[00:00:00]
Louise Hay: Hello, this is Louise Hay. Before I begin, there are a few suggestions I'd like to make. I have set up my book to take you through a session, just as I would if you came to me as a private client or attended one of my workshops. This will work just as well for you as a listener. If you will do the exercises progressively as they appear in the text. By the time you have finished, you will have begun to change your life. I suggest you listen through the tape once, then listen again. Only this time, do each exercise in depth. Give yourself time to work with each one. Each chapter opens with an affirmation. Each one of these is good to use when you are working on that area of your life. Take two or three days to study and work with each chapter. Keep saying and writing the affirmation that opens the chapter. The chapters close with a treatment. This is a flow of positive ideas designed to change consciousness. Go through this treatment several times a day. Know that when you work with these ideas, my loving support is with you.

[00:01:22]
Louise Hay: You you can heal your life. Chapter One. What I Believe. The gateways to wisdom and knowledge are always open. Life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back. What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. I believe that everyone, myself included, is responsible for everything in our lives. The best and the worst. Every thought we think is creating our future. Each one of us creates our experiences by our thoughts and our feelings. The thoughts we think and the words we speak create our experiences. We create the situations. And then we give our power away by blaming the other person for our frustration. No person, no place and no thing has any power over us. For we are the only thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.

[00:02:30]
Louise Hay: Which of these statements sound like you? People are out to get me? Or everyone is always helpful. Each one of these beliefs will create quite different experiences. What we believe about ourselves and about life becomes true for us. The universe totally supports us in every thought we choose to think and believe. Put another way, our subconscious mind accepts whatever we choose to believe. What I believe about myself and about life becomes true for me. What you choose to think about yourself and about life becomes true for you. And we have unlimited choices about what we can think. When we know this, then it makes sense to choose everyone is always helpful rather than people are out to get me. The universal power never judges or criticizes us. It only accepts us at our own value. Then it reflects our beliefs in our lives.

[00:03:39]
Louise Hay: If I want to believe that life is lonely and that nobody loves me, then that is what I will find in my world. However, if I am willing to release that belief and to affirm for myself that love is everywhere and I am loving and lovable and to hold on to that new affirmation and to repeat it often, then it will become true for me. Now loving people will come into my life. The people already in my life will be more loving to me and I will find myself easily expressing love to others. Most of us have foolish ideas about who we are and many, many rigid rules about how life should be lived. This is not to condemn us, for each of us is doing the very best we can at this very moment. If we knew better, if we had more understanding and awareness, then we would do it differently. Please don't put yourself down for being where you are. The very fact that you have found this tape and have discovered me, means that you are ready to make a new and positive change in your life. Acknowledge this for yourself.

[00:04:52]
Louise Hay: Men don't cry, women can't handle money. What limiting ideas to live with. When we are very little, we learn how to feel about ourselves and about life by the reactions of the adults around us. It is the way we learn what to think about ourselves and about our world. Now, if you lived with people who were very unhappy or frightened or guilty or angry, then you learned a lot of negative things about yourself and about your world. I never do anything right. It's all my fault. If I get angry, I'm a bad person. Beliefs like this create a frustrating life. When we grow up, we have a tendency to recreate the emotional environment of our early home life. This is not good or bad, right or wrong. It is just what we know inside as home.

[00:05:56]
Louise Hay: We also tend to recreate in our personal relationships, the relationships we had with our mothers or with our fathers, or that they had between them. How often have you had a lover or a boss who was just like your mother or father? We also treat ourselves the way our parents treated us. We scold and punish ourselves in the same way. You can almost hear the words when you listen. We also love and encourage ourselves in the same way. If we were loved and encouraged as children. You never do anything right. It's all your fault. How often have you said this to yourself? You are wonderful. I love you. How often do you tell yourself this? However, I would not blame our parents. We are all victims of victims, and they could not possibly have taught us anything they did not know.

[00:07:00]
Louise Hay: If your mother did not know how to love herself or your father did not know how to love himself, then it would be impossible for them to teach you to love yourself. They were doing the best they could with what they had been taught as children. If you want to understand your parents more, get them to talk about their own childhood. And if you listen with compassion, you will learn where their fears and rigid patterns came from. Those people who did all that stuff to you were just as frightened and scared as you are.

[00:07:39]
Louise Hay: I believe we choose our parents. Each one of us decides to incarnate upon this planet at particular points in time and space. We have chosen to come here to learn a particular lesson that will advance us upon our spiritual evolutionary pathway. We choose our sex, our color, our country, and then we look around for the particular set of parents who will mirror the pattern we are bringing in to work on in this lifetime. Then, when we grow up, we usually point our fingers accusingly at our parents and whimper you did it to me.

[00:08:21]
Louise Hay: But really we chose them because they were perfect for what we wanted to work on overcoming. We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience. Well, I believe you created those experiences over and over because they mirrored something you believed about yourself. It doesn't really matter how long we've had a problem or how big it is, or how life threatening it is. The point of power is always in the present moment.

[00:09:06]
Louise Hay: All the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to this moment have been created by thoughts and beliefs you have held in the past. They were created by the thoughts and words you used yesterday, last week, last month, last year, 10, 20, 30, 40 or more years ago, depending on how old you are. However, that is your past. It is over and done with. What is important in this moment is what you are choosing to think and believe and say right now. These thoughts and words will create your future. Your point of power is in this present moment, forming the experiences of tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, et cetera. You might notice what thought you are thinking at this moment. Is it negative or positive?

[00:10:03]
Louise Hay: Do you want this thought to be creating your future? Just notice and be aware. The only thing we're ever dealing with is a thought. And a thought can be changed no matter what the problem is. Our experiences are just outer effects of inner thoughts. Even self hatred is only hating a thought you have about yourself. You have a thought that says I'm a bad person and this thought produces a feeling and you buy into the feeling. However, if you don't have the thought, you won't have the feeling and thoughts can be changed. Change the thought and the feeling must go. This is only to show us where we get many of our beliefs. But let us not use this information as an excuse to stay stuck in our pain. The past has no power over us.

[00:11:04]
Louise Hay: It doesn't matter how long we've had a negative pattern. The point of power is in the present moment. What a wonderful thing to realize. We can begin to be free in this moment. Believe it or not, we do choose our thoughts. We may habitually think the same thought over and over so that it does not seem like we are choosing the thought. But we did make the original choice. We can refuse to think certain thoughts. Look how often you have refused to think a positive thought about yourself. You can also refuse to think a negative thought about yourself. It seems to me that everyone on this planet who I know or have worked with is suffering from self hatred and guilt to one degree or another.

[00:11:57]
Louise Hay: The more self hatred and guilt we have, the less our life works. And the less self hatred and guilt we have, the better our lives work on all levels. The innermost belief for everyone I have worked with is always, I'm not good enough. And we often add to that and I don't do enough or I don't deserve. Does this sound like you often saying or implying or feeling that you are not good enough? But for whom? And according to whose standards? If this belief is very strong in you, then how can you possibly have created a loving, joyous, prosperous, healthy life? Somehow your main subconscious belief would always be contradicting it. Somehow you would never quite get it together, for something would always be going wrong somewhere.

[00:12:55]
Louise Hay: I find that resentment, criticism, guilt and fear cause more problems than anything else. These four things cause the major problems in our bodies and in our lives. These feelings come from blaming others and not taking responsibility for our own experiences. You see, if we are all responsible for everything in our lives, then there is no one to blame. Whatever is happening out there is only a mirror of our own inner thinking. I'm not condoning other people's poor behavior, but it is our beliefs that attract people who will treat us that way. If you find yourself saying, everyone always does such and such to me, criticizes me, is never there for me, uses me like a doormat, abuses me, then this is your pattern. There is some thought in you that attracts people who exhibit this behavior. When you no longer think that way, they will go elsewhere. You will no longer attract them.

[00:14:06]
Louise Hay: On the physical level, resentment, long held, can eat away at the body and become the disease we call cancer. Criticism as a permanent habit can often lead to arthritis in the body. Guilt always looks for punishment, and punishment creates pain. Fear and the tension it produces can create things like baldness, ulcers and even sore feet. I have found that forgiving and releasing resentment will dissolve even cancer. While this may sound simplistic, I have seen and experienced it working. We can change our attitude toward the past. The past is over and done. We cannot change that now. Yet we can change our thoughts about the past.

[00:15:05]
Louise Hay: How foolish for us to punish ourselves in the present moment because someone hurt us in the long ago past. I often say to people who have deep resentment patterns, please begin to dissolve the resentment now, when it is relatively easy. Don't wait until you're under the threat of a surgeon's knife or on your deathbed, when you may have to deal with panic too. When we are in a state of panic, it is very difficult to focus our minds on the healing work. We have to take time out to dissolve the fears first.

[00:15:41]
Louise Hay: If we choose to believe we are helpless victims, then the universe will support us in that belief and we will just go down the drain. It is vital that we release these foolish, outmoded, negative ideas and beliefs that do not support us and nourish us. Even our concept of God needs to be one that is for us, not against us. To release the past, we must be willing to forgive. We need to choose to release the past and forgive everyone, ourselves included. We may not know how to forgive and we may not want to forgive, but the very fact that we say we are willing to forgive begins the healing process. It is imperative for our own healing that we release the past and forgive everyone. I forgive you for not being the way I wanted you to be. I forgive you and I set you free. This affirmation sets us free.

