Friday, May 24, 2013

"I Need Your Love - Is That True?" By Byron Katie - Book Review

Everybody has ideas about how a (romantically) relationship should look like. We have strong expectations on what our partner should do and think. When these expectations don’t get met (as most of the time) we get disappointed, frustrated, insecure or even desperate. Not the best state of mind for a strong and healthy relationship.


About the book


-I need your love: Is that true?- is a book on how to stop seeking love, approval, and appreciation and start finding them instead.


Byron Katie is a true believer in the fact that hurt, despair, frustration and wretched feelings don’t come out of certain events but out of our thoughts about these events. If you start to see what is troubling you in a different light it enables you to let these disturbing thoughts go and live more lightly.


The book describes how you can learn to do this using The Work. It gives very recognizable examples and exercises to put it into practice.


About The Work-


The Work is simply four questions that, when applied to a specific problem, enable you to see what is troubling you in a different light.


In its most basic form, The Work consists of four questions and a turnaround.



  1.    Is it true?

  2.    Can you absolutely know it’s true?

  3.    How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

  4.    Who would you be without the thought?


Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and try to find at least three genuine examples of each turnaround. The turn around can be hard for people.


A short example


If I think -My husband doesn’t love me-


The answer to the first question will be -yes- that’s why I believe it.


The answer to the second question can be – well, I can’t get into his head. So no. I’m not absolutely sure he doesn’t love me. Maybe in his own, (disturbed) way he does love me.-


If I believe that he doesn’t love me, it makes me sad, unhappy, feeling that I’m not worth it.- That could be the answer to the third question.


If I wouldn’t think that my husband didn’t love me I would be happier, friendlier, unconcerned.


Possible turnarounds are: I don’t love myself. I don’t love my husband. My husband does love me.


Examples of a turn around: My husband does love me, he said so yesterday, he brought me flowers last week, he helps me whenever I have a problem.


I don’t expect you to get a grip on the full context and process of The Work from this article. I hope it made you curious about it and eager to learn more.  I can recommend it to everybody!


About Byron Katie


Byron Katie, founder of The Work, has one job: to teach people how to end their own suffering. As she guides people through the powerful process called the Work, they find that their stressful beliefs-about life, other people, or themselves- radically shift and their lives are changed forever.



"I Need Your Love - Is That True?" By Byron Katie - Book Review

No comments:

Post a Comment