by Louise Hay
I also believe that if I could clear the mental pattern that created this cancer, then I would not even need the operation. So I bargained for time, and the doctors grudgingly gave me three months when I said I did not have the money.
I immediately took responsibility for my own healing. I read and investigated everything I could find on alternative ways to assist my healing process.
I went to several health food stores and bought every book they had on the subject of cancer. I went to the library and did more reading. I checked out foot reflexology and colon therapy and thought they both would be beneficial to me. I seemed to be led to exactly the right people. After reading about foot reflexology, I wanted to find a practitioner. I attended a lecture, and while I usually sat in the front row, this night I was compelled to sit in the back. Within a minute, a man came and sat beside me and—guess what? He was a foot reflexologist who visited the home. He came to me three times a week for two months and was a great help.
I knew I also had to love myself a great deal more than I was. There was little love expressed in my childhood, and no one had made it okay for me to feel good about myself. I had adopted “their” attitudes of continually picking on and criticizing me, which had become second nature.
I had come to the realization through my work with the Church that it was okay and even essential for me to love and approve of myself. Yet I kept putting it off—rather like the diet you will always start tomorrow. But I could no longer put it off. At first it was very difficult for me to do things like stand in front of the mirror and say things like, “Louise, I love you. I really love you.” However, as I persisted, I found that several situations came up in my life where in the past I would have berated myself, and now, because of the mirror exercise and other work, I was not doing so. I was making some progress.
I knew I had to clear the patterns of resentment I had been holding since childhood. It was imperative for me to let go of the blame.
Yes, I had had a very difficult childhood with a lot of abuse—mental, physical, and sexual. But that was many years ago, and it was no excuse for the way I was treating myself now. I was literally eating my body with cancerous growth because I had not forgiven.
It was time for me to go beyond the incidents themselves and to begin to UNDERSTAND what types of experiences could have created people who would treat a child that way.
With the help of a good therapist, I expressed all the old, bottled-up anger by beating pillows and howling with rage. This made me feel cleaner. Then I began to piece together the scraps of stories my parents had told me of their own childhoods. I started to see a larger picture of their lives. With my growing understanding, and from an adult viewpoint, I began to have compassion for their pain; and the blame slowly began to dissolve.
In addition, I hunted for a good nutritionist to help me cleanse and detoxify my body from all the junky foods I had eaten over the years. I learned that junky foods accumulate and create a toxic body. Junky thoughts accumulate and create toxic conditions in the mind. I was given a very strict diet with lots of green vegetables and not much else. I even had colonics three times a week for the first month.
I did not have an operation—however, as a result of all the thorough mental and physical cleansing, six months after my diagnosis I was able to get the medical profession to agree with what I already knew—that I no longer had even a trace of cancer! Now I knew from personal experience that DIS-EASE CAN BE HEALED, IF WE ARE WILLING TO CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK AND BELIEVE AND ACT!
Sometimes what seems to be a big tragedy turns out to become the greatest good in our lives. I learned so much from that experience, and I came to value life in a new way. I began to look at what was really important to me, and I made a decision finally to leave the treeless city of New York and its extreme weather. Some of my clients insisted they would “die” if I left them, and I assured them I would be back twice a year to check on their progress, and telephones can reach everywhere. So I closed my business and took a leisurely train trip to California, deciding to use Los Angeles as a starting point.
Even though I had been born here many years before, I knew almost no one anymore except for my mother and sister, who both now lived on the outskirts about an hour away. We have never been a close family nor an open one, but still I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that my mother had been blind for a few years, and no one had bothered to tell me. My sister was too “busyish” to see me, so I let her be and began to set up my new life.
My little book Heal Your Body opened many doors for me. I began to go to every New Age type of meeting I could find. I would introduce myself, and when appropriate, give out a copy of the little book. For the first six months, I went to the beach a lot, knowing that when I became busy, there would be less time for such leisurely pursuits. Slowly, the clients appeared. I was asked to speak here and there, and things began to come together as Los Angeles welcomed me. Within a couple of years, I was able to move into a lovely home.
My new lifestyle in Los Angeles was a large jump in consciousness from my early upbringing. Things were going smoothly, indeed. How swiftly our lives can change completely.
One night I received a phone call from my sister, the first call in two years. She told me that our mother, now 90, blind, and almost deaf, had fallen and broken her back. In one moment my mother went from being a strong, independent woman to being a helpless child in pain.
She broke her back and also broke open the wall of secrecy around my sister. Finally, we were all beginning to communicate. I discovered that my sister also had a severe back problem that impaired her sitting and walking and which was very painful. She suffered in silence, and though she looked anorexic, her husband did not know she was ill.
After spending a month in the hospital, my mother was ready to go home. But in no way could she take care of herself, so she came to live with me.
