Here are some customer reviews of
Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
: The best single book I now own, or ever will own, is a good dictionary. "Loving What Is", is right under that.
I've been reading through some of the reviews of this book. The negative reviewers make statements such as, "It's too basic. It's a band-aide approach. She's unqualified." I think the question they need to ask is exactly what Katie teaches, "Is it true? Can you absolutely know it's true?" What makes a person "Qualified" anyway--a piece of paper? I've met garbage collectors that I considered more "qualified" to comment on "life" than some therapists who had the "credentials." Qualified, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. This "work" has helped me tremendously in changing my thinking. It's helped me identify the "stories" I create around the actual truth, and it's helped me realize that those stories are what create my suffering--not the actual reality itself. I think the main thing Katie helps people do is shed their "victim consciousness" and empower themselves. We all create our own reality. She simply helps us "examine" what we're creating and change our perceptions about it. It's in changing those perceptions that we are able to stop creating the same "patterns" over and over again and create more "consciously." And as Forest Gump would say, "That's all I have to say about that!"
"When you argue with reality, you lose-but only 100% of the time," Byron Katie says. To help us stop our painful and hopeless arguments with reality, Byron Katie gives us much more, or much less, than another psychological Band-Aid or superficial pep-talk. She gives us The Work, four penetrating questions that, when asked sincerely, can help anyone tear through years of painful beliefs -"I'm too fat." "My partner should love me more." etc.-leaving the peace and freedom that come naturally from "loving what is." I found The Work a little slippery to understand the first time I heard of it (it's been spreading through word of mouth for years). How can asking myself some questions make any difference? But after I did it, I was blown away! Loving What Is makes learning this process fairly simple, through detailed instructional material, humorous anecdotes (Katie is famous for her sense of humor), and dozens of powerful examples of The Work in action. Co-author Stephen Mitchell's intelligence and precision are evident in the book's seamless structure, and in how naturally Katie's clarity and warmth make it to the page. This book still requires "active" reading-and you have to do The Work yourself in order to really get it-but for those who are willing to try something new, Loving What Is really could change your life. It changed mine. (I highly recommend the audiobook as well.)
 You know the serenity prayer, "God grant me the grace to accept what I cannot change, to change what I cannot accept, and the wisdom to tell the difference"? This book is a thousand times longer, and only gets a through a tiny part of the prayer. It could really be boiled down to one word: "Accept!". I certainly agree that acceptance is a useful tool for finding inner peace, but the author is holding a hammer and nailing down everything in sight.
I have a basic philosophical problem with her premise. I believe that vulnerability to others and suffering are a fundamental, and sometimes valuable, part of human existence. My fiance was murdered, and I grieve tremendously for him. I don't want to suffer for the sake of it, but my guess is that Rophie would tell me that I don't need to be sad at all. In my opinion, this is not only ridiculous, it's unhealthy. It's human nature to object to loss, and to pretend otherwise ultimately impedes healing. Rophie claims that you shouldn't need anything from other people, that you can give it all to yourself. I say bollocks! We are biologically designed to need each other. Babies who aren't held and loved can't thrive, and it's not because they're telling themselves sad stories.
Like other reviewers, I found her claims of "open inquiry" disingenuous. It was clear in every transcript that she was steering her client to an answer she'd decided upon herself. The author also implies that there's no possibility of healthy disagreement with her perspective. Either you see things her way, or you're unready for "The Work."
I've edited my review because on reflection, this is the biggest problem I have with the book. When you're writing a spiritual book, particularly a book about personal reality, you really ought to make room for the possibility that there might be other approaches that work as well or better for different people. Stating that your book is the end-all, be-all and implying that anyone who isn't helped just isn't doing it right doesn't jibe with that darned "open inquiry" thing. I find it a little amusing that this attitude is reflected by a lot of her fans too. Many positive reviews here openly say that if you don't love this book, there's something wrong with you. How's that for enlightenment? The only thing that really helped me get through the death of my love was group therapy. Some people in the group left it because they didn't find it helpful. One friend of mine cured his depression by becoming a devoted student of Tai Chi. Different things work for different people. THAT'S what an open mind is, not insisting that what worked for you works for the rest of the world.
As for the person who criticized another reviewer for not reading every line in the book: my hat's off to those of you who could. The parts that weren't offensively smug were horrifically dull. She says her book ENDS suffering? I've had more fun reading tax forms.
I will say that several people I respect say this book changed their lives, so it may have value for the new reader. Just make sure you give it a good once over in the bookstore before you fork over your cash.
A friend of mind literally put this book in my hands. I had been obsessing about someone for months. I have a meditation practice, a therapist, friends who had been listening to me patiently. But this book seems to be helping in a way nothing else has. This cool thing called "The Work"--where you have to write down what's bothering you and then ask four questions and turn your problem around--made me see that he had hurt me once, but I was hurting me every single day, with my thoughts, repeating the whole thing over and over, letting it take me over. I feel so much lighter about the whole thing now, even kind of amused at times by my own craziness. I really recommend this book to anyone who thinks too much. And I really want to meet Byron Katie someday--the way she talks about Reality being God--if only we were willing to truly see it, the way she talks in general is kind of startling, wakes you up. In person, she must be amazing.
|
