How to Change Your Life with Affirmations | Louise Hay at Tavis Smiley Show

you know one of the things that i' like to teach people uh when there's a problem and we all have problems not all of us can deal with the world and War but we can deal with our own problems when a problem comes up one of the best things to say is all is well everything is working out for my highest good and out of this situation this so-called problem only good will come and I am safe and you know this is something that's very powerful all is well everything is working out for my highest

good out of this experience only good will come and I am safe and what that does it quiets your mind down or my mind down long enough for the universe to find a solution for the so-called problem but what about the person watching right now who is saying Louise hey I love you and I'm glad I'm glad hear you say that but Louise with all the respect right now in my life you don't know all is not well okay everything is not working out for my good I do not feel safe right now no matter

how many times I say that all is not life right now if you say it enough times it will become so it really will because you will be changing your thinking if I have a real problem I will Babble that incessantly for innumerable times because I know it will change the atmosphere around me it'll change what I'm giving out and yes it's true that to start with that may be a terrible problem and you can't do anything about it right now but as you start to know that you are safe and you're in a universe

that loves you I I mean how many times a day do people say this loves me really loves me and I'm so grateful and I'm so appreciative of life and if you're a person that does that a lot your life has to get better it has to life will find little miraculous ways to bring good into your life it's an honor to be here it's funny my my producer Neil and I were just comparing notes before we walked on the set you know we list who our upcoming guest are and I don't know that I

have received as much communicating as I have about any upcoming guest as I have received about the fact that Louise Hay is coming on I think part of it has to do with the fact that you don't do a lot of this people don't get a chance to really see you in interview that's true I'm retired I'm 81 and having fun lots of fun one you don't look 81 and two I know better than that you are really not retired you still work awfully hard decided this is going to be the best decade of my

entire life so far yeah what what what makes you say that this is going to be the best decade because it is yeah I just feel it life has wonderful things in store for me yeah um how is it that you live a life and this this question may sound a little strange but a lot of folk don't have this experience where they live a life where they can declare that the decade in front of them will be better than their biggest hits we can all do that we just have to make a choice we

have to decide what it's going yeah why why why so few conversations like this for you you mentioned ear you retired but you don't again you don't do a lot of this white why why make yourself not more accessible I just do what life brings to me at the moment yeah I know life has a lot of things in store for me in the future and will bring to me like my movie and like you know being here yeah life brings it to me it brings it to you yeah you you you are regarded as

really the the founders um I was one of the early Crazy Ones well that's why I had to do my own book because I know nobody would publish it in those days you you say that factiously you want I'm not I wasn't going to call you one of The Crazy Ones I was going to be a little bit nicer and say that you have been given credit for being one of the founders of what is now a multibillion dollar self-help industry absolutely how how did you when you know I wrote my first book there was

no self-help section in the bookstores and now it's the fastest growing one in all the bookstores 81 as you mentioned now so you've been at this for a long time how did how did that how did that happen for you what what what well it it it unfolded one day I heard somebody say if you're willing to change your thinking you can change your life and I thought really really is that possible so I started to explore and I Came Upon a book very early in my career by Francis Scoville Shin called The Game of

Life and how to play it it was written in 1926 which was the year I was born and she was I identified with her very much was very strong and affirmative and she was into affirmations and I had that meant a lot to me that book at the time and then I kept studying and learning and as I learned I would teach other people I'm a big mouth when you say that you were one of the early Crazy Ones I know what you meant by that talk to me about how back then this burgeoning industry

was in fact regarded as a bit crazy a bit out of touch it wasn't a burgeoning industry at the time it was just a features saying things and I was one of the early ones saying that if you're willing to change your thinking you can change your life your thoughts create your reality and nobody understood that at the time but it was something that I understood very quickly so I started to study more and more and more and make change my own life my own life became much better I started to get what I call

the green lights and the parking places the little things first and the more I studied and the more I practiced and the more I was willing to forgive and to to um appreciate life and have a lot of gratitude the more my life changed for the better what do you make of the fact that what you just suggested now seems in our contemporary world so commonplace back to the point earlier it's a multi-billion doll industry now everybody believes that if you can change your thoughts you can change your life well not everybody well not everybody

