Author and teacher Byron Katie brings ‘The Work’ to Lead With Love retreat in Aspen

The best-selling author and teacher Byron Katie is leading a workshop Saturday based on “The Work,” a process of self-inquiry popularized in her 2002 book “Loving What Is.”

Katie’s event is part of the Aspen Retreat, a four-day interactive wellness experience hosted by the locally based nonprofit Lead With Love. Events begin Thursday and include guided hikes, yoga and “forest bathing.” Special guests also include Rod Stryker, a renowned yoga and meditation teacher.

The only pre-requisite for the full-day workshop, Katie said, is an open mind.

“People who come to the event with closed minds won’t get a lot from it,” she said this week via email. “But people who come to it with open minds will leave the event with a powerful way to deal with any upset — anything from a minor annoyance to a profound grief.”

The method of “The Work” focuses on four questions and an inventory process aimed at freeing people from suffering.

Devoting a day to it, Katie said, can produce lifetime results.

“I have heard from many people that a one-day workshop changed their lives,” she said.

Lead With Love founder Gina Murdock, wrote a recent blog post about how working with Katie healed her relationship with her husband, the venture capitalist and philanthropist Jerry Murdock.

“I am so grateful for enlightened teachers like Byron Katie who help lovingly guide the way out of the prisons we create for ourselves,” Murdock wrote.

Katie is among the most prominent public figures in the increasingly mainstream wellness and “mindfulness” movement. Asked about the movement’s growth, concurrent with widening cultural divisions in the U.S., Katie said: “I don’t offer explanations. I offer a way to free your mind by questioning the thoughts that cause all stress and suffering.”

She added: “This is the only role I play or want to play: to make as many people as possible aware that there is a way out of all their problems, that this way is simple and powerful, and that all it takes is a pen, paper and an open mind.”

atravers@aspentimes.com