The Essential Louise Hay Collection

by Louise Hay

  OVERWEIGHT represents a need for protection. We seek protection from hurts, slights, criticism, abuse, sexuality, and sexual advances; from a fear of life in general and also specifically. Take your choice.

  I am not a heavy person, yet I have learned over the years that when I am feeling insecure and not at ease, I will put on a few pounds. When the threat is gone, the excess weight goes away by itself.

  Fighting fat is a waste of time and energy. Diets don’t work. The minute you stop, the weight goes back up. Loving and approving of yourself, trusting in the process of life and feeling safe because you know the power of your own mind make up the best diet I know of. Go on a diet from negative thoughts, and your weight will take care of itself.

  Too many parents stuff food in a baby’s mouth no matter what the problem is. These babies grow up to stand in front of an open refrigerator saying, “I don’t know what I want,” whenever there is a problem.

  PAIN of any sort, to me, is an indication of guilt. Guilt always seeks punishment, and punishment creates pain. Chronic pain comes from chronic guilt, often so deeply buried that we are not even aware of it anymore.

  Guilt is a totally useless emotion. It never makes anyone feel better, nor does it change a situation.

  Your “sentence” is now over, so let yourself out of prison. Forgiving is only giving up, letting go.

  STROKES are blood clots; congestion in the bloodstream in the area of the brain cutting off the blood supply to the brain.

  The brain is the computer of the body. Blood is joy. The veins and arteries are channels of joy. Everything works under the law and the action of love. There is love in every bit of intelligence in the Universe. It is impossible to work and function well without love and joy being experienced.

  Negative thinking clogs up the brain, and there is no room for love and joy to flow in its free and open way.

  Laughter cannot flow if it is not allowed to be free and foolish. It is the same with love and joy. Life is not grim unless we make it so, unless we choose to look at it in that way. We can find total disaster in the smallest upset, and we can find some joy in the greatest tragedy. It is up to us.

  Sometimes we try to force our life to go in a certain way when it is not for our highest good. Sometimes we create strokes to force us to go in a totally different direction, to reevaluate our lifestyles.

  STIFFNESS in the body represents stiffness in the mind. Fear makes us cling to old ways, and we find it difficult to be flexible. If we believe there is “only one way” to do something, we often find ourselves becoming stiff. We can always find another way to do things. Remember Virginia Satir and her more than 250 different ways to do dishes.

  Notice where in the body the stiffness occurs, look it up on my list of mental patterns, and it will show you where in your mind you are being stiff and rigid.

  SURGERY has its place. It is good for broken bones and accidents and for conditions beyond the abilities of a beginner to dissolve. It may be easier under these conditions to have the operation, and concentrate all the mental healing work on seeing that the condition is not recreated.

  More and more each day there are many wonderful people in the medical profession who are truly dedicated to helping humanity. More and more doctors are turning to holistic ways of healing, treating the whole person. Yet most doctors do not work with the cause of any illness; they only treat the symptoms, the effects.

  They do this in one of two ways: They poison or they mutilate. Surgeons cut, and if you go to surgeons, they will usually recommend cutting. However, if the decision for surgery is made, prepare yourself for the experience so it will go as smoothly as possible, and you will heal as rapidly as possible.

  Ask the surgeon and staff to cooperate with you in this. Surgeons and their staffs in the operating rooms are often unaware that even though the patient is unconscious, he or she is still hearing and picking up everything said on a subconscious level.

  I heard one New Age leader say she needed some emergency surgery and, before the operation, she had a talk with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist. She asked them please to play soft music during the operation and for them to talk to her and each other continuously in positive affirmations. She had the nurse in the recovery room do the same thing, so the operation went easily, and her recovery was rapid and comfortable.

  With my own clients, I always suggest they affirm that, “Every hand that touches me in the hospital is a healing hand and expresses only love,” and, “The operation goes quickly and easily and perfectly.” Another is, “I am totally comfortable at all times.”

  After the surgery, have some soft and pleasant music playing as much as possible, and affirm to yourself, “I am healing rapidly, comfortably, and perfectly.” Tell yourself, “Every day I feel better and better.”

  If you can, make yourself a tape of a series of positive affirmations. Take your tape recorder to the hospital, and play your tape over and over while you rest and recuperate. Notice sensations, not pain. Imagine love flowing from your own heart down through your arms and into your hands. Place your hands over the part that is healing, and say to this place, “I love you, and I am helping you to get well.”

  SWELLING of the body represents clogging and stagnation in the emotional thinking. We create situations where we get “hurt,” and we cling to these memories. Swelling often represents bottled-up tears, feeling stuck and trapped, or blaming others for our own limitations.

  Release the past, let it wash away. Take back your own power. Stop dwelling on what you don’t want. Use your mind to create what you “do want.” Let yourself flow with the tide of life.

