The Work of Byron Katie

"In this rich interview, Nicki, from Essence of Life in Israel, asks Byron Katie many questions, including 'Is it necessary to suffer in order to awaken?' 'In what, if any, situation do you feel judgment is necessary?' 'Isn't it true that through non-acceptance of our demons and dragons we can grow and heal?' 'Where is the line drawn between self-love and ego?' and 'How do we deal with closed-minded people?' For more information, visit thework.com."

"Byron Katie joins Barnet and Freeman for a powerful conversation about our need to know that we matter. Insecure thoughts tend to attach to outcomes that we believe make us matter. The truth is that our mattering is innate – no one or nothing can make us matter and no one can take it away. For more information, visit thework.com."

"'Merlin's Diary founder Barry Durdant-Hollamby and podcast co-host Neil del Strother interview Byron Katie about her extraordinary journey. 'The world is as we believe it to be, so when the mind finds peace with itself, it finds peace with the world.' For more information, visit thework.com."

"'It's amazing,' a man says when he describes what he has done to avoid feeling fear. 'I've pushed it down and run and hid and done anything to get rid of it.' But when he examines his feeling, he discovers that what he thought was fear may be excitement. 'People pay money at the movies so that they can feel that,' Byron Katie says. 'You never know what a feeling is. When you welcome feelings with judgment, you may be surprised at what they can give you.' For more information, visit thework.com."

"Ed and Deb Shapiro interview Byron Katie, creator of The Work, a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause all the anger, fear, and depression in the world. Katie explains what it means to love what is and how to use The Work to question any worry you may have and find peace. For more information, visit thework.com."

"Your heart is racing: the worst that can possibly happen has happened. Watch as a man finds the surprising turnarounds and release from the many stories that we can't imagine are anything but true. A mind opening video not to be missed. For more information, visit thework.com."

"This interview was recorded in Byron Katie's hotel room prior to a public workshop in Seattle. Beneath the guise of "suburban sage" beats the heart of Lao Tsu, Ramana Maharshi, Adi Shankara… Here in a moment, the simplicity of awakening is explained.  For more information, visit thework.com."

'We are all innocent of the things we regret doing,' Byron Katie says, 'because we were believing our thoughts at the time. We either believe our thoughts or we question them—there is no other choice.' When we question the thoughts that cause hurtful behavior, we change the behavior, and we discover our own innocence. Discovering our innocence, we discover the innocence of those who have hurt us, and forgiveness becomes as natural as breathing. For more information, visit thework.com.

Katie responds to a question from a participant at the Forgiveness Workshop in Ojai, California in Sept. of 2009. For more information, visit thework.com.

A woman says that she is devastated because her son refuses to see her or let her see her three grandchildren. But when she questions her thoughts, with Byron Katie's help, she begins to see another reality, her heart opens, and she understands that she can make things right. For more information, visit thework.com.