Though trusting in the process of life, I did not know how I could handle it all, so I said to God, “Okay, I will take care of her, but you have to give me help, and you have to provide the money!”
It was quite an adjustment for both of us. She arrived on a Saturday; and the following Friday, I had to go to San Francisco for four days. I could not leave her alone, and I had to go. I said, “God, you handle this. I have to have the right person to help us before I leave.”
On the following Thursday, the perfect person had “appeared,” and moved in to organize my home for my mother and me. It was another confirmation of one of my basic beliefs: “Whatever I need to know is revealed to me, and whatever I need comes to me in Divine right order.”
I realized it was lesson time for me once again. Here was an opportunity to clean up a lot of that garbage from childhood.
My mother had not been able to protect me when I was a child; however, I could and would take care of her now. Between my mother and my sister, a new whole adventure began.
To give my sister the help she asked for presented another challenge. I learned that when I had rescued my mother so many years ago, my stepfather then turned his rage and pain against my sister, and it was her turn to be brutalized.
I realized that what started out to be a physical problem was then greatly exaggerated by fear and tension, plus the belief that no one could help her. So here was Louise, not wanting to be a rescuer and yet wanting to give her sister an opportunity to choose wellness at this point in her life.
Slowly the unraveling began, and now, today, it’s still going on. We progress step by step as I provide an atmosphere of safety while we explore various avenues of healing.
My mother,* on the other hand, responds very well. She exercises as best she can four times a day. Her body gets stronger and more flexible. I took her to get a hearing aid, and she became more interested in life. In spite of her Christian Science beliefs, I persuaded her to have a cataract removed from one eye. What a joy for her to begin to see again and for us to see the world through her eyes. She is so pleased to read agai
n.
My mother and I began to find time to sit and talk to each other in ways we had never done before. A new understanding developed between us. Today, we both become freer as we cry and laugh and hug together. Sometimes she pushes my buttons, which only tells me there is something further for me to clear.
*My mother left the planet peacefully several years ago. I miss her and love her. We completed all we could together, and now we are both free.
Afterword
It’s hard to believe that more than 30 years have gone by since I first wrote You Can Heal Your Life. During this time, the book has been translated into 42 different languages, has become available in more than 132 different countries, and has now sold over 40 million copies throughout the world.
When I first wrote You Can Heal Your Life, my original dream was to go beyond the students in my workshops and reach as many other people as possible in order to help them change their lives for the better. Little did I know how the Universe would fulfill this dream, and how many people would really be helped. From the moment this book was written, it seems that Life has said, “This book must go out; it must be available worldwide.” I think the success of this work is due to the fact that I have the ability to help people change, and learn to love themselves, without laying guilt on them. I also think the simplicity of the message helps it to cross over many different cultures with success.
At a trade book fair in Los Angeles (BookExpo America), I met a man who told me that I’m a best-selling author in his bookstore in Kathmandu, Nepal. I keep his business card on my desk as a reminder of the extraordinary connection I have with people everywhere. And today, the Internet brings me masses of mail from all over the globe each month. Many of these letters are from young people who find the message just as relevant and healing as did those who first read it 30 years ago.
So much has happened over the years. For six and a half years three decades ago, I spent time working with people with AIDS. It began with six men in my living room in Los Angeles one evening, and in a couple of years grew to a weekly meeting of more than 800 people. I called it “The Hayride.” This was such a growing period for me. My heart was constantly being stretched. I will remember those experiences for the rest of my life. It had a long life, and continued even after I moved out of town, but The Hayride Support Group no longer exists in West Hollywood.
Sometime after I wrote You Can Heal Your Life, several of the Hayride people went on the Oprah show with me to put out positive messages about AIDS. The same week, I appeared on Donahue with Dr. Bernie Siegel. You Can Heal Your Life hit the New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for 14 weeks. I was in constant awe of how Life was moving me in so many directions. I was working ten-hour days, seven days a week, for a long period of time.
Life goes in cycles. There is a time to do certain things, and then there is a time to move on. For many years, I had the pleasure of spending much of my time in my garden creating compost and feeding the earth. Really healthy soil grows flowers and fruits that are spectacular. I also grew most of the food I ate. Then I tried living in a high-rise condominium in downtown San Diego for a while. I thought having a terrace would be enough for my gardening needs, but it wasn’t. Now I’ve come back to the soil and happily spend every free moment I have digging in the earth, planting and harvesting fruits and vegetables. There is nothing more delicious and healthy than fresh-picked produce.
Painting had been on my wish list for a long time, and I have dabbled a bit over the years and taken a few classes. I’ve had two wonderful art teachers who really advanced my painting ability: Lynn Hays, who taught me to paint large oil portraits; and Linda Bounds, who besides inspiring me, also encourages Alzheimer’s patients to participate in group classes where they all work on one large painting. The only time these patients speak normally is when they are in Linda’s class. Painting has certainly enlarged my creative boundaries, as well as those of others!
