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LOUISE L. HAY INCLUDES A NEW AFTERWORD OVER 30 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE Part I INTRODUCTION Suggestions to My Readers I have written this book to share with you, my readers, that which 1 know and teach. It incorporates portions of my little blue book, Heal Your Body, which has become widely accepted as an authoritative work on the mental patterns that create dis-eases in the body. I have had hundreds of letters from readers asking me to share more of my information. Many persons who have worked with me as private clients, and those who have taken my workshops here and abroad, have requested I take the time to write this book. I have set up this book to take you through a session, just as I would if you came to me as a private client and attended one of my workshops. If you will do the exercises progressively as they appear in the book, by the time you have finished, you will have begun to change your life. I suggest you read through the book once. Then slowly read it again, only this time do each exercise in depth. Give yourself time to work with each one. If you can, work through the exercises with a friend or with a member of your family. Each chapter opens with an affirmation. Each of these is good to use when you are working on that area of your life. Take two or three days to study and work with each chapter. Keep saying and writing the affirmation that opens the chapter. XI YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE The chapters close with a treatment. This is a flow of positive ideas designed to change consciousness. Read over this treatment several times a day. I close this book by sharing with you my own story. I know it will show you that no matter where we have come from or how lowly it was, we can totally change our lives for the better. Know that when you work with these ideas, my loving support is with you. Some Points ofMy Philosophy We are each responsible for all of our experiences. Every thought we think is creating our future. The point of power is always in the present moment. Everyone suffers from self-hatred and guilt. The bottom line for everyone is, “I’m not good enough.” It’s only a thought, and a thought can be changed. We create every so-called illness in our body. Resentment, criticism, and guilt are the most damaging patterns. Releasing resentment will dissolve even cancer. We must release the past and forgive everyone. We must be willing to begin to learn to love ourselves. Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the keys to positive changes. When we really love ourselves, everything in our life works. In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete, andyet life is ever changing. There is no beginning and no end, only a constant cycling and recycling of substance and experiences. Life is never stuck or static or stale, for each moment is ever new andfresh. I am one with the very Power that created me, and tfiis Power has given me the power to create my own circumstances. I rgoice in tfte knowledge that I have the power of my own mind to use in any way I choose. Every moment of life is a new beginning point as we movejrom the old. Tfiis moment is a new point of beginning for me right here and right now. All is well in my world. Chapter One WHAT I BELIEVE “The gateways to wisdom and knowledge are always open.” 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. 1 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE 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 1 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 1 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 dont 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. 2 What I Believe 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 about your world. “1 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 Re-create 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? However, I Would Not Blame Our Parents for This We are all victims of victims, and they could not possibly have taught us anything they did not know. If your mother did not know how to love herself, or your father did not know how to love himself, then it would be impossible for them to teach you to love yourself. 3 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE They were doing the best they could with what they had been taught as children. If you want to understand your parents more, get them to talk about their own childhood; and if you listen with compassion, you will leam where their fears and rigid patterns come from. Those people who “did all that stuff to you” were just as frightened and scared as you are. I Believe That We Choose Our Parents Each one of us decides to incarnate upon this planet at a particular point in time and space. We have chosen to come here to learn a particular lesson that will advance us upon our spiritual, evolutionary pathway. We choose our sex, our color, our country, and then we look around for the particular set of parents who will mirror the pattern we are bringing in to work on in this lifetime. Then, when we grow up, we usually point our fingers accusingly at our parents and whimper, “You did it to me.” But really, we chose them because they were perfect for what we wanted to work on overcoming. We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience. Well, I believe you created those experiences over and over because they mirrored something you believed about yourself. It doesn’t really matter how long we have had a problem, or how big it is, or how life-threatening