Quality Control for Your Head
When Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” he was defending his practice of teaching his students to think for themselves, to examine the ideas that had been “given” to them. We all have thoughts that were given to us by our families, our society, our culture. These given thoughts are so pervasive and so ingrained that they seem like part of our very being, but that’s exactly why we need to dig in and examine them if we want a life worth living. Richard Brodie talks about these given thoughts or memes in his book Virus of the Mind as “thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes in your mind that can be spread to and from other people’s minds.” Memes are ideas that are transmitted, like viruses, and take up residence in our heads. Their presence can influence our behavior and limit us in ways we don’t even notice unless we make a real effort to examine what we think and why. Memes die hard because they’ve become who we think we are. They aren’t necessarily good or bad; some may even serve our health and well-being. But, if we allow these unexamined thoughts to become excuses for not living our best life, such as “I’ll always be poor, unlucky, overweight, shy, lonely, angry, addicted,” then they need to be hauled out into the sunlight and challenged. Don’t let your unexamined thoughts cause you pain and keep you from living your Divine purpose.
Namaste,
Wayne
Topics: Memes, unexamined thoughts, Virus of the Mind
I just wanted to thank you for making my gift shopping easy this year! I have been giving out “The Shift” as presents to my friends including two life coaches. My goal is to continue to give it out this upcoming holiday season. Thanks again and I look forward to you next book.
Namaste
Thank you for the inspirational blog! It reminded me of a Chinese proverb “A childs life is like a blank sheet of paper, on which everyone leaves a mark”. As an adult, and due to the many lessons that I have learned from you, I am happily erasing the marks that I no longer wish to have. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful work.
Dear Dr. Dyer, I’m starting to re-read your blogs, each time I do it is more exciting than the next. I think I have found a start for myself, my family, maybe for their future. Passing on something of substance to my 4 children is the most important thing in the world to me. Thanks to you and to those who have blogged before me.
Thank you again Dr. Dyer, for being a guide in a world that could become confusing otherwise.
Nuestros pensamientos y creencias crean nuestra vida y nuestras experiencias, por esto es que cuando ponemos mas cuidado a nuestros pensamientos y nos alineamos con la fuente o esa parte donde reside el espiritu infinito es cuando ocurren milagros en nuestras vidas
Wayne gracias por estas palabras
Namaste
Amen! Living our life entrenched from our unexamined, unprocessed and unintegrated personal programming, leads to a mediocre life. I wrote a blog about that myself a while back. We are here to live our lives fully, authentically and richly. This takes a commitment to being all that we can be.
Dr. Jennifer Howard
So powerful gives me goose flesh everytime i read that quote from Blake…. I
am not my body.. i am a spiritual being having a human experience.
Remember this, Rid the Meme that has led you to believe that you are seperate from everyone.
Lifes beautiful, lifes infinite and lifes so mysterious.
God bless
I was led to believe a lie Wayne.
To see the world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower,To hold eternity in the palm of your hand and infinity in an hour, we are led to believe a lie (meme) when we see with not through the eye, which was born in a night..to perish in a night, when the soul slept in beams of light.
To this day family is the most import thing in my life. That little girl who wanted to make her mother proud was able to create a loving family of her own . Because of a little positive meme that fell into my lap so many years ago, and grew to help me be who I am. An Orange Namaste
Showing no emotion and with just a smile I would look at my mother. Some where down deep inside I really wanted a toy for Christmas. Many times this would happen on the holidays, and I kept practicing being with family. After a while I would get so excited during the holiday and enjoy being with family, I didn’t care if I got a gift or not…
I wanted to make my mother feel better, because I am an orange you see, a Medical care giver. Christmas would come and I of course would not get a gift. The money went to my older sister who was getting out of baby dolls, and plastic dishes….
When I was a little girl and my mother could not afford to much for Christmas. I would tell her that I really didn’t need to have a gift and that is was okay, I was fine. “Besides,” I would tell her, “I just want to be with family.” Of course ….
Thank you for providing children’s books that let us help our children with this from the get go 🙂 !
Love & light from Jonas (The Excuses Police in Norway) and mamma.
As a therapist I confront my clients memes all the time, as well as my own.
So true. As humans, we have this innate ability to give meaning to situations that are nothing more than an occurance. Somewhere inside most people is a landfill worth of emotional garbage — all of their own making. We should all be wise and clear our land so it can be used for the beauty of service.
I now see that I have it in ME to make some real changes in my life and I have allowed FEAR and a lack of self love to hold me back from moving forward and obtaining the happy, prosperous life I truly desire…reading this blog was the boost I needed to stay on track and allow myself to continue on! Thank you!
Old thoughts were once inspiring for the moment they born into. But that moment has expired. New thoughts and feelings can now be given birth to through inspiration. We channel the New through our intentions to feel something Unique. We can invite new spirit that fits the Moment. All we need to have is the knowledge of activating our Library Cards.