This quote comes from the work of Byron Katie, an amazing American teacher and author whose work I recently discovered via a friend during My Christmas trip to Spain.   The key idea behind her work is that ALL the suffering, stress and unpleasant feelings we experience are a result of our identification with our thoughts.

When what we are thinking is at odds with what is actually happening (reality) and we believe that thinking , we have a civil warn inside our heads and the result is pain!   So for instance if  I am thinking “I shouldn’t be this fat!” and (in this moment) I am this fat, there is an obvious conflict between my thinking and reality.

Thankfully Katie doesn’t just identify the problem, she teaches a very simple yet immensely powerful solution based around a process of inquiry where you “test” the thoughts that are causing you discomfort or stress using four simple questions.

  1. Is it true?
  2. Can you absolutely know that it is true?
  3. Describe how you react, what happens, what you think, believe or feel when you think that thought?
  4. Who would you be without that stressful thought?

For me the wonderful thing about this process is that Katie doesn’t ask us to try and stop thinking those thoughts just to inquire into them.  Our thoughts are just theories that arise from our mind to help us make sense of what is happening.

We cannot stop ourselves having thoughts but we can investigate the ones that are causing us problems.

For more information on Byron Katie click here

Filed under: Spirituality • Your Mindset

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