Is this you? Do you seek love and approval? That is why I love the work you start looking at what you can give yourself. You investigatee your though the 4 question and you come to find you are ok as you are with or with out that person that you thought you could not survive without.

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result. Manipulation is separation, and separation is painful. Another person can love you totally in that moment, and you’d have no way of realizing it. If you act from fear, there’s no way you can receive love, because you’re trapped in a thought about what you have to do for love. Every stressful thought separates you from people.

But once you question your thoughts, you discover that you don’t have to do anything for love. It was all an innocent misunder­standing. When you want to impress people and win their approval, you’re like a child who says, “Look at me, Look at me” It all comes down to a needy child. When you can love that child and embrace it yourself, the seeking is over.

Quote from: Byron Katie: How to stop seeking love approval, and appreciation and Start Finding them Instead.

Today is Saturday and I have tried the Laughing meditation in Vondelpark, Amsterdam…If you have not done it’s a great experience. And it left me more quite, more open and relaxed. I also notice I could relate and hear people with having to change their minds or give feed back or even have a conversation. It was a wonderful-place to be. It reminded me of doing thework of Byron Katie and how the work leaves you fresher and clearer and open to experience life in all it’s flavors.

From a thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie Chapter 71

“To think you know something is to believe the story of a past. It’s insane. Every time you think you know something, it hurts, be­cause in reality there’s nothing to know. You’re trying to hold on to something that doesn’t exist. There is nothing to know, and there is no one who wants to know it.

It’s so much easier to know that you don’t know. It’s kinder, as well. I love the don’t?know mind. When you know that you don’t know, you’re naturally open to reality and can let it take you wherever it wants to. You can drop your identity and be who you really are, the unlimited, the nameless. People call me “Katie,” but I don’t ever be. Believe it.

Someone says, “I’ll be here at nine o’clock.” No one can know what it’s like for someone with no future to watch a clock become nine. The event is so miraculous that there are no possible words for it. It’s one minute past eight, then suddenly it’s two minutes past eight, according to a clock that is always pointing to now. And now it’s eight?thirty, and now, all at once, it’s nine, and the person shows up?just pops out of nowhere?from a past that doesn’t exist. I am in continual amazement at such happenings.

Now I am walking to the living room, I think. I think that I’m on

my way to open the window. I have no clue where it’s actually going;”

This quote works for me when I live in the I don’t know mind, it seems I am more open available less judging and life becomes exciting.

Some of thought that come up for me while reading this quote and perhaps for you too are.

I know what they are thinkin.

I know what that look means.

I know what works or does not work.

I know how you react because…

I know you are not able to do that.

Or

I need to figure it out.

I have to know what to do.

Time Magazine refers to Byron Katie as an innovator for this millennium.

The Work™ is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you to identify and question  thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you,  and to address your problems with clarity.

Byron Katie had an experience in 1986 that she calls “waking up to reality.”

“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.”

The Four Questions came out of her direct experience with ending her own suffering and invitations from others to share what she had discovered. Quickly realizing that sharing her own insights did not give others the same freedom she had found, the four questions came as a tool to help others free themselves from their own stressful beliefs about the world around them.

The Four Questions are now known as The Work™ of Byron Katie.

They are:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know it’s true?
3. How do you react when you believe the thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

Then, turn the statement around and find examples of how the opposite might actually be true.

By answering these questions for ourselves we can experience reality without our projections and interpretations.

It’s not the questions that make The Work™ so powerful.

It’s the answers that we discover that bring us insight and freedom. Reality is always kinder than our thoughts.

People who do The Work™ as an ongoing practice report life-changing results.

• Alleviation of depression: Find resolution, and even happiness, in situations that were once debilitating.
• Decreased stress: Learn how to live with less anxiety or fear.
• Improved relationships: Experience deeper connection and intimacy with your partner, your parents, your children, your friends, and yourself.
• Reduced anger: Understand what makes you angry and resentful, and become less reactive, less often, with less intensity.
• Increased mental clarity: Live and work more intelligently and effectively, with integrity.
• More energy: Experience a new sense of ongoing vigor and well-being.
• More peace: Discover how to become “a lover of what is.”

Find more information on the official websites of The Work™ of Byron Katie:

www.thework.com

www.instituteforthework.com

www.byronkatie.com

For more information, read The Little Book– excerpts from Loving What Is

See The Work™ in Action (video clips of Katie) here.

Read some examples of The Work™ in action here.

Other Resources.

A few days ago I was walking down the street and a person asked me where a street is and she showed me a map…I said, let me take a moment to see where we are and then I can tell you how to get to where you want to go…She grabbed back the map and said I don’t time to find out where I am I just want how to get to this address…and then she ran off in a direction that would not take to where she apparently wanted to go…
My lesson was to be where you are, know where you are before moving, that way you could get to where you want to go if you really want to get some place.

What is your lesson for today? Let everything and everyone teach you…be open and you can find your way…

What I learned today…I started my day with a YouTube of Katie asking a women, “your father is dead can you really know that is true’?…Your father is dead can you absolutely know that is true?…and something broke in me and I feel down crying…I have been trying to make my father happy, to heal him, only he has been dead for 30 years…I have been trying to heal my mother, and she has been dead 35 years…I have been trying to save my grandmother, and she has been dead for 40 years…”Your father is dead is it true?” It is not true for me…He still live in me until I recognize there is only one to heal…I don’t have to make anybody happy not even myself…I love that I could feel that and recognize that…
The work keeps waking me up, Grace…every time I have to fall down to this amazing grace, thank you kind universe, thank you for waking me up.