There are so many gifts Still unopened from your birthday.
HAFIZ
While we were writing Life Loves You, Louise Hay, at the age of 87, held her first public art exhibition. The ArtBeat on Main Street Gallery in downtown Vista, California, hosted the exhibit. It was called The Art of Louise Hay and featured 20 of Louise’s oil and watercolor paintings. Louise attended the gallery reception, held on January 25, and people traveled near and far to see her work. I phoned her the day before the reception to congratulate her. “I feel very blessed,” she told me.
Blessing Buddha is Louise’s portrait of the Buddha. It was the centerpiece of her exhibit. A magnificent oil painting, it stands three feet tall and two-and-a-half feet wide. A golden Buddha, dressed in saffron and royal blue, sits in lotus posture upon a lotus throne, which is painted fuchsia and pink. A halo of white light surrounds the Buddha’s head. He holds a jar in his left hand, as in portraits of the Medicine Buddha. Layered brushstrokes of emerald green, yellow, and more saffron fill in the background.
Blessing Buddha now hangs in the lobby of Hay House headquarters in Carlsbad, California. “It welcomes and blesses all who enter,” says Louise. I love the painting. I have a full-sized copy hanging by the door to my office at home. I look at it and receive a blessing every day as I commute up the stairs to work. Louise has not written or spoken about the Buddha in any of her major works. I was keen, therefore, to learn what she thinks about the Buddha and also to explore any relationship between the Blessing Buddha and her philosophy that life loves you.
“The Buddha is a living saint,” Louise tells me. “I believe he had an experience of the Unconditioned Self, as you call it. In his awakening, he experienced the One Infinite Mind, and he received the blessings of creation.” I ask Louise to tell me more about this. She says, “We are created by a Universal Consciousness that supports all of its creations. We are the beloved children of the Universe and we have been given everything. We are born blessed. The message the Buddha has for each and every one of us is I am blessed.”
“How long did it take you to paint Blessing Buddha?” I ask Louise.
“Eighty-five years!” she says with a big laugh.
“Good answer.”
“It took about five years in total,” she says.
“That was a long journey.”
“It was a journey I couldn’t have taken alone,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I had two wonderful art teachers who stretched me far beyond what I thought I was capable of doing.”
Louise’s first teacher was an English artist who occasionally visited San Diego. “I took his class when he was in town, and he gave me the assignment of drawing the Buddha,” she told me. Louise hadn’t done anything like that before. “Drawing the Buddha took great precision. It was like taking a class in mathematics. I had to erase a lot of lines,” she said with a big smile. “It was my teacher’s idea that I draw the Buddha, and I couldn’t have done it without his gentle encouragement.”
Louise finished drawing the Buddha after many sessions and then set about painting the figure. “I started to paint it by myself, but I wasn’t happy with it,” she said, so she set the drawing aside. It sat on an easel in her painting room for a couple of years. “One day I remember thinking, When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” Louise recalled. “Shortly after that I met my next teacher, Linda Bounds.” Louise formed a close friendship with Linda, a local artist. “Linda brought out artistic abilities in me that I didn’t know I possessed,” Louise told me. “We took a journey together that I will treasure forever.”
Linda taught Louise to paint by brushing layer upon layer of color onto the canvas. Painting Blessing Buddha took about two years. It was during this time that the painting became a meditation for Louise. She began to tune in to the life of the Buddha. She was struck by what she called “a universal benevolence” that moved through him, and this gave her the idea to name her painting Blessing Buddha.
“I began to have a conversation with the Buddha,” Louise told me.
“What did you talk about?” I asked.
“Everything,” she said with a smile.
“Be specific,” I said.
“I asked the Buddha to help me with my painting,” she said.
“Wise move.”
“I told the Buddha I was afraid I couldn’t do the painting,” she added.
“What did the Buddha say?”
“He said, ‘Remember that the Universe loves you and wants you to succeed at everything you do.’”
