Have you ever heard that saying, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear?” Well, I’m not exactly sure who to attribute that quote to, but I know this to be true because this is exactly what happened to me in my experience.
When my son’s father decided to leave and not come back in January 2009, I entered into a phase in my life of either growing or shrinking. I chose self-growth because I had a 3-year-old son watching me and I was all he had. My sister, Angela, had been talking about this woman named Louise L. Hay for YEARS and I mean YEARS, OKAY? She had told me how she had healed herself from cancer years ago and wrote a book about it, called, You Can Heal Your Life.
Well, I knew I wanted to feel better and be better. I was ready to be taught ways of going about doing that and I just knew that this woman was something special. I could definitely learn from her. My sister had a copy of her book and I was always borrowing it for long stretches of time. Well, she got fed up with this and told me to get my own copy. So I “ran” to the local library to do just that (the local library is like my second home-I’ve got friends in high places there! ha-ha).
The library didn’t have You Can Heal Your Life in circulation, but they did have a little gem of a book entitled, Inner Wisdom: Meditations for the Heart and Soul. This was PERFECT because it was a small and compact with a soft “puffy”-type-of-cover with small little color illustrations in it.
I would share this book with my son, Joseph, who was around 4-years-old at the time and he LOVED IT! He had already learned to read by that age and so I had started introducing him to writing as well. I would tell him to open “Inner Wisdom” and write down any affirmation in the book that his spirit led him to write. In this manner he practiced his writing skills. Not only did he practice his writing skills, he felt good while he was doing it because he would be affirming how he felt by writing it down in the moment.
So as Joseph was learning about affirmations, I was learning too. It was great. We would say daily affirmations together…that was beautiful.
One of Joseph’s affirmations was, “Everything comes in the perfect time and in the perfect way”. One of my affirmations was, “I am a great mother.” Look, I really needed to hear myself say that one! At times I was so hard on myself. I think many mothers are because we want to give our children so much.
When my mother had a massive heart attack and had to have quadruple bypass surgery back in 2008, I received the phone call from my sister, Angela with the news. I was in the library with Joe when my phone rang. It was Angela and she was crying and carrying on while Joseph was running around the library as little children do. So she tells me mom’s condition is bad, she needs surgery and she’s barely making any sense. I actually managed to get my books checked out, keep track of Joe and make it out of the library even though I felt weak and my hands were shaking.
Once I got in the car, I knew I had to keep it together because I had to drive. Joseph was oblivious because he was happy about getting new books and videos from the library. I had to get us home in one piece but my nerves were shot and I was scared because my mother had never been so sick or needed surgery for anything. That’s when I remembered what Louise Hay said in her movie You Can Heal Your Life :
“Whenever I am scared I say the following affirmations over and over: All is Well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come and I am safe.”
I turned around and looked at Joseph in the back seat. I said, “Joseph, granny is in the hospital and I need your help to say some affirmations so she will get better. Will you help me?” He agreed in that agreeable 4-year-old-glad-to-be-helping “manner”. So we continued to repeat the affirmations over and over until we got home. When I pulled up into the driveway I felt so much better and I wasn’t afraid anymore. I felt like mom would get better, her surgery would be a success and that she would live. However, my sister was in the driveway and she was sitting in the car just full of tears waiting for me to come home.
I got out of the car and she was about to go into a whole thing about mom, and surgery and how she was scared, etc. That’s when I said, repeat after me, “All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come and I am safe.” I think she felt my energy because I was calm and She heaved a sigh of relief. I told her, “This is what Louise Hay says when she’s scared and it helps her to feel better. Joseph and I said it all the way home and now we feel better. Mom is going to be okay.”
The rest is history. Seven years later, my mother is still alive and well!
In gratitude for my teacher: Louise Hay