The Essential Louise Hay Collection

by Louise Hay

  To me, habitual anger is like sitting in a corner with a dunce cap on. Does this sound familiar? Something happens, and you get angry. Something else happens, and you get angry again. Something else happens, and you get angry again. Something else happens, and once again you get angry. But you never go beyond getting angry.

  What good does that do? It’s a foolish reaction to waste your time only getting angry. It’s also a refusal to perceive life in a new and different way.

  It would be much more helpful to ask yourself how you are creating so many situations to get angry at.

  What are you believing that causes all these frustrations? What are you giving out that attracts in others the need to irritate you? Why do you believe that to get your way you need to get angry?

  Whatever you give out comes back to you. The more you give out anger, the more you are creating situations for you to get angry at, like sitting in a corner with a dunce cap on, getting nowhere.

  Does this paragraph bring up feelings of anger? Good! It must be hitting home. This is something you could be willing to change.

  Make a Decision to Be “Willing to Change”!

  If you really want to know how stubborn you are, just approach the idea of being willing to change. We all want to have our lives change, to have situations become better and easier, but we don’t want to have to change. We would prefer that they change. In order to have this happen, we must change inside. We must change our way of thinking, change our way of speaking, change our way of expressing ourselves. Only then will the outer changes occur.

  This is the next step. We are now fairly clear on what the problems are, and where they came from. Now it is time to be willing to change.

  I have always had a streak of stubbornness within me. Even now sometimes when I decide to make a change in my life, this stubbornness can come to the surface, and my resistance to changing my thinking is strong. I can temporarily become self-righteous, angry, and withdrawn.

  Yes, this still goes on within me after all these years of work. It’s one of my lessons. However, when this happens now, I know I’m hitting an important point of change. Every time I decide to make a change in my life, to release something else, I’m going ever deeper into myself to do this.

  Each old layer must give way in order to be replaced with new thinking. Some of it is easy, and some of it is like trying to lift a boulder with a feather.

  The more tenaciously I hold on to an old belief when I say I want to make a change, the more I know this is an important one for me to release. It is only by learning these things that I can teach others.

  It is my opinion that many really good teachers do not come from joyful households where all was easy. They come from a place of much pain and suffering, and they’ve worked through the layers to reach the place where they can now help others to become free. Most good teachers are continually working to release even more, to remove ever-deeper layers of limitation. This becomes a lifetime occupation.

  The main difference between the way I used to work at releasing beliefs, and the way I do it today, is that now I don’t have to be angry at myself in order to do so. I no longer choose to believe that I’m a bad person just because I find something else to change within me.

  Housecleaning

  The mental work I do now is like cleaning a house. I go through my mental rooms and examine the thoughts and beliefs in them. Some I love, so I polish and shine them and make them even more useful. Some I notice need replacement or repair, and I get around to them as I can. Some are like yesterday’s newspapers and old magazines or clothing that’s no longer suitable. These I either give away or toss into the trash, and I let them be gone forever.

  It’s not necessary for me to be angry or to feel I’m a bad person in order to do this.

  Exercise: I Am Willing to Change

  Let’s use the affirmation, “I am willing to change.” Repeat this often. “I am willing to change. I am willing to change.” You can touch your throat as you say this. The throat is the energy center in the body where change takes place. By touching your throat, you are acknowledging you are in the process of changing.

  Be willing to allow the changes to happen when they come up in your life. Be aware that where you DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE is exactly the area where you NEED to change the most. “I am willing to change.”

  The Universal Intelligence is always responding to your thoughts and words. Things will definitely begin to change as you make these statements.

  Many Ways to Change

  Working with my ideas is not the only way to change. There are many other methods that work quite well. In the back of the book, I have included a list of many of the ways you could approach your own growth process.

  Just think of a few now. There is the spiritual approach, there is the mental approach, and the physical approach. Holistic healing includes body, mind, and spirit. You can begin in any one of these areas as long as you eventually include all the areas. Some begin with the mental approach and do workshops or therapy. Some begin in the spiritual area with meditation or prayer.

  When you begin to clean your house, it really doesn’t matter which room you start in. Just begin in the area that appeals to you most. The others will happen almost by themselves.

  Junk food eaters who begin on the spiritual level often find that they are drawn to nutrition. They meet a friend or find a book or go to a class that brings them to an understanding that what they put into their bodies will have a lot to do with how they feel and look. One level will always lead to another as long as there is the willingness to grow and change.

  I give very little nutritional advice because I have discovered that all systems work for some people. I do have a local network of good practitioners in the holistic field, and I refer clients to them when I see the necessity for nutritional knowledge. This is an area where you must find your own way or go to a specialist who can test you.

  Many of the books on nutrition have been written by persons who were very ill and worked out a system for their own healing. Then they wrote a book to tell everyone else the methods they used. However, everyone is not alike.

  For instance, the macrobiotic and the natural raw food diets are two totally different approaches. The raw food people never cook anything, seldom eat bread or grains, and are very careful not to eat fruits and vegetables at the same meal. And they never use salt. The macrobiotic people cook almost all of their food, have a different system of food combining, and use a lot of salt. Both systems work. Both systems have healed bodies. But neither system is good for everybody’s body.

  My personal nutritional approach is simple. If it grows, eat it. If it doesn’t grow, don’t eat it.

  Be conscious of your eating. It’s like paying attention to our thoughts. We also can learn to pay attention to our bodies and the signals we get when we eat in different ways.

  Cleaning the mental house after a lifetime of indulging in negative mental thoughts is a bit like going on a good nutritional program after a lifetime of indulging in junk foods. They both can often create healing crises. As you begin to change your physical diet, the body begins to throw off the accumulation of toxic residue, and as this happens, you can feel rather rotten for a day or two. So it is when you make a decision to change the mental thought patterns—your circumstances can begin to seem worse for a while.

  Recall for a moment the end of a Thanksgiving dinner. The food is eaten, and it’s time to clean the turkey pan. The pan is all burnt and crusty, so you put in hot water and soap and let it soak for a while. Then you begin to scrape the pan. Now you really have a mess; it looks worse than ever. But, if you just keep scrubbing away, soon you will have a pan as good as new.

  It’s the same thing with cleaning up a dried-on crusty mental pattern. When we soak it with new ideas, all the gook comes to the surface to look at. Just keep doing the new affirmations, and soon you will have totally cleared an old limitation.

  Exercise: Willing to Change

/>   So we have decided we are willing to change, and we will use any and all methods that work for us. Let me describe one of the methods I use with myself and with others.

  First: go look in a mirror and say to yourself, “I am willing to change.”

  Notice how you feel. If you are hesitant or resistant or just don’t want to change, ask yourself why. What old belief are you holding on to? Please don’t scold yourself, just notice what it is. I’ll bet that belief has been causing you a lot of trouble. I wonder where it came from. Do you know?

  Whether we know where it came from or not, let’s do something to dissolve it, now. Again, go to the mirror, and look deep into your own eyes, touch your throat, and say out loud ten times, “I am willing to release all resistance.”

  Mirror work is very powerful. As children we received most of our negative messages from others looking us straight in the eye and perhaps shaking a finger at us. Whenever we look into the mirror today, most of us will say something negative to ourselves. We either criticize our looks or berate ourselves for something. To look yourself straight in the eye and make a positive declaration about yourself is, in my opinion, the quickest way to get results with affirmations.

  In the infinity of life where I am,

  all is perfect, whole, and complete.

  I now choose calmly and objectively to see my old patterns,

  and I am willing to make changes.

  I am teachable. I can learn. I am willing to change.

  I choose to have fun doing this.

  I choose to react as though I have found a treasure

  when I discover something else to release.

  I see and feel myself changing moment by moment.

  Thoughts no longer have any power over me.

  I am the power in the world. I choose to be free.

  All is well in my world.

  Chapter Six

  RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

  “I am in the rhythm and flow of ever-changing life.”

  Awareness Is the First Step in Healing or Changing

  When we have some pattern buried deeply within us, we must become aware of it in order to heal the condition. Perhaps we begin to mention the condition, to complain about it or to see it in other people. It rises to the surface of our attention in some way, and we begin to relate to it. We often attract a teacher, a friend, a class or workshop, or a book to ourselves that begins to awaken new ways to approach the dissolving of the problem.

  My awakening began with a chance remark of a friend who had been told about a meeting. My friend did not go, but something within me responded, and I went. That little meeting was the first step on my pathway of unfoldment. I didn’t recognize the significance of it until sometime later.

  Often, our reaction to this first stage is to think the approach is silly, or that it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps it seems too easy, or unacceptable to our thinking. We don’t want to do it. Our resistance comes up very strong. We may even feel angry about the thought of doing it.

  Such a reaction is very good, if we can understand that it is the first step in our healing process.

  I tell people that any reaction they may feel is there to show them they are already in the process of healing even though the total healing is not yet completed. The truth is that the process begins the moment we begin to think about making a change.

  Impatience is only another form of resistance. It is resistance to learning and to changing. When we demand that it be done right now, completed at once, then we don’t give ourselves time to learn the lesson involved with the problem we have created.

  If you want to move to another room, you have to get up and move step by step in that direction. Just sitting in your chair and demanding that you be in the other room will not work. It’s the same thing. We all want our problem to be over with, but we don’t want to do the small things that will add up to the solution.