Each time Louise worked on the painting, she tuned in more to the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment. “First I asked the Buddha to help me paint the Buddha. He was very helpful with that, and so I started to ask for help with other things. I asked for support with loving myself more, forgiving others, being grateful, and being open to guidance. I didn’t ask the Buddha for material things; I asked for help with my mind. I see the Buddha as very compassionate and as a universal friend who is here to help us all.”
When I asked Louise to sum up her experience of painting Blessing Buddha, she said, “Blessing Buddha taught me to be very patient with myself and also very kind. To paint this picture I had to find the little-girl me—the girl I call Lulu—who paints without any fear or self-criticism or self-doubt. Above all, I had to be more open and more willing to receive. This painting was done through me, not by me. That’s why the full name for my painting is Blessing Buddha: Ask and You Shall Receive.”
The Already Principle
“I remember when I first discovered I was truly prosperous,” Louise tells me.
“When was that?” I ask.
“It was when I realized I could afford to buy any book I wanted,” she says.
“How old were you?”
“I was in my mid-40s or so,” she says.
“Why books?”
“I had very little money. I didn’t even own a watch. Books felt like a luxury, but they were affordable,” she tells me.
“What were you reading?”
“Florence Scovel Shinn’s book The Game of Life and How to Play It was a big inspiration. I liked her practical, no-nonsense approach,” says Louise.
“You and Florence could easily be soul sisters,” I tell her.
“I’ve always felt a strong kinship with her,” Louise says, smiling.
“What else did you read?”
“Emmet Fox’s works were a big help,” she says.
“Why did these books help you feel prosperous?”
“They spoke of an innate potential for love and prosperity that exists in all of us,” she says.
“How did you feel about that?”
“Well, at first I thought it was ridiculous!” she says with a big laugh.
“Why?”
“The abundance of the universe had nothing to do with me. I could believe it existed for others, but not for me.”
“You didn’t feel loveable,” I say.
“I had very poor self-esteem back then. I was also very angry,” she says.
“Why were you angry?”
“These books told me that I was the one who was blocking my potential for love and prosperity,” she says, laughing again.
“Yet still you kept turning the pages.”
“Yes. These books were my lifelines. I remember telling myself that now that I’d found these books I would find a way to experience this potential for love and prosperity, and that I wouldn’t let myself forget about this potential ever again,” she says.
I reflect on Louise’s story about when she first felt truly prosperous. Those books were her Aladdin’s lamps. They woke up a potential that already existed in her. This potential was waiting for her to take the first step on her healing journey. And here she is now, some 40 years later, one of the best-selling authors on the planet.
“When did you first feel truly prosperous?” Louise asks me.
“When I was 18 years old,” I tell her.
“You were very young,” says Louise.
“I elected to take my midlife crisis early,” I say.
“We shouldn’t compare our journeys, I know, but sometimes I wish I’d learned what I know now a lot sooner,” she says.
“‘There is a Divine Design for each man!’” I say, quoting Florence Scovel Shinn, which makes Louise smile.
“So what happened when you were 18 years old?” she asks.
“I met Avanti Kumar, my first spiritual mentor.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Well, he gave me a lot of books to read. Books like the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad Gita, The Dhammapada, and Autobiography of a Yogi, which is where I first learned about affirmations. These books were my lifelines.”
“Did you struggle like I did?” she asks.
“Yes. Just like you, I believed in a divine potential that exists in everyone else but not in me,” I tell her.
“You felt unloveable,” she says.
“Yes, but I kept on turning the pages.”
“You were listening to your inner ding,” Louise says with a smile.
“I’m so grateful that I did.”
“So how did this help you feel prosperous?” she asks.
“Avanti was the first person to tell me that I am already abundant,” I tell her.
“Did you believe him?” she asks.
“I asked Avanti, ‘If I’m already abundant, why can’t I feel it?’ And he said it was because I was blocking it!”
“I hope you got angry,” Louise says, laughing.
“Yeah, I did some pillow bashing,” I tell her.
“And then what?”