[00:16:51]
Louise Hay: All disease comes from a state of unforgiveness. Whenever we are ill, we need to search our hearts to see who it is we need to forgive. The very person you find it hardest to forgive is the one you need to let go of the most. Forgiveness means giving up, letting go. It has nothing to do with condoning poor behavior, it's just letting the whole thing go. We do not have to know how to forgive. All we need to do is to be willing to forgive. The universe will take care of the house. We understand our own pain so well how hard it is for most of us to understand that they, whoever it is we need most to forgive, were also in pain. We need to understand that they were doing the best they could with the understanding, awareness and knowledge that they had at that time.

[00:17:55]
Louise Hay: When people come to me with a problem, I don't care what it is poor health, lack of money, unfulfilling relationships or stifled creativity. There is only one thing I ever work on, and that is loving the self. I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works. It's as if little miracles are everywhere. Our health improves, we attract more money, our relationships become more fulfilling, and we begin to express ourselves in creatively, fulfilling ways. All this seems to happen without our even trying. Loving and approving of yourself, creating a space of safety, trusting and deserving and accepting will create organization in your mind. Create more loving relationships in your life, attract a new job and a new and better place to live, and even enable your body weight to normalize.

[00:19:06]
Louise Hay: People who love themselves and their bodies neither abuse themselves nor others. Self approval and self acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our life. Loving the self, to me, begins with never ever criticizing ourselves for anything. Criticism locks us into the very pattern we are trying to change. Understanding and being gentle with ourselves helps us to move out of it. Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Approve of yourself and see what happens.

[00:19:58]
Louise Hay: In the infinity of life, where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete. I believe in a power far greater than I am that flows through me every moment of every day. I open myself to the wisdom within, knowing that there is only one intelligence in this universe. Out of this one intelligence comes all the answers, all the solutions, all the healings, all the new creations. I trust this power and intelligence knowing that whatever I need to know is revealed to me and that whatever I need comes to me in the perfect time, space and sequence. All is well in my world.

[00:20:50]
Louise Hay: Chapter Two. What is the problem? It is safe to look within. My body doesn't work. It hurts, bleeds, aches, oozes, twists, blood, blows up, limps, burns, ages, can't see, can't hear, rots away plus whatever else you may have created. I think I've heard them all. My relationships don't work. They are smothering, absent, demanding. Don't support me, always criticizing me, unloving, never leave me alone. Pick on me all the time, don't want to be bothered with me, walk all over me, never listen to me. Plus whatever else you may have created. Yes, I've heard them all too. My finances don't work, they are nonexistent, seldom, there never enough just out of reach, go out faster than they come in, won't cover the bills, slip through my fingers. Plus whatever else you may have created. Of course I've heard them all.

[00:21:55]
Louise Hay: My life doesn't work. I never get to do what I want to do. I can't please anyone. I don't know what I want to do. There's never any time for me. My needs and desires are always left out. I'm only doing this to please them. I'm just a doormat. Nobody cares what I want to do. I have no talent, I can't do anything right. All I do is procrastinate. Nothing ever works for me. Plus whatever else you have created for yourself all these I have heard and more. Whenever I ask a new client what is going on in their life, I usually get several of those answers. I know these complaints are only outer effects of inner thought patterns. Beneath inner thought patterns is another, deeper, more fundamental pattern that is the basis of all the outer effects.

[00:22:56]
Louise Hay: I listen to the words they use as I ask some basic questions what is happening in your life? How is your health? What do you do for a living? Do you like your work? How are your finances? How is your love life? How did the last relationship end? And the relationship before that? How did it end? Tell me about your childhood briefly. I watch body postures and facial movements. Mostly I really listen to the words they say. Thoughts and words create our future experiences. As I listen, I understand why clients have particular problems. The words we speak are indicative of our inner thought patterns.

[00:23:53]
Louise Hay: Sometimes the words they use do not match the experiences they describe. Then I know either they are not in touch with what is really going on or they are lying to me. Either one is a starting point and gives us a basis from which to begin. Exercise, I should. The next thing I do is to give them a pad and pen and ask them to write on the top of the page, I should. I ask them to list several ways to finish the sentence. Some people find it difficult to begin and some have so many things to write. Then I ask them to read the list to me one at a time, beginning each sentence with I should. As they read each one, I ask, why? The answers that come out are interesting and revealing, such as my mother said I should because I'm afraid not to. Because I have to be perfect. Well, everybody has to do that. Because I'm too lazy, too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too dumb, too ugly, too worthless.

[00:25:03]
Louise Hay: These answers show where they're stuck in their beliefs and limitations. You see, I believe that should is one of the most damaging words in our language. Every time we use should, we are in effect, saying wrong. Either we are wrong or we were wrong, or we're going to be wrong. I don't think we need more wrongs in our life. We need to have more freedom of choice. I would like to take the word should and remove it from the vocabulary forever. I replace it with the word could. Could gives us a choice and we are never wrong. Then I ask them to reread the list one at a time, except this time to begin each sentence by saying if I really wanted to, I could.

[00:25:54]
Louise Hay: This puts a whole new light on the subject. And as they do this, I ask them gently why haven't you? And now we hear different answers. I don't want to. I'm afraid. I don't know how because I'm not good enough. Too often people berate themselves for years for something they never wanted to do in the first place. Or they criticize themselves for not doing something that someone else said they should do. When they can see that, they can just drop it from the should list. What a relief that is. Look at all the people who force themselves for years into a career they don't like only because their parents said they should become a dentist or a teacher. How often have we felt inferior because we were told we should be smarter or richer or more creative?

[00:26:52]
Louise Hay: What is there on your should list that could be dropped with a sense of relief? We notice that many of the things we thought we should do are things we never wanted to do and that we were only trying to please others. So many times it is because we are afraid or feel that we're not good enough. We start a process of releasing the feeling of being wrong because we are not fitting someone else's standards. Next I explain to my clients my philosophy of life. Remember, I believe life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back. The universe supports every thought we choose to think and to believe.

[00:27:39]
Louise Hay: When we are little, we learn how to feel about ourselves by the reactions of the adults around us. These beliefs will be recreated as experiences as we grow up. With thought patterns, the point of power is always in the present moment. Changes can begin in this moment. In sessions with clients, I explain that no matter what their problem seems to be, there is only one thing I ever work on with anyone. This is loving the self. Love is the miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracle. I'm not talking about vanity or arrogance or being stuck up for that is not love, that is only fear. I am talking about having a great respect for ourselves and a gratitude for the miracle of our body and of our mind.

[00:28:36]
Louise Hay: Love to me is appreciation to such a degree that it fills my heart to overflowing. Love goes in any direction. I can feel love for the very process of life itself, the joy of being alive, the beauty I see, another person knowledge. The process of the mind, our bodies and the way they work animals, birds, fishes, vegetation in all its forms, the universe and the way it works.

[00:29:16]
Louise Hay: What can you add to this list? Let's look at some of the ways. We don't love ourselves. We scold and criticize ourselves endlessly, we mistreat our bodies with food or alcohol or drugs. We choose to believe we are unlovable. We are afraid to charge a decent price for our services, we create illnesses and pain in our bodies, we procrastinate on things that would benefit us. We live in chaos and disorder we create debt and burdens, we attract lovers and mates that belittle us.

[00:30:04]
Louise Hay: What are some of your ways? If we deny our good in any way, it is an act of not loving ourselves. I remember I worked with a client who wore glasses, and one day we released an old fear from childhood. And the next day, she awakened to find that her contact lenses were bothering her too much to wear. And she looked around and found her eyesight was perfectly clear. Yet she spent the whole day saying, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. And the next day she was back to wearing contacts. Our subconscious mind has no sense of humor. She couldn't believe that she had created perfect eyesight.

[00:30:50]
Louise Hay: Lack of self worth is another expression of not loving ourselves. Tom was a very good artist and he had several wealthy clients who loved to have him decorate a wall or two in their homes yet somehow he was always behind in his own bill paying. His original quote was never enough to cover the time involved to complete the work.

[00:31:15]
Louise Hay: Anyone who gives a service or creates a one of a kind product can charge any price. People with wealth love to pay for what they get. It gives the item more value. More examples of lack of self worth. Our partner is tired and grouchy and we wonder what we have done wrong to cause it. He takes us out once or twice and never calls again. We think something is wrong with us. Our marriage ends and we are sure we're a failure. We're afraid to ask for a raise. Our bodies do not match those in gentlemen's quarterly or Vogue magazine, and we feel inferior. We don't make the sale or get the part, and we're sure we're not good enough. We're afraid of intimacy and allowing anyone to get too close, so we have anonymous sex. We can't be can't make decisions because we're sure they'll be wrong. How do you express your lack of self worth? How perfect you were when you were a tiny baby. Babies do not have to do anything to become perfect. They are already perfect and they act as if they know it. They know they are the center of the universe.

[00:32:38]
Louise Hay: They're not afraid to ask for what they want. They freely express their emotions. You know when a baby is angry. In fact, the whole neighborhood knows. You also know when they're happy, when their smiles light up a room and they are full of love. Tiny babies will die if they do not get love. Once we are older, we learn to live without love, but babies will not stand for it. Babies also love every part of their bodies, even their own feces. They have incredible courage and they have no guilt and no shame. We were all like that. Then we began to listen to adults around us who had learned to be fearful, and we began to deny our own magnificence. I never believe it when clients try to convince me how terrible they are or how unlovable they are. My work is to bring them back to the time when they really knew how to love themselves. Mirror exercise. I suggest a mirror exercise. I ask a client to pick up a small mirror, to look into their eyes, and to say their name, and I love and accept you exactly as you are. This exercise is so difficult for many people.

