by Louise Hay
I’m afraid to express my feelings.
I don’t want to talk about it.
I don’t have the energy.
Who knows where I might end up?
I may lose my freedom.
It’s too hard to do.
I don’t have enough money now.
I might hurt my back.
I wouldn’t be perfect.
I might lose my friends.
I don’t trust anyone.
It might hurt my image.
I’m not good enough.
And on and on the list goes. Do you recognize some of these as the ways you resist? Look for the resistance in these examples:
A client came to me because she was in a lot of pain. She had broken her back, her neck, and her knee in three separate auto accidents. Yet she was late, got lost, and then was stuck in traffic.
It was easy for her to tell me all her problems, but the minute I said, “Let me talk for a moment,” all sorts of turmoil began. Her contact lenses began to bother her. She wanted to sit in another chair. She had to go to the bathroom. Then her lenses had to come out. I could not keep her attention for the rest of the session.
It was all resistance. She wasn’t ready to let go and be healed. I discovered her sister also had broken her back twice, and so had her mother.
Another client was an actor, a mime, a street performer, and quite good at it. He bragged about how clever he was at cheating others, especially institutions. He knew how to get away with almost anything, and yet he got away with nothing. He was always broke, at least a month behind in the rent, often without a telephone. His clothes were tacky, work was very sporadic, he had a lot of pains in his body, and his love life was zilch.
His theory was that he couldn’t stop cheating until some good came into his life. Of course, with what he was giving out, no good could come into his life. He had to stop cheating first.
His resistance was that he was not ready to let go of the old ways.
Leave Your Friends Alone
Too often instead of working on our own changes, we decide which of our friends needs to change. This, too, is resistance.
In the early days of my work, I had a client who would send me to all her friends in the hospital. Instead of sending them flowers, she would have me go to fix up their problems. I would arrive with my tape recorder in hand, usually finding someone in bed who didn’t know why I was there or understand what I was doing. This was before I learned never to work with anyone unless he or she requested it.
Sometimes clients come to me because a friend has given them a session as a present. This usually doesn’t work too well, and they seldom come back for further work.
When something works well for us, we often want to share it with others. But they may not be ready to make a change at that point in time and space. It’s hard enough to make changes when we want to, but to try to make someone else change when he or she doesn’t want to is impossible, and it can ruin a good friendship. I push my clients because they come to me. I leave my friends alone.
Mirror Work
Mirrors reflect back to us our feelings about ourselves. They show us clearly the areas to be changed if we want to have a joyous, fulfilling life.
I ask people to look in their eyes and say something positive about themselves every time they pass a mirror. The most powerful way to do affirmations is to look in a mirror and say them out loud. You are immediately aware of the resistance and can move through it quicker. It’s good to have a mirror with you as you read this book. Use it often for affirmations and to check where you are resisting and where you are open and flowing.
Now, look in a mirror and say to yourself, “I am willing to change.”
Notice how you feel. If you are hesitant, resistant, or just don’t want to change, ask yourself why. What old belief are you holding on to? This is not a time to scold yourself. Just notice what is going on and what belief rises to the surface. That is the one that has been causing you a lot of trouble. Can you recognize where it came from?
When we do our affirmations and they don’t feel right or nothing seems to happen, it’s so easy to say, “Oh, affirmations don’t work.” It’s not that the affirmations don’t work, it’s that we need to do another step before we begin affirmations.
Repeated Patterns Show Us Our Needs
For every habit we have, for every experience we go through over and over, for every pattern we repeat, there is a NEED WITHIN US for it. The need corresponds to some belief we have. If there were not a need, we wouldn’t have it, do it, or be it. There is something within us that needs the fat, the poor relationships, the failures, the cigarettes, the anger, the poverty, the abuse, or whatever there is that’s a problem for us.
How many times have we said, “I won’t ever do that again!”? Then, before the day is up, we have the piece of cake, smoke the cigarettes, say hateful things to the ones we love, and so on. Then we compound the whole problem by angrily saying to ourselves, “Oh, you have no willpower, no discipline. You’re just weak.” This only adds to the load of guilt we already carry.
It Has Nothing to Do with Willpower or Discipline
Whatever we are trying to release in our lives is just a symptom, an outer effect. Trying to eliminate the symptom without working on dissolving the cause is useless. The moment we release our willpower or discipline, the symptom crops up again.
Willingness to Release the Need
I say to clients, “There must be a need in you for this condition, or you wouldn’t have it. Let’s go back a step and work on the WILLINGNESS TO RELEASE THE NEED. When the need is gone, you will have no desire for the cigarette or the overeating or the negative pattern.”