it is. The Point of Power Is Always in the Present Moment All the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to this moment have been created by your thoughts and beliefs you have held in the past. They were created by the thoughts and words you used yesterday, last week, last month, last year, 10, 20, 30, 40, or more years ago, depending on how old you are. However, that is your past. It is over and done with. What is important in this moment is what you are choosing to think and 4 What I Believe believe and say right now. For these thoughts and words will create your future. Your point of power is in the present moment and is forming the experience of tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and so on. You might notice what thought you are thinking at this moment. Is it negative or positive? Do you want this thought to be creating your future? Just notice and be aware. 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 5 ' YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE 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 often add to that, “And I don’t do enough,” or “I don’t deserve.” Does this sound like you? Often 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. I Find That Resentment, Criticism, Guilt, and Fear Cause More Problems Than Anything Else These four things cause the major problems in our bodies and in our lives. These feelings come from blaming others and not taking responsibility for our own experiences. You see, if we are all responsible for everything in our lives, then there is no one to blame. Whatever is happening “out there” is only a mirror of our own inner thinking. I am not cqndoiiing other people’s poor behavior, but it is OUR beliefs that attract people who will treat us that way. If you find yourself saying, “Everyone always does such and such to me, criticizes me, is never there for me, uses me like a doormat, abuses me,” then this is YOUR PATTERN. There is some thought in you that attracts people who exhibit this behavior. When you no longer think that way, they will go elsewhere and do that to somebody else. You will no longer attract them. Following are some results of patterns that manifest on the physical level: Resentment that is long held can eat away at the body and 6 What I Believe become the dis-ease we call cancer. Criticism as a permanent habit can often lead to arthritis in the body. Guilt always looks for punishment, and punishment creates pain. (When a client comes to me with a lot of pain, I know they are holding a lot of guilt.) Fear, and the tension it produces, can create things like baldness, ulcers, and even sore feet. I have found that forgiving and releasing resentment will dissolve even cancer. While this may sound simplistic, I have seen and experienced it working. We Can Change Our Attitude Toward the Past The past is over and done. We cannot change that now. Yet we can change our thoughts about the past. How foolish for us to PUNISH OURSELVES in the present moment because someone hurt us in the long ago past. I often say to people who have deep resentment patterns, “Please begin to dissolve the resentment now, when it is relatively easy. Don’t wait until you are under the threat of a surgeon’s knife or on your death bed, when you may have to deal with pariic, too.” When we are in a state of panic, it is very difficult to focus our minds on the healing work. We have to take time out to dissolve the fears first. If we choose to believe we are helpless victims and that it’s all hopeless, then the Universe will support us in that belief, and we will just go down the drain. It is vital that we release these foolish, outmoded, negative ideas and beliefs that do not support us and nourish us. Even our concept of God needs to be one that is for us, not against us. To Release the Past, We Must Be Willing to Forgive We need to choose to release the past and forgive everyone, ourselves included. We may not know how to forgive, and we may not 7 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE want to forgive, but the very fact that we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing process. It is imperative for our own healing that “we” release the past and forgive everyone. “I forgive you for not being the way 1 wanted you to be. 1 forgive you and I set you free.” This affirmation sets us free. 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 with condoning behavior. It’s just letting the whole thing go. We do not have to know HOW to forgive. All we need to do is to be WILLING to forgive. The Universe will take care 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 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 1 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 litde 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. 8 What I Believe Loving and approving of yourself, creating a space of safety, trusting and 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 tfie inanity of life, where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. I believe in a powerfar greater than I am that flows through me every moment of every day. I open myselfto 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, and that whatever I need comes to me in the right time, space, and sequence. All is well in my world. 