The Essential Louise Hay Collection

by Louise Hay

  Money isn’t the answer, although many of us think that if we have a lot of money, everything will be fine; we won’t have any more problems or worries. But money is truly not the answer. Some of us have all the money that we could ever need, and we still aren’t happy.

  Be Grateful for What You Have

  A gentleman I knew told me that he felt guilty because he couldn’t pay back his friends for the kindness and gifts they gave him when he was not doing so well. I told him that there are times when the Universe gives to us, in whatever form we may need, and we may not be able to give back.

  In whatever way the Universe has decided to respond to your need, be grateful. There will come a time when you will help somebody else. It may not be with money, but with time or compassion. Sometimes we don’t realize that these things can be more valuable than money.

  I can think of many people during the early days of my life who helped me enormously at a time when there was no way for me to pay them back. Years later, I have taken the opportunity to help others. Too often we feel we must exchange prosperity. We must reciprocate. If somebody takes us to lunch, we immediately have to take them to lunch; or somebody gives us a gift, and we immediately have to buy one for them.

  Learn to receive with thanks. Learn to accept because the Universe perceives our openness to receive as not just exchanging prosperity. Much of our problem stems from our in-ability to receive. We can give but it’s so difficult to receive.

  When someone gives you a gift, smile, and say thank you. If you say to the person, “Oh, it’s the wrong size or the wrong color,” I guarantee the person won’t ever give you another gift. Accept graciously, and if it really isn’t right for you, give it to somebody else who can use it.

  We want to be grateful for what we do have, so that we can attract more good to us. Again, if we focus on lack, then we will draw it to us. If we are in debt, we need to forgive ourselves, not berate ourselves. We need to focus on the debt being paid off by doing affirmations and visualizations.

  The best thing we can do for people who are having money problems is to teach them how to create it in consciousness, because then it’s lasting. It’s much more lasting than handing them some money. I’m not saying, don’t give your money away, but don’t give it away because you feel guilty. People seem to say, “Well I have to help other people.” You’re a people, too. You are somebody, and you’re worthy of prosperity. Your consciousness is the best bank account you can have. When you put in worthwhile thoughts, you will reap large dividends.

  Tithing Is a Universal Principle

  One of the ways to attract money into your life is to tithe. Tithing 10% of you income has long been an established principle. I like to think of it as giving back to Life. When we do that we seem to prosper more. The churches have always wanted you to tithe to them. It is one of their principle ways of gathering income. In current years that has expanded to tithing to where you get your spiritual food. Who or what has nourished you on your quest for improving the quality of your life? That could be the perfect place for you to tithe. If tithing to a church or a person doesn’t appeal to you, there are many wonderful non-profit organizations that could benefit others by your contributions. Investigate and find the one that is right for you.

  People often say, “I will tithe when I have more money.” Of course then they never do. If you are going to tithe, start now and watch the blessings flow. However if you only tithe to get more, then you have missed the point. It must be freely given or it won’t work. I feel that life has been good to me and I gladly give to life in various ways.

  There is so much abundance in this world just waiting for you to experience it. If you would know that there is more money than you could ever spend, or more people than you could ever meet, and more joy than you could imagine, you would have everything you need and desire.

  If you ask for your highest good, then trust the Power within to provide it to you. Be honest with yourself and others. Don’t cheat, not even a little, it will only come back to you.

  The Infinite Intelligence that permeates all says “Yes!” to you. When something comes into your life, don’t push it away, say “Yes!” to it. Open yourself to receiving good. Say “Yes!” to your world. Opportunity and prosperity will increase a hundredfold.

  Chapter 12

  Expressing Your Creativity

  When our inner vision opens our horizons expand.

  Our Work Is a Divine Expression

  When people ask me about my purpose in life, I tell them that my work is my purpose. It is very sad to know that most people hate their jobs and even worse, that they don’t know what they want to do. Finding your life’s purpose, finding work that you love to do, is loving who you are.

  Your work serves as your expression of creativity. You need to go beyond your feelings of not being good enough or not knowing enough. Allow the creative energy of the Universe to flow through you in ways that are deeply satisfying to you. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as it is satisfying to your being and it fulfills you.

  If you hate where you work or hate what you’re doing, you will always feel the same about your job unless you change inside. If you go to a new job with your same old work beliefs, you will only feel the same way again in time.

  Part of the problem is that many people ask for what they want in a negative way. One woman had a very difficult time stating what she wanted in a positive way. She kept repeating, “I don’t want this to be a part of the job,” or “I don’t want this to happen,” or “I don’t want to feel the negative energy there.” Can you see that she was not declaring what she did want? We need to be clear on what we want!

