Archive for 2012
Looking back over my life, I can see the most amazing patterns emerge. Connections and synchronicities are always there—whether we can spot them in the moment or not. This is a Universe where there are no accidents. Here’s one example:
When I was 27 and working as a counselor in a high school in Michigan, I gave a talk to the parents one night about what I hoped to offer their sons and daughters that school year. The next day a student named Nancy came into my office with a book. Her mother had attended my talk the night before and decided to offer me a bonus volume she had received from the Book-of-the-Month Club. Nancy explained that, based on what I had said in my talk, her mom thought I would like this compendium of great thought—a collection of work by famous philosophers, scholars, and poets. Amazingly, that book changed the course of my life.
It happened that I was scheduled to talk to my new doctoral advisor at Wayne State University that night. Continue Reading
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. When you watch children playing, notice how totally involved they are in what they’re doing, how they run everywhere they go. Notice how they are oblivious to future problems almost as if they have given themselves permission to be free and they show it by becoming totally absorbed in their play. To be more childlike, you don’t have to give up being an adult. The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously. Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.
Here’s what kids know how to do best:
Laugh!
The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better. They will go out of their way to linger with anyone who makes them laugh, who can go along with their jokes.
Keep Fantasy Alive
Children love to dream, Continue Reading
Throughout life you’ve been through a conditioning process that’s created a mind-set overflowing with I am nots. As a schoolchild with a less than satisfactory grade on your report card, you thought to yourself, I am not smart. You place anywhere other than number one and say, I am not talented. You feel criticized and believe that I am not good. You look in the mirror and compare yourself to a glamorous movie idol or homecoming queen and tell yourself, I am not attractive. Your relationship fractures and you think, I am unloved or I am unworthy. These, and many more like them, are repeated throughout your developmental years and into adulthood, and become your core defining self-concept.
Overcoming this I am not mentality begins with trusting your inner world of spirit. There are no boundaries restricting your inner world. But your worldview and your self-concept in the outer world are defined by your five senses. The outer world is always changing, which, by our definition, means it is not real. This awareness that what remains unchanging is the only reality could lead you to experiencing a majestic wake-up call right here, right now.
Run through as large an inventory as you can of the things that you would like to define your life. Then make the shift in your imagination from Continue Reading
This November I have a speaking engagement at historic Cobo Center in my native city of Detroit, Michigan. You’ve heard me talk about my early years growing up in the Detroit area—from the foster homes to the university. Forty-two years ago, when Cobo Center was called Cobo Hall, I received my doctorate from Wayne State University in this same downtown events center on the banks of the Detroit River. Even though I was born in Detroit and used to tell my kids that Wayne State was named after me, I’m really only a humble observer of this great American city.
Albert Cobo, who gave his name to the center where I’ll be speaking, was mayor of Detroit when I was a kid. One of my first jobs was distributing flyers about Albert Cobo to the houses in my neighborhood. As for Wayne State University and Wayne County where Detroit is located, both were named for the Revolutionary War general known as “Mad Anthony” Wayne. My kids actually believed Continue Reading
Metaphysical teacher Neville Goddard offers us this description of what takes place while we sleep: Sleep is the door through which the conscious, waking mind passes to be creatively joined to the subconscious. Sleep conceals the creative act while the objective world reveals it. In sleep man impresses the subconscious with his conception of himself.
Each night as I drift off to sleep, I adamantly refuse to use this precious time to review anything that I do not want to be reinforced in the hours of being immersed in my subconscious mind. I choose to impress upon my subconscious mind, and therefore the mind of God to which I am eternally joined, my conception of myself as a Divine creator in alignment with the one mind. I groggily reiterate my I ams, which I have placed in my imagination, and I remember that my slumber will be dominated by my last waking concept of myself. I am peaceful, I am content, I am love, I am writing, I am the governing power of the universe, and I attract only to myself those who are in alignment with my highest ideals of myself.
This is my nightly ritual, always resisting any temptation to go over any fear or unpleasantness that my ego might be asking me to review. I assume the feeling in my body of those I am statements already fulfilled, Continue Reading
Thank you, thank you, for all the kindness and prayers you’ve sent our way at the passing of my mother, Hazel Irene Dyer, on Sunday, July 22. Although Mom had been in a coma for two days, on the 22nd she seemed to be waiting for my brother Jim and his wife, Marilyn, to arrive. Soon after they entered her room, she somehow knew it was okay to let go and her heart stopped beating.
Jim and Marilyn have shown what it means to be God-realized people in the last 5 or 6 years. They have dedicated their lives to reaching out and serving—first in caring for Marilyn’s mom and then for our mom, Hazel. Jim and Marilyn are amazing souls; they are angels. I have enormous respect for that kind of service. As Lao-tzu said, our original nature is gentleness and kindness and reaching out to others. Ram Dass has told me many times that the grandest achievement of his life was taking care of his dad and stepmother during their last years.
Three of my kids were here with me in Hawaii when we got the news about Mom’s passing. The kids organized a Hawaiian-style ceremony for us. Sands, Sommer, Saje, Mira, and I put some candles and flowers Continue Reading
There’s a new book in the family and I love it dearly. My big brother Dave has written a heartfelt and healing memoir that begins with our early childhood together and carries him into the present day. From Darkness to Light is filled with discoveries and insights, sorrows and triumphs. Dave decided not to “die with his music still in him” by waking up the writing gift he had long suppressed. Here’s a summer memory from our childhood that I hope you will enjoy as much as I have:
“While living in foster care in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, Wayne and I didn’t get to see Mother or our older brother Jim very often—certainly not often enough. One reason was that Mother didn’t drive and had no way of getting to us. The separation of our family tore at her heart. Mother worked at Chrysler, earning the typical female wage for whatever job she was doing. In those days, men made almost double the wages paid to females for the same job. My mother’s greatest wish was to somehow reunite her family again. With this in mind, she finally decided to marry Bill Drury, a fellow she’d been dating for a couple of years.
