When we want something other than what is, we suffer. Byron Katie, teacher of The Work and author of various bestselling titles including A Thousand Names for Joy and Loving What Is, calls this arguing with reality. When our thoughts create stress in our life, Katie explains, we are attaching to our thoughts and believing them to be true. As long as we believe these stressful thoughts we continue to live with stress. Katie teaches individuals how to question their thoughts and shares that if we take time to meet our thoughts with understanding (as she demonstrates through The Work (4 questions)), we invite our deepest truth to emerge from within. As we do this, she teaches, we open the doorway to greater freedom, inner peace and love for self and one another.

Katie so gracefully and succinctly says ” When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want”.

How about that? That statement comes a place of unconditional love. What a beautiful space to live from. A space that Byron Katie lives from and invites others to do as well. From my experience, that is no easy task, but a deeply honourable task and commitment, and one that feels very close to my heart.

As luck would have it, only a few weeks ago I found myself sitting on a plane en route to L.A. to begin Byron Katie’s 9 day School for The Work! To my amazement, the universe’s magical and beautiful ways showed up yet again.

Wow. What a trip.

It was an unbelievably profound experience for me. I participated in The Work and inquired into my stressful thoughts. I took the time to meet my thoughts with understanding and what I found was humility, love and compassion for myself and others. Getting to know the 350 other participants present from all over the world, enabled me to not only meet myself more intimately but it felt like I was connecting with humanity more intimately.

Throughout the 9 days together we all met the sacred place inside ourselves that holds our wisdom and personal truth. The answers that someone else had were perfect and right for them and the answers and truth that I found for myself were perfect and right for me. When we know our own truth and honour it as sacred, we move closer to peace within. We all shared in this experience with deep gratitude.

Perhaps you are wondering what happened to my stressful thoughts after the 9 days? Well, some have fallen away, but sure, I continue to have stressful thoughts. Now I have different tools to work with (if you’re interested visit TheWork.com). Through this experience I touched upon many deep personal truths. Most importantly this process confirmed what I know and believe to be true:
There is no greater answer out there than the one we find within ourselves.

We each have the answers we are looking for. Knowing this allows us to listen to our intuition and use it as our own personal navigation system to guides us and enable us to move through all of life with deeper trust, ease and grace.

How are you enabling your intuition to guide you? How are you honouring the answers that you have within your own self?

May you inquire into your own being and find what you are looking for.

With love for what is,
Julie

In this video below, you can get a taste of what The Work is about. You can find more on You Tube and at TheWork.com. Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s78jm5PIUDI]