After a recent visit to see Louise in San Diego, I took a British
Airways flight home to London. The flight encountered severe turbulence
nonstop for 90 minutes. We all experienced the turbulence, but we didn’ t
experience it the same way. One lady screamed over and over, “I don’t want
to die!” She had to be sedated. A few seats away , two young boys met each
violent bump and drop with howls of laughter . They were having a great
time. And then there was the Englishman who sat with his eyes closed,
breathing deeply and af firming to himself, Life loves us,  and All is well. Thought is not reality . I do the schoo l run with my daughter , Bo. It’s a
30-minute trip, depending on traffic. Our journeys are full of conversation. Bo loves her school, but she finds the drop-of f difficult. “I know it’s just my
thoughts, Daddy ,” she said one time. “Be kind to those thoughts, and let
them know you’re okay ,” I said. Bo was quiet for a while, and then she
asked a question—one of approximately 390 questions per day—which
was, “What is a thought made of?” What a great question. When we know
that thoughts are just ideas—a version of reality , but not reality itself—it
can make a world of dif ference how we experience life. You can choose your thoughts. Louise and I were out for a walk one day. We were  follow ing a nature trail near her home. Big old eucalyptus trees
shaded us from the bright sun. We got talking about the principle You can
choose your thoughts . “What exactly does this principle mean?” I asked
Louise. She said, “It means thoughts have no power other than what you
give them.” Thoughts are just ideas—possibilities in consciousness—that
are only big or powerful if we identify with them. “You are the only thinker
in your mind, and you can choose if your thoughts are true or not,” said
Louise.One of my favorite Louise Hay principles is, The only thing we are ever
dealing with is a thought, and a thought can be changed. Most of the time
when we are in pain, it’s because we are responding to our thoughts about
something. The pain is mind-ma de. It is a sign that we are literally suffering
from psychology . The way out of suffering is to make friends with your
mind and remind yourself that you are the thinker of your thoughts. Happiness is only ever one thought away . For instance:
When your three-year -old son puts the car keys down the toilet again
in order to see the look on your face, you could get angry , or you could
choose a higher thought. When your six-year -old daughter asks you to dress up in her mother ’s
wedding dress, you could be sensible and say “No,” or you could
choose to create a wonderful photo opportunity . When your wife puts your favorite 1989 Bordeaux wine in the
spaghetti sauce, this could be grounds for a major grievance, or you
could choose peace instead. When your computer crashes in the middle of writing a chapter of a
book, you could  declare atheism as revenge, or you could ask for extra
help and guidance. When something doesn’ t go your way, you could think, The world is
against me,  or you could choose to look for a hidden blessing. Power of Inquiry
I was writing an article for a national newspaper . It was not going well. The editor had given me a deadline of “a thousand words by yesterday ,
ideally .” I had been at my computer for more than two hours, and I was still
staring at a blank screen. I had written more than a thousand words already ,
but none of them  were any good, according to the voice in my head. That
voice, the one that didn’ t like my writing, was familiar to me. It had a harsh
tone. It felt cold and sharp. It was my inner critic.My inner critic was firmly in charge of my writing that morning. I had a
good idea what I wanted to say, but I couldn’ t get past the first line. Whatever I wrote was being judged by my inner critic as not good enough
or not inter esting enough  or not original enough. I tried to reset myself over
and over again. Deep breath. Sip of coffee. Inspiring affirmation. No luck
whatsoever . I had wasted half a morning, and I felt like tearing my hair out. I didn’ t though, because I’ve tried that before and it doesn’ t work. At least,
it doesn’ t work for me. I was about to let the curtain fall on my career as a writer when I had a
flash of insight. Another voice inside my head spoke to me. This voice
sounded soft, warm, and resonan t. It was kind. This voice said to me, “Your
inner critic has never been published.” “What?” I gasped. “Coul d this really
be true?” Apparently it was. My inner critic—the voice that was coaching
me how not to write my article that morning—had not once been published. For years, I had listened faithfully to the voice of my inner critic, and I
had not once thought to check its credentials. I just assumed that it spoke
the truth and knew what it was doing. But my inner critic had never written
a book. It didn’ t even have a blog. No wonder it couldn’ t show  me how to
write. Wow! I felt a huge surge of relief move through my body . I knew I
had to stay close  to that other voice that had delivered this amazing insight. “What shall I do now?” I asked the kind voice. “Tell your inner critic to
relax and take the day off,” the voice said. That’ s what I did. And the
writing flowed. “Awareness is the first step to changing anything,” says Louis e. “Until
you are aware of what you are doing to yourself, you will not be able to
make the change.” That morning, as I sat at my computer , I allowed myself
a new awareness. I let myself see what I was doing to myself. That sudden
flash of insight, which in emotional intelligence theory is called the magic
quarter -second , was enough to halt a pattern of self-criticism that was as
old as I was. The inner critic still has an opinion about my writing every so
often, but now I know what to do, thanks to the new awareness. The heart of my work is inqui ry. I coach people on how to use self-
inquiry to be more self-aware and, ultimately , happier . I firmly believe that
most people don’t need more therapy; they need more clarity . In other
words, the essence of who you are—your Unconditioned Self—doesn’ t
need fixing or healing, because you’re not really broken. Whe n you’re in
pain, it’s becaus e you’re suffering from psychology . “Even self-hatred isonly a thought, and it’s a thoug ht that can be changed,” says Louise. Self-
awareness gives you choices. Who taught you how to think ? I ask this question in my training
programs. Most people have never thought about it. We don’t really
question our thinking. “Children  learn by imitation,” says Loui se. It’s true. You have been taught how to think. You have followed someone’ s example. Guess whose? Do you know? “Most of us make up our minds about
ourselves and the world by the time we are five years old,” says Louise. In
her book You Can Heal Y our Life,  Louise wrote,
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 were taught early in life that the world is a safe place, then we would
hold other beliefs. We could easily accept that love is everywhere, and people are so friendly ,
and I always have whatever I need. Without self-awareness, which gives you the ability to question your
thoughts, you can’t update your mind. The worst-case scenario is that you
are running around with a secondhand mind, borrowed from a parent or
someone else, and you are still using an old operating system—Mind 5.0—
that is the mind of your five-yea r-old self. What you are calling  my mind  is
not really yours, and it’s out of date. Until you see this, your life will be full
of familiar patterns, and nothing will change, no matter how hard you try . Another great inquiry practice is to ask, Who is thinking “my” thoughts ? There are two levels to consider here. Level one is investigating whether the
thoughts you observe are yours or someone else’s. For exam ple, is self-
criticism a family pattern? Does your self-criticism mirror your mother ’s
self-criticism or her criticism of you? Does the way you judge yourself
mirror your father ’s self-judg ments or how he judged you? Is your
philosophy a mirror of your family ethos? It’ s good to know whose example
you are following. It’s also good to know that you can choose your
thoughts. Level two of Who is thinking “my” thoughts? brings you even  closer to
home. Here you are observing if the thought is a reflection of either a) the
basic truth I am loveable , which mirrors the original mind of your
Unconditioned Self, or b) the basic fear I am not loveable , which mirrors
the psychology of your self-image. In other words, is this thought a soul-thought or an ego-thought? Which “me” is thinking this thought? Let’s look
at some examples:
I don’t know:  When you say to yourself, I don’t know , is that what you
really mean, or are you trying to say, I don’t think I know ? There is a
world of difference. “Every time you say ‘I don’t know ,’ you shut the
door to your own inner wisdom,” says Louise. “But when you say to
yourself, ‘I am willing to know ,’ you open yourself up to the wisdom
and support of your higher self.”
I’m not ready:  When you hear yourself say, I’m not ready, is it your
soul speaking or your ego? Lots of us encounter this thought before we
start something new like getting married, having a baby , creating a
business, writing a book, or giving a public talk. Is it really true you’re
not ready? If so, get some extra help. If not, tell your ego to relax and
let your soul lead the way . I’m too old: We spend our life thinking, I’m not ready, and then one
day it changes. We stop thinking, I’m not ready  and start thinking, I’m
too old. Who says? How old is your soul anyway? Are you too old
really , or do you feel unworthy or afraid or something else? When you
watch your thoughts, and you suspend your judgments, you get to see
what the real thought is. I can’t do it: “A thought is just an idea,” Louise says. “And you are
either thinking with the mind of your soul or the mind of your ego.”
