Chronic negative thinking and the emotions it invokes is, like many destructive behaviors, a form of addiction.

An old acquaintance of mine recently wrote an article about positive thinking—a subject that is often misunderstood. For many years I, like many people on the personal-development path, believed that by writing down and repeating positive affirmations (positive statements about yourself or your life, written in the present tense as if they were already true), I would think more positively and the changes I sought in myself and in my life would happen automatically. I hung these inspiring statements up all over my house, memorized them, and repeated them out loud, sometimes as much as 100 times a day. But it seemed that no matter how many times I said them, the changes I hoped to achieve continued to elude me.

It was with great sadness that I learned about the passing of Louise Hay, a woman whose influence had a significant impact on me personally and professionally.

My introduction to Louise’s work was in 1991. I came across her book, You Can Heal Your Life, while doing research for a new workshop I was designing called Cancer as a Chance to Live. The workshop was focused on helping people with cancer to use their illness as a pathway to changing whatever wasn’t serving them in their lives. At the time, my German husband and I were living and working in Munich, and involved in the study of Psychoimmunology (the interaction between psychological processes, and the nervous and immune systems of the body). I was fascinated by Louise’s writings on the mind-body connection, and I started recommending her book to clients, family members, and friends.

Fear is one of the biggest obstacles people face in managing change and moving forward in their lives. If you’re living your life based on avoiding the things that you fear, you’re not free to take risks or pursue your dreams. If your energy is being expended in avoiding failure, rejection, physical harm, and emotional pain by avoiding the people, places, and situations that trigger your fears—then that energy is tied up in your vigilance to stay safe instead of in fulfilling your potential.

Patti Scialfi, a recording artist in her own right, has been married to Bruce Springsteen since 1991. They have three children together. Some time ago, she was interviewed on the radio about her new CD, and my ears perked up when I heard what she had to say about her marriage. “You know, I was a child of the ’50s,” she told interviewer Liane Hansen of NPR. “There was the idea that love is a simplistic promise of completion . . . that you’re going to find the missing half, your lost twin, your soul mate. I don’t think that you can look for something external to really complete you that way.” She went on to say that her marriage had broadened her and given her a sense of fulfillment, but, she added, “You can’t really look for that. And if you’re looking for that, you’re going to be disappointed.”

Despite two years of therapy and a high degree of professional success, a client came to me several years ago seeking help with a problem I’ve seen many times in my coaching practice. “Nate” was plagued by feelings of low self-esteem, unworthiness, and never being good enough. Although he hid it well, the energy it took to maintain the image of someone who had it all together was exhausting him. He was also afraid that others would see through his façade and find out that he was really a fraud. Not only was this causing him a lot of stress at work, his insecurities were having a negative impact on his marriage, as he was often withdrawn and distant with his spouse.