not not literally everybody but a whole lot of people do a whole lot of people as evidence Again by by the by the the size of the self-help section in any book St you walk into the question I want to get to though Louise is what you think changed in the world that we live or what changed inside of us that made it not crazy but indeed rather Common Place yes well we learned that it was true MH and I think the people started to practice and do simple little things that made their life improve

the quality of their life of psychology you know some people uh use this to get things but it's no good getting things if you don't change your consciousness because things don't make you happy only a short period of time but when you can be at peace with life when you can enjoy who you are when you can feel safe when you can feel just calm and easy that's very wonderful it's worth more than money take me back to the early part of your journey one of the things about you're being so chronologically gifted yes yeah

one of the things about that is that we often forget how you actually got started take me back to to your Youth and the travail and the situation that you found yourself in that my life was wonderful until 18 months and then everything hit the fan right and I I had a very strong brutal childhood I had sexual abuse I had a lot of heavy things when I was very young MH and so I grew up to be a person who didn't believe in myself and thought I was no good thought I was worthless and

also having a lot of resentment and not realizing what I was thinking or what I was doing or how it was affecting my life not that you were the only person to endure that kind of Mal treatment back then but again it's much more common place now for personalities to talk about yes those kind of experiences in books on TV in speeches see when we grew up we felt there was something wrong with us and we felt ashamed of it there was that was why it happened we were bad but now we're realizing that we

weren't we just were in circumstances and we needed to come out of them or we we found a way to have an opportunity come out of those circumstances so because it is so again common place now for personalities of your stature um to talk about these kinds of issues what was it like then when you decided to come out and talk about these things publicly oh well see it it didn't matter to me because I had been so ingrained as a child that I was no good and wrong there was no shame or anything was

just this is what happened and this is where I am and this is what I'm doing but CH but choosing to share that with the world in the pages of a book though is well well the thing was I was teaching workshops at the time and this and I said to myself if I could just put this workshop on paper I could help more people little did I know how many millions more people but I did I took a little time off and I put the workshop into book form and I had no idea that

life would take it where it has taken it life said this book must go out what do you make of the fact that given how this particular book You Can Heal Your Life After All These Years million copies sold around the world clearly it's resonating with a lot of people what does that say to you about the pain that so many people are enduring privately well it's true we all have pain of one sort or another even those who who had very wonderful lives we all carry some sort of pain but it's wonderful when we

can find out that we're not wrong we're not bad we are good enough we're worthy of open opening our life and having a better life and we could can we can all see life way we can start to look in a different way is there a conflict for you between this notion I don't want to put ter too much terminology on it I don't want to color it too much but is there a conflict for you Louise in believing that if you think it if you dream it if you call it down you can make

it happen is there a conflict between believing that and believing that there is a God who sits high and looks low um and really does have everything under his control I I'm trying to get at whether it's really in his control or is is it in our control well I think of Life as a boomerang what you give out you're going to get back just like every time you throw a boomerang out it's going to come right back at you and so what we believe about ourselves and about life is going to become true for

us now if you want to put God into the equation that's wonderful but I don't see God as an old man sitting on a cloud watching my genitals I do not see that version of God I see a force I see an energy I I call it the universe how I want to again I want to go back to the beginning again the beginning of your success how did that particular train of thought that school of thought um how did that redown to you in other words how did people take you saying that then in

a world in a country that has as our Credo in God we trust well not everybody believes that uh see I I never used the word God and it was very interesting because as a child absolutely no religious background at all no upbringing so I had nothing to unlearn and when I discovered or accepted that there was a universal power and an energy that made sense to me so when I talk I very seldom use the word god H how how how how did that when you first started and how does that now resonate or

not resonate when you don't so often use the word God I don't think about it yeah I I really don't think about it I mean if somebody wants I say you can talk about God you can talk about energy the universe whatever you want to MH what what is it in your doing this for so so many years and your study here and you're training people around the world what is it that that keeps most of us stuck in the places that we are in what is it that if I can put it this way