[00:34:04]
Louise Hay: Seldom do I get a calm reaction, let alone an enjoyment of the exercise. Some are close to tears, some get angry, some belittle their features or qualities, some insist they can't do it. I even had one man throw the mirror across the room. It took him several months before he could begin to relate to himself in the mirror. For years, I looked into the mirror only to criticize what I saw there. Recalling the endless hours I spent plucking my eyebrows, trying to make myself barely acceptable amuses me now. I also remembered it used to frighten me to look into my own eyes. This simple mirror exercise shows us so much. Usually in less than an hour, I am able to get some of the core issues beneath the outer problem. If we only work on the level of the problem, we can spend endless time working out each and every detail, and the minute we think we have it all fixed up, it will crop up somewhere else. The problem is rarely the real problem. She was so concerned with her looks and especially with her teeth. She went from dentist to dentist, feeling each one had made her look only worse.

[00:35:26]
Louise Hay: She went to have her nose fixed and they did a poor job. Each professional was mirroring her belief that she was ugly. Her problem was not with her looks, but that she was convinced something was wrong with her. There was another woman who had terrible breath. It was uncomfortable to be around her. She was studying to be a Minister, and her outer demeanor was pious and spiritual. Beneath this was a raging current of anger and jealousy that exploded now and then when she thought someone might be threatening her position. Her inner thoughts were expressed through her breath, and she was offensive even when she pretended to be loving. No one threatened her but herself. He was only 15 when his mother brought him to me with Hodgkin's disease and three months to live. His mother was understandably hysterical and difficult to deal with. But the boy was bright and clever and wanted to live. He was willing to do anything I told him to, including changing the way he thought and spoke. His separated parents were always arguing, and he really did not have a settled home life. He wanted desperately to be an actor.

[00:36:42]
Louise Hay: The pursuit of fame and fortune far outweighed his ability to experience joy. He thought he could be acceptable and worthwhile only if he had fame. I taught him to love and accept himself, and he got well. He has now grown up and appears on Broadway with regularity. As he learned to experience the joy of being himself, the parts in plays opened up for him. Being overweight is another example of how we waste a lot of energy trying to correct a problem that is not the real problem. People often spend years and years fighting fat and are still overweight. They blame all their problems on being overweight. The excess weight is only an outer effect of a deep inner problem. When we feel frightened or insecure or not good enough, many of us will put on extra weight for protection. To spend our time berating ourselves for being too heavy, to feel guilty about every bite of food we eat, to do all the numbers we do on ourselves when we gain weight are just a waste of time. 20 years later, we can still be in the same situation because we have not even begun to deal with the real problem.

[00:38:06]
Louise Hay: All we have done is to make ourselves more frightened and insecure, and then we need more weight for protection. So I refuse to focus on excess weight or on diets. The only diet that does work is a mental diet, dieting from negative thoughts. I say to clients, Let's just put that issue to one side for the time being while we work on a few other things first. They will often tell me that they can't love themselves because they are so fat, or as one girl put it, too round at the edges. I explain that when we begin to love and approve of ourselves, it's amazing how weight just disappears from our bodies. Sometimes clients even get angry with me as I explain how simple it is to change their lives. They may feel I do not understand their problem. One woman became very upset and said, I came here to get help with my dissertation, not learn to love myself. To me, it was so obvious that her main problem was a lot of selfhatred and that this permeated every part of her life, including writing her dissertation. She could not succeed at anything as long as she felt so worthless.

[00:39:28]
Louise Hay: She couldn't hear me and left in tears, coming back one year later with the same problem, plus a lot of other problems. Some people are not ready and there is no judgment. We all begin to make our changes in the right time space sequence for us. The real problem. Here is a client who has just looked into the harmlessless little mirror and they are all upset. I smile with delight and say, Good, now we are looking at the real problem. Now we can begin to clear out what is really standing in your way. I talk more about loving the self, about how for me, loving the self begins with never, ever criticizing ourselves for anything. I watch their faces as I ask them if they criticize themselves. Their reactions tell me so much. Well, of course I do. All the time. Not as much as I used to. Well, how am I going to change if I don't criticize myself? Doesn't everyone? To the latter, I answer, We are not talking about everyone. We are talking about you. Why do you criticize yourself? What is wrong with you? And as they talk, I make a list.

[00:40:50]
Louise Hay: What they often say coincides with their should list. They may feel they are too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too dumb, too old, too young, too ugly, or that they're too late, too early, too lazy, and on and on and on. It's almost always too something. Finally, we get down to the bottom line and they say I am not good enough. Hurrah. Hurrah. We've finally found the central issue. They criticize themselves because they have learned to believe they are not good enough. Clients are always amazed at how fast we've gotten to this point. Now we do not have to bother with any of the side effects like body problems, relationship problems, money problems, or the lack of creative expression. We can put all our energy into dissolving the cause of the whole thing, not loving the self.

[00:41:50]
Louise Hay: In the infinity of life, where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete. I am always divinely protected and guided. It is safe for me to look within myself. It is safe for me to look into the past. It is safe for me to enlarge my viewpoint of life. I am far more than my personality, past, present or future. I now choose to rise above my personality problems to recognize the magnificence of my being. I am totally willing to learn to love myself. All is well in my world.

[00:42:40]
Louise Hay: Chapter Three where does it come from? The past has no power over me. All right. We've gone through a lot of stuff and we've sifted through what we thought the problem was. Now we come up with what I believe is the real problem. We feel we are not good enough and there is a lack of self love. From the way I look at life, if there is any problem, then this has to be true. So let us look at where this belief came from. How did we go from being a tiny baby who knows the perfection of itself and of life to being a person who has problems and feels unworthy and unlovable to one degree or another? People who already love themselves can love themselves even more. Think of a rose from the time it is a tiny bud as it opens to full flower till the last petal falls.

[00:43:42]
Louise Hay: It is always beautiful, always perfect, always changing. And so it is with us. We are always perfect, always beautiful and ever changing. We are doing the best we can with the understanding, awareness and knowledge that we have. As we gain more understanding, awareness and knowledge, we will do things differently. Mental House Cleaning. Now is the time to take a look at some of the beliefs that have been running us. Some people find this part of the cleansing process very painful, but it need not be. We must look at what is there before we can clean it out. If you want to clean a room thoroughly, you will pick up and examine everything in it. Some things you will look at with love and you will dust them or polish them to give them new beauty.

[00:44:40]
Louise Hay: Some things you will see need refinishing or repair and you will make a note to do that. Some things will never serve you again and it becomes time to let those things go. Old magazines and newspapers and dirty paper plates can be dropped into the waste basket very quickly. There is no need to get angry in order to clean a room. It is the same thing when we are cleaning our mental house. There is no need to get angry just because some of the beliefs in it are ready to be tossed out. Let them go. As easily as you would scrape bits of food into the trash after a meal, would you really dig into yesterday's garbage to make tonight's meal? Do you dig into old mental garbage to create tomorrow's experiences? If a thought or belief does not serve you, let it go.

[00:45:39]
Louise Hay: There is no written law that says that because you once believed something that you have to continue to believe it forever. Look at some of these limited beliefs and where they came from the limiting belief I'm not good enough and where it may have come from a father who repeatedly told him he was stupid. He said he wanted to be a success so his daddy could be proud of him. But he was riddled with guilt, which created resentment and all he could produce was one failure after another. Daddy kept financing businesses for him. One after another, they failed.

[00:46:18]
Louise Hay: He used failure to get even. He made his daddy pay and pay and pay. And of course he was the biggest loser. Limiting belief, lack of self love where it came from trying to win Daddy's approval the last thing she wanted was to be like her father. They couldn't agree on anything and were always arguing. She only wanted his approval, but instead all she got was criticism. Her body was full of pains. Her father had exactly the same kind of pain. She did not realize her anger was creating her pains, just as her father's anger was creating pain for him.

[00:47:00]
Louise Hay: Limiting belief life is dangerous. Where it came from? A frightened father. Another client saw life as grim and harsh. It was difficult for her to laugh and when she did she would become frightened that something bad would happen. She had been reared with the admonition don't laugh or they might get you. Limiting belief I'm not good enough where it came from being abandoned and ignored it was difficult for him to talk. Silence had become a way of life for him. He had just come off drugs and alcohol and was convinced he was terrible. I discovered his mother had died when he was very young and he had been reared by an aunt. The aunt seldom spoke except to give an order and he was brought up in silence. He even ate alone in silence. And stayed quietly in his room day after day.

[00:48:00]
Louise Hay: He had a lover who was also a silent man, and they spent most of their time alone in silence. The lover died, and once again he was alone. Exercise. The next exercise is to make a list of all the things your parents said were wrong with you. What were the negative messages you heard? Give yourself enough time to remember as many as you can. What did they say about money? What did they say about your body? What did they say about love and relationships? What did they say about your creative talents? What were the limiting or negative things they said to you? If you can just look objectively at these items and say to yourself, so that's where that belief came from. Now let's dig a little deeper. What other negative messages did you hear as a child? From relatives, from teachers, from friends, from authority figures, from your church? Write them all down. Take your time and be aware of what feelings are going on in your body.

