Dear Reader!

Coming Sunday, May 20, we meet from 15-17 at the ABC Treehouse (Voetboogstraat 11) to discuss Byron Katie’s I Need Your Love, Is That True? (available in ABC’s White Room):

I Need Your Love – Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

Byron Katies book

Katie, Byron|Katz, Michael | € 16.99
subject: Self Help, Personal Growth – General
ISBN: 9780307345301 | ISBN-10: 0307345300
Three Rivers Press (CA) | publication date: 28/11/2006
US Edition | Trade Paperback | 254 pages| | |

“Everyone agrees that love is wonderful, except when it’s terrible. People spend their whole lives tantalized by love­seeking it, trying to hold on to it, or trying to get over it. Not far behind love, as major preoccupations, come approval and appreciation. From childhood on, most people spend much of their energy in a relentless pursuit of these things, trying out different methods to be noticed, to please, to impress, and to win other people’s love, thinking that’s just the way life is. This effort can become so constant and unquestioned that we barely notice it anymore.

This book takes a close look at what works and what doesn’t in the quest for love and approval. It will help you find a way to be happier in love and more effective in all your relationships. What you learn here will bring fulfillment to all kinds of relationships, including romantic love, dating, marriage, work, and friendship.” ­Byron Katie

Then on Sunday June 3, Sagar Simon and Richard Kwakernaak will give their 2-hour Relationship Workshop (if you want to attend, please reserve your seat by sending me an email!):

Free Relationship Workshop in Amsterdam!
I Need Your Love, Approval and Appreciation­Is It True?

You’re invited to a free ABC Spiritual Book Club-session on Relationships by SBC-members Richard Kwakernaak and Sagar Simon!

In the words of John Milton (Paradise Lost):

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”

Many people look for a relationship, hoping it will be heaven, only to find out it can be hell! In the words of Byron Katie: “Everyone agrees that love is wonderful, except when it’s terrible…” What role does our mind play in creating a loving and lasting bond with someone and how can we leave our self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviours behind?

In this workshop Richard Kwakernaak and Sagar Simon look at how our beliefs, desires and attitudes about relationships, and the way we communicate, influence the quality of our relationships with other people and with ourselves.

They will approach the subject of relationships from various viewpoints, elaborating specifically on the fields of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Mindfulness and The Work of Byron Katie.

The workshop will be fun, revealing and leave you with tools you can instantly use when noticing stress!

*** This is an introductionary workshop for Richard’s and Sagar’s workshop series in the ABC Treehouse on June 29th, June 30rd and July 1st! ***

About Richard Kwakernaak:
Richard Kwakernaak works as a communication trainer and coach. He studied and practiced amongst other things a lot of NLP and Mindfulness. Richard has been an internationally certified trainer of NLP since almost 10 years.

About Sagar Simon:
Sagar Simon has a Masters Degree in counseling, has been trained both as a Gestalt Therapist and Hypnotherapist, and is a certified facilitator of The Work.

Date: Sunday June 3
Time: 15:00-17:00
Location: ABC Treehouse, Voetboogstraat 11
Costs: free! But to reserve your spot, email Femke at femke@abc.nl

And saving the best for last , Byron Katie herself will come to the American Book Center Amsterdam on Saturday June 23 to do a booksigning from 15-16:30!!
More information on this event will follow!

I hope to see you this Sunday,
Warm regards,

Femke Wijdekop
American Book Center Amsterdam

I look to me. Are you listening? Listen. Open your heart. I look to you the source is within you. I look to you(me) says it all. I am touched and grateful.

We start our 2012 Spiritual Book Club-season with a special guest speaker!

Counsellor, hypnotherapist and certified The Work-facilitator Simon Sagar will give a free workshop on Byron Katie’s The Work especially for our Spiritual Book Club!

Date: Sunday January 22nd, 2012
Time: 15:00-17:00
Location: ABC Treehouse, Voetboogstraat 11, Amsterdam
Costs: free, but reserve your seat by sending an email to femke@abc.nl

About the Workshop

In the words of the Greek philosopher Epictetus: “We are disturbed not by what hap¬pens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens.”

This class is an opportunity for you to have an experience of The Work of Byron Katie. It will provide a space for you to come out of suffering, to find inner peace and clarity, and to live a joyful life. This is where your freedom lies. The course will be fun, revealing and leave you with a tool you can always use when stressed.

