Bookish Weapon Number Forty-Four

Sometimes a book is a lot of work. Mastin Kipp’s, “Claim Your Power” was a lot of work. Exercises to do. Lots of list-making and thinking. Then “Best Self” was like that too. So much to do that I was worn out after reading it. This book, “Loving What Is,” by Byron Katie doesn’t have a lot of exercises, but it does exercise your mind. It was written in 2002 when I was in my 50s. I wonder if life could have been different if I had read it then?

Your mind gets a workout. It doesn’t seem that complicated at first, but then once you start using “The Work” it requires a lot of thinking.

What’s “The Work?”

“The Work” is a series of four questions you ask yourself anytime you don’t like what someone is doing or not doing or some idea that upsets you. Any thought or situation.

Here are the questions or inquiry:

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it is true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?

And

Turn the thought around. Then find at least three specific genuine examples of how each turnaround is true for you in this situation.

How Easy Is It?

Not so easy. Certainly is simple, right. So try it out. See! Katie gives you lots of help in the book so you can become decent at doing “The Work.” It makes my brain hurt, but maybe that is just me.

She presents whole sections about each of the questions even the first and second. These seem so obvious but they are not.

There are dialogues with several people in the book where Byron Katie asks them these questions and then guides them through it all. It can get complicated.

There is a chapter about doing the work on the body and addictions. There is a chapter about doing the work on money and work. One about doing the work with children. The book covers all the bases. At the end of the book, there is a section of questions and answers.

Is this book a weapon. You bet! It is a bookish weapon.