A Simple Lady with a Simple Message
by Josephine Laing
Not too long ago, here in San Luis Obispo, we all had the very good fortune to attend an event where the speaker was Louise Hay. She started off the evening by saying that "Life Loves us! And that's all that we need to know."
Her book, "How to Heal Your Life," has sold over 60 million copies throughout the world. And as she said, "That's not marketing!" It's a testimonial to how life transforming her ideas are. Her book was right there on the pivot point for me back in the mid 1980's when my life took an abrupt turn. I feel that her work constitutes the basis for creating a self actualized life. Louise knows how to lay the foundation. And that foundation is love, self- love. This is not a narcissistic or ego based selfishness that is so often confused with self love, no, that's a whole different thing and not at all what we're talking about here, but rather, it's a deep understanding that we are worthy of our own love and that we are good enough just exactly the way we are right in this very moment.
Louise said that how we wake up and that first thought that we have each day is immensely important for how we live our lives because the way we start our day is the way we live our day and the way we live our day is the way we live our life. So we need to make those first thoughts good ones like saying to yourself, "Oh Sweetheart, I love you, you are the most delicious thing in the world!" Louise said that the first thing that she does every morning is to snuggle down deep into her covers and take a moment to be grateful for her beautifully warm and comfortable bed. Then she recommended that we get up and go into the bathroom and even before going pee, that we look into the mirror, deeply into our own eyes and tell ourselves how much we love ourselves, really love ourselves.
With that she and her friend, Nancy Levin, who joined her on stage, whipped out little hand mirrors from deep in their bras where they always keep and carry them, to give us a demonstration. Louise said that you never know when you need to stop and take a minute to love who you are. And she said that it's really important to say your name as you do the exercise as it calls upon a part of ourselves that runs right into the core of who we are. So here goes, using the reflection of my computer screen, I'll say right now, "I love you, Josephine, I really love you."
Louise said that she discovered something magical about this exercise. She used to feel that as a practitioner with the First Church of Religious Science that she needed to help people with all of the problems that they were having in their lives: diet, health, bad habits, relationship issues, jobs or finances. But then she realized that if she could just get people to love themselves, really love themselves, all of these other problems in their lives would simply resolve themselves.
Back in the 1980's, she started what became known as 'Hay Rides.' She began counseling a few young men, who had contracted AIDS. Sadly, they were largely ostracized in society. She found that here was so much fear and misinformation around AIDS and homosexuality that often even their family members would disown them. At first they met in Louise's living room and she explained that what they would not be doing is playing the "Gee ain't it awful" game. But instead, they would be sharing with each other every week what was good in their lives. She said, "We're going to take a positive approach." If anyone had anything good that happened to them, even if it was just being able to go to the bathroom by themselves, they were to bring it and share it with the group. Pretty soon there were ninety people in her living room. Clearly, they needed a bigger place, so they got access to a gymnasium in West Hollywood for their meetings. Within a few weeks, there were one hundred and fifty people there.
Louise said that far too many of them died, but that fortunately, many of them made it, and that what she helped them all to do was to change their thinking. She said that, in general, if we change our habits, eat well and use out minds, positively, most of the time we will heal and be able to lead a good life.
She told us that really she is just a very simple lady with a simple message and that it doesn't matter where you live or who you are, if you learn how to release resentment and forgive and love who you are, then your life will change. Louise herself was a high school dropout and had a very terrible young life. But early on in her own journey, she heard someone say that if you change your thinking, you will change your life. Those words went in very deep somehow and struck a cord in her. She went on to say that once she put her feet on the spiritual path, life took over and everything has only gotten better since then.
Louise has said that she has always had a natural talent for noticing which words people use. She noticed that people who tended to use certain negative words tended to suffer from similar afflictions. So she wrote a little blue book of affirmations titled, "You Can Heal Your Body," showing the negative thought patterns that she noticed in people and the dis-eases those negative thoughts were often associated with. She included the positive affirmations that one could think or say instead as a means to heal. This started out as just a small pamphlet, but it became very popular and eventually it became a book. Louise said that all she ever did was to open the mail and answer the phone and before she knew it, she had a publishing company which she called Hay House. (www.hayhouse.com) And then she went on to write "You Can Heal Your Life." Now, her publishing house covers many authors and she said that everything that comes out of Hay House is an opportunity to improve the quality of your life.
