Book Review: How to Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I would really rate this a 3½. To me this is a 'marketing' book: a coalition of many books and writings by Louise Hay, and refers often to a course she runs called 'A Course in Miracles.'

I knew a great deal of this content already as I read a lot of self-help and personal development books. I have also worked through Mirror Work by Louise Hay, which provides more in depth help with 'loving yourself' and would be much more helpful than this book for achieving that.

For someone not having read or worked with any of Louise Hay's other books and courses, this book might be a little overwhelming, and also a little patronising as it assumes a lot about the reader. It tells the reader where they are 'wrong' and how they need to change what they believe and how they think, without in depth detail about how they should go about making that change, only generalising and touching on things, mentioning what would happen in one of the 'A Course in Miracles' sessions. It also puts it all across as though it is a really simple thing to do, when it is not, and it takes a lot of work and self-reflection to do.

It also promotes Louise Hay's own beliefs, about the world and universe, which to me should also be a choice and can be very individual. I do not believe in a single all-powerful being, and I don't believe for a second that we 'choose our parents'. I do however believe that we are born into a family/life that will teach us the lessons we need to learn in this life and they will keep repeating until we understand and learn them. But what I believe about religion or spirituality may not work for another person. I felt it wasn't a necessary addition to this book and had no bearing on what Louise was trying to impart. However, I do believe that we have the power of choice and can change our lives and our thinking by what we choose to focus on and what we believe about ourselves and our life situations. But I think a lot of people would struggle with this book if they didn't subscribe to Louise's personal beliefs which she repeats often.

That being said there is a lot in this book for people that have already done a great deal of reading on these topics and a lot of work and just want to know more about how they can treat their physical problems through emotional and mental practice, as it explains how some emotional struggles can manifest in physical form in the body.

I would recommend other books by Louise Hay's, such as Mirror Work, and by other authors like Wayne Dyer and Katherine Woodward Thomas before looking at this book. To me it was a sort of 'gathering' of all her beliefs and ideas in a simplified form.

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What is Meditation? The Myths, the Truth, & How to Fit It In

Do you keep hearing people talk about meditation and wonder if you should be doing it too?

Do you struggle to clear you mind to meditate?

Do you get frustrated that you can’t find time to meditate?

According to my Oxford English dictionary, to meditate is to “focus ones mind for a time, for spiritual purposes or for relaxation.” And mediation is the act of doing this.  

There are a wealth of articles on websites, and YouTube videos about meditating: People do it daily; they make it a routine; they say they can’t live without it. Some even go away on retreats and boast about how it alters their lives. But there are a lot of myths about meditating and here are a few.

• You don’t have to have special training;
• It doesn’t have to take 20 minutes or an hour;
• You don’t have to do it daily;
• You don’t have to be able to sit in the lotus position;
• You don’t have to listen to music, or burn oils while doing it;
• You don’t need special clothing;
• You don’t need a special place, or room to do it in;
• The place doesn’t have to be quiet;
• You don’t need to be alone. 

You can do all of the above, but they aren’t necessary. You can mediate in any way you feel works for you. There is no right way of doing it, and it doesn’t have to be that complicated.

I don’t mediate daily, I meditate when I feel the need, or when I have time and am in the mood to do so. I struggle to meditate for longer than 10 minutes. But there are moments during my day where I do still mediate for just a moment. I consciously stop my thoughts in my head and breathe. And I can do this several times a day when I am so busy I am overwhelmed. 

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.” - Deepak Chopra 

You can meditate in just a minute; it is simple. The first thing you need to do is breathe. It doesn’t matter where you are: you can be in your car driving, at work, or in the midst of cooking the family meal – anywhere. As soon as you feel the need to clear you mind, just think about your breathing: count 2 while inhaling, then 4 when (slowly) exhaling and then pause for a count of 2 (neither inhale or exhale), then begin again. Consciously feel your body physically relax for a moment.

And that’s it.

No really, it is.

You can continue to do this, or you can do it for a moment.

If you want to keep going you might find thoughts coming into your mind as you do it. Every time you realise that is happening, return your mind to your breathing. Imagine your thoughts running like the credits of a movie in the back of your mind. Don’t engage with them. Just leave them.

