Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie, Stephen Mitchell

Loving What Is by bestselling author Byron Katie is a simple, straightforward antidote to the suffering we unnecessarily create for ourselves and has inspired and help millions of people transform their pain into freedom. Written in an easy-to-follow, interactive and accessible way and drawing on illustrative case studies, reading this is the first step to turning your life around and achieving inner peace and harmony...'A great blessing for our planet' -- Eckhart Tolle'Her method can cut through years of self-delusion and rationalisation' -- Los Angeles Times'A pragmatic and simple way of getting people to take responsibility for their own problems' -- Time Magazine'Mind blown - [this is the] best book I have read of this type since Power of Now. Really helped me to let go of beliefs and judgements that aren't serving me. Thanks for writing it.' -- ***** Reader review'Amazing, life changing' -- ***** Reader review'A massively inspiring book' -- ***** Reader review'Very easy to read and an absolute gem!' -- ***** Reader review'Life changing (really)' -- ***** Reader review*****************************************************************************************************A thought is harmless unless we believe itDrawing on her own experience of moving through suffering to freedom, Byron Katie developed 'The Work': a simple, four-step programme to help pinpoint the problems that are troubling you and how to tackle them effectively.A life-transforming system for discarding the stories at the source of our suffering, this is your guide to finding inner peace and happiness.Review...a revolutionary way to live your life. The question is: are we brave enough to accept it? -- Erica Jong...a pragmatic and simple way of getting people to take responsibility for their own problems. Time MagazineAbout the AuthorByron Katie is the author of bestsellers Loving What Is, I Need Your Love - Is That True? and A Thousand Names for Joy. She is renowned for her creation of 'The Work', a four-step method of self-inquiry.Katie's co-author, Stephen Mitchell, is the author of many bestselling works including Tao Te Ching, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Gilgamesh, The Gospel According to Jesus, The Book of Job, The Second Book of the Tao, The Iliad, and The Odyssey. He lives with his wife in Berkeley, California.Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.1.A Few Basic PrinciplesWhat I love about The Work is that it allows you to go inside and find your own happiness, to experience what already exists within you, unchanging, immovable, ever-present, ever-waiting. No teacher is necessary. You are the teacher you ve been waiting for. You are the one who can end your own suffering.I often say, Don t believe anything I say. I want you to discover what s true for you, not for me. Still, many people have found the following principles to be helpful for getting started in The Work.Noticing When Your Thoughts Argue with RealityThe only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. You can try and try, and in the end the cat will look up at you and say, Meow. Wanting reality to be different than it is is hopeless. You can spend the rest of your life trying to teach a cat to bark.And yet, if you pay attention, you ll notice that you think thoughts like this dozens of times a day. People should be kinder. Children should be well-behaved. My neighbors should take better care of their lawn. The line at the grocery store should move faster. My husband (or wife) should agree with me. 'I should be thinner (or prettier or more successful). These thoughts are ways of wanting reality to be different than it is. If you think that this sounds depressing, you re right. All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.After I woke up to reality in 1986, people often referred to me as the woman who made friends with the wind. Barstow is a desert town where the wind blows a lot of the time, and everyone hated it; people even moved from there because they couldn t stand the wind. The reason I made friends with the wind, with reality, is that I discovered I didn t have a choice. I realized that it s quite insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose, but only 100 percent of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It s blowing!People new to The Work often say to me, But it would be disempowering to stop my argument with reality. If I simply accept reality, I ll become passive. I may even lose the desire to act. I answer them with a question: Can you really know that that s true? Which is more empowering?, I wish I hadn t lost my job or I lost my job; what can I do now? The Work reveals that what you think shouldn t have happened should have happened. It should have happened because it did, and no thinking in the world can change it. This doesn t mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance and without the confusion of your inner struggle. No one wants their children to get sick, no one wants to be in a car accident; but when these things happen, how can it be helpful to mentally argue with them? We know better than to do that, yet we do it, because we don t know how to stop.I am a lover of what is, not because I m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. We don t feel natural or balanced. When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.