[00:49:22]
Louise Hay: What you have are the thoughts that need to be removed from your consciousness. These are the very beliefs you have that are making you feel not good enough. Seeing yourself as a child. If we were to take a three year old child and put it in the middle of the room, and you and I were to start yelling at the child, telling it how stupid it was, how it could never do anything right, how it should do this and shouldn't do that and look at the mess it made and maybe we hit it a few times we will end up with a frightened little child who sits in the corner or one who tears up the place. The child will go one of these two ways. But we will never know the potential of that child.

[00:50:10]
Louise Hay: If we take the same little child and tell it how much we love it how much we care that we love the way it looks and love how bright and clever it is that we love the way it does things. And that it's okay for it to make mistakes as it learns and that we will always be there for it, no matter what. Then the potential that comes out of that child will blow your mind. Each one of us has a three year old child within us, and we often spend most of our time yelling at that kid in ourselves, then we wonder why our lives don't work. If you had a friend who was always criticizing you, would you want to be around that person? Perhaps you were treated this way as a child, and that is sad. However, that is a long time ago. And if you are now choosing to treat yourself in the same way, then it is sadder still. Now, here in front of us, we have a list of the negative messages we heard as a child. How does this list correspond with what you believe to be wrong with you?

[00:51:22]
Louise Hay: Are they almost the same? Probably yes. We base our life script on our early messages. We are all good little children and obediently accept what they tell us as truth. It would be very easy just to blame our parents and be victims for the rest of our lives. But that wouldn't be very much fun, and it certainly wouldn't get us out of our stuck position. Blaming your family. Blame is one of the surest ways to stay in a problem. In blaming another, we give our power away. Understanding enables us to rise above the issue and take control of our future. The past cannot be changed. The future is shaped by our current thinking. It is imperative for our freedom to understand that our parents were doing the best they could with the understanding, awareness, and knowledge that they had. Whenever we blame someone else, we are not taking responsibility for ourselves.

[00:52:34]
Louise Hay: Those people who did all those terrible things to you were just as frightened as you are. They felt just the same helplessness as you. The only things they could possibly teach you are what they had been taught. How much do you know about your parents' childhood, especially before the age of 10? If it is still possible for you to find out, ask them. If you're able to find out about your parents' childhoods, you will more easily understand why they did what they did. Understanding will bring you compassion. If you can't find out, try to imagine what it must have been like for them. What childhood would create an adult like that? You need this knowledge for your own freedom. You can't free yourself until you free them.

[00:53:33]
Louise Hay: You can't forgive yourself until you forgive them. If you demand perfection from them, you will demand perfection from yourself, and you will be miserable all your life. Choosing our parents. I agree with the theory that we choose our parents. The lessons we learn seem perfectly matched to the weaknesses of the parents we have. I believe that we are all on an endless journey through eternity. We come to this planet to learn particular lessons that are necessary for our spiritual evolution. We choose our sex, our color, our country, and then we look around for the perfect set of parents who will mirror our patterns. Our visits to this planet are like going to school. If you want to become a beautician, you go to beauty school. If you want to become a mechanic, you go to mechanic school. If you want to become a lawyer, you go to law school. The parents you pick this time around are the perfect couple who are experts in what you have chosen to learn. When we grow up, we have a tendency to point our fingers accusingly at our parents and say, You did it to me, but I believe we chose them.

[00:54:58]
Louise Hay: Listening to others, our older brothers and sisters are like gods to us when we are little. If they were unhappy, they probably took it out on us physically or verbally. They might have said things like, I'll tell on you for... Instilling guilt. You're just a baby. You can't do that. You're too stupid to play with us. Teachers at school often influence us greatly. In the fifth grade, a teacher told me emphatically that I was too tall to be a dancer. I believed her and put away my dancing ambitions until I was too old to make dancing a career. Did you understand that tests and grades were only to see how much knowledge you had at a given time? Or were you a child who allowed tests and grades to measure your self worth? Our early friends share their own misinformation about life with us. The other kids at school can tease us and leave lasting hurts. When I was a child, my last name was Loney, and the kids used to call me lunatic. Neighbors also have an influence, not only because of their remarks, but also because we're asked, What will the neighbors think?

[00:56:19]
Louise Hay: Think back to what other authority figures were influential in your childhood. And of course, there are the strong and very persuasive statements made by advertisements and periodicals and on television. All too many products are sold by making us feel we are unworthy or wrong if we don't use them. We are all here to transcend our early limitations, whatever they were. We are here to recognize our own magnificence and divinity, no matter what they told us. You have your negative beliefs to overcome, and I have my negative beliefs to overcome.

[00:57:04]
In the Infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. The past has no power over me because I am willing to learn and to change. I see the past as necessary to bring me where I am today. I am willing to begin where I am right now to clean the rooms of my mental house. I know it does not matter where I start, so I now begin with the smallest and the easiest rooms. And in that way, I will see results quickly. I am thrilled to be in the middle of this adventure, for I know that I will never go through this particular experience again. I am willing to set myself free and all is well in my world.

[00:58:02]
Louise Hay: Chapter Four, Is It True? Truth is the unchangeable part of me. The question, is it true or real? Has two answers, yes and no. It is true if you believe it to be true. It is not true if you believe it isn't true. The glass is both half full and half empty, depending on how you look at it. There are literally billions of thoughts we can choose. Most of us choose to think the same kinds of thoughts our parents used to think, but we don't have to continue to do this. There is no law written that says we can only think in one way. Whatever you choose to believe becomes true for you. Examine your thoughts. Whatever we believe becomes true for us. If you have a sudden financial disaster, then on some level you may believe you are unworthy of being comfortable with money, or you believe in burdens and debt, or you believe that nothing good ever lasts. Do you believe that life is out to get you? Or as I hear so often, I just can't win. If you seem unable to attract a relationship, you may believe nobody loves me, or I am unlovable.

[00:59:33]
Louise Hay: Perhaps you fear being dominated as your mother was, or maybe you think people are just out to hurt me. If you have poor health, you may believe illness runs in our family, or that you are a victim of the weather, or perhaps it's I was born to suffer, or it's just one thing after another. Or you may have a different belief. Perhaps you're not even aware of your belief. Most people really aren't. They just see the outer circumstances as being the way the cookie crumbles. Until someone can show you the connection between the outer experience and the inner thought, you remain a victim of life.

[01:00:20]
Louise Hay: The problem could be a financial disaster and the belief may be I'm not worthy of having money. Or the problem could be no friends with the belief nobody loves me. Or problems with work could come from a belief that I'm not good enough. Or always pleasing others could be the problem that comes from the belief I never get my way. The problem comes from a thought pattern, and thought patterns can be changed. It may feel true. It may seem true. All these problems we're wrestling with and juggling in our lives. However, no matter how difficult an issue we are dealing with, it is only an outer result or the effect of an inner thought pattern. If you don't know what thoughts are creating your problems, look at the problems in your life. Ask yourself, what kinds of thoughts am I having that are creating this? If you allow yourself to sit quietly, your inner intelligence will show you the answer. It's only a belief you learned as a child. Some of the things we believe are positive and nourishing. These thoughts serve us well all of our lives, such as look both ways before you cross the street.

[01:01:43]
Louise Hay: Other thoughts are very useful at the beginning, but as we grow older, they are no longer appropriate. Don't trust strangers may be good advice for a small child, but for an adult to continue this belief will only create isolation and loneliness. We so seldom sit down and ask ourselves, Is this really true? For instance, why do I believe things like, It's difficult for me to learn? Is that true for me now? Where did that belief come from? Do I still believe it because a first grade teacher told me that over and over? Would I be better off if I dropped that belief? Beliefs that boys don't cry and girls don't climb trees create men who hide their feelings and women who are afraid to be physical. If we were taught as a child that the world is a frightening place, then everything we hear that fits that belief we will accept as true for us. The same is true for don't trust strangers. Don't go out at night or people cheat you. On the other hand, if we could be taught early in life that the world is a safe place, then we would hold other beliefs.

[01:03:02]
Louise Hay: We could easily accept that love is everywhere and people are so friendly and I always have whatever I need. If you were taught as a child that it's all my fault, then you will walk through your life feeling guilty no matter what happens. Your belief will turn you into someone who's constantly saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. If you learn to believe as a child, I don't count, then this belief will always keep you at the end of the line wherever you are. Sometimes you will feel you're invisible when others fail to notice you. Did your childhood circumstances teach you to believe nobody loves me? Then surely you will be lonely. Even when you bring a friend or a relationship into your life, it will be short lived. Did your family teach you there is not enough? Then I'm sure you often feel as though the cupboard is bare, or you find you just get by, or are always in debt. I had a client who had been brought up in a household where they believed everything is wrong and can only get worse. His main joy in life was playing tennis, and then he hurt his knee.

[01:04:19]
Louise Hay: He went to every doctor he could find, and it only became worse. Finally, he could not play at all. Another person had been brought up as a preacher's son, and as a child, he was taught that everybody else comes first. The preacher's family always came last. Today, he's wonderful at helping his clients get the best deal, yet he's usually in debt with little pocket money. His belief still makes him last in line. If you believe it, it seems true. How often have we said, That's the way I am, or That's the way it is. Those words are saying that that's what we believe to be true for us. Usually what we believe is someone else's opinion we have incorporated into our belief systems. No doubt it fits right in with all the other things we believe. Are you one of the many people who will get up in the morning, see that it's raining and say, Oh, what a lousy day. It is not a lousy day. It is only a wet day. If we wear the appropriate clothing and change our attitude, we can have a lot of rainy day fun. If it is really our belief that rainy days are lousy days, then we will always greet rain with a sinking heart.

