This is an excerpt from Louise Hay's book, "You Can Heal Your Life."
Life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back
What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. I believe that everyone, myself included, is responsible for everything in our lives, the best and the worst. Every thought we think is creating our future. Each one of us creates our experiences by our thoughts and our feelings. The thoughts we think and the words we speak create our experiences.
We create the situations, and then we give our power away by blaming the other person for our frustration. No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for "we" are the only thinkers in it. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.
Which of these statements sounds like you?
"People are out to get me."
"Everyone is always helpful."
Each one of these beliefs will create quite different experiences. What we believe about ourselves and about life becomes true for us.
The Universe totally supports us in every thought we choose to think and believe
Put another way, our subconscious mind accepts whatever we choose to believe. They both mean that what I believe about myself and about life becomes true for me. What you choose to think about yourself and about life becomes true for you. And we have unlimited choices about what we can think.
When we know this, then it makes sense to choose "Everyone is always helpful," rather than "People are out to get me."
The universal power never judges or criticizes us
It only accepts us at our own value. Then it reflects our beliefs in our lives. If I want to believe that life is lonely and that nobody loves me, then that is what I will find in my world.
However, if I am willing to release that belief and to affirm for myself that "Love is everywhere, and I am loving and lovable," and to hold on to that new affirmation and to repeat it often, then it will become true for me. Now, loving people will come into my life, the people already in my life will become more loving to me, and I will find myself easily expressing love to others.
Most of us have foolish ideas about who we are and many, many rigid rules about how life ought to be lived
This is not to condemn us, for each of us is doing the very best we can at this very moment. If we knew better, if we had more understanding and awareness, then we would do it differently. Please don't put yourself down for being where you are. The very fact that you have found this book and have discovered me means that you are ready to make a new, positive change in your life. Acknowledge yourself for this. "Men don't cry!" "Women can't handle money!" What limiting ideas to live with.
When we are very little, we learn how to feel about ourselves and about life by the reactions of the adults around us
It is the way we learn what to think about ourselves and about our world. Now, if you lived with people who were very unhappy, frightened, guilty, or angry, then you learned a lot of negative things about yourself and your world.
"I never do anything right." "It's my fault." "If I get angry, I'm a bad person."
Beliefs like this create a frustrating life.
When we grow up, we have a tendency to recreate the emotional environment of our early home life
This is not good or bad, right or wrong. It is just what we know inside as "home". We also tend to recreate in our personal relationships the relationships we had with our mothers or with our fathers, or what they had between them. Think how often you have had a lover or a boss who was "just like" your mother or father.
We also treat ourselves the way our parents treated us. We scold and punish ourselves in the same way. You can almost hear the words when you listen. We also love and encourage ourselves in the same way, if we were loved and encouraged as children.
"You never do anything right." "It's all your fault." How often have you said this to yourself?
"You are wonderful." "I love you." How often do you tell yourself this?
The only thing we are ever dealing with is a thought, and a thought can be changed
No matter what the problem is, our experiences are just outer effects of inner thoughts. Even self-hatred is only hating a thought you have about yourself. You have a thought that says, "I'm a bad person." This thought produces a feeling, and you buy into the feeling. However, if you don't have the thought, you won't have the feeling. And thoughts can be changed. Change the thought, and the feeling must go.
This is only to show us where we get many of our beliefs. But let's not use this information as an excuse to stay stuck in our pain. The past has no power over us. It doesn't matter how long we have had a negative pattern. The point of power is in the present moment. What a wonderful thing to realize! We can begin to be free in this moment!
Believe it or not, we do choose our thoughts
We may habitually think the same thought over and over so that it does not seem we are choosing the thought. But we did make the original choice. We can refuse to think certain thoughts. Look how often you have refused to think a positive thought about yourself. Well, you can also refuse to think a negative thought about yourself.
It seems to me that everyone on this planet whom I know or have worked with is suffering from self-hatred and guilt to one degree or another. The more self-hatred and guilt we have, the less our lives work. The less self-hatred and guilt we have, the better our lives work, on all levels.
the innermost belief for everyone I have worked with is always, "I'm not good enough!"
We frequently add to that, "And I don't do enough," or "I don't deserve." Does this sound like you? Are you saying or implying or feeling that you "are not good enough"? But for whom? And according to whose standards?
If this belief is very strong in you, then how can you possibly have created a loving, joyous, prosperous, healthy life? Somehow your main subconscious belief would always be contradicting it. Somehow you would never quite get it together, for something would always be going wrong somewhere.
All dis-ease comes from a state of unforgiveness
Whenever we are ill, we need to search our hearts to see who it is we need to forgive.
The Course in Miracles says that "all dis-ease comes from a state of unforgiveness," and that "whenever we are ill, we need to look around to see who it is that we need to forgive."
I would add to that concept that the very person you find it hardest to forgive is the one YOU NEED TO LET GO OF THE MOST. Forgiveness means giving up, letting go. It has nothing to do with condoning behavior. It's just letting the whole thing go. We do not hae to know HOW to forgive. All we need to do is be WILLING to forgive. The Universe will take of the hows.
We understand our own pain so well. How hard it is for most of us to understand that THEY, whoever they are we need to most to forgive, were also in pain. We need to understand that they were doing the best they could with the understanding, awareness, and knowledge they had at that time.
When people come to me with a problem, I don't care what it is -- poor health, lack of money, unfulfilling relationships, or stifled creativity -- there is only one thing I ever work on, and that is LOVING THE SELF.
I find that when we really love and accept and APPROVE OF OURSELVES EXACTLY AS WE ARE, then everything in life works. It's as if little miracles are everywhere. Our health improves, we attract more money, our relationships become much more fulfilling, and we begin to express ourselves in creatively fulfilling ways. All this seems to happen without our even trying.
Loving and approving of yourself, creating a space of safety, trusting an deserving and accepting, will create organization in your mind, create more loving relationships in your life, attract a new job and a new and better place to live, and even enable your body weight to normalize. People who love themselves and their bodies neither abuse themselves nor others.
Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our lives.
Loving the self, to me, begins with never ever criticizing ourselves for anything. Criticism locks us into the very pattern we are trying to change. Understanding and being gentle with ourselves helps us to move out of it. Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. I believe in a power far greater than I am that flows through me every moment of every day. I open myself to the wisdom within, knowing that there is only one intelligence in this Universe. Out of this one intelligence comes all the answers, all the solutions, all the healings, all the new creations. I trust this power and intelligence, knowing that whatever I need to know is revealed to me in the right time, space, and sequence. All is well in my world.