The Power Is Within You - Louise Hay

Who are you? Why are you here? What are your beliefs about life? For thousands of years, finding the answers to these questions has meant going within. But what does that mean?
I believe there is a Power within each of us that can lovingly direct us to our perfect health, perfect relationships, perfect careers, and which can bring us prosperity of every kind. In order to have these things, we have to believe first that they are possible. Next, we must be willing to release the patterns in our lives that are creating conditions we say we do not want. We do this by going within and tapping the Inner Power that already knows what is best for us. If we are willing to turn our lives over to this greater Power within us, the Power that loves and sustains us, we can create more loving and prosperous lives.
I believe that our minds are always connected to the One Infinite Mind, and therefore, all knowledge and wisdom is available to us at any time. We are connected to this Infinite Mind, this Universal Power that created us, through that spark of light within, our Higher Self, or the Power within. The Universal Power loves all of Its creations. It is a Power for good and It directs everything in our lives. It doesn't know how to hate or lie or punish. It is pure love, freedom, understanding, and compassion. It is important to turn our lives over to our Higher Self, because through It we receive our good.
We must understand that we have the choice to use this Power in any way. If we choose to live in the past and re-hash all of the negative situations and conditions that went on way back when, then we stay stuck where we are. If we make a conscious decision not to be victims of the past and go about creating new lives for ourselves, we are supported by this Power within, and new, happier experiences begin to unfold. I don't believe in two powers. I think there is One Infinite Spirit. It's all too easy to say, "It's the devil," or them. It really is only us, and either we use the power we have wisely or we misuse the power. Do we have the devil in our hearts? Do we condemn others for being different than we are? What are we choosing?
I also believe that we contribute toward the creation of every condition in our lives, good or bad, with our thinking, feeling patterns. The thoughts we think create our feelings, and we then begin to live our lives in accordance with these feelings and beliefs. This is not to blame our-selves for things going wrong in our lives. There is a difference between being responsible and blaming ourselves or others.
When I talk about responsibility, I am really talking about having power. Blame is about giving away one's power. Responsibility gives us the power to make changes in our lives. If we play the victim role, then we are using our personal power to be helpless. If we decide to accept responsibility then we don't waste time blaming somebody or something out there. Some people feel guilty for creating illness, or poverty, or problems. They choose to interpret responsibility as guilt. (Some members of the media like to refer to it as New Age Guilt.) These people feel guilty because they believe that they have failed in some way. However, they usually accept everything as a guilt trip in one way or another because it's another way to make themselves wrong. That is not what I’m talking about.
If we can use our problems and illnesses as opportunities to think about how we can change our lives, we have power. Many people who come through catastrophic illness say that it was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to them because it gave them a chance to go about their lives differently. A lot of people, on the other hand, go around saying, "I'm a victim, woe is me. Please…doctor, fix me." I think these people will have a difficult time even getting well or handling their problems.
Responsibility is our ability to respond to a situation. We always have a choice. It does not mean that we deny who we are and what we have in our lives. It merely means that we can acknowledge that we have contributed to where we are. By taking responsibility, we have the power to change. We can say, "What can I do to make this different?" We need to understand that we all have personal power all the time. It depends on how we use it.
Many of us are now realizing that we come from dysfunctional homes. We carry over a lot of negative feelings about who we are and our relationship to life. My child-hood was filled with violence, including sexual abuse. I was starved for love and affection and had no self-esteem at all. Even after leaving home at the age of 15, I continued to experience abuse in many forms. I hadn't yet realized that the thinking, feeling patterns I had learned early in life had brought this abuse upon me.
Children often respond to the mental atmosphere of the adults around them. So I learned early about fear and abuse and continued to recreate those experiences for my-self as I grew up. I certainly didn't understand that I had the power to change all of this. I was unmercifully hard on myself because I interpreted lack of love and affection to mean I must be a bad person.
