I have to admit, I didn't like this book at first.
There's something about her style of questioning and "helping" people that really turned me off.

Glad I gave it a chance and continued on to the end though.
After several sessions of doing the "work" and "turning it around", I began to see the underlying method as well as the key points that made this system work. Each time you see somebody go through the process, it becomes more understandable.

This method promotes very healthy practices like,
-Questioning your reality, which can open the door to change
-"Turn it around". Taking responsibility for your outlook, your reactions, your life
-"Who would you be without it?" Taking time to consider a better version of yourself
-Furthermore, bridging the gap between the person you are and the person you want to be

Might be hard to swallow at first, but this deserves a deeper look.

I think that applying the 4 questions she proposes and particularly the turnarounds of the statements we believe about ourselves, others, and situations that are causing us pain can be helpful in disarming them, lessening their power, and identifying projections. I've already started applying this self-inquiry on myself and the results have been interesting.

That said, the way this approach is used and interpreted at times in this book is quite troubling, such as in the case of an incest survivor where Katie "lovingly" facilitates what amounts to nothing more than victim-blaming. That was very disturbing to read...

Further, while I agree that we need to make peace with whatever is going on in our lives now that we may not be happy about, I think that doing so is necessary to move towards effective positive change. It's not clear to me in this book how having goals and the desire to be an agent of social justice fits into her approach of "accepting reality" and I would have liked to see that addressed better in the FAQ. Surely, she's not proposing downright passivity and social apathy, is she?

I also think this approach corresponds to or addresses an emotional or psychological level of health, whereas she at times wrongly portrays it as being more than that, like a spiritual path in itself. An example of this is the following statement:

"All so-called truths eventually fall away. Every truth is a distortion of what is. If we investigate, we lose even the last truth. And that state, beyond all truths, is true intimacy. That is God-realization."

Oh, really... Is it?

Emotional health and examining our beliefs have a place in human development, of course, but we shouldn't confuse the emotional/psychological with realizing our true nature or "God-realization". When approaches such as this one present themselves as more than what they really are, they can cause confusion for folks who don't know that spiritual development is much more than dealing with emotional issues.

One of the most beneficial books I've ever read.
Top takeaways:
THE WORK:

Is it true? 

Can you absolutely know it's true? 

How do you react when you think that thought? 

Who would you be without the thought/story? 

We are Disturbed not by what happens to us but by our thoughts about what happens. Once you grasp this truth your whole understanding will change.

Allow yourself to be as judgmental and Petty as you really feel. Don't try to be spiritual or kind as The Peddler we can be when we're writing the more likely it is will benefit from the work.

Ask DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH? The truth behind the troubling thoughts. 

IS THAT TRUE? 

CAN YOU ABSOLUTELY KNOW THAT'S TRUE? (Relate to that. In my experience, it'd not the event but your THOUGHTS about the event that are so painful. 

HOW DO YOU REACT WHEN YOU THINK THAT THOUGHT? 

CAN YOU SEE A REASON TO DROP THAT THOUGHT? 

Not asking you to drop that thought, just simply can you see a reason to drop this lie that argued with reality?

CAN YOU FIND A STRESS FREE REASON TO KEEP THIS THOUGHT, THIS LIE? 

CAN YOU SEE A REASON TO DROP THIS THOUGHT? 

WHO WOULD YOU BE WITHOUT THIS THOUGHT? 

It's not the issue that's causing the problem, it's your THOUGHTS about the issue because you haven't investigated them to see that they oppose reality in the moment.

THE TURN AROUND. SAY THE OPPOSITE! 

Notice when your thoughts argue with reality!

Wanting reality to be different than it is is hopeless. 

All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is. These thoughts of wanting what should be our ways of wanting reality to be different than it is.

When I argue with reality I lose but only 100% of the time.

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: Mine. Yours. God's (reality). 

Reality is God because it rules.

Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business. 

Every time in my life that I felt hurt or lonely I have been in someone else's business.

Next time you feel stressed or discomfort ask yourself whose business you're in mentally and you may burst out laughing.

MEET YOUR THOUGHTS WITH UNDERSTANDING! 

A thought is harmless unless we believe it as it's the attachment to our thoughts that causes suffering.

Attaching to a thought means believing it's true without inquiring.

