WEB EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Louise L Hay

Louise L. Hay is a living legend – and not just for those in the Mind, Body, Spirit community. In the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, she pioneered support groups for gay men, at the request of one of her gay spiritual counselling clients. She has survived a tough childhood riddled with poverty and abuse, been a top model in New York, beaten cancer with the healing system she innovated, written bestselling books, and built up a worldwide multimedia publishing company. On a recent visit to the UK, she gave a small handful of interviews, including one to our editor, Tania Ahsan.

Back in the 80s, with regard to your work with AIDS patients, I remember how utterly terrified people were of, say, sharing a glass with someone who was HIV positive... No, no, no, they were terrified to be in the same room, they never got to that stage of sharing a glass. [Laughs.]

Exactly.  So what was it that made you reject this prejudice that was so prevalent? I was never frightened of it because I knew that I wouldn’t get it. I was very aware that it was a sexual contact thing and I was not having sexual contact with gay men so I was certainly not going to get it [by running the gay men’s support group]. I was never scared but it sort of came to me and I said, well, I don’t know what I’m doing but I’ll try but nobody else knew what they were doing either so it didn’t matter. I just sort of welcomed a small group and in time it grew into a big group.

A friend of mine who is HIV positive told me that he was so inspired by you because even now he finds that there are friends who, when they find out, they’ll back off and stop seeing him. That was obviously not a fear for you but fear, as a human experience, have you found it hard to master? Have you always been so fearless? Coming from a childhood where everything was so awful and I survived that so it was like what else can hurt me? I’m not comfortable with earthquakes because they’re unpredictable. If you know that a certain thing is going to happen then you know how to deal with it but with an earthquake you don’t.

In terms of your wide experience, what’s resonated and had the most impact? It seems to me that gratitude is enormously important because the universe, like other people, loves gratitude. If you buy somebody a present and they go ‘oh I don’t like that’ you’ll never buy them a present again. But if they go ‘oh how wonderful! I love it! How sweet you are to buy it for me.’ Etc. then the next time you see something you think they’ll like, you want to get it for them, even if you don’t, you think ‘oh so-and-so would like that’ and it’s the same way with the universe. When we are grateful and express that gratitude then more goodies come to us. I don’t just mean physical things, I mean peace of mind, having an inner confidence, being comfortable with other people, having good health, these are really important in life. A new car is a lovely thing but if you’re going to drive down the road screaming at other drivers, it isn’t doing you any good. A good life depends on the thoughts we choose to think and the foods we choose to eat. It gets more challenging with the food because they are so many varieties of pretty packaged food that have nothing but junk inside them. Those two things are very important. Part of that is of course learning to forgive, when we drag the bitterness of the past with us, which I did for many years, you can’t bring good things through, it’s a barrier.

It’s so simple and profound too. I’ve always said I’m a very simple lady with simple ideas but they work and the ideas are far too simple for many people. They say ‘oh that’s nonsense that won’t do anything’ but it does. It’s the little, simple things that work.

It’s hard to keep watching your thoughts and to avoid spiralling into irritation or anger or fear. Are there still things that are your triggers; things you have to watch yourself about? One of the things I like to do is to say to myself ‘how am I feeling now?’ ‘How am I feeling NOW?’ And if I’m not feeling good and I’m feeling irritable or disappointed or whatever, I remind myself that it’s not now. This is something that’s in the past, even if it’s 20 minutes ago, it’s in the past. It’s a new moment and how am I choosing to feel NOW? The thoughts come in so fast and the incidents come in and people will say silly things to us and you know there are times that you’ll react.

Are you quite quick to forgive afterwards? Yes, I’ve learnt to be, because it is in my best interests. It has nothing to do with them. [Chuckles.] And we’re all under the law of our own consciousness. When somebody does something really foolish, it’s not our place to do anything about it because they’re under the law of their own consciousness and what they give out will come back to them.

Tell me about starting Hay House. I didn’t ever intend to start a publishing company. I had no intention of doing that. In the beginning I wrote a little book and I knew nobody would publish it; that was my belief. The ideas were crazy, they were really wild for that time so I thought I’d better do it myself. And I printed my little book and then I did a second book and I printed that one too because I thought that even if a publisher took my book, they’d want to change it, they wouldn’t let me say what I wanted to say in the way that I wanted to say it. So I did my own book again so that was two books. Then I did a tape and another tape. First tape I did I went into a closet with a flashlight because I heard that would cut out the excess noise. I had two books and two tapes and then one day somebody asked me to publish their book and I did that and that’s when you become a publisher, when you do somebody else’s book but I never said ‘oh I’m going to start a publishing company’... or anything like that.  I wrote the book for my students and it’s as if Life took that book and decided what it was going to do with it. The second book I wrote You Can Heal Your Life has sold 40 million worldwide so Life did a lot with that book.

What media do you consume now? I avoid most films; I find there’s very little that interests me in most films. I saw a beautiful film recently, first time in a year, called Every Little Step and it was on how the chorus line in a play was put together and it was fabulous. Filled with dancers going for one role and all top notch dancers so the dancing was beautiful and there was nothing horrid in it, nobody was getting killed and it was a gorgeous, gorgeous film and I loved it. I like theatre. I wouldn’t read a Stephen King novel if you paid me!

How much do you follow politics? I was thrilled when Obama came into power, it was wonderful and I cried all through his inauguration but I don’t really follow politics.

What’s your opinion of where we’re going? I don’t know. And I don’t know how much longer I have but then you never know that with any degree of certainty but I know that I will always be fine because I’ve found my niche in life, what to do but also how to live it, mainly how to live it. I take very good care of my health. I’m a busy person and I want to have good energy till the very last day. Abraham has this wonderful saying: ‘happy, healthy, happy, healthy, happy, healthy, dead.’ That’s exactly what I want to do, I want to be happy and healthy and then, boom, go. [Laughs.]

Louise will be speaking at I Can Do It 2010 in London. Click here to book your ticket.

NB: This is a kindredspirit.co.uk website exclusive so please note that it will not appear in our print version. Likewise, we have articles and interviews in our print version that are not released to the website. Subscribe to Kindred Spirit today to ensure you don't miss out.

by Tania Ahsan
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