Louise Hay: The Power is within You. No ads

if you can get just one good idea out of this tape and use it to improve the quality of your life then I Feel Complete as you listen you will become aware that I use many terms such as power intelligence infinite mind higher power God Universal Power inner wisdom and so on this is done to show you that there is no limitation on what you choose to call that power that runs the universe and is also within you if any name disturbs you then substitute another that feels right for you this book was written as

an extension of you can heal your life time has passed since the writing of that book and many new ideas have revealed themselves to me those ideas I wish to share with all of you who have been writing over the years asking for more information I feel an important thing to be aware of is that the power we are all seeking out there is also within us and readily available to us to use in positive ways may this tape reveal to you how very powerful you really are I am not a Healer I do not

heal anyone I think of myself as a stepping stone on a pathway of self-discovery I create a space where people can learn how incredibly wonderful they are by teaching them how to love themselves that's all I do I'm a person who supports people I help people take charge of of their lives I help them discover their own power and inner wisdom and strengths I help them get the blocks and the barriers out of the way so they can love themselves no matter what circumstances they happen to be going through this doesn't mean that we will

never have problems but it is how we react to the problem that makes a tremendous difference after after years of individual counseling with clients and conducting hundreds of workshops and intensive training programs across the country and around the world I find that there is only one thing that seems to heal every problem and that is to love yourself when people start to love themselves more each day it's amazing how their lives get better they feel better they often get get the jobs they want they have the money they need their relationships either improve or the

negative ones dissolve and new ones begin it's a very simple premise loving yourself I've often been criticized for being too simplistic and yet I have found that the simple things are usually the most profound someone said to me recently you gave me the most wonderful gift you gave me the gift of myself so many of us hide from ourselves and we don't even know who we are we don't know what we feel we don't know what we want life is a voyage of self-discovery to me to be enlightened is to go within and to know

who and what we really are and to know that we have the ability to change for the better by loving loing and taking care of ourselves it's not selfish to love ourselves it clears us so that we can love ourselves enough to love other people we can really help the planet when we come from a space of great love and joy on an individual basis the power that created this Incredible Universe has often been referred to as love and God is love we have often heard the statement love makes the world go round it's all

true love is The Binding agent that holds the whole universe together to me love is deep appreciation when I talk about loving ourselves I mean having a deep appreciation for who we are we accept all the different parts of ourselves our little peculiar arities the embarrassments the things we may not do so well and all the wonderful qualities too we accept the whole package with love unconditionally unfortunately many of us will not love ourselves until we lose the weight or get the job or get the raise or the boyfriend or whatever we often put conditions

on our love but we can change we can love ourselves as we are right now there is also a lack of Love on this planet as a whole I believe our whole planet has a disease called AIDS and more and more people are dying every day this physical challenge has given us the opportunity to overcome barriers and to go beyond our morality standards and differences of religion and politics and to open up our hearts the more of us who can do it the quicker we are going to find the answers we are in the midst

of enormous individual and Global change I believe that all of us who are living at this time chose to be here to be a part of these changes to bring about change and to transform the world from the old way of life to a more loving and peaceful EX existence in the pisan age we looked out there for our savior save me save me please take care of me now we are moving into the Aquarian age and we are learning to go within to find our savior we are the power we have been seeking we

are in charge of Our Lives if you are not willing to love yourself today then you are not going to love love yourself tomorrow because whatever excuse you have today you'll still have tomorrow maybe you'll have the same excuse 20 years from now and even leave this lifetime holding on to the same excuse today is the day you can love yourself totally with no expectations I want to help create a world where it is safe for us to love each other where we can express who we are and be loved and accepted by the people

around us without judgment criticism or Prejudice loving begins at home the Bible says love thy neighbor as thyself far too often we forget the last couple of words as thyself we really can't love anyone out there unless the love starts inside us self-love is the most important gift we can give ourselves because when we love who we are we will not hurt ourselves and we will not hurt anyone else with inner peace there would be no Wars no gangs no terrorists and no homeless there would be no disease no AIDS no cancer no no poverty

and no starvation so this to me is a prescription for world peace to have peace within ourselves peace understanding compassion forgiveness and most of all love we have the power within us to affect these changes love is something we can choose the same way we choose anger or hate or sadness we can choose love it's always a choice within us let's begin right now in this moment to choose love it's the most powerful healing Force there is the information on this tape which has been part of my lectures over the past 5 years is yet

another stepping stone on your pathway to self-discovery an opportunity to to know a little bit more about yourself and to understand the potential that is your Birthright you have an opportunity to love yourself more so you can be a part of an Incredible Universe of love love begins in our hearts and it begins with us let your love contribute to the healing of Our Planet part one becoming conscious when we expand our thinking and beliefs our love flows freely when we contract we shut ourselves off chapter 1 the power within the more you connect to

the power within you the more you can be free in all areas of your life who are you why are you here what are your beliefs about life for thousands of years finding the answers to these questions has meant going within but what does that mean I believe there is a power within each of us that can lovingly direct us to our perfect health perfect relationships perfect careers and which can bring us prosperity of every kind in order in order to have these things we have to believe First that they are possible next we must

be willing to release the patterns in our lives that are creating conditions we say we do not want we do this by going within and tapping the inner power that already knows what is best for us if we are willing to turn our lives over to this greater power within us the power that loves and sustains us we can create more loving and prosperous lives I believe that our minds are always connected to the one infinite mind and therefore all knowledge and wisdom is available to us at any time we are connected to this infinite

mind this Universal Power that created us through that spark of light within our higher self or the power within the Universal Power loves all of its Creations it is a power for good and it directs everything in our lives it doesn't know how to hate or lie or punish it is pure love freedom understanding and compassion it is important to turn our lives over to our higher self because through it we receive our good we must understand that we have the choice to use this power in any way if we choose to live in the

past and rehash all of the negative situations and conditions that went on way back when then we stay stuck where we are if we make a conscious decision not to be victims of the past and go about creating new lives for ourselves we are supported by this power within in and new happier experiences begin to unfold I don't believe in two Powers I think there is one infinite spirit it's all too easy to say it's the devil or them it really is only us and either we use the power we have wisely or we misuse

the power do we have the devil in our hearts do we condemn others for being different than we are what are we choosing responsibility versus blame I also believe that we contribute toward the creation of every condition in our lives good or bad with our thinking feeling patterns the thoughts we think create our feelings and then we begin to live our lives in accordance with these feelings and beliefs this is not to blame ourselves for things going wrong in our lives there is a difference between being responsible and blaming ourselves or others when I talk

about responsibility I am really talking about having power blame is about giving away one's power responsibility gives us the power to make changes in our lives if we play the victim role then we are using our personal power to be helpless if we decide to accept responsibility then we don't waste time blaming somebody or something out there some people feel guilty for creating illness or poverty or problems they choose to interpret responsibility as guilt and some members of the media like to refer to it as new age guilt these people often feel guilty because they

believe that they have failed in some way however they usually accept everything as a guilt trip in one way or another because it's another way to make themselves wrong and that is not what I'm talking about if we can use our problems and illnesses as opportunities to think about how we can change our lives we have power many people who come through catastrophic illnesses say that it was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to them because it gave them a chance to go about their lives differently a lot of people on the other hand

go around saying I'm a victim woe is me please doctor fix me I think these people will have a difficult time even getting well or handling their problems responsibility is our ability to respond to a situation we always have a choice it does not mean that we deny who we are and what we have in our lives it merely means that we can acknowledge that we have contributed to where we are by taking responsibility we have the power to change we can say what can I do to make this different we need to understand that