A belief is a thought that we've been attaching to often for years. 

Thoughts are like the breeze or falling raindrops. They appear and through inquiry we can make friends with them. 

Would you argue with a raindrop?

Become aware of your stories so you may look for the thought behind the suffering. 

We reach for drugs to find temporary comfort and the illusion of control. 

Depression is a gift that says you're living in a story that isn't true for you. 

You're either attaching to your thoughts or inquiring. 

THE WORKSHEET:

Who angers, confuses, saddens, or disappoints you and why? What is it about then you don't like? 

I don't like Paul because he doesn't listen to me. I'm I don't like Paul because he doesn't listen to me. I'm angry at Paul because he doesn't appreciate me. I'm angry at Paul because he wakes me at midnight it doesn't care about my health. He argues with everything I say. I'm saddened by Paul because he's so angry.

How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do? 

I want Paul to give me his full attention. I want Paul to love me completely and to be considerate of my needs. Paul Paul to agree with me and to get more exercise.

What is it that they should or shouldn't do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer? 

Paul shouldn't watch so much TV and should stop smoking. Paul she told me that he loves me and shouldn't ignore me. You shouldn't criticize me in front of our Paul shouldn't watch so much TV and should stop smoking. Paul she told me that he loves me and shouldn't ignore me. You shouldn't criticize me in front of our children and Friends.

Do you need anything from them? What do they need to do in order for you to be happy? 

I need Paul to listen to me and to stop lying to me and to share to stop lying to me and to share his feelings and to stop lying to me and to share his feelings and be emotionally available and to stop lying to me and to share his feelings and be emotionally available and to be gentle and kind and patient.

What do you think of them? Make a list. 

Paul is dishonest Reckless childish and he thinks he doesn't have to follow the rules. Paul is uncaring and unavailable. Policy responsible.

What is it that you don't want to experience with that person again? 

I refuse to live with Paul if he doesn't change. I refuse to watch Paul ruin his health and don't ever want to argue with him again. I don't ever want to be lied to again.

EX:

The turnaround. I'm angry and saddened at me because I stopped contacting me.

Yes. You've been mentally living in your son's business.

I'm saddened because I don't talk to me.

You don't talk to you because you're mentally over there running his business and then you're feeling all the loneliness of that. The loneliness of not being here for yourself.

EX: I WANT THEM TO INVITE ME. 

Turns Into: I WANT THEM TO ACCEPT ME. 

Turn around: I want to accept myself. 

Q: Why burden them with something you can give to yourself? 

And what I actually want is for me to accept them the way they live.

LESSON: You tell the story of how they invited you and this story makes you happy. Or you tell the story of how they don't invite you and this story makes you sad. 

Nothing is happening but your story. You're deluding yourself with your own uninvestigated thoughts it's their fault I'm happy it's their fault I'm sad and this causes pain and confusion.

INTERNAL WAR LEADS TO EXTERNAL WARS. 

Ex:

He should stop blaming me. 

He should stop blaming you? Is that true? Now you want to control his thinking, even who he should blame? You want to take over your son's whole mind. You know what's best for him. You know what he should be thinking. Excuse me Christopher. Don't think unless I've told you what to think, don't think until I want you to. And then let's work on your wife. And by the way I love you.

FEEDBACK (LOOKING LIKE CRITICISM) IS GOOD. THIS IS HOW YOU LEARN WHAT YOU MAY NOT REALIZED FOR YOURSELF! SAY "WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST?" 

He should stop blaming me TURNS INTO I should stop blaming him turns into I need me to accept him and his way of life TURNS INTO I need to accept myself and I need to accept my way of life! 

Pain is the signal that you're confused, that you're in a lie.

We cause our own problems, only all of them. It's just been a misunderstanding, your misunderstanding, not theirs. Not ever, not even a little. Your happiness is your responsibility.

GIVE ME A STRESS FREE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT THOUGHT! 

WHO WOULD YOU BE IF YOU DIDN'T BELIVE THAT THOUGHT? 

Without a story, Revelations have room to surface from where they have always lived, inside you.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONING:

WHEN YOU THINK IT'S TRUE, A FOLLOW UP QUESTION IS... AND IT MEANS THAT... 

And... WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD HAVE? 

WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COUPD HAPPEN? 

WHAT'S THE SHOULD? 

WHERE'S YOUR PROOF? 

HOW DO YOU REACT WHEN YOU THINK THAT THOUGHT? 

CAN YOU SEE A REASON TO DROP THAT THOUGHT? 

CAN YOU FIND A STRESS FREE REASON TO KEEP THAT THOUGHT? 

WHO WOULD YOU BE WITHOUT THAT THOUGHT? 

THE TURN AROUND! TURN IT AROUND IN YOURSELF. 

3 TYPES OF TURN AROUND: Ex: He should love me. 

Turn around on self. Ex: I should love me. 

Turn around to the other. Ex: I should love him. 

Turn around to the opposite. Ex: He shouldn't love me. 

Reality doesn't wait for our agreement or approval.

THE WORK: JUDGE THEM, WRITE IT DOWN, ASK 4 QUESTIONS, TURN IT AROUND. 

If someone says something that hurts, they're simply revealing what we haven't looked at yet. It's like they're Buddha! 

There's no such thing as verbal abuse, only someone telling me a truth I don't want to hear. 

HOW DO YOU REACT WHEN YOU THINK THAT THOUGHT? 

IF YOU CHOSE TO DROP THIS BELIEF (AND I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD) WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? 

WOULD YOU RATHER BE RIGHT OR FREE? 

Self judgements:

Replace I with MY THINKING. EX: I am a failure turns into "my thinking is a failure."

It's the THOUGHT that's painful, not your life. 

 what I've learned is that without the thought you're not afraid and with the thought you are afraid. So it's not the monster that you're afraid of, it's the thought. This is great news as whenever I'm frightened I know I'm just frightened of a thought.

Beneath the judgments we find thoughts we've believed for years that we use as our fundamental judgements of life called UNDERLYING BELIEFS! 

When you discover an underlying belief, apply the 4 questions to it and then turn it around. 

To have a way to see beyond the illusion of suffering is the greatest gift! 

She says "I'm asking the little boy, is anything not OK? Except for that thought, are you OK? Without the story, you OK? 

Ex: So the bombs have been falling inside you for 55 years, and in reality only 1 incident? So who is kinder, war or you? 

LOOK AT HOW YOU LIVE WHEN YOU BELIEVE THIS STORY. FOR 55 YEARS YOU'VE BEEN FEELING FEAR WITH NO BOMBS. CAN YOU SEE A REASON TO DROP THIS LITTLE BOYS STORY? WHO WOULD YOU BE WITHOUT IT? 

I am very clear that the whole world loves me, I just don't expect them to relalize it yet. 

Nothing lives but a story and when we meet these stories with understanding, we really begin to live without the suffering. 

HOW DO YOU REACT WHEN YOU THINK THAT THOUGHT? 

SUFFERING IS CAUSED BY ATTACHMENT TO A DEEPLY EMBEDDED BELIEF! 

Thoughts lose their power over us when we realize that we aren't doing the thinking anyway.

Absolutely diabolical read. The premise of the book suggests that this is about taking radical responsibility for your own emotions and actions, which doesn’t sound bad in theory. It turns out this is just a story about a woman who practices disembodiment and severe detachment from everything in life. She speaks as though she has been gifted with a revelation from a supernatural entity, but her actions are void of any true connection with the loved ones around her. It was truly alarming.

4.5/5 ⭐

"Lo que nos perturba no es lo que nos ocurre, sino nuestros pensamientos sobre lo que nos ocurre."

Un libro maravilloso que nos hace darnos cuenta cómo nos apegamos de nuestros pensamientos, creencias e historias que nos contamos una y otra vez, Byron Katie nos presenta "El Trabajo" , 4 sencillas preguntas que podemos hacernos cuando nuestra mente esta creyendo lo que nuestros pensamientos estan diciendo, nos recuerda que los pensamientos son como nubes en el cielo, que pasan y se van, cuando nos apegamos alguno de ellos es cuando sufrimos.

Recomendado

Decided to start the year with a re-read of a book that changed my frame of mind back in 2019. The concept is an ancient truth: your thoughts create your suffering.

The Work is a four question inquiry you do to any thought that brings discomfort.

Statement: If my husband loved me, he wouldn’t have cheated on me.