9 Part II A SESSION WITH LOUISE Chapter Two WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? “It is safe to look within.” My Body Doesn’t Work It hurts, bleeds, aches, oozes, twists, blows up, limps, bums, ages, can’t see, can’t hear, is rotting away, and so on. Plus whatever else you may have created. I think I have heard them all. My Relationships Don’t Work They are smothering, absent, demanding, don’t support me, always criticizing me, unloving, never leave me alone, pick on me all the time, don’t want to be bothered with me, walk all over me, never listen to me, and so on. Plus whatever else you may have created. Yes, I have heard them all, too. My Finances Don’t Work They are nonexistent, seldom there, never enough, just out of reach, go out faster than they come in, won’t cover the bills, slip through my fingers, and so on. Plus whatever else you may have created. Of course, I have heard them all. 13 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE My Life Doesn’t Work I never get to do what I want to do. I can’t please anyone. I don’t know what I want to do. There is never any time for me. My needs and desires are always left out. I’m only doing this to please them. I am just a doormat. Nobody cares what I want to do. I have no talent I can’t do anything right. All I do is procrastinate. Nothing ever works for me, and so on. Plus whatever else you have created for yourself. All these I have heard and more. Whenever I ask a new client what is going on in his or her life, I usually get one of the above answers. Or maybe several of these answers. They really think they know the problem. But I know these complaints are only outer effects of inner thought patterns. Beneath the inner thought patterns is another deeper, more fundamental pattern that is the basis of all the outer effects. I listen to the words they use as I ask some basic questions: What is happening in your life? How is your health? What do you do for a living? Do you like your work? How are your finances? How is your love life? How did the last relationship end? And the relationship before that, how did it end? Tell me about your childhood, briefly. I watch the body postures and the facial movements. But mostly I really listen to the words they say. Thoughts and words create our future experiences. As I listen to them talk, I can readily understand why they have these particular problems. The words we speak are indicative of our inner thoughts. Sometimes, the words they use do not match the experiences they describe. Then I know that they are either not in touch with what is really going on or they are lying to me. Either one is a starting point and gives us a basis from which to begin. 14 What Is the Problem? Exercise: I Should The next thing I do is to give them a pad and pen and ask them to write on the top of a piece of paper: I SHOULD They are to make a list of five or six ways to finish that sentence. Some people find it difficult to begin, and some have so many things to write that it’s hard for them to stop. I then ask them to read the list to me one at a time, beginning each sentence with “I Should. . .” As they read each one, 1 ask, “Why?” The answers that come out are interesting and revealing, such as: My mother said I should. Because I am afraid not to. Because I have to be perfect. Well, everybody has to do that. Because I am too lazy, too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too dumb, too ugly, too worthless. These answers show me where they are stuck in their beliefs and what they think their limitations are. I make no comments on their answers. When they are through with their list, I talk about the word SHOULD. You see, I believe that should is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use should, we are, in effect, saying “wrong.” Either we are wrong or we were wrong or we are going to be wrong. I don’t think we need more wrongs in our life. We need to have more freedom of choice. 1 would like to take the word should and remove it from the vocabulary forever. I’d replace it with the word could. Could gives us choice, and we are never wrong. 15 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE I then ask them to reread the list one item at a time, except this time to begin each sentence by saying, “If I really wanted to, I could This puts a whole new light on the subject. As they do this, I ask them gently, “Why haven’t you?” Now we hear different answers: I don’t want to. I am afraid. I don’t know how. Because I am not good enough. And so on. We often find they have been berating themselves for years for something they never wanted to do in the first place. Or they have been criticizing themselves for not doing something when it was never their idea to begin with. Often it was just something that someone else said they “should” do. When they can see that, they can just drop it from the “should list.” What a relief that is. Look at all the people who try to force themselves for years into a career they don’t even like only because their parents said they “should” become a dentist or a teacher. How often have we felt inferior because we were told we “should” be smarter or richer or more creative like some relative. What is there on your “should list” that could be dropped with a sense of relief? By the time we have gone through this short list, they are beginning to look at their life in a new and different way. They notice that many of the things they thought they “should” do are things they never wanted to do, and they were only trying to please other people. So many times it is because they are afraid or feel they are not good enough. The problem has now begun to shift. 