She wrote her two books while she was in her fifties and sixties. Since then she has been lecturing and publishing books that help us all to learn and grow. Now she is beginning her ninth decade and is still helping people to change the way they think. Over the years, she has helped thousands of people to create the kind of lives that we all dream of having, which is exactly what she did against all odds in her own life. She said that she just helps people become more aware of the radio that they've got playing in their heads and to stop from time to time to ask if those thoughts are really what they'd like to create. She said, "What am I thinking right now? And do I want this thought to make my day? Or what can I think that would make me feel happy? And is it contributing to a life I'd really like to have?" She says that it's really so simple. We are remarkably creative and our thoughts, whatever they are, create our lives. She often puts it this way, "Our thoughts control our lives, and the only thing that we need to control is our thoughts.
When she gets on the road, she thanks her car. She thanks the city for such lovely roads to drive on. She blesses all of the drivers and affirms everyone's safe travel. She said that she prepares for her talks by saying to herself that everyone will have a fabulous time and that there would be lots of laughter (and during the talk that I attended, there was.) She also prepares for her talks by saying that everyone, including herself will learn something really valuable, something that we can take away with us and use in our lives.
I took away her first joyous exclamation that "Life Loves Me!" And added it to one of my daily affirmations to become, "I love my life and my life loves me!" Isn't that great?
Louise said that if we have our thinking together and our food together and are feeding our cells optimum health, then we have an optimal life. She liked the saying, "Happy, healthy, happy, healthy, happy, healthy, dead!" and commented that that's a great life. And then she said that it's a good idea to plan for our futures. She now has someone whom she has put in charge of her health. So that's all taken care of in the best possible way. She has someone who will be by her side when her time comes, that is unless she falls off of a roof or something. This way she is mobilizing into positive action rather than risking sitting in fear or victimizing or finding blame. She wants a comfortable experience for her death, surrounded by people that she loves and who love her. She wants to stay as healthy as she can for as long as she can and so she's creating that through her planning and her choices. And she said, "Don't give your money to the pharmaceutical companies. If you start with one pill, you'll need another, then they'll get you on twenty-one pills for the rest of your life." And we all know that that is just not healthy.
Louise's friend and traveling companion, Nancy, who is also the event director for Hay House, said that she feels that the secret to longevity is happiness and fun. She said that her life was so tightly wound and that she was so busy projecting the image of being a perfect wife that it was choking her. And that when her life crumbled before her eyes with a divorce, the people whom she feared revealing her true self to the most (Louise was among them,) were the very ones who were actually waiting in the wings to be the primary scaffolding of support as she rebuilt her life anew.
Louise said that it's a wonderful thing to watch someone change, to be willing to walk through open doors into a beautiful life filled with fun and laughter. With that she and Nancy took our questions, which were mostly exclamations of gratitude. People said things like I'm a happy person and I just want to thank you, Louise, for helping me to heal my life. One man said that he had been an addict who thought that life sucked, until he realized that it was his own thinking that sucked. In response, referring to her many audio tapes and CDs which gently guide her listeners to change, Louise asked if he was one of those men who goes to bed with her at night. We all heartily laughed at that of course.
One woman asked about grief and Louise reminded us that we never own anyone, so we can't really loose them and that when we ourselves pass on, we will be reunited with our loved ones. So, it's just a temporary separation and she said that we can ask them to give us a sign when they are near us, like a penny or a feather, to help us remember how close we actually always are.
One person asked what we can do to help the children. And Louise said that she has created an iPod application for young people, knowing how helpful it would be to make these changes while we are young rather than waiting until we are grown to start healing our lives. But she also said that if we can love ourselves as much as we can, it will pass on to our children and young people. If we can release our guilt and let it go, that helps a lot, too. She reminded us that The Course In Miracles says that all disease comes from a state of non-forgiveness. She said, "Love who you are, forgive and release your resentment."
Someone else was hoping that they could help a loved one to change. Louise explained that she never tries to convert anyone and that we can only try to convert someone by living our own lives to our very best. She reminded us that if it heals you, it will probably also help to heal them and that forgiveness of yourself and others is always a good place to start.
When asked, what does she say to people who don't believe in all of this, she said, "I don't say anything. I'm not a salesperson, I'm a teacher. If you want to learn about what I have to teach, I'm happy to share it all with you." She said that what she does is to reach out a hand to people who would like some help up. If that's what they want, great, but if they just want to pull her down, then she simply leaves and goes somewhere else instead, somewhere where she can be of assistance.
Louise began her talk with, and I will end with, a simple way to comfort ourselves, which is to simply consciously breathe in and then breathe out. She said it's a wonderful tool that we can all use anytime and anyplace to relax ourselves. She reminded us that we are all born happy, innocent little babies and to just keep remembering that life loves us and that that is all that we really need to know.
