Today's episode is all about affirmations and gratitude. These are two spiritual practices that I believe everybody needs to incorporate into their life. If not, daily, at least, at some point within your journey.
When we talk about affirmations, it's hard not to talk about Louise Hay. And my introduction to affirmations was definitely from Louise Hay. If you've not heard of Louise Hay or read her book, you can heal your life, then you are definitely missing out. And you need to access this ASAP. Louise Hay had an incredible story. She created Hay House publishing house.
Find her book here
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129603.You_Can_Heal_Your_Life
She actually began a lot of her work by working with the gay community in San Francisco, San Francisco, and working with a lot of people around healing from AIDS. Louise Hay also healed her own body from cancer, by using affirmations. Louise Hay was a pioneer in understanding and sharing metaphysics.
The definition of Metaphysics is a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being that includes ontology, which examines the nature of reality. Cosmology which is a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe. And often epistemology which how you can examine reality. The easy way to describe metaphysics is the emotional root cause of physical manifestations - that our physical problems are occurring because of emotional issues.
So Louise Hay had a belief that every physical issue, illness or disease was caused by a specific emotional problem. She also believed that affirmations were a really incredibly powerful way to heal these emotional problems. Her book, you can heal your life is like a bible to me. I buy every copy I come across in the opp shop, because I often gift this book to people in my life. In the book, has A to Z guide of all the physical issues that you could be having, an emotional reason to why that could be happening, and an affirmation to help heal it.
So part of Louise Hays philosophy is that we are each responsible for our experiences. And that every thought that we think is creating our reality. This can be a disempowering idea or an empowering idea, Because you are in control of your experience, you create your experience and you create your reality. Which means if you are unhappy with your reality. You can change it. You have the power to heal and your body is incredible and beautifully interlinked with the mind and the Spirit. And in focusing on your mindset and your self love, then this will have a direct impact on your physical health and wellness.
Louise Hay believes we should release our past and forgive everyone in our life. And that self approval and self acceptance, were the key to positive changes within our life. So Louise Hay created the holistic philosophy, more or less. In that mind, body and spirit, were interlinked. And if one area was lacking, then the others would suffer. Louise Hay started her work in the 70s or 80s so really before a lot of people. And before New Age was really a thing, which is part of why she created her own publishing agency, to help create new age and self help books.
Louise Hay had a belief that we choose our parents, And we choose our experiences for a reason. Louise Hay believed that almost every problem stemmed from a belief of not being good enough. And that by using these affirmations, We could stop believing that we're not good enough. Forgiveness is a big part of the work that Louise Hay did and the affirmations are a lot around, love and forgiveness. She had a belief that even if we didn't believe the affirmation at first, after saying it every day for a period of time that we would start to believe this, just as we do with negative thoughts. After people say something to you like. For an example, calling you dumb. After a certain amount of time of having this experiences, being told you are dumb, we may believe that we are, in fact dumb.
So there's lots of really beautiful exercises that you can do in there you can heal your life book. One of my introductions to Louise Hay was I actually bought an audio book of affirmations which I listened to in the car. And I'm sure you can do this just by YouTubing or there may be an app for affirmations now. My son when he was a baby was a notoriously bad sleeper. The best way that I could get him to sleep was driving around in the car. So I would literally drive around until he fell asleep, sometimes singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star until he fell asleep. And then I would put on my Louise Hay affirmations CD, and I would just sort of sit there in the car, or drive around doing these affirmations. There were definitely some affirmations that I really really struggled with. I had issues with my parents then.. And one of the affirmations is; “I love my parents and my parents love me”, and that that felt really hard to say for me at that period in my life. Louise Hay covers all of this in the book, when you experience a resistance to change. We are the only blockers to ourselves.
Here's some of these examples of physical issues that manifests from an emotional issue.
So acne, is not accepting the self or dislike of the self
addictions are running from the self, a fear or not knowing how to love the self.
She believed that aids was from feeling defenseless and helpless, and that no one cares. Also a denial of the self and sexual guilt,
Alcoholism, is a feeling of guilt and inadequacy and self rejection elegies denying your own power.
Anxiety is not trusting the flow and the process of life,
arthritis is from feeling unloved or feeling criticized or resentful.
Asthma is when you're feeling smothered, or inability to breathe for oneself or suppressing that love
back problems and this was definitely one for me is a lack of support.
And it was amazing because when I was doing these affirmations, I was married and unhappy. And I had chronic back pain for many years of my life. And then as soon as I left my husband and moved into my own place. My back problems just magically disappeared. So sometimes the body will need a lifestyle change of some sort to resolve the physical issue. So that was a very clear example of that physical problem being an emotional issue for me. Louise Hay believes that cancer was created from long standing resentment, deep secrets, or grief, eating away at oneself and and really a hatred of oneself.
Things like constipation are refusing to release old ideas or being stuck in the past.
Leg issues, not moving forward with your life
issues with your ears is the capacity to hear or not hearing someone or anger over hearing.
obesity, or excess fat or being overweight represents a need to protect oneself.
