From skwigg's journal:
Ok, favorite thoughts and highlights so far from the book, "A Mind at Home with Itself" by Byron Katie.
I tested what happened when I didn’t respond to the thoughts of “I want,” “I need,” “I shouldn’t,” “I should.” I witnessed the world beyond those apparent requirements, and I found none of them to be true. None of those thoughts could stand up to inquiry.
This! I think Georgie once called it "shoulding all over yourself." Life is better when you don't.
Eventually, you find yourself ending every thought with a question mark, not with a period.
Haha! Yes! Is it true? "I need to lose weight." "I should eat less sugar." "I want abs." ALL LIES That's why they feel stressful. So when they pop up in my head it goes like, "I shouldn't eat so much bread?" with the question mark at the end. Then I'm like, "nah, never mind" because I know as soon as the thought forms that it's pure silliness, that I'd be better off without that thought, and that I can find a million examples that the opposite is also true.
In the dream-world, the world of suffering, the mind seems chaotic, and people think that it needs to be controlled. Some people would give anything to know how to control it. But the mind can never be controlled; it can only be questioned, loved, and met with understanding.
This too! Especially when I was having cravings and binge urges, or "self-sabotaging," (as if there is such a thing) I tried so, so hard to control my thoughts, or to eliminate them altogether. Good freaking luck! The thoughts will come, spontaneously, non-stop. It's what you do with them that matters. If you believe them, if you think you ARE them, they can send you into a stressful, self-destructive frenzy. If you're not taking them so seriously, they may make you smile or yawn.
If you have a thought, there’s a simultaneous feeling. And an uncomfortable feeling is like an alarm clock that says, “You’re caught in the dream.”
Ah, yes. When there's no separation, we just feel miserable and don't know why. If you can take a step back, you notice the thought that happens right before the feeling. It may be just a little microflicker but it's always there. If I feel edgy, angry, anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed, I'm entertaining a painful reality that I haven't questioned.
If you think you're enlightened, you'll love having your car towed away.
That made me laugh. It is easy to be all evolved and Zen-like when nothing is happening. It's harder in traffic, when in-laws are visiting, or when the dog throws up in your shoe.
If you don’t believe that anyone is really suffering, how can you experience empathy for them or take their problems seriously? The suffering that people describe to me necessarily comes from either an imagined past or an imagined future, since an identified mind is always remembering or anticipating what isn’t happening in reality. I realize that everyone is always okay; they’re always in a state of grace, whether they realize it or not. Empathy, the dictionary says, is the ability to understand the feelings of another person. To me this makes sense. I understand that when people are suffering, they are me, trapped in a painful past or anticipating a dangerous future, and I respect this, as I respect a child having a bad dream. To the dreamer it isn’t a dream. My job isn’t ever to wake the sufferers, but rather to see what I see and never override or disrespect their suffering, since it is very real to them. My job is to understand.
I love this explanation. When I first realized that nobody's painful stories were true, I had a bit of a problem. How on earth do you share this possibility without sounding like a total jerk? Or a delusional whackadoo? Katie makes it look easy.
But what about all the violence, inequality, and suffering in the world? Especially now. Shouldn't we all be outraged and horrified? Won't that help? Uh, nope, she says...
When you believe that such apparent horrors shouldn’t happen, even though they do happen, you suffer. So you’re adding one more person’s suffering to the world’s suffering, and for what purpose? Does your suffering help anyone who is being harmed? No. Does it motivate you to act for the common good? If you pay close attention, you’ll see that this too isn’t so. By questioning the belief that these things shouldn’t happen, you can end your own suffering about the suffering of others. And once you do, you’ll be able to notice that this makes you a kinder human being, someone who is motivated by love rather than outrage or sadness. The end of suffering in the world begins with the end of suffering in you.
Whoa. This one really hit me because I read it at around the same time I watched a video of her doing The Work (those four questions) with a woman who was suffering with the thought that the meat industry is violent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t36ExIRv7rI At first I thought there was no way I was going to be able to sit through 90 minutes of her talking to a vegan about chicken suffering, but this was riveting because it's not about chickens and cows. It's about how do you respond to injustice in the world? By suffering yourself? With anger? With outrage? Does that really help? Or are you a more effective agent of change if you see the situation clearly rather than being blinded by painful emotions and the illusion of us/them? The video was riveting, and funny, as always.
You are who you believe you are. Other people are, for you, who you believe they are; they can be nothing more than that. If you realized that the mind is one, that everyone and everything is your own projection (including you), you would understand that it’s only yourself you’re ever dealing with.
Aaaaagh!! SPLAT! Do you see why it sometimes takes me three days to process one of these chapters? That's just one paragraph, a completely brain-bending paragraph. You can't ever truly know someone else, what they think, how they feel, why they are the way they are, what it's like to be them. Your whole experience of that person, or generic "others" is your own projection of what it must be like, what they must think. I would get myself into big trouble with this one, totally assuming that I knew others, knew who they were, what they should do, what they thought, especially of me! Super especially of me and my weight/eating/size/fitness, but all of that "fake news" as Katie hilariously calls it was coming from my own mind. I can only fix it by dealing with my thoughts, NOT my weight/eating/size/fitness, and certainly not with how others might perceive me in my crazy imagination.
