by Louise Hay
I believe that our minds are always connected to the One Infinite Mind, and therefore, all knowledge and wisdom is available to us at any time. We are connected to this Infinite Mind, this Universal Power that created us, through that spark of light within, our Higher Self, or the Power within. The Universal Power loves all of Its creations. It is a Power for good and It directs everything in our lives. It doesn’t know how to hate or lie or punish. It is pure love, freedom, understanding, and compassion. It is important to turn our lives over to our Higher Self, because through It we receive our good.
We must understand that we have the choice to use this Power in any way. If we choose to live in the past and rehash all of the negative situations and conditions that went on way back when, then we stay stuck where we are. If we make a conscious decision not to be victims of the past and go about creating new lives for ourselves, we are supported by this Power within, and new, happier experiences begin to unfold. I don’t believe in two powers. I think there is One Infinite Spirit. It’s all too easy to say, “It’s the devil,” or them. It really is only us, and either we use the power we have wisely or we misuse the power. Do we have the devil in our hearts? Do we condemn others for being different than we are? What are we choosing?
Responsibility Vs. Blame
I also believe that we contribute toward the creation of every condition in our lives, good or bad, with our thinking, feeling patterns. The thoughts we think create our feelings, and we then begin to live our lives in accordance with these feelings and beliefs. This is not to blame ourselves for things going wrong in our lives. There is a difference between being responsible and blaming ourselves or others.
When I talk about responsibility, I am really talking about having power. Blame is about giving away one’s power. Responsibility gives us the power to make changes in our lives. If we play the victim role, then we are using our personal power to be helpless. If we decide to accept responsibility, then we don’t waste time blaming somebody or something out there. Some people feel guilty for creating illness, or poverty, or problems. They choose to interpret responsibility as guilt. (Some members of the media like to refer to it as New Age Guilt.) These people feel guilty because they believe that they have failed in some way. However, they usually accept everything as a guilt trip in one way or another because it’s another way to make themselves wrong. That is not what I’m talking about.
If we can use our problems and illnesses as opportunities to think about how we can change our lives, we have power. Many people who come through catastrophic illness say that it was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to them because it gave them a chance to go about their lives differently. A lot of people, on the other hand, go around saying, “I’m a victim, woe is me. Please, doctor, fix me.” I think these people will have a difficult time even getting well or handling their problems.
Responsibility is our ability to respond to a situation. We always have a choice. It does not mean that we deny who we are and what we have in our lives. It merely means that we can acknowledge that we have contributed to where we are. By taking responsibility, we have the power to change. We can say, “What can I do to make this different?” We need to understand that we all have personal power all the time. It depends on how we use it.
Many of us are now realizing that we come from dysfunctional homes. We carry over a lot of negative feelings about who we are and our relationship to life. My childhood was filled with violence, including sexual abuse. I was starved for love and affection and had no self-esteem at all. Even after leaving home at the age of 15, I continued to experience abuse in many forms. I hadn’t yet realized that the thinking, feeling patterns I had learned early in life had brought this abuse upon me.
Children often respond to the mental atmosphere of the adults around them. So I learned early about fear and abuse and continued to recreate those experiences for myself as I grew up. I certainly didn’t understand that I had the power to change all of this. I was unmercifully hard on myself because I interpreted lack of love and affection to mean I must be a bad person.
All of the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to this moment have been created by your thoughts and beliefs from the past. Let’s not look back on our lives with shame. Look at the past as part of the richness and fullness of your life. Without this richness and fullness, we would not be here today. There is no reason to beat yourself up because you didn’t do better. You did the best you knew how. Release the past in love, and be grateful that it has brought you to this new awareness.
The past only exists in our minds and in the way we choose to look at it in our minds. This is the moment we are living. This is the moment we are feeling. This is the moment we are experiencing. What we are doing right now is laying the groundwork for tomorrow. So this is the moment to make the decision. We can’t do anything tomorrow, and we can’t do it yesterday. We can only do it today. What is important is what we are choosing to think, believe, and say right now.
When we begin to take conscious charge of our thoughts and words, then we have tools that we can use. I know this sounds simple, but remember, the point of power is always in the present moment.
It is important for you to understand that your mind is not in control. You are in control of your mind. The Higher Self is in control. You can stop thinking those old thoughts. When your old thinking tries to come back and say, “It’s so hard to change,” take mental command. Say to your mind, “I now choose to believe it is becoming easy for me to make changes.” You may have this conversation with your mind several times before it acknowledges that you are in charge and that you really mean what you say.
Imagine that your thoughts are like drops of water. One thought or one drop of water does not mean very much. As you repeat thoughts over and over, you first notice a stain on the carpet, then there is a little puddle, then a pond, and as these thoughts continue, they can become a lake, and finally an ocean. What kind of ocean are you creating? One that is polluted and toxic and unfit to swim in, or one that is crystal clear and blue and invites you to enjoy its refreshing waters?
