What If It’s Just a Thought? ("Loving What Is" By Byron Katie)

Have you ever spiraled after someone didn't respond to your message? Created an entire narrative about why you weren't invited somewhere? Worried someone would be upset with your decision before even talking to them? These mental patterns create unnecessary suffering—and they're completely optional.

Drawing from Byron Katie's transformative book "Loving What Is," this episode explores a powerful four-question process that can free you from believing every thought that crosses your mind. The simple practice of asking "Is this even true?" creates space between you and your thoughts, allowing you to see how often your stress comes from stories, not reality. We walk through real examples of how this questioning process works, demonstrating how you can move from anxiety and contraction to presence and peace.

The episode also examines the arbitrary rules we create that limit our joy and freedom—like my personal revelation about only "allowing" myself ice cream cones when on vacation. What restrictions have you unconsciously placed on your happiness? What stories are you telling yourself that might not be true at all? Through gentle reflection prompts and practical applications, you'll discover how to stop making things personal, release limiting narratives, and return to what's actually true in any moment.

Your thoughts create your experience of life. By questioning them with kindness and curiosity, you can transform your relationship with yourself and others. You are not your stories—you are the awareness watching them unfold. Subscribe to Pure Possibilities for more insights on living with greater presence, peace, and possibility.

Chapters

• 1:57 Welcome and Nervous System Regulation
• 3:54 Questioning Our Stories
• 5:33 Byron Katie's "The Work" Process
• 8:48 Breaking Free From Relationship Stories
• 10:20 Reflection Prompts For Self-Inquiry
• 11:47 The Ice Cream Cone Revelation
• 13:15 Card Pull and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:59

Welcome back to the Pure Possibilities podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I would like to start today by taking a moment to connect. If it feels safe and comfortable to do so, gently close your eyes, place your hand on your heart and take a deep breath in and hold and release, feel your body, your feet on the ground and allow yourself to be here right now, with me, in the present moment. One of the reasons it's really important to me that we start by connecting with our body is to help to regulate our nervous system. Some of the topics that we discuss can potentially be a little bit activating or uncomfortable, and so when you take that moment to pause and connect with yourself, it helps to regulate your nervous system, and so I invite you to do that. Whenever you start to feel something come up within you, pause and connect, and sometimes that might be multiple times through the day, but your breath is always available for you, and when you put your hand on your heart and you even close your eyes, it closes everything else off and allows you to connect with yourself, and what we really want to do is to be in our body as often as possible throughout every single day, to those stories that benefit, that feels safe and keeps us comfortable, even if the story that we're telling is painful or limiting or holding you back from moving forward with your life or your day.

Speaker 1: 2:56

And this week I wanted to go a little bit deeper with that conversation, because sometimes the most powerful thing that we can do is simply ask is this even true? Have you ever had someone not respond to your message and you immediately spiraled into what did I do wrong? What did I say? Or not been invited to something and thought, oh my God, they must not like me anymore. Or made a choice and instantly worried that someone would be upset with you, even though you hadn't even had a conversation with them about it? You just decided how they were going to feel about whatever the situation was, without even discussing it. If you're really honest with yourself, how often do you make something, mean, something about you? We all do this. It's human, but it's one of the biggest sources of our own suffering.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Several years ago, I came across the book Loving what Is by Byron Katie, and she has a practice in there called the Work. Katie, and she has a practice in there called the Work, and it helped me to stop believing every thought that I had, and it helped me return back to myself and the present moment, and I still use it. I don't necessarily use all of the questions specifically, but what it has done is it helped me create an awareness about when I'm actually in a story about something and the difference between that and what is actually true in this moment. So I would like to go over this with you and share it in case you are unfamiliar with it. If you are familiar with it, it might just be a good reminder for you, but this book was truly life-changing for me. So it really helped me to see how a lot of my stress responses were reactions to stories, not the actual truth. So the work is what she refers to it as is a process that invites you to slow down and question the thoughts that create your own suffering.

Speaker 1: 5:03

Byron Katie teaches us that there are four simple yet powerful questions. Number one is it true? Number two can you absolutely know that it's true? Number three how do you react? What happens when you believe that thought? And number four who would you be without that thought? So let's take a moment and we're going to go through this together.

Speaker 1: 5:30

So a common thought that people have is they didn't respond to my message because I said something wrong. Is it true? Maybe it's possible. Message because I said something wrong, is it true? Maybe it's possible you could have said something wrong. Can I absolutely know that it's true? No, all you know is that you sent a message. How do I react when I believe that thought I spiral, I shrink, I feel anxious, I make it mean something about me. And who would I be without that? Thought I spiral, I shrink, I feel anxious, I make it mean something about me. And who would I be without that? Thought I would be calm, present, grounded, open, free to move along with my day.