  Now is the time to acknowledge our responsibility in having created the situation or condition. I’m not talking about having guilt, nor about being a “bad person” for being where you are. I am saying to acknowledge the “power within you” that transforms our every thought into experience. In the past we unknowingly used this power to create things we did not want to experience. We were not aware of what we were doing. Now, by acknowledging our responsibility, we become aware and learn to use this power consciously in positive ways for our benefit.

  Often when I suggest a solution to the client—a new way to approach a matter or forgiving the person involved—I will see the jaw begin to clench and jut out, and arms cross tightly over the chest. Maybe even fists will form. Resistance is coming to the fore, and I know we have hit upon exactly what needs to be done.

  We all have lessons to learn. The things that are so difficult for us are only the lessons we have chosen for ourselves. If things are easy for us, then they are not lessons, but are things we already know.

  Lessons Can Be Learned Through Awareness

  If you think of the hardest thing for you to do and how much you resist it, then you’re looking at your greatest lesson at the moment. Surrendering, giving up the resistance, and allowing yourself to learn what you need to learn, will make the next step even easier. Don’t let your resistance stop you from making the changes. We can work on two levels: 1) Looking at the resistance, and 2) Still making the mental changes. Observe yourself, watch how you resist, and then go ahead anyway.

  Nonverbal Clues

  Our actions often show our resistance. For instance:

  Changing the subject

  Leaving the room

  Going to the bathroom

  Being late

  Getting sick

  Procrastinating by:

  doing something else

  doing busy work

  wasting time

  Looking away, or out the window

  Flipping through a magazine

  Refusing to pay attention

  Eating, drinking, or smoking

  Creating or ending a relationship

  Creating breakdowns; cars, appliances, plumbing, etc.

  Assumptions

  We often assume things about others to justify our resistance. We make statements such as:

  It wouldn’t do any good anyway.

  My husband/wife won’t understand.

  I would have to change my whole personality.

  Only crazy people go to therapists.

  They couldn’t help me with my problem.

  They couldn’t handle my anger.

  My case is different.

  I don’t want to bother them.

  It will work itself out.

  Nobody else does it.

  Beliefs

  We grow up with beliefs that become our resistance to changing. Some of our limiting ideas are:

  It’s not done.

  It’s just not right.

  It’s not right for me to do that.

  That wouldn’t be spiritual.

  Spiritual people don’t get angry.

  Men/women just don’t do that.

  My family never did that.

  Love is not for me.

  It’s too far to drive.

  It’s too much work.

  It’s too expensive.

  It will take too long.

  I don’t believe in it.

  I’m not that kind of person.

  Them

  We give our power to others and use that excuse as our resistance to changing. We have ideas like:

  God doesn’t approve.

  I’m waiting for the stars to say it’s okay.

  This isn’t the right environment.

  They won’t let me change.

  I don’t have the right teacher/book/class/tools.

  My doctor doesn’t want me to.

  I can’t get time off work.

  I don’t want to be under their spell.

  It’s all their fault.

  They have to change first.

  As soon as I get ___
______________, I’ll do it.

  You/they don’t understand.

  I don’t want to hurt them.

  It’s against my upbringing, religion, philosophy.

  Self Concepts

  We have ideas about ourselves that we use as limitations or resistance to changing. We are:

  Too old.

  Too young.

  Too fat.

  Too thin.

  Too short.

  Too tall.

  Too lazy.

  Too strong.

  Too weak.

  Too dumb.

  Too smart.

  Too poor.

  Too worthless.

  Too frivolous.

  Too serious.

  Too stuck.

  Maybe it’s just all too much.

  Delaying Tactics

  Our resistance often expresses itself as delaying tactics. We use excuses like:

  I’ll do it later.

  I can’t think right now.

  I don’t have the time right now.

  It would take too much time away from my work.

  Yes, that’s a good idea; I’ll do it some other time.

  I have too many other things to do.

  I’ll think about it tomorrow.

  As soon as I get through with _________________.

  As soon as I get back from this trip.

  The time isn’t right.

  It’s too late, or too soon.

  Denial

  This form of resistance shows up in denial of the need to do any changing. Things like:

  There is nothing wrong with me.

  I can’t do anything about this problem.

  I was all right last time.

  What good would it do to change?

  If I ignore it, maybe the problem will go away.

  Fear

  By far the biggest category of resistance is fear—fear of the unknown. Listen to these:

  I’m not ready yet.

  I might fail.

  They might reject me.

  What would the neighbors think?

  I’m afraid to tell my husband/wife.

  I might get hurt.

  I may have to change.

  It might cost me money.

  I would rather die first, or get a divorce first.

  I don’t want anyone to know I have a problem.