Four Questions:

Is it true?
Can you be absolutely certain that this is true?
Who are you when you think that thought?
How would you feel if you did not think that thought?

Turn the thought around:

If I loved me, I wouldn’t have cheated on me. (I am cheating on me by living inside of someone else’s mind as opposed to my own)

Whenever I’m working on a creative project, the lines of reality blur. I feel extremely open and optimistic and in that, I worry that I am being foolish and opening myself up to pain from others which results in my need to close off. It’s a circular hell not uncommon to most writers. This book is masterful in helping to remind me that there really is no objective reality, life is only what we choose to believe moment to moment and it’s just better to believe in a good thing.

First book down. The goal is to read way more fiction this year and to write a review for each book. We’ll see.

What if four questions could turn your frustration around and create harmony in your life? What if you could ask yourself powerful questions and trust that the process would lead you to inner peace and pain-free existence? What if it really were that simple - not easy, mind you, but simple?

This book has been an awakening in ways that I had not intended to experience. Subtle. Powerful. Inviting. Gripping. Nudging. Original. Oh my, quite the awakening.

In "The Work", Byron Katie takes us through the process of asking four fundamental questions to the difficult, aggravating, frustrating and painful situations in our lives, be it a relationship, a workplace or office situation, a personal dilemma, or an internal conflict. She calls it "putting it to inquiry".

I love how she asks her participants if they want to know the truth. Some of us don't. Some of us like the lies we have made up. Some of us are too attached to those lies, and some of us would never welcome a wake-up call. Some of us imagine falling apart in the face of truth, so we run and hide with the lies.

But if you are not in that category, if you are courageous enough to face your demons with the statement: "I want to know the truth!", then you are the perfect candidate for Byron Katie's brilliant - simply brilliant - inquiry method.

"The Work" is a new level of introspection that I am now using with great results to work through my own personal problems and with my fabulous clients to help them work through some of their challenges. May it shine a light of clarity into your problems too. I am infinitely glad that I read this book.

On April 10th, I invited Ms. Byron Katie to come on to my show, The Daily Interaction podcast, for an interview and she said yes. I interview her in May and can hardly wait. What a treat for me and my listeners. Be sure to look up the show on iTunes and check it out.

5 Stars- This book is like a hug from a therapist. So many useful tips and life strategies. I loved the audio because Katie reads it herself. But I also just bought the hard copy to read and highlight so that I can refer back to it easier. Another great resource to help train your brain.

Libro particolare.
L'autrice ha inventato "Il Lavoro", cioè una serie di quattro domande che ogni persona si dovrebbe porre per "risolvere" i propri pensieri stressanti. A grandi linee il ragionamento alla base è "è vero?" "sei sicuro che è vero?" "come ti senti se non avessi questo pensiero?" "hai un motivo non stressante per tenerti il pensiero?" e poi "rigirare" il pensiero, ad esempio se il pensiero è "il partner non mi ascolta" alla fine il rigiro sarà "io non mi ascolto".

Non so, non mi ha convinto. Ci sono vari esempi e testimonianze ma credo sia di difficile applicazione nella realtà e non credo che abbia fondamenta scientifiche/psicologiche.

Giving this book 5 stars may be the easiest decision I've made all year. I'm putting this book up with Eckhart Tolle's scriptural tome "The New Earth" in its mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting philosophy. I've done "the work" Katie teaches pretty thoroughly a few times with a couple different people, and, while there is definitely some effort needed here to really understand how to apply the "four questions" to your situation, going through this exercise and adopting the mindsets referred to in the book are truly life-changing. Also, to get the full effect, I think these concepts need to be viewed through a mindfulness lense; otherwise, a reader may find some of the suggestions misguided or superficial. Can't believe it took me until 2020 to discover this gem.

I liked this book at the beginning, but as it went on it just got kind of weird for me. I got some points as to what she was saying, especially when she talked about how you control your own thinking. But when it got to the section on rape, that was just messed up and weird. That's when I really lost interest.

We’ve been working on the projected image for thousands of years and not on the projector. That’s why life seems to be chaotic. It’s chaos telling chaos how to live differently, and never noticing that it has always lived that way and that we have been going about it backward, absolutely backward.