“Avanti said something that blew my socks off!”
“What did he say?”
“He said the reason I didn’t feel abundant already is that I didn’t expect to feel abundant now; I expected to feel abundant in the future.”
“That’s very good,” says Louise.
“Avanti helped me take my first step on the spiritual path.”
“What was that first step?” asks Louise.
“It was the willingness to seek the blocks to love inside myself.”
“Dissolving our barriers,” says Louise.
“Amen.”
Avanti Kumar taught me what I call The Already Principle. The Unconditioned Self, which is our true nature, is already blessed. “From the very beginning, all beings are Buddha,” said Hakuin, a Japanese Zen Master. We carry with us a timeless wisdom that exists already in us and helps us to remember what we forgot. In the depths of our soul, we find our divine inheritance. We discover that we already are the person we most want to be.
Divine potential exists now, not in the future. This potential is our divine mirror. We see our God-given talents in this mirror. This is where we find the big happiness, the timeless wisdom, and the boundless love. Somehow, though, we forget about this mirror. It gets covered over with a thousand Post-it notes. These notes have terrible messages written on them, like I’m not loveable and I’m not enough. They are full of our judgments and self-criticism, self-rejection and unworthiness. Pablo Picasso is often quoted as saying that “[e]very child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
According to the Already Principle, you have already been given everything you need for your journey in this life. No matter which road you take, divine guidance will meet you there. ”I am fully equipped for the Divine Plan of my life; I am more than equal to the situation,” wrote Florence Scovel Shinn. Florence’s affirmation reminds me of the scene in the film Mary Poppins in which, before Jane’s and Michael’s eyes, Mary Poppins pulls item after item from her bottomless carpetbag. Our real potential is like this. It reveals itself when it is needed and when we ask for it. It’s bigger than anything our ego can carry.
What about our darkest moments, when our ego is on its knees? When we doubt that love exists? When we can see “only one set of footprints” and feel utterly alone? In terrible times, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to say the right thing. Words are probably not appropriate, anyway. They make a wound sting even more. You can’t possibly know it then, but even in the most forsaken place, the healing has already begun. That’s how reality works. Nothing takes place outside the Oneness. Love abandons no one.
The Already Principle reminds us of our true nature and the nature of reality. It teaches us that there is more to this world than meets the eye. Even in a world of fear, there is love. Even when you are in lack, there is abundance. Even when you experience conflict, there is peace. Even when you are alone, there is help. Even when you are confused, there is guidance. Everything you need is here, and it’s here now. That’s why Louise always encourages us to pray and affirm in the present tense. Just like this:
I am willing to let life love me today.
Everything I need to know is revealed to me.
I gratefully accept all the good I have
in my life now.
I release all struggle now, and I am at peace.
My healing is already in progress.
I now accept and appreciate the
abundant life the Universe offers me.
Beyond Independence
I teach a module called “Life Loves You” in my three-day Loveability program. In this module, we explore the blocks to love. We look especially at the ways we make it difficult to be loved. We see how our lack of self-love makes it harder for others to love us. We examine fears about love, roles we play in relationships, old grievances we carry, and defenses that stop us from letting love in. One block to love we pay special attention to is independence.
How independent are you? I ask my students this question at the start of the “Life Loves You” module. I follow that question up with this one: Are you a H.I.P. or a D.I.P.? I explain that H.I.P. stands for Healthy Independent Person and D.I.P. stands for Dysfunctional Independent Person. On the spectrum of independence, there is a healthy range and a dysfunctional range. It’s important that you know the difference and that you choose well, if you want to let life love you.
Healthy independence is a creative force that moves through everyone and everything. This creative force comes from the Oneness. It’s how the Unified Field—the energy of the universe—grows flowers and whales, rainbows and stars, amethysts and people. It gives form to life and makes embryos into babies. It helps children take their first steps and stand on their own two feet. “I can do it all by myself,” cries the child. Soon he can run and play. And all of this happens not in isolation but in a holding environment of support and love.
