Archive for the ‘Personal Growth’ Category

Bend, Don’t Break, with the Wind

Having lived by the ocean for many years, I’ve observed the strength and beauty of the tall palm trees that grow at the water’s edge. These stately giants are able to withstand the hurricane-force winds that uproot and destroy many larger, older, and more majestic trees. What is the palm trees’ secret to staying in one piece through huge, devastating storms? They bend almost down to the ground at times, and it’s that ability that allows them to survive. The Tao invites us, too, to be resilient, elastic, and pliant when we face the powerful winds that are part of life. When destructive energy comes along, allow yourself to resist brokenness by bending. Look for times when you can make the choice to weather a storm by allowing it to blow through without resistance. How does this work? Be willing to adapt to whatever may come your way by initially allowing yourself to experience that potentially destructive energy, much like the bending tree in the hurricane. When criticism comes, listen. When powerful forces push you in any direction, bow rather than fight, lean rather than break, and allow yourself to be free from a rigid set of rules—in doing so, you’ll be preserved and unbroken. Keep an inner vision of the wind symbolizing difficult situations as you affirm: I have no rigidity within me. I can bend to any wind and remain unbroken. I will use the strength of the wind to make me even stronger and better preserved.

 

Namaste,

Wayne

Are You a Poet or Painter?

“I’d love to write a book, if I only had the time.” Have you heard someone say this recently, or maybe even said it yourself? Do you really want to write a book or maybe paint or dance or sing or fulfill any creative longing that’s been sitting on the back burner of your life? And is time really the issue? We all have the same number of hours in a day and most of us make decisions about how to spend them. In my movie The Shift, we see a young mother rediscover her love of painting because she gives herself permission to do so. Instead of continuing to assume that her dream is impossible, she asks for the opportunity, the time, she needs and she gets it. Why don’t we do the things we say we want to do?  In the vast cornucopia of excuses, not enough time or “I’m too busy,” easily tops the list. But how can a person be too busy to make room for what they love? Thoreau is right in saying that we have nobler faculties we need to pay attention to, in addition to all the other details that occupy our lives. If you fear the part of your soul that’s calling you to a higher place, then you’re probably using the “I’m too busy” excuse. There is time to do what you love when you step back and look at your life from a higher perspective. Make sure that fear, doubt, and unexamined beliefs about yourself and your talents are not the real culprits keeping you from your creative endeavor. Rather than telling yourself you are too busy to pursue an activity you love, use the following affirmation: I intend to take time for myself to live the life that I came here to live.        

 

Namaste,

Wayne

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

Success Secrets

One of my secrets for feeling successful and attracting bountiful abundance into my life has been an internal axiom that I use virtually every day of my life. It goes like this: Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. This has always worked for me.

The truth of this little maxim is actually found in the field of quantum physics, which, according to some, is a subject that’s not only stranger than you think it is, it’s stranger than you can think. It turns out that at the tiniest subatomic level, the actual act of observing a particle changes the particle. The way we observe these infinitely small building blocks of life is a determining factor in what they ultimately become. If we extend this metaphor to larger and larger particles and begin to see ourselves as particles in a larger body called humanity or even larger—life itself—then it’s not such a huge stretch to imagine that the way we observe the world we live in affects that world.

Think of this little journey into quantum physics as a metaphor for your life. Your feelings of success and your experience of prosperity and abundance depend on your positive view of yourself, your life, and the Universe from which success and abundance come. Changing the way you look at things is an extremely powerful tool. Start by examining how you look at things. Is the Universe matching your way of looking?

 

Namaste,

Wayne

What’s Wrong with Ambition?

In talking about my new movie The Shift, I’ve had a lot of questions about the nature of ambition. If the shift to a purposeful life is moving from ambition to meaning, why is it that we have to get away from ambition? What’s wrong with ambition? Isn’t that what we need to reach our goals and realize our dreams? I know it sounds contradictory—isn’t life full of seeming contradictions that we have to balance?—but in fact, we don’t have to give up ambition, only shift it toward the things we are here to achieve, the music we are here to play. You can be ambitious about having meaning in your life. I don’t think I’m not ambitious right now. I get more done now than I’ve ever gotten done in my life: creating books, writing all the time, living a very fulfilled life, making money, giving lectures, and doing all the kinds of things I do, but there’s a part of me that is so content and peaceful with who I am and what I’m doing that I know this is the music I came here to play. I’m ambitious, but I’m ambitious not so much about accumulation. It’s not the having but the being—the peace and the joy—that lets you know when your ambitions have meaning.

 

Namaste,

Wayne

Take a Vacation from Your Routine on A Less-Traveled Path

I hope you’ll be taking a vacation this year — and I don’t necessarily mean a long journey to a distant land. The word vacation comes from a Latin root meaning “freedom or release from something.”