we all have personal power all the time it depends on how we use it many of us are now realizing that we come from dysfunctional homes we carry over a lot of negative feelings about who we are in our relationship to life my childhood was filled with violence including sexual abuse I was starved for love and affection and had no self-esteem at all even after after leaving home at the age of 15 I continued to experience abuse in many forms I hadn't yet realized that the thinking feeling patterns I had learned early in life had

brought this abuse upon me children often respond to the mental atmosphere of the adults around them so I learned early about fear and abuse and continued to recreate those experiences for myself as I grew up I certainly didn't understand that I had the power to change all of this I was unmercifully hard on myself because I interpreted lack of love and affection to mean that I must be a bad person all of the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to this moment have been created by your thoughts and beliefs from the past let's

not look back on our lives with shame look at the past as part of the richness and fullness of your life without this richness and fullness we would not be here today there is no reason to beat yourself up because you didn't do better you did the best you knew how release the past in love and be grateful that it has brought you to this new awareness the past only exists in our minds and in the way we choose to look at it in our minds this is the moment we are living this is the

moment we are feeling this is the moment we are experiencing what we are doing right now is laying the groundwork for tomorrow so this is the moment to make the decision we can't do anything tomorrow and we can't do it yesterday we can only do it today what what is important is what we are choosing to think believe and say right now when we begin to take conscious charge of our thoughts and words then we have tools that we can use I know this sounds simple but remember the point of power is always in the

present moment it is important for you to understand that your mind is not in control you are in control of your mind the higher self is in control you can stop thinking those old thoughts when your old thinking tries to come back and say it's so hard to change take mental command say to your mind I now choose to believe it is becoming easy for me to make changes you may have this conversation with your mind several times before it acknowledges that you are in charge and that you really mean what you say imagine that

your thoughts are like drops of water one thought or one drop of water does not mean very much as you continue to repeat the same thoughts over and over you first notice a stain on the carpet then there's a little puddle then a pond and as these thoughts continue they can become a lake and finally an ocean what kind of ocean are you creating one that is polluted and toxic and unfit to swim in or one that is crystal clear and blue and invites you to enjoy its refreshing Waters people often tell me I can't

stop thinking a certain thought I always reply yes you can remember how often you have refused to think a positive thought you you just want to tell your mind that that is what you are going to do you want to make up your mind to stop thinking negatively I'm not saying that you have to fight your thoughts when you want to change things when the negative thoughts come up simply say thank you for sharing in that way you are not denying what is there and you are not giving your power over to the negative thought

tell yourself that you are not going to into the negativity anymore you want to create another way of thinking again you don't have to fight your thoughts acknowledge and go beyond them don't drown in a sea of your own negativity when you can float on the ocean of life you are meant to be a wonderful loving expression of life life is waiting for you to open up to it to feel worthy of of the good it holds for you the wisdom and intelligence of the universe is yours to use life is here to support you

trust the power within you to be there for you if you get scared it is helpful to become aware of your breath as it flows in and out of your body your breath the most precious substance of your life is freely given to you you have enough to last for as long as you shall live you accept this precious substance without even thinking and yet you doubt that life can supply you with the other necessities now is the time for you to learn about your own power and what you are capable of doing go within

and find find out who you are we all have different opinions you have a right to yours and I have a right to mine no matter what goes on in the world the only thing you can work on is what is right for you you want to get in touch with your inner guidance because it is the wisdom that knows the answers for you it's not easy to listen to yourself when your friends and family are telling you what to do yet all the answers to all the questions you are ever going to ask are

within you now and every time you say I don't know you shut the door to your own inner wisdom the messages you get from your higher self are positive and supportive of you if you start getting negative messages then you are working from ego and your human mind level and even perhaps your imagination although positive messages often come to us through our imagination and our dreams support yourself by making the right choices for you when in doubt ask yourself is this a decision that is loving for me is this right for me now you may

make another decision at some later point a day a week or a month later but ask yourself these questions in each moment moment as we learn to love ourselves and Trust our higher power we become co-creators with the infinite Spirit of a loving World our love for ourselves moves us from being victims to being winners our love for ourselves attracts wonderful experiences to us have you ever notic that people who feel good about themselves are naturally attractive they usually have a quality about them that is just wonderful they are happy with their lives things come

to them easily and effortlessly I learned a long time ago that I am a being of Oneness with the presence and power of God knowing this that the wisdom and understanding of spirit resides within me and I know that I am therefore divinely guided in all my dealings with others just as all the stars and planets are in their perfect orbit I am also in my Divine Right order I may not understand everything with my limited human mind however on the cosmic level I know I am in the right place at the right time doing

the right thing my present experience is a stepping stone to new awareness and New Opportunities who are you what did you come here to learn what did you come here to teach we all have a unique purpose we are more than our personalities our problems our fears and our illnesses we are far more than our bodies we are all connected with everyone on the planet and with all of life we are all Spirit light energy vibration and love and we all have the power to live our lives with purpose and meaning chapter 2 following my

inner voice the thoughts we choose to think are the tools that we use to paint the canvas of Our Lives I remember when I first heard that I could change my life life if I was willing to change my thinking it was quite a revolutionary idea to me I lived in New York and discovered the Church of religious science often people confuse the Church of religious science or science of mind which was founded by Ernest Holmes with the Christian Science Church founded by Mary Baker Eddie they all reflect new thought however they are different philosophies

the science of mind has ministers and practitioners who carry on the teachings of the Church of religious science they were the very first people who told me that my thoughts shaped my future even though I didn't understand what they meant this concept touched what I call the inner ding within me that place of intuition that is referred to as the voice within over the years I've learned to follow it because when that Ding goes yes even if it seems a crazy choice I know that it is right for me so these Concepts struck a chord

in me something said yes they are right and then I began the adventure of learning how to change my thinking once I accepted the idea and said yes to it I went through the house I read a lot of books and my home became like many of yours filled with masses of spiritual and self-help books I went to classes for many years and I explored everything related to the subject I literally immersed myself in new thought philosophy a new way of thinking it was the first time that I had really studied in my life up

until then I didn't believe in anything my mother was a lapsed Catholic and my stepfather was an atheist I had some strange idea that Christians either wore hair shirts or were eaten by lions and neither rep appealed to me I really delved into science of mind because that was an Avenue that was open for me at the time and I found it really wonderful at first it was sort of easy I grasped a few Concepts and I started to think and talk a little bit differently in those days I was a constant complainer and full

of self-pity I just loved to wallow in the pits I didn't know that I was continually perpetuating more experiences in which to pity myself but then again I didn't know any better in those days gradually I found that I was no longer complaining quite so much I started to listen to what I said I became aware of my self-criticism and I tried to stop it I began to babble affirmations without quite knowing what they meant I started with the easy ones of course and a a few small changes began to take place I got the

green lights and the parking places and boy did I think I was Hot Stuff wow I thought I knew it all and I very soon became quite cocky and arrogant and dogmatic in my beliefs I felt I knew all the answers in hindsight it was really my way of feeling safe in this new area when we start to move away from some of our old rigid beliefs especially if we've been previously in total control it can be very scary it was very frightening for me so I would grasp onto whatever would make me feel safe

it was a beginning for me and I still had a long way to go and I still do like most of us I didn't always find the pathway easy and smooth because just babbling affirmations didn't work all the time and I couldn't understand why I asked myself what am I doing wrong see immediately I blamed myself was this one more example of me not being good enough that was a favorite old belief of mine at the time my teacher Eric Pace would look at me and refer to the idea of resentment I didn't have the

faintest idea what he was talking about resentment me surely I didn't have any resentments after all I was on my pathway I was spiritually perfect how little I could see myself then I continued doing the best I could in my life I studied metaphysics and spirituality and learned about myself as much as possible I grasped what I could and sometimes I applied it often we hear a lot of things and sometimes we grasp them but we don't always practice them time seemed to go by very quickly and at that point I had been studying science

of mind for about 3 years and had just become a practitioner of the church I began to teach the philosophy but I wondered why my students seemed to be floundering I couldn't understand why they were so stuck in their problems I gave them so much good advice why weren't they using it and getting well it never dawned on me that I was speaking the truth more than I was living it I was like a parent who tells the child what to do but then does exactly the opposite then one day seemingly out of the blue

