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Summary: a prescription to end your anger and suffering
Review: This book contains simple but effective instructions on how to get rid of thoughts that cause you pain, suffering, sadness, anger, fear, etc. If you don't have any such thoughts, you don't need to read this book. If you do, you do.This book is not about just passively accepting things the way they are, as some reviewers below have implied. On the contrary, by helping you get rid of unproductive thoughts that drain your energy and enthusiasm, the book helps you to get on to actually doing something positive about the problems in your life and in our world.
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Summary: Just another Self-Help book
Review: I know everyone loves this book, but I was so bored with it. I think this book is about as basic as they come and, call me superficial, but I think Byron Katie is "Loving What's On The Cover". I'm not bitter against the woman, but putting yourself on the cover of a book with this title is asking for a joke or two. Anyway, about the book, I owned it, and I'm giving it to charity. I've read more than my fair share of self-help books, and this one, it's just NOT the one.
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Summary: Freedom Through Self Observation
Review: If your spiritual practice includes self observation you will find that this book can help deepen your practice in subtle and surprisingly transformative ways. I have found release from many modes of suffering that have haunted me for years. Neurotic knots I didn't even know I had untied themselves and washed away. I have found the Work to be simple but very effective. The examples in the book are very helpful. I feel that some commentary must be put here to counter the dreadful review offered by "jaguarwoman" below. Here is a quote from the review - "Granted, I did not read every word in the book, and perhaps she addresses this at some point, but after an hour of perusing this book....". How on Earth does this person think that an hours worth of shallow skimming and no practice qualify her to write a review? If "jaguarwoman" had bothered to study the book in detail she would see that Byron Katie says that her Work is not for everyone. Astonishingly ignorant reviews aside, the best judge of this book will be you *after* trying the practice!
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Summary: LOVING WHAT IS
Review: BYRON KATIE'S BOOK, LOVING WHAT IS, IS CHANGING MY LIFE. BY DOING THE WORKSHEETS AND ASKING FOUR QUESTIONS MY PERSPECTIVE HAS CHANGED SO MUCH IT'S CLOSE TO A MIRACLE.
I WAS INTRODUCED TO BYRON KATIE'S WORK THROUGH A TRAINING PROGRAM CALLED TRANSFORMATIONAL BREATH. AS WE WORKED TOGETHER I SAW MANY PEOPLE BEING SET FREE FROM OLD NEGATIVE BELIEF PATTERNS AND THOUGHTS. MY ADULT CHILDREN AND EXTENDED FAMILY MEMBERS ARE 'GETTING IT' AND THEIR OLD THINKING PATTERNS ARE CHANGING AS WELL.
THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE BEST SELF HELP BOOKS AROUND. AS WE LEARN TO LOOK AT REALITY VERSUS OUR INSANITY OF WHAT WE THINK LIFE 'SHOULD BE' WE'RE SET FREE. THANK YOU BYRON KATIE!
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Summary: Limitations of "The Work"
Review: Byron Katie's method is to take a troubling thought and, while accepting whatever thoughts come up in one's mind, gently acknowledge that it's not the reality which is the problem but our attachment to the reality that is the problem. This works well for many situations and can be quite helpful, ending unnecessary suffering. However, what about things that we should work to change? She gives as one example a woman who is bothered by her husband's smoking and the fact that he is ruining his health. The solution is for her to detach from being upset about this, decide to allow him to be whoever he wants to be, and see his smoking as "his business" and not hers. But what about the valid concern that this woman might have for how his smoking is affecting her own health? What about a wife who is beaten by her husband every night? It seems to me that "the work" would lead her to believe that she should just accept this as "the way he is" and not realize that part of his behavior really is the wife's own "business." Granted, I did not read every word in the book, and perhaps she addresses this at some point, but after an hour of perusing this book, it seems to me that this is a major flaw in "the work" that should be addressed as part of the basic four question process. I am also leery about her story of being depressed for many years and then suddenly waking up happy and at peace upon discovering "the work." While I am glad that things have worked out so wonderfully for her, I have known a number of people who were seriously clinically depressed whom self-help books were unable to cure. Sometimes the cause behind depression is mostly (or completely) biological and the only help can come from finding the proper medication - which one is very fortunate and glad to find when it is really needed! I am concerned that her story does not acknowledge this reality about depression, that sometimes there is no way out and it's not because the sufferer is unwilling to do "the work." In short, yes, the work can be helpful, but I wish the author acknowledged its limitations more clearly.
