by Louise Hay & Friends
WHAT ONE GOOD HUG CAN DO ā from Marcela, Spain
A loving friend gave me her personal copy of You Can Heal Your Life [191105, Ā£7.65] as a present during a difficult time in my life. Iāve discovered that it really is true: āThe teacher only appears when the student is ready.ā Despite my resistance, Louise started appearing in my life again and again and again ā until one day I was ready to hear her message.
Despite the outward success and praise Iād enjoyed in life, I now discovered that I didnāt love myself. That pill was hard to swallow. So, since Iād been educated as a scientist, I decided to give myself one opportunity to put Louiseās ideas to the test. I took a 30-day challenge to say āI love youā in the mirror every day, but I didnāt think the experiment was working ā Iād usually merely see a stranger on the other side of the mirror, looking at me with indifference. Irritated and feeling worse than I had before I started the challenge, I discarded Louiseās message.
Then something happened. I had just moved to a new city and had been having a particularly bad week when my neighbour, whom Iād met less than two months before, gave me a hug. I was stunned, realising that this was the first physical contact Iād had with anyone in two months. I suddenly saw how deprived I was of love ā one hug in two months is only six hugs a year!
I decided to make a small modification to Louiseās exercises and try again. This time I actually started hugging myself! First I did four hugs a day, which was very uncomfortable. Nevertheless,Ā I persisted, building up to 8 hugs, then 12, and so on, as if I were weight training. With the hugs came āI love youā and other kind words, along with encouragement and affection for myself.
Hugging myself and saying āI love youā is something very powerful in my life. I just hold myself, like a loving parent cradling a precious child, and I feel safe. Most important, I feel loved. I still have bad days, but now when I have them, I simply remind myself that this is one of those times when I need to love myself more instead of going into a spiral of depression.
I have scheduled hugs into my personal agenda every day and always keep the appointment, knowing that Iām meeting with the most important person in my life. And hereās another great thing: when Iām hugging myself at work, most people just think Iām shivering, so I donāt even have to give an explanation!