I was diagnosed with vaginal cancer first I panicked like anyone else then I had doubts that all this stuff I was learning was valid it was a normal and natural reaction I thought to myself if I was clear and centered I wouldn't have the need to create the illness in hindsight I think when I was diagnosed I felt safe enough at that point to let the illness surface so that I could do something about it rather than having it be another hidden secret that I wouldn't know about until I was dead I Knew Too Much

by then to hide from myself any longer I knew that cancer was a disease of resentment that is held for a long time until it eats away at the body when we stifle our emotions inside of us they have to go somewhere in the body if we spend a lifetime stuffing things down they will eventually manifest somewhere in the body I became very aware that the resentment within me which my teacher had referred to so many times had to do with being a physical emotionally and sexually abused as a child naturally I would have resentment

I was bitter and unforgiving of the past I had never done any work to change or release the bitterness and let it go when I left home it was all I could do to forget what had happened to me I thought I had put it behind me when in actuality I had simply buried it when I found my metaphysical pathway I covered up my feelings with a nice layer of spirituality and hid a lot of garbage inside me I put a wall around myself that kept me literally out of touch with my own feelings I

didn't know who I was or where I was after my diagnosis the real inner work of Learning To Know Myself began thank God I had tools to use I knew I needed to go within myself if I was going to make any permanent changes yes the doctor could give me an operation and perhaps take care of my illness for the moment but if I didn't change the way I was using my thoughts and my words I'd probably recreate it again it's always interesting to me to learn where in our bodies we put our cancers our

diseases on which side of the body the left or the right the right side represents the masculine side from where we give out the left is the feminine side the receptive part from where we take in almost all of my life when anything went wrong it was always on the right side of my body it was where I stored all the resentment towards my stepfather and life I was no longer content to get green lights and parking places I knew I had to go much much deeper I realized that I was not really progressing in

my life the way I wanted to because I hadn't really cleared out this old garbage from childhood and I wasn't living what I was teaching I had to recognize the inner child inside me and work with her my inner child needed help because she was still in great pain I quickly began a self-healing program in Earnest I concentrated totally on me and did little else I became very committed to getting well some of it was a little weird yet I did it anyway after all this was my life on the line it became almost a

24-hour a day job for the next 6 months I began reading and studying everything I could find out about alternative ways to heal cancer because I truly believed it could be done I did a nutritional cleansing program that detoxified my body from all the junk Foods I had eaten for years for months I seemed to be living on sprouts and puree asparagus I know I had more to eat but that is what I remember the most I worked with my science of Mind Minister and teacher Eric Pace to clear the mental patterns so the cancer

wouldn't return I said affirmations and did visualizations prayers and spiritual mind treatments I did daily sessions in front of a mirror the most difficult words to say were I love you I really love you it took a lot of tears and a lot of breathing to get through it when I did it was as if I took a Quantum Leap I also went to a good psychotherapist who was skilled in helping people Express and release their anger I spent a long period of time beating pillows and screaming it was wonderful it felt so good because

I had never ever had permission to do that in my life I don't know which method worked maybe a little bit of everything worked most of all I was really consistent with what I did I practiced during all my waking hours I thanked myself before I went to sleep for what I had done during the day I affirmed that my healing process was taking place in my body while I slept and that I would awaken in the morning bright and refreshed and feeling good in the morning I'd awaken and thank myself and my body for

the work that was done during the night I would affirm that I was willing to grow and learn each day and make changes without seeing myself as a bad person I ALS also worked on understanding and forgiveness one of the ways was to explore my parents' childhoods as much as I could I began to understand how they were treated as children and I realized that because of the way they were brought up they couldn't really have done anything differently than they did my stepfather was abused at home and he continued this abuse with his children

my mother was brought up to to believe that the man was always right and you stood by and let him do what he wanted no one taught them a different approach it was their way of life step by step my growing understanding of them enabled me to start the Forgiveness process the more I forgave my parents the more willing I was to forgive myself forgiveness of ourselves is enormously important many of us do the same damage to the inner child that our parents did to us we just continue the abuse and it's very sad when

we were children and the other people mistreated us we didn't have many options but when we grow up and we still mistreat the inner child it's disastrous as I forgave myself I began to trust myself I found that when we don't trust life or other people it's really because we don't trust ourselves we don't trust our higher selves to take care of us in all situations so we say I'll never fall in love again because I don't want to get hurt or I'll never let this happen again we are really saying to ourself I don't

trust you enough to take good care of me so I'm going to stay away from everything eventually I began to trust myself enough to take care of me and I found it easier and easier to love myself once I trusted myself my body was healing and my heart was healing my real spiritual growth had come in such an unexpected way as a bonus I began to look younger the clients I now attracted were almost all people who were willing to work on themselves they made enormous progress without me really doing anything they could sense and

feel that I was living the concepts I was teaching and it was easy for them to accept these ideas of course they had positive results they began to improve the quality of their lives once we began to make peace with ourselves on the inner level life seems to flow much more pleasantly so what did this experience teach me personally I realized that I had the power to change my life if I was willing to change my thinking and release the patterns that kept me living in the past this experience gave me the inner knowledge that

if we are willing really willing to do the work the mental work we can make incredible changes in our minds our bodies and our lives no matter where you are in life no matter what you've contributed to creating no matter what's happening you are always doing the best you can with the understanding and awareness and knowledge that you have and when you know more you will do it differently as I did don't berate yourself for where you are don't blame yourself for not doing it faster or better say to yourself I'm doing the best I

can and even though I'm in a mess now I will get out of it somehow so let's find the best way to do it if all you do is tell yourself that you're stupid and no good then you stay stuck you need your own loving support if you want to make changes the methods I use are not my methods most of them I learned at science of mind which is what I basically teach yet these principles are as old as time if you read any of the old spiritual teachings you will find the same messages

I am trained as a minister of the Church of religious science however I do not have a church I am a free spirit I express the teachings in simple language so that they may reach many people this path is a wonderful way of getting your head together and really understanding what life is all about and how you can use your own mind to take charge of your life when I started all this over 20 years ago I had no idea that I would be able to bring hope and help to the number of people that