People often tell me, “I can’t stop thinking a thought.” I always reply, “Yes, you can.” Remember, how often have you refused to think a positive thought? You just have to tell your mind that that is what you are going to do. You have to make up your mind to stop thinking negatively. I’m not saying that you have to fight your thoughts when you want to change things. When the negative thoughts come up, simply say, “Thank you for sharing.” In that way, you are not denying what is there, and you are not giving your power over to the negative thought. Tell yourself that you are not going to buy into the negativity anymore. You want to create another way of thinking. Again, you don’t have to fight your thoughts. Acknowledge and go beyond them. Don’t drown in a sea of your own negativity, when you can float on the ocean of life.
You are meant to be a wonderful, loving expression of life. Life is waiting for you to open up to it—to feel worthy of the good it holds for you. The wisdom and intelligence of the Universe is yours to use. Life is here to support you. Trust the Power within you to be there for you.
If you get scared, it is helpful to become aware of your breath as it flows in and out of your body. Your breath, the most precious substance of your life, is freely given to you. You have enough to last for as long as you live. You accept this precious substance without even thinking, and yet you doubt that life can supply you with the other necessities. Now is the time for you to learn about your own power and what you are capable of doing. Go within and find out who you are.
We all have different opinions. You have a right to yours and I have a right to mine. No matter what goes on in the world, the only thing you can work on is what is right for you. You have to get in touch with your inner guidance because it is the wisdom that knows the answers for you. It’s not easy to listen to yourself when your friends and family are telling you what to do. Yet, all the answers to all the questions
you are ever going to ask are within you now.
Every time you say, “I don’t know,” you shut the door to your own inner wisdom. The messages you get from your Higher Self are positive and supportive of you. If you start getting negative messages, then you are working from ego and your human mind level, and even perhaps your imagination, although positive messages often come to us through our imagination and our dreams.
Support yourself by making the right choices for you. When in doubt, ask yourself, “Is this a decision that is loving for me? Is this right for me now?’ You may make another decision at some later point, a day, a week, or a month later. But ask yourself these questions in each moment.
As we learn to love ourselves and trust our Higher Power, we become co-creators with the Infinite Spirit of a loving world. Our love for ourselves moves us from being victims to being winners. Our love for ourselves attracts wonderful experiences to us. Have you ever noticed that people who feel good about themselves are naturally attractive? They usually have a quality about them that is just wonderful. They are happy with their lives. Things come to them easily and effortlessly.
I learned a long time ago that I am a being of oneness with the Presence and Power of God. Knowing this, that the wisdom and understanding of Spirit resides within me, and I am, therefore, divinely guided in all my dealings with others upon the planet. Just as all the stars and planets are in their perfect orbit, I am also in my divine right order. I may not understand everything with my limited human mind; however, on the cosmic level, I know I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. My present experience is a stepping stone to new awareness and new opportunities.
Who are you? What did you come here to learn? What did you come here to teach? We all have a unique purpose. We are more than our personalities, our problems, our fears, and our illnesses. We are far more than our bodies. We are all connected with everyone on the planet and with all of life. We are all spirit, light, energy, vibration, and love, and we all have the power to live our lives with purpose and meaning.
Chapter 2
Following My Inner Voice
The thoughts we choose to think are the tools we use to paint the canvas of our lives.
I remember when I first heard that I could change my life if I was willing to change my thinking. It was quite a revolutionary idea to me. I lived in New York and discovered the Church of Religious Science. (Often people confuse the Church of Religious Science, or Science of Mind, which was founded by Ernest Holmes, with the Christian Science Church founded by Mary Baker Eddy. They all reflect new thought; however, they are different philosophies.)
The Science of Mind has ministers and practitioners who carry on the teachings of the Church of Religious Science (the Church). They were the very first people who told me that my thoughts shaped my future. Even though I didn’t understand what they meant, this concept touched what I call the inner ding within me, that place of intuition that is referred to as the voice within. Over the years, I’ve learned to follow it, because when that ding goes “Yes,” even if it seems a crazy choice, I know that it’s right for me.
So these concepts struck a cord in me. Something said, “Yes, they are right.” And then I began the adventure of learning how to change my thinking. Once I accepted the idea and said “yes” to it, I went through the hows. I read a lot of books, and my home became like many of yours, filled with masses of spiritual and self-help books. I went to classes for many years, and I explored everything related to the subject. I literally immersed myself in new thought philosophy. It was the first time that I had really studied in my life. Up until then I didn’t believe in anything. My mother was a lapsed Catholic, and my step-father was an atheist. I had some strange idea that Christians either wore hair shirts or were eaten by lions, and neither appealed to me.