Healthy independence helps you to take your place in the collective. It helps you to express yourself as I Am. You know deep inside yourself that I am blessed and I am loved and I am loveable. You are an I that is made out of everything. Everything helped to create you. This isn’t just poetry, by the way; this is science. In the “Life Loves You” module, I show my students a short film featuring Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist and cosmologist. In it Sagan says, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
Healthy independence promotes freedom of thought. It helps you to know your own mind, which is, in its purest form, an expression of your Unconditioned Self. It helps you to be “independent of the good opinion of others,” as the psychologist Abraham Maslow explained in his work on the hierarchy of needs. Healthy independence helps you to be free of conditioning and to express yourself freely. It helps you to individuate, to become fully yourself, and to be the wise woman or wise man that you are.
“Healthy independence saved my life,” Louise once told me. “It gave me the courage to leave home at 15 and to escape from abuse.” Healthy independence can get you out of a bad situation. It helps you to rely on an innate wisdom that is your true power. It saves you from losing yourself in unhealthy dependency, giving up on yourself, or throwing yourself away. Without healthy independence, family patterns wouldn’t be healed, and humanity could not evolve in the direction of love.
So what about dysfunctional independence? In basic terms, dysfunctional independence is a mistake. It takes a good thing too far. We stop relating to ourselves as an individual expression of the universe. Instead, we believe we are self-made. We exist in isolation. This is how the eyes of the body see it. However, when you look through the eyes of the heart, or through the lens of quantum physics, you discover that all forms of separation, including a personal ego, are “an optical delusion,” as Albert Einstein put it.
Dysfunctional independence is very lonely. It puts you outside of the Oneness in a place you could call hell. The problem with being a D.I.P. is that it separates you from everything, including yourself. As you lose conscious contact with others, you lose contact with yourself as well. Your sense of self breaks apart. When it gets really bad, you can’t feel your heart, you are physically disembodied, your mind is at odds with itself, and you’re not sure anymore if you have a soul. Your ego tries to be everything that the Unconditioned Self is, but without the support of that Self, it ends up feeling lonely, tired, and unloved.
Dysfunctional independence is very frightening. It’s a choice we make out of fear, and it also causes a lot of fear. Most commonly, dysfunctional independence is a reaction to a wound. Once upon a time, you got hurt. You withdrew inside yourself and you felt safe. You decided to build a castle wall around yourself. The wall was designed to protect you from being hurt again. The wall did its job. It kept the world out. Unfortunately, this left you alone with your original wound. Nothing could get through to you: not help, not the people who love you, not even the angels.
Dysfunctional independence is a block to love. The more of a D.I.P. you become, the more closed off you are from everything. This should make you safe, according to your ego, but it doesn’t. The more closed off you are, the more fearful you are of everything, including love. That’s why it’s so hard for anyone to love you. You fear that love will hurt you, and you don’t want to get hurt again. The truth is, however, that love has never hurt you. It’s only what is not love that hurts. Love can only ever love you, and it’s only love that can save you.
Dysfunctional independence is the end of the road. You can go only so far by yourself. Being a D.I.P. blocks your growth. You are trying to do life by yourself, without feedback, without help, without love, and it’s not working. “Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness,” said physicist David Bohm. In other words, it’s only when we go back to the Oneness—and when we let life love us—that we can fulfill our true destiny and be who we truly are.
Louise once told me, “All the doors of the universe are always open for you. The door to wisdom is open. The door to healing is open. The door to love is open. The door to forgiveness is open. The door to prosperity is open. This is true whether you are having a great day or not!” The Oneness is open at all hours. On the other side of dysfunctional independence is a universe of inspiration and love. Life is waiting for you. All you have to do is knock a hole in your wall, install a door, and start to let the love in.
Your Unconditioned Self, which rests in a state of basic openness, is always open to love. In the “Life Loves You” module, I share with my students one of Louise’s favorite exercises on love. The idea is to stand in front of a mirror with arms open wide and say, “I am willing to let the love in. It is safe to let the love in. I say yes to letting love in.” Louise recommends you do this three times a day. It’s a very simple exercise that helps to open doors and, eventually, to bring down walls.