I do today Chapter 3 The Power of your spoken word every day declare for yourself what you want in life declare it as though you have it the law of mind there is a law of gravity and there are several other physical laws like physics and electricity most of which I don't understand there are also spiritual laws like the law of cause and effect what you give out comes back there is also a law of mind I don't know how it works in much the same way that I don't know how electricity works I only

know that when I flick the switch the light comes on I believe that when we think a thought or when we speak a word or a sentence it's some somehow goes out from us into a law of mind and comes back to us as experience we are now beginning to learn the correlation between the mental and the physical we are beginning to understand how the mind works and that our thoughts are creative our thoughts speed through our minds very quickly so it is difficult to shape them at first our mouths on the other hand are

slower so if we can start editing our speech by listening to what we say and not letting negative things come out of our mouths then we can begin to shape and control our thoughts there is tremendous power in our spoken words and many of us are not aware just how important they are let us consider words as the foundation of what we continually create in our lives we use words all the time yet we Babble away seldom thinking about what we are truly saying or how we are saying it we pay very little attention to

the selection of our words in fact most of us speak in negatives as children we were taught grammar we were taught to select words according to these rules of grammar however I have always found that the rules of grammar continually change and what was improper at one time is proper at another time or vice versa what was slang in the past is considered common usage in the present however grammar does not take into consideration the meaning of words and how they affect our lives on the other hand I was not taught in school that my

choice of words would have anything to do with what I would experience in life no one taught me that my thoughts were creative or that they could literally shape my my life nobody taught me that what I gave out in the form of words would return to me as experiences the purpose of the golden rule was to show us a very basic law of Life do unto others as you would have them do unto you or what you give out comes back to you it was never meant to cause guilt no one ever taught me

that I was worth loving or that I deserved good and nobody taught me that life was here to support me I remember that as children we would often call each other cruel and hurtful names and try to belittle one another but why did we do that where did we learn such Behavior look at what we were taught many of us were told repeatedly by our parents or teachers that we were stupid or dumb or lazy we were a nuisance and not good enough sometimes we heard our parents say that they wished we had never been

born maybe we cringed when we heard these words but little did we realize how deeply embedded the hurt and pain would become changing our self talk too often we accepted the early messages that our parents gave us we heard Eat Your Spinach clean your room or make your bed in order to be loved you got the idea that you were only acceptable if you did certain things that acceptance and love were conditional however that was according to somebody's idea of what was worthwhile and had nothing to do with your deep inner self-worth you got the

idea that you could only exist if you did these things to please others otherwise you did not have permission to even exist these early messages contribute to what I call our selft talk the way we talk to ourselves the way we talk to ourselves inwardly is really important because it becomes the basis of our spoken words it sets up the mental atmosphere in which we operate and which attracts to us our experiences if we belittle ourselves life is going to mean very little to us if we love and appreciate ourselves then life can be a

wonderful joyous gift if our lives are unhappy or if we are feeling unfulfilled it's very easy to blame our parents or them and say it's all their fault however if we do we stay stuck in our conditions our problems and our frustrations words of blame will not bring us freedom remember there is a power in our words again again our power comes from taking responsibility for our lives I know it sounds scary to be responsible for our lives but we really are whether we accept it or not if we want to be responsible for our

lives we've got to be responsible for our mouths the words and phrases we say are only extensions of our thoughts start to listen to what you say if you hear yourself using negative or limiting words change them if I hear a negative story I don't go around repeating it to everyone I think it has gone far enough and I let it go if I hear a positive story however I will tell everyone when you are out with other people begin to listen to what they say and how they say it see if you can connect

what they say with what they are experiencing in life many many people live their lives in shoulds should is a word that my ear is very attuned to it is as if a bell goes off every time I hear it often I will hear people use a dozen shoulds in a paragraph these same people wonder why their lives are so rigid or why they can't move out of a situation they want a lot of control over things that they cannot control they are either making themselves wrong or making someone else wrong and then they question

why they aren't living lives of Freedom we can also remove the expression have to from our vocabulary and our thinking as well when we do we will release a lot of self-imposed pressure on ourselves we create tremendous pressure by saying I have to go to work I have to do this I have to I have to instead let's let's begin to say choose to I choose to go to work because it pays the rent right now or whatever come from Choice choose to puts a whole different perspective on our lives everything we do is by

choice even though it may not seem to be so a lot of us also use the word but we make statements then we say but which heads Us in two different directions we give conflicting messages to to ourselves listen to how you use the word but the next time you speak another expression we could be mindful of is don't forget we are so used to saying don't forget this or that and what happens we forget we really want to remember and instead we forget so we can begin to use the phrase please remember in place

of don't forget or I will always remember instead of I will never forget when you wake up in the morning do you curse the fact that you have to go to work do you complain about the weather do you Grumble that your back or your head hurts what is the second and third thing you think or say do you yell at the children to get up most people say more or less the same thing every morning how does what you say start your day is it POS positive and cheerful and wonderful or is it whining

and condemning if you Grumble and complain and moan you're setting yourself up for just such a day what are your last thoughts before going to bed are they powerful healing thoughts or poverty worry thoughts when I speak of poverty thoughts I don't mean only about the lack of money it can be a negative way of thinking about anything in your life any part of your life that is not flowing freely do you worry about tomorrow usually I will read something positive before I go to sleep I am aware that when I sleep I am doing

a lot of clearing that will prepare me for the next day I find it very helpful to turn over to my dreams any problems or questions I may have I know my dreams will help me take care of whatever is going on in my life I am the only person who can think in my mind just like you are the only person who can think in your mind nobody can force us to think in a different way we choose our thoughts and these are the basis for our selft talk as I experienced how this process

worked more in my life I began to live more of what I was teaching others I really watched my words and my thoughts and I constantly forgave myself for not being perfect I allowed myself to be me rather than struggling to be a super person who may only be acceptable in others eyes when I began for the first time to trust life and to see it as a friendly place I lightened up my humor became less biting and more truly funny I worked on releasing criticism and Judgment of myself and other people and I stopped

telling disaster Stories We are so quick to spread bad news it's just amazing I stopped reading the newspaper and gave up the 11:00 News at night because all the reports were concerned with disaster and violence and very little good news I realize that most people don't want to hear good news they love to hear bad bad news so that they have something to complain about too many of us keep recycling the negative stories until we believe that there is only bad in the world for a while there was a radio station that broadcast only good

news but it went out of business when I had my cancer I decided to stop gossiping and to my surprise I found I had nothing to say to anyone I became aware that whenever I met a friend I would immediate Med dish the latest dirt with them eventually I discovered there were other ways of talking although it wasn't an easy habit to break nonetheless if I gossiped about other people then other people probably gossiped about me because what we give out we get back as I worked more and more with people I really began to

listen to what they said I really began to hear the words not just get the general drift you usually after 10 minutes with a new client I could tell exactly why they had a problem because I could hear the words they were using I could understand them by the way they were talking I knew that their words were contributing to their problems if they were talking negatively imagine what their selft talk was like it must be more of the same negative programming poverty thinking as I called it a little exercise I suggest you do is

to put a tape recorder by your telephone and every time you make or get a call Push the record button when the tape is full on both sides listen to what you've been saying and how you say it you will probably be amazed you will begin to hear the words you use and the inflection of your voice you will begin to become aware if you find yourself saying something three times or more write it down because it is a pattern some of the the patterns may be positive and supportive and you may also have some

very negative patterns that you repeat over and over and over again the power of the subconscious mind in light of what I've been speaking of I want to discuss the power of our subconscious Minds our subconscious Minds make no judgments the subconscious mind accepts everything we say and creates according to our beliefs it always says yes our subconscious minds love us enough to give us what we declare we have choice though if we choose these poverty beliefs and Concepts then it is assumed that we want them it will continue to give us these things until

