Tag Archives: Byron Katie

The wit and wisdom of Byron Katie: I’d say “bless your heart, sweetheart,” but it’s too late. You’re already blessed.

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I attended a weekend workshop with Byron Katie. Friday night I didn’t write down anything she said. On Saturday I did.

Here are the sayings I was moved to write down:

I need everything I’ve ever experienced

Velcro!

Mind has to compare to create jealousy.

living out of the “don’t know” mind

My mind got clear, and Haagen-Dazs quit me.

Everyone is a saint.

The mind seeks identification.

Drop the “I guess.” Drop the “I think.” Drop the “we.”

There’s only three kinds of business: yours, mine, and God’s. (I don’t think this is original, but she used it and I like it.)

Our true nature is pure love.

What you believe about anything is what hurts you.

It all happens for your awakening, enlightenment, and joy. There is nothing that is not for us.

We’re born of the “I”, not of the mother’s womb.

The personality is the ego.

The world is a projection of your own mind. It’s your world.

I’m always on time. People don’t agree with me, but I’m always on time.

Enlightenment means there’s no mind at all.

Oh, the mind wants to jump in with its defenses and justifications.

You’ve got this computer running with past and future, and you believe this “I”.

Be co-dependent at home. There’s one person to talk to and listen to: you.

If I could hold you in my arms the rest of my life, I would, but I’d have to go to the toilet sooner or later, or you would.

If my husband told me he’d met someone else, I’d really want to meet her. Because she’d have to be pretty fantastic for him to be attracted to her! And then I’d ask for half the money. And if he said no, I’d let him have it and make my own money.

I’d say “bless your heart, sweetheart,” but it’s too late. You’re already blessed.

Blindness is a state of mind. It’s not physical.

The mind believes the images. It creates images to make me an authority.

It’s about meditation, silence, stillness, and contemplation.

Byron Katie. Life as it is. 5,000 blog views.

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On this 19th day of my 21-day gratitude challenge, I am very grateful that Friday and Saturday, I got to spend hours in an auditorium with Byron Katie and my friends Thomas and Val and a whole bunch of other people, watching Katie, as she’s called, working with several people who were troubled about something.

Katie’s technique is called The Work, and the way we worked was to fill out a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet (available online for free along with a lot of other resources) about a recurring stressful situation, something that reliably pushes our buttons. She encouraged us to be our meanest, pettiest selves when we filled out the worksheet.

Then she asks, or has us ask ourselves, four questions:

  1. Is it true? (yes or no)
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (yes or no)
  3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
  4. Who would you be without the thought?

Then you turn the thought around three ways and find three specific examples of how each turnaround is true for you in that situation. For example, if my thought is “I hate him,” the turnarounds would work like this:

  1. The first turnaround is to the self. “I hate me.” How do I treat myself hatefully?
  2. The second turnaround is to the other. “He hates me.” List ways he hates me.
  3. The third turnaround is the opposite. “I love him.” How do I love him?

So from an NLP perspective, she’s working at the belief level, and she’s helping people reframe their experiences and emotions and beliefs and even identities. She refers a lot to people’s internal images (but not voices). On an energy level, she’s helping people move from contraction to expansion.

On Saturday, her first guest onstage was an attractive, polished woman who had flown here from San Francisco. Her husband of 30 years cheated on her with “a 27-year-old Brazilian whore” while she (the wronged wife) was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Katie took this woman through the process. She realized that she had stopped loving her husband but was willing to live a charade, she knew he was lying to her, et cetera. It took her out of her victim story. She also got huge applause for getting here with her frequent flyer miles since her husband had denied her access to all of their bank accounts. This woman is resourceful!

In the turnaround, Katie asked the woman to say, “I’m a whore,” and the woman couldn’t get the word “whore” out.

The unflappable Katie said, “What the heck. I’m enlightened. I can say it for you. ‘I’m a whore.’ There.” Big laughs and applause.

Later she worked with a woman who was so distraught because her husband, a diabetic, wouldn’t take his meds that she herself was on medication.

Once again, I’m grateful I got to see Byron Katie do The Work in person. If anyone wants to play with me, ping me.

~~~

In this moment, I’m grateful for life as it is. That’s what enlightenment is. That’s what Zen teaches. That’s what we practice when sitting in meditation.

~~~

I’m grateful to those who read my blog. Today it looks like I will cross the threshold of 5,000 views! Thank you for reading my posts. Thanks for connecting. Thanks for commenting.