[01:05:40]
Louise Hay: We will fight the day rather than flow with what is happening at the moment. There is no good or bad weather. There is just weather and our individual reactions to it. If we want a joyous life, we must think joyous thoughts. If we want a prosperous life, we must think prosperous thoughts. If we want a loving life, we must think loving thoughts. Whatever we send out mentally or verbally will come back to us in like form. Each moment is a new beginning. The point of power is always in the present moment. You are never stuck. This is where changes take place right here and right now in our own minds. It doesn't matter how long we've had a negative pattern or an illness or a poor relationship, or lack of finances or selfhatred. We can begin to make a shift today. Your problem no longer needs to be the truth for you. It can now fade back to the nothingness from whence it came. You can do it. Remember, you are the only person that thinks in your mind. You are the power and authority in your world. Your thoughts and beliefs of the past have created this moment, and all the moments up to this moment.

[01:07:09]
Louise Hay: What you are now choosing to believe and think and say will create the next moment, and the next day, and the next month, and the next year. Yes, you, darling. I could give you marvelous advice coming from my years of experience. Yet you can continue to choose to think the same old thoughts. You can refuse to change and keep all your problem. You are the power in your world. You get to have whatever you choose to think. This moment begins the new process. A new beginning for you is right here and right now. Isn't that great to know? This moment, the point of power is where the change begins. Stop for a moment and catch your thought. What are you thinking right now? If it is true that your thoughts shape your life, would you want what you were just thinking right now to become true for you? If it's a thought of worry or anger or hurt or revenge or fear, how do you think this thought will come back to you? It is not always easy to catch our thoughts because they move so swiftly. However, we can begin right now to watch and listen to what we say.

[01:08:32]
Louise Hay: If you hear yourself expressing negative words of any sort, stop in midsentence. Either rephrase the sentence or just drop it. You could even say to it, out. Imagine yourself in line at a criteria, or perhaps at a buffet table in a luxurious hotel. Instead of dishes of food, there are dishes of thoughts. You get to choose any and all thoughts you wish. These thoughts create your future experiences. Now, if you choose thoughts that will create problems and pain, that's rather foolish. It's like choosing food that always makes you ill. We may do this once or twice, but soon we learn which foods upset our bodies. We stay away from them. Let us stay away from thoughts that create problems and pain. One of my early teachers, Dr. Raymond Charles Barker, would repeatedly say, When there is a problem, there is not something to do, there is something to know. Our minds create our future. When we have something in our present that is undesirable, then we must use our minds to change the situation, and we can begin to change it this very second. It is my deep desire that the topic, how your thoughts work, be the very first subject taught in school.

[01:10:01]
Louise Hay: I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as how the mind works, how to handle finances, how to invest money for financial security, how to be a parent, how to create good relationships and how to create and maintain self esteem and self worth? Imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects along with a regular curriculum. Think how these truths would manifest. We would have happy people who feel good about themselves. We would have people who are comfortable financially and who enrich the economy by investing their money wisely. They would have good relationships. They would be comfortable in parenthood and create another generation of children who feel good about themselves. Within all this, each person would remain an individual expressing their own creativity. There's no time to waste. Let's continue with our work.

[01:11:16]
Louise Hay: In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete. I no longer choose to believe in old limitations and lack. I now choose to begin to see myself as the universe sees me perfect, whole and complete. I am now perfect, whole and complete. I will always be perfect, whole and complete. I now choose to live my life from this understanding. I am in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. All is well in my world.

[01:12:06]
Louise Hay: Chapter five. What do we do now? I see my patterns and I choose to make changes. We decide to change, throwing up our hands in horror at what we may call the mess of our lives. And just giving up are the ways many people react. Others get angry at themselves or at life and also give up. By giving up, I mean deciding it's all hopeless and impossible to make any changes, so why try? The rest of it goes. Just stay the way you are. At least you know how to handle that pain. You don't like it, but it's familiar and you hope it won't get any worse. To me, habitual anger is like sitting in a corner with a dunce hat on. Does this sound familiar? Something happens and you get angry. Something else happens and you get angry again.

[01:13:03]
Louise Hay: Something else happens and once again you get angry. But you never go beyond getting angry. What good does that do? It seems foolish to waste your time getting angry. It's also a refusal to see life in a new and different way. It would be helpful to ask yourself how you are creating so many situations to become angry at. What are you believing that causes all these frustrations? What are you giving out that attracts in others the need to irritate you? Why do you believe that to get your way, you need to get angry? Whatever you give out comes back to you. The more you give out anger, the more you are creating situations for you to get angry at. Like sitting in a corner wearing a dunce hat going nowhere. Do these statements bring up feelings of anger? Good, it must be hitting home. This is something you could be willing to change. Make a decision to be willing to change. If you really want to know how stubborn you are, just approach the idea of being willing to change. We all want to change, to have situations become better and easier. However, we do not want to change. We would rather they change.

[01:14:27]
Louise Hay: In order to have this happen, we must change inside. We must change our way of thinking, change our way of speaking, change our way of expressing ourselves. Only then will the outer changes occur. This is the next step. We are now fairly clear on what the problems are and where they come from. Now it is time to be willing to change.

[01:15:46]
Louise Hay: Exercise creating new changes.Now is the time to take your list of things that were wrong and turn them into positive affirmations. Or you can list all the changes you want to make and have and do. Then select three from this list and turn them into positive affirmations. Say your negative list was something like this, my life is a mess. I should lose weight. Nobody loves me. I want to move, I hate my job, I should get organized. I don't do enough, I'm not good enough. You can then turn them around to this I am willing to release the pattern in me that created these conditions. I am in the process of positive changes.

[01:16:34]
Louise Hay: I have a happy, slender body. I experience love wherever I go. I have the perfect living space. I now create a wonderful new job. I am now very well organized. I appreciate all that I do. I love and approve of myself. I trust the process of life to bring me my highest good. I deserve the best and I accept it now. Out of this group of affirmations will come all the things you want to change on your list. Loving and approving of yourself, creating a space of safety, trusting and deserving and accepting will enable your body weight to normalize. They will create organization in your mind, create loving relationships in your life. Attract a new job and a new place to live. It is miraculous the way a tomato plant grows. It is miraculous the way we can demonstrate our desires. Exercise, deserving your good.

[01:17:51]
Louise Hay: Do you believe you deserve to have what you desire? If you don't, you won't allow yourself to have it. Circumstances beyond your control will crop up to frustrate you. Look in your mirror again and say I deserve to have or be and I accept it. Now say that two or three times I deserve to have and I accept it now. How do you feel? Always pay attention to your feelings, to what's going on in your body. Does it feel true or do you still feel unworthy? If you have any negative feelings in your body, then go back to Affirming. I release the pattern in my consciousness that is creating resistance to my good. I deserve.

[01:18:46]
Louise Hay: Repeat this until you get the acceptance feelings. Even if you have to do it several days in a row. In our approach to building the new, we want to use a Holistic approach. The Holistic philosophy is to nurture and nourish the entire being. The body, the mind and the spirit. If we ignore any of these areas, we are incomplete. We lack wholeness. It doesn't matter where we start as long as we also include the other areas. If we begin with the body, we would want to work with nutrition to learn the relationship between our choice of food and beverages and how they affect the way we feel. We want to make the best choices for our body.

[01:19:38]
Louise Hay: There are herbs and vitamins, homeopathy Bach f lour remedies. We might even explore kalan length. We would also want to find a form of exercise that appeals to us. Exercise is something that strengthens our bones and keeps our bodies young. In addition to sports and swimming, there are dancing, tai chi, martial arts and yoga. I love my trampoline and use it daily, and my slant board enhances my periods of relaxation. We might want to explore some form of body work, such as rawing or work or traeger massage, foot reflexology, acupuncture or chiropractic work are all beneficial. There are also the Alexander method, bioenergetics, feldenchrist, touch for health.

[01:20:28]
Louise Hay: Now, with the mind, we could explore visualization techniques, guided imagery and affirmations. There are lots of psychological techniques gestalt, hypnosis, rebirthing, psychodrama, past life regressions, art therapy, even dream work. I give very little nutritional advice because I've discovered that all systems work for some people. I do have a local network of good practitioners in the holistic field, and I refer clients to them when I see the necessity for nutritional knowledge. This is an area where you must find your own way or go to a specialist who can test you.

[01:21:12]
Louise Hay: Many of the books on nutrition have been written by persons who were very ill and worked out a system for their own healing. However, everyone is not alike. For instance, the macrobiotic and the natural raw food diets are two totally different approaches. The raw food people never cook anything, seldom eat bread or grains, and are very careful not to eat fruits and vegetables at the same meal. And they never use salt. The macrobiotic people cook almost all of their food, have a different system of food combining, and use a lot of salt. Both systems work. Both systems have healed bodies. My personal nutritional approach is simple if it grows, eat it. If it doesn't grow, don't eat it.