© 2012 Josephine Laing
Not too long ago, here in San Luis Obispo, we all had the very good fortune to attend an event where the speaker was Louise Hay. She started off the evening by saying that "Life Loves us! And that's all that we need to know."
Her book, "How to Heal Your Life," has sold over 60 million copies throughout the world. And as she said, "That's not marketing!" It's a testimonial to how life transforming her ideas are. Her book was right there on the pivot point for me back in the mid 1980's when my life took an abrupt turn. I feel that her work constitutes the basis for creating a self actualized life. Louise knows how to lay the foundation. And that foundation is love, self- love. This is not a narcissistic or ego based selfishness that is so often confused with self love, no, that's a whole different thing and not at all what we're talking about here, but rather, it's a deep understanding that we are worthy of our own love and that we are good enough just exactly the way we are right in this very moment.
Louise said that how we wake up and that first thought that we have each day is immensely important for how we live our lives because the way we start our day is the way we live our day and the way we live our day is the way we live our life. So we need to make those first thoughts good ones like saying to yourself, "Oh Sweetheart, I love you, you are the most delicious thing in the world!" Louise said that the first thing that she does every morning is to snuggle down deep into her covers and take a moment to be grateful for her beautifully warm and comfortable bed. Then she recommended that we get up and go into the bathroom and even before going pee, that we look into the mirror, deeply into our own eyes and tell ourselves how much we love ourselves, really love ourselves.
With that she and her friend, Nancy Levin, who joined her on stage, whipped out little hand mirrors from deep in their bras where they always keep and carry them, to give us a demonstration. Louise said that you never know when you need to stop and take a minute to love who you are. And she said that it's really important to say your name as you do the exercise as it calls upon a part of ourselves that runs right into the core of who we are. So here goes, using the reflection of my computer screen, I'll say right now, "I love you, Josephine, I really love you."
Louise said that she discovered something magical about this exercise. She used to feel that as a practitioner with the First Church of Religious Science that she needed to help people with all of the problems that they were having in their lives: diet, health, bad habits, relationship issues, jobs or finances. But then she realized that if she could just get people to love themselves, really love themselves, all of these other problems in their lives would simply resolve themselves.
Back in the 1980's, she started what became known as 'Hay Rides.' She began counseling a few young men, who had contracted AIDS. Sadly, they were largely ostracized in society. She found that here was so much fear and misinformation around AIDS and homosexuality that often even their family members would disown them. At first they met in Louise's living room and she explained that what they would not be doing is playing the "Gee ain't it awful" game. But instead, they would be sharing with each other every week what was good in their lives. She said, "We're going to take a positive approach." If anyone had anything good that happened to them, even if it was just being able to go to the bathroom by themselves, they were to bring it and share it with the group. Pretty soon there were ninety people in her living room. Clearly, they needed a bigger place, so they got access to a gymnasium in West Hollywood for their meetings. Within a few weeks, there were one hundred and fifty people there.
Louise said that far too many of them died, but that fortunately, many of them made it, and that what she helped them all to do was to change their thinking. She said that, in general, if we change our habits, eat well and use out minds, positively, most of the time we will heal and be able to lead a good life.
She told us that really she is just a very simple lady with a simple message and that it doesn't matter where you live or who you are, if you learn how to release resentment and forgive and love who you are, then your life will change. Louise herself was a high school dropout and had a very terrible young life. But early on in her own journey, she heard someone say that if you change your thinking, you will change your life. Those words went in very deep somehow and struck a cord in her. She went on to say that once she put her feet on the spiritual path, life took over and everything has only gotten better since then.
Louise has said that she has always had a natural talent for noticing which words people use. She noticed that people who tended to use certain negative words tended to suffer from similar afflictions. So she wrote a little blue book of affirmations titled, "You Can Heal Your Body," showing the negative thought patterns that she noticed in people and the dis-eases those negative thoughts were often associated with. She included the positive affirmations that one could think or say instead as a means to heal. This started out as just a small pamphlet, but it became very popular and eventually it became a book. Louise said that all she ever did was to open the mail and answer the phone and before she knew it, she had a publishing company which she called Hay House. (www.hayhouse.com) And then she went on to write "You Can Heal Your Life." Now, her publishing house covers many authors and she said that everything that comes out of Hay House is an opportunity to improve the quality of your life.