Speaker 1: 6:09

The truth is, I don't actually know what's going on with that other person. They might be busy, they might be in a meeting, they might be on vacation, their phone might be off, they might have lost their phone, they might be navigating through something that I know nothing about. And yet I'm reacting with a story that I've created in my mind. We do this all the time and it's exhausting. And so when you have the awareness that you are creating stories and you can check in with yourself and ask yourself is this actually true? Do I know it to actually be true. It changes everything and, like I said, I don't necessarily go through all of those questions all the time anymore, but I use it all the time.

Speaker 1: 7:03

So what if you didn't believe everything that you think? What if most of your suffering isn't coming from what happened but what you made it mean? Because nothing means anything until we make it mean something, until we attach a story to whatever the event or situation is. So what if you could pause and gently ask is this thought even true? Who would I be without this story? And if you notice a thought that keeps returning this week, try questioning it, even if you only do it once. The awareness is so powerful.

Speaker 1: 7:44

And I've also used this when it comes to just other people's behavior in general. Like we all want connection, we all want relationships with people, yet we create stories around people's behavior and again make it mean something about us, or we decide whatever their reaction or response is and we decide what that means, again without even having conversations about it, and that really does create our own suffering. And so you know. Another thing that I ask myself sometimes with various relationships is has this person ever given me a reason to not believe what they're telling me, because that's another area where we make up stories. You ask somebody a question, they answer, and you decide whether it's right or wrong and whether it's true or not, and if someone tells me something, I'm going to believe them, unless they've given me reason to not. So we literally live in the stories that we tell, and so when you're aware of calling yourself out on whether it's actually true or a story is pretty life-changing. So I would like to offer you a few reflection prompts and feel free to journal them or just, you know, allow the thought into your mind and into your body and ask yourself and really pay attention, actually Pay attention to how your body is responding when I ask these questions. Where in your life are you saying I can't, when it might actually be I won't? What story are you repeating that might not even be true? What are you making mean something about you that might not be personal at all? What are you gaining by holding on to that story and who would you be without it? All right, we are going to move into.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Actually, before I move into the card pool for this week, I wanted to share something that happened to me this week. I had gone out to dinner with one of my daughters and we're in this cute little town and I had gotten in my car and I was getting ready to go home and I thought there's this ice cream shop down a couple blocks away from where I was parked and I thought to myself I would love to have some ice cream. And then I was like you know, I only have ice cream cones when I'm on vacation. I was like well, that's silly, I really want to have ice cream right now. And so I got out of my car and I walked down there and I got myself a waffle cone with two scoops of ice cream. And then I walked back to my car and was thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying it.

Speaker 1: 10:44

And then it occurred to me that I have created a rule for myself that I can only have an ice cream cone when I'm on vacation, and I don't know where that came from. It was just something that I decided at some point, and that doesn't have to be true. I don't need to. That came from. It was just something that I decided at some point and that doesn't have to be true. I don't need to have that rule for myself. And it occurred to me that it was like how many rules do we create for ourselves? Or maybe there are other people's rules that we have attached to that don't even make any sense, like there's no reason why I can't have an ice cream cone on a normal day just because I feel like it, not only have it when I'm on vacation. So I just wanted to share that before we pull the card, because I was like that is just silly. So what's a rule in your life that might not really make any sense, like there's no point in that rule anymore. You know, and for whatever reason, I felt like it was important at the time. But I can let it go. I don't need to stay attached to that rule or that story.

Speaker 1: 11:46

I'm gonna go ahead and pull a card from the Magic of what If? Card deck, volume two. It is available on my website, purepossibilitiespodcastcom. All right, let's see what we've got this week. Last week I pulled at the beginning and this week we're pulling at the end. So, okay, what if I'm surrounded by love and support in every moment? What if I'm surrounded by love and support in every moment? That's actually a really beautiful card, because I sometimes I think that we believe or we create stories about the love and support that we actually have available to us, and there are people out there that love and support you if you allow them to. And what if you believed that you have people in your life that love and support you?

Speaker 1: 12:45

Thank you so much for listening this week and if you connected with this episode, I would highly recommend checking out the book Loving what Is by Byron Katie, or just take a few minutes today or this week to sit with those four questions, especially if you have something that comes up over and over again. It can be really helpful to just do that quick check-in with yourself. And if you need a gentle reset, the free audio return to you is still available. It's less than 10 minutes. The link is in the show description. I actually listened to it this morning and I had created it for like a mid-year check-in and I found it to be really helpful for myself today. So I hope you choose to check it out. Until next time, be gentle with your thoughts. You are not your stories. You are always free to return to what's true. Hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and an amazing week. Much love.