Katie Byron Quotes & Sayings

Behold your world! The judgments you believe just created it. — Byron Katie

The miracle of love comes to you in the presence of the uninterpreted moment. If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life. — Byron Katie

If you want to enter a state of grace,
question the assumption you're defending right now. — Byron Katie

Without an uninvestigated story, there's only the perfection of life appearing as itself. You can always go inside and find the beauty that's revealed after the pain and fear are understood. — Byron Katie

A mind that doesn't question its judgements, makes the world very small and dangerous. — Byron Katie

Happiness is a clear mind. A clear and sane mind knows how to live, how to work, what emails to send, what phone calls to make, and what to do do to create what it wants without fear. — Byron Katie

When you discover that all happiness is inside you, the wanting and needing are over, and life gets very exciting. — Byron Katie

You don't have to feel bad to act kindly. Love doesn't stand by, it moves with the speed of clarity. — Byron Katie

There are no new stressful thoughts. They're all recycled. — Byron Katie

When you srgue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time. — Byron Katie

We're all looking for love, in our confusion, until we find our way back to the realization that love is what we already are. — Byron Katie

I see the goodness and beauty in everyone, and everything is a gift given for me and for all of us. If you don't love it, question your mind until you do. — Byron Katie

Personalities don't love.
They want something. — Byron Katie

Any stressful thought that you have about the planet, for example, shows you where you are stuck, where your energy is being exhausted in not fully meeting life as it is, without condition. — Byron Katie

How do I know that I don't need what
I want? I don't have it. — Byron Katie

Gratitude is what we are without a story. — Byron Katie

Until you look forward to all criticism, your Work's not done. — Byron Katie

We don't attach to things; we attach to our stories about them. — Byron Katie

Discomfort is the call to set yourself free. — Byron Katie

Who would you be without the thought that happiness depends on someone else? — Byron Katie

Do you want to be right more than you want to know the truth? It's the truth that set me free. Acceptance, peace, and less attachment to a world of suffering are all effects of doing The Work. They're not the goals. Do The Work for the love of freedom, for the love of truth. — Byron Katie

It's not what happens in life that bothers us. It's what we're believing about it that bothers us. — Byron Katie

To understand our own thinking is to understand all thinking. — Byron Katie

It is not your business to love me. It is mine. — Byron Katie

Every (stressful thought) is a variation on a single theme: This shouldn't be happening. I shouldn't be having this experience. God is unjust. Life isn't fair. — Byron Katie

Your parents are your projection-nothing more. — Byron Katie

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result. — Byron Katie

Defense is the first act of war. — Byron Katie

I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts
because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace.
"If I feel peaceful," they say, "why would I bother taking action at all?"
My answer is "Because that's what love does."
To think that we need sadness or outrage
to motivate us to do what's right is insane.
As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become.
As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day
with drool running down her chin.
My experience is the opposite.
Love is action. — Byron Katie

People don't need sudden revelations. They get what they need when they need it, thought by thought by thought. It's a constant thing when the mind starts to wake up to itself. — Byron Katie

If you think he's supposed to be different from what he is, you don't love him. In that moment you love who he's going to be when you're through manipulating him. He is a throwaway until he matches your image of him. — Byron Katie

So what is it with your mother that you haven't worked out yet? — Byron Katie

God, as I use the word, is another name for what is. I always know God's intention: It's exactly what is in every moment. — Byron Katie

It's good that it hurts. Pain is the signal that you're confused, that you're in a lie. — Byron Katie

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem? — Byron Katie

When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want. — Byron Katie

Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don't want to know about ourselves, yet. They will point us to our freedom every time. — Byron Katie

Do you know anyone who hasn't changed his mind? This door was a tree, then it will be firewood for someone, then it will return to air and earth. We're all like that, constantly changing. It's simply honest to report that you've changed your mind when you have. When you're afraid of what people will think if you speak honestly, that's where you become confused. — Byron Katie

Every moment a gift: are you unwrapping yours now, and now, and now? — Byron Katie

As long as we believe our thoughts, there will always be war. — Byron Katie

For me, if somebody tells me to go away, that is an opportunity: for me to give the person a better life, to realize where not to be, and to see what could be even better than being with that person I love. — Byron Katie

If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You're just telling yourself the story of how it doesn't. — Byron Katie

When you realize that every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom, life becomes very kind. — Byron Katie

It's not easy to find your own way when you believe that you need love, approval, appreciation, or anything from your family. It's particularly hard when you want them to see things your way. — Byron Katie

Actually, I can't take credit for any of my decisions. I noticed one day that all my decisions were making themselves, and always at the right time. I haven't had to make one decision since then. They are always made for me, and they come from the wisdom that is in us all. I trust that wisdom completely. That trust itself was a decision made for me as inquiry cleared my mind. No decision, no fear. — Byron Katie

The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story. — Byron Katie

What you're believing in the moment creates your suffering or your happiness. — Byron Katie

Love is worth living. Why do you trade life for less? — Byron Katie

There is no peace in the world until you find peace within yourself in this moment. — Byron Katie

