Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

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. Throughout my life I’ve been labeled “stubborn,” “obsessive,” “headstrong,” and “unyielding” when it comes to what I have in my imagination and seeing it become my physical reality.

In order to manifest you must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You must be able to feel it in your body long before your senses are aware of it. Your inner pictures and the corresponding feelings that are connected to your vision belong only to you, and you begin to treat this inner world of thoughts and feelings as sacred territory. You make the shift from believing to knowing, and what you absolutely know is not tinged with doubt.

With my recent diagnosis of leukemia, I’ve done precisely what I’m writing about, in the same way that I have for my entire life, concerning my own fate and my own well-being. What I know for certain is that there’s an emotional component to every illness. I view my elevated white-blood-cell count as part of my body employing its God-realized intelligence to heal whatever damage I’ve caused by participating in psychologically traumatic activities, particularly in my relationships with loved ones.

So rather than cursing my body’s innate wisdom, I am in a profound state of gratitude for all that has come my way, including these elevated blood-cell counts. The more I assume the feeling of my I am well; I am strong assertions in my imagination, the more the universe seems to send me the right information and the right people to assist me in living a wishes fulfilled life.