[01:22:00]
Louise Hay: Be conscious of your eating. It's like paying attention to our thoughts. We can also learn to pay attention to our bodies and the signals we get when we eat different things. Cleaning the mental house after a lifetime of indulging in negative mental thoughts is like going on a good nutritional program. After a lifetime of indulging in junk foods, they both can often create healing crises. As you begin to change your physical diet, the body begins to throw off the accumulation of toxic residue. And as this happens, you can feel rather rotten for a few days. So it is when you make a decision to change mental thought patterns, your circumstances can begin to seem worse for a while. Recall for a moment the end of a Thanksgiving dinner. The food is all eaten and it's time to clean the turkey pan.

[01:23:00]
Louise Hay: The pan is all burnt and crusty, so you put in hot water and soap and let it soak for a while. Then you begin to scrape the pan. Now you really have a mess, and it looks worse than ever. But just keep scrubbing away and soon you'll have a pan as good as new. It's the same thing with cleaning up a dried on crusty mental pattern. When we soak it with new ideas, all the gook comes to the surface to look at. Keep doing the new affirmations and soon you will have totally cleared an old limitation. So we have decided we are willing to change and we will use any method that works for us. Let me describe one of the methods I have used with myself and with others. First, go look in a mirror and say to yourself I am willing to change.

[01:23:56]
Louise Hay: Notice how you feel. If you are hesitant or resistant, or just don't want to change, ask yourself why? What old belief are you holding on to? Please don't scold yourself. Just notice what it is. I'll bet that belief has been causing you a lot of trouble. I wonder where it came from. Do you know? Whether we know where it came from or not? Let's do something to dissolve it now. Again, go to the mirror and, looking deep into your own eyes, touch your throat and say out loud ten times I am willing to release all resistance. I am willing to release all resistance.

[01:24:52]
Louise Hay: Mirror work is very powerful. As children, we received most of our negative messages from others looking us straight in the eye and perhaps shaking a finger at us. Whenever we look into the mirror today, most of us will say something negative to ourselves. We either criticize our looks or berate ourselves for something. To look yourself straight in the eye and make a positive declaration about yourself is, in my opinion, the quickest way to get results with affirmations.

[01:25:29]
Louise Hay: In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole and complete. I now choose calmly and objectively to see my old pattern and I am willing to make changes. I am teachable. I can learn. I am willing to change. I choose to have fun doing this. I choose to react as though I have found a treasure. When I discover something else to release, I see and feel myself changing moment by moment. Thoughts no longer have any power over me. I am the power in my world. I choose to be free. All is well in my world.

[01:26:24]
Louise Hay: Chapter Six. Resistance to Change. I am in the rhythm and flow of ever changing life. Awareness is the first step in healing or changing. When we have some pattern buried deeply within us, we must become aware of it in order to heal the condition. Perhaps we begin to mention the condition, to complain about it, or to see it in other people. It rises to the surface of our attention in some way and we begin to relate to it. We often attract a teacher, a friend, a class or workshop or a book to ourselves that begins to awaken new ways to approach the dissolving of the problem. My awakening began with a chance remark of a friend who had been told about a meeting. My friend did not go but something within me responded and I went. That little meeting was the first step on my pathway of unfoldment. I didn't recognize the significance of it until sometime later.

[01:27:34]
Louise Hay: Often our reaction to this first step is to think the approach is silly or that it doesn't make sense. Perhaps it seems too easy or unacceptable to our thinking. We don't want to do it. Our resistance comes up very strong. We may even feel angry about the thought of doing it. Such a reaction is very good if we can understand that it is the first step in our healing process. I tell people that any reaction they may feel is there to show them they are already in the process of healing or changing. Many people think nothing is happening until the total healing takes place. But that is not true. The process begins the moment we begin to think about making a change.

[01:28:24]
Louise Hay: Impatience is only another form of resistance. It is resistance to learning and to changing. When we demand that it be done right now, completed at once, then we don't give ourselves time to learn the lessons involved with the problems we have created. If you want to move to another room, you have to get up and move step by step in that direction. Just sitting in your chair and demanding that you be in the other room will not work. It's the same thing. We all want our problems to be over with, but we don't want to do the small things that will add up to the solution. Now is the time to acknowledge our responsibility in having created the situation or condition. I'm not talking about having guilt, nor about being a bad person for being where you are. I am saying to acknowledge the power within you that transforms your every thought into experience. In the past, we unknowingly use this power to create things we did not want to experience. We were not aware of what we were doing. Now, by acknowlendging our responsibility, we become aware and learn to use this power conciously, positive ways for our benefit.

[01:29:50]
Louise Hay: Often when I suggest a solution to the client, a new way to approach a matter of forgiving the person involved. I will see the jaw begin to clench and jut out and the arms cross tightly over the chest. Maybe even fists will form. Resistance is coming to the fore and I know we have hit upon exactly what needs to be done. We all have lessons to learn. The things that are so difficult for us are only the lessons we have chosen for ourselves. If things are easy for us, then they are not lessons, but are things we already know. Lessons can be learned through awareness. If you think of the hardest thing for you to do and how much you resist it, then you're looking at your greatest lesson at the moment. Surrendering, giving up the resistance and allowing yourself to learn what you need to learn will make the next step even easier.

[01:30:54]
Louise Hay: Don't let your resistance stop you from making the changes. We can work on two levels looking at the resistance and still making the mental changes. Observe yourself, watch how you resist and then go ahead anyway. Our actions often show our resistance. For instance, changing the subject, leaving the room, going to the bathroom, being late, getting sick, procrastinating by doing something else, doing busy work, wasting time, looking away or out the window, flipping through a magazine, refusing to pay attention, eating, drinking or smoking. Creating or ending a relationship. Creating breakdowns, cars, appliances, plumbing, et cetera. We often assume things about others to justify our resistance. We make statements like, it wouldn't do any good anyway. My husband wife won't understand. I would have to change my whole perspective. Only crazy people go to therapists. They couldn't help me with my problem. They couldn't handle my anger. My case is different.

[01:32:15]
Louise Hay: I don't want to bother them. It'll work itself out. Nobody else does it. We grow up with beliefs that become our resistance to changing. Some of our limiting ideas are, it's not done. It's just not right. It's not right for me to do that. That wouldn't be spiritual. Spiritual people don't get angry. Men, women just don't do that. My family never did that. Love is not for me. That's just silly. It's too far to drive. It's too much work. It's too expensive. It'll take too long. I don't believe in it. I'm not that kind of person. We give our power to others and use that excuse as our resistance to changing.

[01:33:09]
Louise Hay: We have ideas like, God doesn't approve. I'm waiting for the stars to say it's okay. This isn't the right environment. They won't let me change. I don't have the right teacher book class tools. My doctor doesn't want me to. I can't get time off from work. I don't want to be under their spell. It's all their fault. They have to change first. As soon as I get then I'll do it. You. They don't understand. I don't want to hurt them. It's against my upbringing, religion, philosophy. We have ideas about ourselves that we use as limitations or resistance to changing.

[01:33:55]
Louise Hay: They are too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too lazy, too strong, too weak, too dumb, too smart, too poor, too worthless, too frivolous, too serious, too stuck. Maybe it's all just too much. Our resistance often expresses itself as delaying tactics. We use excuses like, I'll do it later. I can't think right now. I don't have the time right now. It would take too much time from my work. Yes, that's a good idea. I'll do it later. I have too many other things to do. I'll think about it tomorrow. I'll do it as soon as I get through with or as soon as I get back from this trip. The time isn't right. It's too late or too soon.

[01:34:46]
Louise Hay: Denial. This form of resistance shows up in denial of the need to do any changing things like, there's nothing wrong with me. I can't do anything about this problem. I was all right the last time. What good would it do to change? If I ignore it, maybe the problem will go away. By far the biggest category of resistance is fear. Fear of the unknown. Listen to these, I'm not ready yet. I might fail. They might reject me.

[01:35:21]
Louise Hay: What would the neighbors think? I don't want to open that can of worms. I'm afraid to tell my husband or wife. I don't know enough. I might get hurt. I may have to change. It might cost me money. I would rather die first or get a divorce first. I don't want anyone to know I have a problem. I'm afraid to express my feelings. I don't want to talk about it. I don't have the energy. Who knows where I might end up? I may lose my freedom. It's too hard to do. I don't have enough money now. It might hurt my back. I wouldn't be perfect. I might lose my friends. I don't trust anyone.

[01:36:11]
Louise Hay: It might hurt my image. I'm not good enough. And on and on and on the list goes. Do you recognize some of these as the way you resist? Look for the resistance in these examples. A client came to me because she was in a lot of pain. She had broken her back, her neck and her knee in three separate auto accidents. Yet she was late, got lost and then was stuck in traffic. It was easy for her to tell me all her problems. But the minute I said, Let me talk for a moment, all sorts of turmoil began. Her contact lenses began to bother her. She wanted to sit in another chair. She had to go to the bathroom. Then her lenses had to come out. I could not keep her attention for the rest of the session. It was all resistance. She wasn't ready to let go and be healed. I discovered her sister also had broken her back twice, and so had her mother. Another client was an actor, a mime, a street performer, and quite good at it. He bragged at how clever he was at cheating others, especially institutions. He knew how to get away with almost anything, and yet he got away with nothing.

