Sailaja Jonnalagadda - Empowering philosophy of Louise Hay, Big difference to many lives, Wonderful soul

Sailaja, is much more than a metaphysical teacher (as her visiting card says), and is someone who has changed thousands of lives by bringing the 'You can heal your life', workshops of Louise Hay to them. I regard her highly and respect her contribution and always talk to her when I am faced with an issue. As a good friend, she was concerned about my health issue too. She spoke directly, in the only way she does, and asked me why I was doing this to myself.
'Ask yourself why you are punishing yourself,' she pointed out.
'Me? Punishing myself?'
'Your life is going smoothly, you have a wonderful family, people are appreciating your worth and now, you want to get into this drama. What is it that you want?'
This is what that workshop does to you (it can get on your nerves but it's bang on target all the time). So let me tell you about this workshop called 'Love yourself and you can heal your life' by Louise Hay that Sailaja conducts (or used to conduct, now she has her own workshop with her own content).
To begin with one can read the book 'You can heal your life' and one gets an idea of the almost divine content it possesses. It is written by Louise who went through much trauma in her life (don't miss her story) and how she changed it all with the power of her own thought. Cancer was her challenge too and she overcame it along with money, relationships, fame and whatever else she wanted. Right now she has a good life, be assured of that.
Pretty much the idea is this. What is happening in your life is reflecting what is going on in your mind. If something is happening to you - from the merest accident to the biggest health issue or universal calamity - you have created it with your thoughts and beliefs.
You. And your thoughts.
From the stubbed toe to the ill-tempered neighbour to the unnecessary accident, to 9/11. So your poverty, your bad relationships, your poor health, your bad boss, your sad life, your bad relatives, your oppressive spourse, your irritable in laws, your unfortunate situation at home and work and personal life, your never having money, your chronic health issue, your incredible bad luck at traffic, the bird dropping on your car or your shirt...it's all your creation. A creation of what is going on in your mind.
How empowering huh!
Else, it would not have happened to you. Or even affected you.
The very fact that it is happening to you or affecting you is confirmation. So the first step is to take responsibility for that and say 'hey, I seem to have caused it.' It is easier said than done. But I knew when I did the workshop, or much earlier when I read the book, that it is true. You get exactly what you want.
It's actually very empowering because it throws the responsibility back to you. You can use it to change your thought. And you can start changing the outside experiences as your thoughts change. (Only, you need to start recognising the changes without pulling out the thoughts you have sown every few minute to see if it is working which is what most people do and never get any results.)
What Louise has done is that apart from writing so wonderfully and with such love that I constantly keep comparing it to one of the holy books, is that she has almost exhaustively listed all the related medical conditions that a human could have and has also listed thought patterns that could cause it, and more improtantly an affirmation or an empowering thought that could replace the old victim thought. The idea is to change the thought over a perod of time and create a new reality (which she did to herself and maybe several others).
I flipped those pages. Kidney problems are to do with guilt. Guilt is to do with punishment. I was now punishing myself for god knows what. It's incredible as I saw what I had done - with this condition several of the things I normally like to do were taken away - no good food (no salt), no exercise, no walking and running because my foot swells up, no playing cricket, no travel, no long drives, no drinking (all fluids to max at 1 litre), no non-vegetarian etc etc. So it was pretty much punishment. I inflicted it on myself to atone for some sins I had done (or felt I had done) and only I had the power to either release myself when I was sufficiently punished.
It was that clear. So now I started working on my mind. I did it with a sense of urgency and fear at that time, I remember, which was not the way to do it. I had to go down into the expericee and find out why I felt guilty about anything. Apart from random incidents that come to mind, I must say that I always carried an excessive sense of guilt, always going round life like someone who has been found with his hand in the cookie jar, or even a stained hand like Lady Macbeth's (both victims of our own minds) that someone would find out. I still have not made the connection between why I had this feeling (it's slowly fading off now, maybe enough punishment or maybe just getting tired of doing that drama) but that seemed good enough to pile on guilt to me. Anyway, there are several tools to work on your guilt, from affirmations that you write and try to force your mind through your belief system (works if you do it seriously), to Radical Forgiveness worksheets where you fool your mind (it works like magic), to regressions where you actually visit the place where it began.
I did all three. The regression was done by Sailaja but nothing came of it (stubborn me) so I have nothing to report. The process is quite simple though for those who are interested. You are always conscious, lying in a state of deep relaxation and facilitator asks you questions that transport you to the time frame and descriptions etc. Normally people are transported to periods in their life where their problem originated and they can catch wisps of the incidents and make the connection why what is happening now is happening at all. From the past incident you can then disentangle with awareness and that normaly releases you, if you wish to, or else you can continue your drama.
I discovered this wonderful book and the workshop throgh Shobha whe did it when she was in a low phase. It was during a time when much was going on in our lives I guess, so I guess I must have contributed as her spouse to her stress. After that she went on to join Sailaja when she set up Antharyaami independently, to run these workshops and did wonderful work as well in taking out these messages. I resisted the workshops for years, but then it was Harish, who appears to be some kind of a divine messiah now that I look at it, who tips me over the edge through some act or thought and makes me do some crazy things.
Harish, the scrawny, intellectual youngster who we used to play cricket with, who did his engineering from Osmania and upped it and went on to build a successful career in Silicon valley, came back into my life years later with a life threatening health issue, a searching heart and much wisdom for his young soul. I told him about this workshop (though I had not done it) and it just happened that they were looking for enough numbers to get that minimum going in. In comes Mr. Rescue, (that's the only way I would do it, pattern of my life) and I finally did that workshop which was good for me and which set many things right in my mind. Harish remained in touch and still does, I think he is curently the only one who reads the blog other than me, gives me books like 'The 3 cups of tea' and sets me off on a mad journey and so on. That's why the divine messiah stuff. Thanks Harish.
Anyway, fact of the matter is that illnesses can be cured through the mind route. There are enoguh cases there but it needs a mad belief. There is enough proof to say that you can back your medicine delivery well with the mind work so you can heal faster (if you want to). Whatever it is, it gives you a much better shot of healing if you get a bit honest about it all and look at what you are doing to yourself.
Cannot but help ending this by thanking Shobha for all the wonderful work she does with me and others, Sailaja, for being there, Louise for the book and all else who are doing such good work in promoting such empowering thoughts and philosophies in times such as these. The Louise work can be applied to anything in life, though she focuses a bit on health, and people who have understood the philosophy and used it with conviction have released themselves from pretty grim situations I know, and have flown off into the high skies into successful careers, relationships, money and what not.
The others can go when and if they want to.