Louise Hay

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Louise Hay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Life and career
Hay grew up in Los Angeles, California and writes that she was raised in poverty by a single, working mother during the Great Depression after her parents divorced in 1927. Hay's mother eventually remarried a man who was abusive to both Hay and her mother. Hay also wrote that she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a neighbor for many years.[2] She left home at 15 and spent the next couple of years working menial jobs in Chicago. At the age of 16, Hay gave birth to a child that she gave up for adoption. She eventually moved to New York City and became a fashion model. It was during this time that she met and married a wealthy English businessman. They lived a luxurious life until 14 years later, when the marriage ended in divorce. [1]

After her divorce, Hay attended the Church of Religious Science in New York City in the early 1970s where she trained in the ministerial program and became a certified church counselor. During this time, she compiled a reference guide detailing the mental causes of physical ailments that formed the basis for her books. Later, she worked as a trascendental meditator and attended the Maharishi's International University in Iowa. She also took A Course in Miracles and studied the twelve lessons taught by Emma Hopkins and Emilie Cady. After several years as a counselor in New York, Hay moved back to Southern California where she began writing books. She continues to lecture frequently.[1]

Hay's company, Hay House, has published many New Thought movement and holistic health-themed books and other media in these fields. It is the primary publisher of books and audio books by Deepak Chopra and Doreen Virtue, as well as all of the books by Wayne Dyer. In addition to running her publishing company, Hay owns a farm.

Ideas and teachings
Much of Hay's writing focuses on the metaphysics of the human mind and body, particularly on her view that there is a relationship between "dis-ease" in the mind and disease in the body.

Hay's two best-known books, Heal Your Body (1976) and You Can Heal Your Life (1984), directly associate physical problems such as cancer with specific negative emotional patterns and assert that healing the emotional components will also heal the physical conditions. Hay had the opportunity in her own life to test her assertions. In the 1970s, she was diagnosed with cancer. After considering all the options available to her at the time, she decided to follow a regimen of affirmations, visualization, nutrition, and psychotherapy. Six months later, she was cancer free.[3]
Quotes
"If you want to understand your parents more, get them to talk about their own childhoods; and if you listen with compassion, you will learn where their fears and rigid patterns come from."

"They will often tell me they can't love themselves because they are so fat, or as one girl put it, 'too round at the edges.' I explain that they are fat because they don't love themselves. When we begin to love and approve of ourselves, it's amazing how weight just disappears from our bodies."

"Be grateful of what you do have, and you will find that it increases. I like to bless with love all that is in my life right now -- my home, the heat, water, light, telephone, furniture, plumbing, appliances, clothing, transportation, jobs -- the money I do have, friends, my ability to see and feel and taste and touch and walk and enjoy this incredible planet." All from Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life 1984.