[01:37:30]
Louise Hay: He was always broke, at least a month behind in the rent, often without a telephone. His clothes were tacky, work was very sporadic. He had lots of pains in his body, and his love life was zilch. His theory was that he couldn't stop cheating until some good came into his life. Of course, with what he was giving out, no good could come into his life. He had to stop cheating first. His resistance was that he was not ready to let go of the old ways. Leave Your Friends Alone too often, instead of working on our own changes, we decide which of our friends needs to change. This, too, is resistance. In the early days of my work, I had a client who would send me to all her friends in the hospital. Instead of sending them flowers, she would have me go to fix up their problems. I would arrive with my tape recorder in hand, usually finding someone in bed who didn't know why I was there or understand what I was doing.

[01:38:32]
Louise Hay: This was before I learned never to work with anyone unless they requested. Sometimes clients come to me because a friend has given them a session as a present. This usually doesn't work too well, and they seldom come back for further work. When something works well for us, we often want to share it with others, but they may not be ready to make a change at that point in time and space. It's hard enough to make changes when we want to, but to try to make someone else change when they don't want to is impossible, and it can ruin a good friendship. I push my clients because they come to me. I leave my friends alone.

[01:39:15]
Louise Hay: Mirror Work. Mirrors reflect back to us our feelings about ourselves. They show us clearly the areas to be changed if we want to have a joyous, fulfilling life. I ask people to look in their eyes and say something positive about themselves every time they pass a mirror. The most powerful way to do affirmations is to look in a mirror and say them out loud. You are immediately aware of the resistance and can move through it quicker.

[01:39:49]
Louise Hay: Use it often for affirmations and to check where you are resisting and where you are open and flowing. Now look in a mirror and say to yourself, I am willing to change. Notice how you feel. If you are hesitant, resistant, or just don't want to change, ask yourself why? What old belief are you holding on to? This is not a time to scold yourself. Just notice what is going on and what belief rises to the surface. That is the one that has been causing you a lot of trouble. Can you recognize where it came from?

[01:40:31]
Louise Hay: When we do our affirmations and they don't feel right or nothing seems to happen, it's so easy to say, oh, affirmations don't work. It's not that the affirmations don't work, it's that we need to do another step before we begin the affirmations. Repeated patterns show us our needs. For every habit we have, for every experience we go through, over and over, for every pattern we repeat, there is a need within us for it. The need corresponds to some belief we have.

[01:41:10]
Louise Hay: If there were not a need, then we wouldn't have it, do it or be it. There is something within us that needs the fat, the poor relationships, the failures, the cigarettes, the anger, the poverty or abuse or whatever it is that's a problem for us. How many times have we said, I won't ever do that again? And then before the day is up, we have the piece of cake, smoke the cigarette, say the hateful things to the ones we love, et cetera. Then we compound the whole problem by angrily saying to ourselves, oh, you have no willpower, no discipline, you're just weak.

[01:41:49]
Louise Hay: This only adds to the load of guilt we already carry. It has nothing to do with willpower or discipline. Whatever we are trying to release in our lives is just a symptom, an outer effect. Trying to eliminate the symptom without working on dissolving the cause is useless. The moment we release our willpower or discipline, the symptom crops up again. I say to clients, there must be a need in you for this condition or you wouldn't have it. Let's go back a step and work on the willingness to release the need.

[01:42:26]
Louise Hay: When the need is gone, you will have no desire for the cigarette or the overeating or the negative pattern. One of the first affirmations to use is I am willing to release the need for the resistance, or the headache, or the constipation, or the excess weight, or the lack of money or whatever. Say, I am willing to release the need for. If you are resisting at this point, then your other affirmations cannot work. The webs we create around ourselves need to be unwound. If you have ever untangled a ball of string, you know that yanking and pulling only makes it worse.

[01:43:12]
Louise Hay: Be gentle and patient with yourself as you untangle your own mental knots. Get help if you need it. Above all, love yourself in the process. The willingness to let go of the old is the key. When I say needing the problem, I mean that according to our particular set of thought patterns we need to have certain outer effects or experiences. Every outer effect is the natural expression of an inner thought pattern and to battle only the outer effect or symptom is wasted energy and often increases the problem. I am unworthy creates Procrastination. If one of my inner belief systems or thought patterns is I am unworthy, then one of my outer effects will probably be procrastination.

[01:44:09]
Louise Hay: After all, procrastination is one way to keep us from getting where we say we want to go. Most people who procrastinate will spend a lot of time and energy berating themselves for procrastinating. They will call themselves lazy and generally will make themselves out to feel they are bad persons. Resentment of Another's Good. I had a client who loved attention and usually came to class late so he could create a stir. He had been the baby of 18 children and he came last on the list of getting.

[01:44:45]
Louise Hay: As a child he watched everyone else have while he just longed for his own. Even now, when someone had good fortune, he would not rejoice with them. Instead he would say oh, I wish I had that or why don't I ever get that? His resentment of their good was a barrier to his own growth and change. Self worth opens many doors. A client who was 79 came to me. She taught singing and several of her students were making television commercials. She wanted to do this but was afraid. I supported her totally and explained there is nobody like you, just be yourself. I said do it for the fun of it. There are people out there looking for exactly what you have to offer. Let them know you exist.

[01:45:37]
Louise Hay: She called several agents and casting directors and said I'm a senior senior citizen and I want to do commercials. And in a short time she had a commercial and since then she's never stopped working. I often see her on TV and in the magazines. New careers can start at any age, especially if you do it for the fun of it. Self criticizing is totally missing the mark. It will only intensify procrastination and laziness the place to put the mental energy is into releasing the old and creating a new thought pattern.

[01:46:18]
Louise Hay: Say I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it. As I spend a few days doing this affirmation over and over, my outer effect pattern of procrastination will automatically begin to fade as I internally create a pattern of self worth. Then I no longer need to delay my own good. Do you see how this could apply to some of the negative patterns or outer effects in your own life? Let's stop wasting time and energy putting ourselves down for something we can't help doing. If we have certain inner beliefs, change the beliefs.

[01:47:11]
Louise Hay: No matter how you approach it or what subject matter we are talking about, we are only dealing with thoughts, and thoughts can be changed. When we want to change a condition, we need to say so. I am willing to release the pattern within me that is creating this condition. You can say this to yourself over and over every time you think of your illness or your problem. The minute you say it, you are stepping out of the victim class. You are no longer helpless. You are acknowledging your own power. You are saying, I am beginning to understand that I created this. I now take my own power back. I am going to release this old idea and let it go.

[01:48:00]
Louise Hay: Self Criticism. I have a client who will eat a pound of butter and everything else she can get a hold of when she cannot bear to be with her own negative thoughts. The next day, she'll be angry at her body for being heavy. When she was a little girl, she would walk around the family dinner table, finishing off everyone's leftovers and eating a whole stick of butter. The family would laugh and think it was cute. It was almost the only approval she got from her family.

[01:48:31]
Louise Hay: When you scold yourself, when you berate yourself, when you beat yourself up, who do you think you're treating this way? Almost all of our programming, both negative and positive, was accepted by us by the time we were three years old. Our experiences since then are based on what we accepted and believed about ourselves and about life at that time. The way we were treated when we were very little is usually the way we treat ourselves now. The person you are scolding is a three year old child within you.

[01:49:11]
Louise Hay: If you are a person who gets angry at yourself for being afraid and fearful, think of yourself as being three years old. If you had a little three year old child in front of you who was afraid, what would you do? Would you be angry at it? Or would you reach out your arms and comfort the child until it felt safe and at ease? The adults around you when you were a child, may not have known how to comfort you at that time. Now you are the adult in your life, and if you're not comforting that child within you, then that is very sad indeed. What was done in the past is done, and it is over now.

[01:49:55]
Louise Hay: But this is present time and you now have the opportunity to treat yourself the way you wish to be treated. Scolding yourself only makes you more frightened and there's nowhere to turn. When the child within feels unsafe, it creates a lot of trouble. Remember how it felt to be belittled when you were young. It feels the same way now to that child within. Be kind to yourself. Begin to love and approve of yourself. That's what that little child needs in order to express itself at its highest potential.

[01:50:42]
Louise Hay: In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete. I see any resistance patterns within me only as something else to release. They have no power over me. I am the power in my world. I flow with the changes taking place in my life as best I can. I approve of myself and the way I am changing. I am doing the best I can. Each day gets easier. I rejoice that I am in the rhythm and flow of my ever changing life. Today is a wonderful day. I choose to make it so. All is well in my world.

[01:51:35]
Louise Hay: Chapter 7. How to Change? I cross bridges with joy and with ease. I love how to's. All the theory in the world is useless unless we know how to apply it and make a change. I have always been a very pragmatic, practical person with a great need to know how to do things. The principles we will be working with at this time are nurturing the willingness to let go, controlling the mind, learning how forgiveness of self and others releases us. Releasing the need. Sometimes when we try to release a pattern, the whole situation seems to get worse for a while. This is not a bad thing. It is a sign that the situation is beginning to move. Our affirmations are working and we need to keep going.

[01:52:34]
Louise Hay: Example, we are working on increasing prosperity and we lose our wallet. We are working on improving our relationships and we have a fight. We're working on becoming healthy and we catch a cold. We're working on expressing our creative talents and abilities and we get fired. Sometimes the problem moves in a different direction and we begin to see and understand more. For example, let's assume you are trying to give up smoking and you are saying, I am willing to release the need for cigarettes. And as you continue to do this, you notice your relationships are becoming more uncomfortable. Don't despair. This is a sign of the process working.

