This book about blew the top of my head off.

Numerous times I had to sit back and contemplate the book for a long long time before I felt prepared to continue.

I recommend this to EVERYBODY. It's another one of those books that would improve the world by major leaps and bounds if everybody read it.

It took years to correct the thought patterns and the way I felt about myself and others. In Byron Katie's book with Stephen Mitchell, Loving What Is: Four questions that can change your life, the light came on. I searched my soul for the truth, and it enlightened every situation around me by me doing the 'work' of writing it down. I found out the reasoning behind- why I was being paranoid, and- why I made such rash judgments. Byron Katie invites you to discover the reality in your life, how you react to it, feel about it, then turn it around. Doing "The Work," I no longer hold onto false statements that support my paranoid thoughts. Each day, I am growing with my healthier beliefs as I keep a journal on everything I feel needs my attention. This book is a must read for people of all walks of life.

This is a hard review. Her book (and her questions, but mostly her interviews-as-examples) have the potential to help a lot of people deal with interpersonal issues (that she boils down to inner-personal). The problem I have is the potentially dangerous way that she applies a universal logic to dealing with complex problems. The questions are general enough, and the answers are supposed to be generated by the people answering them. Still, she makes it quite clear from the numerous case studies in the book (examples from her workshops) that it's all about owning the bad things that happen to you. My concern is for the danger of applying this technique to (an admittedly small number of) extreme cases, such as those who are victims of crime. The dialogues follow a predictable pattern and if mapped onto, say, a rape victim, would end with the rape victim "turning it around" and concluding things such as "I hate myself for being raped" or if you really bungle the "turn-around": "I raped myself." Clearly this is not Byron's intent, but a mass-market paperback in the self-help section is a potentially tragic lure for people who self-treat despite needing the help of a serious professional.

That said, I can't help but admit that the book provides a structure to dealing with conflicts and issues. This structure, whether or not I like it, changed me (as books should) in a small way. Probably more the case-studies than the narrative... The case-studies revealed the complexities of the technique in ways that the oversimplified narrative could not. Hmmm... two stars? Is that really true?

Heard great things and watched a film clip of Byron Katie on Oprah. What she said made some sense, so I bought the book.

Stopped reading at page 55. The recommendations in this book are potentially harmful. I would not put any stock in it.

This reviewer found 12 potentially positive aspects and 37 potentially harmful aspects!
http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpr...

I truly bought into what she was saying with the first chapter and did a practice exercise, but something did not seem right. I had major objections when on page 34:

"Paul came into the room and saw me, and he stormed up to me, shouting, 'Jesus Christ, Kate, what the hell is the matter with you?' ... So I said, 'Sweetheart, the matter with me is that I had the thought that you shouldn't be shouting, and it didn't feel right. Thank you for asking. Now it feels right again.'"

So it is okay for her husband to yell at her like that? That is verbal abuse! As a survivor of an abusive relationship, I cannot take any advice from someone who excuses another person's abusive behavior.

Please read more negative reviews on this book before purchasing! Don't put your very personal thoughts and emotions into Byron Katie's hands!

Goed boek, met een heldere methode waarbij je je eigen gedachten kunt onderzoeken en met meer liefde en vrede naar jezelf en de wereld kunt kijken. Ik raad het aan aan iedereen die met negatieve gedachten worsteld. Of mensen die zelfreflectie, zelfverbetering of coaching en psychologie interessant vinden.

"Het is niet het probleem dat ons lijden veroorzaakt, het is onze gedachte over dat probleem"

In het begin vond ik het een lastige methode en wilde ik te snel naar de 'omkering', wat frustratie opleverde. Later in het boek werd specifiek aangegeven dat je deze methode niet in je hoofd moet doen en niet te snel naar de omkering moet gaan. Als je ermee begint, moet je het echt opschrijven en voor je zien.

Een paar bladzijdes in het boek worden de vragen duidelijk door middel van een dialog die Katie heeft met een vrouw die ze door "the work" (haar methode) helpt. In het begin vond ik het best lastig om de vragen die ze tussendoor stelt los te zien van de 4 vragen waar de methode uit bestaat en voelt het als een 'normaal' coached gesprek. Iemand die naar je luistert en vraagt om je gedachten te bevragen.