1 have started the process of releasing the feeling of “being wrong” because they are not fitting someone else’s standards. Next I begin to explain to them my philosophy of life as I did in Chapter One. I believe life is really very simple. What we give out, 16 What Is the Problem? we get back. The Universe totally supports every thought we choose to think and to believe. When we are little, we leant how to feel about ourselves and about life by the reactions of the adults around us. Whatever these beliefs are, they will be recreated as experiences as we grow up. However, we are only dealing with thought patterns, and the point of power is always in the present moment. Changes can begin in this moment. Loving the Self I continue to explain that no matter what their problem seems to be, there is only one thing I ever work on with anyone, and this is Loving the Self. Love is the miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives. I am not talking about vanity or arrogance or being stuck-up, for that is not love. It is only fear. I am talking about having a great respect for ourselves and a gratitude for the miracle of our bodies and our minds. “Love” to me is appreciation to such a degree that it fills my heart to bursting and overflows. Love can go in any direction. I can feel love for: The very process of life itself. The joy of being alive. The beauty I see. Another person. Knowledge. The process of the mind. Our bodies and the way they work. Animals, birds, fish. Vegetation in all its forms. The Universe and the way it works. What can you add to this list? Let's look at some of the ways we don’t love ourselves: 17 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE We scold and criticize ourselves endlessly. We mistreat our bodies with food, alcohol, and drugs. We choose to believe we are unlovable. We are afraid to charge a decent price for our services. We create illnesses and pain in our bodies. We procrastinate on things that would benefit us. We live in chaos and disorder. We create debt and burdens. We attract lovers and mates who belittle us. What are some of your ways? If we deny our good in any way, it is an act of not loving ourselves. I remember a client I worked with who wore glasses. One day we released an old fear from childhood. The next day she awakened to find her contact lenses were bothering her too much to wear. She looked around and found her eyesight was perfectly clear. Yet she spent the whole day saying, “1 don’t believe it, I don’t believe it.” The next day she was back to wearing contacts. Our subconscious mind has no sense of humor. She couldn’t believe she had created perfect eyesight. Lack of self-worth is another expression of not loving ourselves. Tom was a very good artist, and he had some wealthy clients who asked him to decorate a wall or two in their homes. Yet somehow he was always behind in his own bill paying. His original quote was never enough to cover the time involved to complete the work. Anyone who gives a service or creates a one-of-a-kind product can charge any price. People with wealth love to pay a lot for what they get; it gives the item more value. More examples: Our partner is tired and grouchy. We wonder what we have done wrong to cause it. He takes us out once or twice and never calls again. We think something must be wrong with us. Our marriage ends, and we are sure we are a failure. We are afraid to ask for a raise. Our bodies do not match those in Gentlemans Quarterly or 18 What Is the Problem? Vogue magazine, and we feel inferior. We don’t “make the sale,” or “get the part,” and we are sure we are “not good enough.” We are afraid of intimacy and allowing anyone to get too close, so we have anonymous sex. We can’t make decisions because we are sure they will be wrong. How do you express your lack of self-worth? The Perfection of Babies How perfect you were when you were a tiny baby. Babies do not have to do anything to become perfect; they already are perfect, and they act as if they know it. They know they are the center of the Universe. They are not afraid to ask for what they want. They freely express their emotions. You know when a baby is angry— in fact, the whole neighborhood knows. You also know when babies are happy, for their smiles light up a room. They are full of love. Tiny babies will die if they do not get love. Once we are older, we learn to live without love, but babies will not stand for it. Babies also love every part of their bodies, even their own feces. They have incredible courage. You were like that. We were all like that. Then we began to listen to adults around us who had learned to be fearful, and we began to deny our own magnificence. I never believe it when clients try to convince me how terrible they are, or how unlovable they are. My work is to bring them back to the time when they knew how to really love themselves. Exercise: Mirror Next, 1 ask clients to pick up a small mirror, look into their own eyes, and say their names and, “1 love and accept you exactly as you are.” This is so difficult for many people. Seldom do I get a calm reaction, let alone enjoyment from this exercise. Some cry or are close to 19 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE tears, some get angry, some belittle their features or qualities, some insist they CAN’T do it. I even had one man throw the mirror across the room and want to run away. It took him several months before he could begin to relate to himself in the mirror. For years I looked into the mirror only to criticize what I saw there. Recalling the endless hours I spent plucking my eyebrows trying to make myself barely acceptable amuses me now. I remember it used to frighten me to look into my own eyes. This simple exercise shows me so much. In less than