  TUMORS are false growths. An oyster takes a tiny grain of sand and, to protect itself, grows a hard and shiny shell around it. We call it a pearl and think it is beautiful.

  We take on old hurt and nurse it and keep pulling the scab off it, and in time we have a tumor.

  I call this running the old movie. I believe the reason women have so many tumors in the uterus area is that they take an emotional hurt, a blow to their femininity, and nurse it. I call this the “He done me wrong” syndrome.

  Just because a relationship ends does not mean there is something wrong with us, nor does it lessen our self-worth.

  It is not what happens, it is how we react to it. We are each responsible for all our experiences. What beliefs about yourself do you need to change in order to attract more loving kinds of behavior?

  In the infinity of life where I am,

  all is perfect, whole, and complete.

  I recognize my body as a good friend.

  Each cell in my body has Divine Intelligence.

  I listen to what it tells me, and know that its advice is valid.

  I am always safe, and Divinely protected and guided.

  I choose to be healthy and free.

  All is well in my world.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE LIST

  “I am healthy, whole, and complete.”

  As you look through the list (see pages 200-269 in this collection) from my book Heal Your Body, see if you can find the correlation between dis-eases you may have had or are having now and the probable causes I have listed.

  A good way to use this list when you have a physical problem is:

  1. Look up the mental cause. See if this could be true for you. If not, sit quietly and ask yourself, “What could be the thoughts in me that created this?”

  2. Repeat to yourself, “I am willing to release the pattern in my consciousness that has created this condition.”

  3. Repeat the new thought pattern to yourself several times.

  4. Assume that you are already in the process of healing.

  Whenever you think of the condition, repeat the steps.

  Part IV

  CONCLUSION

  Chapter Sixteen

  MY STORY

  “We are all one.”

  “Will you tell me a little about your childhood, briefly.” This is a question I
have asked so many clients. It’s not that I need to hear all the details, but I want to get a general pattern of where they are coming from. If they have problems now, the patterns that created them began a long time ago.

  When I was a little girl of 18 months, I experienced my parents divorcing. I don’t remember that as being so bad. What I do remember with horror is when my mother went to work as a live-in domestic and boarded me out. The story goes that I cried nonstop for three weeks. The people taking care of me couldn’t handle that, and my mother was forced to take me back and make other arrangements. How she managed as a single parent brings my admiration today. Then, however, all I knew and cared about was that I was not getting all the loving attention I once had.

  I have never been able to determine if my mother loved my step-father or whether she just married him in order to provide a home for us. But it was not a good move. This man had been brought up in Europe in a heavy Germanic home with much brutality, and he had never learned any other way to manage a family. My mother became pregnant with my sister, and then the 1930s Depression descended upon us, and we found ourselves stuck in a home of violence. I was five years old.

  To add to the scenario, it was just about this time that a neighbor, an old wino, as I remember it, raped me. The doctor’s examination is still vivid in my mind, as was the court case in which I was the star witness. The man was sentenced to 15 years in prison. I was told repeatedly that, “It was your fault,” so I spent many years fearing that when he was released he would come and get me for being so terrible as to put him in jail.

  Most of my childhood was spent enduring both physical and sexual abuse, with a lot of hard labor thrown in. My self-image became lower and lower, and few things seemed to go right for me. I began to express this pattern in the outside world.

  There was an incident in the fourth grade that was so typical of what my life was like. We were having a party at school one day, and there were several cakes to share. Most of the children in this school except for me were from comfortable middle-class families. I was poorly dressed, with a funny bowl haircut, high-topped black shoes, and I smelled from the raw garlic I had to eat every day to “keep the worms away.” We never had cake. We couldn’t afford it. There was an old neighbor woman who gave me ten cents every week, and a dollar on my birthday and at Christmas. The ten cents went into the family budget, and the dollar bought my underwear for the year at the dime store.

  So, this day we were having the party at school, and there was so much cake that, as they were cutting it, some of the kids who could have cake almost every day were getting two or three pieces. When the teacher finally got around to me (and of course I was last), there was no cake left. Not one piece.

  I see clearly now that it was my “already confirmed belief” that I was worthless and did not DESERVE anything that put me at the end of the line with no cake. It was MY pattern. THEY were only being a mirror for my beliefs.

  When I was 15, I could not take the sexual abuse any longer, and I ran away from home and from school. The job I found as a waitress in a diner seemed so much easier than the heavy yard work I had to do at home.

  Being starved for love and affection and having the lowest of self-esteem, I willingly gave my body to whoever was kind to me; and just after my 16th birthday, I gave birth to a baby girl. I felt it was impossible to keep her; however, I was able to find her a good, loving home. I found a childless couple who longed for a baby. I lived in their home for the last four months, and when I went to the hospital, I had the child in their name.

  Under such circumstances, I never experienced the joys of motherhood, only the loss and guilt and shame. Then it was only a shameful time to get over with as soon as possible. I only remember her big toes, which were unusual, like mine. If we ever meet, I will know for sure if I see her toes. I left when the child was five days old.

