The Power Is Within You
When Louise Hay published the first edition of this book more than 20 years ago with the title Empowering Women, her hope was to help all women experience and take ownership of their self-love, self-worth, self-esteem, and rightful, powerful place in the world. Today, her words and wisdom ring as true as ever - and resonate even more deeply with women seeking the best next step on their path. This new edition of her groundbreaking work delves insightfully into every aspect of a woman's life, from relationships to health to sexuality to finances.
The Power Is Within You
'The power is within you' is a guided journey that delivers you to peace. At the end of the book you will also find a number of different meditations to restore your own sense of love and peace.
It is not of such choices I speak. I speak of the destiny of your life and of the eternal truth that you can choose to use the powers within you to have a happy life of continual growth and development that leads to eternal progression or choose to follow the crowd of other people struggling to get to a top that is nowhere.
First, you have great physical powers. Look at you; notice your hands, your arms, your legs, your feet, your face, your eyes, your ears, your mouth, and your nose. You must admit that you are a magnificent creation when you realize how intricate these components are and what you can do because of them. If by any chance there is more of you than you would like to see, you can do something about it. And, if you do, it will make a great difference in how you feel about yourself.
Her example serves to illustrate that physically you have the power to choose the options available to you. You who have five or ten or more pounds that you would like to lose can do so in different ways. You can take in fewer calories, or you may desire to put yourself on a consistent program of exercise, or both. The point is that you have the power to lose weight and thereby increase your capacity to do what you want to do.
When a man makes war on his own weaknesses he engages in the holiest war that mortals ever wage. The reward that comes from victory in this struggle is the most enduring, most satisfying, and the most exquisite that man ever experiences. . . . The power to do what we ought to do is the greatest freedom. [That Ye Might Have Joy (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), p. 83]
The miracle of the mortal body became apparent to me one afternoon when I was holding my first baby. It was a girl, and suddenly she seemed to stop breathing. I tried to force air into her lungs. I cried to the Lord in desperation, and after only a few seconds that seemed like an endless hour, she began to breathe normally again. The problem was diagnosed as an enlarged thymus gland that needed treatment. I shall never forget how grateful I was for the miracle of life and for the power of the body that I knew that day. I determined to do my very best to help her use her life as the Lord intended when he gave her to me to care for and love.
I want you to know the full joy of your mortal body. The power is within you to do an infinite variety of things. It is like a never-ending kaleidoscope of experiences that are available to you regardless of your challenges or your problems. When one avenue of activity is denied by a physical impairment, there is still a rich variety of alternate choices available to you.
It is the masterful creation of our bodies that gives us these wonderful abilities because we are the literal offspring of our Heavenly Father. He, whose spirit children we are, organized these mortal bodies and provided us with a powerful instrument capable of vitalized mortal living. However, Elder LeGrand Richards cautions:
You do have great physical powers within you to create life, to control your abilities and capacities, and to compensate for disabilities; and these physical powers require you to take good care of your bodies. At the very least you should obey the Word of Wisdom, eat properly, sleep and exercise regularly, and abstain from taking anything into your bodies that will destroy your powers, for you will be held accountable for them as you strive to become what you are really meant to be.
Now consider your mental powers. Think of your infinite capacity to learn, your ability to control your attitude toward learning, and your ability to adapt to and draw from the happenings each day. No mother can watch the progress of her child without being filled with wonder at his endless desire to learn. It is one of the joys of being a parent.
Walk the corridors of this great university and look into the libraries and the laboratories, and you will find more projects designed to overcome the ignorance and the unknown than could have ever been dreamed about a few short years ago. Remember that knowledge builds upon knowledge. There is no end to the capacity of men and women to learn. The great vision of the gospel is that we grow in wisdom and in knowledge and in favor with God and man. You must put yourself to that task because you have the power.
Perhaps the most important point I would like to discuss with you regarding your intellectual powers is the fact that you have the power to grow from your day-to-day experiences. At one time or another, you will all have the occasion to choose between a life of bitterness or a life of beauty. You have the power within you to make such a choice, and the Lord has promised that you can count on him for sufficient help to have an abundant life if you choose to live by the principles which lead to your personal growth and development.
This great adaptive quality is part of the power within us that can shape our lives into contributions and excellence if we so choose. When we use our mental powers wisely, we can more easily become what we are really meant to be.
You must want that blessing so much that you have faith in his word, resist worldly enticements, seek him in prayer, listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and proclaim his gospel within the reach of your influence, and in the process you will help develop the spiritual powers within you.
Tonight, remember that beyond anything you have ever accomplished is the challenge of living the principles of heaven in such a way that you connect the powers in you with the powers of heaven. Melvin J. Ballard said:
Louise L. Hay, the author of the international bestseller You Can Heal Your Life, is a metaphysical lecturer and teacher with more than 50 million books sold worldwide. For more than 30 years, she has helped people throughout the world discover and implement the full potential of their own creative powers for personal growth and self-healing. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and many other TV and radio programs both in the U.S. and abroad.
You have it right now. The power to create the life you desire by changing the way you think, believe, and feel about yourself. You have been given the God-power to have the good you desire. When you begin to think, believe, and see your connection with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, you will find that your good is not determined by outside circumstances but by your consciousness. You can cultivate a state of consciousness that brings you joy, success, and wealth that will sustain you regardless of world conditions.
WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRISTIn I Cor. 2:16 the Apostle Paul says that we have the mind of Christ. The anointed mind of God-in-us knows all and unlocks the divine power and supply of the Kingdom of God to fulfill your dreams. You must give yourself permission to BE, DO, and HAVE all the good and dreams God has for you. Can you demonstrate the power of God in you? Can you show your faith? Without the power of God in your life, weakness prevails and failures persist, but with the power of God in you all things are possible right now!
'I feel that an important thing to be aware of as you read is that the Power you may be seeking "out there" is also within you and readily available for you to use in positive ways. May this book reveal to you how very powerful you really are.' - Louise Hay.
'What has earned Louise Hay her immense and well-deserved popularity is her courage. Long before anyone else, she was brave enough to say that no dis-ease is insurmountable, given our infinite ability to replenish life from within. Medical science is beginning to corroborate her intuitions about the power of healing, which she splendidly sets out in this new book.' - Deepak Chopra, M.D., author of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.
About Louise Hay Louise L. Hay was an inspirational teacher who educated millions since the 1984 publication of her bestseller You Can Heal Your Life, which has more than 50 million copies in print worldwide. Renowned for demonstrating the power of affirmations to bring about positive change, Louise was the author of more than 30 books for adults and children, including the bestsellers The Power is Within You and Heal Your Body. In addition to her books, Louise produced numerous audio and video programs, card decks, online courses, and other resources for leading a healthy, joyous, and fulfilling life.
Would you like to discover the power to create the life you want rather than the one you have settled for? You may be surprised to learn that you already have considerably more power than you may have realized, and the source of that power is already within you. Last week's article on perpetuating your own problems set the table for this discussion by focusing on the omission side of creating your own life circumstances. Voltaire's famous quote, "Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do," helps point the way in terms of thinking about what you might have done in your life contrasted with your actual choices along the way.
This is where the power within comes into play. Actually, it already was in play the moment you told yourself that things were hopeless and getting worse. You shut your brain down every time you repeated that story line to yourself. If you can make the subtle shift from how it's bad and getting worse to something along the lines of "I may not like it now, but it will get better," your brain will fall into line and start looking for evidence that there is a better way. 041b061a72