an hour, I am able to get to some of the core issues that are beneath the outer problem. If we work only on the level of the problem, we can spend endless time working out each and every detail; and the minute we think we have it all “fixed up,” it will crop up somewhere else. “The Problem” Is Rarely the Real Problem She was so concerned with her looks, and especially with her teeth. She went from dentist to dentist feeling each one had only made her look worse. She went to have her nose fixed, and they did a poor job. Each professional was mirroring her belief that she was ugly. Her problem was not her looks, but that she was convinced something was wrong with her. There was another woman who had terrible breath. It was uncomfortable to be around her. She was studying to be a minister, and her outer demeanor was pioui and spiritual- Beneath this was a raging current of anger and jealousy that exploded now and then when she thought someone might be threatening her position. Her inner thoughts were expressed through her breath, and she was offensive even when she pretended to be loving. No one threatened her but herself. . , He was only 15 when his mother brought him to me wit Hodgkin’s dis-ease and three months to live. His mother was un er standably hysterical and difficult to deal with, but the boy was and clever and wanted to live. He was willing to do anything I t0 him to, including changing the way he thought and spoke. His sep 20 What Is the Problem? arated parents were always arguing, and he really did not have a settled home life. He wanted desperately to be an actor. The pursuit of fame and fortune far outweighed his ability to experience joy. He thought he could be acceptable and worthwhile only if he had fame. I taught him to love and accept himself, and he got well. He is now grown up and appears on Broadway with regularity. As he learned to experience the joy of being himself, the parts in plays opened up for him. Overweight is another good example of how we can waste a lot of energy trying to correct a problem that is not the real problem. People often spend years and years fighting fat and are still overweight. They blame all their problems on being overweight. The excess weight is only an outer effect of a deep inner problem. To me, it is always fear and a need for protection. When we feel frightened or insecure or “not good enough,” many of us will put on extra weight for protection. To spend our time berating ourselves for being too heavy, to feel guilty about every bite of food we eat, to do all the numbers we do on ourselves when we gain weight, is just a waste of time. Twenty years later we can still be in the same situation because we have not even begun to deal with the real problem. All that we have done is to make ourselves more frightened and insecure, and then we need more weight for protection. So I refuse to focus on excess weight or on diets. For diets do not work. The only diet that does work is a mental diet — dieting from negative thoughts. I say to clients, “Let us just put that issue to one side for the time being while we work on a few other things first.” They will often tell me they can’t love themselves because they are so fat, or as one girl put it, “too round at the edges.” I explain that they are fat because they don’t love themselves. When we begin to love and approve of ourselves, it’s amazing how weight just disappears from our bodies. Sometimes clients even get angry with me as I explain how simple it is to change their lives. They may feel I do not understand their problems. One woman became very upset and said, “I came here to 21 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE get help with my dissertation, not to learn to love myself.” To me it was so obvious that her main problem was a lot of self-hatred, and this permeated every part of her life, including the writing of her dissertation. She could not succeed at anything as long as she felt so worthless. She couldn’t hear me and left in tears, coming back one year later with the same problem plus a lot of other problems. Some people are not ready, and there is no judgment. We all begin to make our changes in the right time, space, and sequence for us. 1 did not even begin to make my changes until I was in my forties. The Real Problem So here is a client who has just looked into the harmless little mirror, and he or she is all upset. I smile with delight and say, “Good, now we are looking at the ‘real problem’; now we can begin to clear out what is really standing in your way.” 1 talk more about loving the self, about how, for me, loving the self begins with never, ever criticizing ourselves for anything. I watch their faces as I ask them if they criticize themselves. Their reactions tell me so much: Well, of course I do. All the time. Not as much as I used to. Well, how am I going to change if 1 don’t criticize myself? Doesn’t everyone? To the latter, 1 answer, “We are not talking about everyone, we are talking about you. Why do you criticize yourself? What is wrong with you?” . , As they talk, I make a list. What they say often coincides wit their “should list.” They feel they are too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too dumb, too old, too young, too ugly. (The most beauti u handsome will often say this.) Or they’re too late, too early, too azy, and on and on. Notice how it is almost always too somet mg 22 What Is the Problem? Finally, we get down to the bottom line, and they say, “I am not good enough.” Hurrah, hurrah! We have finally found the central issue. They criticize