The Legacy of Louise Hay and A Reminder to Look In The Mirror

So sad to hear of the passing of the incredible Louise Hay the founder of Hay House. I had been aware of her amazing work for many years and when I became part of the ‘family’ as a Hay House author I felt privileged to be part of such an inspirational movement. I met Louise several times and of course heard her speak and read her books, when I do my talks / workshops on building confidence for your work and getting your message out there, I always cite Louise and how she insists on the importance of self-love and ‘mirror work’.

She had a great sense of humour and always carried a tiny mirror in her bra so that she could whip it out, look into it and say “looking good kid!”

There’s no doubt that despite not starting her company till she was almost 60, she leaves an incredible legacy, I love being a Hay House author, being a presenter on hayhouseradio.com and I’m also a customer of course, voraciously reading many of the books published by this wonderful company, and savouring her desk diary with wonderful little words of wisdom. R.I.P amazing Louise. Here’s an extract from a statement from Hay House:

Our beloved friend and founder Louise Hay transitioned this morning, August 30, 2017 of natural causes at age 90. She passed peacefully in her sleep.

Louise was an incredible visionary and advocate. Everyone who had the privilege to meet her, either in person or through her words, felt her passion for serving others.

Considered a founder of the self-help movement, Louise was dubbed ‘the closest thing to a living saint.’ She published her first book ‘Heal Your Body’ in 1976 (at age 50) long before it was fashionable to discuss the connection between the mind and body. In 1984, her second book, ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ was published. In it, Louise explained how our beliefs and ideas about ourselves are often the cause of our emotional problems and physical maladies and how, by using certain tools, we can change our thinking and our lives for the better.

You Can Heal Your Life’ became a New York Times bestseller and spent 16 weeks on the list. More than 50 million copies have been sold throughout the world.

You can read the full legacy here http://www.hayhouse.com/louise-hay-legacy

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Here’s another chance to read an article I wrote after meeting Louise a few years ago, when she was sharing the stage with the late Wayne Dyer, thinking about it, that will be an awesome reunion in heaven!

Mirror, Mirror, on The Wall  

(First published in the Church Newspaper 2014)

You may have seen the rather odd phenomenon across blogs and documented in the women’s pages of daily newspapers about ‘Mirror Fasting’. It’s a new craze started by a blogger who was concerned she was obsessed with her own appearance. According to the journal of behaviour research and therapy, women look in the mirror 38 times a day, so to counteract this we’re being encouraged to try to resist the urge and not look in the mirror at all.

I’d like to encourage everyone to look in the mirror more oftenbut not in the name of vanity to worry about your wrinkles, commiserate about greying hairs, or pull faces to tighten your jaw. Indeed, I think we should be looking in the mirror in order to be appreciative, to show to love to ourselves as we really are.  

Recently I had the opportunity to hear Louise Hay speak, she has been in the UK for the ‘I Can Do It’ conference in Glasgow and London, with many other bestselling authors including the hugely successful Dr Wayne Dyer. Louise was once dubbed ‘The Queen of New Age’ by the New York times, after writing ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ in 1984, which has sold over 35 million copies.

Louise owns the extremely successful international publishing company, Hay House (I’m proud to be one of their authors) and she believes in affirmations, indeed she is a great advocate of what she calls ‘Mirror Work’ – looking in the mirror several times a day and saying “I love you“ (and add your name).  Just try it a few times (in private is fine) and you’ll realise how tricky it can feel. Most of us are so conditioned from an early age to be self critical, and have low self-esteem because we feel we don’t look ‘attractive’ enough or we’re not in some way ‘good’ enough. Louise by the way is not the flaky type you may expect, she is an extremely energetic 85-year-old who travels all over the world, is bright as a button and has just started taking piano lessons (“there’s many years in me yet” she says).

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If you’re thinking I really have gone all cosmic and new age now, I’d urge you to ask yourself how intact is your self-esteem?  Our children are constantly bombarded with messages of needing to look more ‘cool’ and looking up to size zero models. When there’s an increase of self-harming in teenagers, surely our self loathing has gone too far? I’m not suggesting that we all become vain and arrogant and ‘worship’ ourselves, but we could practice gratitude, a spirit of thankfulness that God has created us just as we are. The next time you look in the mirror and think anything other than “I love you”, remember that as you were made in God’s image you are technically criticising God too!

Genesis 1:27  – ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’.

Janey Lee Grace is the author of ‘Look Great Naturally Without Ditching the Lipstick’ (Hay House) and regularly presents the spotlight series of radio shows for Hay House Radio.

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Speed Relaxation

How stressed are you? As a nation, we are debilitated by stress and anxiety – from teenagers to elderly people, it’s a problem of epidemic proportions. Most of us are aware of the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome, it’s meant to be a safety mechanism – so that if we are threatened by a tiger or similar we are alerted and can take flight until the danger has passed. Today of course there are usually no tigers coming after us, but we are kept continually in this heightened state of being – on alert, and so the chemicals that flood our body to help us run fast, are being stimulated constantly. This leads to an almost continual state of stress, which makes us unbalanced, anxious, and can result in numerous physical symptoms too. Stress can make you ‘wired and tired’ as well as fat.

There are many ways to alleviate the symptoms of stress including exercise, good sleep, good nutrition and some form of meditation, guided visualisation or mindfulness, as well as of course therapeutic treatments. Breathing properly is important, we are often told to take deep breaths and imagine the words ‘peace’ or ‘relax’ as we exhale. Since most of us are super busy, and often too ‘stressed’ to diarise those important massages and treatments, here’s a few tips from experts in the know for ‘speed relaxation’.