All of the events you have experienced in your lifetime up to this moment have been created by your thoughts and beliefs from the past. Lees not look back on our lives with shame. Look at the past as part of the richness and fullness of your life. Without this richness and fullness, we would not be here today. There is no reason to beat yourself up because you didn't do better. You did the best you knew how. Release the past in love, and be grateful that it has brought you to this new awareness.
The past only exists in our minds and in the way we choose to look at it in our minds. This is the moment we are living. This is the moment we are feeling. This is the moment we are experiencing. What we are doing right now is laying the groundwork for tomorrow. So this is the moment to make the decision. We can't do anything tomorrow and we can't do it yesterday. We can only do it today. What is important is what we are choosing to think, believe, and say right now.
When we begin to take conscious charge of our thoughts and words, then we have tools that we can use. I know this sounds simple, but remember, the point of power is always in the present moment.
It is important for you to understand that your mind is not in control. You are in control of your mind. The Higher Self is in control. You can stop thinking those old thoughts. When your old thinking tries to come back and say, "It's so hard to change," take mental command. Say to your mind, "I now choose to believe it is becoming easy for me to make changes." you may have this conversation with your mind several times before it acknowledges that you are in charge and that you really mean what you say.
Imagine that your thoughts are like drops of water. One thought or one drop of water does not mean very much. As you repeat thoughts over and over, you first notice a stain on the carpet, then there is a little puddle, then a pond, and as these thoughts continue, they can become a lake, and finally an ocean. What kind of ocean are you creating? One that is polluted and toxic and unfit to swim in, or one that is crystal clear and blue and invites you to enjoy its refreshing waters?
People often tell me, "I can't stop thinking a thought." I always reply, "Yes, you can." Remember, how often have you refused to think a positive thought? You just have to tell your mind that that is what you are going to do. You have to make up your mind to stop thinking negatively. I'm not saying that you have to fight your thoughts when you want to change things. When the negative thoughts come up, simply say, "Thank you for sharing." In that way, you are not denying what is there, and you are not giving your power over to the negative thought. Tell yourself that you are not going to buy into the negativity anymore. You want to create another way of thinking. Again, you don't have to fight your thoughts. Acknowledge and go beyond them. Don't drown in a sea of your own negativity, when you can float on the ocean of life.
You are meant to be a wonderful, loving expression of life. Life is waiting for you to open up to it--to feel worthy of the good it holds for you. The wisdom and intelligence of the Universe is yours to use. Life is here to support you. Trust the Power within you to be there for you.

Abraham and the Next 12 Steps

Guest: I work in health care.
Abraham: Good. Do you have anything in your pocket?(Laughter – Esther has a cold and is coughing and has laryngitis)
Guest: One of the things I do is I work with a group – a small group of displaced individuals who – teenagers, mostly – who have been taken away from their homes because of addictions like alcoholism and drugs and one of the things they have to do in the facility is to follow your classic 12 step program and they are being taught that they're alcoholics and that's a disease and they'll forever and ever have that disease, and I find this contradiction in myself in that I want to teach them to do whatever makes them feel best, but for them, very often, that means drinking a bottle of vodka or, you know what I'm saying? They're just – I can't seem to get that straight in my head and as to how to - I don't want to -I don't think they should be labeled with a life-long disease. That seems to limit their choices and ability to move forward. But on the other hand, by telling them "do whatever feels best for you" half of them will be running out in the street or even if they just say, "Oh, I'm just going to have one drink 'cause makes me feel better." Inevitably they have 12 or whatever and then it just continues the cycle which just makes them worse and worse even though their original intention was, "I doing this `cause it makes me feel better."
Abraham: Do you know the steps?
Guest: Um hum
Abraham: Speak them.
Guest: Well, the first one is that they have to admit that they are powerless over alcohol and that their lives have become unmanageable.
Abraham: Can't be helpful.
Guest: No, and that's the most important one. I mean they have to admit that they have no, ah, power over their own lives.
Abraham: We cannot see how that can be helpful. Can you?