themselves because they have learned to believe they “are not good enough.” Clients are always amazed at how fast we have gotten to this point. Now we do not have to bother with any of the side effects like body problems, relationship problems, money problems, or lack of creative expressions. We can put all our energy into dissolving the cause of the whole thing: “NOT LOVING THE SELF!” In tfie infinity of life, where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. I am always Divinely protected and guided. It is safe for me to look within myself. It is safefor me to look into the past. It is safefor me to enlarge my viewpoint of life. I amfar more than my personality —past, present, orfuture. I now choose to rise above my personality problems to recognize the magnificence ofmy being. I am totally willing to learn to love myself. All is well in my world. 23 Chapter Three WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? “The past has no power over me.” All right, we have gone through a lot of stuff, and we have sifted through what we thought the problem was. Now we have come up with what I believe is the real problem. We feel we are not good enough, and there is a lack of self-love. From the way 1 look at life, if there is any problem, then this has to be true. So let us look at where this belief came from. How did we go from being a tiny baby who knows the perfection of itself and of life to being a person who has problems and feels unworthy and unlovable to one degree or another? People who already love themselves can love themselves even more. Think of a rose from the time it is a tiny bud. As it opens to full flower, till the last petal falls, it is always beautiful, always perfect, always changing. So it is with us. We are always perfect, always beautiful, and ever changing. We are doing the best we can with the understanding, awareness and knowledge we have. As we gain more understanding, awareness and knowledge, then we will do things differendy. Mental Housecleaning Now is the time to examine our past a bit more, to take a look at some of the beliefs that have been running us. 25 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE Some people find this part of the cleansing process very painful but it need not be. We must look at what is there before we can clean it out. If you want to clean a room thoroughly, you will pick up and examine everything in it. Some things you will look at with love, and you will dust them or polish them to give them new beauty. Some things you will see that need refinishing or repair, and you will make a note to do that. Some things will never serve you again, and it becomes time to let those things go. Old magazines and newspapers and dirty paper plates can be dropped into the wastebasket very calmly. There is no need to get angry in order to clean a room. It is the same thing when we are cleaning our mental house. There is no need to get angry just because some of the beliefs in it are ready to be tossed out. Let them go as easily as you would scrape bits of food into the trash after a meal. Would you really dig into yesterday’s garbage to make tonight’s meal? Do you dig into old mental garbage to create tomorrow’s experiences? If a thought or belief does not serve you, let it go! There is no written law that says that because you once believed something, you have to continue to believe it forever. Let’s look at some limiting beliefs and where they came from: limiting belief: “I’m not good enough.” where it came from: A father who repeatedly told him he was stupid. He said he wanted to be a success so his daddy would be proud o him. But he was riddled with guilt, which created resentment, and all he could produce was one failure after another. Daddy kept financing businesses for him, and one after another, they failed. He used failure to get even. He made his daddy pay and pay and pay. course, he was the biggest loser. limiting belief: Lack of self-love. WHERE it CAME from: Trying to win daddy’s approval. The last thing she wanted was to be like her father. They cou agree on anything and were always arguing. She only wante 26 Where Does It Come From? approval, but instead all she got was criticism. Her body was full of pains. Her father had exactly the same kind of pains. She did not realize her anger was creating her pains just as her father’s anger was creating pain for him. limiting belief: Life is dangerous. where it came from: A frightened father. Another client saw life as grim and harsh. It was difficult for her to laugh, and when she did, she would become frightened that something “bad” would happen. She has been reared with the admonition, “Don’t laugh or ‘they’ might get you.” limiting belief: I’m not good enough. where it came from: Being abandoned and ignored. It was difficult for him to talk. Silence had become a way of life for him. He had just come off drugs and alcohol and was convinced that he was terrible. I discovered his mother had died when he was very young, and he had been reared by an aunt. The aunt seldom spoke except to give an order, and he was brought up in silence. He even ate alone in silence and stayed quietly in his room day after day. He had a lover who was also a silent man, and they spent most of their time alone in silence. The lover died, and once again he was alone. Exercise: Negative Messages The next exercise we do is to get a large sheet of paper and make a list of all the things your parents said were wrong with you. What were the negative messages you heard? Give yourself enough time to remember as many as you can. A