Sheba Thapa

I don’t believe positive thinking means pretending everything is okay.

Sometimes you’re disappointed.

Sometimes you’re worried.

Sometimes you’re angry, exhausted, or simply having a bad day.

And forcing yourself to say, “Everything is wonderful!” when it clearly doesn’t feel wonderful isn’t positivity.

It’s pretending.

For me, positive living is something gentler.

It’s being able to say:

“This is hard right now… but I believe I can get through it.”

“I don’t know how this will work out… but I’m open to the possibility that it can.”

“I don’t feel good today… but maybe I can find one thought that feels a little better.”

You don’t have to jump from fear to joy.

Sometimes moving from fear to relief is enough.

Then relief can become hope.

And hope can become possibility.

That’s the kind of positive thinking I believe in.

Not denying where you are.

Just refusing to believe you have to stay there. ❤️

What’s one thought you could choose today that feels just a little better than the one you’ve been carrying?

📅 Sunday 20th September — The Grand Closing Affirmation

💛 And here we are. Week 12. The final Sunday. The end of our journey — and the beginning of everything.
Twelve weeks ago you chose to listen to your body.
You chose to show up — week after week — even on the days when it was uncomfortable. Even when the reflection staring back at you was one you had been avoiding. Even when the questions asked more of you than felt easy.
And you kept coming back. 💛

Today I want to honour that. I want to honour you.
Because choosing to heal — choosing to look honestly at yourself and your body and your life — is one of the most courageous things a human being can do.
Louise Hay did it. She healed herself from a terminal diagnosis using the very tools we have been exploring together. Not because she was special. But because she believed — absolutely and without reservation — that healing was possible. That she was worthy of it. That love — self love — was the most powerful medicine available to any of us.
And she was right.
Before I share our final affirmation I want to ask you to do one last thing.

Think back to Week 1. To where you were twelve weeks ago. To what you were carrying then that perhaps feels a little lighter now.

To the affirmation that stopped you. To the reflection question that cracked something open. To the story that made you feel less alone.
Hold that for a moment. 💛

You can read the meditation or follow my next post for meditation, will post soon.

And then — one final time — find somewhere quiet.

Somewhere you feel completely safe.
Place both hands over your heart.
Close your eyes.

Take twelve slow deep breaths — one for each week of this journey.
And then say this — the most complete, whole, loving affirmation of everything we have explored together:

✨ "I love and approve of myself completely.
I trust my body and I listen to it with love.
I release all pain, all grief, all fear, all shame.
I release all burdens that were never mine to carry.
I speak my truth with love and confidence.
I see my life clearly and with joy.
I move forward freely and without fear.
I breathe in life fully and I am worthy of every breath.
My back is strong and supported.
My head is clear and peaceful.
My throat is open and free.
My stomach is calm and at ease.
My skin is safe and beautiful.
My heart is open and full of love.
My knees bend with grace and flexibility.
My shoulders are free and light.
My eyes see beauty everywhere.
My hips carry me forward with joy.
My lungs breathe in abundance.
My whole body is a place of healing and love.
I am enough.
I have always been enough.
And all is well — in every corner of my beautiful, precious, worthy life."

Say every word. Feel every word.
Let it land in every part of your body that we have explored together over these twelve weeks. 💛

This is not goodbye. This is just the beginning. 🌸

Our community — this beautiful, brave, healing community — will keep going. Keep growing. Keep showing up for each other. Because that is what we do here.
And very soon I will be sharing something new with you all — a way to go even deeper into this healing work together. Watch this space. 💛

Thank you. From the very bottom of my heart. For every comment, every share, every story, every heart. 🙏

For trusting this community with the most tender parts of yourselves.

Louise Hay always said — "The love you withhold is the pain you carry."

So let us stop withholding. From ourselves and from each other.

Drop your name below one last time — and tell me one thing this twelve week journey has given you. I will send an affirmation to every single one. 💛🌸

📅 Friday 18th September — The Story

💛 Our last story together — and I want to be really honest with you today.
When I started this healing series twelve weeks ago I was not sure what would happen.
I knew the teachings. I believed in Louise Hay's work with everything I had. But putting it out there — week after week — in this way, in this depth, with this much of my own heart in it — that was something new for me.