I end my “Life Loves You” module with a wonderful prayer by Louise on basic openness:
In the infinity of life where I am,
all is perfect, whole, and complete.
I believe in a power far greater than I am
that flows through me every moment of every day.
I open myself to the wisdom within,
knowing that there is only One Intelligence in this Universe.
Out of this One Intelligence comes all the answers,
all the solutions, all the healings, all the new creations.
I trust this Power and Intelligence,
knowing that whatever I need to know is revealed to me,
and that whatever I need comes to me
in the right time, space, and sequence.
All is well in my world.
Letting Go of Struggle
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe
Me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
This poem, The Sun Never Says, is another beautiful collaboration between Hafiz and Daniel Ladinsky. It gives us a glimpse of the unconditional nature of love. It reminds us that true love is freely given, at no cost, and that it is equally available to us all. This love is greater than anyone can conceive because it has no limits. No one can get his or her head around this love, so to speak. It’s not just an idea. It comes from the Oneness. It is the original energy of the Unified Field. It is the basic consciousness of life. It is the heart of the universe expressing its boundless generosity.
Love is unconditional. This is easy to remember when we are aligned with our Unconditioned Self. Then we live with a natural awareness of the basic truth I am loveable and with the basic trust that I am loved. However, when we fall from grace for whatever reason, we lose sight of who we are and what love is. Love becomes a myth or, even worse, a religion. The basic fear that I am not loveable and the basic mistrust that I am not loved distorts our perception, and the ego turns love into its own image. Now love is separate from us. And we fear we must deserve love if we are ever to be loved again.
Love is never earned; it is freely given. To let love be love and to let life love you, you have to accept that love has nothing to do with deserving. Love is not a bargain. It is not a coin to be spent. Love will never say to you, “You owe me.” Love is not a judgment. No matter how terrible your past may be, love waits for you. Love exempts no one. Not even you. Not even your worst enemy. The unconditional nature of love is what makes love so powerful. It dissolves every barrier. It undoes every block. It brings everyone home.
As long as you believe that love has to be deserved, you will place a limit on how much life can love you. Your self-image will set the conditions, not love. Your ego will write the contract, not love. This contract is an internal affair, full of personal rules and standards that love knows nothing about. The conditions of the contract vary from person to person. There are all sorts of clauses, such as I can let life love me if … and I can let life love me when … Three of the most common classifications of these clauses are the work ethic, the suffering ethic, and the martyr ethic.
“Life loves us, and life will help us to write this book,” affirmed Louise in an e-mail on the day we agreed to do Life Loves You. In the same e-mail she wrote, “This book is already written. All we have to do is let it happen.” Her words reminded me of a Buddhist monk I met in Bodh Gaya, India. We met by the Bodhi Tree, also known as the Bo Tree, which grows next to the Mahabodhi Temple. It was at this spot—called the Immoveable Spot—that Siddhartha Gautama experienced enlightenment and became known as the Buddha—one who is awake.
The monk was working on an elaborate thangka, a painting on cotton and silk of the Vajradhara Buddha, who represents the essence of universal love and wisdom. When I commented on his beautiful artwork, the monk smiled and said, “I am God’s photocopy machine. God gives me the images. All I do is faithfully copy the images onto the page.” He told me that a true artist works with focus but not effort. “The effort comes not from ego but from the Great Determination in the sky,” he said.
One reason I love to write is because every piece of writing is a co-creation and collaboration. Even though writing is a solitary act, an author never writes alone. On good days, the writing flows easily and without much effort. On difficult days, of which I’ve had a few, the writing doesn’t flow. I can feel that the words are here, but they aren’t lining up on the page. Usually the block is that I’m trying too hard. I’m trying to push the flow. I’m trying to make it happen, rather than letting it happen.
