Most of the books I read can be easily categorized: “it’s a business book”…”it’s a cookbook”… “it’s a book about God”… “its a book about how to budget better.” I come across very few books I would consider to be universal in application. These books cut across all disciplines. They appeal to a larger audience. The lessons they teach can be applied to all dimensions of life.
When I discover a book that has universal appeal, wisdom, AND it comes from the life experiences and pain of Byron Katie herself, well….I want to read it cover to cover.
The book is Loving What Is: 4 Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell. What do I appreciate about this book?
First, I love the raw simplicity. In particular, I value an author who is able to — from their own convoluted, messed up, chaotic life — draw out deep insights that are not just simple, they are profoundly simple.
Second, this book is very well written. By “well written,” I mean that each sentence is built upon the preceding sentence, so you can follow the author’s thinking. Therefore, you do not feel like an idiot because you understand their point completely.
Third, I think there is great wisdom in the premise: it is not the events of our lives, but the stories we hold about these events, that bring us pain. One of the keys to understanding our own suffering is to examine our unexamined beliefs. As the authors say, “Too often it is not the problem that causes our suffering; it’s our thinking about the problem.”
Fourth, Loving What Is does not bombard you with a rehashing of the “same old, same old.” Rather, the authors distill their wisdom into to four key questions and a “turnaround” (the authors call this “the Work”).
These deceptively simple questions are:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
What I particularly like here is that when you apply “the Work” to a specific problem, it very quickly affords you the opportunity to see what is disconcerting or upsetting you in a very holistic way.
Once you have responded to these four questions, it is time for what the authors call “the turnaround.” This is contrarianism at its finest!
Turnarounds are opportunities to experience the opposite of your original statement, to see what you and the one you judge have in common. For example, “I’m upset with my wife because she doesn’t understand me,” can be turned around to “I’m angry at myself because I don’t understand me.”
Is that also true, or even truer? Could it be that I don’t understand myself, and perhaps that is why I repeatedly get so upset at my wife? If I don’t understand myself, can I see how my wife wouldn’t either? Another turnaround could be “I’m angry at myself because I don’t understand my wife.”
I particularly liked the turnaround concept because it draws out unique revelations that can show you the unseen pieces of yourself reflected back through others.
There are many other great nuggets throughout this book. I was personally challenged as I read it, and have found numerous concepts very helpful as I have applied them in my coaching work.
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