Byron Katie

Byron Katie — born Byron Kathleen Reid in 1942 — is an American teacher, speaker, and bestselling author whose method of self-inquiry, known simply as "The Work," has helped millions of people meet their own thoughts with honesty and find freedom from suffering. Her story is itself the origin of her teaching: by her early forties she had spiraled into a decade of severe depression, rage, and self-loathing. Then, one morning in 1986, she woke to a startling clarity — a recognition that it was not life that caused her suffering, but her beliefs about life. When she questioned those thoughts, the suffering fell away. That realization became a simple, replicable practice she has spent the rest of her life sharing. At the heart of The Work are four questions and a "turnaround" — a way of examining any stressful thought (Is it true? Can I absolutely know it's true? How do I react when I believe it? Who would I be without it?) and then considering its opposites. Deceptively simple and requiring nothing but a pen, paper, and willingness, it functions as a kind of meditation: a direct path to seeing reality clearly rather than through the filter of painful assumptions. Through her books — most famously Loving What Is (2003), along with A Thousand Names for Joy and I Need Your Love — Is That True? — she brought the practice to a global audience. Time magazine has called her "a spiritual innovator for the 21st century." Today, through Byron Katie International and its School for the Work, she continues to guide people worldwide, including a beloved free weekly live session held on Zoom. Warm, direct, and often startlingly funny, Katie doesn't ask anyone to believe her — she invites each person to test the questions against their own experience and discover, for themselves, that peace is available in any moment. For anyone weighed down by anxious or painful thinking, The Work offers a remarkably practical doorway to relief.