Byron Katie

Byron Kathleen Mitchell
(Byron Katie: 2006)
Born	Byron Kathleen Reid December 6, 1942 Breckenridge, Texas
Nationality	American
Other names	Byron Katie
Occupation	Author, speaker
Known for	"The Work (of Byron Katie)" A method for self-inquiry

Byron Kathleen Mitchell, better known as Byron Katie (born December 6, 1942^[1]), 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 (BKI), an organization that includes The School for the Work and Turnaround House in Ojai, California.

Biography

In February 1986,^[2] while in a halfway house for women with eating disorders, Byron Katie experienced a life-changing realization: "I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that 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." Byron Katie calls her method of self-inquiry "The Work." She has taught it to people all over the world, at free public events, in prisons, hospitals, churches, corporations, shelters for survivors of domestic violence, universities and schools, at weekend intensives, and at her nine-day School for The Work.

Process

The Work is a way of identifying and questioning any stressful thought. It consists of four questions and a turnaround. This is a way of experiencing the opposite of what you believe. The four questions are:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? and
4. Who would you be without the thought?

The turnaround involves considering the thought in a reversed form - changing subject and object, changing yes and no, or changing it to be self-referential. For example, for the thought "My husband should treat me better," turnarounds could include "I should treat my husband better," "I should treat myself better," or "My husband shouldn't treat me better."^[3]

Bibliography

• Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, with Stephen Mitchell, Harmony Books, 2002, ISBN 0-609-60874-6 (HC)
• I Need Your Love - Is That True? How to Stop Seeking Love, Appreciation, and Approval and Start Finding Them Instead, with Michael Katz, Harmony Books, 2005, ISBN 1-4000-5107-X (HC)
• A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are, with Stephen Mitchell, Harmony Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-307-33923-2 (HC)
• Question Your Thinking, Change the World: Quotations from Byron Katie, edited by Stephen Mitchell, Hay House, 2007. ISBN 978-1-4019-1730-2 (PB)
• Who Would You Be Without Your Story?: Dialogues with Byron Katie, edited by Carol Williams, Hay House, 2008 ISBN 978-1-4019-2179-8 (PB)
• Tiger-Tiger, Is It True?, illustrated by Hans Wilhelm, Hay House, 2009 ISBN 978-1-4019-2560-4 (HC)
• Peace in the Present Moment, with Eckhart Tolle, Hampton Roads Pub Co Inc 2010, Newburyport, MA 2010, ISBN 978-1-57174-643-6

References

1. Matousek, Mark (May–June 2006). "Quit Your Pain". AARP Magazine.
2. Massad, Sunny (2001). An Interview with Byron Katie
3. Spencer, Stephan (3 August 2012). "Byron Katie Just Wants You to Be Happy" (Interview). Huffington Post. Retrieved 23 April 2014.

External links

• Official website for The Work of Byron Katie
• Official blog for The Work of Byron Katie
• Official live webcast site for The Work of Byron Katie
• Excerpts from Loving What Is
• LA Magazine Jane Lynch and Byron Katie Do "The Work"
• Los Angeles Times: How a Self-Help Guru Is Born, November 24, 2002
• Byron Katie in O Magazine
• Time Magazine 12/11/2000 : Innovators - Byron Katie. Four Questions to Inner Peace "TIME predicts the most innovative people of the 21st Century."
• The Noumenon Journal, Summer 2000/2001: An Interview with Byron Katie
• The best mp3 repository of "The Work of Byron Katie"