One of my favorite chapters in Louise’ s book You Can Heal Your Life
is entitle d “Is It True?” If you haven’ t read that chapter , please do. If
you have read it, read it again. Every unexamined fear is 100 percent
true until you look at it. PRACTICE 2: 10 D OTS
Louise and I are having lunch together at Torrey Pines Lodge in La Jolla,
a few miles north of San Diego. Our table looks out on the Torrey Pines
golf course, which is one of the most beautiful municipal courses in theworld. It hosted the U.S. Open in 2008. Louise knows how much I love the
game of golf and how thrilled I am to be here. I tell her I’m going to
suggest to Reid Tracy, presiden t of Hay House, that the annual Hay House
Golf Championship be played here this year. “Everything is possible,” says
Louise with a smile. We have  been talking all morn ing about how the mind influences our
experience of the world. “Golf is definitely a mind game,” I say to Louise. “Everything is,” she replies. I tell her about a recent round of golf I played
in a tournament at St. Enodoc, in Cornwall, England, where I am a member . Like Torrey Pines, this course is set on the coast, and when the wind blows,
it can be very dif ficult to control your ball and control your mind. In this round, I played with someone who shot 120, which for him is
about 30 more than usual. His game started poorly and got worse as it went
on. I watched as his inner critic took control. Eventually , he found it
impossible to keep his self-talk to himself. Shot after shot he yelled, “I am
so stupid,” or something similar . “That’ s an affirmation,” Louise says. His mind was like a giant sand trap
that he couldn’ t get out of. “If you don’t know how to change  your mind,
you can’t change your experien ce,” Louise tells me, sounding like a true
golf pro. Later that afternoon, Louise and I continue our conversation about the
ability to change our minds. “I don’t change anyone’ s life,” says Louise. “Only you can change your
own life.”
“So what do you do?” I ask. “I teach people that the mind is very creative, and that when you change
the way you think, it will change your life.”
“So you teach people how to think,” I say . “Until someone can show you the connection between your outer
experiences and your inner thoughts, you will be a victim of life,” she says. “They will feel like the world is against them,” I say . “The world isn’t against us, though,” says Louise. “The truth is that we
are all loveable and life loves us.”
“This awareness opens us up to the totality of possibilities,” I suggest. “The totality of possibilities is always here for us,” says Louise. I tell Louise that her live lecture  “The Totality of Possibilities” is one of
my favorites. In it she says, “I spend my life seeing the truth in people. I seethe absolute truth of their being . I know that the health of God is in them
and can express itself through them.” Louise isn’t talking about positive
thinking. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Louise use the term positive
thinking . Louise  doesn’ t see thoughts as being positive or negat ive. Thoughts are always neutral. It’s the way we handle our thoughts that is
either positive or negative. “So how do we really change our mind?” I ask Louise. “You have to change your relationship to your mind,” she says. “How do we do that?”
“By remembering that you are the thinker of your thoughts.”
“Be the thinker , not the thought,” I say . “The power is with the thinker , not the thought,” she responds. “Notice the judgment, but don’t be the judge,” I say. “Notice a self-
criticism, but don’ t be your own worst critic.”
I remind  Louise  of my golf story and my golf partner ’s self-talk. He
didn’ t yell, “What a stupid shot! ” He yelled, “I am so stupid!” His self-talk
wasn’ t a comme ntary on his golf game; it was about him. He got lost in his
thoughts. He was so identified with each judgment that he was acting as the
judge. It was the same with his self-criticism. He had become his own worst
critic. He was no longer in his right mind. He probably didn’ t realize that
his inner critic had never won a golf tournament. “Your thoughts mirror your relationship with yourself,” Louise reminds
me. “And a thought can be changed,” I say . “Yes, because you are the thinker of your thoughts,” she says. “How do we begin to change our thoughts?” I ask. “Affirmations in front of the mirror ,” says Louise, as if it’ s obvious. “What exactly is an af firmation?” I ask her . “An af firmation is a new beginning,” she replies. Louise transformed her life by using affirmations. “I learned that every
thought you think and every word you say is an affirmation,” she tells me. “They affirm what you believe to be true and, therefore, how you
experience your life.” A complaint is an affirmation. Gratitude is an
affirmation. Every thought and every word affirms something. Decisions
and actio ns are also affirmations . The clothes you choose to wear , the foods
you choose to eat, and the exercise you choose to do or not do—they are
affirming your life.“The moment you say affirmat ions, you are stepping out of the victim
role,” writes Louise in her book Heart Thoughts . “You are no longer
helpless. You are acknowledging your own power .” Affirmation s wake you
up from  the sleep of the daily  unconscious. They help you choose your
thoughts. They help you let go of old limiting beliefs. They help you to be
more present. They help you to heal your future. “What you affirm today
sets up a new experience of tomorrow ,” says Louise. When you spend time with Louise, you get to see that Louise Hay
doesn’ t just think about affirmations; she lives her affirmations. She doesn’ t
just do ten minu tes of affirmations in the morning and then get on with her
day. She takes her af firmations with her all through the day . To help, she has
affirmations discreetly placed around her home. Affirmations like Life loves
me on her bathroom mirror; All is well by a light switch in the hall; and
Only good lies befor e me on her kitchen wall. One in her car reads, I bless
and prosper everyone in my life, and everyone in my life blesses and
prospers me. It’s now time to introduce you to the second spiritual practice of Life
Loves You. It’s called 10 Dots. The idea is to practice one affirmation
throughout the day. We recomm end you start with the affirmatio n that’s the
main theme of this book. We invite you to begin the day by looking in the
mirror and saying out loud, Life loves you. Please repeat this ten times. For
variation you may wish to af firm:
I am open to life loving me today . I allow life to love me today . I say YES to life loving me today . I am grateful for life loving me. Life loves me, and I feel blessed. Next, we want you to place ten dots in places where you will see them
throughout the day. You can find self-adhesive dots in most stationery
stores. Any shape will do: a circle, a star, a heart, a little angel, a smiley
face. Stick these dots on your mirrors, your teakettle, your refrigerator , your
car steer ing wheel or dashboard, your wallet, your computer screen, andanywhere else you may frequently look. Every time you see one of your ten
dots, be sure to af firm consciously Life loves me . We encourage you to do the 10 Dots  experim ent for seven days. “Be
patient with yourself,” says Louise. “It’s not like I said three affirmations
and then set up Hay House.” It’s common in the beginning to experience
some resistance. Also, you may find that you experience the opposite of the
affirmation—thoughts and feelings that reflect the belief Life doesn’ t love
me. Remember , this affirmation is a new beginning. It is realigning your
thinking with the basic truth I am loveable . It will most likely require a
period of adjustment. Stick with it. Just as with mirror work, affirmations
don’t work in theory; they work in practice. OceanofPDF .comCHAPTER 3
Following Your Joy
If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth. Listen to the secr et sound, the
real sound, which is inside you. KABIR
Louise and I are sitting in front of the mirror again, the one in her office at
home in San Diego. Today we are exploring the meaning of Life loves you. “Life loves you is a beautiful affirmation,” I say, “but it’s more than just an
affirmation.” Louise gives me one of her knowing smiles. “I hope so,” she
says. Life loves you offers us a basic philosophy for living. These three
words are a signpost that points us to the heart of creation, to our
relatedness to each other , and to our true nature. Life loves you shows us
who we are and how to live a truly blessed life. “What does Life loves you  mean to you, Louise?” I ask. “Life loves us all. It doesn’ t just love you or me,” she replies. “So we are all included,” I say . “Life loves all of us,” she repeats. “Love must include us all, or else it is not love,” I say . “Yes, and no one is more special than anyone else,” says Louise. “We are all equals in the eyes of love,” I say . “Yes, and no one is left out,” she says.“No unholy exceptions!” I add. This may be a new way of thinking to some people, but it is not a new
philosophy . Since ancient times, philosophers and poets have observed a
basic relatedness we all share. In “Love’ s Philosophy ,” the poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley explores this basic relatedness in a way that is both spiritual
and sensuous. It’s one of my favorite love poems. I always recite it at the
start of my Loveability  program. It begins:
The fountains mingle with the river  
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever  
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;  
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine? We are made for each other . All of us are included. No unholy
exceptions. Mystics and scienti sts agree that in the deeper reality beyond
space and time, we are all memb ers of one body . Albert Einstein referred to
the perception of separateness as an “optical delusion.” David Bohm, an
American quantum physicist who was one of Einstein’ s most famous
students, recogn ized an undivided universe, an implicate wholeness, and a
theater of interrelations. W e belong to each other . “Life loves you unconditionally ,” says Louise. “What does that mean?” I ask. “Life is not judging you,” she replies most emphatically . “And life is not criticizing you,” I add. “No, and life is not testing you. And it’s not trying to make things hard
for you,” Louise says. “When you say you, I assum e you mean the soul bird, our Unconditioned
Self.”