And that is meditation. 

“The goal of meditation isn’t to control your thoughts, it’s to stop letting them control you.” - meditationSHIFT 

Yes, there are people that continue to do this for hours on end, for entire weekends on retreats. And there are those that go so far with it they are able to control their heart rate. And others chant too, all sorts of sounds or words, believing it will draw positive things to them and into their life – and that might well work.

If you can focus your mind for long periods of time, you can also develop the same self-discipline in other areas of your life, and concentrate on the things you are working on, which can result in a lot of personal success. But the fundamentals of meditation don’t change. It is just a matter of building up from that single point. 

“Not to be able to stop thinking is an affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it." – Eckhart Tolle

Writing it out: How to Resolve a Noisy Mind

Do things people say or do replay in your mind?

Do they go round and round distracting you in the day, or keeping you awake at night?

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about things you should have done, or wish you could have done?

I call this a noisy mind, and it can be triggered by many things:

- A conversation with someone;
- An action someone has taken;
- An event that has taken place;
- Or an action that you haven’t taken;

- Or an event you wanted to go to, but didn’t.

These things stick in your mind, or something about it stays with you. You might be questioning it, or worrying about it; it might cause you to feel anxious, sad, angry, or upset in some way. But most of all it distracts you from your day to day life, interrupting your concentration and causing you to forget things, or not listen properly to those around you.

When this happens to me I know I need to get whatever it is out of my head.

Sometimes talking it over with a trusted friend can help. But if it is something I feel would come across wrong, or sound stupid when said out loud, I find the only solution is to write it out; my journal becomes my friend.

“Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.” – Christina Baldwin

Once I do this, I often find solutions and answers to my questions; seeing it in black and white on the page enables me to see it from another perspective. Just getting it out and showing it to the light of day minimizes its impact on me emotionally. I sift through it and deal with it in a more constructive way, deciding what is real and what is self-created drama inside my head.

It gives me a sense of release, but also empowers me by helping me feel as though I can handle my thoughts and emotions again and function again.

When writing it out I often make sense of my feelings, identify patterns or past events that are influencing them.

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” – Flannery O’Connor

When connecting with myself in this way, I understand myself better. It enables me to see inside myself, explore thoughts and feelings which influence my external life. Through this process I listen to my feelings and learn to trust them – and thus trust myself.

It helps me build confidence and inner security: Once I become sure of myself I rely less on external factors, such as other people and their opinions or acceptance of me.

“Paying attention to the inside for the purpose of living well from the inside out.” – Lee Wise

To clear a noisy mind some people might try meditation, but when my head is exceptionally noisy and I have a lot of things bubbling up to the surface, I find transferring my thoughts onto paper much more helpful. Then when I meditate afterwards, it’s much easier.

Journalling doesn’t have to be a chore, or even something you do on a daily basis. There are people who like to keep a diary, or do what they call ‘Morning Pages’, which means writing out your thoughts first thing after you wake up. But I tend to only journal when I feel the need. I also do a lot of creative writing in the form of short stories and poetry, which is also a good way to express yourself. 

 “Whether you are keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it is the same thing. What’s important is you are having a relationship with your mind.” – Natalie Goldberg

Never be afraid of what might come out, or how it comes out, just write it out as it appears in your mind, letting it flow, unblocking your heart and your mind.

Book Review: Uncharted: The Journey through Uncertainty to Infinite Possibility, by Colette Baron-Reid

Uncharted: The Journey through Uncertainty to Infinite Possibility by Colette Baron-Reid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I would rate this at a 3½ rather than just a 3.

I am a fan of Colette Baron-Reid: I follow her on twitter and FB, and listen to her videos from time to time, and regularly visit her website. I also have several sets of her cards, the Oracle Map cards being my favourite, so I wanted to give this book a 5 star rating, but I just couldn't. I didn't even feel it warranted a 4.

Maybe I am just too well-read in the self-help and personal development genre, and maybe for someone new to a lot of things that Colette is trying to impart it would come across differently, but I found this book chaotic.