De methode is makkelijk, maar dat maakt juist dat iedereen dit met weinig moeten kan begrijpen. Ik ben geïnteresseerd in positieve psychologie en dat dit voor iedereen beschikbaar is. Dit boek en de methode passen hier helemaal bij.

De 4 vragen:
1. Is het waar?
2. Kun je absoluut weten dat het waar is?
3. Hoe reageert je wanneer je die gedachte hebt?
4. Wie zou je zijn zonder die gedachte?

A 4-question framework that could change your life.

“The 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.”

~ Byron Katie from Loving What Is

THAT, in a nutshell, is the book.

If you want to argue with what is, you will suffer. Period. In fact, “If you want reality to be different than what it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.” :)

The question, of course, is “How can we get to a point where we actually ‘love what is?’”

Enter: The Work.

Some of my favorite big ideas from this book include:

1. Don’t Argue with Reality - You'll lose.
2. Whose Business - Are you in?
3. Alarm Clocks - Set a compassionate one.
4. Your Projector’s Lens - And lint.
5. Inquiry/The Work - 4 Questions + turnaround.
6. Believing Lies - Who would you be if...
7. Every Story’s Theme - Should should should.
8. One Prayer - Spare me, please!
9. Insanity - Shoulding again?
10. Carpenter’s Level - Where’s the bubble?
11. Stock Market - Invest in yourself.
12. Doing Dishes - What’s the next thing?
13. Nothing Goes Wrong - Ever. Let’s embrace that.

I’ve summarized those Big Ideas in a video review that you can watch here: https://youtu.be/yRF4zypaavo?feature=...

I’ve also added Loving What Is by Byron Katie to my collection of Philosopher’s Notes--distilling the Big Ideas into 6-page PDF and 20-minute MP3s on 600+ of the BEST self-development books ever. You can get access to all of those plus a TON more over at https://heroic.us.

As other readers have stated, this book was really hard to review. I didn't feel that the author was truly honest, for some reason. She presents herself as completely altruistic, but the dynasty that she is building through "the Work" doesn't seem to support that hypothesis. She comes off as a bit of a New Age nut, and the book is a little silly in parts.

But I have to admit that the four questions were insightful and actually helped me to see through a lot of issues I have been dealing with lately. I think that the questions are basic stuff for those familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy, but for some reason Katie's four particular questions really work. What the process did for me was to help me clarify my part in the difficulties I was facing so I could let the rest go. Maybe the book wouldn't be so interesting to others who are already are more self-aware than I am, but I liked learning to be more honest with myself. I think many people would be surprised to find the stress and frustration that they think others are causing are actually self-generated. Learning to ask myself "Can I really know that is true?", "How do I behave when I think that thought?", "Who would I be without that thought?" and "Is there any stress-free reason to keep thinking it?" will definitely become part of my self-talk from now on.

This was a helpful book and I'm glad I read it. However, I get really annoyed when a person with a great solution to some problems then says it's the solution to ALL problems especially when they back up that conviction mostly with their own personal experience. **Insert religion/diet/exercise regime/spiritual practice here** transformed every aspect of my life so you should do it to and if you don't get the same result, you must be doing it wrong! Unfortunately there was a lot of the above in this book.

Essentially, Katie's premise is that a powerful way for people to find agency in their lives and reduce (she would actually say eliminate) suffering is to apply her method of inquiry to any problematic thought. Her technique is to isolate a thought that causes discomfort or stress, think about if it true, double check it's truth, ask what reaction/feeling that thought causes, ask who you would be without that thought, and then come up with "turnarounds" or statements that contradict the original thought to see if it is as true or truer than the original.

I think this technique is definitely helpful if the thoughts center around a judgment, when reality doesn't meet expectations, or in cases where a person is ruminating on a past event/situation that they can no longer influence. In every example that Katie uses to show the success of her method, the participant essentially re-writes their thought until it is more pleasing/less stressful or decides to trade in that thought for positive action or the next right step. In cases where the story a person has crafted about a situation is more harmful than the situation itself, she basically gives people a "logical" way to re-write their narrative so that they instead believe in a less uncomfortable or stressful story and therefore ease their suffering.