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Cai Graham is a parenting coach and therapist and recommends ‘box breathing’ which really helps quieten the mind down and restore calm:

Imagine a box, trace the top of the box in your mind and breathe in slowly through your nose for a count of 4, trace the side of the box and breathe out slowly through your mouth for a count of 4, trace the bottom of the box breathing in slowly for 4, and then the other side of the box breathing out for 4. Repeat as many times as you need until you notice you are feeling less anxious.  www.caigraham.com

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Ciara Jean Roberts is a yoga teacher and naturopathic nutritionist, she suggests standing bare foot on the grass or sandy beach, this is commonly known as ‘grounding’ or ‘earthing’, and is a simple technique that helps you to draw in essentially an energy infusion from the earth. There is increasing research around this area including how it can help to relieve chronic pain and reduce blood pressure. www.whollyaligned.com

Beverley Densham is The Angel Coach and the founder of Angelic Lifestyle, she says:

Wherever you are, shut your eyes & simply take 10 breaths in & out. Breathe in through your nose & exhale through your mouth & relax. Repeat 10 times. This can be whilst sitting, standing or lying down. This quick 10 breaths pick me up is one of the best daily relaxations you’ll ever do. You do have time! www.angeliclifestyle.com

Marian Bourne, creator ofGoodbye Stress and Burn Out: 90 Days to Reclaim Your Health and Energy’ agrees that just 5 minutes a day of breath work (alternate nostril breathing) can lower your stress levels, clear your mind and help you relax. And what if you knew that this would help you sleep better and improve your sex life? www.thebournepractice.com

Colette Bardell is a restorative yoga teacher who suggests another simple breathing technique…

Lie on the floor with your legs up the wall and focus on taking long exhales. This type of breathing triggers the rest and digest nervous system, lowering your heart rate and cholesterol. www.satisfythehunger.com

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Mindfulness is important too, being fully aware of what you are doing at any given time, Irene Brankin asks her clients to focus on something –  it can be anything, even a cup – simply observe it and see what you see and keep bringing your attention back to it (you can hold it in your hands). www.thevisiblewoman.com

I remember doing this kind of exercise while eating an apple, really savoring every mouthful and noticing the texture, it definitely seemed to calm me down.

So however stressed you are, take a few moments for some self-care – repeat after me…Relax

The Business Breakthrough Event for Wellness Practitioners

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Friday 22nd September 2017
9.30am – 4.00pm
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A range of ticket options are available including lunch and a Q&A session with me.

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Do Less Be More

How busy are you? If you are anything like me the answer is probably ‘manically’. We live in a time where we are constantly ‘on’ always busy and usually stressed into the bargain. Even the most enlightened individuals can find that they are on the go 24/7 not even getting restorative sleep in their quest for ‘bigger, better, faster, more’ – or possibly just to meet the demands of a career, a business, family et al.

Martina Sheehan is a Hay House author who has just released her third book, ‘Do Less Be More.’ As with her previous books, this one is co-authored with her long-time business partner Susan Pearse. Martina and Susan have spent the past two decades understanding the brain and the impacts of modern society on our success, happiness, health and wellbeing. They are leadership mentors, and in 2009 they founded Mind Gardener, a platform dedicated to translating science into practical methods to help people think differently about their life and business. I interviewed Martina recently for Hay House radio and love the fact that she and Susan take a scientific rather than merely emotive approach to this tricky subject.

Their special passion is showing people how to conquer the busy-ness that can so easily overtake our lives, and honing what they believe is the most important skill in today’s modern world – the skill of being in the present moment.

Their previous book, ‘One Moment Please; It’s Time to Pay Attention’ (2015), was a real wake-up call warning us that attention spans are getting shorter, distractions are ever-present, and that unless we take control of our precious attention, we risk missing the most important moments in our lives.

This new book focuses on a very important and often over-looked aspect of the brain: when you pause activity and step away from the hurly-burly of life, you literally open the door to intuitive insights, novel ideas, a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, and a clearer path through life. So, could it be that slowing down and allowing yourself to do less, might just be the secret to achieving a lot more?

In my interview, we talk about those light bulb moments that we can have when we are not engaged in ‘thinking’, sometimes just going for a walk can be beneficial. Most of us need to slow down, and Martina goes as far as to say boredom is beautiful, I can’t remember the last time I was ‘bored’ it has a negative connotation, we equate it with being lazy, but when my children tell me they’re bored I now say…embrace it!  Invariably if I suggest they enjoy ‘doing nothing’ they find an activity – often something quite creative such as building a den or baking, but if I try and fill every moment for them, they’re back on that treadmill.

Martina suggests that we ban the word ‘busy’ from our vocabulary.

Start a ‘not to do’ list – we are all fans of the ‘to do’ list, but she says to find the silence between the noise. Make a list of what you are not going to do, either because you have delegated it to someone else (a great idea) or because you have realized it isn’t a priority.

She suggests we reclaim idle moments throughout our day, and embrace them and remember it’s OK to say ‘no’, this is something I struggle with, but Martina says a ‘no’ to something is a ‘yes’ to yourself.

‘Do Less Be More’ by Martina Sheehan and Susan Pearse is published by Hay House, you can find more info about their retreats at www.mindgardener.com