Over the last 25 years, I’ve also rescued several animals. I told each one, “I cannot do anything about your past; however, I promise you that you will live a life of love and joy for the rest of your days.” They all lived out their allotted times and have now moved on. My intuition tells me not to have any more animals for the time being, as I need to be free to move around the world. Besides, I have neighbors on both sides who have dogs, so it’s easy for me to get my daily animal fix.
In the early days, there were few people doing the kind of work I was, and I felt the need to be everywhere, teaching constantly. Now there are so many good teachers out there that I no longer feel the pressure to personally rescue everyone. I’ve written more than 30 books and have produced numerous audios and videos, so there’s plenty of material for people to study. I’ve cut down my speaking schedule to almost nothing, and now work behind the scenes supporting new authors and talented teachers.
Another first for me came in 2008, when I made my first movie! Many women in the film industry who are 35 cannot get parts because they’re considered too old. At 81, I got my turn to be a star. A number of people over the years have wanted to film the story of my life, but I just never felt as if the right person had come along. Then in late 2007, Life brought to me director Michael Goorjian. I looked into his kind eyes and saw his gentle smile, and my heart said yes, this is the one!
Although Michael and filmmaker Noah Veneklasen were newcomers to my way of thinking, I knew that the filming process and the long editing process would give them time to allow these ideas to sink into their consciousness. Not only is You Can Heal Your Life, the movie a success, but everyone involved with the filmmaking process has seen positive changes occur in their lives.
Reading books is good, but there’s something about watching a film that brings the message deeper into one’s consciousness. I’ve received innumerable letters telling me about the positive effects this film has had on people. The most dramatic was from a man who had spent five years in a Japanese internment camp, and after watching this film, he was finally able to forgive his captors and free himself from all the bitterness he’d carried with him for so many years.
There has been enormous interest in this film, and I taped two more shows with Oprah, talking about both the book and the movie. As it happens, more than two decades ago, my book You Can Heal Your Life was on the New York Times bestseller list for 14 weeks. And then it went back on the list—22 years later, which was almost unheard of.
When I first printed You Can Heal Your Life, I started a publishing company called Hay House to self-publish my book, since I then believed that no other publisher would have published it back when these thoughts were considered so radical. At that time, there wasn’t even a self-help section in the bookstore. Today, more than half of the New York Times bestsellers are self-help books. How the consciousness of people has changed! It feels good to know that I was one of the early pioneers of spreading the message that we all do have the ability to improve the quality of our lives.
Based in California, Hay House has since grown to be one of the world’s top publishers in the self-help/mind-body-spirit field. We now even have offices in Australia, the U.K., South Africa, India, and New York City. All these changes were beyond my wildest dreams. In the beginning, all I wanted to do was to help people I couldn’t see personally.
I truly believe that the growth of Hay House has been supervised by the Universe itself. When we choose a new book to publish, it’s always something that helps others improve themselves. I love supporting promising authors who are helping change people’s lives.
I’m blessed to have excellent people running Hay House publishing for me. Reid Tracy, president and CEO, is invaluable to me and to the company. His insights have helped take my messages and those of our other splendid authors to the ends of the planet. Shelley Anderson, my personal assistant, is also invaluable. I love all the people who work in the editorial, art, publicity, customer care, marketing, sales, accounting, and radio areas; as well as those who work in the
warehouse. They all make up the wonderful mix of Hay House family that makes us all so successful. I believe we shall all continue to bring our high level of information to the world for many years to come—blessing and prospering all those we touch.
An astrologer once told me that when I was born, there was a configuration in my chart that showed that I would be helping many, many people on a one-to-one basis. Of course 86 years ago, tape recorders had not been invented, so it would be hard to interpret that configuration. However, because of the miracle of technology, the sound of my voice on tape (and now on CD and in other audio formats) accompanies thousands of people to bed each night. My voice can put anyone to sleep!
As a result, many people whom I have never met feel that they know me because we spend so many intimate moments together. One of the wonderful things about what I do is that it gives me the opportunity to be greeted with love almost everywhere I go. People feel that I’m an old friend who has helped them through many a sticky moment.
I’d also like to share my thoughts about aging with you. No matter what age we are, we can always let go of our baggage and break through a new barrier. Let me tell you about one of my later breakthroughs.
Ten years ago when I turned 76, I decided to do something I’d never done before because I was always afraid to: I took up ballroom dancing. I had wanted to dance since I was a child, but could never get up the courage. For many years I’d said, “In the next lifetime, I’ll be a dancer. It’s too late to do it now.” Talk about a negative affirmation.
Then one day I passed a dance studio with a sign outside that read: “We teach you to dance one step at a time.” And I thought, One step at a time … maybe I could do that. And the thought that followed was: I’m going to live quite a few more years. Why am I waiting for the next lifetime?!