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Summary: What if your story didn't matter?
Review: If you've noticed that you often have useless thoughts about things you can't control, Byron Katie's "Loving What Is" could be the book for you. Katie lays out a process she calls the "Work," four questions that can facilitate your release from problems that flood your thought processes and dominate your life. It is a systematic mind-based approach whose cornerstone is an investigation (via the four questions) of whatever ishappening in your life. Katie emphasizes (through numerous examples with people going through a wide range of life's challenges) that you're either inquiring about your concepts or attaching to them. She is a rigorous taskmaster in the dialogue she has with each person, leading them to the fourth question in which you turn around a situation. She calls this "turnaround" "your prescription for health, peace, and happiness." The goal of the "Work" is to quiet the mind through inquiry. When you do that, you can just love whatever is happening in your life instead of fighting it to no avail. One of my favorite points was about not getting into other people's "business," since trying to fix someone else is just a way to keep us in pain. In another example about a woman at the end of her life in a hospice, Katie points out that your can either live with your life or with the story of your life. Another effortless approach that espouses living your life instead of your thoughts is a beautiful book about the immeasurable power of awareness. Part story and part narrative, it's called "Working on Yourself Doesn't Work," by Ariel and Shya Kane, and I can't recommend it enough for people who are ready to stop being hard on themselves and rediscover life's forgotten magic.
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Summary: Psycho-babble
Review: I'm glad I checked this one out @ the public library instead of paying good money for it. I gave it 2 stars for the author
sharing her experiences and what seems to have worked for her.
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Summary: The Work works
Review: If you have meditated for years, practiced mindfulness, brought yourself back to the present moment over and over and over again, labeled your thoughts as 'thinking' and STILL find yourself a victim of anxiety, STILL get scared when the market plummets, STILL get upset when your kids don't do what you think they should do, or your mate behaves in a way that bothers you, do the Work. As Katie says, this work is checkmate. It is the end of suffering, the key to the present moment, the laughter upon awakening from the nightmare. There are lots of good teachers and writers out there trying to help us awaken from the dream. Katie's method is the best I have come across to this date. Katie has no agenda, she has no doctrine, she has no ideology. She draws no conclusions. She simply IS, and being so, shows you the nature of your own reality.
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Summary: The present is perfect!
Review: The most efficient way to discovering how our beliefs filter how we experience life is to do a simple process called "The Work". Byron Katie developed this system as a way to regain her sanity after years of a debilitating depression. She has articulated this process beautifully in her new book, "Loving What Is". Based on the idea that our assumptions, beliefs and judgments prevent us from experiencing reality, Katie demonstrates how once we notice the distortions in our perceptions, it becomes quite easy to drop them. The book provides instructions on doing "The Work" by yourself. It also offers numerous examples of Katie leading the process in her workshops. Chapters are arranged by types of situations people face. Katie invites you to read the chapters dedicated to explanation and then to proceed through the book in whatever way you choose.
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Summary: Cognitive Therapy in Spiritual Clothing
Review: "The Work" seems to me like a dressed-up version of cognitive therapy, where one identifies thoughts and learns to label them and challenge them and replace them with thoughts that are affirming rather than self-defeating. Perhaps there are some readers who are able to access this sort of methodology through Byron Katie's work that would not pick up a cognitive therapy book. But I found this book laborious and irritating to read; it is full of transcripts of the author doing the process with various people, and I simply couldn't stick with reading it. And although I'm sure that she would say that I'm spiritually unenlightened for saying so, (and that I need to do "The Work" in order to get my priorities straight), I found it incredibly distracting and irritating that she insists on constantly calling people "honey," and that this mannerism wasn't edited out of the transcripts. If people want to be called honey, let them eat at a truck stop in Oklahoma. I would recommend to potential readers and buyers that they take a close look at the book at a store or library before acquiring it.
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