There's never a mistake in the universe. So if your partner is angry, good. If there are things about him that you consider flaws, good, because these flaws are your own, you're projecting them, and you can write them down, inquire, and set yourself free. People go to India to find a guru, but you don't have to: you're living with one. Your partner will give you everything you need for your own freedom. — Byron Katie

The ability to understand the cause of your own suffering gives you the ability to understand ours. — Byron Katie

I'm most inspired whenever I hear of even the smallest act of human kindness. — Byron Katie

I do whatever I can to serve peace. My job is the end of suffering. — Byron Katie

What would it be like to let go of wanting things to be other than they are? — Byron Katie

Sleep just gives the ego a little time out. It has to stay strong in order to be something that it isn't. — Byron Katie

When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. 'My husband doesn't respect me.' 'I should be thinner.' Those are stories. When there's no story, there's no suffering. — Byron Katie

Since the past is unreal and the future is unreal, all your thoughts are about nothing. — Byron Katie

I have discovered that in every language and every country I have visited, there are no new stories. They're all recycled. The same stressful thoughts arise in each mind one way or another, sooner or later. — Byron Katie

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.
What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings. — Byron Katie

To exclude anything that appears in your universe is not love. Love joins with everything. It doesn't exclude the monster. It doesn't avoid the nightmare - it looks forward to it. — Byron Katie

There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not. — Byron Katie

A dishonest yes is a no to yourself. — Byron Katie

That's the purpose of stress. It's a friend. It's an alarm clock, built in to let you know that it's time to do The Work. — Byron Katie

What is perfect health? The unraveling of all imagined states of mind — Byron Katie

Your nature is truth, and when you oppose it, you don't feel like yourself. Stress never feels as natural as peace does. — Byron Katie

Love asks for nothing. Only personalities want something. — Byron Katie

Any story that you tell about yourself causes suffering. There is no authentic story. — Byron Katie

Im very clear that everyone in the world loves me. I just dont expect them to realize it yet. — Byron Katie

Isn't it marvelous to discover that you're the one you've been waiting for? That you are your own freedom? — Byron Katie

I have never experienced a stressful feeling that wasn't caused by attaching to an untrue thought. Behind every uncomfortable feeling, there's a thought that isn't true for us. — Byron Katie

Pay close attention to the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness. — Byron Katie

Fear is always the result of an unquestioned past imagined as a future. — Byron Katie

Ultimately, I am all I can know. — Byron Katie

Here's how a child listens: you tell him something, and he puts his own interpretation on what you said. That's what he hears. No one has ever heard you. — Byron Katie

Without our stories, we are not only able to act clearly and fearlessly, we are also a friend, a listener. We are people living happy lives. We are appreciation and gratitude that have become as natural as breath itself. Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there's nothing to know and that we already have everything we need, right here now. — Byron Katie

Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there's nothing to know. — Byron Katie

We fear only what we haven't understood. — Byron Katie

Money is not my business; my thinking is my business. I don't have any other business. — Byron Katie

When we love what is, it becomes so simple to live in the world.
The world is exactly as it should be. — Byron Katie

It's only our story that keeps us from knowing that we always have everything we need. — Byron Katie

I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. — Byron Katie

Life is the constant opportunity to wake up. — Byron Katie

When you run in fear, it's square into the wall. — Byron Katie

The perfect world is created when the mind is free to see it. — Byron Katie

The ego is terrified of the truth. And the truth is that the ego doesn't exist. — Byron Katie

What we really believe is what we manifest. What we believe, we see. — Byron Katie

I believe in the power of every human being to end suffering. — Byron Katie

An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering. — Byron Katie

Reality doesn't wait for your opinion, vote, or permission, sweetheart. It just keeps being what it is and doing what it does. — Byron Katie

All I have is all I need and all I need is all I have in this moment. — Byron Katie

Put your stressful thoughts on paper, question them, and have a great life. — Byron Katie

You don't get to vote on what is. Have you noticed? — Byron Katie

If people are living their lives for security and comfort and pleasure, then mind's every waking moment will be plotting those things. That's how it stays identified - as a body, as a you. — Byron Katie

Every single human being is trying his best. We're all doing the best we can. But when we believe what we think, we have to live out those thoughts. When there's chaos in our heads, there's chaos in our lives. When there's hurt in our thinking, there's hurt in our lives. Love thy neighbor as thyself? I always have. When I hated me, I hated you. That's how it works. If I hate someone, I'm mistaking them for me, and solutions remain hidden. — Byron Katie

I'll tell you that for me, one when someone used to say something that was true, one way I knew it was true was that I immediately felt defensive. I blocked it off, and I went to war with them in my mind and suffered all that goes with it. And they were only saying what was true. — Byron Katie

When you do The Work, you see who you are by seeing who you think other people are. Eventually you come to see that everything outside you is a reflection of your own thinking. You are the storyteller, the projector of all stories, and the world is the projected image of your thoughts. — Byron Katie

Forgiveness is just another name for freedom. — Byron Katie

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself-your own thinking coming back to you. — Byron Katie

If you want to clean up the environment, start with your mind. It starts there! — Byron Katie

If we are in silence - in absolute silence with no thoughts - for 10 minutes, it's only a thought that tells us we were silent for 10 minutes. Our only proof is a thought. — Byron Katie