Byron Katie Quotes

Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do.

Spare yourself from seeking love, approval, or appreciation-from anyone. And watch what happens in reality, just for fun.

People try so hard to let go of their negative behaviors and thoughts, and it doesn't work, or it works only for a short time. I didn't let go of my negative thoughts; I questioned them, and then they let go of me, and so did my addictions and depression.

Our job is unconditional love. The job of everyone else in our life is to push our buttons.

Every single human being is trying his best. We're all doing the best we can. But when we believe what we think, we have to live out those thoughts. When there's chaos in our heads, there's chaos in our lives. When there's hurt in our thinking, there's hurt in our lives. Love thy neighbor as thyself? I always have. When I hated me, I hated you. That's how it works. If I hate someone, I'm mistaking them for me, and solutions remain hidden.

Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you're attached to something not true for you.

Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.

Fear has only two causes: the thought of losing what you have or the thought of not getting what you want.

Pay close attention to the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness.

If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling yourself the story of how it doesn’t.

It's not your job to like me - it's mine

It's not the problem that causes our suffering; it's our thinking about the problem.

Your True Nature Is Love. There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

If you think the cause of your problem is 'out there,' you'll try to solve it from the outside. Take the shortcut: solve it from within.

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself-your own thinking coming back to you.

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.

The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story.

When you believe that your problem is caused by someone or something else, you become your own victim.

The whole world is simply my story, projected back to me on the screen of my own perception. All of it.

Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them

When you do The Work, you see who you are by seeing who you think other people are. Eventually you come to see that everything outside you is a reflection of your own thinking. You are the storyteller, the projector of all stories, and the world is the projected image of your thoughts.

Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you.

The most important relationship is the mind's relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate - and, really, the only - relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.

Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.

The person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is.

Reality doesn't wait for your opinion, vote, or permission, sweetheart. It just keeps being what it is and doing what it does.

If your beliefs are stressful and you question them, you come to see that they aren't true - whereas prior to questioning, you absolutely believe them. How can you live in joy when you're believing thoughts that bring on sadness, frustration, anger, alienation, and loneliness?

My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we're living with right now.

I realized that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose-but only 100% of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing!

No one has ever been angry at another human being-we’re only angry at our story of them.

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God's. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our business. When I think, "You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself," I am in your business. When I'm worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God's business. If I am mentally in your business or in God's business, the effect is separation.

I stopped waiting for the world to give me what I wanted; I started giving it to myself.

No-one can disappoint you, only your thoughts about them can

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem?

Until you can see everything in the world as your friend, your work is not done.

The Work reveals that what you think shouldn't have happened should have happened. It should happened because it did, and no thinking in the world can change it. This doesn't mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance and without the confusion of your inner struggle. No one wants their children to get sick, no one wants to be in a car accident; but when these things happen, how can it be helpful to mentally argue with them? We know better than to do that, yet we do it, because we don't know how to stop.

As long as you think that the cause of your problem is "out there" - as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering - the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.

There's never a mistake in the universe. So if your partner is angry, good. If there are things about him that you consider flaws, good, because these flaws are your own, you're projecting them, and you can write them down, inquire, and set yourself free. People go to India to find a guru, but you don't have to: you're living with one. Your partner will give you everything you need for your own freedom.

When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. 'My husband doesn't respect me.' 'I should be thinner.' Those are stories. When there's no story, there's no suffering.

I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace. “If I feel peaceful,” they say, “why would I bother taking action at all?” My answer is “Because that's what love does.” To think that we need sadness or outrage to motivate us to do what's right is insane. As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become. As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day with drool running down her chin. My experience is the opposite. Love is action.

Since the past is unreal and the future is unreal, all your thoughts are about nothing.

Depression, pain, and fear are gifts that say, "Sweetheart, take a look at your thinking in this moment. You're living in a story that isn't true for you." Living a lie is always stressful. And investigating a lie through The Work always leads you back to who you are. Who you are is not an option. You are love. It hurts to believe you're other than who you are, to live any story less than love.

So, how do you get back to heaven? To begin with, just notice the thoughts that take you away from it. You don't have to believe everything your thoughts tell you. Just become familiar with the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness. It may seem strange at first to get to know yourself in this way, but becoming familiar with your stressful thoughts will show you the way home to everything you need.

Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there's nothing to know.

Just keep coming home to yourself, you are the one who you've been waiting for.

If I had a prayer, it would be this: "God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen."

As you inquire into issues and turn judgments around, you come to see that every perceived problem appearing "out there" is really nothing more than a misperception within your own thinking.

When they attack you and you notice that you love them with all your heart, your Work is done.

We are never really in control. We just think we are when things happen to be going our way.

What is perfect health? The unraveling of all imagined states of mind