  I immediately went back home and said to my mother who had continued to be a victim, “Come on, you don’t have to take this any longer. I’m getting you out of here.” She came with me, leaving my ten-year-old sister, who had always been Daddy’s darling, to stay with her father.

  After helping my mother get a job as a domestic in a small hotel and settling her into an apartment where she was free and comfortable, I felt my obligations were over. I left for Chicago with a girl-friend to stay a month—and did not return for over 30 years.

  In those early days, the violence I experienced as a child, combined with the sense of worthlessness I developed along the way, attracted men into my life who mistreated me and often beat me. I could have spent the rest of my life berating men, and I probably would still be having the same experiences. Gradually, however, through positive work experiences, my self-esteem grew, and those kind of men began to leave my life. They no longer fit my old pattern of unconsciously believing I deserved abuse. I do not condone their behavior, but if it were not “my pattern,” they would not have been attracted to me. Now, a man who abuses women does not even know I exist. Our patterns no longer attract.

  After a few years in Chicago doing rather menial work, I went to New York and was fortunate enough to become a high-fashion model. Yet, even modeling for the big designers did not help my self-esteem very much. It only gave me more ways to find fault with myself. I refused to recognize my own beauty.

  I was in the fashion industry for many years. I met and married a wonderful, educated English gentleman. We traveled the world, met royalty, and even had dinner at the White House. Though I was a model and had a wonderful husband, my self-esteem still remained low until years later when I began the inner work.

  One day after 14 years of marriage, my husband announced his desire to marry another, just when I was beginning to believe that good things can last. Yes, I was crushed. But time passes, and I lived on. I could feel my life changing, and a numerologist one spring confirmed it by telling me that in the fall a small event would occur that would change my life.

  It was so small that I didn’t notice it until several months later. Quite by chance, I had gone to a meeting at the Church of Religious Science in New York City. While their message was new to me, something within me said, “Pay attention,” and so I did. I not only went to the Sunday services, but I began to take their weekly classes. The beauty and fashion world was losing its interest to me. How many years could I remain concerned with my waist measurement or the shape of my eyebrows? From a high school dropout who never studied anything, I now became a voracious student, devouring everything I could lay my hands on that pertained to metaphysics and healing.

  The Church of Religious Science became a new home for me. Even though most of my life was going on as usual, this new course of study began to take up more and more of my time. The next thing I knew, it was three years later, and I was eligible to apply to become one of the Church’s licensed practitioners. I passed the test, and that’s where I began, as a church counselor, many years ago.

  It was a small beginning. During this time I became a Transcendental Meditator. My church was not giving the Ministerial Training Program for another year, so I decided to do something special for myself. I went to college for six months—MIU, Maharishi International University—in Fairfield, Iowa.

  It was the perfect place for me at that time. In the freshman year, every Monday morning we began a new subject, things I had only heard of, such as biology, chemistry, and even the theory of relativity. Every Saturday morning there was a test. Sunday was free, and Monday morning we began anew.

  There were none of the distractions so typical of my life in New York City. After dinner we all went to our rooms to study. I was the oldest kid on campus and loved every moment of it. No smoking, drinking, or drugs were allowed, and we meditated four times a day. The day I left, I thought I would collapse from the cigarette smoke in the airport.

  Back to New York I went to resume my life. Soon I began taking the Ministerial Training Program. I became very active in the church and in its social activities. I began spea
king at their noon meetings and seeing clients. This quickly blossomed into a full-time career. Out of the work I was doing, I was inspired to put together the little book Heal Your Body, which began as a simple list of metaphysical causations for physical illnesses in the body. I began to lecture and travel and hold small classes.

  Then one day I was diagnosed as having cancer.

  With my background of being raped at five and having been a battered child, it was no wonder I manifested cancer in the vaginal area.

  Like anyone else who has just been told they have cancer, I went into total panic. Yet because of all my work with clients, I knew that mental healing worked, and here I was being given a chance to prove it to myself. After all, I had written the book on mental patterns, and I knew cancer was a dis-ease of deep resentment that has been held for a long time until it literally eats away at the body. I had been refusing to be willing to dissolve all the anger and resentment at “them” over my childhood. There was no time to waste; I had a lot of work to do.

  The word incurable, which is so frightening to so many people, means to me that this particular condition cannot be cured by any outer means and that we must go within to find the cure. If I had an operation to get rid of the cancer and did not clear the mental pattern that created it, then the doctors would just keep cutting Louise until there was no more Louise to cut. I didn’t like that idea.

  If I had the operation to remove the cancerous growth and also cleared the mental pattern that was causing the cancer, then it would not return. If cancer or any other illness returns, I do not believe it is because they did not “get it all out,” but rather that the patient has made no mental change. He or she just recreates the same illness, perhaps in a different part of the body.