Loving What Is

Loving What Is gives you four simple questions to turn negative thoughts around, change how you react to the events and people that stress you and thus end your own suffering to love reality as it is.

When we talk about stress, we usually say “this project is stressing me out,” or “Jason’s really stressing about us going to this event next week.” Using this kind of language has one fatal flaw though: it puts the responsibility on other people and external events. But stress isn’t inherently created by those things. It’s only in how we process these things that they suddenly become stressful in our heads.

Our interpretation of what’s going on is what causes us to stress about it – or not. So if we change our interpretation, we’ll change our definition of what’s stressful too!

Byron Katie’s “The Work” approach helps us pull off this shift in perspective by asking and answering four very simple questions for any stressful thought:

Is this thought true? Can I be absolutely sure that it’s true without a doubt? How do I react when I believe this thought? Who would I be without this thought?

For example, let’s say you have an assignment for class and your partner hasn’t sent you his slights the night before it’s due. You might think: “Peter is really unreliable. How can he do this to me?”

Write this thought down and then go through the questions. Is Peter really unreliable? Can you tell from experience? Has this happened before? Are you 100% certain he’s unreliable? What’s your reaction to it? Do you get defensive? Angry? Helpless? What if you didn’t think this thought? What would the world look like?

Once you start digging, most negative thoughts quickly fall apart. And then, you can turn them around. Literally.

After you’ve done some serious interrogating with your thought, it’s time for what Byron calls the “turnaround.” Flip the original thought on its head in various ways and just observe how each one makes you feel.

Sticking with the example above, the thought “Peter is unreliable” might become “Am I unreliable?” or “Peter is reliable to his friends, why shouldn’t he be to me?” or “Does Peter think I’m unreliable?” etc.

The feelings and reactions you’ll have to all these options will differ greatly – and they should! Just carefully consider all of them and follow what your gut tells you is right. A turnaround will never give you one right answer – just a lot more options for your thoughts.

You can even answer the four questions again for those that you feel particularly strong about.