And what happened completely took my breath away.
You showed up. Every single week. In your thousands. Sharing your stories, your pain, your breakthroughs, your tears, your moments of recognition when something finally clicked. Telling me that a post had stopped you mid scroll. That an affirmation had brought you to tears. That something you read on a Monday morning had changed the way you moved through your whole week.
That is not me. That is Louise Hay. That is the extraordinary power of her work — which she built on one simple, radical, world-changing idea.

That you are worthy of love. Exactly as you are.
I came to Louise Hay's work during one of the hardest periods of my life. I was someone who found it almost impossible to love herself. Who criticised everything. Who waited and waited to be enough before she would allow herself to be loved — by others and by herself.
And Louise Hay handed me a mirror and said — look. Really look.
And say the words even if you don't believe them yet. Say them until your body remembers what your mind has forgotten.

"I love and approve of myself."

I said those words thousands of times before they began to feel true. And then one day — I cannot tell you exactly when — they were true. Not perfectly. Not without the odd wobble. But true in a way that changed everything.

My health changed. My relationships changed. My career changed — I think of that job that found me on LinkedIn and tripled my salary the moment I released my fear and trusted life. My whole experience of being alive changed.

Because I finally — finally — started loving myself. 💛
And that is what I wish for every single person in this community.
Not a perfect life. Not a life without pain or struggle or hard days.

But a life lived from love. From self approval. From the deep unshakeable knowledge that you are enough — right now, in this moment, exactly as you are.
Louise Hay changed my life. And I hope — through this little community we have built together — that her work has touched yours too. 🌸

✨ "I love and approve of myself completely and unconditionally. I am enough. I have always been enough. And all is well in my world."

What has this twelve week journey given you? I would genuinely love to know. Share below — let us celebrate together. 💛

📅 Wednesday 16th September — The Reflection

💛 Our second to last post together — and I want to make it count.

Eleven weeks ago I asked you to listen to your body.
And you did. Week after week you showed up — reading, feeling, reflecting, sharing. You looked at your lower back and your headaches and your skin and your heart and your knees and your shoulders and your eyes and your hips and your breath — and you asked honestly what they were trying to tell you.

That is not a small thing. That is one of the bravest things a person can do.
But today I want to ask you something different.
Not what your body is saying. But what you would say to your body — if you could say anything at all.
Because most of us have spent so many years criticising our bodies. Being frustrated with them. Being ashamed of them. Being at war with them.
And our bodies have absorbed every single word.
Louise Hay always said that the most powerful thing we can do for our health — for our whole lives — is to change the conversation we are having with ourselves. To move from criticism to compassion. From war to peace. From shame to love.
So today I want you to sit with these:

🌿 If your body could speak to you directly — what do you think it would want you to know?
🌿 What is one thing about yourself — your body, your mind, your story — that you are finally ready to make peace with?

🌿 What would your life look and feel like if you truly, deeply, unconditionally loved yourself?
Not perfectly. Not someday. Right now. As you are. With all of it. 💛

And then place your hands on your heart and say:
✨ "I make peace with my body today. I am grateful for everything it has carried me through. I choose love over criticism from this moment on."

💛 Drop a ❤️ below if your body deserves to hear that from you today.

Week 12 — Whole Body & Self Love

Theme: Self Love as the Foundation of All Healing

📅 Monday 14th September — The Teaching

💛 Week 12. Our final week together. And I have been thinking about how to begin this one all week and it is a bit lenghly post.

Because this week is not just another topic. This week is the foundation underneath everything we have explored together over the past eleven weeks.

This week we are talking about self love.

Louise Hay believed — with every fibre of her being — that self love is not a luxury. It is not something we earn when we have fixed everything that is wrong with us. It is not something we deserve only when we have lost the weight, healed the relationship, got the job, become the person we think we are supposed to be.

Self love is the starting point. The root. The soil from which all healing grows.

She said something that I want you to really sit with today:

"You have been criticising yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens."

Think about that for a moment.

How long have you been at war with yourself? With your body, your choices, your past, your perceived failures, your appearance, your anxiety, your grief, your anger, your sensitivity?

