When I first started reading Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, I was interested and intrigued. It felt like the next step with the books I’ve been reading, and it was going from Brené Brown’s discussion of how to exist in the external world back to a look at the interior life. The idea behind her process, which she calls The Work, is taking each idea from the story your mind is telling you about a situation and turning it on its head. This often makes the story seem ridiculous, which makes it easier to toss it, but many times it also reveals an underlying truth we hadn’t been able to admit to ourselves. I listened to the audio book, which I felt was particularly effective. It uses a narrator, Katie’s own voice, and recordings of Katie doing The Work at workshops with different individuals.  It was very powerful to listen to people working through their issues in real time with Katie. You could hear the other workshop participants in the background, laughing or otherwise responding to what was going on between Katie and the participant she was working with (or at very deep moments, hear their silence), and I cried more listening to this book than I have during any one book in quite some time. The book shows you what you can do with the only part of your life you have control over: how you respond to what life throws at you. The process gives you a sense of autonomy and peace about your life. I admit that I have not yet done the written work she recommends. It’s something I would like to come back to, but didn’t work out this time since I was listening to the book while I was driving. Katie’s website provides the worksheets for use in the process. I loved the way Katie talked to workshop participants, and by extension, the reader. She used terms of endearment, like ‘sweetheart,’ ‘honey,’ and ‘angel,’ and said them with such compassion and gentleness that you felt she meant it. This was mixed with a Midwestern sensibility and way of speaking that reminded me of a dear friend and was a good balance to the sweetness with which she addressed the people she was working with. As the book went on, I started to become a little fatigued by the lingo around her process. The way she kept repeating it began to sound flippant and casual, like, this will fix everything! And it’s super easy. Describing the method IS pretty easy, but applying it is not. While she states truth is always changing, she often makes “always” or “never” statements, which felt at odds with that assertion. And I really took a step back (and out of the honeymoon phase) when she tackled her chapter on abuse. This section was incredibly difficult to listen to due the content, and the way she approached it made it even harder for me.  I fundamentally disagreed with her approach. Yet the recording of her doing The Work with a workshop attendee for the abuse section seemed to really help the person come to terms with what had happened to them. She further lost me towards the end when she summarized her work and answered FAQ’s. It’s important to me that the non-faith based books leave room for me to practice my faith while using what I’ve learned from the book, but with this book’s lack of capital T truth, it was difficult to see where the two things – her work and my faith –  could intersect. I felt like I would have to do a lot of cherry-picking to get the right balance. Interestingly, Katie uses terminology that will sound very familiar to people of faith: truth, judgement, and forgiveness are a part of her discussion of The Work, but it felt to me a little like my visit to a Unitarian Universalist church one time a number of years ago: All the church with none of the church. It was missing an essential part that would have made it meaningful and lasting. Ultimately, the content was valuable, but I could have listened to the first half of the book and then stopped. Can you recommend the first half of a book? I’m going to. Since I listened to the audio, I don’t know where in the paper book I would tell you to stop, but it’s the last chapter of content before the abuse section. It falls about 3 hours in during the audio. I think the value in this book was listening to other people do The Work. Maybe The Work isn’t for me, or maybe I’m not ready to do it, but it was both moving and inspiring to hear the process born out in others and I am interested to try it for myself.