Loving What Is

Byron Kathleen Reid, a businesswoman and mother living in the high desert of southern California, became severely depressed while in her 30s. Over a 10-year period her depression deepened, and Katie spent almost two years seldom able to leave her bed, obsessing over suicide. Then one morning, from the depths of despair, she experienced a life-changing realization.

In a flash of insight, Katie saw that our attempt to find happiness was backward-instead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match our thoughts about how it should be, we can question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. As a result, a bedridden, suicidal woman became filled with love for everything life brings. Katie developed a simple yet powerful method of inquiry, called The Work, that helped make this transformation practical.

Since 1986, Katie has introduced The Work to hundreds of thousands of people in over 30 countries around the world. In addition to public events, she has introduced The Work to groups in corporations, universities, schools, churches, prisons, and hospitals. Katie’s joy and humor immediately put people at ease, and the deep insights and breakthroughs that participants quickly experience make the events captivating (tissues are always close at hand).

TIME magazine has profiled Katie, calling her “a visionary for the new millennium.” In March 2002, Harmony Books published Katie’s first book, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, co-written with renowned author/translator Stephen Mitchell. Loving What Is has been translated into twenty languages.Katie’s second book, I Need Your Love-Is That True?, was also a bestseller.

Katie’s co-author, Stephen Mitchell, is the author of many bestselling works including Tao Te Ching, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Gilgamesh, The Gospel According to Jesus, The Book of Job, The Second Book of the Tao, The Iliad, and The Odyssey. He lives with his wife in Berkeley, California.