“Yes, life loves you, the real you,” she says. “We are loved for who we are, not for what we think we must become,” I
say. “Life loves you  now!” Louise emphasizes. Life loves you is stated in the present tense. It’s not that life loves you
only when you are a child, young and innocent. And it’s not that life will
love you when or if you change. “Life loves us even when we don’t loveourselves,” says Louise. We both pause to let this awareness sink in. Life
loves you feels natural and believable “when” and “if” we love ourselve s,
but otherwise it seems too good to be true. A passage from A Course in
Miracles  pops into my head. I share it with Louise. The universe of love does not stop  
because you do not see it,
nor have your closed eyes lost the  
ability to see. Look upon the glory of His creation,  
and you will learn what
God has kept for you. “Let’ s talk abou t the meaning of life,” I say to Louise. “Okay then,” she
replies, giving me a quizzical look. I ask her what the word life refers to in
Life loves you. She tells me that life refers to whatever created us. She says
that life can mean Universe, or Spirit, or Grace, or the Divine, or God. I
sense her relucta nce to use the word God, and I ask about this. She tells me,
“I like to use the word life because life isn’t a religious word.” I unders tand
her reluctance. “What a shame we made a religion out of God,” I say . “Life loves you  is a spiritual philosophy , not a religious philosophy ,” says
Louise. “Life is 100 percent nondenominational,” I say . “Yes,” says Louise, “and life is bigger than all the names of God put
together .”
“So, is Life loves you  the same as God loves you ?” I ask her . “Yes, but only if God is not a man in the sky watching your genitals, and
only if God is unconditional love.”
“Amen,” I say . Life loves you is a philosophy of love that recognizes love as being
spiritual, not just romantic. Like other philosophies, such as mystical
Christianity , Sufism, the Kabbalah, and Bhakti yoga, love is bigger than just
an emotion or sex. The love in Life loves you  refers to the Mind of Creation. Love is the consciousness of the universe. It is empty of personal neurosis
and ego psychology . “Love is an infinite intelligence,” says Louise. “It
loves all of its creations, and it will guide you and direct you if you will let
it.”
“Let’ s look at what Life loves you doesn’t mean,” I say to Louise. She
gives me another quizzical look. “Well, Life loves you isn’t about gettingyour own way; it’s about gettin g out of your way,” she says with a smile. “Life has a plan for each of us. This plan is for our highest good and for the
greatest good of everyone. It’s a Universal Plan that is bigger than any ego
gratification. It has our highest interests at heart. All we can ever do is let
love lead the way .”
“When did you first consider the possibility that life loves you?” I ask. “Oh, not for the longest time,” Louise replies. “Did anyone ever say to you, ‘Life loves you,’ while you were growing
up?”
“No, not anyone. Certainly not anyone in my family .”
“Did you learn it from someone?” I ask her . “Not that I remember ,” says Louise. “So how did you discover that life loves you?”
“It must have been when I found my inner ding,” she says. Listen fr om W ithin
Louise and I are at Hay House headquarters in Carlsbad, Califo rnia. We
are abou t to be filmed for the Hay House World Summit 2014. The cameras
are in position. The studio lights are on. Louise is applying some final
touches of makeup to my brow . Yes, Louise Hay does my makeup. It’s a
tradition of ours. She first offered to do my makeup when we met backstage
at the Las Vegas I Can Do It! conference. That was my debut keynote for
Hay House, and Louise has been my makeup artist ever since. “Let’ s talk about your inner ding,” I say . “Oh yes. Ding, ding,” says Louise, who is in a playful mood. “What is your inner ding?” I ask. “Well, I feel it right here,” she says, tapping her chest. “In your heart,” I say . “Yes,” she says. “So, what is the inner ding?”
“It’s an inner knowing,” she says. Louise trusts her inner ding with her life. “It’s my friend,” she tells me. “It’s an inner voice that talks to me. I’ve learned to trust it. It’s right forme.” I’ve interv iewed Louise about her inner ding on three occasions. Each
time I am struck by how grateful she is for her inner ding. She talks about it
with reverence and love. Listening to her inner ding is a daily spiritual
practice. “My inner ding is alwa ys with me,” she says. “When I listen to my
inner ding, I find the answers I need.”
“Where does your inner ding come from?” I ask. “Everywhere!” says Louise, still being playful. “What does that mean?” I ask. “My inner ding is how I listen to the big wisdom,” she says. “Is this like the One Intelligence you refer to in You Can Heal Y our Life ?”
I ask. “Yes, the One Intelligence that of fers guidance to us all,” she says. “Do we all have an inner ding?” I ask her . “Every child is born with an inner ding,” Louise assures me. This was my cue to tell Louise a story . Earlier that day, Hollie, Bo,
Christopher , and I had visited the San Diego Botanic Garden, in Encinitas. We walked through a dragon tree grove, climbed up to a tree house (several
times), counted butterflies, played by a waterfall, and ran around a grass
maze. On our way back to our car, I stopped to look at a bed of orange
California poppi es. Bo came and stood next to me. “Daddy ,” she said, “the
thing about love is you’ve got to love plants as much as you love people,
and when you can do that, you know what love is.”
“That’ s Bo’s inner ding!” says Louise, clapping her hands with joy. One
moment Bo is being a girl, and the next, suddenly she’s Tinker Bell, waving
her wand, dispensing wisdom like fairy dust. Every parent can testify to his
or her child’ s inner ding. Children are blessed with a radiant intelligence. Some Buddhists call it mirror-like consciousness  because it mirrors the
wisdom of the soul. This wisdom has nothing to do with IQ scores, math
tables, history tests, or Pythagor ean triangles. You don’t learn it; you bring
it with you. We are infused with natural wisdom. Our being is the knowledge of the
universe. We each experience it in our own way, and we may call it by
another name, such as inner ding, inner teacher , Mister God, Holy Spirit, or
divine guidance. We carry the truth within us. In Robert Brown ing’s poem
“Paracelsus” he writes,
Truth is within ourselves, it takes no rise  
From outward things, whate’er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all,  
Where truth abides in fullness; and around  
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,  
This perfect, clear perception—which is T ruth. Somehow we forget about this truth, but it does not forget about us. Early
on, we experience a loss of guidance. The GPS of our soul is in perfect
working order , but we act as if it is broken. We learn to depend on the ego
and our intellect  for navigation. This is good for short journeys, but not for
the journey that is our true path. Much of our life is spent trying to recover
our inner wisdom —the inner ding. We have a memory of it, and this spurs
us on. “How did you find your inner ding again?” I ask Louise. “I was a late bloomer ,” she says. “I’d bumbled along all through my adult
life without any awareness of my inner ding.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, I was sitting in a lecture at the Church of Religious Science in
New York, and I heard someon e say, ‘If you are willing to change your
thinking, you can change your life.’ Something inside me said, ‘Pay
attention to this,’ and I did.”
“Was it your inner ding that said, ‘Pay attention’?” I ask. “It must have been,” says Louise. Louise then asks me how I found my inner ding. I tell her the story of
how I met my first spiritual mentor when I was 18 years old. His name is
Avanti Kumar , and I’ve writte n about our adventures in several of my
books. Avanti was a fellow student at Birmingham City Univers ity. He was
an urban mystic. He seemed to have a normal life, and yet he wasn’ t like
anyone I had met before. Avanti introduced me to metaphysics and
meditation. “You are the Buddha, and everyone is waiting for you to remem ber this,”
Avanti told me, during one of our many conversations at our favorite coffee
shop. He qualifi ed his statement by explaining that we are all Buddha. The
name Buddha is a Sanskrit term for awakened one—someone who
remembers his or her unconditio ned nature. Avanti taught me that there is a
still, small voice inside each of us that is our real voice and that the more
willing we are to listen to this voice, the easier it is to hear it. Like Louise, I have learned to trust this inner voice. I call this voice my
Yes. It’s a Yes with a capital Y. I’m pretty sure it’s the same as Louise’ sinner ding. I call it my Yes because it is deeply affirming and I feel it has
my best interest s at heart. It is also constantly supportive and always on
hand when I need it. My inner voice feels like a Yes when I experience its
presence in my body , my heart,  and my thinking. The Yes is what I listen
for when I have a decision to make. The Yes helps me recognize and follow
the big plan. The Y es is my light on the path. “My inner ding is life’s way of loving me,” Louise tells me. I feel the
same way about  my Yes. Louise  consults with her inner ding throughout the
day. “In the beginning I used to meditate in order to be able to hear my
inner ding,” she says. “I found meditation very difficult to begin with. I
experienced violent headaches. It was most uncomfortable. I stuck with it,
though, and eventually I learned  to enjoy meditation. Meditation helped me
to listen from within. I found it a big help early on.”