what is it that keeps most of us living in places where we block those blessings coming into our lives because we don't believe we deserve them we think we're not good enough you know if you somebody what they want what is it you really want what they usually say to you is well I don't want this and they give you a whole list of what they don't want they can't they don't think about what it is they do want but if you tell the universe what you don't want then how can the universe bring good

things to you because the list what you're giving out is not wrong remember it's that Boomerang other than Tavis writing a list of the things that he wants um are there are there things in my life I have to do beyond that to call those things the reason why I say that is because any person good or bad good or evil could put together a list of things that he or she wants but if you live a life of my as my grandmother say if you live a life of devilment you know well then you're

going to get devilment back because it's the boomerang remember but I think that you can change that if you're willing to change some of your beliefs what is it you believe about yourself that's not that's not uplifting and also it's also who do you need to forgive we all have people to forgive and that does not mean to condone poor Behavior but it's to release us from the bondage from what somebody has done to us so forgiveness for you then in terms of healing oneself is safite it it has to be I think it's important

I think a lot of people will do affirmations and say oh well nothing's happening nothing's happening and well there's two things one how many times do you do the affirmations and how many times do you do the grunge thinking that so many people are into most of the day and the other thing is who do you need to forget because often we have this little thing here we're going to hold on to and we're not going to let go mhm but that doesn't Hur help us in any way how do you it's not lost to

me that we have just commemorated um as opposed to celebrating commemorated the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq yes I I see the disgust on your face already I I raise that because it's at least clear to me that we live in a world that in this is more gripped by fear now than when you started um talk to me about trying to navigate healing ourselves living better lives in a world that is so gripped again so Frozen by fear well we can only live in our own little world we can only live here

really you can be frightened of all that out there but you're living here and what are you what sort of thoughts are you having in your own world see I don't believe that we have to be in fear I really don't you know one of the things that I like to teach people uh when there's a problem and we all have problems not all of us can deal with the world and War but we can deal with our own problems when a problem comes up one of the best things to say is all is well

everything is working out for my highest good and out of this situation this so-called problem only good will come and I am safe and you know this is something that's very powerful all is well everything is worth working out for my highest good out of this experience only good will come and I am safe and what that does it quiets your mind down or my mind down long enough for the universe to find a solution for the so-called problem but what about the person watching right now who is saying Louise hey I love you and

I'm glad I'm glad hear you say that but Louise with all the respect right now in my life you don't know all is not well okay everything is not working out for my good I do not feel safe right now no matter how many times I say that all is not life right now if you say it enough times it will become so it really will because you will be changing your thinking if I have a real problem I will Babble that incessantly for innumerable times because I know it will change the atmosphere around me

it'll change what I'm giving out and yes it's true that to start with that may be a terrible problem and you can't do anything about it right now but as you start to know that you are safe and you're in a universe that loves you I mean how many times a day do people say this loves me really loves me and I'm so grateful and I'm so appreciative of life and if you're a person that does that a lot your life has to get better it has to life will find little miraculous ways to bring

good into your life what about those persons Dan I'm still with you now what about those persons I'm with you all right so so we're together that's a good thing what about those persons watching right now who through no fault of their own we talked a moment ago about this being the fifth anniversary of the Iraq we also have been in a huge conversation although not really we've been talking about talking about race given what Mr Obama had to say recently but but I think now Louise of persons who because of their color of their

skin in some in some instances because of their gender because of their sexual orientation um because of poverty who throw no through no fault of their own find themselves in places where again no matter how many times they tell themselves that to your earlier point they live in a universe that does treat them because of those things so when you call this down I can call it down all day it doesn't change what color I am it doesn't change my impov state it doesn't change no but you can it'll change your belief about yourself and

when your belief about yourself changes the way the universe reacts to you will change MH you know I know I'm not black but I grew up when I came out into the world I had terrible terrible feelings about myself and I brought awful experiences to me but wearn different things when I learned to use my mind for me instead of against me it made a big difference now I am not a sales person I don't try to force anyone to believe this I'm a teacher and if people want to come I will give them ideas

