Loving What Is by Byron Katie

Byron Katie may be the happiest woman on the planet, but she knows what it is to be angry, tired and miserable. Until she “woke up” in a halfway house in 1986 with her mind inexplicably clear and her thinking completely altered from what it had been, she had been depressed, living in an unhappy marriage, and taking out her rage at the world on her husband and her three kids. And then she discovered the breakthrough system she calls The Work, “inquiry” or “four questions that can change your life.”

Katie’s gentle but profound self-questioning is a system she teaches in workshops and through her first book, Loving What Is: Four questions that can change your life (2002). The book is co-authored with her husband, Stephen Mitchell, whom she met while teaching The Work.

What Makes The Work different from Affirmations and other Self-Help Tools?

The strength of The Work is that it helps a sincere questioner to step outside the story that they are living, about their pain or the struggles in their life, and find what is really real and what isn’t. In some ways reminiscent of the Landmark Forum, The Work is unique in the sense of compassion and peace that it imparts along with its breakthrough approach.

Katie comes across as remarkably grounded in clarity of thought and the real single-mindedness of someone who has found peace with herself and is willing to teach, neither to make a living nor out of ambition to change the world, but because she knows something beautiful and is simply happy to share it with those who are open to questioning their deepest secrets, learning about themselves and growing. Loving What Is is a peaceful and empowering read. It’s hard to imagine anyone approaching Katie’s inquiry honestly and not walking away transformed.

“...when I’m clear, I see only beauty. Nothing else is possible.... You don’t drop your thoughts of chaos and suffering out there in the apparent world. You can’t drop them, because you didn’t make them in the first place. But when you meet you thoughts with understanding, the world changes.” (Loving What Is, Katie and Mitchell, 2002 (paperback), pp. 197-198)

What are the Four Questions?

After writing out (on a worksheet or template) all your feelings and thoughts about a problem, frustration, anger, or personal dilemma, Katie guides readers in a process to consider each thought individually.

There are four questions that are always asked, and several more questions that can be helpful if inquiry gets stuck or a new problem arises.

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 the thought?

And then, turn the thought around.

It sounds too simple to work, doesn’t it? But for hundreds of people, with Katie’s approach and her guidance through each of the questions, it does.

What Kinds of Problems Is The Work Helpful With?

The Work can be used to help with just about anything that makes you less than happy. Loving What Is contains dialogues between Katie and participants at her workshops using The Work to help them with relationships, people with whom they were upset, workplace issues, parental abandonment or abuse, and issues relating to money, self-worth, physical ailments, addictions, decision-making, fear of death, and more. Katie teaches The Work through the example of real people’s stories and questions and she also relates stories about using the questions with children and families to create loving peace.

Katie: "I'm a lover of reality, not because I'm a spiritual woman, but because it hurts when I argue with what is."

Related article: Coyote Wisdom: Stories that Heal

Print Article

Email Article

View All Articles

How to subscribe to feeds