Guest: Um um . But on the other hand, it does, very often, if they stick with the program, they will stop drinking, at least for periods of time and some of the people who come in a volunteer have been sober for 30 years. But they are terrified of ever even, you know, smelling alcohol `cause they're sure that they would be right back there. So it's ah, I'm having trouble with how to approach that.
Abraham: Well, what's the second step?
Guest: You would ask that. Anybody? (laughs) Came to believe that there is a power greater than ourselves.
Abraham: (Esther sneezes) That's loud. Must be something wrong with the microphones. (Cough Cough Cough)
Jerry: I didn't get to hear that one. (off mic)
Guest: Came to believe that there is a power greater than myself (while Abraham is coughing)(Laughter)
Abraham: Oh, we're waiting for you.
Guest: I came to believe (Abraham coughing again). All right. I'm not going there. (Laughter)Abraham: The reason we are playing with you about this is because the most important thing to remember, first, we are, not at all, pushing against, in any way, the 12 step program because for someone whose life is in a very unpleasant place, all of those steps are downstream. In other words, when you feel totally out of control, maybe it does feel downstream for you to admit that you're out of control. And to say, "I hope there is something, some power that's greater than me that will help me", because when your life is in a mess, that's the last moment in time that you really want to crow about how in control you are. So acknowledging that you are powerless is a downstream step. You see what we are getting at? What we've noticed about the program, and we've interacted with so many people who've been part of it, is that in the beginning it is all downstream for them. But after a little while, when they begin gaining their balance, to say those same things are upstream for them. So it never really gives them the autonomy and self control that they are all reaching for. Every single one of them felt not free when they began this process that evolved into the alcoholism. In other words, you're right, they turned to the alcohol or whatever it was because it seemed like a path of least resistance. It felt better to them than where they were. And there is something that we would like somebody to say to them about the rightness of that decision. But the whole program, and in fact, almost everybody ever involved in it stands and says something else to them. They stand and say, "You were wrong to do what you did. You were not wise in what you were doing. And you should never, ever do something again ---" It's sort of like what we were saying earlier, when a person feels not free and they innately and naturally turn toward anger. That the anger that they turn toward is the most natural thing in the world, but almost everybody would stop and say, "Your anger is wrong. Your anger is misplaced." So when you are interacting with people that are experiencing the hugeness of disconnection, it's not an easy thing for you to teach them the principles from their place of strong disconnection. Something more overt and in their face is necessary. And it is easier to teach someone about action than it is to teach them about vibration. In an action oriented world it's easier to say to them, "This alcohol is your problem" than "Your vibrational countenance is your problem." So we think, if we were standing in your physical shoes, we would introduce the 12 Step Program as the first 12 steps. And we would tell them there are 12 more. And the first 12 steps are about the action part of distancing yourself from something that hasn't been working. And then once you've sort of got that under your belt, then we would begin the next 12 steps which would be about understanding that you are the creator of your own reality and that while you have been saying in the first twelve steps that there is a power that is greater than you, there has never been a power that is greater than you – you just somehow separated yourself from that greater power. But it never left you. It never was forsaking you. It was always aware of you, reaching for you, calling you toward it. You just could not hear, but it was always there. The second of the next twelve steps would be: you are the creator of your own experience, and you are doing the best that you can do every step along the way. You did the best from where you were that you could have done, and you can't go back and undo all of that. So now you have admitted all of that wrong-doing and now you have made your peace with all of those people who you have wronged. This new second step says: I did the best that I could do then, and now I'm in a better place, and it will be easier this go-around. The third thing in this new set of steps is: I am where I am. I am where I am, and where I am is all right because it has to be because it's the only choice I have. If where I am is not all right, then it's over for me. If where I am is not all right, then there's nothing else for me to do because I can't get to where I want to be when I am condemning where I am. Not possible. You can't possibly turn downstream in condemnation of where you are. So - I am where I