“I discovered that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always. And I invite you not to believe me. I invite you to test it for yourself.”– Byron Katie
Throughout our lives, many of us have heard the words, “life is suffering.” Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is, believes it doesn’t have to be this way. In our Online Book Club on her book Loving What Is, we dive into how to make life filled with joy.
Do you desire to live a life of joy?
Are you sick of your mind ruling your reality?
Are you looking for some strategies to enjoy the nectar of being alive?
Look no further, Byron Katie has much to offer in her work and with her course designed here at hiitide.
Learn about Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is.
In 1986, at the bottom of a ten-year spiral into depression and self-loathing, Byron Katie woke up one morning in a state of joy. She realized that when she believed her stressful thoughts, she suffered, but that when she questioned them, she didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Her simple yet powerful process of self-inquiry, which she calls The Work, consists of four questions and the turnaround, which is a way of experiencing the opposite of what you believe.
Based on Byron Katie’s direct experience of how suffering is created and ended, The Work is an astonishingly simple process, accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, and requires nothing more than a pen and paper and an open mind.
Through this process, anyone can learn to trace unhappiness to its source and eliminate it there. Katie (as everyone calls her) not only shows us that all the problems in the world originate in our thinking: she gives us the tool to open our minds and set ourselves free.
Katie has been bringing The Work to millions of people for more than thirty years. Her public events, weekend workshops, intensives, nine-day School for The Work and Online Book Club with hiitide have brought freedom to people all over the world.
Her books include the bestselling Loving What Is, I Need Your Love—Is That True?, A Thousand Names for Joy, and A Mind at Home with Itself. For more information, visit thework.com.
Lesson One | Loving What Is | Noticing When Your Thoughts Are Arguing With Reality |
Welcome to the Loving What Is Online Book Club! Over the next 28 days, we’ll be reading and living the book, Loving What Is, by Byron Katie.
Each week, we’ll explore a section of the book and focus on a specific theme. Every day, you’ll have one or two lessons based on that book section and theme. You’ll watch videos, read extra content, and have the opportunity to practice the book’s principles with writing and action prompts.
In Chapter 1, Katie says “Don’t believe anything I say. I want you to discover what’s true for you, not for me.”
At the same time, for those wishing to implement The Work into their lives, Katie offers some basic principles to help you while you are practicing The Work:
- Noticing When Your Thoughts Argue With Reality: “All the stress we feel is caused by arguing with what is.”
- Staying In Your Own Business: “To think that I know what is best for anyone else is to be out of my business.”
- Meeting Your Thoughts with Understanding: There is no harm in our thoughts until we attach to them as if they were true.
- Becoming Aware of Your Stories: “I often use the word story to talk about thoughts, or sequences of thoughts that we convince ourselves are real.”
- Looking for the Thought Behind The Suffering:”Any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, ‘You’re caught in the dream.'” “Investigating an untrue thought will always lead you back to who you truly are.”
- Inquiry: “All the answers we ever need are always available inside us.”
To get the most out of the book, our courses focus on the how. At hiitide, we bring a practical application approach of the author’s work and activate it in your life. Through Action and Reflection prompts we dive into the concepts of the book and apply them to your very own life. Allowing the reader to gain all the juicy insights that each hiitide author has labored a whole lifetime to gain.
To start….. grab a journal, start a blank document, or type away in your saved notes…
REFLECTION PROMPTS:
Katie says, “When we believe our thoughts instead of what is really true for us, we experience the kinds of emotional distress that we call suffering.” Can you differentiate between your thoughts and what is really true for you? If so, explain. If not, where is the resistance?
Do any of these principles challenge the way you experience/see your world?
Are any of these concepts new to you?
Did you enjoy your first bite-size hiitide lesson? Great! There’s a lot more wisdom where this came from.
Register for The Loving What Is Online Book Club and by the end of week one you will have:
- Learned a number of practical thought “turnarounds” to help you shift your perspective and mobilize real change in your relationships.
- Adopted real methods that help you “stop judging your neighbor”, and focus on “the work” in front of you.
Agenda For the Entire Online Book Club
Week 1: Becoming Familiar With The Work
Week 2: Work, Money & Self-Judgments
Week 3: Underlying Beliefs & Turnarounds
Week 4: Relationships & Facilitating Inquiry