Bill’s mother Cora owned a cottage in Sombra, Ontario. I remember all of us going there in the summer of 1948. For Wayne and me, it was as if we were visiting some kind of Fantasy Island. We’d swim, fish, play baseball, listen to ballgames on the radio, and even learn to play pinochle.
Jim and Wayne seemed able to swim right away, but it didn’t come easy for me. Continue Reading
Mark your calendars for this very special event! This Father’s Day Weekend, June 15th-18th, 2012, visit the Hay House Facebook page at www.facebook.com/HayHouse and enjoy a FREE streaming of Tales of Everyday Magic: My Greatest Teacher. (Details on how to access this Free Stream will be available starting June 15th).
Based on the true life story of best-selling author Wayne Dyer, My Greatest Teacher is a compelling drama that explores the transformational power of forgiveness. Dr. Ryan Kilgore is a college professor struggling to take his career to his desired level of success, while battling the very demons that are keeping him from achieving it. Kilgore is tormented by the memories of his father’s abandonment, yet his wife and child are the ones who pay the price. Upon losing his grandmother, Kilgore desperately seeks the closure that he needed so long ago as he puts his future in jeopardy for a journey into the past. Through a series of mysterious and serendipitous events, a path opens that leads Kilgore to his father—and to making the choice to rebuild everything he has destroyed as a result of what had been destroying him.
Abraham Maslow spent a good part of his adult life researching and writing about the idea of self-actualization. He described the small percentage of people he called “self-actualizing” as living at the extraordinary level of consciousness. I vividly recall Dr. Maslow’s assertion that one of the highest qualities these self-actualizers possess is the inclination to be independent of the good opinion of others.
I’m deeply attracted to this idea of living extraordinarily—independent of the good opinion of others—stressing it in many of the books and recordings I’ve produced, starting in 1971. Dr. Maslow passed away on June 8, 1970, the same day I received my doctorate degree—I’ve often felt that in some mystical way, he was passing the baton to me.
One of Dr. Maslow’s most significant attributes of living a self-actualized life is self-trust. When you trust yourself to decide your destiny, you don’t allow externals to discourage or influence you. You have faith, and faith is attained through complete trust and confidence in the power of the one universal mind, which you are inextricably a part of. It is the God-realized you that placed the thoughts and feelings that represent your destiny into your mind and body.
One of the reasons I’m able to write about the hidden power of manifestation buried deep within each of us is that during childhood I unconsciously practiced these ideas while in foster homes—and they simply became a part of who I am. Continue Reading
Internationally-acclaimed, best-selling author and “Father of Motivation” Dr. Wayne Dyer, sits down with Oprah Winfrey for a candid interview to discuss his battle with leukemia and the controversial treatment he believes cured him.
This two-hour special entitled ‘Living with Grace’ airs on “Super Soul Sunday” May 27 at 11 a.m. ET/PT (check your local listings) on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.
Filmed on location in Maui, Dyer reveals his battle with leukemia and his decision to seek controversial treatment from Brazilian healer “John of God” (João de Deus). Dyer describes his experiences and the reasons he believes he is now cancer-free.
Dyer also shares thoughts from his new book “Wishes Fulfilled” and opens up about the new love he has found at the age of 71.
I’m 72 today. Around the time of my birthday last year, I was privileged to be working on a new film project from Hay House called My Greatest Teacher. The story is based on my experience at my father’s grave in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1974.
It was a moment of forgiveness that turned my whole life around and changed everything—from my writing to my career to my relationships. I stopped drinking and doing so many things that were debilitating to my body. In that moment, I got rid of the anger and rage against my father that I had carried around inside of me since I was a child.
The film has a contemporary setting with an actor playing the young me—angry, impatient, careless of the feelings of others—until he faces his greatest teacher. Essentially, he can’t go on with his life until he settles up with the huge burden of blame he is carrying. A Course in Miracles says, “If you didn’t blame, there would be nothing to forgive.” Continue Reading
Faith is the complete reliance on the power and goodness of Spirit and the firm belief that you are always connected to this goodness. Always affirm your faith and not your doubt. When you affirm that things might not work out, that your troubles continue to mount, that your problems are insoluble, that God has not been listening, or that you are powerless in the face of so many struggles, you are affirming doubt rather than faith. The ability to know faith and affirm it allows it to manifest in your life.
In John 14:27, Jesus said, “My peace I give to you.” This is an affirmation of faith. He certainly wasn’t suggesting that peace is very difficult to have and you must struggle for it. Jesus brought peace to everyone by affirming it. Likewise, in his healing work, he didn’t imply that we haven’t been having a great deal of success lately with leprosy, but if you listen to me you have a thirty percent chance of surviving over the next five years. Instead, he declared, “You are well,” affirming faith at the highest spiritual level, and healing took place.
You too must learn to affirm your faith in the face of doubt with thoughts that things will work out, things will improve. Think, write, and say affirmations like these: Continue Reading