I had done research on "The Work" and its creator Byron Katie like a month or two before I read this book. I liked what I saw, and it had major overlap with other sectors of research and self-development that I am highly engaged in and experienced with. It fit the bill, and I was ready to change my life with her take. Every book even though similar in goal and process, has a unique flavor and perspective to it. This one was definitely unique and I appreciate Katie's eccentricities, even if I don't slavishly agree one hundred percent with everything she says, or get confused by the fine line she draws between just playing this whole work off as a guide and lifestyle to be free of suffering and an actual cultish truth and ethos that there is no truth or good and evil. The latter sounds crazy and I'm just being super transparent when I type those words, because I didn't feel justified that Katie went one way or the other. At one point she'd pacify a nervous interlocutor and tell her "calm down of course you should be proactive, of course you should want things to get better, of course terrorism is bad etc... you just have to disengage from the mental story attachment in order to free yourself from suffering" etc. and the next she'd be all "It's false because that's not reality. Why shouldn't people lie? People do lie, therefore they should. I was getting a massage one time and my body became paralyzed. But why would I freak out? There is no normal state, whatever happens is what should have happened. And I am glad for it. There is no truth, only my truth." Yadda yadda. You catch my drift. Some of the things she would say would oppose all rational convention without justification. I don't like this. Just because people act a certain way it does not mean they should. We all have the same script of how people act for a reason. And so forth. At certain points she really does justify in the former manner by stating how she agrees with all the obvious morality ideologies and so on, but it's just a matter of ridding yourself of pain. The fact that she stresses this at least a couple of times (like I did ;) shows to that she believes this, despite out of context analysis otherwise. Whatever. Either way, I don't need to agree with her, I'm just curious because I'm genuinely curious as the signals were quite mixed, as shown in the questions and answers section in the back where others voiced similar concerns. This was one reason it didn't hit five stars. Another would be the format of the text. I was dropped into scant elucidation about what exactly the work is in regards to some of its moving parts, and therefore didn't quite retain what exactly Katie was saying in the first dialogue or two. Prime example: Katie (as I've mentioned previously) will many times restate someones statement to said person and then tell them "Hmmm. Paul shouldn't punch me in the face. Well that's not true. Paul should punch you in the face." or "Paul shouldn't punch me in the face. Wrong honey, he did." I was like what? Why? Just because someone did something doesn't mean it's correct. It was confusing. Was she making some forced implication? Was she harping on her own brainwashy cult manifesto material? I wasn't quite sure. This is explained well. Very well. But after a bit. It's all about accepting what is. If Paul punched you, then he should have punched you and you shouldn't attach any stressful thoughts to it, because you will be living the thoughts and then trapped in your mind replaying this stressful process at every point of re-experience. I understood it perfectly. But it was just out of order. More dialogues were crammed in before we had explanation and while it sometimes works as a way of introduction to something new, I didn't feel that it was efficacious here. Another quit nitpick would be some of the arguments she threw out that stuck with the audience for some reason, but wouldn't last two seconds for me. For example, "Why should you believe you can get rid of your thought? I'm not asking you to do that! How can you get rid of something you didn't create?" I get what she's saying here and it's more a means to an end to inquiry, but still we're nitpicking here. Why does the fact that I didn't create something then preclude me from getting rid of it? It's not even a question. I understand thoughts are a different ballgame and that it's quite difficult, but when you don't justify these facile statements with a decent semblance of reasoning, it's hard to chew. I didn't create your book. Does that mean I can't throw it away when I'm done with it?

Do you really want to know the truth? All suffering begins and ends with you.

Anyway, I thought this book was fantastic. I could have read it in like two days if I wasn't busy. I read small chunks whenever I had a moment and enjoyed it immensely. There was a lot of review, but for this type of book that was purely beneficial. Especially since each diaologue invites you to a new angle of the work; a new angle to its curing wonders. There are so many good quotes, but I only shared a handful. Katie is both vicious and sweet. Cunning and puerile. Elegant and simple. I love how simple yet effective the work is. The whole process comes down to a few steps and a reversal of a lifetime of tragedy. I don't know for a fact if it will work that well on me, but it certainly has a great track record, and I've definitely enjoyed this work and the lessons I gleaned, be it review or introduction.

“we are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens.”

4.5