Smoking and The Work

What happens is that you attach to a whole future of when you’re smoking.

And you’re sitting here not smoking!

It’s a wild trip out and away, so that we don’t have to experience this Sweet moment now,

just two friends sitting together, just hanging out.

No smokers here. We’re in the presence of peace.

I smoked very heavily, I chain-smoked.

Our house smelled like it-everything, all my clothes.

But when I found this Work, I would pick up a cigarette and I’d say to myself,

“She wants to what, with what? She’s going to what?”

And I’d never light the cigarette.

I couldn’t see the sense in it.

In the presence of peace, it has its own life.

And that is none of my business; it’s just none of my business.

My thinking is my business.

When I believed my thoughts, I used to rape my physical health by saying my body should be more beautiful;

it should be healthier; it should be taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, younger.

I took a perfect body and trashed it in my mind.

And then, in an instant, I became a friend.

And all I did is what you’ve done today: I just met my thinking with a little understanding.

I no longer saw it as an enemy that needed to die, go away, be-what was the term we used? -let go of.

Why would I let go of one of my children?

Does that make sense?

Our thoughts are our children.

Why would we want to banish them?

Why can’t we just join with them?

And that’s what this Work does: it meets every concept with understanding.

– Byron Katie

For more information about The Work, visit TheWork.com