Ok, that's probably enough for now! Let me know what you think, even if it takes three days to process. I totally get it! :-)
I am playing a lot during quiet moments with royally mindf-ing myself. Like "I am the rain, I am the creator of the rain, I am nothing, there is no rain" LOL
That made me laugh!! I did (and do) the same thing.
How do you balance consuming the "newest newsiest news" about health in a way that is, well... healthy?
I treat diet news like a sewage leak. Turn it off, plug it, hold your nose, flee, take whatever steps necessary. That means I'm not exposing myself to fitness magazines, diet books, healthy living blogs, fitness trainers, health experts, social media gurus, none of it. You can't bombard yourself with that nonsense all day long and stay sane.
I catch the latest health news only when it makes its way to major news outlets, and then I'm skeptical of the reporting, because I know reporters. They're human and biased. There may be some truth involved, but there is always an alternate viewpoint. It's never "All meat will kill you, so don't eat meat anymore. All sugar is poison, so don't eat sugar ever again." There are always many turnarounds. If anything, Katie has taught me to be curious. I don't take health statements or anything else at face value. Is it true for me? Does it work for me? Maybe I'll investigate. Maybe I'll do more or less of something while I sort it out, but there's never a good reason to panic and feel terrible.
I, too, am REALLY enjoying this book. I am having a lot of fun practicing with my inner Katie voice. I am playing a lot during quiet moments with royally mindf-ing myself. Like "I am the rain, I am the creator of the rain, I am nothing, there is no rain" LOL.
It came to me today, as I was reading my most recent email update from Rhonda Patrick, that I still really struggle with orthorexia. Specifically when it comes to longevity and health. I read the transcript of her podcast about time restricted eating and IMMEDIATELY feel anxious that I forgot I was supposed to be eating in a shortened window of time otherwise I will most certainly not survive another 5 years. Obviously that thought is ridiculous. How do you balance consuming the "newest newsiest news" about health in a way that is, well... healthy? There is likely something true and valid in the research and I would love to be able to be discerning and self-experimental while not feeling extraordinary anxiety.
No one you love can leave you. Only you can do that.
Um, what? But then, whoa. I think of Ripley "leaving me" when she died. It's not true. I still think about her and talk about her every day as if she's in the other room. She's right there in my heart and mind as always, along with everyone I love. There's no pain there unless I tell stories about loss, sadness and separation, which I've come to realize is a dumb pursuit and completely optional.
Think of your feet. Did you have feet before I asked you to think about them? Did they exist in your awareness? Did you put them in the position they're in right now? Something did. But until a few moments ago, you didn't have feet. No story: no feet. It's like that with everything.
This highlight blew my mind when I first read it, because my feet magically appeared. They hadn't been anywhere in my awareness even one second earlier. It points to how much of our experience is a story, even seemingly solid objects like feet. For me, I think about times I'm totally fine and happy. Then I'll get an upsetting phone call or think about something stressful and my whole reality will shift. But what changed? I'm in the same room, wearing the same comfy clothes, with my same cute dog, and lots of shows to watch on Netflix, but now I'm upset, angry, or stressed, not because anything has changed in the present moment (reality), but because I let an unquestioned story sneak in there about what the thought or phone call means. Then I had an emotional reaction to the fake news. Then my peaceful present moment got tweaked all sideways, when nothing had changed, only my stories. No story: no feet! That's my new motto. LOL
More later. Too much of "A Mind at Home with Itself" in one shot is overwhelming.
Ok, just a few more bombshell thoughts from Byron Katie's book, "A Mind at Home with Itself."
T
he truth is that your partner is your mirror. He or she always reflects you back to yourself. If you think there's a flaw in him, that flaw is in you, because he's nothing more than your story. You are always what you judge him to be in the moment. There's no exception to this. You are your own suffering. You are your own happiness.
This quote reminded me of how much things changed for me when I took the most angry, manipulative, deceitful person in my life and began referring to them as The Great Teacher of Peace and Happiness. LOL Because they are! My experience of other people is all my stories anyway, my projections, so I can make it a horror show or I can use it as an opportunity to be grateful and happy anyway. That shift in perception changed everything.
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I don't want other people's approval. I want them to think the way they think. That's love. You can't control someone else's thinking. You can't even control your own.
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You can't disappoint another human being, and another human being can't disappoint you. You believe the story of how your partner isn't giving you what you want and you disappoint yourself.
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People think that relationships will make them happy, but you can't get happiness from another person; you can't get it from anywhere outside of you. What we usually think of as a relationship is two belief systems that come together to validate that there is something outside of you that can bring you happiness. And when you believe that's true, growing beyond your common belief system means losing the other person, because that's what you had together. So, if you move forward, you leave this old belief system behind in what you call the other person, and then you feel separation and pain.
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The only relationship that is ever going to be meaningful is the relationship you have with yourself. When you love yourself, you love the person you're always with. But unless you love yourself, you won't be comfortable with someone else, because he or she is going to challenge your belief system, and until you question your beliefs, you've got to make war to defend them. So much for the relationship! People make these unspoken contracts with each other and promise they won't ever mess with the other person's belief system, and that's not possible.
The book is so intense! I usually read something in a weekend but this is taking me weeks and weeks to process, in a good way! I feel better and question more already. Like she says, the thoughts come with question marks now. The driver in front of me is an idiot? Work really sucks today? The evening news is horrific? The world is hopeless? I hate salad? It's raining?
I can find turnarounds for all of them instantly. I realize how I feel when I believe that, know who I'd be without it, and realize that the opposite is just as true. So stressful thoughts don't stick and cause trouble like they once did. When I first found The Work, I filled notebooks with questions and turnarounds. I rarely need to write anything anymore, but it's a great tool if I get a log jam in my thought stream.
Here are some more of my Byron Katie highlights. There was a chapter called The Perfect Body.
Everyone has the perfect body. If you weren’t able to compare your body to any other, what could possibly be lacking? Without the mind’s comparison, no one can be too fat or too thin. That’s not possible; it’s a myth. Comparison keeps you from the awareness of what is. You could weigh five hundred pounds, you could be dying of cancer, and still you would have the perfect body, the one that you need in order to be exactly who you are in this moment.
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The body only reflects what the mind attaches to.
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The clear mind understands that the body is not personal. It can't cause any problem; mind's identification with the body is what causes confusion and suffering.
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No one has ever attained enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a thing. It's a figment of the imagination. Are you enlightened to your own stressful thinking right now? That's the only enlightenment that matters.
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This confirmed my suspicion that my thinking is the real issue, not my body, not my weight, not what I ate for lunch. What am I telling myself? How does that cause me to feel? That's what determines my experience. Change the story and everything changes.
I also love the bit about enlightenment from another chapter. We all like to feel like we are (or should be) done, perfect, evolved, got this, whether it's our eating, health, career, or anything else. It's never a done deal though, never completed and in the past. Are you questioning your own stressful thinking right now? That's as enlightened as we get.
The Byron Katie book is genuinely difficult to read. Every chapter stretches my mind so much that I need days to process it. I finally realized that I could just skip the translations of the Diamond Sutra that start every chapter. They all sound like gibberish to me, but then Katie’s words are so clear and amazing.
Speaking of unlearning, I just highlighted in my Byron Katie book (which is cracking my mind open, BTW) that:
The only thing worth learning is to unlearn. The way to do this is to question everything you think you know. Once you’ve found the key to yourself, you discover a freedom so vast that no physical body can contain it; not even a universe can contain it. Unlearning is how the vastness reveals itself. As long as we’re stuck in what we think we know, the world remains small, and life is lived in apparent suffering.
Another little Byron Katie gem that's making me rethink "difficult" individuals, especially relatives:
We believe our thoughts about people, and we punish and attack them for what we’re believing. We believe our thoughts so strongly that people don’t have a chance with us.
Aaaagh! It's like the woman is throwing light bulbs at me.
I'm still making my way through "A Mind at Home with Itself" by Byron Katie. It's blowing my own mind repeatedly. There's no way to read it quickly. I read one chapter and then process for two days. Here are a couple of bogglers from chapter called The Gift of Criticism. Remember with the "everyone is yourself" quote that your experience of other people comes from your own mind, not them.
Since everyone is yourself, criticism is always coming from inside you; it’s you talking to you. Criticism is the greatest gift you can receive, if self-realization is what you’re interested in. It shows you what you haven’t been able to see yet. What could anyone say to me that I wouldn’t be able to acknowledge? If someone were to say, “You’re unkind,” I would become still, I would go inside, and in about three seconds I’d be able to find it—if not in the present situation, then at some time in the apparent past. If someone were to say, “You’re a liar,” I’d think, “Duh,” because I can easily join them there. Or I might say, “Where do you think I lied? I really want to know.” This is about self-realization, not about being right or wrong. Whatever someone might call me, I can go inside and find it. My job is to stay connected. The only thing that could cause me pain would be my defense or denial. “Oh, no, you can’t be talking about me—I’m not that!” Well, yes I am. I am that too. I am everything you can think of. Keep coming at me. Show me what I haven’t realized yet.
and
Question the thoughts you had while your mother or father or husband or wife or apparent enemy was criticizing you. Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside you can hurt you. That’s not possible. Only when you believe a story about them can you be hurt. So you’re the one who’s hurting yourself. This is very good news, because it means that you don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting you or to change in any way. You’re the one who can stop hurting you. You’re the only one.
Whoa! Again! Every chapter! LOL