When I ask Louise if she still meditates, she tells me abou t a great
exercise she does. “I don’t meditate daily now. Just occasionally . When I
wake up I go to the mirror and say, ‘Tell me what I need to know today .’
And then I listen. It’s by doing this exercise that I learned to trust that
everything I need to know will be revealed to me in the perfect  space-time
sequence.” Louise tells me she often asks the question What would you
have me know? when she wants  guidance on something specific, such as a
health issue, a business decision, or a meeting with someone. Louise’ s brilliant exercise reminds me of a prayer in A Course in
Miracles  that I call the Guidance Prayer . I have recited it almost every day
for the last 20 years. The idea is to be still, make a conscious connection
with your inner voice (whatever you call it), and then simply ask:
What would Y ou have me do? Where would Y ou have me go? What would Y ou have me say and to whom? Love Who Y ou Ar e
“I am a Yes person living in a Yes universe,” says Louise.“That sounds wonderful,” I tell her . “What do you mean?”
“Life loves us, and this love sustains us and guides us on our adventures. And so the universe is always saying Yes to us.”
“Love is the inner ding!” I exclaim. “Yes,” says Louise, smiling. “And I am a Yes person because I always
follow my inner ding.”
“Why do we resist following our inner ding?” I ask. “Children don’t hear the word yes enough,” Louise says. “They hear no
and don’t and stop that and do as I say. The people who say these things
heard the same when they were children.”
The first word most children learn to speak is no, according to research. I
was asked to comment on this research for a BBC news show , and I was
surprised by the findings. I thought the most common first word would be
Mum  or Dad. Perhap s not. Other research says children hear the word no up
to 400 times a day. Everyone agrees a child needs to hear the word no, but
not that much. So maybe no is the most common first word. In the
beginning was the word, and the word was no. Our life starts with a no. That’ s not much of a start, is it? Imagine if the first word we learned to
speak was yes. “Every child has an inner ding,”  says Louise, “but they need to grow up
in a loving, positive environment in order to trust this inner voice.” Louise
goes on to draw a parallel between healthy children in a family and healthy
cells in the body . She refers to Bruce Lipton, the developmen tal biologist
who wrote The Biology of Belief . Lipton has collated a large body of
research showing that the health of a cell depends on the environment it
exists in. A loving, positive environment creates health; but a fearful,
negative environment causes unrest. “Without a loving, positive
environment, a child for gets about the inner ding,” says Louise. Listening to our inner ding is how we learn to love ourselves. It’s how we
get the courage to live our truth. When we stop listening to our inner ding, it
causes us to reject ourselves. Instead of being true to ourse lves—being
original, if you like—we try to fit in, to please others, to be normal. But we
didn’ t come here to be normal! Being normal is not following your joy. At
the end of your life, your guardian angel or Saint Peter or whoever isn’t
going to ask you, “Were you normal?” They won’ t make you take a Normal
Test!“We are constantly invited to be who we are,” wrote Henry David
Thoreau. To do this we must honor our inner wisdom. I have an exercise
about inner wisdom that I teach in my eight-week happiness program, Be
Happy , which is the signature event  of my work with The Happiness
Project. The exercise is an invitation for everyone in the group to stand up,
one by one, and say out loud the following af firmation: I am a wise person. Affirming I am a wise person  may sound simple to you, but not everyone
finds it easy. Many students experience palpitations just hearing about the
exercise. They get weak in the knees as they stand up to say, “I am a wise
person.” They feel strong emotions, and sometimes tears flow. In the review
of this exercise,  I encourage my students to notice which “self ” finds this
exercise difficult. Is it the soul bird, the Unconditioned Self; or their self-
image? During one Be Happy  program, a man called Alan refused to do this
exercise. A senior teacher at a large school in London, he is very capable. Yet when it came to his turn to stand up, he couldn’ t speak, and he put out
his hand to me as if to say, “No, I can’t.” Alan had been very sociable and
had participated fully in the program up until that point. I could  see that his
outstretched hand was a firm No. He wasn’t ready . And so we moved on. A
few days later, I received an e-mail from Alan. Here’ s an excerp t from what
he wrote:
Dear Robert,
Thank you for the Be Happy program, which I have been enjoying immensely . As you
know , last weekend was difficult for me … I was taken by surprise at my response  to the [I
Am a Wise Person] exercise. Something in me froze. It said, “No.” I couldn’ t speak … I am a
teacher whose greatest joy is to help young boys and girls find their voice. The irony is not lost
on me. This is my invitation to heal and to love myself. I am a 46-year -old man, and it is never
too late to be a wise person! I want you to know that I am willing to honor the wisdom that
you say is in each of us. “I am a wise person.” “I am a wise person.” “I am a wise person.” I
am standing up as I type these words! … Tears are rolling down my cheeks … “I am a wise
person.” I know this is only in writing … I ask that the next time we meet you will give me a
chance to say out loud—to the whole group —“I am a wise person.” It’s important for me to do
this …
Blessings,
AlanThe habit of self-rejection takes  control when you play deaf to the wise
voice of your true self. You stop listening from within. You override what
your body is telling you. You ignore the internal memos from your heart. You don’t listen  to the song of the soul bird. You move away from yourself. Do you recognize the face in the mirror? Is it really you? Subtly or not so
subtly , we give up on ourselves. We tell ourselves we don’t matter . We stop
believing in ourselves, and we stop caring. “Not being consciou s of oneself
as spirit is despair ,” said Søren Kierkegaard. When you stop following your inner voice, you become estranged from
yourself. You forget who you are, and you have no way of knowing what
you really want. Like everyone else, you pursue happiness, you chase
success, and you look for love, but your loss of inner guidance means you
end up looking in the wrong places. You are full of desire, but can you tell
the difference between a genuine holy longing and a conditioned response
to marketing and advertising? You won’ t ever get enough of what you
didn’ t really want in the first place. Do you know what you really want to
say yes to? “Every time I hear the word should , a bell goes off in my head,” says
Louise. When you hear yourself say , “I should do …” or “I should be …” or
“I should have …” you need to ask yourself, “Who is saying this?” Is this
the voice of your Unconditioned Self? Are you really followin g your joy? Or is this the voice of your ego? “The more you drop should  from your list,
the less noise you experience in your head, and the easier it gets to hear
your inner ding again,” says Louise. When we reject ourselves, we are terrified of being rejected by others. If
they, too, reject us, there is no one left to love us. We do our best to make
ourselves into someone acceptable and loveable. We twist ourselves into
shapes that will hopefully please others. We take on roles like helper and
martyr and star, in an effort to win love and success. But there’ s always a
nagging feeling that something is missing. Until you accept yourself—and
say yes to who you really are—you will always feel like something is
missing from your life. Saying yes is really about meeting the deepest part of you. It’s about
saying yes to your secret beauty , to your soul nature, and to your creativity . This is what you have to be faithful to. This is what loving yourself is all
about. This is the real work of your life. The Persian poet Rumi gave the
world a poem called “Say Y es Quickly .” He wrote,              Inside you  
there’ s an artist you  
don’t know about …  
Is what I say true? Say yes quickly , 
if you know , if you’ve known it  
from before the beginning of the universe. The Sacr ed Yes
One week befor e Louise and I were due to start writing Life Loves You, I
received an e-mail from the author Sandy Newbigging asking me to write a
foreword for his book Mind Calm . I felt honored to be asked, but I thought I
didn’ t have the time and needed to keep my focus on this book. I e-mailed
Sandy to say my answer would have to be no, but somehow I ended up
saying yes. It wasn’ t an I-shoul d yes, or an I-must yes, or even a be-kind
yes. It was a truthful yes. Or what I call my Big Y es—with a capital Y . Another name for this Yes is my Sacred Yes. I sense this Yes in my belly
(gut instinct), I feel it in my heart, and I hear it in my head. When it shows
up, I feel like I have almost no choice whether to follow it. This is the “Y es”
that simply feels  true. To go against it would be inauthentic. I’m so glad I
agreed to read Sandy’ s book. It is full of rich insights. And there’ s one line
in particular that has been so helpful for writing Life Loves Y ou. It speaks to
me every day . It’s the sort of thing my inner voice would say to me:
Let the loving hand of the universe guide you. “All I’ve ever done is listen to my inner ding and said yes,” Louise tells
me as she reflects on her career  as a writer and teacher . “I never meant to
write a book. My first book, the little blue book Heal Your Body , was just a
list I compiled. Someone suggested I make it into a book. And I said yes. I
had no idea how to publish a book, but helping hands appeared along the