She wrote her two books while she was in her fifties and sixties. Since then she has been lecturing and publishing books that help us all to learn and grow. Now she is beginning her ninth decade and is still helping people to change the way they think. Over the years, she has helped thousands of people to create the kind of lives that we all dream of having, which is exactly what she did against all odds in her own life. She said that she just helps people become more aware of the radio that they've got playing in their heads and to stop from time to time to ask if those thoughts are really what they'd like to create. She said, "What am I thinking right now? And do I want this thought to make my day? Or what can I think that would make me feel happy? And is it contributing to a life I'd really like to have?" She says that it's really so simple. We are remarkably creative and our thoughts, whatever they are, create our lives. She often puts it this way, "Our thoughts control our lives, and the only thing that we need to control is our thoughts.
When she gets on the road, she thanks her car. She thanks the city for such lovely roads to drive on. She blesses all of the drivers and affirms everyone's safe travel. She said that she prepares for her talks by saying to herself that everyone will have a fabulous time and that there would be lots of laughter (and during the talk that I attended, there was.) She also prepares for her talks by saying that everyone, including herself will learn something really valuable, something that we can take away with us and use in our lives.
I took away her first joyous exclamation that "Life Loves Me!" And added it to one of my daily affirmations to become, "I love my life and my life loves me!" Isn't that great?
Louise said that if we have our thinking together and our food together and are feeding our cells optimum health, then we have an optimal life. She liked the saying, "Happy, healthy, happy, healthy, happy, healthy, dead!" and commented that that's a great life. And then she said that it's a good idea to plan for our futures. She now has someone whom she has put in charge of her health. So that's all taken care of in the best possible way. She has someone who will be by her side when her time comes, that is unless she falls off of a roof or something. This way she is mobilizing into positive action rather than risking sitting in fear or victimizing or finding blame. She wants a comfortable experience for her death, surrounded by people that she loves and who love her. She wants to stay as healthy as she can for as long as she can and so she's creating that through her planning and her choices. And she said, "Don't give your money to the pharmaceutical companies. If you start with one pill, you'll need another, then they'll get you on twenty-one pills for the rest of your life." And we all know that that is just not healthy.
Louise's friend and traveling companion, Nancy, who is also the event director for Hay House, said that she feels that the secret to longevity is happiness and fun. She said that her life was so tightly wound and that she was so busy projecting the image of being a perfect wife that it was choking her. And that when her life crumbled before her eyes with a divorce, the people whom she feared revealing her true self to the most (Louise was among them,) were the very ones who were actually waiting in the wings to be the primary scaffolding of support as she rebuilt her life anew.
Louise said that it's a wonderful thing to watch someone change, to be willing to walk through open doors into a beautiful life filled with fun and laughter. With that she and Nancy took our questions, which were mostly exclamations of gratitude. People said things like I'm a happy person and I just want to thank you, Louise, for helping me to heal my life. One man said that he had been an addict who thought that life sucked, until he realized that it was his own thinking that sucked. In response, referring to her many audio tapes and CDs which gently guide her listeners to change, Louise asked if he was one of those men who goes to bed with her at night. We all heartily laughed at that of course.
One woman asked about grief and Louise reminded us that we never own anyone, so we can't really loose them and that when we ourselves pass on, we will be reunited with our loved ones. So, it's just a temporary separation and she said that we can ask them to give us a sign when they are near us, like a penny or a feather, to help us remember how close we actually always are.
One person asked what we can do to help the children. And Louise said that she has created an iPod application for young people, knowing how helpful it would be to make these changes while we are young rather than waiting until we are grown to start healing our lives. But she also said that if we can love ourselves as much as we can, it will pass on to our children and young people. If we can release our guilt and let it go, that helps a lot, too. She reminded us that The Course In Miracles says that all disease comes from a state of non-forgiveness. She said, "Love who you are, forgive and release your resentment."
Someone else was hoping that they could help a loved one to change. Louise explained that she never tries to convert anyone and that we can only try to convert someone by living our own lives to our very best. She reminded us that if it heals you, it will probably also help to heal them and that forgiveness of yourself and others is always a good place to start.
When asked, what does she say to people who don't believe in all of this, she said, "I don't say anything. I'm not a salesperson, I'm a teacher. If you want to learn about what I have to teach, I'm happy to share it all with you." She said that what she does is to reach out a hand to people who would like some help up. If that's what they want, great, but if they just want to pull her down, then she simply leaves and goes somewhere else instead, somewhere where she can be of assistance.
Louise began her talk with, and I will end with, a simple way to comfort ourselves, which is to simply consciously breathe in and then breathe out. She said it's a wonderful tool that we can all use anytime and anyplace to relax ourselves. She reminded us that we are all born happy, innocent little babies and to just keep remembering that life loves us and that that is all that we really need to know.
© 2012 Josephine Laing