To love others without feeling the need to trap or control them requires trust that your needs will all be met, with or without the other person’s cooperation. You must be absolutely sure that loving connection can encompass any level of difference without disappearing. You don’t have to trust the other person. You must only trust that your needs will be met no matter what that person may do.
— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight, p. 198
Every person alive has a chosen journey, one that is right for him or her. Letting the truth of this sink in is one way to begin the process of giving up control, as is acknowledging that the more we try to control someone, the less interested he or she may be in staying in our life. Every time we get into a power struggle with the person we are trying to control, we drive a wedge into the relationship. Other people’s desire to escape will be directly proportional to our continuing obsession with how they are living and what they are doing.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 140
How do you know when you don’t need people? When they’re not in your life. How do you know when you do need them? When they are in your life. You can’t control the comings and goings of the people you care for. What you can do is have a good life whether they come or go. You can invite them, and they come or not, and whatever the result is, that’s what you need. Reality is the proof of it.
— Byron Katie, I Need Your Love — Is That True? p. 189
Noticing and counting the beautiful reasons unexpected things happen for us ends the mystery. If you miss the real reasons, the benevolent reasons that coincide with kind nature, then count on depression to let you know that you missed them. Anger, frustration, and aggressive reasons can always be imagined — and what for? People who aren’t interested in seeing why everything is good get to be right. But that apparent rightness comes with disgruntlement, and often depression and separation. Depression can feel serious. So “counting the genuine ways that this unexpected event happened for me, rather than to me” isn’t a game. It’s an exercise in observing the nature of life. It’s a way of putting yourself back into reality, into the kindness of the nature of things.
— Byron Katie, I Need Your Love — Is That True?, p. 187
The fact is, we always have the choice to turn from a problem focus to a resolution focus. We get to choose how big we want to make a problem. We don’t have to do things the way we’ve always done them. This is a huge revelation for many of us. We can disengage from any situation. We can say nothing or simply walk away. A great beginning is simply to see problems as opportunities to let God into our lives. Take it from me. The sense of personal empowerment that accompanies letting God handle the problem while we attend to watching for the solution is life changing.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 134
How do we respond to a world that seems out of control? The world seems that way because it is out of control — the sun rises whether we want it to or not, the toaster breaks, someone cuts you off on your way to work. We’ve never had control. We have the illusion of control when things go the way we think they should. And when they don’t, we say we’ve lost control, and we long for some sort of enlightened state beyond all this, where we imagine we’ll have control again. But what we really want is peace.
— Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy, p. 85
Waiting is an action — a positive, forceful action.
Often, waiting is a God-guided action, one with as much power as a decision, and more power than an urgent, ill-timed decision.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 109
Some people even think that sadness is an act of loyalty, that it would be a betrayal of the people they love not to suffer along with them. This is crazy.
— Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy, p. 59
Negative energy can have a powerful pull on us, especially if we’re struggling to maintain positive energy and balance. It may seem that others who exude negative energy would like to pull us into the darkness with them. We do not have to go. Without judgment, we can decide it’s okay to walk away, okay to protect ourselves.
We cannot change other people. It does not help others for us to get off balance. We do not lead others into the Light by stepping into the darkness with them.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 114
I don’t know what’s best for me or you or the world. I don’t try to impose my will on you or on anyone else. I don’t want to change you or improve you or convert you or help you or heal you. I just welcome things as they come and go. That’s true love. The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way.
— Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy, p. 24