One of the first affirmations to use is: “I am willing to release the NEED for the resistance, or the headache, or the constipation, or the excess weight, or the lack of money or whatever.” Say: “I am willing to release the need for…” If you are resisting at this point, then your other affirmations cannot work.
The webs we create around ourselves need to be unwound. If you have ever untangled a ball of string, you know that yanking and pulling only makes it worse. You need to very gently and patiently unravel the knots. Be gentle and patient with yourself as you untangle your own mental knots. Get help if you need it. Above all, love yourself in the process. The willingness to let go of the old is the key. That is the secret.
When I say “needing the problem,” I mean that according to our particular set of thought patterns, we “need” to have certain outer effects or experiences. Every outer effect is the natural expression of an inner thought pattern. To battle only the outer effect or symptom is wasted energy and often increases the problem.
“I Am Unworthy” Creates Procrastination
If one of my inner belief systems or thought patterns is, “I am unworthy,” then one of my outer effects will probably be procrastination. After all, procrastination is one way to keep us from getting where we say we want to go. Most people who procrastinate will spend a lot of time and energy berating themselves for procrastinating. They will call themselves lazy and generally will make themselves out to feel they are “bad persons.”
Resentment of Another’s Good
I had a client who loved attention and usually came to class late so he could create a stir. He had been the baby of 18 children, and he came last on the list of getting. As a child he watched everyone else “have” while he just longed for his own. Even now when someone had good fortune, he would not rejoice with them. Instead he would say, “Oh, I wish I had that,” or “Oh, why don’t I ever get that?”
His resentment of their good was a barrier to his own growth and change.
Self-Worth Opens Many Doors
A client who was 79 came to me. She taught singing, and several of her students were making television commercials. She wanted to do this, too, but was afraid. I supported her totally and explained, “There is nobody like you. Just be yourself.” I said, “Do it for the fun of it. There are peopl
e out there looking for exactly what you have to offer. Let them know you exist.”
She called several agents and casting directors, and said, “I am a senior, senior citizen, and I want to do commercials.” In a short time, she had a commercial, and since then she’s never stopped working. I often see her on TV and in magazines. New careers can start at any age, especially when you do it for the fun of it.
Self-Criticizing Is Totally Missing the Mark
It will only intensify the procrastination and laziness. The place to put the mental energy is into releasing the old and creating a new thought pattern. Say: “I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life, and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it.
“As I spend a few days doing this affirmation over and over, my outer effect pattern of procrastination will automatically begin to fade.
“As I internally create a pattern of self-worth, then I no longer have the need to delay my good.”
Do you see how this could apply to some of the negative patterns or outer effects in your life? Let’s stop wasting time and energy putting ourselves down for something we can’t help doing if we have certain inner beliefs. Change the beliefs.
No matter how you approach it, or what subject matter we are talking about, we are only dealing with thoughts, and thoughts can be changed.
When we want to change a condition, we need to say so.
“I am willing to release the pattern within me that is creating this condition.”
You can say this to yourself over and over every time you think of your illness or problem. The minute you say it, you are stepping out of the victim class. You are no longer helpless; you are acknowledging your own power. You are saying, “I am beginning to understand that I created this. I now take my own power back. I am going to release this old idea and let it go.”
Self-Criticism
I have a client who will eat a pound of butter and everything else she can get ahold of when she cannot bear to be with her own negative thoughts. The next day she will be angry at her body for being heavy. When she was a little girl, she would walk around the family dinner table finishing off everyone’s leftovers and eating a whole stick of butter. The family would laugh and think it was cute. It was almost the only approval she got from her family.
When you scold yourself, when you berate yourself, when you “beat yourself up,” who do you think you’re treating this way?
Almost all of our programming, both negative and positive, was accepted by us by the time we were three years old. Our experiences since then are based upon what we accepted and believed about ourselves and about life at that time. The way we were treated when we were very little is usually the way we treat ourselves now. The person you are scolding is a three-year-old child within you.
If you are a person who gets angry at yourself for being afraid and fearful, think of yourself as being three years old. If you had a little three-year-old child in front of you who was afraid, what would you do? Would you be angry at him, or would you reach out your arms and comfort the child until he felt safe and at ease? The adults around you when you were a child may not have known how to comfort you at that time. Now you are the adult in your life, and if you’re not comforting the child within you, then that is very sad indeed.
What was done in the past is done, and it is over now. But this is present time, and you now have the opportunity to treat yourself the way you wish to be treated. A frightened child needs comforting, not scolding. Scolding yourself only makes you more frightened, and there is nowhere to turn. When the child within feels unsafe, it creates a lot of trouble. Remember how it felt to be belittled when you were young? It feels the same way now to that child within.
Be kind to yourself. Begin to love and approve of yourself. That’s what that little child needs in order to express itself at its highest potential.
