About Byron Katie

    Byron Katie is a teacher. Through her simple and powerful process of inquiry called The Work, she has the ability to guide people and change their beliefs and thoughts about suffering.  Katie helps people to understand and identify the thoughts that cause them pain. Katie not only teaches that all the problems in the world originate in our thinking: she gives us the tool to open our minds and set ourselves free.

    Byron Katie has one job: to teach people how to end their own suffering. When Katie appears, lives change. As she guides people through her simple yet powerful process of inquiry, called The Work, they find again and again that their stressful beliefs – about life, other people, or themselves – radically and positively shift - and their lives are changed forever. 

    Based on Katie's direct experience of how suffering is created and ended,  The Work has been Katie’s relentless desire to free thousands of people. Through free public events, visits to prisons, hospitals and churches, Katie has touched the lives of everyone she encounters. Participants at her weekend intensives report lasting transformations. 

     Katie’s events are said to be “riveting to watch,” the Times of London reported.  Eckhart Tolle has called The Work “a great blessing for our planet. It acts like a razor-sharp sword that cuts through illusion and enables you to know for yourself the timeless essence of your being.”

      Byron Katie is the author of three bestselling books: 

                       

  Loving What Is:          A Thousand Names for Joy:     I  Need Your Love
 Four  Questions That                  Living in Harmony with                 —Is That True? 
Can Change Your Life                    the Way Things Are                 The Search for Love,
                                                                                                   Approval and Happiness

               

      Her most recent book, Who Would You Be Without Your Story?  is composed of 15 dialogues of people who worked with Katie. In each encounter, Katie’s sharp mind and utter kindness is seen as she delves into the process of question and reflection about why someone is unhappy. 

Katie has devoted her life to helping people and this generosity  is seen in her eagerness to spread The Work.

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     Byron Katie became severely depressed in her early thirties. For almost a decade she spiraled down into depression, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom.

    Then one morning in February 1986, she experienced a life-changing realization. There are various names for an experience like this. Katie calls it "waking up to reality."

In that instant of no-time, she says,

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.

    She realized that what had been causing her depression was not the world around her, but the beliefs she'd had about the world. Instead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match her thoughts about how it should be, she could question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. As a result, a bedridden, suicidal woman was instantly filled with love for everything life brings.

     Katie's process of self-inquiry, called  "The Work", didn't develop from this experience; she says that it woke up with her, as her, that February morning in 1986. The first people who did The Work reported that it had transformed their lives, and she soon began receiving invitations to teach the process publicly.

     Since 1986, she has brought The Work to hundreds of thousands of people across the world, at free public events, in prisons, hospitals, churches, corporations, universities, schools, at weekend workshops, and at her amazing nine-day  School for the Work.

Learn more about The Work at Byron Katie's Website:  http://thework.com

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For information on Byron Katie in Cincinnati,
    Please call 513-766-8535 or       
Email:  cincywork@me.com 

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