we are willing to change our thoughts and words and beliefs for the better we are never stuck because we can always choose again there are billions and billions of thoughts from which to choose our subconscious Minds don't know true from false or right from wrong we don't want to deprecate ourselves in any way we don't want to say something like oh stupid old me because the subconscious mind will pick up this selft talk and after a while you will feel that way if you say it enough times it will become a belief in your subconscious

the subconscious mind has no sense of humor and it is important for you to know and understand this concept you cannot make a joke about yourself and think it doesn't mean anything if it is a put down about yourself even if you're trying to be cute or funny about it the subconscious mind accepts it as true I don't let people tell put down jokes in my workshops they can be runchy but not put Downs of a nationality or sex or whatever so don't joke about yourself and make derogatory remarks about yourself because they will not

create good experiences for you don't belittle others either the subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between you and the other person it hears the words and it believes you are talking about yourself the next time you want to criticize someone ask why you feel that way about yourself you only see an other s what you see in yourself instead of criticizing others praise them and within a month you will see enormous change within you our words are really a matter of approach and attitude notice the way that lonely unhappy poor sick people talk what words do they

use what have they accepted as the truth for themselves how do they describe them themselves how do they describe their work their lives their relationships what do they look forward to be aware of their words but please don't run around telling strangers that they are ruining their lives by the way they talk don't do it to your family and friends either because the information will not be appreciated instead use this information to begin to make the connection for yourself and practice it if you want your life to change because even on the smallest level if

you change the way you talk your experiences are going to change if you are a person with an illness who believes that it is fatal and that you're going to die and that life is no good because nothing ever works for you then guess what you can choose to release your negative concept of Life start affirming for yourself that you are a person who is lovable and that you are worth healing and that you attract everything you need on the physical level to contribute to your healing know that you are willing to get well and

that it is safe for you to get well many people only feel safe when they are sick they are usually the kind that have difficulty saying the word no the only way they can say no is by saying I'm too sick to do it it's a perfect excuse I remember a woman at one of my workshops who had three cancer operations she couldn't say no to anybody her father was a doctor and she was Daddy's good little girl so whatever daddy told her to do she did it was impossible for her to say no no

matter what you asked her she had to say yes it took 4 days to get her to literally shriek no at the top of her lungs I had her do it while shaking her fist no no no and once she got into it she loved it I find that many women with breast cancer can't say no they nourish everybody except themselves one of the things I recommend to a woman with breast cancer is that she must learn to say no no I don't want to do it no two or three months of saying no to

everything and everyone will begin to turn things around she needs to nourish herself by saying this is what I want to do not what you want me to do when I used to work with clients privately I would hear them argue on behalf of their limitations and they would always want me to know why they were stuck because of one reason or another if we believe we are stuck and accept that we are stuck then we are stuck we get stuck because our negative beliefs are being fulfilled instead let's begin to focus on our are

strengths many of you tell me that my tape saved your lives I want you to realize that no book or tape is going to save you a little piece of tape in a plastic box is not saving your life what you are doing with the information is what matters I can give you plenty of ideas yet what you do with them is going to count I suggest that you listen to a particular tape over and over again for a month or more so that the ideas become a new habit pattern I'm not your healer or

savior the only person who's going to make a change in your life is you now what are the messages you want to hear I know I say this over and over again loving yourself is the most important thing you can do because when you love yourself you're not going to hurt yourself or anyone else it's my prescription ion for World Peace if I don't hurt me and I don't hurt you how can we have War the more of us who can get to that place the better the planet will be let's begin to be conscious

of what is going on by listening to the words we speak to ourselves and to others then we can begin to make the changes that will help heal ourselves as well as the rest of the planet chapter 4 reprogramming old tapes be willing to take the first step no matter how small it is concentrate on the fact that you are willing to learn absolute Miracles will happen affirmations do work now that we understand a little bit more about how powerful our thoughts and words are we can choose to retrain our thinking and speaking into positive

patterns if we're going to get beneficial results are you willing to change your selft talk into positive affirmations remember every time you think a thought and every time you speak a word you are saying an affirmation an affirmation is a beginning point it opens the way to change in essence you are saying to your subconscious mind I am taking responsibility I am aware that there is something I can do to change when I talk about doing affirmations I mean to consciously choose sentences or words that will either help to eliminate something from your life or

help to create something new in your life and you do this in a positive way if you say I don't want to be sick anymore the subconscious mind hears sick more now you want to tell it clearly what you do want that is say I am a healthy person I radiate good health the subconscious mind is very straightforward it has no strategy or designs what it hears is what it does if you say I hate this car it doesn't give you a wonderful new car because it doesn't know what you want even if you get

a new car you will probably hate it soon because that is what you've been saying about it the subconscious only hears hate this car you need to clearly declare your desires in a positive way as in I have a beautiful new car that suits all my needs or I always have a car that I love if there is something in your life that you really dislike I have found one of the quickest ways to release it is to bless it with love I bless you with love and I release you and let you go this

works for people situations objects and living quarters you could even try it on a habit you would like to be free of and see what happens I knew one man who said I bless you with love and release you from my life to every cigarette he smoked after a few days his desire for smoking was considerably less and in a few weeks The Habit was gone you deserve good think for a moment what is it you really want right now what is it you want today in your life think about it and then say I

accept for myself whatever it is that you want this is where I find that most of us get stuck the bottom line is the belief that we don't deserve to have what we want our personal power lies in the way we perceive our deserv ability our not deserving comes from childhood messages again we don't have to feel that we cannot change because of these messages often people will come to me and say Louise affirmations don't work it really has nothing to do with affirmations it is the fact that we don't believe we deserve the good

the way to find out if you believe that you deserve something is to say an affirmation and notice the thoughts that come up as you say it then write them down because when you see these thoughts on paper they will be very clear to you the only thing that keeps you from deserving or loving yourself or whatever is someone else's belief or opinion that you have accepted as truth when we don't believe that we deserve good we will knock the pinnings out from under ourselves which we can do in a variety of ways we can

create chaos we can lose things we can hurt ourselves or have physical problems like falling or have accidents we want to start believing that we deserve all the good that life has to offer in order to reprogram the fall false or negative belief what would be the first thought that you would need to begin to create this new whatever in your life what would be the building block or the foundation that you would need to stand on what would be the sort of thing that you would need to know for yourself to believe to accept

some good thoughts to start with could be I am worthwhile I am deserving I love myself I allow myself to be fulfilled Etc these Concepts form the very basis of beliefs on which you can build do your affirmations on top of these building blocks to create what you want whenever I speak somewhere someone will come up to me at the end of the lecture or will write me a letter and tell me that he or she has had a healing take place while they were in the room sometimes it's very minor and sometimes it's quite

dramatic a woman came up to me once and told me that she had had a lump in her breast and it literally disappeared during the lecture she heard something and she decided to let something go this is a good example of how powerful we are when we are not ready to let something go when we really want to hold on to something because it's serving Us in some way it doesn't matter what we do it probably won't work however when we are ready ready to let it go as this woman was it's amazing how the

smallest circumstance can help us release it if you still have a habit that you haven't released ask yourself how it serves you what do you get out of it if you can't get an answer ask in a different way if I no longer had this habit what would happen very often the answer is my life would be better so it comes back to the fact that we believe we don't deserve a better life in some way ordering from the cosmic kitchen when you first say an affirmation it may not seem true but remember affirmations are

like planting seeds in the ground when you put a seed in the ground you don't get a full grown plant the next day we need to be patient during the growing season as you continue to say the affirmation either you will be ready to release whatever you don't want and the affirmation will become true or it will open a new Avenue to you or you may get a brilliant brainstorm or a friend may call you and say have you tried this you will be led to the next step that will help you keep your affirmations

