Founder Of "The Work" Shares Information On How What You Think About Affects Your Health

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's The Healthiest Year of Your Life, which can be found at http://thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com. In this excerpt, Byron Katie shares a clip of a very powerful session from The Work.

The Healthiest Year of Your Life with Byron Katie, founder of The Work and author of three best selling books whose mission is to teach people how to end their own suffering.

Kevin: Now, just through this little conversation that we’ve just had, do people ever really not like us or is it what we think?

Byron: Everyone loves me. I just don’t expect them to realize it yet. It’s our nature to love. Everyone loves you.

Byron: Look at that little boy and look at him when he’s believing the thought. That affects his health. Now, look at the other children that are playing and laughing. That affects their health and that goes for all people too. What we are believing determines the quality and health of our life.

Kevin: There’s a video on your site of a man with cancer and anyone can go to thework.com to see some of the videos that you have. What I think is powerful about it is that you were very direct with him and I think that to think that maybe cancer is very prevalent in our society now. Some of the things that he mentioned in that entire program, it’s hard to think that those emotions can be associated to health or poor health.

Byron: Oh, totally. I went through and I wrote A Thousand Names for Joy blind and I have muscular dystrophy and it’s known to be a very painful disease and I didn’t suffer ever and there wasn’t one time, Kevin, that I needed to see. The way you saw that little boy is you just follow him in your mind’s eye and there’s nothing I couldn’t see, because I couldn’t see. It just never happened.

Kevin: Wow. Now, you’re not saying getting disease not stressful or painful or hard, right?

Byron: Well, I’m saying it’s not stressful or painful for me that I know of and I’m wide open. I could contract a disease and be very miserable, but until I do and that happens I just can’t know, but one thing I do know is that I am open to it. I am open for it all. You know, I didn’t write Loving What Is for nothing.

Kevin: Yeah.

Byron: This is my life. This is your life and there are two ways of doing it. One is miserable and fearful and the other is free and bring it on because you come to understand eventually, Kevin, that the worst that can happen is a thought. All pain is a projection of mind. It’s just a matter of clarity and questioning the thought you’re believing, the stressful thoughts, but nonetheless, like it or not, even pain is a projection of mind. There’s nothing that is not.

Kevin: What advice do you have for the miserable?

Byron: Oh, my goodness. That it could be that you’re believing something that you don’t believe. It could be that you’re trying very, very hard to believe what you don’t believe. You question what you’re trying to believe and give yourself a break. Cut yourself free and open to life. To me, life is synonymous with love and lightness and God, nature, beauty.

Kevin: I think a lot of people strive for perfectionism, as well. Is that a reflection of fear, or of not being worthy of something?

Byron: Well, I think if basically it’s honest to strive for perfection. The only thing is, you’re already perfect. So it’s striving just to notice that you are where you want to be.

Kevin: It’s also ignoring it.

Byron: Yeah, and it has to be invisible to us as long as we’re believing our thoughts about ourselves and others and the world. The world is perfect. It is absolutely perfect. It doesn’t strive for perfection. It just continues to create what is perfect, but Kevin, what we’re believing about the world that, is the suffering. The world doesn’t cause suffering. What we’re believing about the world, that causes suffering, the only suffering that exists. Life is again, life is a friendly universe and I invite everyone not to believe me, but to test it for yourself and that’s what The Work is for and it’s free and you know, Kevin, I don’t expect anyone to do it or even be open to it, but nonetheless, it’s born in the world and anyone can do The Work if they’re open to it; young, old, the deaf and dying. It doesn’t matter, people who don’t have any problems in their life, There are happy people that love The Work, because it’s so infinite. It will take your mind and wake it up, just simply if you simply believe the answer to four little questions.

Kevin: Most of the people who are listing to this call have a vested interest in their health. What are some of the things or some of the results or some of the breakthroughs – I don’t even know what to call it -- that you’ve experienced firsthand with people and their health, their weight, their diet.

Byron: Oh, my goodness. Do The Work and watch your body shift. When you’re mental health shifts, your physical health shifts. I do a thing, Kevin. It’s a 28-day Turnaround House. It’s quite remarkable, but it’s for people with any addiction, like people addicted to what their believing. That’s the ultimate addiction and it’s for people who want to turn their life around, their emotional health around, their physical health around. I have a nine-day school for The Work where people come out transformed. Their blood pressure drops after years and years of medication. It levels their diabetes. It’s remarkable what happens during that school and how the physical body begins to heal, because it’s not stressed out.

