Ever Hear of Byron Katie?

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All you need to do the work is a piece of paper and the questions which you can download on the site. Anything else is optional! And if you want to attend and don't have the cash - you get a scholarship - partial or full and if you don't want to go - you can see watch the video of the event free online. Some people like to go to live events - don't ask me why - I don't get it - but for whatever reason - they do - networking, togetherness - whatever. So be it. Don't make it like it's a scam dude. Because it's not and if you actually read what she's about you'd know that. If she writes books, teaches that's her livlihood. She can charge for whatever she wants. You don't have to buy what she's selling. And it certainly has no bearing on the actual inquiry work that is done. There are yahoo groups online and zero charge forums for the work - that offer framework for people who need that. Also feedback is giving. BTW - Do you work for free? I don't think so. So why do expect her to?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Byron Katie

Byron Kathleen Mitchell (née Reid), better known as Byron Katie (born 1942)[1] is an American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as "The Work".Contents [hide]

Byron Kathleen Reid (more often known as Byron Katie) became severely depressed in her early thirties. She was a businesswoman and mother living in a little town in the high desert of southern California. For almost a decade she spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom. Then, one morning in February 1986, while in a mental health treatment facility, [2] she experienced a life-changing realization. Katie's experience was similar to spiritual awakenings described in Buddhist and Hindu traditions under various names; she calls it “waking up to reality.” In that moment of enlightenment, she says,

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. That joy is in everyone, always.

Katie is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition. She is married to the poet and translator Stephen Mitchell, who co-wrote her first book, Loving What Is and her third book, A Thousand Names for Joy.

Beginnings of The Work

Soon afterward people started seeking Katie out, asking how they could find the freedom that they saw in her.[3] People from her town and eventually from elsewhere came to meet her, and some to even live with her.

Katie’s method of self-inquiry, which she calls The Work, is an embodiment, in words, of the wordless questioning that had woken up in her on that February morning. As reports spread about the transformations people felt they were experiencing through The Work, Katie was invited to present it publicly elsewhere in California, then throughout the United States, and eventually in Europe and across the world.[3] She has brought The Work to people 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.


The Work

The Work is based on four questions and a process called a "turnaround".

The four questions are:
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?

The Work can be done either by oneself or with another person.

First one identifies a belief or thought related to a topic that causes anxiety or unhappiness. Initially one is encouraged to choose something which feels important, which annoys or troubles you, that someone else does or did: for example "My mother never loved me," or "Tom shouldn't expect me to solve his problems."

One by one, the person doing the Work asks themselves or is asked each of the four questions listed above. If they are doing the Work by themselves, people are asked to write down their response, and if they are doing it with another person they speak their answers aloud.

After the four questions, the thought is literally turned around to its opposite. For example: "My mother never loved me" turns around to "My mother always loved me," Then the person doing The Work sees if they can find ways that this new thought is equally true, or more true, than the original thought.

The turnaround also takes the form of turning the statement around to oneself: "I never loved my mother," or "I never loved me."

Katie sumarizes The Work as: "Judge your neighbor, write it down. Ask four questions, turn it around."

Katie has applied this technique to exploring painful beliefs across many topics including relationships, parenting, illness, death and trauma. She has facilitated the work with audiences in widely varying situations, from ordinary people dealing with financial worries to prison inmates and survivors of armed conflict.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Katie

I'm not saying it's a scam , but that it's a psychological tool that works best within the pyramid structure, encouraging feelings of grandiosity. That if DON'T stay involved, even increase involvement, with the programme, it tends to cause increased dissatisfaction with oneself in the long run, ( all the talk of mental cleansing etc).
I just found out what the "big" course is for , it's necessary for taking the step to train as a facilitator/trainer/animator on the programmes, and earn your living inducting other people.
Great if you can get something out of it with just the free stuff( and not feel increasingly like a course would be a good idea).
It can provoke a refreshingly different perspective on things, but one that can be pernicious ( especially for people prone to taking things literally, for whom unfortunately the approach holds the greatest charms )because after a while you can no longer blame any body or anything else for anything "wrong" in your life, everything bad is your fault, and if you are feeling angry, depressed, miserable, resentful, hopeless, it is your fault. ALWAYS.
It is "fun" to think that if something you say offends someone you can say to them "so what are you believing that is making you experience that as hurtful ?"; it is their fault, not yours. Similarly therefore, if someone says something which bothers you then obviously it can not be what THEY said which is hurting you, but what you are thinking which is hurtful. With enough support, and money for it, you can spend the rest of your life processing through your thoughts, verifying, testing, discarding, etc until you have "cleansed" all the harmful limiting thoughts/beliefs that you had chosen to believe ( again your fault) through your life. It would take infinity of time to clear all that. Meanwhile what has happened to your life while weeding out all those hurtful beliefs of yours ?

PS: I know the steps "asking if a belief is true" etc; i spent many months, even years, using them. I learned them with the Life Training /More to Life organisation.

OK - then answer this:

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?

My truth.
Don't know what that is. Since throwing out the Lifetraining ideas identical to these I no longer think that i do know, that i could know.

"My truth"! ; like there's a fixed and single me that's thinking/believing, and that those truths are fixed.

"My truth", what is that? The concept in itself is part of the power and the seductiveness and harmfulness of these personal development courses.

Mark, what gets us in trouble (in Aspie-dom) is keeping things in theory and thought. Major trouble area for us. We can go round and round and up and down and never go through these matters to the crux. I think this terrifies us to even consider taking it from relativity and speculation into an unknown realm of practice. This is why in the finding solutions, truth must be sought via work. Plain and simple - from the drawing board out there to the multi-layered psyche that resides within. Metaphysics no longer applies to the new paradigm of Truth. Theory is now replaced with reality in all of its guises. Acceptance takes forefront placement leaving conflict behind.

Isn't this all very airy-fairy. I like to see practical advice that even I can follow.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Tu1xr0-Lo[/youtube]