  Sometimes it’s troublesome to ask for what we want. It’s so easy to say what we don’t want. Start declaring what you want your work to be. “My work is deeply fulfilling. I help people. I am able to be aware of what they need. I work with people that love me. I feel safe at all times.” Or perhaps, “My work allows me to express my creativity freely. I earn good money doing things I love.” Or, “J am always happy at work. My career is filled with joy and laughter and abundance.”

  Always declare in the present tense. What you declare, you will get! If you don’t, then there are beliefs within you that are refusing to accept your good. Make a list of What I believe about work. You may be amazed at the negative beliefs within you. You won’t prosper until you change those beliefs.

  When you work at a job you hate, you are shutting down the ability of your Power to express itself. Think of the qualities you want in a job—what it would feel like if you had the perfect job. It is essential that you are clear about what you do want. Your Higher Self will find a job that is right for you. If you don’t know, be willing to know. Open yourself to the wisdom that is inside you.

  I learned early through Science of Mind that my job was to express Life. Every time I was presented with a problem, I knew it was an opportunity to grow and that the Power that created me had given me everything I needed to solve that problem. After my initial panic, I would quiet my mind and turn within. I gave thanks for the opportunity to demonstrate the Power of the Divine Intelligence working through me.

  A woman at one of my workshops wanted to be an actress. Her parents persuaded her to attend law school, and she was under a lot of pressure from everyone around her to go into law. However, she stopped going after one month. She decided to take an acting class because that is what she always wanted to do.

  Soon after, she started having dreams that she was going nowhere in her life, and she became miserable and depressed. She was having a problem letting go of her doubts and had reservations about making the biggest mistake in her life, which she feared she could never go back and change.

  I asked her, “Whose voice is that in there?” She said those were the words that her father had told her several times.

  There are many people who can relate to this young woman’s story. She wanted to act, and her parents wanted her to be a lawyer.
She got to a point of confusion, not knowing what to do. She needed to understand that it was her father’s way of saying, “I love you.” If she became a lawyer, he felt she would be safe and secure. That’s what he wanted. However, it’s not what she wanted.

  She had to do what was right for her life even if it did not meet her fathers’ expectations. I told her to sit in front of the mirror and look into her eyes and say, “I love you, and I support you in having what you really want. I’m going to support you in every way that I can. “

  I told her to take the time to listen. She needed to connect to her inner wisdom and realize that she didn’t have to please anyone other than herself. She could love her father and still fulfill herself. She had the right to feel worthy and able to do it. And she could tell her father, “I love you and I don’t want to be a lawyer—I want to be an actress,” or whatever. It is one of our challenges to do what is right for us even when those who care about us have other ideas. We are not here to fulfill other peoples expectations.

  When we have strong beliefs that we don’t deserve, we have problems doing what we want. If other people tell you that you can’t have, and then you deny yourself, the child inside you doesn’t believe it deserves anything good. Again, it comes back to learning and practicing ways to love yourself more each day.

  I repeat, do begin by writing down everything you believe about work and failure and success. Look at all the negatives, and realize that those are the beliefs that keep you from flowing in this area. You may find you have many beliefs that say you deserve to fail. Take each negative statement and turn it into a positive one. Begin to shape in your mind what you want your fulfilling work to be.

  Your Income Can Come from Many Sources

  How many of us believe that we have to work hard to earn a good living? Especially in this country, there is a work ethic that implies that one must work hard to be a good person, and in addition to that, work is drudgery.

  I have found that if you work at what you love, you can usually create a good income for yourself. If you continually say, “I hate this job,” you will get nowhere. Whatever you are doing, bring love and a positive attitude into it. If you are in an uncomfortable situation, look within to see what is the best lesson for you to learn from it.

  One young woman told me that her belief system allowed money to come to her from all sorts of unexpected sources. Her friends criticized her ability to draw wealth to her in her unique way and insisted that she had to work hard to earn money. She said that they knew she didn’t work hard at all. So she began to run the fear that if she didn’t work hard, that meant that she didn’t deserve the money she had.

  Her consciousness was on the right track originally. She needed to thank herself instead of becoming fearful. She understood how to manifest abundance, and her life was working in that area without any struggle. However, her friends wanted to pull her down because they all worked hard and they didn’t have as much money as she did.

  Many times I reach out my hand to others, and if they take it and want to learn new things and go places, it’s wonderful. If they try and drag me down, I say goodbye, and I work with somebody who really wants to come up out of the mud.

  If your life is filled with love and joy, don’t listen to some miserable, lonely person who tells you how to run your life. If your life is rich and abundant, don’t listen to someone who is poor and in debt tell you how to run it. Very often, our parents are the ones telling us how to do things. They come from a place of burden and hardship and misery and then try to tell us how to run our lives!

  Many people worry about the economy and believe they will either earn or lose money due to the economic situation at present. However, the economy is always moving up and down. So, it doesn’t matter what is happening out there, or what others do to change the economy. We are not stuck because of the economy. No matter what is happening “out there” in the world, it only matters what you believe about yourself.