Day 18: The Work, moving with Mango, T-Mobile

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Last night I saw a demonstration of Byron Katie doing The Work, which is basically a set of four questions designed to help people move away from the suffering of  the ego and toward openness of life as it is.

I am grateful for the opportunity to witness a master at work, in person.

She worked with two people last night. The first was a man who had driven 12 hours with his younger son because he believed his older son was no good and was destroying the family. He blamed his high blood pressure and other health issues on all the trouble this son had caused.

Yet from the inquiry process, we learn that although this son moved out right before high school graduation, he graduated with honors. We hear that he tells people with no idea it would get back to his dad how great his upbringing was. He kisses his father on the head when his father extends his hand for a shake. This young man is responsible — he works and takes care of his bride.

So this father underwent a transformation, understanding that his thinking distorted reality. He had a fine son. It was him who needed to respect himself and respect his son. That’s the turnaround.

The other demo subject was a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). She felt afraid and panicky sometimes. Byron Katie just laughed and said, “Haven’t we all? Isn’t life a terminal illness?” She proceeded to illustrate that even being paralyzed and unable to move a muscle, it’s still thoughts that make one unhappy.

I’m looking forward to more today — from 10 to 5.

~~~

I’m grateful to Val at dinner last night for giving me some advice about moving Mango, my cat. He’s accustomed to this neighborhood and the cats on my block. The move will take him from what he knows, except for me and some of my stuff. His world is small and personal. He doesn’t have the internet or a cell phone to stay in touch with his friend Stinky next door (even though they fight).

I’ll need to keep him inside for a while after I move, so he’ll be safe and secure, and I can start now getting him used to being in and sleeping in the cat carrier.

~~~

I am grateful to T-Mobile for letting me change my cell phone plan and apply it retroactively. Because of all the calls from realtors and calls about work and in general an increase in call volume since I have not been working, I had gone way over my allotment of minutes. Snapped to when I saw how much had been drafted from my checking account to auto-pay the bill…

I found it very kind and flexible of them to allow me to switch to a plan with more minutes and to make the change retroactive for this billing period. I was facing a bill of over $400! Now it will be more like $60.

Thank you, T-Mobile.

Ordinary gratitudes: car, house, friends

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Today’s three gratitudes are pretty ordinary. My car, my house, my friends.

I’m grateful to have my car back. It’s been disabled or out of my possession since December 22 and has been at three different mechanic shops.

I took it back once because the dashboard warning light for the electric battery (it’s a Honda Civic Hybrid) was on. It  wasn’t on before the accident.

I did not get that issue resolved satisfactorily. The light is still on. However, the electric battery appears to be working just fine.

All Honda has said is that because of the age and mileage, I need to replace the battery. I get that State Farm really wants it to be my problem, not theirs, because those batteries are expensive.

I feel frustrated because I don’t believe that any of these mechanics actually laid eyes on the wiring and cabling from the engine compartment, which overheated, to the electric battery behind the back seat. All repairs are based on electronic testing and what’s in the database. If it’s not in the database, they’re not going out of their way.

Anyway, I am grateful to have my car back, to have the collision damage fixed, and to (so far) have it running well.

I’m grateful to have learned something about the way insurance companies work, when a car is a hybrid and they don’t have a ton of information in their database about what can go wrong and how to fix it.

This is the dark side of owning a hybrid.

~~~

The option period on my house contract expires today.

Yesterday the buyer tried to get me to come down $10 grand because of a ridiculously high overestimate on foundation work. My realtor told his realtor that I refused.

I’ve had two people express interest in being backup buyers, but they never put it in writing. If this deal had fallen through, I feel certain I could have gotten my asking price.

Today I agreed to come down $2600. That’s reasonable. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush — sometimes. In this process, several people have advised me to take low offers and to cave.

My realtor says we’re about eighty percent of the way to closing. Next, an appraiser has to state that the buyer is not paying more than the house is worth. Once that’s done, we’ll be ninety-five percent ready to close on Feb. 18.

Although I had no idea there would be so much drama involved in selling my house, today I’m grateful for the progress.

~~~

I had lunch today with my friend Katie, and my friend Thomas called and wants to go a weekend workshop that Byron Katie is doing in Austin tonight and tomorrow. I bought a ticket from someone who had an extra one, and it’s even more of a pleasure to be sharing this workshop experience with Thomas.

I’m very grateful for my friends.