How long have you been waiting to love yourself until you were somehow more worthy of it?

Louise Hay's answer to that was always the same.

Start now. Start here. Start exactly as you are. 💛

Because here is what she understood that took me a long time to truly grasp — the body responds to love. When we criticise ourselves our bodies contract, tighten, struggle. When we love ourselves — truly, unconditionally, without waiting until we are perfect — our bodies begin to relax, to open, to heal.

Every single week of this series has been pointing us here. To this moment. To this truth.

Lower back pain — healed by trusting that we are supported.
Headaches — healed by approving of ourselves.
Throat problems — healed by loving ourselves enough to speak our truth.
Stomach issues — healed by trusting life enough to stop living in fear.
Skin conditions — healed by feeling safe enough to be fully seen.
Heart and chest — healed by allowing ourselves to feel joy and love again.
Knee pain — healed by loving ourselves enough to release our ego and flow.
Shoulder pain — healed by loving ourselves enough to put down what was never ours to carry.
Eye problems — healed by loving ourselves enough to see the truth clearly.
Hip pain — healed by loving ourselves enough to move forward without fear.
Lungs and breathing — healed by believing we are worthy of a full and abundant life.

Every single one. Rooted in self love. 💛

And now we arrive here. At the beginning and the end of everything Louise Hay ever taught.

You are worthy of love. Not someday. Not when you are better. Right now. Exactly as you are.

Begin today with this affirmation — the most important one of all twelve weeks:

✨ "I love and approve of myself completely and unconditionally. My body is a place of healing, joy and love. I am enough exactly as I am."

Place both hands on your heart. Feel it beating. That steady rhythm is life — your life — and it has been faithful to you every single moment of every single day no matter what you put yourself through.

Love it back. 💛

What does self love mean to you? Drop your thoughts below — let us begin our final week together with our hearts wide open. 👇

📅 Sunday 13th September — The Closing Affirmation

💛 Your Sunday affirmation to close Week 11 — and our second to last week together.

I can hardly believe we are here already.
Eleven weeks.
Eleven areas of the body.
Eleven emotional roots explored with such honesty and such courage.

And next week — Week 12 — we bring it all home with the most important healing of all. Self love.
The foundation of everything Louise Hay ever taught.
But before we get there — let us close this week with our breath. Because breath is where everything begins and ends.

Find somewhere quiet and comfortable. Sit or lie down. Close your eyes.

And for the next few moments — just breathe.
Not thinking about anything.
Not fixing anything.
Not worrying about anything.
Just breathing. In and out.
Slowly. Fully. Completely.

Feel your lungs expand with each breath in — filling with air, with life, with possibility.

Feel them release with each breath out — letting go of grief, of fear, of unworthiness.
In — life, joy, worthiness.

Out — grief, fear, not-enough-ness.

Do that for as long as it feels right.

And then say this slowly — as a sacred promise to yourself:

✨ "I breathe in life fully and freely.
I am worthy of every good thing.
I release all grief with love and gentleness.
I release all fear of living fully.
I am here.
I am present.
I take up space joyfully and without apology.
My lungs are clear, open and free.
I breathe in abundance.
I breathe in joy.
I breathe in love.
And all is well in my world."

Breathe it in. Every word. Every breath. 💛
Eleven weeks of healing. Eleven weeks of courage. Eleven weeks of choosing yourself.

I am so deeply honoured to have walked this with you. 🌸
See you Monday for our final week — Week 12 — Whole Body & Self Love. Let's finish this beautifully together.

Drop your name below so I know you made it through Week 11 with us. 👇

📅 Friday 11th September — The Story

💛 Today of all days — this week's topic of lungs and breathing feels very close to my heart.

Today marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks.

Twenty five years since thousands of people took their last breath. Twenty five years since families lost someone they loved in the most unimaginable and sudden way. Twenty five years of grief that for so many people still lives in their bodies, in their chests, in the very air around them.