way. It was just a little adventure.” Little did she realize that her “little
adventure” would be a bestselle r and the catalyst for a self-help revolution
in publishing. Louise’ s story about giving talks follows a similar pattern. “Someone
invited me to give a talk and I said yes. I had no idea what I’d say, but as
soon as I said yes I felt guide d along the way.” First came  talks, thenworkshops, and then the Hayrides. “A few gay men regularly attended my
workshops,” Louise recalls. “Then one day I was asked if I’d be willing to
start a group for people with AIDS. I said, ‘Yes, let’s get together and see
what happens.’”  Louise had no idea where the Hayrides would take her. There wasn’t a grand marketing plan. She didn’ t target appearing on The
Oprah Winfrey Show  and The Phil Donah ue Show . “I followed my heart,”
says Louise. Saying Yes is a willingness to show up. “The big questi on is whether you
are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure,” said Joseph
Campbell, author of The Hero’s Journey . The Sacred Yes is about the big
plan for your life. It’s not about  ambition; it’s about purpose. It’s not about
profit; it’s about passion. It’s not about self-gain; it’s about service. The
Sacred Yes is about being willin g to take to the open road, as Walt Whitman
described it. Saying Yes is an act of faith. Sometimes we don’t know why we say yes. We don’t have the full picture; and sometimes we can’t even see the next
step. It’s only after we say yes that the next step appears. And it’s only after
we say yes that we realize there  is help along the way. In the PBS special
Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth , Bill Moyers interviews Campbell
about the need for faith when we follow our purpose. At one point, Moyers
asks Cam pbell if he’s ever had the experience of being “helpe d by hidden
hands” on his own journey . Campbell replies,
All the time. It is miraculous … If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the
one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of
bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will
open where you didn’ t know they were going to be. Saying Yes is having an open mind. The Sacred Yes is about dropping
your fear , your unworthiness, your cynicism, your psychology , and allowing
your soul to speak to you. The Sacred Yes is a surrender . “Ever since I put
my foot on the spiritual pathway , it’s as though I’ve had nothing to do with
my life. Life has taken over and it’ s led me all the way . I don’ t lead. I follow
the lead,” Louise tells me.Saying Yes is a journey , not a goal. You say yes not because you are
trying to get somewhere but because it’s what’ s in front of you. In You Can
Create an Exceptional Life, Louise tells Cheryl Richards on, “So often
people ask about how I started Hay House. They want to know every detail
from the day I began up to today . My answer is always the same: I
answered the phone and opened the mail. I did what was before me.” The
journey is the goal. Saying Yes is being present in your life. When I was 18 years old, I
received two letters in the mail on the same day. One was an invitation to
study in a three- year program at Birmingham City University; the other was
an accep tance letter for a one-ye ar post-graduate course in journalism at the
University of Portsmouth. I was young and ambitious. I wanted  to take the
fast-track course in journalism, but everything in my body , my heart, and
my head said yes to the slow boat to Birmingham. This is where I met
Avanti Kumar , my first mentor . This is where I began my spiritual path. I’ve often wondered how my life would have unfolded if I hadn’ t
followed my Yes to Birmingham . I asked Louise about this once. She said,
“Your Yes will always find you, wherever you are.” I love her answer . To
me, Louise is saying that following your Yes isn’t about getting somewhere,
and it isn’t about making the right decisions. It’s about being present. It’s
about being authentic. It’s about being willing to be led. And it’s about
looking in the mirror and liking what you see. That’ s the journey . PRACTICE 3: M Y AFFIRMA TION  BOARD
“The oldest, shortest words— yes and no—are those that require the most
thought,” the Greek mathematic ian Pythagoras ostensibly said. Yes and no
are woven into the fabric of our daily life. They are the basic mathematics
of our psychology . Our thinking  is made up of yes and no. These two words
are our essential binary code. We speak these words every day. They shape
our experience all day long. They are behind every choice we make. They
are in every decision we make. Everything is a yes or a no—or a maybe—a
little bit of both.I remember the first time I consciously thought about my relationship to
yes and no. I was 26 years old, and I was working for the local health
authority in Birmingham, Engl and. I was running a clinic called Stress
Busters. The director for public health asked if I would teach a course on
assertiveness. The psychologist who had previously taught it was retiring. “Yes,” I said. Not because I knew much about assertiveness. I didn’ t. But
the subject interested me, and I wanted to learn more. Early on in my research on assertiveness, I noticed that the main focus
was on saying no. I read articles with titles like “How to Say No” and
“Saying No with Confidence” and “The Art of Saying No.” I also came
across slogans like Just Say No and No means No. Curiou sly, there was
little mention of the word yes. After a few weeks of research, I presented
my course, which I called Assertive, I AM. The first lesson  was called “The
Power of Yes.” I started with yes because I was developing a theory , which
was:
The better you are at saying yes, the  
better you will be at saying no. “Most people start with what they don’t want,” says Louise. “They say, ‘I
don’t want the relationship I am in,’ or ‘I don’t want the job I’ve got,’ or ‘I
don’t want to live where I am living.’” This is a start at least, but it’s not as
powerful as putting your attention and energy on what you want to say yes
to. Louise warns, “The more we dwell on what we don’t want, the more we
get it.” This is a terrible irony , but it’s true. Saying no may signal a fresh
start the first time you say it, but you don’t go anywhere until you start to
say yes. Some people sort by the negatives, so to speak. No is the position they
take in life. Their first answer to everything is no or at least maybe, but
seldom yes. This might be becau se of their personality type or a reaction to
their history. I once had a coach ing client called Susan. Our second session
was an inquiry into the question What do I want? Susan said, “I can think of
lots of things I want to say no to, but that’s not the same as knowing what I
want to say yes to, is it?” “No,” I replied. Susan had to be patient with
herself. Eventually , the yesses began to flow . Some people say yes to too many things. Until you know what you really
want to say yes to, you will continue to say yes to everything else. This willcause you to experience inner doubt, to be torn between contradictory goals,
to get distracted and scattered, to feel compromised, to be exhausted, to get
into unhealthy sacrifice, and to give your power away . As you get clearer
about the Sacred Yesses of your life, you experience a sense of
empowerment and grace that helps you to live a truly blessed life. This brings us to the third spiritual practice for Life Loves You—a
practice we call My Affirmation Boar d.
An affirmation board is a self-portrait. It’s a presentation of everything
you say yes to. The form of your affirmation board is entirely up to you, of
course. You might do a collage of hand-drawn images, or pictures cut out of
magazines or printed off the Internet. You might prefer to do a written list. Maybe you’d like to do a mind map. Whatever you do, keep it to one page. You create your affirmation board by listening within. You are listening
for your Sacred Yesses. These Sacred Yesses belong to you. They’re not
your parents’ yesses or your partner ’s, your children’ s, or anybody else’s. They‘re not about what you should  do with your life; they are about
following your joy. They affirm what you love, what you believe in, and
what you cherish and value. They are about you living your truth. Louise and I have noticed that people’ s first attempts at creating an
affirmation board often focus on having and getting. We encourage you to
make sure your Sacred Yesses are more than just a shopping list. You might
include develop ing a quality like courage, gratitude, or forgiveness, for
instance. Maybe  you want to practice a skill like meditation, yoga, painting,
or cooking. Ask yourself, “What do I want to learn?” and “What do I want
to experience?” Include your favorite affirmation or a personal mantra, for
instance. The key is to express yourself, heart and soul. To focus on being
rather than doing . Louise and I encourage you to give your My Affirmation Boar d plenty of
time. Express yourself. Be creative. Feel free to experiment. It’s not about
getting it right. And it’ s not about creating something that looks good. If you want, you can share your board with a coach or a trusted friend. It’s good to get feedback. Maybe they will point out something obvious that
you’ve missed. Finally , make sure that your affirmation board is about what
you say yes to today , not someday in the future. Rem ember , this isn’t about
chasing happiness; it is about following your joy .OceanofPDF .comCHAPTER 4
Forgiving the Past
Fear binds the world. For giveness sets it fr ee. A C OURSE IN  MIRACLES
The wind from the east has arrived. A storm is blowing across California. San Diego has been a desert for months. Now , clouds hang low over the
city. The squalls keep coming. The trees in Balboa Park are shaking at their
roots. The stale hot air has gone. The healing power of rain is most
welcome. “I hope it rains all weekend,” Louise tells me. “The rain is
making everything new .”
