Byron Katie
Byron Katie
Byron Kathleen Mitchell, better known as Byron Katie, is an American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as "The Work of Byron Katie" or simply as "The Work". She is married to the writer and translator Stephen Mitchell. She is the founder of Byron Katie International, an organization that includes The School for the Work and Turnaround House in Ojai, California...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSelf-Help Author
Date of Birth6 December 1942
CountryUnited States of America
The Work reveals that what you think shouldn't have happened should have happened. It should 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.
How do I know it was meant to happen this way? Because it did.
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.
We may appear to be mean but we're really only frightened.
Being present means living without control and always having your needs met.
Stories are the untested, uninvestigated theories that tell us what all these things mean. We don’t even realize that they’re just theories.
Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.
As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.
Realizing that people should lie when they do makes me a little more open-minded, a little more tolerant, when my child or my partner lies.
The world you live in is 100 percent your own responsibility. If you don't like your world, it doesn't work to say, "Well, it's my mother's fault. She taught me how to think."
If people are living their lives for security and comfort and pleasure, then mind's every waking moment will be plotting those things. That's how it stays identified - as a body, as a you.
Mind is infinitely creative. And when it's not stuck, that's where the joy comes from. Something happens, and the way we think about it, understand it, see it, is actually hilarious, whereas before it used to depress us.
I do whatever I can to serve peace. My job is the end of suffering.
I teach people to question their thinking, and this changes their world.