In this practice the thought that causes the least stress/most peace is considered to be the most true -- which isn't necessarily true. So the irony there is amusing and I'm down to concede that if you can pick between a bunch of thoughts and decide which one is true, then definitely pick the thought/truth that makes you feel the best.

What I found less amusing and potentially problematic is how Katie included examples of people who survived war, rape, incest, the death of a loved one etc., who apply her technique and find peace. She uses these extreme cases to emphasize how her method can heal ANY situation. I personally found these case studies cringey and very narrow sighted. I understand how she's essentially saying since people can't control reality (traumas people experience) but can revise their thoughts thanks to her system of inquiry, that people should use her method to not compound the pain of trauma and find peace. That's admirable, I get it, but I think she grossly oversimplifies the causes of suffering, its purpose (is there one?), and consequences. People aren't just thinking beings. We also feel and so much of our behavior is truly automatic that no amount of inquiry could heal the somatic and unconscious effects of negative experiences. But in Katie's system, there's no room for these considerations. Simply out-think your stress and if you can't, then you're doing it wrong/not ready for "the work."

She'll even use her "turnaround" statement for survivors to put themselves in the position of the perpetrator, an exercise that hopefully at its heart is meant to create shared humanity and understanding which would then lead to forgiveness, but which seems incredibly inconsiderate and unnecessary. It also lacks nuance. The survivor recognizing that they too have violated a person because they took advantage of someone's naïveté (lying about their whereabouts, stealing, etc.) is not that same as the violation of a rape or bombing. I'm sure Katie recognizes the differences in magnitude and effect of these situations but for the purpose of "doing the work," they're not worth investigating. Just keep inquiring until you've chosen a thought that makes you feel good! As you can see, if applied haphazardly I feel like this could create a lot of people in denial and justify a lot of spiritual bypassing.

Ultimately, this book offers the same thing as our thoughts: the opportunity to take what serves you and let go of what doesn't.

Something about this approach bothers me very much. It's a circular way of thinking that seems to make everything your fault. I will not be going back to read any more of this. It just doesn't work for me. One of the parts that really bothered me, and this was early on in the book, was something like this: I'm bothered because my husband is a slob and he never picks up his socks. The author then goes through her series of questions/interview and somehow turns it around so that the person should either decide that it doesn't bother her, or deal with it and pick up the socks herself. That is such a stupid way of facing/dealing with problems to me. I think the first approach can sometimes work in certain situations. We may become upset about something or decide it's a big problem, when we can in fact decide that it's not important enough to put so much energy into being upset about. But a lot of this seems to make it the individual's fault in a way that is very blaming to me. Nope. Not going for it.

It took me a full year before I read this book. It sat on my shelf, waiting for me. And after a personal tragedy, I picked it up and needed help to "love what was." This book really helped me for a couple weeks, and I gobbled it up, hungry to ease the pain I was feeling.

I watched a lot of Byron Katie videos on Youtube, enchanted by her gentle voice and "sweetheart" for everyone she talks to. There is much to love about her and she shares a lot of truth.

But something doesn't sit quite right with me and The Work. I don't believe everything can be solved by asking four questions/changing our mindset. We surely can shift our perspectives and accept reality. But Katie's claim is that there is no right, no wrong, no abuse, no crime, no afterlife, no God -- all we can count on is what we can see, hear, touch, etc. As a spiritual and religious person, I choose not to accept the entirety of Katie's framework, but I'm glad she's helping many people.

This book teaches the same thing that Bonds that Make us Free teaches, or Anatomy of Peace, yet it's more like "how to get out of the box in four steps" to put it in the language of Bonds. It's stated simply, yet very powerful if I can apply it. Encourages writing what your thoughts are as a way of working through to the truth of your thoughts. 20% of it is her message, the rest is dialogue between her and others doing "the work".

Very interesting book. The author was in deep depression until she had a big 'aha' moment, and turned her life around by asking herself four basic questions about everything that hurt, saddened or angered her.

This book shows how anyone can do the same, to get rid of frustrations, irritations and hurt from the past. It may seem simplistic or unrealistic, but it's pretty powerful stuff, albeit not really anything other than accepting what is, and looking around problems rather than being stuck in one viewpoint.

Rather more of a Buddhist/New Age feel than I'm entirely comfortable with, but that's only a tiny part. Relevant to anyone, and definitely recommended. Four and a half stars if possible.