It’s Friday even ing, and I’ve just flown in from London. The descent to
the San Diego airport was full of bumps and sudden drops. The landing was
rough. Our plane bounced along the runway before it came to a stop. It feels
good to be on the ground. Louise and I are sitting in front of a warm fire in
her home, catch ing up on each other ’s news. We’re happy to be together ,
and yet this time it feels different. We’re both aware that we are at the
midpoint of our journey with Life Loves You. All along we’ve known that
this chapter represents the heart of the book. The theme is for giveness. Writing a book is never just about writing a book. I wouldn’ t write as
often as I do if that were all it was. Writing is like looking into a mirror . This is especially true when you focus on big subjects like happiness,healing, and love. Writing helps you to pay attention. It helps you to see
what is in front of you. When you stay with it, you experience a heightened
sense of awareness—just as in meditation. This new awareness is often
disturbing and liberating. It blows through you, rearranging your molecules. Writing, at its best, sets you free. I’ve been writing for several weeks now. The words Life loves you are
my mirror . They are my inquiry , and I’m taking them deep into my body ,
my heart, and my thoughts. These three words— Life loves you— are now
firmly fixed in my awareness. They are often there to greet me upon
waking. They pop into my mind throughout the day. They are always
nearby , no matter what I’m doing. In bed at night, I can feel these words
circling over me, ready to take me of f to sleep. I’ve also been tracking my responses to Life loves you. Each time I hear
these three words, I can hear my soul saying, “Yes.” Sometimes it’s a gentle
whisper , and other times it’s a joyous shout. With each Yes I feel physically
strong and deeply heartened. I know life is spurring me on. That said, I’m
also aware of other voices that call out from the dark corners of my mind. These voices are more cynical. They are full of hurt. Life loves you sounds
like mere words to them, and the words are too good to be true. “The first time you said Life loves you to me was probably not the first
time,” I tell Louise. “Probably not,” says Louise with a wry smile. “It’s taken me a while to let myself hear these words,” I admit. “Not everyone can hear them,” she says. “Sometimes they sound like the gospel truth,” I say, “but other times,
they feel like only a positive af firmation.”
“I know how that feels,” says Louise. “Why do we find it dif ficult to hear these words?” I ask her . “We don’ t believe them,” says Louise. “Why is that?”
“We don’ t believe in ourselves.”
“Why not?”
“Guilt!”
Guilt is a loss of innocence. It’s what we experience when we forget the
basic truth I am loveable . It comes with the basic fear I am not loveabl e. It’s
a belief in unwo rthiness. When  we lose sight of our innocence—which isour true nature— we believe we don’t deserve love. We long for love, but
we turn away from it when it comes, because we feel unworthy . Our feeling
of unworthiness  is what causes  us not only to feel unloveable but also to
behave in unloving ways toward ourselves and others. Guilt is a fear that once upon a time I was loveable, but I’m not anymor e.
Guilt always comes with a story . The story might be about what you did to
someone or what someone did to you. It’s a story based on what happened
in the past. The story has normally finished by now, and yet it can feel like
a never -ending tale. We can become so identified with our guilty story ,
we’re afraid to let it go. Who would I be without this story and this
unworthiness? we wonder. The answer is, you would be innocent again. You would feel wholly loveable. The guilt story is something everyone can relate to. We each have our
own special version of it. The story begins inside us, and then we project it
onto the world. It’s a story told in all the major mythologies of the world. The basic fear I am not loveable  is our mythology . We use it to judge
ourselves, criticize ourselves, and reject ourselves. From this mythology
comes superstition, which is the fear that God is judging you, the world
isn’t safe, and life does not love you. The guilt story is always based on a case of mistaken identity . The
protagonist of the guilt story has forgotten who she is. She has lost sight of
her innocence. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden and Sleeping Beauty , you
fall asleep. Like Oedipus and the Frog Prince, you dream you are a victim
of a curse. Like the Fisherman’ s Daughter and Theseus, you forget about
your heritage. Like the Ugly Duckling and the Beast (in Beauty and the
Beast ), you cannot see your true beauty . Like Odysseus and the Prodigal
Son, you have to make a journey home. Innocence exists forever in the Unconditioned Self. The ego—your
mistaken identit y—doesn’ t believe this. It feels unworthy and believes in
guilt. The ego believes that if you’re guilty enough you can buy back your
innocence. Unfortunately , there’ s no exchange rate between guilt and love. No amount of guilt can buy any amount of love. The guilt story  ends only
when the protag onist gives up unworthiness. Often it takes an angel, or a
prince or princess, to show you your innocence again. When you claim your
innocence, it creates healing for everyone, which is a miracle to the ego. “Helping people to heal guilt is the most important work I do,” says
Louise. “As long as you believe you are unworthy and keep makingyourself guilty , you stay stuck in a story that does no one any good at all.”
When I ask Louise if guilt has any positive purpose, she tells me, “The only
positive function  of guilt is that it tells you you’ve forgotten who you really
are and that it’s time to rememb er.” Guilt is a warning sign, an alarm that
sounds when you are not in alignment with your true nature and acting with
love. “Guilt doesn’ t heal anything,” says Louise. “Explain that, please,” I ask. “Feeling guilty about what you did, or what someone did to you, doesn’ t
make the past go away . Guilt doesn’ t make the past better .”
“Are you saying we should never feel guilt?”
“No,” says Louise. “I’m saying that when you feel guilt or believe that
you are unworthy , you should use it as a sign that you need to heal.”
“How do we heal guilt, Louise?”
“Forgiveness.”
Loving Y our Inner Child
Louise and I are sitting together  in front of a mirror that hangs on a wall
in her living room. It’s a big mirror , about five feet long and three feet high. We are both in full view . There  is nowhere to hide. It’s 9:30 A.M., and we
have a full day of conversation and exploration in front of us. Louise sips
her homemade green smoothie, which is full of goodness. I’m drinking my
coffee, which, I maintain, is also full of goodness. Coffee is a delivery
device for the Holy Spirit, I say. I press the record button on my computer . We are ready to talk about for giveness. “Forgiveness is such a big subject, Louise. Where do we start?”
“Loving your inner child,” Louise says in that matter -of-fact way of hers. “Why do we start there?”
“Until you love your inner child  you will have no idea how loveable you
are, and you won’ t see how much life loves you,” she explains. “That’ s profound,” I say , taking a sip of cof fee. “That’ s because it’ s true,” she says with a smile.Louise Hay is a pioneer of inner -child therapy . She’s taught inner-child
work with individuals and groups for 40 years. She’s written about loving
the inner child in all her major books. She’s published meditations on
healing the inner child. By contrast, I am a beginner . I’ve experi enced some
inner -child therapy personally , but that was a long time ago. I knew we
would meet this subject eventually , so I enrolled myself in a course of
inner -child counseling. I did this for myself, as part of my own journey with
this book. I’d had my fourth session just before I flew out to be with Louise. “Loving the inner child is what helps us find our innocence again,” says
Louise. “How do we love the inner child?” I ask. “The same way you love your adult self,” she says. “By ceasing all self-judgment,” I say . “Babies are not bad people. No one is born guilty . No one is unworthy ,”
says Louise firmly , like a fierce, protective lioness. “Do you really mean everyone ?”
“Every baby is created out of goodness,” Louise says. “It’s only when we
forget about our goodness that we start to feel guilty and unworthy .”
The loss of innocence causes us to lose sight of our basic goodness. This
basic goodness is recognized in many spiritual and philosophical traditions. Matthew Fox, founder of Creati on Spirituality , calls this basic goodness our
original blessing. He draw s on a lineage of basic goodness expounded by
Christian mystics like Julian of Norwich, who wrote,
As the body is clothed in cloth  
and the muscles in the skin  
and the bones in the muscles  
and the heart in the chest,  
 
so are we, body and soul,  
clothed in the Goodness of God  
and enclosed. The basic truth I am loveable  is keeper of the flame. When we remember
the basic truth about ourselves,  we feel innocent, we feel worthy , and we
extend this goodness to each other. When we doubt that we are loveable, we
meet the basic fear I am not loveable . This fear causes us to feel bad about
ourselves. It conjures up the myth of inadequacy: I am not good enough. The voices in the dark corners of our mind declare I am bad and There’ssomething wrong with me. We feel like damaged goods, and we project this
guilt onto our dealings with others. The shame of our ego obscures the
innocence of our soul. “Since I’ve beco me a parent, I notice how much pressure childre n are put
under to be good,” I tell Louise. “I notice that, too,” she says. “Most modern parenting manu als focus on instilling good behavior in
children. W e don’ t trust that children have any innate goodness,” I say . “If the pressure to be a good girl and a good boy is too great, it can cause
us to feel unloveable,” says Louise. “All those good-behavior messages can make you want to have a Bad
Tuesday ,” I say . “What’ s a Bad T uesday ?” Louise asks. “It’s a chapter in Mary Poppins . The little boy, Michael, is so fed up with
having to be good that he behaves badly all day ,” I explain. “We all know what that’ s like,” says Louise with a smile. “Too many should s and must s block the flow of innate goodness,” I say . “When a parent has lost touch with their own goodness, it’s impossible
for them to trust the goodness that lives in their children,” says Louise. One Saturday morning not so long ago, my children and I set out on an
adventure. We had the whole day to ourselves, as Hollie was attending a
program on Biographical Couns eling, which maps the phases of your life,
including early childhood. Bo, Christopher , and I went in search of the
golden pheasant that lives in the Royal Botanic Gardens, also known as
Kew Gardens. Most members of the Kew Friends have never seen the
golden pheasant, but we have. W e’ve seen it many times. On our way we stopped of f at our favorite health food shop in Kew called
Oliver ’s Wholefoods. Bo and I picked delicious snacks from the shelves
and dropped them into a basket that Christopher was wheeling around. The
basket was as big as he was, and it soon became quite heavy with lots of
healthy treats. Christopher manfully pulled the basket toward the counter . He insisted on doing this by himself, and he had to heave it with all his
might. While we were standing in line, ready to pay for our goodies, a friendly-
looking lady we did not know engaged us in conversation. “What’s your
name?” she asked, looking at Bo. Bo told her. “Are you a good little girl?”she asked. Bo didn’ t answer . The friendly-looking lady turned to
Christopher . “What’s your name?” she asked. “Bisterfer ,” he said, which is
nearly Christoph er, especially when you are only a toddler . “Oh,” she said. “And are you a good little boy?”
The friendly-looking lady looked into the basket that Christopher was
holding. “My goodness!” she exclaimed. “You must have been a good girl
and a good boy for Daddy to get you all these treats.” She smiled at me as
she said this. Bo wasn’ t smiling. I knew what she was thinking. I wasn’ t
sure what Christopher was making of all this. I hoped it was flying over his
head. “Well, I’m sure you are very good children. Only very good children
get treats,” she said. We packed our treats into my rucksack and walked out of the shop. After
just a few paces, Bo gave a firm tug on my coat. “Daddy , we need to talk,” she told me. “I thought we might,” I said. “You see, I don’ t want to be a good girl,” she said most adamantly . “What would you like to be?”
“I’d like to be a lovely girl.”
“What’ s a lovely girl like?”
“It’s like this,” she told me. “When I go out people say to me ‘You’re a
lovely girl,’ and all I have to say is ‘Thank you.’”
“Bo, you are a lovely girl,” I said. “Thank you,” she said with a big smile. One of the themes I’ve been exploring in my inner -child counseling is the
pressure I put on myself when I was young to be “a good little boy.” Early
on, I worked out that good little boys didn’ t get shouted at, didn’t get hit,
and didn’t get into trouble. I hoped that if I was always good and never bad,
my parents would never say to me, “We are so disappointed in you.” I hated
it when they said that. However , being good full-time is hard work. You
have to suppress a lot of feelings. You can’t always speak the truth. Sometimes you have to lie. And that feels bad. Trying to be a good little boy is difficult for lots of reasons. For starters,
adults have different versions of what good  is. Your mum and your dad
might not agree on what good is. Your grandparents probably don’t agree
with what your parents think. Your teachers have their own ideas, and so
too do your friends. And everyone changes his or her mind all the timeanyway , and that just makes you mad. You can’t win. It’s so unfair. But you
tell yourself that you mustn’ t say anything because that’ s not good. The more you try to be a good little boy or a good little girl, the more you
have to put on an act. Putting on an act is not innocent. It’s a calculated
attempt to win love and approv al, or, simply to stay out of trouble. Being
good is just one act. Other acts include being strong (“brave little soldier”),
being helpful (“my little helper” ), being nice (“my little angel”), and being
a little adult (“a big girl”). More acts include being an invisible child, the
family hero, a scapegoat, a problem child, and the entertainer . “I tried to be a good little girl at first,” Louise tells me. “But that got me
unwanted attenti on from my stepfather .
_OceanofPDF.com_Life_loves_you_-_Louise_Hay.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        After a recent visit to see Louise in San Diego, I took a British
Airways flight home to London. The flight encountered severe turbulence
nonstop for 90 minutes. We all experienced the turbulence, but we didn’ t
experience it the same way. One lady screamed over and over, “I don’t want
to die. ” She had to be sedated. A few seats away, two young boys met each
violent bump and drop with howls of laughter. They were having a great
time. And then there was the Englishman who sat with his eyes closed,
breathing deeply and af firming to himself, Life loves us,  and All is well. Thought is not reality. I do the schoo l run with my daughter, Bo. It’s a
30-minute trip, depending on traffic. Our journeys are full of conversation. Bo loves her school, but she finds the drop-of f difficult. “I know it’s just my
thoughts, Daddy,” she said one time. “Be kind to those thoughts, and let
them know you’re okay,” I said. Bo was quiet for a while, and then she
asked a question—one of approximately 390 questions per day—which
was, “What is a thought made of. ” What a great question. When we know
that thoughts are just ideas—a version of reality, but not reality itself—it
can make a world of dif ference how we experience life. You can choose your thoughts. Louise and I were out for a walk one day. We were  follow ing a nature trail near her home. Big old eucalyptus trees
shaded us from the bright sun. We got talking about the principle You can
choose your thoughts. “What exactly does this principle mean. ” I asked
Louise. She said, “It means thoughts have no power other than what you
give them. ” Thoughts are just ideas—possibilities in consciousness—that
are only big or powerful if we identify with them. “You are the only thinker
in your mind, and you can choose if your thoughts are true or not,” said
Louise. One of my favorite Louise Hay principles is, The only thing we are ever
dealing with is a thought, and a thought can be changed. Most of the time
when we are in pain, it’s because we are responding to our thoughts about
something. The pain is mind-ma de. It is a sign that we are literally suffering
from psychology. The way out of suffering is to make friends with your
mind and remind yourself that you are the thinker of your thoughts. Happiness is only ever one thought away. For instance:
When your three-year -old son puts the car keys down the toilet again
in order to see the look on your face, you could get angry, or you could
choose a higher thought. When your six-year -old daughter asks you to dress up in her mother ’s
wedding dress, you could be sensible and say “No,” or you could
choose to create a wonderful photo opportunity. When your wife puts your favorite 1989 Bordeaux wine in the
spaghetti sauce, this could be grounds for a major grievance, or you
could choose peace instead. When your computer crashes in the middle of writing a chapter of a
book, you could  declare atheism as revenge, or you could ask for extra
help and guidance. When something doesn’ t go your way, you could think, The world is
against me,  or you could choose to look for a hidden blessing. Power of Inquiry
I was writing an article for a national newspaper. It was not going well. The editor had given me a deadline of “a thousand words by yesterday,
ideally. ” I had been at my computer for more than two hours, and I was still
staring at a blank screen. I had written more than a thousand words already,
but none of them  were any good, according to the voice in my head. That
voice, the one that didn’ t like my writing, was familiar to me. It had a harsh
tone. It felt cold and sharp. It was my inner critic. My inner critic was firmly in charge of my writing that morning. I had a
good idea what I wanted to say, but I couldn’ t get past the first line. Whatever I wrote was being judged by my inner critic as not good enough
or not inter esting enough  or not original enough. I tried to reset myself over
and over again. Deep breath. Sip of coffee. Inspiring affirmation. No luck
whatsoever. I had wasted half a morning, and I felt like tearing my hair out. I didn’ t though, because I’ve tried that before and it doesn’ t work. At least,
it doesn’ t work for me. I was about to let the curtain fall on my career as a writer when I had a
flash of insight. Another voice inside my head spoke to me. This voice
sounded soft, warm, and resonan t. It was kind. This voice said to me, “Your