am, and where I am not only is enough, it must be enough because it's all I've got. The fourth step in this second set is: I am a worthy being who is an extension of Source Energy, and I came forth with powerful intention and got crossways of it. And when I got crossways of it, I went nuts. Because who I AM is such a lover and such a knower of my own value. And when, somehow along my physical trail I lost sight of that, I could not abide in my own vibration. The split in me was too severe, and that's the reason I turned to something that was numbing. And while I will not turn to something that is numbing again, it is satisfying to know that when someone like me, who is Pure Positive Energy, gets crossways of who I AM, that it's going to be pain beyond pain that will require numbing. And I've never known anyone who would deny anyone some sort of a solution or solving of some kind of pain. Step five says: I will make peace with those who did not understand how I felt. For how could they? Everyone has their own emotional scale. Nobody could know what was downstream for me. Nobody could know what was a solution for me. And they all stood in such certainty that they were right when they couldn't possibly know. And so, this fifth step, in my second set of steps, is my true acknowledgment of my powerful desire to forgive them. The first set demanded that I ask for their forgiveness. In this second set, I'm prepared to give them my forgiveness. I forgive them for not understanding me. I forgive them for trying to be my guidance when they could not. I forgive them for not paying attention to how they felt so there was no way they could teach me to pay attention to how I felt. I forgive them for not upholding the knowledge of the personal guidance system. I forgive them for everything they did not understand about me. It feels good in letting all of that go. The sixth step is: I forgive all of them from this new point of view. I forgive them for not only not seeing me as I am, but for not seeing themselves as they are either. I allow them, which is more than forgiving, I allow them to be whoever they are even if who they are being is critical of me for I accept that they cannot see me accurately from their point of view. And I no longer need alcohol or drugs to numb the discord that I felt when I saw that I could not achieve their approval. I'm giving up my need for your approval in this step, and in giving up my need for your approval, I have set you free, but more important, I have set myself free. The seventh step in this second set of 12 steps is: now that I am more sure of who I am and now I'm beginning to return to the eagerness of life that is innate within me, it is my promise to myself that even if I were to do something that formerly I thought was a mistake that I am determined that I will offer no self-condemnation ever again. This may be the most important step of all. I acknowledge that the Source within me never gives up on me, and the only reason I ever feel bad is because I do. So in this step I am pronouncing to the world I am absolving myself of all guilt relative to action. And if I should, and it could happen, ever take a drink again, it is my promise to myself I'm not going back through those first 12 steps. (laughter) Because I am where I am, and because Source continues to adore me, and because there is always downstream from wherever I am, and I don't have to start over every time again. I know too much. I've come too far. The next step in the second set of 12 steps is: sincere appreciation for the first 12 steps. Because they were there for me when I most needed them. I could not even begin to see this second set from where I was and there they were – tangible and real – and they helped me. They don't now, but they did then. They were bridges that were valuable, and I will feel eternal appreciation for their existence. Number 10: I am appreciating everything that ever gave me grief because from it was born clarity of desire. I'm not sorry for one thing that I ever lived through. I'm not even sorry for what I put you through. Because in my dealing with the contrast of the life that I created, I've launched rockets of desire, and I can feel a brighter future that would not be there if it had not been for that. The eleventh step is: I encourage no one to go through what I went through in order to get where I am. I acknowledge it could have been easier for me if I had been willing to pay attention to the way I feel, if I had listened to my own guidance, if I had been able to turn downstream earlier on without being pinned into that corner of feeling not free, I could have turned into my alignment and my allowing without the help or the aid of the drugs. The last and final step is: I adore knowing that I am the creator of my own reality. And I take full credit, not responsibility, I take full credit for the amazing life that I am in the process of creating. I aspire to see myself through the eyes of Source. And I think all 24 steps are part of me now being able to do that. And now I would like to announce to the world I am healed. I am whole. I am free. I am love. And it might be only temporary, but if I ever slip from it, I know exactly what to do.(Applause)