While writing this book I received many love notes from Louise encouraging me to work without effort, to be open to inspiration, to let myself be guided, and to trust the process. Just as she had done with Blessing Buddha, she wanted this work to come through us. Early on we created a list of affirmations to help us focus on our book. They included: The life that loves us is writing this book; Everyday life helps us write Life Loves You; and We are grateful for all the support and guidance we receive in writing Life Loves You. I make a list of affirmations for every book I write, and it was especially fun to do this with Louise.
Louise doesn’t do work ethic. Not in the normal way, anyway. She doesn’t believe in the adage If you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. She doesn’t subscribe to being an independent doer. “I struggled so much in the first half of my life, because I didn’t know a better way,” she told me. “I tried to do everything by myself, and I ended up divorced, unhappy, and with cancer. Gradually, as I let myself be helped and became more open to receiving, my life became less of a struggle. Over time I learned to love myself and to trust that life loves me too.”
Louise is adamant that, in truth, there are no barriers to love. “The barriers we experience are imagined, not real,” she says. They are dreamed up by our ego, not by love. “Life does not want us to suffer,” she says. Mostly we suffer because we are unaware of the Divine Assistance available to us in each moment. We think we have to do it all by ourselves. We suffer, we struggle, and we live in sacrifice, because we let life love us only so much.
In Bodh Gaya many centuries ago, when Siddhartha sat beneath the Bodhi Tree, he was tired of searching for enlightenment. He wanted his enlightenment now. On his travels he had practiced asceticism, extreme sacrifice, and noble suffering in an effort to achieve enlightenment. He had not been successful. And then, as he sat upon the Immovable Spot, he decided to end his search. He stopped trying. He relaxed. He didn’t do anything. In that moment he experienced the great blessings of the universe.
It is said that the Buddha’s first words upon awakening were “I am now enlightened with all beings.” This is hugely significant. He didn’t say, “I am more enlightened than you.” Or “I am enlightened and you are not.” He experienced an enlightenment that exists, in potential, for all of us. And the potential exists now, not in the future. Love makes itself available to us when we make ourselves available to love. We are all in the Oneness. We are all part of love’s great work.
Universal love, like the sun, shines on everyone. Love leaves no one out. As Galileo Galilei, the Italian physicist and philosopher, is said to have observed,
The sun, with all those
planets revolving around it
and dependent upon it,
can still ripen a bunch
of grapes as if it had
nothing else in
the universe
to do.
PRACTICE 6: A RECEIVING JOURNAL
Louise and I are having breakfast in her kitchen. She brings over two smoothies that she has whipped up in her blender. “Here,” she says, handing me a glass. The smoothie is thick, and it smells like a vegetable patch. “What’s in this?” I ask. Louise smiles. “Everything that’s good for you,” she says. In other words, she’s not going to tell me. “All you have to do is receive,” she says. She knows that receiving is our topic of conversation this morning. Before taking my first sip I pray out loud, “Oh God, help me to receive.”
While we drink our smoothies, Louise and I watch a short film of her art exhibition at the ArtBeat Gallery on her iPad. The exhibit was hugely popular. The original plan was for a two-week run. It was extended to six weeks. Hundreds of prints of Blessing Buddha were sold. Each one was signed by Louise and raised money for her charity, the Hay Foundation.
“I never expected to show my art,” Louise tells me.
“Your art was a gift to yourself,” I say.
“As a child, I wasn’t encouraged to express my creativity,” she says.
“Me neither.”
“I was told I couldn’t dance, so I stopped dancing,” Louise says.
“I was put in the non-singing group in my class,” I tell her.
“For years, I told myself ‘I am not creative,’” she says.
“That’s a powerful affirmation.”
“The creativity of the universe flows through everyone,” she affirms.
“No exceptions!”
“Everyone is creative, and we create our lives every day,” she says.
“Our life is the real canvas,” I suggest.
“Yes. And by tapping into the creative flow of the universe, we express our true potential, and we work miracles in our life,” she says.