in the present tense you can sing them and make a jingle out of them so that they repeat over and over in your head remember that you cannot affect a specific person's actions with your affirmations to affirm that johon is now in love with me is a form of manipulation and it is trying to have control over another person's life it will usually have a boomerang effect on you you will become very unhappy when you don't get what you want you can say I am now loved by a wonderful man who is and list the

qualities that you want in the relationship that way you allow the power within you to bring to you the perfect person to fill that bill who may possibly be John you don't know what another person's spiritual lesson is and you don't have a right to interfere in their life process you certainly wouldn't want someone else doing it to you if someone is ill bless them and send them love and peace but don't demand that they get well I like to think of doing affir ations as placing our order in the cosmic kitchen if you go

to a restaurant and the waiter or waitress comes and takes your order you don't follow them into the kitchen to see if the chef got the order or how he's going to prepare the food you sit and drink water or coffee or tea or you talk to your friend and maybe eat your roll you assume that your food is being prepared and will be out when it's ready it's the same when we begin to do affirmations when we put our into the cosmic kitchen the great chef our higher power is working on it so you

go on with your life and know that it is being taken care of it's on order it's happening now if the food comes out and it isn't exactly what you ordered and if you have self-esteem you will send it back if not you will eat it you also have a right to do that with the cosmic kitchen if you don't get exactly what you want you can say no that's not quite it this is what I want perhaps you weren't clear in your ordering the idea here too is to let go at the end of

my treatments and meditations I use the words and so it is it's a way of saying higher power it's in your hands now I release it to you reprogramming the subconscious mind the thoughts we think accumulate and when we are unaware where the old thought resurfaces when we are reprogramming our minds it is normal and natural that we go a little forward we come a little back and we go a little forward again it's part of practicing I don't think there is any new skill that you can learn absolutely 100% in the first few minutes

do you remember when you first learned how to use a computer how frustrating it was it took practice you had to learn how it worked to learn its laws and systems I called my first computer my magic lady for when I mastered her rules she did indeed deliver what seemed like magic to me yet while I was learning the way she would teach me I was off track or going in the wrong direction was to devour pages of work that I would then have to do all over again out of all the mistakes I learned

how to flow with the system to flow with the system of life you want to become aware that your subconscious mind is like a computer garbage in garbage out if you put negative thoughts in then negative experiences come out yes it takes time and practice to learn the new ways of thinking be patient with yourself when you are learning something new and the old pattern returns are you going to say oh I didn't learn anything or are you going to say okay that's all right come on let's do it again the new way or say

you cleared an issue and think you'll never have to deal with it again how do you know if you've really worked it through unless you test yourself so you bring up the Old Situation one more time and watch how you react if you jump right back into the old way of reacting to it then you know you haven't really learned that particular lesson and you need to do more work on it that's all it means you want to realize it's only a little test to see how far you've come if you begin to repeat your

affirmations the new statements of truth about yourself you give yourself an opportunity to react differently whether it's a health problem a financial one or a relationship difficulty if you react in a new way to the situation then you're on your way to having another issue handled and you can move on to other areas remember too that we work on layers at a time you can reach a plateau and think I've done it and then later on some old issue resurfaces and you may injure yourself or get sick and you don't get better for some time

look to see what the underlying beliefs are it may mean that you have some more work to do because you are going to the next deeper layer don't feel that you're not good enough because something you've worked to clear comes up again when I discovered that I was not a bad person because once again I was facing an old issue it became much easier for me to keep going I learned to say to myself Louise you're doing very well look how far you have come you just need more practice and I love you evolutionary pathway

one of the ways to allow the process of life to unfold for you in a positive healthy way is to declare your own personal truths choose to move away from the limiting beliefs that have been denying you the benefits you so desire declare that your negative thought patterns will be erased from your mind let go of your fears and burdens for a long time now I have been believing the following ideas and they have worked for me everything I need to know is revealed to me everything I need comes to me in the perfect time

space sequence life is a joy and filled with love I am loving and lovable and loved I am healthy and filled with energy I Prosper wherever I turn I am willing to change and to grow and all is well in my world I have learned that we don't always stay positive 100% of the time and I include myself in this knowledge as much as possible I see Life as a wonderful joyous experience I believe that I am safe I have made it a personal law for me I believe that everything I need to know is

revealed to me so I need to keep my eyes and ears open when I had cancer I remember thinking that a foot reflexologist would be very helpful to me one evening I went to a lecture of some sort usually I sit in the front row because I like being close to the speaker however that night I was compelled to sit in the back row and right after I sat down a foot reflexologist sat next to me we began to talk and and I learned that he even made house calls I didn't have to look for

him he came to me I also believe that whatever I need comes to me in the perfect time space sequence when something goes wrong in my life I immediately start to think all is well it's okay I know that this is all right it's a lesson it's an experience and I'll pass through it there is something here that is for my highest good all is well just breathe it's okay and I do the best I can to calm myself so I can think rationally about whatever is going on and of course I do work through

everything it may take a little time but sometimes things that seem to be great disasters really turn out to be quite good in the end or at least not the disasters that they seem to be in the beginning every event is a learning experience I do a lot of positive selft talk morning noon and night I come from a loving space of the heart and I practice loving myself and others as much as I possibly can my capacity to love expands all the time what I do today is much more than I was doing 6

months or a year ago I know a year from now my Consciousness and my heart will have expanded and I'll be doing even more I know that what I believe about myself becomes true for me so I choose to believe wonderful things about myself there was a time when I didn't so I know I have grown and I continue to work on myself I also believe in meditation to me meditation is when we sit down and turn off our dialogue long enough to hear our own inner wisdom when I meditate I usually close my eyes

take a deep breath breath and ask what is it I need to know I sit and listen I might also ask what is it I need to learn or what is the lesson in this sometimes we think we're supposed to fix everything in our lives and maybe we're really only supposed to learn something from the situation I remember when I first began to meditate I had violent headaches for the first 3 weeks meditation was so unfamiliar amiliar and against all my usual inner programming nevertheless I hung in there and the headaches eventually disappeared if you

are constantly coming up with a tremendous amount of negativity when you meditate it may mean that it needs to come up and when you quiet yourself it starts to flow to the surface simply see the negativity being released try not to fight it allow it to continue as long as it needs to if you fall asleep when you meditate that's all right too let the body do what it needs to do it will balance out in time reprogramming your negative beliefs is very powerful a good way to do it is by making a tape with

your own voice saying your affirmations play it as you go to sleep it will have a great deal of value for you because you will be listening to your own voice an even more powerful tape would be your mother's voice telling you how wonderful you are and how much she loves you once you have the tape it's good to relax the body before you begin reprogramming some people like to start with the tips of their toes and move to the top of their head tensing and relaxing however you do it breathe and release the tension

let the emotions go get to a state of openness and receptivity the more relaxed you are the easier it is to receive the new information remember you are always in charge and you are always safe it's wonderful to listen to tapes or read self-awareness books and do your affirmations but what are you doing for the other 23 hours or so a day you see that is what really matters if you sit down and meditate and then get up and rush to work and scream at somebody that counts too meditations and affirmations are wonderful yet what