Colette is trying to bring together three schools of thought, which is not an easy thing to do. One of psychic awareness, one of personal development, and one of how science actually plays a part in both of these. She didn't fail in doing any of that, but she was overly wordy about it, and I felt there was a lot of 'padding' to this book, which I feel was a marketing tool more than anything. There was continued reference to her first book 'The Map' (which I haven't read) and also to her personal creation the 'Invision Process' which is a course Colette has developed and runs through Hay House Publishing (as I understand it).

There was also repetition in her own personal story about finding her true path into being a psychic after doing a television show (another plug). She hinted at other elements to her personal story and events that happened to her at the age of 19, but it was clear she was not comfortable talking about these, even though they would have added to the personal development she was encouraging the reader to undertake, and given it more depth.

I also felt that at the beginning, when Colette defined her spiritual world, she described it in a way that it was a fact and the same for everyone, whereas I was not convinced about that; it can be very individual, and spirit manifests in different ways for different people. Readers could worry they are doing something wrong if they don't experience things the way Colette does. She had a lot of her own terminology for that, which thankfully, she did provide a legend for, but I felt it made it more complicated and chaotic - although I liked the term 'small self' for the ego. I felt the entire book could have been structured better.

What I did like about the book was that at the end of each part/chapter there was a section called 'Traveller's Notes' which basically gave a break down of that chapter and the main points that had just been covered, so you could clarify what that chapter had been about, which was useful as often a lot got lost in tangents and over description. And Colette also provided some excellent exercises for the reader to do, to learn about themselves and find their own way to a calm state of mind and allow themselves to listen more closely to their soul.

I will definitely use and reference this book in the future for the exercises and even Traveller's Notes. But I would be careful who I recommended it to.

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Book Review: Mirror Work, by Louise Hay

Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'd heard a lot about Louise Hay before I started this book; she is very prominent in the Personal Development and Self-Help arena, although as the founder/owner of Hay House Publishing which she started when she was 60 years old, she has a lot to teach. And I was keen to learn.

When I first began this book I thought I was going over things I had already learnt and knew, but as I got further in there were some new areas that were very revealing to me and helped me push forward and build more inner self worth. I found this book really helped me build a foundation within myself to work from, and feel more secure within myself.

People that are not familiar with self-help or personal development books might find the wording a little bit 'flowery' or 'esoterical' in its nature, maybe even convoluted, but it contain well thought out lessons and exercises which I found powerful and worth my time.

If you struggle with self-love, being nice to yourself or accepting yourself, Louise Hay's method is very straight forward and easy to follow.

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Perception and Perspective: How You Can Alter How You See Things

Have you ever experienced the same moment as someone, but what they saw, heard and felt was completely different?

Did they find it positive when you found it negative, or vice versa? 

When something isn’t how you imagine it to be, are you let down, disappointed, and frustrated? 

Perception is how we understand or interpret something. Perspective is our attitude and view point on how we regard it.

How we perceive something is affected by how we think. Whether we see a situation as positive or negative depends on our perception of it. And that perception is set by our expectations and assumptions, which supply our perspective on any given subject. 

“Everything we hear is an opinion not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."- Marcus Aurelius 

As discussed in Reducing Expectations, we can change our perspective by not having a preconceived idea about how something is going to go, or desire a specific outcome. 

Assumptions and expectations are fed by information either from previous situations - or hearing about them from others. Often how we expect something to be is not actually how it is. We can end up disappointed, disillusioned, even hurt and upset if it doesn’t go as we thought it would.

“What screws us up the most in life is the picture we have of how it is supposed to be.”

To change that, we need to change our perspective. We need to realise we have a choice in how we see, hear, and view things. 

This was first brought to my attention when I expressed my upset about something my mother had said, when I was first in therapy. They asked me:

“If your brother had been in the room would he have been upset by it too?” 

It made me stop and think and realise that he wouldn’t; his internal dialogue and relationship with my mother was different to mine, thus the content of my mother’s dialogue would have had a different meaning. He would receive what she said in a totally different way. 

My perception of her and the things she said depended on my history and relationship with her and affected my expectations from her, even giving another meaning to her words. In some ways I had already decided her meaning before she spoke, and my reaction was based off that rather than what she actually said. 