Before anything else today I want to take a moment to honour every single soul we lost. And to hold with so much love every family who has carried that grief for a quarter of a century. 💛

Some grief is so enormous that words simply cannot reach it. But breath can. Presence can. Love can.
If you are reading this and September 11th took someone from you — this breath today is for you. 🌸

And I find it so profound that this week — of all weeks — we are talking about lungs and breathing.
Because grief this big lives in the chest. In the lungs. In the breath that catches when a memory surfaces without warning. In the tightness that never fully leaves.

Louise Hay understood that our lungs carry what our hearts cannot always find words for.
That is why so many of us breathe shallowly without even realising it. We are protecting ourselves. Holding ourselves together. Taking just enough air to keep going — but never quite letting ourselves breathe fully. Because breathing fully means feeling fully.
And feeling fully is terrifying when you are carrying grief.
This week's teaching has also brought up something very personal for me.
For a long time I did not feel fully worthy of a big, joyful, abundant life.

It was not something I said out loud. It was more subtle than that. It was in the way I held back. In the way I almost reached for things and then pulled my hand away at the last moment. In the way I breathed — shallowly, carefully, as if taking up too much air might somehow be greedy.
I had carried quiet grief for a long time too. The kind that does not announce itself dramatically but just sits there in your chest like a permanent resident you have long since stopped questioning.

When I discovered Louise Hay's teaching on the lungs — that they carry our grief, our fear of life, our deep underlying sense of unworthiness — I recognised myself immediately.
Because I had been living a half breath for years.
The work I did with Louise Hay's affirmations around breathing and worthiness was some of the most profound healing I have ever experienced. Because it asked me to answer a question I had been quietly avoiding for a very long time.
Do you truly believe you deserve to be fully here?
And the honest answer — at first — was not really.
But I kept breathing. Kept saying the affirmations. Kept choosing — one breath at a time — to let a little more life in.
And something began to shift. Not just in my chest but in everything. In the way I moved through the world. In the way I allowed joy in. In the way I began — slowly, imperfectly, beautifully — to believe that I was worthy of a full life.
Because I am. And so are you. 💛

So today — on this significant and tender day — I want to invite our whole community to do something together.
Wherever you are right now — stop for just one moment.
Place your hand on your chest.
And take one long, slow, conscious breath.
In through the nose — slowly and fully.
Hold it gently for just a moment.
And then out through the mouth — slowly, completely, with love.
That breath is for you. And it is for every soul whose breath was taken 25 years ago today. And it is for every family still breathing through their grief. 🌸

✨ "I breathe in life fully and freely.
I am worthy of every breath I take.
I breathe in love for myself and for all those whose breath was taken too soon."

Today — take a moment to remember. To breathe. To be grateful for the extraordinary gift of being here. 💛
Rest gently today everyone. 🌸

📅 Wednesday 9th September — The Reflection

💛 Something I want you to sit with very gently today...
Louise Hay believed that grief is one of the heaviest things our lungs carry.
We touched this couple of weeks back for a member in the community.

And I think most of us are carrying more grief than we realise.

Not just the grief of losing people we love — although that is very real and very heavy. But the quieter griefs too. The ones we do not always give ourselves permission to mourn.

The grief of the life we thought we would have by now.
The grief of relationships that changed or ended.
The grief of younger versions of ourselves — who we were before life got complicated.
The grief of dreams we quietly put down somewhere along the way and never quite picked back up.
These griefs sit in our chests. In our lungs. In the slight tightness we carry there that we have gotten so used to we barely notice it anymore.
And alongside the grief — Louise Hay also spoke about something even quieter and perhaps even more painful.
The feeling of not being worthy of a full, joyful, abundant life.
So many of us breathe shallowly because somewhere — in some hidden corner of our hearts — we do not quite believe we deserve to take up space.
To be fully here. To live fully and completely and without apology.

Today sit tenderly with these:

🌿 What grief are you carrying in your chest that you have never fully breathed through?
🌿 Is there a dream or a version of your life that you are quietly mourning?
🌿 Do you truly believe you are worthy of a full, joyful, abundant life?
Take your time with these. Be gentle with yourself.
And then breathe deeply and say:

✨ "I release all grief with every exhale. I breathe in joy, in worthiness, in life. I am fully here and I am fully welcome."

💛 Drop a 🌿 below if something in this touched you today.