“How do we tap into this creativity?”
“By learning to receive,” she replies.
Blessed are they who receive. Receiving, at the purest level, is about being open and receptive to your true nature. It’s not about things; it’s about you. It’s not about having or getting; it’s about being. To know who you are, without conditions or pretenses, requires genuine receptivity. It’s about self-acceptance. Who am I when I am not judging and rejecting myself? This is your inquiry. Follow the open road, and it will take you back home to your Unconditioned Self. Here’s where you experience the original blessing. It’s like honey in your bones.
Receiving is a spiritual practice. Each time you affirm I am open and receptive to my highest good, you are cultivating a state of basic openness. In the Buddhist tradition, the word for basic openness is shunyata. It describes the awareness of your original mind that is empty of ego, fear, self-judgment, unworthiness, self-doubt, grievances, and complaining. Shunyata is what love feels like. This basic openness helps you to be receptive to beauty, inspiration, guidance, healing, and love.
Receiving is a great big Yes. “The universe says yes to you,” says Louise. “It wants you to experience your highest good. When you ask for your highest good, the Universe doesn’t say, ‘I’ll think about it’; it says yes. The universe is always saying yes to your highest good.” And you have to say yes, too. The key to receiving is willingness, or readiness. When you declare, “I am ready to receive my highest good in this situation,” it shifts your perception and your circumstances.
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” Louise told herself, and shortly afterward her art teacher, Linda Bounds, appeared. “I said the same thing to myself when I wanted a really good local Pilates teacher,” Louise told me. “And two days later I met Ahlea Khadro.” Ahlea is the mother of Elliot, the little boy at our Thanksgiving lunch who kept going over to the mirror to smile at himself. Ahlea now coordinates Louise’s entire healthcare plan. She and Louise have become great friends.
In my book Authentic Success, I wrote about the power of readiness and how it can help you to experience a new level of success in every area of your life. In the chapter on Grace, I offered this meditation on readiness:
When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
When the thinker is ready, the idea appears.
When the artist is ready, the inspiration appears.
When the servant is ready, the purpose appears.
When the athlete is ready, the performance appears.
When the leader is ready, the vision appears.
When the lover is ready, the partner appears.
When the disciple is ready, God appears.
When the teacher is ready, the student appears.
Receiving is the best psychotherapy. If you’re really serious about receiving and you’re willing to make it a daily practice, you’ll find that receiving will help dissolve all your barriers to love. By declaring I am willing to be a better receiver, you activate a power within you that can heal learned unworthiness, dysfunctional independence, unhealthy sacrifice, financial insecurity, and every type of lack. Receiving helps you to know your true worth and to live with ease and happiness.
Receiving helps you to be present. It helps you to be where you are, to inhale deeply, and to take in everything that is here for you. “Often what’s missing in a situation is only our ability to receive,” says Louise. “The Universe always provides, but we have to be open and receptive to see this.” The willingness to receive opens you up inside and takes you beyond your theories of what you believe you deserve and what you think is possible. Receiving helps you to pay attention to what is already here for you.
In this chapter, our spiritual practice is to keep a receiving journal. We invite you to spend 15 minutes a day, for the next seven days, cultivating an even greater willingness to receive. In your receiving journal, we want you to write down ten responses to the sentence One way life is loving me right now is … Don’t edit your responses. Just let them flow.
You may wish to do this exercise with a therapist, a friend, your partner, or your children. You can make it into a dialogue and take turns completing the sentence. Once you have written down your ten responses, review your list and let it sink in how life is loving you right now.
One way life is loving me right now is … My wife, Hollie, and I have been doing this exercise together at night when the children are asleep and we have a moment to ourselves. We’ve been doing it all the way through the writing of Life Loves You. This exercise has opened our eyes. On good days, it makes everything sweeter. On difficult days, it lifts our spirits. The more you do this exercise, the easier it is. The more you look, the more you see. As our friend Chuck Spezzano says,
When the receiver is ready,
the gift appears.