“We see things not as they are, but as we are. Our perception is shaped by our previous experience.” - Dennis Kimbro

Our perceptions are based off established ideas and thoughts we have about all the things around us. We learnt them from our parents, friends, teachers, work colleagues, newspapers, textbooks, television - everything has an input, but we can alter our view at any time. 

And how we continue to filter that information and react to it is also a choice. 

“If you change the way you look at things, the way you look at things change.” - Wayne Dyer

And this extends into the outside world. If we only focus on the negatives in the world and all the bad things that happen that is all we see, and our perception becomes negative. It doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen, but if we aren’t seeing the good things, we aren’t leaving room for them to filter in and bring a more balanced perspective on the world.

Without that balanced view we risk becoming overwhelmed, and this can lead to anxiety and depression, conditions which are fed by a mindset based on how we perceive things.

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it.” - Eckhart Tolle

So how do we change it? By recognising that our perception of any given thing might not be how it actually is, or the same as another person’s, thus realising that it is possible to see it differently. And if we want to change it we can - it’s a choice.

“When you observe rather than react, you claim your power.” - Denise Linn

 

It may not be possible with everything, but allowing the possibility makes us more flexible, and releases us from the potential shackles of a fixed mindset, opening us up to opportunities we might not have had before. 

Ask yourself how you would like to perceive something: What do you want to experience? How do you want to feel? And what is stopping you from feeling this way?

Once we are able to understand that we have a choice we return a sense of power, which gives us a sense of control. We can return to an event or situation that we previously viewed as negative and experience it differently, through fresh eyes. 

Learning to 'Let Go': How to Stop Being Scared of Giving Up Control

Do people tell you to ‘just let it go’?

Do they tell you to ‘get over it’?

Tell you it’s not worth it and forget about it?

The whole ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ thing?

Do you struggle to do that? I know I do.

I’m an analytical and critical soul, who wants everything to be perfect and run smoothly and go to plan – particularly MY plan. I make a lot of lists. I think things through in great detail. I imagine how things will turn out. The small things matter to me.

On occasion, I have been called a ‘control freak’. Sometimes I’m okay with that and sometimes I’m not. The times I am not is because it relates to something that I am sensitive about; something that matters a lot to me. And in those moments I can become defensive. My defensiveness means I am feeling insecure and trying to control something that I am worried might not work out or meet my expectations (or someone else's), or is something I could have done differently.

We want control because we feel something is out of control. We don’t feel we have power in a given situation – that power being the ability to change or influence a situation, event, or project. We are seeking a particular outcome and putting ourselves under pressure to achieve it. It frustrates us, and it can cause a great deal of anxiety and stress, which we then take out on those around us by being defensive or unapproachable.

"The more you try to control something, the more it controls you. Free yourself and let things take their own natural course." – Leon Brown

But we must remember, the only thing we can control is ourselves. We can’t control how others will respond, what they will choose to do, or what they will think. We can’t control what will happen after our participation. We can only do our part and then release it.

In my post How to Reduce your Expectations to Reduce Anxiety, I discuss how to stop anticipating an outcome; how to stop having an expectation of how something will turn out.  Learning to ‘let go’ requires the same processes. We can only take responsibility for what is within our control. The rest we have to let go of, including the outcome.

Some call it ‘surrendering to the outcome’, and that is what we need to do. But the word ‘surrender’ to me indicates defeat or giving in, whereas I see 'letting go' as the opposite. It is rising above our anxieties and need for control; it is being sure we have done all we can, content with our input, and knowing it is enough.  Letting go means you made a choice to release it. 

“Sometimes letting go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” Eckhart Tolle

When we become sure of ourselves and our efforts, the fear we have about not being in control, or letting ourselves and others down, disappears. Letting go allows us to feel liberated and derive pleasure from any and all outcomes.

So if you find yourself frustrated and feeling like you are losing control, or out of control, ask yourself:
What is it I am seeking from this situation or event?
What is it I am trying to control?
What outcome am I looking for?
Why does it matter so much to me?

And then ask yourself:
Am I happy with my part in it?
Can I change it, or improve it?

Look at what you are in control of, what power you do have, and reassure yourself you have done all you can. Then you can take the pressure off and let go of your frustrations, expectations and desire for a particular outcome.And often you will find the outcome is much better - because you hadn't expected it.

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” - Joseph Campbell