Byron Katie talks with blogger Curt Rosengren about productivity and success — and how the creative mind is based not on its activities but on a fundamental stillness. Rosenberg’s blog, the Ripple Revolution, is founded on questions: What lights me up? What difference do I feel called to make? How do I weave that into a career and a life that energizes and inspires me? Compatibly, Katie’s method, called The Work, is comprised of questions, four of them, which test the stressful thoughts that are the cause of all suffering. Katie’s is an iconoclastic approach, based not on any belief system, but rather on living above and beyond beliefs, particularly those that hold one back from being, as Rosengren puts it, lit up and inspired.“The Work lets you see through any kind of stress. It shows you what true success is, at every moment in your life, and it even gives you specific directions on how to achieve it. These directions come from your own internal wisdom, no one else’s,” she tells Rosengren. The motivation, she says, comes not from adapting inspiring beliefs but by simply questioning the beliefs that cause stress, some of which are deeply ingrained, such as the idea “I can’t do it.” When a belief like this is examined closely, either alone or with the help of a facilitator, it can vanish like a dream, leaving a state of fearlessness — often in a short time, she says. Rosengren replies that he has used The Work and has been startled at how his perspective shifts. “Let’s say I believe that I can’t do something that I want to do,” Katie explains, and then she gives examples of the toll on emotion, energy, and passion that this belief engenders, how it can spin itself into a personal religion of impotence. But when you question the truth of a thought, realize the cause-and-effect of believing it, and see who you would be without it, a new perspective unfolds. The final step in The Work is to experience the exact opposite of the belief. Katie calls this the turnaround, a word defined in the Oxford dictionary as “an abrupt or unexpected change, especially one that results in a more favorable situation.” She tells Rosengren that the turnaround is all of that and more. ”I turn the belief around to ‘I can do it,’ and then I find at least three genuine, specific examples of how that’s true in my life.” By noticing exactly how a particular thought controls your mind, seeing clearly what your life would look like if you didn’t believe that thought, and immersing yourself in the turnarounds, the truth of the situation is revealed where before there was only an assumption and a predicament. “To accomplish the thing that you have a passion for, you continue to examine these debilitating thoughts and continue that, one thought at a time. The worst thing that can happen is that you fail, which puts you in the position you’re in right now. So you have nothing to lose. But what an exciting life in the meantime!” Katie makes the case that The Work is simple. It has no requirements, just a pen, paper, and an open mind. Its four questions are: Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true? How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? and Who would you be without the thought? But she emphasizes that simple is not effortless. “I don’t call it The Work for nothing. It takes stillness. It takes honesty,” she says. “Some people think that they don’t have time to get still, but that is just because they’re believing one more self-limiting thought. The ego gets to rule, and they’re stuck with the identity that they don’t have time for this. But however we think we can’t do it, however we think we’re failing, none of us are. We’re all doing the best we can. Of that I’m sure.” The impetus for doing The Work can be a stressful emotion that acts as “a little temple bell that tells us it’s time to do The Work,” she says. Often the coping mechanism for discomfort and fear is distraction through changing activities or using whatever is available to smother uneasy feelings. “We try to override them. We deny them or bury them or shift what we’re doing, we reach for the cigarette or alcohol or sugar or credit card. But at some point, after a lot of suffering, I had to look at what created these feelings in the first place. Through inquiry I began to notice that nothing was holding me back, and, Curt, when I say that nothing was holding me back, I’m really serious. I would question anything that would hold me back, because to be held back from the world is separation, and the cause of separation can’t be anyone or anything else. I am always the cause of it. Nothing else is possible.” Katie mentions that her methodology is offered on her website, thework.com, free of charge, and that she also offers public events and a nine-day school, a total immersion in The Work. “Happiness is our birthright. And only what we are thinking and believing costs us our birthright. But when we question the stressful thoughts, everything changes. ‘I can’t do it.’ Turn it around. ‘I can do it.’ This is not just a sunny positive affirmation. The four questions educate you to your own suffering. The examples for the turnaround ground in the actual situation of your life. So you can test it, and for all of you who have been afraid to accomplish that thing you have passion for, you continue to find those examples, one at a time.” Rosengren asks Katie what is her passion. She says it is working with people who have suffered from limiting beliefs and witnessing them grow beyond their suffering, sometimes in a matter of minutes. “What excites me is not having one fearful thought about what I love. And we can have that in any occupation we choose.“ “We have no idea of the paradise we live in, the paradise we miss until our minds are clear enough to notice it,” Katie says. “The end of suffering is what excites me.” For more information, visit thework.com.

Byron Katie has one job: to show people how to stop suffering. When Katie appears, lives change. In 1986, at the bottom of a ten-year spiral into depression, rage, and self-loathing, Katie woke up one morning to a state of constant joy that has never left her. She realized that when she believed her stressful thoughts, she suffered, but that when she questioned them, she didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Her simple yet powerful process of inquiry is called The Work. The Work consists of four questions and the turnarounds, which are a way of experiencing the opposite of what you believe. When you question a thought, you see around it to the choices beyond suffering. Katie has been bringing The Work to millions of people for more than twenty-five years. Her public events, weekend workshops, five-day intensives, nine-day School for The Work, and 28-day residential Turnaround House have brought freedom to people all over the world. Byron Katie's six books include the bestselling Loving What Is, I Need Your Love—Is That True?, and A Thousand Names for Joy. For more information, visit thework.com.

Byron Katie invites you to become still and remember an argument that caused you to feel depressed, resentful, angry, or hurt. She then helps you notice what actually happened so that you can fill in a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet as accurately as possible.This kind of noticing is the best preparation for writing down your stressful thoughts, then questioning them using the four questions and the turnarounds of The Work. (The Worksheet was introduced in Katie's bestselling book Loving What Is.) For more information visit thework.com

Waylon Lewis of Elephant Journal talks with spiritual innovator Byron Katie about her simple yet powerful process of inquiry called The Work. Byron Katie shows us how to change our lives from the inside out. For more visit:www.thework.com,  www.elephantjournal.com

In investigating his grievances about the lies a friend has been telling him, a man makes an astonishing discovery. He sees that all his wounds are self-inflicted, all his suffering is caused by his own unexamined thoughts. Inquiry provides him with the integrity and kindness he was demanding from his friend. "Give me a world of liars," Katie says, '"if that's the way to my own peace." For more information visit thework.com