half hour usually works well. What did they say about money? What did they say about your body? What did they say about love and relationships? What did they say about your creative talents? What were the limiting or negative things they said to you? If you can, just look objectively at these items and say to yourself, “So that’s where that belief came from.” 27 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE Now, let’s take a new sheet of paper and dig a little deeper. What other negative messages did you hear as a child? From relatives From teachers From friends From authority figures From your church Write them all down. Take your time. Be aware of what feelings are going on in your body. What you have on these two pieces of paper are the thoughts that need to be removed from your consciousness. These are the very beliefs you have that are making you feel “not good enough.” Seeing Yourself as a Child If we were to take a three-year-old child and put him in the middle of the room, and you and I were to start yelling at the child, telling him how stupid he was, how he could never do anything right, how he should do this, and shouldn’t do that, and look at the mess he made; and maybe hit him a few times, we would end up with a frightened little child who sits docilely in the corner, or who tears up the place. The child will go one of these two ways, but we will never know the potential of that child. If we take the same little child and tell him how much we love him, how much we care, that we love the way he looks and love how bright and clever he is, that we love the way he does things, and that it’s okay for him to make mistakes as he learns — and that we wi always be there for him no matter what — then the potential t at comes out of that child will blow your mind! Each one of us has a three-year-old child within us, and we o ten spend most of our time yelling at that kid in ourselves. Then we wonder why our lives don’t work. If you had a friend who was always criticizing you, would you vra to be around that person? Perhaps you were treated this way as a c 28 Where Does It Come From? and that is sad. However, that was a long time ago, and if you are now choosing to treat yourself in the same way, then it is sadder still. So now, here in front of us, we have a list of the negative messages we heard as a child. How does this list correspond with what you believe to be wrong with you? Are they almost the same? Probably yes. We base our life script on our early messages. We are all good little children and obediently accept what “they” tell us as truth. It would be very easy just to blame our parents and be victims for the rest of our lives. But that wouldn’t be much fun, and it certainly wouldn’t get us out of our stuck position. Blaming Your Family Blame is one of the surest ways to stay in a problem. In blaming another, we give away our power. Understanding enables us to rise above the issue and take control of our future. The past cannot be changed. The future is shaped by our current thinking. It is imperative for our freedom to understand that our parents were doing the best they could with the understanding, awareness, and knowledge they had. Whenever we blame someone else, we are not taking responsibility for ourselves. Those people who did all those terrible things to us were just as frightened and scared as you are. They felt just the same helplessness as you do. The only things they could possibly teach you are what they had been taught. How much do you know about your parents’ childhoods, especially before the age of ten? If it’s still possible for you to find out, ask them. If you’re able to find out about your parents’ childhoods, you will more easily understand why they did what they did. Understanding will bring you compassion. If you don’t know and can’t find out, try to imagine what it must have been like for them. What kind of childhood would create an adult like that? You need this knowledge for your own freedom. You can’t free yourself until you free them. You can’t forgive yourself until you forgive 29 YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE them. If you demand perfection from them, you will demand per fection from yourself, and you will be miserable all your life. Choosing Our Parents I agree with the theory that we choose our parents. The lessons that we learn seem perfectly matched to the “weaknesses” of the parents we have. I believe we are all on an endless journey through eternity. We come to this planet to learn particular lessons that are necessary for our spiritual evolution. We choose our sex, our color, our country; and then we look around for the perfect set of parents who will “mirror” our patterns. Our visits to this planet are like going to school. If you want to become a beautician, you go to beauty school. If you want to become a mechanic, you go to mechanics school. If you want to become a lawyer, you to go law school. The parents you picked this time around are the perfect couple who are “experts” in what you have chosen to learn. When we grow up, we have a tendency to point our fingers accusingly at our parents and say, “You did it to me! ’ But I believe we chose them. Listening to Others Our older brothers and sisters are gods to us when we are little. If they were unhappy, they probably took it out on us physically or ver bally. They might have said things like: “I’ll tell on you for. ” (instilling guilt) “You’re just a baby, you can’t do that.” “You’re too stupid to play with us.” Teachers at school often influence us greatly. In the fifth gra