  If you have a fear about becoming homeless, ask yourself, “Where am I not at home within my self? Where do I feel abandoned? What do I need to do to experience inner peace?” All outer experiences reflect inner beliefs.

  I have always used the affirmation, “My income is constantly increasing.” Another affirmation I like is, “Igo beyond my parents’ income level. You have a right to earn more than your parents’ did. It’s almost a necessity since things cost more now. Women, especially, experience a lot of conflict with this one. Often they find it difficult to earn more than their fathers are earning. They need to go beyond their feelings of not deserving and accept the abundance of financial wealth that is their divine right.

  Your job is only one of many channels of an infinite source of money. Money is not the object of your right work. Money can come to you in many ways and from many avenues. No matter how it comes, accept it with joy as a gift from the Universe.

  A young lady was complaining that her in-laws were buying her new baby all sorts of nice things and she could not afford to buy anything. I reminded her that the Universe wanted that baby to be well supplied with an abundance of all good and used the in-laws as a channel to supply it. She then could be grateful and appreciate the way in which the Universe was providing for her baby.

  Relationships on the Job

  The relationships we create at work are similar to the relationships we have as a family. They can be healthy or they can be dysfunctional.

  A woman once asked me, “As a person who is usually positive, how do I deal with people in a work environment who are constantly negative?”

  First of all, I thought it interesting that she was in a work environment where everybody was negative when she said she was positive. I wondered why she was attracting negativity to her, perhaps there was negativity within her that she did not recognize.

  I suggested that she start to believe for herself that she always worked in an area where it was peaceful and joyful, where people really appreciated each other and life as a whole. Where there was respect on all sides. Instead of complaining how so-and-so had to do it his way, she could affirm for herself that she always worked in the ideal place.

  By adopting this philosophy she could either help bring out the best qualities in others because they would be responding differently to her inner changes, or she would find herself in another work arena where the conditions would be as she declared.

  A man once told me that when he started his job he had all these incredible instincts, and his job was wonderful and sailed along smoothly. He was precise, direct, and satisfied. Suddenly, he began to make mistakes every day. I asked him what he was frightened of? Could it be an old childhood fear that was surfacing? Was there someone at work with whom he was angry, or was he trying to get even with somebody? Did that person remind him of one of his parents? Had this happened in other jobs? It seemed to me that he was creating some chaos at work because of an old belief system. He recognized that it was an old family pattern where he was ridiculed every time he made a mistake. I suggested that he forgive his family and affirm that he now has wonderful, harmonious relationships at work where people totally respect him and appreciate everything he does.

  When you think of your co-workers, don’t think, “They’re so negative.” Everybody has every quality in them, so respond to the good qualities that are in them, and respect their peacefulness instead. When you can focus on these qualities, they will rise to the surface. If others are constantly saying negative things, don’t pay attention. You want to change your consciousness. Since they are reflecting something negative within you, when your consciousness really changes, negative people won’t be around very much. Even if you feel frustrated, start affirming what you want to have in your work space. Then accept it with joy and thanksgiving.

  One woman had an opportunity at work to do what she loved and to grow from the experience. However, she would constantly get sick and sabotage herself. She recalled that when she was a child she was always getting sick becau
se it was her way of getting love and affection. So she kept recreating the pattern of getting sick as an adult.

  What she needed to learn was how to get love and affection in a more positive way. When anything went wrong at work, she went right back to being the five-year-old girl. So when she began to take care of her little inner child she also learned to feel safe, and to accept her own power.

  Competition and comparison are two major stumbling blocks to your creativity. Your uniqueness sets you apart from all others. There has never been another person like you since time began, so what is there to compare or compete with? Comparison either makes you feel superior or inferior, which are expressions of your ego, your limited-mind thinking. If you are going to compare to make yourself feel a little bit better, then you are saying somebody else isn’t good enough. If you put others down, you may think you will raise yourself up. What you really do is put yourself in a position to be criticized by others. We all do this on some level and its good when we can transcend it. Becoming enlightened is to go within and shine the light on yourself so you can dissolve whatever darkness that is in there.

  I want to say, again, that everything changes, and what was perfect for you once, may not be anymore. In order for you to keep changing and growing, you keep going within and listening for that which is right for you in the here and now.

  Changing the Way We Do Business

  For the past several years, I have owned my own publishing business. My motto has been that we open the mail and answer the phone, and handle what’s in front of us, and there is always plenty to do. As we did this day by day, the business grew from a few people to well over 20 employees.

  We established our business on spiritual principles, using affirmative mind treatments to open and close meetings. We realized that many other businesses ran on competition, often condemning others, and we did not want to put that energy out to others, knowing that it would come back two-fold.