I Need Your Love - Is That True? Quotes

“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, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“Thinking that people are supposed to do or be anything other than what they are is like saying that the tree over there should be the sky. I investigated that and found freedom.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“I've always been just me, but I was the last to know that it was all right.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“Love is what you are already. Love doesn’t seek anything. It’s already complete. It doesn’t want, doesn’t need, has no shoulds. It already has everything it wants, it already is everything it wants, just the way it wants it. So when I hear people say that they love someone and want to be loved in return, I know they’re not talking about love. They’re talking about something else. Sometimes you may seem to trade love for the stressful thought appearing in the moment. It’s a little trip out into illusion. Seeking love is how you lose the awareness of love. But you can only lose the awareness of it, not the state. That’s not an option, because love is what we all are. That’s immovable. When you investigate your stressful thinking and your mind becomes clear, love pours into your life, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Love joins everything, without condition. It doesn’t avoid the nightmare; it looks forward to it and then inquires. There is no way to join except to get free of your belief that you want something from your partner. That’s true joining. It’s like “Bingo! You just won the lottery!” If I want something from my partner, I simply ask. If he says no and I have a problem with that, I need to take a look at my thinking. Because I already have everything. We all do. That’s how I can sit here so comfortably: I don’t want anything from you that you don’t want to give. I don’t even want your freedom if you don’t. I don’t even want your peace. The truth that you experience is how I’m able to join with you. That’s how you touch me, and you touch me so intimately that it brings tears to my eyes. I’ve joined you, and you don’t have a choice. And I do this over and over and over, endlessly, effortlessly. It’s called making love. Love wouldn’t deny a breath. It wouldn’t deny a grain of sand or a speck of dust. It is totally in love with itself, and it delights in acknowledging itself through its own presence, in every way, without limit. It embraces it all, everything from the murderer and the rapist to the saint to the dog and cat. Love is so vast within itself that it will burn you up. It’s so vast that there’s nothing you can do with it. All you can do is be it.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“We all do emotional gymnastics to be seen as wonderful or funny—just to get what we already have. And because we’re doing the gymnastics, we don’t see that we already have it.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“     Romantic love is the story of how you need another person to complete you. It’s an absolutely insane story. My experience is that I need no one to complete me. As soon as I realize that, everyone completes me.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“The receiving is the giving. It’s the most genuine thing you can give back. That’s what they wanted to give you in the first place.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“There’s no reason to believe that thoughts match reality. As you move through life, thoughts appear like shots in the dark. They are no more than vague attempts to figure out what’s going on around and inside you. When you’re seeking love and approval, many thoughts are aimed at deciphering the behavior of the people you care about, or theorizing about what’s going on in their minds.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“Seeking comfort, you give yourself discomfort.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“When you start to find genuine love, the ways you used to manipulate people to get what you thought was love suddenly become clear and obvious. You might expect this to be embarrassing; in fact, it’s often funny, and you find that it’s easy to forgive yourself for your own humanity. You realize that the old ways of seeking approval were just a misunderstanding that has been cleared up now, and you are grateful for that. I sent out an e-mail asking how inquiry had worked for people. The replies kept coming in, five hundred pages of them. As I read, I was moved by how much people had suffered, in so many different ways, and by the delight they took in waking up from the dream of what they thought was happening in their lives and seeing what was really happening. Inquiry seemed like a magic realm that they could come home to after a long, amazing journey, a house where they could sit around the fire, telling tales of danger overcome, and laughing with old friends. When you don’t believe your stressful thoughts, all that’s left are love and laughter.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“Flirtation, seduction, falling in love, and the whole romantic realm take place in a dreamy, trancelike state, alternating between hope and fear. One minute you think you may be rejected; the next minute you’re excited about succeeding.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“When you’re seeking love and approval, many thoughts are aimed at deciphering the behavior of the people you care about, or theorizing about what’s going on in their minds.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“Heaven: “This is wonderful. I could stay here forever.” Hell: “This is not quite perfect.”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead

“The irony is that the struggle to win love and approval makes it very difficult to experience them. Chronic”
― Byron Katie, I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead