This is well worth reading - it's made a great difference to me and I hope sharing it will help other members of my Haven family

You Can Heal Your Life

by Louise Hay 

Life is Really Very Simple. What We Give Out, We Get Back

What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. I believe that everyone, myself included, is responsible for everything in our lives, the best and the worst. Every thought we think is creating our future. Each one of us creates our experiences by our thoughts and our feelings. The thoughts we think and the words we speak create our experiences.

We create the situations, and then we give our power away by blaming the other person for our frustration. No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for "we" are the only thinkers in it. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.

Which of these statements sounds like you?

"People are out to get me."
"Everyone is always helpful."

Each one of these beliefs will create quite different experiences. What we believe about ourselves and about life becomes true for us.

The Universe Totally Supports Us in Every Thought We Choose to Think and Believe

Put another way, our subconscious mind accepts whatever we choose to believe. They both mean that what I believe about myself and about life becomes true for me. What you choose to think about yourself and about life becomes true for you. And we have unlimited choices about what we can think.

When we know this, then it makes sense to choose "Everyone is always helpful," rather than "People are out to get me."

The Universal Power Never Judges or Criticizes Us

It only accepts us at our own value. Then it reflects our beliefs in our lives. If I want to believe that life is lonely and that nobody loves me, then that is what I will find in my world.

However, if I am willing to release that belief and to affirm for myself that "Love is everywhere, and I am loving and lovable," and to hold on to that new affirmation and to repeat it often, then it will become true for me. Now, loving people will come into my life, the people already in my life will become more loving to me, and I will find myself easily expressing love to others.

Most of Us Have Foolish Ideas about Who We Are and Many, Many Rigid Rules about How Life Ought to Be Lived

This is not to condemn us, for each of us is doing the very best we can at this very moment. If we knew better, if we had more understanding and awareness, then we would do it differently. Please don't put yourself down for being where you are. The very fact that you have found this book and have discovered me means that you are ready to make a new, positive change in your life. Acknowledge yourself for this. "Men don't cry!" "Women can't handle money!" What limiting ideas to live with.

When We Are Very Little, We Learn How to Feel about Ourselves and about Life by the Reactions of the Adults Around Us

It is the way we learn what to think about ourselves and about our world. Now, if you lived with people who were very unhappy, frightened, guilty, or angry, then you learned a lot of negative things about yourself and about your world.

"I never do anything right." "Its my fault." "If I get angry, I'm a bad person."

Beliefs like this create a frustrating life.

When We Grow Up, We Have a Tendency to Recreate the Emotional Environment of Our Early Home Life

This is not good or bad, right or wrong; it is just what we know inside as "home." We also tend to recreate in our personal relationships the relationships we had with our mothers or with our fathers, or what they had between them. Think how often you have had a lover or a boss who was "just like" your mother or father.

We also treat ourselves the way our parents treated us. We scold and punish ourselves in the same way. You can almost hear the words when you listen. We also love and encourage ourselves in the same way, if we were loved and encouraged as children.

"You never do anything right." "It's all your fault." How often have you said this to yourself?

"You are wonderful." "I love you." How often do you tell yourself this?

However, I Would Not Blame Our Parents for This

We are all victims of victims, and they could not possibly have taught us anything they did not know. If your mother did not know how to love herself, or your father did not know how to love himself, then it would be impossible for them to teach you to love yourself.

They were doing the best they could with what they had been taught as children. If you want to understand your parents more, get them to talk about their own childhood; and if you listen with compassion, you will learn where their fears and rigid patterns come from. Those people who "did all that stuff to you" were just as frightened and scared as you are.

I Believe That We Choose Our Parents

Each one of us decides to incarnate upon this planet at a particular point in time and space. We have chosen to come here to learn a particular lesson that will advance us upon our spiritual, evolutionary pathway. We choose our sex, our color, our country, and then we look around for the particular set of parents who will mirror the pat-tern we are bringing in to work on in this lifetime. Then, when we grow up, we usually point our fingers accusingly at our parents and whimper, "You did it to me." But really, we chose them because they were perfect for what we wanted to work on overcoming.

We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience. Well, I believe you created those experiences over and over because they mirrored something you believed about yourself. It doesn't really matter how long we have had a problem, or how big it is, or how life-threatening it is.

The Point of Power Is Always in the Present Moment

All the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to. this moment have been created by your thoughts and beliefs you have held in the past. They were created by the thoughts and words you used yesterday, last week, last month, last year, 10, 20, 30, 40, or more years ago, depending on how old you are.

However, that is your past. It is over and done with. What is important in this moment is what you are choosing to think and believe and say right now. For these thoughts and words will create your future. Your point of power is in the present moment and forming the experience of tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and so on.

You might notice what thought you are thinking at this moment. Is it negative or positive? Do you want this thought to be creating your future? Just notice and be aware.

The Only Thing We Are Ever Dealing With Is a Thought, and a Thought Can Be Changed

No matter what the problem is, our experiences are just outer effects of inner thoughts. Even self-hatred is only hating a thought you have about yourself. You have a thought that says, "I'm a bad person." This thought produces a feeling, and you buy into the feeling. However, if you don’t have the thought, you wont have the feeling. And thoughts can be changed. Change the thought, and the feeling must go.

This is only to show us where we get many of our beliefs. But let’s not use this information as an excuse to stay stuck in our pain. The past has no power over us. It doesn't matter how long we have had a negative pattern. The point of power is in the present moment. What a wonderful thing to realize! We can begin to be free in this moment!

Believe it or Not, We Do Choose our Thoughts

We may habitually think the same thought over and over so that it does not seem we are choosing the thought. But we did make the original choice. We can refuse to think certain thoughts. Look how often you have refused to think a positive thought about yourself. Well, you can also refuse to think a negative thought about yourself.

It seems to me that everyone on this planet whom I know or have worked with is suffering from self-hatred and guilt to one degree or another. The more self-hatred and guilt we have, the less our lives work. The less self-hatred and guilt we have, the better our lives work, on all levels.