Byron Katie’s "reality therapy" sounded too simple. I doubted her method would help an emotional, irresolute person like myself. However her invitation to fill out a "Judge-Your-Neighbor" worksheet caught my eye.

My article got a rejection slip from a magazine editor. It was about my mother’s absence in my life. The editor said she like the piece but recommended I make peace with my mother. She mentioned a self-help book that might help me quit my pain. I felt my face go warm. "How can a book change a five decade old dysfunctional relationship?" Yet the title, "Loving What Is: Four Questions that Can Change Your life" looked intriguing.

I thumbed through a library copy. Byron Katie, the author, explained how four simple questions allowed her painful thoughts to let go of her. She was severely depressed for 10 years when she suddenly woke up without the concept of a self in 1986. She calls the experience waking up to reality and has introduced her method called "The Work" to hundreds of thousands of people in workshops, businesses, schools, prisons, and hospitals around the world. She denies being "enlightened" and says, "I know the difference between what hurts and doesn’t."

Katie’s "reality therapy" sounded too simple. I doubted her method would help an emotional, irresolute person like myself. However her invitation to fill out a "Judge-Your-Neighbor" worksheet caught my eye. I began the exercise. She said to make a list about the anger, sadness and disappointment I felt about my mother. What I think of her, what I need from her and what I wanted her to change.

My answers were easy. My greatest heartbreak is my mother’s absence in my life. I only lived with her for six years as a child and she has not spoken to me for over 23 years as an adult.

Answering Katie’s four questions was a lot harder. They went as follows: Is it true ? Can you absolutely know that it is true ? How do you react when you think that thought? Can you find one stress free reason to keep that thought?

At first I said it is true that my greatest heartbreak is my mother’s absence in my life. But it occurred to me that it might have been more painful had we been together. I could not think of a stress free reason to keep my sad and angry thoughts about her. I felt more at peace when I stopped thinking about them. It amazed me how my feelings could spiral from sadness to joy just by changing my thoughts. My biggest problem was that my thoughts had a life of their own and I only became aware of my negative thinking after awhile.

Katie’s four turn-a-round questions were even more helpful as they showed me the negative part I played with my mother.

To find what’s true for us Katie’s four questions were: Turn the judgment to yourself, to the other, to the opposite and complete the statement, "I look forward to…"

I began the turn-a-round questions. I am absent in my life. True—when I’m thinking about my past I’m not in the present. I’ve been absent in my mother’s life. True! My mother should be absent in my life. Probably true —we seem to have a negative effect on each other. I am willing to have my mother absent in my life. Probably true —when I have no expectations and accept reality I’m more at peace.

I began to realize the truth of Katie’s words, "When we argue with reality we lose 100% of the time. It’s not my mother’s absence that causes suffering, it’s my thinking about the problem. Suffering over things that have happened to us is nothing more than an argument with the past. "

Katie’s inquiry showed me when my thinking isn’t true my judgments distort reality and make me suffer. I agree with her, "Our pain is nature’s alarm that we are attached to our thoughts." Katie also asks, "If our energy was not being taken up with stress what would we be capable of?"

As I practiced "The Work" my negative thoughts became more positive automatically and I felt more peace.

Katie’s insights began to make sense. Things like, " We become a wise teacher when we become a student of ourselves. The advice we give to others turns out to be advice for ourselves. Our enemies can guide us to the truth about ourselves. Without a story, without an enemy our actions are spontaneous, clear and infinitely kind."