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Loving what is – Byron Katie

Posted December 16th, 2015 in Great reading, Soul Food and tagged , , , , , by Rebecca Lane

I am reminded of the synchronicities of life that Michael Singer discusses in his books – for shortly after I finished reading The Surrender Experiment, one of my clients shared with me the audiobook Loving What Is by Byron Katie.

Byron Katie’s work is called Inquiry and offers a beautiful, framework for learning from the inner voice. Whenever a thought comes up that triggers an emotional reaction, immediately use the 4 questions to discover what is real, and where the opportunity for growth lies.

The process –

  1. Hear the thought, feel the emotional response.
  2. Write it down – Byron Katie even has a fabulous worksheet called Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet available here: http://thework.com/sites/thework/downloads/worksheets/JudgeYourNeighbor_Worksheet.pdf
  3. Ask the questions – Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true? How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? Who would u be without the thought?
  4. Turn the thought around – this is where the opportunity for growth lies. Reread the statement, replacing the name of the person you are judging with your own name, and recognize that you do this very thing to yourself. That this other person is actually acting as a mirror for you to learn and grow. Further, you can turn it around to the other person and recognize that by your judging, you actually do this action to the other person in response to your perception that they are doing it to you – because of your story.

There are many resources on Byron Katie’s site available for free use at www.thework.com. And I strongly recommend purchasing the audiobook Loving What Is available for about $20 on iTunes. My husband, Mark, and I have been listening to it in the car on our weekend drive up to the cottage. It certainly makes for interesting Saturday morning conversations as we release layers of hurt during the night!

So, what does the title Loving What Is refer to?

The learning, the understanding that flows through this work is that there are two worlds – reality and our story. Our business, our journey is clearing the layers of our story so that we can recognise what is reality and stop struggling to change it. It is. Unchangeable. And the struggle against reality destroys us, makes us sad, exhausted, disempowered. Makes us sick.

The opportunity is to unconditionally love reality – whatever shows up, embrace it fully. As Michael Singer says, “life is going to put us through the changes we need to go through. The question is: Are we willing to use this force (reality) for our transformation?”

Loving What Is – a powerful tool to use over the holidays to transform. I intend to share it with my family, so here you go! Enjoy the journey.

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