you do at other times are just as important treat doubt as a friendly reminder I'm often asked questions about whether people are doing affirmations correctly or whether they are even working and about doubt I'd like you to think of Doubt a little differently than you may have been I believe that the subconscious conscious mind resides in the solar plexus area of the body where you carry those gut feelings when something sudden happens don't you immediately get a strong feeling in your gut it is where you take everything in and store it ever since we were

little children every message we have received everything we have done all the experiences we have had all that we have said have all gone into the filing cabinet right there in the solar plexus area I like to think that there are little Messengers in there and when we think thoughts or have experiences the messages go in and The Messengers file them in the appropriate files for many of us we have been building up files labeled I'm not good enough I'll never make it I don't do it right we have gotten absolutely buried under these files

suddenly we do a few affirmations such as I'm wonderful and I love myself and The Messengers pick them up and say what's this where does it go we've never seen this one before so The Messengers call doubt doubt come over here and see what's going on so doubt picks up the message and asks the conscious mind what's this you've always been saying the other things and on a conscious level we can react in two ways we can say oh you're right I'm terrible I'm no good I'm sorry that's not the right message and go back

to our old ways or we can say to doubt that was the old message I have no need for it now this is the new message tell doubt to start a new file because there will be lots of these loving messages coming through from now on learn to treat doubt as a friend not the enemy and thank it for questioning you use it to strengthen your new beliefs it doesn't matter what work you do in this world doesn't matter if you are a bank president or a dishwasher a housewife or a sailor you have wisdom

inside of you that is connected to universal truth when you are willing to look within and ask a simple question such as what is this experience trying to teach me and if you are willing to listen then you will have the answer most of us are so busy running around creating the soap opera and drama we call Our Lives that we don't hear anything don't give your power over to other people's pictures of right and wrong they only have power over us when we give our power to them groups of people give their power over

to others it happens in a lot of cultures women in our culture often give their power to men they say things things like my husband won't allow me to well that's certainly giving your power away if you believe it you box yourself into a place where you can't do anything unless you are given permission by another person who do you give your power to the more open-minded you are the more you learn and the more you can grow and change a woman once shared with me that when she got married she was very unassertive because

that was the way she was brought up it took years for her to realize that her conditioning kept her locked in a corner she blamed everyone her husband and her in-laws for her problems eventually she divorced her husband however she still blamed him for so many things that were not right in her life it took her 10 years to relearn her patterns and to take her power back in hindsight she realized that she was responsible for not speaking up and for not standing up for herself not her husband or her in-laws they were there to

reflect back to her what she felt inside a sense of powerlessness don't give your power away based on what you read either I remember years ago I read some articles in a well-known magazine and I happened to know something about each subject described in the Articles and in my opinion the information was totally erroneous the magazine lost all credibility for me and I didn't read it again for many years you are the authority in your life so don't think that because something is in print that it's always the truth inspirational speaker Terry Cole Whitaker wrote

a wonderful book called what you think of me is none of my business it's true what you think of me is none of my business it's your business in the end what you think of me is going out from you in vibrations and will come back to you when we have illumination when we become conscious of what we are doing we can begin to change our lives life is really here for you you need only ask tell life what you want and then allow the good to happen part two dissolving the barriers with we want

to know what is going on inside us so we can know what to let go instead of hiding our pain we can release it totally chapter 5 understanding the blocks that bind you chronic patterns of self-hate guilt and self-criticism raise the body's stress levels and weaken the immune system now that we understand a little more more about the power that we have within us let's take a look at what keeps us from using it I think that almost all of us have barriers of some kind or another even when we do a lot of work

on ourselves and clear out the blocks new layers of old barriers still keep coming up many of us feel so flawed that we believe that we are not good enough and never will be again if we find something wrong with us then we are going to find something wrong with other people as well if we are still continuing to say I can't do this because my mother said or my father did then we have not yet grown up so now you want to let your barriers go and perhaps learn something different that you didn't know

before now perhaps one sentence here will trigger a new thought can you imagine how wonderful it would be if every day you learned a new idea that would help you let go of the past and create Harmony in your life when you become aware and understand the individual process of life you will know what direction to take if you put your energies into learning something about yourself you will eventually see those problems and issues that you need to dissolve we all have challenges in life everybody does nobody goes through life without them otherwise what would

be the purpose of coming to this particular school called Earth for some there are health challenges and for other people there are relationship challenges or career or financial challenges some have a little or a lot of everything I think one of our biggest problems is that most of of us haven't the faintest idea of what it is we want to let go we know that it's not working and we know what we want in our life yet we don't know what's holding us back so let's take time to look at the blocks that bind us

if you think for a moment about your own patterns and problems and the things that hold you back which categories do they fall into criticism fear guilt or resentment I call these categories the big four which is your favorite one mine was a combination of criticism and resentment maybe you are like me and have two or three is it fear that always comes up or guilt are you very very critical or resentful let me point out that resentment is anger that is stuffed down so if you believe you are not allow allowed to express your

anger then you have stored a lot of resentment we cannot deny our feelings we cannot conveniently ignore them when I had my cancer diagnosis I had to look very clearly at myself I had to acknowledge some nonsense that I didn't want to admit about myself for instance I was a very resentful person and I carried a lot of bitterness from the past I said Louise you have no time to indulge in that anymore you really must change or as Peter MC Williams says you can no longer afford the luxury of a negative thought your experiences

always reflect your inner beliefs you can literally look at your experiences and determine what your beliefs are maybe it's disturbing to consider but if you look at the people in your life they are all mirroring some belief you have about yourself if you are always being criticized at work it is probably because you are critical and have become the parent who once criticized the child everything in our lives is a mirror of who we are when something is happening out there that is not comfortable we have an opportunity to look inside and say how am

I contributing to this experience what is it within me that believes I deserve this we all have family patterns and it is very easy for us to blame our parents or our childhood or our environment but that keeps us stuck we don't become free we remain victims and we perpetrate the same problems over and over again so it really doesn't matter what anybody else did to you or what they taught you in the past today is a new day you are now in charge now is the moment in which you are creating the future in

your life and your world it really doesn't matter what I say either because only you can do the work only you can change the way you think and feel and act I'm just saying that you can you definitely can because you have a higher power within you that can help you break free from these patterns if you allow it you can remind yourself that when you were a little baby you loved yourself for who you were there is not one little baby who criticizes its body and thinks oh my hips are too big babies are

thrilled and delighted just because they have bodies they express their feelings when a baby is happy you know it and when a baby is angry the whole neighborhood knows it they are never afraid to let people know how they feel they live in the moment and you were like that once as you grew up you listened to people around you and you learned about fear and guilt and criticism from them if you grew up in in a family where criticism was the norm then you are going to be critical as an adult if you grew

up in a family where you were not allowed to express anger then you are probably terrified of anger and confrontation and you swallow it and let it reside in your body if you were raised in a family where everybody was in manipulated by guilt then you are probably going to be the same way as an adult you are probably a person who runs around saying I'm sorry all the time and can never ask for anything outright you feel you have to be manipulative in some way in order to get what you want as we grow

up we begin to pick up these false ideas and lose touch with our inner wisdom so we really need to release these ideas and return to the purity of spirit where we truly love ourselves we need to reestablish the wonderful innocence of life and the moment by moment Joy of existence the same joy that a baby feels in its Blissful State of Wonder think of what you want to become true for yourself State them in positive not negative affirmations now go to the mirror look in your eyes and repeat your affirmations see what obstacles are