[01:53:26]
Louise Hay: You might ask yourself a series of questions like, am I willing to give up uncomfortable relationships? Were my cigarettes creating a smoke screen so I wouldn't see how uncomfortable these relationships are? Why am I creating these relationships? You notice that the cigarettes are only a symptom and not a cause. Now you are developing insight and understanding that will set you free. You begin to say, I am willing to release the need for uncomfortable relationships. Then you notice the reason you're so uncomfortable is that other people always seem to be criticizing you. Being aware that we always create all of our experiences, you now begin to say, I am willing to release the need to be criticized.

[01:54:24]
Louise Hay: You then think about criticism, and you realize that as a child, you received a lot of criticism. That little kid inside of you only feels at home when it's being criticized. Your way of hiding from this had become creating a smokescreen. Perhaps you see the next step as affirming, I am willing to forgive. And as you continue to do your affirmations, you may find that cigarettes no longer attract you and the people in your life no longer criticize you. Then you know you have released your need. This usually takes a little while to work out. If you are gently persistent and are willing to give yourself a few quiet moments each day to reflect on your process of change, you will get the answers.

[01:55:25]
Louise Hay: The intelligence within you is the same intelligence that created this entire planet. Trust your inner guidance to reveal to you whatever it is you need to know. In a workshop situation, I would have you do the following exercise with a partner. However, you can do it equally as well using a big mirror. Think for a moment about something in your life you want to change. At the mirror, look into your eyes and say aloud, I now realize that I have created this condition and I am now willing to release the pattern in my consciousness that is responsible for this condition. Say it several times with feeling.

[01:56:20]
Louise Hay: If you were with a partner, I would have your partner tell you if they really thought you meant it. I would want you to convince your partner. Ask yourself if you really mean it. Convince yourself in the mirror that this time you are ready to step out of the bondage of the past. At this point, many people get scared because they don't know how to do this releasing. They're afraid to commit themselves until they know all the answers. That's only more resistance. Just pass through it. One of the great things is that we do not have to know how. All we need is willingness. The universal intelligence or your subconscious mind will figure out the hows. Every thought you think and every word you speak is being responded to, and the point of power is in this moment.

[01:57:24]
Louise Hay: The thoughts you are thinking and the words you are declaring at this moment are creating your future. Your mind is a tool. You are much more than your mind. You may think your mind runs the show, but that is only because you have trained your mind to think in this way. You can also untrain and retrain this tool of yours. Your mind is a tool for you to use in any way you wish. The way you now use your mind is only a habit, and any habit can be changed if we want to do so. Quiet the chatter of your mind for a moment and really think about this concept. Your mind is a tool you can choose to use any way you wish.

[01:58:18]
Louise Hay: The thoughts you choose to think create the experiences you have. If you believe that it is hard or difficult to change a habit or a thought, then your choice of this thought will make it true for you. If you would choose to think it's becoming easier for me to make changes, then your choice of this thought will make that true for you. There is an incredible power and intelligence within you constantly responding to your thoughts and your words. As you learn to control your mind by the conscious choice of thoughts, you align yourself with this power. Do not think your mind is in control. You are in control of your mind. You use your mind. You can stop thinking those old thoughts.

[01:59:14]
Louise Hay: When your old thinking tries to come back, saying it's so hard to change, take mental control. Tell your mind, I now choose to believe it is becoming easier for me to make changes. You may have this conversation with your mind several times before it will acknowledge that you are in control and that what you say goes. The only thing you ever have any control of is your current thought. Your old thoughts are gone. There is nothing you can do about them except live out the experiences they caused. Your future thoughts have not been formed and you do not know what they will be. Your current thought, the one you're thinking right now, is totally under your control.

[02:00:05]
Louise Hay: You know, if you have a little child who has been allowed to stay up as late as it wishes for a long time, and then you make a decision that you now want this child to go to bed at eight every night, what do you think the first night will be like? The child will rebel against this new rule and may kick and scream and do its best to stay out of bed. If you relent at this time, the child wins and will try to control you forever. However, if you calmly stick to your decision and firmly insist that this is the new bedtime, the rebelling will get less and less. In a few nights, the new routine will be established. It is the same with your mind. Of course, it will rebel at first. It does not want to be retrained, but you are in control. And if you stay focused and firm, in a very short time, the new way of thinking is established.

[02:01:03]
Louise Hay: And you will realize that you are not a helpless victim of your thoughts, but rather a master of your own mind. Let's do an exercise. Letting go. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. As you exhale, allow all the tension to leave your body. Let your scalp and your forehead and your face relax. Let your tongue and your throat and your shoulders relax. Let your back and your abdomen and your pelvis relax. Let your breathing be at peace as you relax your legs and feet. Is there a big change in your body? Notice how much you hold on. If you are doing it with your body, you're doing it with your mind. In this relaxed, comfortable position, say with me, I am willing to let go. I release all tension. I release all fear. I release all anger. I release all guilt.

[02:02:30]
Louise Hay: I release all sadness. I let go of all old limitation. I let go and I am at peace. I am at peace with myself. I am at peace with the process of life. I am safe. Repeat this exercise several times. Feel the ease of letting go. Repeat it whenever you feel thoughts of difficulty coming up. It takes practice for the routine to become a part of you. Place yourself in this peaceful state first, and it becomes easy for your affirmations to take hold. You become open and receptive. There is no need to struggle or stress or strain. Just relax and think the appropriate thoughts. I assure you it is this easy.

[02:03:42]
Louise Hay: Physical releasing. Sometimes we need to experience a physical letting go. Experiences and emotions become locked in the body. Screaming in the car with all the windows rolled up can be very releasing. If we've been stifling our verbal expression. Beating the bed or kicking pillows is a harmless way to release pent up anger, as is playing tennis or running. A while ago, I had a pain in my shoulder for a day or two, and I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't go away. Finally, I sat down and I asked myself, What's happening here? What am I feeling? It feels like burning, burning, burning. That means anger.

[02:04:26]
Louise Hay: What are you angry about? I couldn't think what I was angry about, so I said, Well, let's see if we can find out. I put two large pillows on the bed and I began to hit them with a lot of energy. After about 12 hits, I realized exactly what I was angry about. It was so clear. I beat the pillows even harder and made some noise and released the emotions from my body. When I got through, I felt much better. The next day, my shoulder was fine. Letting the past hold you back. Some people tell me they cannot enjoy today because of something that happened in the past. Because they did not do something or do it in a certain way, they cannot live a full life today.

[02:05:14]
Louise Hay: Because they no longer have something they had in the past, they cannot enjoy today. Because they were hurt in the past, they will not accept love now. Because something unpleasant happened when they did something once, they are sure it will happen again today. Because they once did something that they're sorry for, they are sure they are bad people forever. Because once someone did something to them, it is now all the other person's fault that their life is not where they want it to be. Because they became angry over a situation in the past, they will hold on to that self righteousness. Because of some very old experience where they were treated badly, they will never forgive and forget.

[02:06:04]
Louise Hay: Because I did not get invited to the high school prom, I cannot enjoy life today. Because I did poorly at my first audition, I will be terrified of auditions forever. Because I am no longer married, I cannot live a full life today. Because my first relationship ended, I can no longer be open to love. Because I was hurt by a remark once, I will never trust anyone again. Because I stole something once, I must punish myself forever. Because I was poor as a child, I will never get anywhere. What we often refuse to realize is that holding on to the past, no matter what it was or how awful it was, is only hurting us. They really don't care.

[02:06:55]
Louise Hay: Usually, they are not even aware. We are only hurting ourselves by refusing to live this moment to the fullest. The past is over and done and cannot be changed. Even when we grunge about the past, we experience our memory of it in this moment, and we lose the real experience of this moment in the process. Exercise, releasing. Let us now clean up the past in our minds. Release the emotional attachment to it. Allow the memories to be just memory. If you think back to what you used to wear in the third grade, usually there is no emotional attachment. It's just a memory. And it can be the same for all the past events in our life.

[02:07:45]
Louise Hay: As we let go, we become free to use all of our mental power to enjoy this moment and to create a grand future. Make a list of all the things you are willing to let go. How willing are you to do this? Notice your reaction. What will you have to do to let these things go? How willing are you to do so? What is your resistance level? Let's move to forgiveness. Forgiveness of ourselves and of others releases us from the past. The course in miracle says over and over that forgiveness is the answer to almost everything. I know that when we are stuck, it usually means there is some more forgiving to be done. When we do not flow freely with life in the present moment, it usually means we are holding on to a past moment.

[02:08:50]
Louise Hay: It can be regret, sadness, hurt, fear, or guilt, blame, anger, resentment, and sometimes even the desire for revenge. Each one of these states comes from a space of non forgiveness, a refusal to let go and come into the present moment. Love is always the answer to healing of any sort. And the pathway to love is forgiveness. Forgiveness dissolves resentment. There is an old Emmett Fox exercise for dissolving resentment that always works. He recommends that you sit quietly, close your eyes, and allow your mind and body to relax. Then imagine yourself sitting in a darkened theater, and in front of you is a small stage. And on that stage, place the person you resent the most.

[02:09:50]
Louise Hay: It could be past or present, living or dead. When you see this person clearly, visualize good things happening to this person, things that would be meaningful to them. See them smiling and happy. Hold this image for a few minutes and then let it fade away. I like to add another step. As they leave the stage, put yourself up there and see good things happening to you and see yourself smiling and happy. Be aware that the abundance of the universe is a