I really delved into the Science of Mind, because that was an avenue that was open for me at the time, and I found it really wonderful. At first it was sort of easy. I grasped a few concepts, and I started to think and talk a little bit differently. In those days I was a constant complainer and full of self-pity. I just loved to wallow in the pits. I didn’t know that I was continually perpetuating more experiences in which to pity myself. But then again, I didn’t know any better in those days. Gradually, I found that I was no longer complaining quite so much.
I started to listen to what I said. I became aware of my self-criticism, and I tried to stop it. I began to babble affirmations without quite knowing what they meant. I started with the easy ones, of course, and a few small changes began to take place. I got the green lights and the parking places, and boy, did I think I was hot stuff. Oh wow! I thought I knew it all, and I very soon became quite cocky and arrogant and dogmatic in my beliefs. I felt I knew all the answers. In hindsight, it was really my way of feeling safe in this new area.
When we start to move away from some of our old rigid beliefs, especially if we’ve previously been in total control, it can be very scary. It was very frightening for me, so I would grasp onto whatever would make me feel safe. It was a beginning for me, and I still had a long way to go. And still do.
Like most of us, I didn’t always find the pathway easy and smooth because just babbling affirmations didn’t work all the time, and I couldn’t understand why. I asked myself, “What am I doing wrong?” Immediately, I blamed myself. Was this one more example of me not being good enough? That was a favorite old belief of mine.
At the time my teacher, Eric Pace, would look at me and refer to the idea of resentment. I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. Resentment? Me? Surely, I didn’t have any resentments. After all, I was on my pathway, I was spiritually perfect. How little I could see myself then!
I continued doing the best I could in my life. I studied metaphysics and spirituality and learned about myself as much as possible. I grasped what I could, and sometimes, I applied it. Often, we hear a lot of things, and sometimes we grasp them, but we don’t always practice them. Time seemed to go by very quickly, and at that point, I had been studying Science of Mind for about three years and had become a practitioner of the Church. I began to teach the philosophy, but I wondered why my students seemed to be floundering. I couldn’t understand why they were so stuck in their problems. I gave them so much good advice. Why weren’t they using it and getting well? It never dawned on me that I was speaking the truth more than I was living it. I was like a parent who tells the child what to do but then does exactly the opposite.
Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, I was diagnosed with vaginal cancer. First, I panicked. Then, I had doubts that all this stuff I was learning was valid. It was a normal and natural reaction. I thought to myself, “If I was clear and centered, I wouldn’t have the need to create the illness.” In hindsight, I think when I was diagnosed, I felt safe enough at that point to let the illness surface so that I could do something about it, rather than having it be another hidden secret that I wouldn’t know about until I was dead.
I knew too much by then to hide from myself any longer. I knew that cancer was a dis-ease of resentment that is held for a long time until it eats away at the body. When we stifle our emotions inside of us, they have to go somewhere in the body. If we spend a lifetime stuffing things down, they will eventually manifest somewhere in the body.
I became very aware that the resentment (which my teacher had referred to so many times) within me had to do with being physically, emotionally, and sexually abused as a child. Naturally, I would have resentment. I was bitter and unforgiving of the past. I had never done any work to change or release the bitterness and let it go. When I left home, it was all I could do to forget what happened to me; I thought I had put it behind me when in actuality I had simply buried it.
When I found my metaphysical pathway, I covered up my feelings with a nice layer of spirituality and hid a lot of garbage inside me. I put a wall around myself that kept me literally out of touch with my own feelings. I didn’t know who I w
as or where I was. After my diagnosis, the real inner work of learning to know myself began. Thank God, I had tools to use. I knew I needed to go within myself if I was going to make any permanent changes. Yes, the doctor could give me an operation and perhaps take care of my illness for the moment, but if I didn’t change the way I was using my thoughts and my words, I’d probably re-create it again.
It is always interesting to me to learn where in our bodies we put our cancers—on which side of the body are our tumors, the left or the right. The right side represents the masculine side, from where we give out. The left is the feminine side, the receptive part, from where we take in. Almost all of my life, when anything went wrong, it was always on the right side of my body. It was where I stored all the resentment toward my stepfather.
I was no longer content to get green lights and parking places. I knew that I had to go much, much deeper. I realized that I was not really progressing in my life the way I wanted to because I hadn’t really cleared out this old garbage from childhood, and I wasn’t living what I was teaching. I had to recognize the inner child inside me and work with her. My inner child needed help because she was still in great pain.
I quickly began a self-healing program in earnest. I concentrated on me totally and did little else. I became very committed to getting well. Some of it was a little weird, yet I did it anyway. After all, this was my life on the line. It became almost a 24-hour-a-day job for the next six months. I began reading and studying everything I could find about alternative ways to heal cancer because I truly believed it could be done. I did a nutritional cleansing program that detoxified my body from all the junk foods I had eaten for years. For months, I seemed to be living on sprouts and pureed asparagus. I know I had more to eat, but that is what I remember the most.