lots of ideas about things that they can do to help improve the quality of their lives and I think it belongs everywhere um I've had people take my work into prisons now I'm not saying everybody's changes no no matter where everybody's going to change but if you can change a percentage if you can get a percentage of people in any group to start seeing life in a different way and to open their Consciousness then you've started a something you've really started a good process because if two people get it you're going to get a third

and the next thing you know you have a bunch of people who have been willing to change their Consciousness and they're changing their life and it's that's going to it's the way it's going to be you can't say oh we're going to fix everything and I think war in Iraq is terrible I think it's just awful let let me um full disclosure here I have an imprint as you well know called Smiley books that's distributed by Hay House and I thank you and Reed for that um and every time I get a chance to talk

to you or see you or sit down for dinner with you there are two things that always strike me and never even said this to you so now I confess this on National Television uh one I am always amazed uh and I think the viewer gets this now at how positive you always are your outlook is always positive and I get I get my charged by just being in your space so you're always positive number one overwhelmingly abundantly positive but the second thing is you didn't know this but there was an occasion where we were

sitting down for dinner and for a couple of reasons even though I'm you know you know younger than you I was struggling with this notion at that very moment of getting something just happened to me and I was struggling with this notion of getting older you sit here now at 81 and you are as happy now as ever yes talk to me and everybody watching about the joy for you of Aging the joy of no it's the joy of living in the moment if I'm living in this moment if you ask me what I did

yesterday I have to look it up yeah or I say to my secretary give me bring me the book what did I do yesterday because I am here now and if I want to know what I'm going to do tomorrow I have to look it up in the book mhm I'm here so it doesn't matter what age I am I am right here and I'm I'm enjoying this now I like that yes tomorrow's going to come and do what it does you know but we're going to be here it's so it's really that simple for

you well for me it is I take good care of myself I exercise well I uh eat well and I'm very grateful for life I have a lot of gratitude I say thank you a lot L just out there oh thank you that was so great you know and it's it's I it's my attitude towards life that makes a big difference to that point of Simplicity how much of the mess that we deal with you think we deal with because we don't make things simple enough in our lives we well Simplicity helps you know we

make life extraordinarily complicated we make this big soap opera and it's really very simple all is well yeah everything's working for my good oh everything's working for my highest good out of this experience only good will come and I am safe and I am safe yeah safety is important to feel it makes you help you relax yeah a lot of people though in the world that we live don't feel safe in this country and around the world I I know that I know but if we can get little pockets of safety they will grow yeah

talk to me in the time I have left about this burgeoning blossoming ever growing company called Hay House that you had no idea would ever start when you did your first book self-published how how how did this Hay House Empire come to be well it didn't start as an Empire it started as one little book that I wrote and I didn't believe the big boys would publish it or or they change it if they tried to so I printed it myself and then I did another little book and then I did a tape and then

one day I printed somebody else's book and that's when you become a publisher but all started very very small very small has the mission over the years changed from when you first started to help people it's always been that I have never said if I do this I will make mnny I've said if I if I can how can I help more people and I've discovered that you cannot stop the money when you come from that space and and in the early days I was working with people with AIDS I was one of the first

people who said I don't think you have to die and I don't think you're bad let's see what we can do if we take a positive approach and I wound up on Oprah and of course Oprah opens big doors for you so I was on the New York Times bestseller list for 14 weeks this was 20 years ago MH and that started Hay House getting bigger and bigger now I'm back on Oprah and the New York Times bestseller list and I'm now the ninth she added the four the New York Times added the 14 weeks

I was on 20 years ago right to what I am where I am now and it's the same book how many people can have the same book 20 years later go back on the bestseller list well I can tell you this if not for the rest of us certainly for Louise hey everything is working out for her highest good damn right and that's why I love her this book now out in paperback the international bestseller more than 30 million Cod You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay also available now on DVD yes you can

the movie the movie exactly I'm honored to have you here good to see you thank you thank you very you too