“Suffering is optional,” Katie says. “Whenever we experience a stress¬ful feeling anything from mild discomfort to intense sorrow, rage, or despair we can be certain that there is a specific thought causing our reaction, whether or not we are conscious of it. The way to end our stress is to investigate the thinking that lies behind it, and anyone can do this by himself with a piece of paper and a pen.”

Please come to this course with some preparation: start reading Katie’s book , Loving What Is (available at ABC’s White Room) – Introduction through Chapter 3, and bring a filled-in Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet. The Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet is availabe at:

http://thework.com/dothework.php

Lets have fun and see what the mind thinks!

registar: http://www.abc.nl/blog/?p=25221

For those of you who missed this event. Well, that was for me wonderful learning and good to be in the atmosphere of the work. The most important thing for me was to hear and see Katie helping people stay in the work and not to leave the work for their story.

What is the work it is IQ. Investigate (the inquiry)  the thoughts that you are believing that cause you suffering. And Question them using the 4 question that are the work. Katie calls The Work the  4 questions the mechanics for coming out of pain and suffer and dis-pare.

You can down load all that you need to get started straight away doing the work on a painful reoccurring thoughts. Just click on the link below from the resource page.

http://www.thework.com/dothework.php

The resources are free. And if want to experience the work immediately you can call the help at no charge and an experienced facilitator who is part of the institute for the work will do the work with you. You can also contact a certified facilitator to work with in your area or over Skype. This is the link:  http://www.thework.com/facilitators.php

You can also find a certified facilitator to work with. It not necessary and when the mind is stuck it can help move you.

You can find my information on thework.com and on my contact details.

infinite possibilities

Investigate you thing as suggested by the work of Byron Katie will leaves you with infinite possibilities, to live you life  kinder, loving, creative and  harmonious.

According to Hawking and Mlodinow, one consequence of the theory of quantum mechanics is that events in the past that were not directly observed did not happen in a definite way. Instead they happened in all possible ways. This is related to the probabilistic nature of matter and energy revealed by quantum mechanics: Unless forced to choose a particular state by direct interference from an outside observation, things will hover in a state of uncertainty.

For example, if all we know is that a particle traveled from point A to point B, then it is not true that the particle took a definite path and we just don’t know what it is. Rather, that particle simultaneously took every possible path connecting the two points.

Yeah, we’re still trying to wrap our brains around this.

The authors sum up: “No matter how thorough our observation of the present, the (unobserved) past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.”

Article from live science by Clara Moskow

I have heard Byron Katie say “no story no world”. So what is your story creating your world?

Becoming Unstuck from everything

What is WD 40? It’d s spray oil we use it on almost everything which is stuck and needs to be freed from it’s rust or water damaged.

“It took them 40 attempts to get the water displacing formula worked out. WD-40_®—which stands for Water Displacement and perfected on the 40th try—is still in use today.” and un-sticking all sorts of things.

So what is the point of talking about WD 40?

1. I happen use on my bicycle chain and used lots of on my motorcycle and old VW Beetle.
2. It took 40 tries to get it working. The only thing they knew that there is a way out of being stuck and rusted and things need to be moving again.
3. Where is your focus. Wayne Dyer has talked about fly was not done by focusing on not flying and get iron ships to float was not done by focusing on the sinking of things. focus on getting things moving.
4. If you can identify, the thoughts that keep you from having peace, clarity, joy and a wonderful life. You are in the beginning of the process of getting unstuck. Focusing on what is not working in your life, will give you more of what does not work and then becomes the proof that life is stuck and sucks. (And there is a book called why your life sucks by Alan h. Cohen worth reading).

Now back to WD 40 and the work of Byron Katie.

Using the JudgeYourNeighborworksheet down loadable at http://www.thework.com/dothework.php is the first step to identify your thoughts that are keeping you stuck (rusting and not moving). Then we apply the WD 40 that is the 4 questions and the turnarounds: http://www.thework.com/dothework.php to the thoughts that are keeping you stuck. And it could take 40 times or 1 time or 100 times to become unstuck.  Just think of it if the Wright brothers gave up after their first attempt. We would still be sitting on the ground wondering if we could fly? And just like in the case of developing WD 40 you never know when you suddenly become free or fly.

Applying the 4 questions and turnarounds to your stuck thoughts and then suddenly you are unstuck and free to fly. Love you Sagar give me a call to become unstuck.