inner critic has never been published. ” “What. ” I gasped. “Coul d this really
be true. ” Apparently it was. My inner critic—the voice that was coaching
me how not to write my article that morning—had not once been published. For years, I had listened faithfully to the voice of my inner critic, and I
had not once thought to check its credentials. I just assumed that it spoke
the truth and knew what it was doing. But my inner critic had never written
a book. It didn’ t even have a blog. No wonder it couldn’ t show  me how to
write. Wow. I felt a huge surge of relief move through my body. I knew I
had to stay close  to that other voice that had delivered this amazing insight. “What shall I do now. ” I asked the kind voice. “Tell your inner critic to
relax and take the day off,” the voice said. That’ s what I did. And the
writing flowed. “Awareness is the first step to changing anything,” says Louis e. “Until
you are aware of what you are doing to yourself, you will not be able to
make the change. ” That morning, as I sat at my computer, I allowed myself
a new awareness. I let myself see what I was doing to myself. That sudden
flash of insight, which in emotional intelligence theory is called the magic
quarter -second, was enough to halt a pattern of self-criticism that was as
old as I was. The inner critic still has an opinion about my writing every so
often, but now I know what to do, thanks to the new awareness. The heart of my work is inqui ry. I coach people on how to use self-
inquiry to be more self-aware and, ultimately, happier. I firmly believe that
most people don’t need more therapy; they need more clarity. In other
words, the essence of who you are—your Unconditioned Self—doesn’ t
need fixing or healing, because you’re not really broken. Whe n you’re in
pain, it’s becaus e you’re suffering from psychology. “Even self-hatred isonly a thought, and it’s a thoug ht that can be changed,” says Louise. Self-
awareness gives you choices. Who taught you how to think. I ask this question in my training
programs. Most people have never thought about it. We don’t really
question our thinking. “Children  learn by imitation,” says Loui se. It’s true. You have been taught how to think. You have followed someone’ s example. Guess whose. Do you know. “Most of us make up our minds about
ourselves and the world by the time we are five years old,” says Louise. In
her book You Can Heal Y our Life,  Louise wrote,
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 were taught early in life that the world is a safe place, then we would
hold other beliefs. We could easily accept that love is everywhere, and people are so friendly,
and I always have whatever I need. Without self-awareness, which gives you the ability to question your
thoughts, you can’t update your mind. The worst-case scenario is that you
are running around with a secondhand mind, borrowed from a parent or
someone else, and you are still using an old operating system—Mind 5. 0—
that is the mind of your five-yea r-old self. What you are calling  my mind  is
not really yours, and it’s out of date. Until you see this, your life will be full
of familiar patterns, and nothing will change, no matter how hard you try. Another great inquiry practice is to ask, Who is thinking “my” thoughts. There are two levels to consider here. Level one is investigating whether the
thoughts you observe are yours or someone else’s. For exam ple, is self-
criticism a family pattern. Does your self-criticism mirror your mother ’s
self-criticism or her criticism of you. Does the way you judge yourself
mirror your father ’s self-judg ments or how he judged you. Is your
philosophy a mirror of your family ethos. It’ s good to know whose example
you are following. It’s also good to know that you can choose your
thoughts. Level two of Who is thinking “my” thoughts. brings you even  closer to
home. Here you are observing if the thought is a reflection of either a) the
basic truth I am loveable, which mirrors the original mind of your
Unconditioned Self, or b) the basic fear I am not loveable, which mirrors
the psychology of your self-image. In other words, is this thought a soul-thought or an ego-thought. Which “me” is thinking this thought. Let’s look
at some examples:
I don’t know:  When you say to yourself, I don’t know, is that what you
really mean, or are you trying to say, I don’t think I know. There is a
world of difference. “Every time you say ‘I don’t know,’ you shut the
door to your own inner wisdom,” says Louise. “But when you say to
yourself, ‘I am willing to know,’ you open yourself up to the wisdom
and support of your higher self. ”
I’m not ready:  When you hear yourself say, I’m not ready, is it your
soul speaking or your ego. Lots of us encounter this thought before we
start something new like getting married, having a baby, creating a
business, writing a book, or giving a public talk. Is it really true you’re
not ready. If so, get some extra help. If not, tell your ego to relax and
let your soul lead the way. I’m too old: We spend our life thinking, I’m not ready, and then one
day it changes. We stop thinking, I’m not ready  and start thinking, I’m
too old. Who says. How old is your soul anyway. Are you too old
really, or do you feel unworthy or afraid or something else. When you
watch your thoughts, and you suspend your judgments, you get to see
what the real thought is. I can’t do it: “A thought is just an idea,” Louise says. “And you are
either thinking with the mind of your soul or the mind of your ego. ”
One of my favorite chapters in Louise’ s book You Can Heal Your Life
is entitle d “Is It True. ” If you haven’ t read that chapter, please do. If
you have read it, read it again. Every unexamined fear is 100 percent
true until you look at it. PRACTICE 2: 10 D OTS
Louise and I are having lunch together at Torrey Pines Lodge in La Jolla,
a few miles north of San Diego. Our table looks out on the Torrey Pines
golf course, which is one of the most beautiful municipal courses in theworld. It hosted the U. S. Open in 2008. Louise knows how much I love the
game of golf and how thrilled I am to be here. I tell her I’m going to
suggest to Reid Tracy, presiden t of Hay House, that the annual Hay House
Golf Championship be played here this year. “Everything is possible,” says
Louise with a smile. We have  been talking all morn ing about how the mind influences our
experience of the world. “Golf is definitely a mind game,” I say to Louise. “Everything is,” she replies. I tell her about a recent round of golf I played
in a tournament at St. Enodoc, in Cornwall, England, where I am a member. Like Torrey Pines, this course is set on the coast, and when the wind blows,
it can be very dif ficult to control your ball and control your mind. In this round, I played with someone who shot 120, which for him is
about 30 more than usual. His game started poorly and got worse as it went
on. I watched as his inner critic took control. Eventually, he found it
impossible to keep his self-talk to himself. Shot after shot he yelled, “I am
so stupid,” or something similar. “That’ s an affirmation,” Louise says. His mind was like a giant sand trap
that he couldn’ t get out of. “If you don’t know how to change  your mind,
you can’t change your experien ce,” Louise tells me, sounding like a true
golf pro. Later that afternoon, Louise and I continue our conversation about the
ability to change our minds. “I don’t change anyone’ s life,” says Louise. “Only you can change your
own life. ”
“So what do you do. ” I ask. “I teach people that the mind is very creative, and that when you change
the way you think, it will change your life. ”
“So you teach people how to think,” I say. “Until someone can show you the connection between your outer
experiences and your inner thoughts, you will be a victim of life,” she says. “They will feel like the world is against them,” I say. “The world isn’t against us, though,” says Louise. “The truth is that we
are all loveable and life loves us. ”
“This awareness opens us up to the totality of possibilities,” I suggest. “The totality of possibilities is always here for us,” says Louise. I tell Louise that her live lecture  “The Totality of Possibilities” is one of
my favorites. In it she says, “I spend my life seeing the truth in people. I seethe absolute truth of their being. I know that the health of God is in them
and can express itself through them. ” Louise isn’t talking about positive
thinking. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Louise use the term positive
thinking. Louise  doesn’ t see thoughts as being positive or negat ive. Thoughts are always neutral. It’s the way we handle our thoughts that is
either positive or negative. “So how do we really change our mind. ” I ask Louise. “You have to change your relationship to your mind,” she says. “How do we do that. ”
“By remembering that you are the thinker of your thoughts. ”
“Be the thinker, not the thought,” I say. “The power is with the thinker, not the thought,” she responds. “Notice the judgment, but don’t be the judge,” I say. “Notice a self-
criticism, but don’ t be your own worst critic. ”
I remind  Louise  of my golf story and my golf partner ’s self-talk. He
didn’ t yell, “What a stupid shot. ” He yelled, “I am so stupid. ” His self-talk
wasn’ t a comme ntary on his golf game; it was about him. He got lost in his
thoughts. He was so identified with each judgment that he was acting as the
judge. It was the same with his self-criticism. He had become his own worst
critic. He was no longer in his right mind. He probably didn’ t realize that
his inner critic had never won a golf tournament. “Your thoughts mirror your relationship with yourself,” Louise reminds
me. “And a thought can be changed,” I say. “Yes, because you are the thinker of your thoughts,” she says. “How do we begin to change our thoughts.
She was sedated.
What did the lady on the British Airways flight do when she was experiencing turbulence?
The inner critic told him he wasn't good enough, and he responded by choosing to ignore it and focus on his writing.
What did the author's inner critic say to him, and how did he respond?
The author's inner voice is a soft, warm, and kind voice that tells him to relax and let his inner critic take a break, allowing him to focus on his writing.
What is the author's inner voice like, and what does it say?
The author's inner voice is called his "Yes" or "Sacred Yes", and it is a constant reminder of his inner wisdom and guidance.
What is the author's inner voice called, and what does it say?
The author believes that affirmations are a powerful tool for changing one's thoughts and reality, and he uses them to affirm his inner wisdom and guide himself.
What is the author's view on affirmations, and what does he use them for?