Who Would You Be Without Your Story?

Who Would You Be Without Your Story? By Byron Katie

So are you going to question your stressful concepts as they surface, or not? Are you going to question them and turn them around? Are you going to sit with them like a student of yourself and read the book of you? And you’ll notice that sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t—at first. And if you have The Work for breakfast every day, it starts waking up in you. You no longer do it; it does you. The only concepts that come back to you are the ones that need your understanding. I see all thoughts as the beloved.

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If I’m good at something, I don’t give it to the world. I give it to my daughter; I give it to you. I give it to the one in front of me, because I’ve received it myself. I have the ability to do that. If I have the most sweetheart thing in the world, it’s not for everyone. It’s for the one in front of me—it’s for me first and then you. That’s it. That’s all that’s required. No push, no pull. It’s not for a grand scale. It’s just for this, the one in front of you. That’s your job. And if you believe it’s otherwise, you torment yourself with the mind that’s not in reality—the mind that won’t just sit, notice, appreciate, be supported. And I’m good enough to do this. I know my job. My job is to sit here comfortably now. I’m doing my job.

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I often say that forgiveness is simply seeing that what you thought happened, didn’t. And we think we have to name it something, so we call it forgiveness.

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The Work is like this. You’re walking through the desert and it’s a beautiful day; and you look down and see a big fat rattlesnake, and you’re terrified of rattlesnakes. You jump back, your heart is racing, your pulse is beating, you’re paralyzed with fear, sweat on your brow. Then the sun goes behind a cloud and you look again, and it isn’t a snake after all—it’s a rope. Now I invite you to stand over the rope for a thousand years and make yourself afraid of it again. You can’t. This is self-realization. You have realized for yourself what is true. And you can never be afraid of that rope again. That’s the power of questioning your mind. So what we’ve been dealing with this evening are apparent snakes. And I can tell you that in twenty years, I have never met a thought that is in reality a snake. They’ve all been ropes. Every single stressful thought I have ever encountered has been a rope. There’s no exception to that. And I love that you’ve begun to find it out for yourself.