you're done reading there will be a new way of thinking alive in you that has the power to dissolve tension-producing thoughts for the rest of your life. What a gift!
So, if you have tensions in a relationship with anyone, including yourself, this book will set you free. If you want to give anyone a great gift, including yourself, this book is it! Don't miss it!
Ram Giri (aka: Andreas Braun, Ph.D.)

This was a tough book. Katie Byron made a conscious decision to get out of a depressive funk, and tells you all about where she was. She is a brave person. She comes across as being soft and kind, but her writing displays a warrior. She's the kind of person who could tell someone where to go, and they wouldn't even know it - they'd just go. She's saying, we have a part in the abuse we invite in our lives, and we can shift it. Her life, prior to her decision to start shifting things resembles the kind of depression we see many Americans dealing with. Many people shut down entirely as they go through the body-changes of midlife. Some never make it back! Her writing will speak to both men and women; anyone who's known what it's like to subordinate and feels as if he is losing himself. Katie puts forth some tools to reframe our cognitive attitude towards negativity. Why do we hang on to the hurting for so long? It feels familiar, even though it sucks. We hang in there because we are so conditioned to deny our truth. And a lot of our truth is about things like wanting to be loved, approved of, respected. If only we could keep our hearts open, huh? You can find the tools to do that psychic surgery here. Katie also gives several case studies of depression to keep driving her message home - that we can make a decision to end it, and stop being hung up and strung-along by the bogus. I rate this 3, because I was saying "ow!", squelching my own pain all the way. And then, within 3 months? I turned my life around. Working with the material for the last two years, I am also able to perceive when I'm being lied to, or judged, as I have become more tuned-in to when others are closing down, or shutting down their own heart-energy. And I can look into it and start asking them about it. The bottom-line is that we cannot minimize the happiness we desire to feel in our hearts, for it becomes oppressive. And we can fine-tune our relationships when we sense and feel that happening.

I'll admit up front I want your love, approval, and appreciation for this review. But thanks to Katie's book, at least I'm aware of that now. There is a ton of wisdom here: her 4-step inquiry is beginning to unravel all the tenacioius, hidden thoughts that have set the path of my life for the last forty years. It's clearly written and eminently practical. If you're tired of just trying to "be right"; if you want the truth; if you want freedom from all the baggage that comes with seeking love, approval, and appreciation, this is a wonderful book.

If you need a way to investigate your thinking this is the best book available. It is easy - 4 simple questions and a turn around- . Each troubled feeling can be traced to a thought. I do that and then use the 4 simple questions and I find the people I judged had done nothing to me. I did it to myself with my thoughts about them. Amazing!
Especially great for teenagers for increasing their self esteem. But also marvelous for all of us. Thanks Byron Katie Lee Benton

Although I've been using The Work personally and professionally for years, Katie's new book threw me into a tizzy for weeks! I saw myself (and the ways I jump through hoops to get approval, along with my resentments and weird behaviors when I don't get it) on every single page. This is good news; self-awareness is the beginning of better relationships, and the results have been tangible, life feels gentler. Don't let the title fool you, this book isn't about getting your partner or anyone else to love you. Read I NEED YOUR LOVE - IS THAT TRUE?...practice the easy and enjoyable exercises...ground yourself in Byron Katie's remarkable Work (read her first book, Loving What Is)...and you will find the love you needed all along, from the primary relationship, the one you have with yourself.