In the infinity of life where I am,
all is perfect, whole, and complete.
I see any resistance patterns within me
only as something else to release.
They have no power over me. I am the power in my world.
I flow with the changes taking place in my life as best I can.
I approve of myself and the way I am changing.
I am doing the best I can. Each day gets easier.
I rejoice that I am in the rhythm and flow
of my ever-changing life.
Today is a wonderful day.
I choose to make it so.
All is well in my world.
Chapter Seven
HOW TO CHANGE
“I cross bridges with joy and with ease.”
I love “how to’s.” All the theory in the world is useless unless we know how to apply it and make a change. I have always been a very pragmatic, practical person with a great need to know how to do things.
The principles we will be working with at this time are:
Nurturing the willingness to let go,
Controlling the mind, and
Learning how forgiveness of self and others releases us.
Releasing the Need
Sometimes when we try to release a pattern, the whole situation seems to get worse for a while. This is not a bad thing. It is a sign that the situation is beginning to move. Our affirmations are working, and we need to keep going.
Examples
We are working on increasing prosperity, and we lose our wallet.
We are working on improving our relationships, and we have a fight.
We are working on becoming healthy, and we catch a cold.
We are working on expressing our creative talents and abilities, and we get fired.
Sometimes the problem moves in a different direction, and we begin to see and understand more. For example, let’s assume you are trying to give up smoking and you are saying, “I am willing to release the ‘need’ for cigarettes.” As you continue to do this, you notice your relationships becoming more uncomfortable.
Don’t despair, this is a sign of the process working.
You might ask yourself a series of questions like: “Am I willing to give up uncomfortable relationships? Were my cigarettes creating a smoke screen so I wouldn’t see how uncomfortable these relationships are? Why am I creating these relationships?”
You notice the cigarettes are only a symptom and not a cause. Now you are developing insight and understanding that will set you free.
You begin to say, “I am willing to release the ‘need’ for uncomfortable relationships.”
Then you notice the reason you’re so uncomfortable is that other people always seem to be criticizing you.
Being aware that we always create all of our experiences, you now begin to say, “I am willing to release the need to be criticized.”
You then think about criticism, and you realize that as a child you received a lot of criticism. That little kid inside of you only feels “at home” when it is being criticized. Your way of hiding from this had been to create a “smoke screen.”
Perhaps you see the next step as affirming, “I am willing to forgive… “
As you continue to do your affirmations, you may find that cigarettes no longer attract you, and the people in your life no longer criticize you. Then you know you have released your need.
This usually takes a little while to work out. If you are gently persistent and are willing to give yourself a few quiet moments each day to reflect on your process of change, you will get the answers. The Intelligence within you is the same Intelligence that created this entire planet. Trust your Inner Guidance to reveal to you whatever it is you need to know.
Exercise: Releasing the Need
In a workshop situation, I would have you do this exercise with a partner. However, you can do it equally as well using a mirror—a big one, if possible.
Think for a moment about something in your life you want to change. Go to the mirror and look into your eyes and say out loud, “I now realize that
I have created this condition, and I am now willing to release the pattern in my consciousness that is responsible for this condition.” Say it several times, with feeling.
If you were with a partner, I would have your partner tell you if he really thought you meant it. I would want you to convince your partner.
Ask yourself if you really mean it. Convince yourself in the mirror that this time you are ready to step out of the bondage of the past.
At this point many people get scared because they don’t know HOW to do this releasing. They are afraid to commit themselves until they know all the answers. It’s only more resistance. Just pass through it.
One of the great things is that we do not have to know how. All we need is to be willing. The Universal Intelligence or your subconscious mind will figure out the hows. Every thought you think and every word you speak is being responded to, and the point of power is in the moment. The thoughts you are thinking and the words you are declaring at this moment are creating your future.
Your Mind Is a Tool
You are much more than your mind. You may think your mind is running the show. But that is only because you have trained your mind to think in this way. You can also untrain and retrain this tool of yours.
Your mind is a tool for you to use in any way you wish. The way you now use your mind is only a habit, and habits, any habits, can be changed if we want to do so, or even if we only know it is possible to do so.
Quiet the chatter of your mind for a moment, and really think about this concept: YOUR MIND IS A TOOL YOU CAN CHOOSE TO USE ANY WAY YOU WISH.
The thoughts you “choose” to think create the experiences you have. If you believe that it is hard or difficult to change a habit or a thought, then your choice of this thought will make it true for you. If you would choose to think, “It is becoming easier for me to make changes,” then your choice of this thought will make that true for you.
Controlling the Mind
There is an incredible power and intelligence within you constantly responding to your thoughts and words. As you learn to control your mind by the conscious choice of thoughts, you align yourself with this power.