in your way when you begin to State an affirmation like I love and approve of myself really pay attention to what negative messages come up because as you recognize them they become the treasures that will unlock the door to your freedom usually the messages are one of the four I mentioned earlier criticism fear guilt or resentment and most likely you learn these messages from people back there some of you have chosen some difficult tasks to handle in this lifetime and it is my belief that we really come here to love ourselves in spite of what

they say or do we can always go beyond our parents or our friends limitations if you were a good little girl or boy you learned your parents limited way of looking at life you see you're not bad you are good children you learned exactly what your parents taught you now that you are grown up you're doing the same thing how many of you hear yourself saying what your parents used to say congratulations they were very good teachers and you were very good students but now it is time for you to begin to think for yourself

a lot of us may face resistance when we look in the mirror and repeat our affirmations however resistance is the first step to change most of us want our lives to change but when we are told that we have to do something different we say who me oh I don't want to do that others may experience feelings of Despair often if you look in the mirror and say I love you the little child inside says Where have you been all this time I've been waiting for you to notice me and waves of sadness come up

because you've been rejecting the little child for a long long time when I did this exercise in one of my workshops a woman said she was very very scared I asked her what frightened her and she shared the fact that she was an incest Survivor many of us have had this experience called incest and we are learning learning to come through it it's interesting that it occurs so often on our planet we read so much about incest these days yet I don't think it is happening any more now than it ever did we have advanced

to a state where we now feel that children have rights and we are allowing ourselves to see this ugly SAR in society in order to release the problem we have to first recognize it and then we can work through it therapy is so important for incest survivors we need a safe space where we can work through these feelings when we have let the anger and the rage and the shame out then we can move to the space where we can love ourselves no matter what we are working on we want to remember that the feelings

that come up are just feelings we are not in the experience anymore we need to work on making making the inner child feel safe we want to thank ourselves for having had the courage to survive this experience sometimes when we're dealing with an issue such as incest it's difficult to accept that the other person was doing the best he or she could at the time with the understanding and awareness and knowledge that they had acts of violence always come from people who were violent ated themselves we all need healing when we learn to love and

cherish who we are we will no longer harm anyone stop all criticism when we are dealing with criticism we are usually criticizing ourselves all the time for the same things over and over when are we going to wake up and learn that criticism doesn't work let's try another T tactic let's approve of ourselves as we are right now critical people often attract a lot of criticism because it is their pattern to criticize what we give out we get back they may also need to be perfect at all times who's perfect have you ever met a

perfect person I haven't If We complain about another person we are really complaining about some aspect of ourselves everyone is a reflection of us and what we see in another person we see in ourselves many times we don't want to accept parts of who we are we abuse ourselves with alcohol or drugs or cigarettes or overeating or whatever these are ways of beating up on ourselves for not being perfect but being perfect for who who Earth demands and expectations are we still trying to meet be willing to let that go just be you will find

that you are wonderful just as you are this very moment if you have always been a critical person who sees life through very negative eyes it is going to take time for you to turn yourself around to be more loving and accepting you will learn to be patient with yourself as you practice practice letting go of the criticism which is only a habit not the reality of your being can you imagine how wonderful it would be if we could live our lives without ever being criticized by anyone we would feel totally at ease totally comfortable

every morning would be a wonderful new day because everyone would love you and accept you and nobody would criticize you or put you down you can give this happiness to yourself by becoming more accepting of the things that make you unique and special the experience of living with yourself can be the most wonderful experience imaginable you can wake up in the morning and feel the joy of spending another day with you when you love who you are you automatically bring out the best in you you I'm not saying that you will be a better person

because that implies that you're not good enough now however you will find more positive ways to fulfill your needs and to express more of who you really are guilt makes us feel inferior many times people give you negative messages because it is the easiest way to manipulate you if someone is trying to make you feel feel guilty ask yourself what do they want why are they doing this ask these questions instead of inwardly agreeing oh yes I'm guilty I must do what they say many parents manipulate their children with guilt because they were raised that

way they tell lies to the children to make them feel less than some people are still manipulated by their relatives and friends when they grow up because first of all they don't respect themselves otherwise they wouldn't let it happen secondly they are manipulative themselves many of you live under a cloud of guilt you always feel wrong or that you are not doing the right thing or apologizing to someone for something you will not forgive yourself for something you did in the past you berate yourself for a lot that goes on in your life let these

clouds dissipate you don't need to live that way any longer those of you who feel guilty can now learn to say no and call people on their nonsense I'm not saying to be angry with them but you don't have to play their game anymore if saying no is new to you say it very simply no no I cannot do that don't give excuses or the manipulator will have ammunition to talk you out of your decision when people see that manipulating you doesn't work they will stop people will only control you as long as you allow

them to you may feel guilty the first time you say no however it gets easier the next few times a woman at one of my lectures had a baby who was born with a congenital heart disease she felt guilty because she'd believed that it was her fault she did something to the baby unfortunately guilt does not solve anything in her case no one did anything wrong I told her that I thought it could have been a soul choice for the baby and a lesson for both the mother and baby my answer for her was to

love the baby and love herself and stop feeling that she did something wrong that sort of guilt would not heal anyone if you do something that you are sorry about stop doing it if you did something in the past that you still feel guilty about forgive yourself if you can make amends do it and don't repeat the action again every time guilt comes up in your life ask yourself what do I still believe about myself who am I trying to please notice the childhood beliefs that come up when somebody comes to me who's been involved

in a car accident there is usually guilt on a deep seated level and a need for punishment there can also be a lot of repressed hostility because we feel we don't have the right to speak up for ourselves guilt seeks punishment so we can literally become our own judge jury and executioner condemning ourselves to a self-imposed prison we punish ourselves and there is no one around to come to our defense it's time to forgive ourselves and set ourselves free one elderly lady at one of my seminars felt enormous guilt about her middle-aged son he was

an only child who grew up to be a very withdrawn person she felt guilty because she was very strict with him while he was growing up I explained that she had done the best she knew how to do at the time I believe he chose her as a mother before he incarnated into this lifetime so on a spiritual level he knew what he was doing I told her that she was wasting all her energy feeling guilty about something that she couldn't change she sighed and said it's such a shame that he's this way and I'm

sorry I did a bad job now you see that's wasted energy because it doesn't help her son now and it certainly doesn't help her guilt becomes a very heavy burden and makes people feel inferior instead I told her that every time the feeling came up she could say something like no I don't want to feel that way anymore I'm willing to learn to love myself I accept my son exactly as he is if she continued to do this the pattern would start to shift and she would free both of them even if we don't know

how to love ourselves the fact that we are willing to love ourselves will create the difference it's just not worth it to hold on to these old patterns the lesson is always love yourself her lesson was not to heal her son but to love herself he came into this life to love himself she can't do it for him and he can't do it for her organized religions are often really good at making people feel guilty many of them do some heavy numbers to keep people in line especially when they are young however we aren't little

children anymore and we don't have to be kept in line we are adults who can decide what we want to believe the child in US feels the guilt but there is also the adult in us who can teach the child otherwise when you hold your emotions down or hold things in you create Havoc within you love yourself enough to allow yourself to feel your emotions allow your feelings to come to the surface at first you may find yourself crying for days or getting angry a lot you may have to process quite a bit of old

stuff I suggest you do affirmations that make going through the process easier smoother and more comfortable such as I now release with ease all old negative beliefs it is comfortable for me to change my pathway is now smooth I am free of the past also don't add judgment to your feelings that only pushes the feelings down even more if you are going through incredible dilemma or crises affirm that you are safe and that you are willing to feel affirming these positive feelings will bring about beneficial changes