So anytime somebody in my life has any sort of physical issue and they don't know what it is the cause I often look it up.
So this work from Louise Hay has been around since the 80’s and is so powerful. But I do believe we are evolving. Julia canon, who is the daughter of Dolores Cannon involved with the quantum healing hypnosis training. She has also written an incredible book called Soul Speak. Within the quantum healing method, when the sub-conscious is asked why someone is experiencing a physical discomfort, there were some things that didn't quite line up with Louise Hay’s theories. What Julia found was that the right side of the body was accurate within Louise Hay ideas, and that the physical problems were emotional causes in this lifetime. But, if you have a physical issue within the left side of your body. That is a past life issue.
Find Soul speak here
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18950542-soul-speak-the-language-of-your-body?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=xU07l10rgU&rank=1
There were particular Louise Hay affirmations that I would say daily. I would write some on my mirror and I found using affirmations to be really really powerful, especially throughout that time of leaving an unhappy marriage.
And then once I left that unhappy marriage. Gratitude was the other thing that was a really powerful tool and practice in taking the next step in my life. So, I used the affirmations to get where I wanted to get and had this sense of more happiness and fulfillment in my life. In my marriage I felt like I was trapped, trapped in a relationship that I didn't want to be in. But then once I was out on my own. Then I became so resentful. And I really really struggled to not resent my ex husband. So, I challenged myself to a 30 day gratitude challenge. And I would love it if this is resonating for you. If you can take on this challenge. Especially if you are going through a difficult time in your life, if you're going through a divorce or breakup, or something, Even the global issue that we're having at the moment, with Melbourne still in lockdown and having many freedoms taken away. Sometimes it's been really hard to find something to be grateful for.
Throughout my 30 day Gratitude challenge, I realized that I was at rock bottom in my life. I was pregnant on my own, with a toddler my little boy was 15 months old when I left my husband. And, and I was so upset with what my life had become. Because before then. I had achieved everything that I wanted to achieve. I've always been a goal orientated person. And, I've always worked really hard for my life. And for a long time. I thought that I was doing really well in life like I thought that I was a success in life. I did all these amazing things like I'd met somebody, fell in love, traveled around Europe together, got engaged, bought a house, I'd studied and got a bit of a dream job for myself at that point in working in mental health, you know that might sound strange to some people, but I was so proud of myself for working in mental health and doing the work that I was doing and I absolutely loved it and was so passionate about it. We got married, had a baby. And in securing that job for myself, I was able to have maternity leave. we did everything that society tells you to do. And yet, I was deeply unhappy with my life, and I was just at that rock bottom state where I didn't know where to go with my life anymore,
So then I’m going down this spiritual path. And I really understood the power of affirmations and gratitude. And I was doing my affirmations every day. And then it came to the gratitude part of things. And I honestly really struggled. Some days, the only thing that I was grateful for was having a dishwasher. My gratitude was for really really simple things, and some days it was even hard just to find one thing that I was grateful for, because I had so much resentment and anger over, being alone with my child. And a second baby on the way. I had to sort of go on centerlink, I had lost my friends during that time too. I had so much shame that in my journey to finding happiness, seemed to look like being a failure in life
So I practiced gratitude. And I found one thing to be grateful for. And then when I realized that I had very little to be grateful for. I was able to have that awareness that I was at rock bottom in my life, and I was able to stop spiritually bypassing, and accept, that I was deeply disappointed in my life and that I was in the void. And that the only way was up after that, as Erin spoke about in the last episode. And then after the 30 days of practicing gratitude. I actually become more grateful and more appreciative of the life that I had, rather than resent of what I didn’t have. And I started to wake up to the fact that I actually did have a lot to be grateful for. I gained a lot of perspective on my life from practicing gratitude.
I was then able to piece back my life together again and work out what I did want in my life. I already tried the typical married life with kids. And the nine to five job. I realized that I did want something different,and practicing these affirmations and gratitude. Actually was my was the way that I was able to start living authentically I realised that I was unhappy in my marriage because it wasn't authentic to me. And it helped me to realize that I didn't have to live the same kind of life that everyone else did. And it was okay for me to not be happy with something that other people would be happy about. I realized from practicing gratitude that I didn't need to settle in my life. And that I could actually have a fucking incredible life, a life that I chose. And that was so powerful to me. And ever since then. I promised myself that I would never settle.
And I haven't. It was probably once my daughter was born, she was like that missing piece in my life. And once she was born. I had so much gratitude. I had so much gratitude that I did meet my ex husband that we were able to create these beautiful children. And I had this realization that that was the purpose of that experience. And that my marriage wasn't a failure. Because, to create these incredible little souls that I just loved so much was the greatest blessing in my whole life. And then I had so much gratitude for my ex husband. After that, I had gratitude for my children and their health, rather than complaining about not getting enough sleep or time to myself. And I had so much gratitude for myself and my strengths, and that helped me move forward in my life, when life was really hard and depressing.
So if you're going through something really difficult at the moment. Give affirmations a go. Find some gratitude in your day. And I can assure you it will transform your life.
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