Because you just use these four questions for a while and they wake up inside of you and they become a part of your mind and it’s over. They just meet every thought and it’s like communion, rather than war and depression and illness, but I’m not stopping age. I’m 65 years old and I’m not too old or too young or too tall or too short or too fat or too thin or any of it. I’m perfect to be me right here, right now.

If you question your thoughts, the body follows. So we’re doing it the opposite way. I like to say my body is not my business, my mind is my business. I work with my mind and my body gets healthy. It’s in a wonderment of what am I and it’s free and there’s no burden and if it wins, it is in heaven. If it loses, it is in heaven, because it wins. That’s just about all that is left to a clear mind and it’s like nature. Aren’t I beautiful? Isn’t the world beautiful? Aren’t you beautiful? And how can I help? How can I assist?

Kevin: How can someone who is having a health complication right now or maybe they’re 300 pounds overweight, how can they start?

Byron: The simplest way is just to go to the website, thework. com and click on The Work and follow the simple directions. They can do that from right here, right now. Anyone can do that. What I love about this work is that it doesn’t need a teacher. We are the teacher we’ve been waiting for each of us. You know what The Work is, it’s nothing, really. There’s no power in it. It’s when we answer those questions that the miracle happens. Every single time the miracle happens and if you take the willingness to answer the questions, I love that anyone can do this, Kevin.

Kevin: Well, I think now is probably a good time to play an example of it working and so everyone listening can hear it as it is.

Male: How will the cancer stop growing and hurting me and my family.

Byron: So you want the cancer to stop growing. Is that true? Are you sure? Have you stopped to think about it? Look again. You may come up with the same answer and I’m inviting you. You want the cancer to stop growing?

Male: Yeah.

Byron: Is that true? Are you sure? Sit with it.

Male: Yes.

Byron: So you want the cancer to stop growing?

Male: Mm hmm.

Byron: We’re looking at stressful reactions here. How do you react when you believe the thought “I want the cancer to stop growing.” And the doctor says it’s growing?

Male: I end up having panic and stress reactions that are really difficult.

Byron: Yes, yes. So give me a stress free reason to keep with the thought “I want the cancer to stop growing.”

Male: I’m sorry. I can’t think of one.

Byron: There isn’t one.

Male: Oh, okay. I was getting very stressed.

Byron: You know, I’m traveling with you.

Male: Okay, thank you.

Byron: Yeah, so I want the cancer to stop growing. Who would you be without that thought within your life?

Male: My own life and what it is.

Byron: And sweetheart, there are two ways to live your life just the way you’re living it. One is stressed out and one is not. One hurts, one doesn’t. In it, one is stressed out and one is not. One hurts and one doesn’t. Either way, you’re living it.

Male: Yes. I am living it. That’s right.

Byron: So, “I want the cancer to stop growing,” turn it around. What is the opposite?

Male: I don’t want my cancer to stop growing.

Byron: Now, give me an example of why that would be true. Give me and example of why that’s a good thing.

Male: I don’t want my cancer to stop growing for it’s opening doors that I could never open on my own, or I would not have easily opened. I don’t want my cancer to stop growing because it’s opening my heart

Byron: That’s two. Give me one more. If you can find two, you can find three.

Male: I don’t want my cancer to stop growing, because I’m so much more alive than I was a year ago.

Byron: If you find three, you can find four. Don’t let you get away with anything, sweetheart. You know, loving what is, is just – I mean, it’s not kind of liking what is, or kind of appreciating. It’s not accepting what it is. It is good. It is really exciting and I’m inviting you to keep going, just one more.

Male: Okay. I found two more.

Byron: You know, I’m in there with you. I’m getting excited.

Male: I want my cancer to keep growing, because I’m becoming more of who I am and in that I can be more for others and the way I can be of service for others.

Byron: That’s the deal. Okay, one more.

Male: Okay. I heard someone say this a long time ago. I don’t want my cancer to stop growing, because I’m going to become the world’s greatest lover for my wife.

Byron: Now, was that – very good. All right.

Male: Thank you.

Byron: That’s exciting. That’s really exciting and there’s more. Do you ever meditate and just sit? Okay, honey. Travel there. There’s more .. .

Kevin: Wow. That is a powerful, powerful clip. For those of you who are listening, there are more clips just like these on the website which is www.thework.com and there you can find out some more about what Katie does and how you can practice into your own life.