On vacation, you are free from your regular routine; your time is empty or vacant and you can fill it with something new that will heal and inspire you. A great way to move forward in your life is to use your vacation or release time to practice facing your habitual fears and the limiting behaviors they create.

You can take a vacation anywhere — to a new neighborhood, a new city, or a new country — and simply be a new you who is flexible and flowing and tries new things. Take a vacation without any guarantees — just go, and let yourself be guided by your instincts rather than a detailed itinerary.

  1. Eat at a restaurant that serves food you are unfamiliar with,
  2. attend a ballet or a soccer game,
  3. visit a mosque,
  4. take a yoga class,
  5. go on a nature hike,
  6. or do anything else that you may have been afraid of.

Decide to outgrow the excuses you’ve employed, and adopt a philosophy of having a mind that’s open to everything and attached to nothing.

Affirm:I choose the less-traveled path and resist seeking out familiarity and an illusion of security.

Namaste,
Wayne

The Amazing Biology of Belief

Always keep your eyes open for the thoughts and ideas that will inspire and empower you. When I was just about to start writing Excuses Begone!, I got a tip on a great new book from Hay House president Reid Tracy. He told me he was sending me a copy of Dr. Bruce Lipton’s Biology of Belief with the promise that I was really going to like it. He was right. What I found in Bruce’s book was a fascinating science-based discussion of concepts that dovetailed perfectly with the premise of Excuses Begone!that our self-limiting beliefs stand in the way of our higher, healthier, and happier life. In my book, I talk about working our way out of the collection of unexamined excuses we have for why our life isn’t working. Bruce’s work revolves around the mistaken notion that people can’t change because of their DNA—their genes make them who they are, give them illnesses, keep them stuck. In The Biology of Belief, Bruce describes the stunning research that demonstrates why we are not limited by our genes but by our beliefs. Literally, our beliefs can change the read-out of our genes. That makes one less excuse for not being all we can be, doesn’t it?

 

Namaste,

Wayne

You Can’t Please All the People

“Isn’t it hard to follow the Tao and try to be independent of the good opinion of others?” people ask. Actually, it’s much harder to struggle with either seeking approval or trying to shake off disapproval. If everything you do must be measured against the good opinion of everyone else, what happens to your good opinion of yourself? Who’s looking out for the soul that is your connection to the Divine? You have to decide what your passion, your bliss, is calling you to do. When you’re following that call, your feelings of joy, contentment, and peace will be strong enough to keep you from worrying about pleasing all the people all the time—as if that is even possible. For example, after a seminar not long ago, I received a letter from an audience member who told me the workshop “did not live up to her expectations.” An audience of a thousand people will probably have a thousand different sets of expectations. How could I possibly meet completely all of those varied and intimate and unique sets of expectations? I have to dance to the music I hear and I invite you to do the same. Honor the Divine within you by going to a quiet place this week and tuning in to the sacred melody.

 

Namaste,

Wayne

The Beatles Were Right

If you ever feel like you are trying too hard, you probably are! Who said that effort and striving are the keys to success? I think the Beatles were on to something in their classic song when they advised that we simply “Let It Be.” Verse 47 of the Tao Te Ching suggests that effort and striving, along with the struggling, worrying, stressing, fretting and agonizing that we can’t seem to resist, are behaviors that actually keep us from experiencing the harmony and sense of completion that are part of our connection to the Divine Order. What if we learned to live by being rather than trying? “Without going out the door, know the world. Without looking out the window, you may see the ways of heaven,” says the Tao. For example, consider how the beating of your heart, the inhaling and exhaling of your breath, and a myriad of other life functions take place without effort from you, even as you are reading these words. You are a single beat in the one heart that is humanity. The Divine is at work within you, moving you toward your life purpose. Let yourself be guided and see what happens when you simply “let it be.”

 

Namaste,

Wayne

The Beat of a Different Drum

Henry David Thoreau said, “If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.” Not only is this great advice for dealing gently with what other people want to do, say, or think, but these words are also about our own self-reliance. Be sure you’re stepping to the music you hear—no matter what other people think. My understanding of the13th verse of the Tao Te Ching is this: it’s crucial to remain independent of both the positive and negative opinions of other people. If you gain their approval, you’ll become a slave to outside words of praise. If you gain disfavor, you’ll spend your life trying to change other people’s minds about you. Either way, you lose your selfhood. If you want to follow your passion, be independent of the good opinion of others. Give yourself permission to two-step, march, waltz, or boogie to your own beat.

 

Namaste,

Wayne

Follow Your Bliss

I’ve always had a knowing that whatever I’ve found interesting or exciting or passionate or moving or motivating there’s a way to make a living at it. It doesn’t make any difference what it is. My son, Sands, age 21, is passionate about surfing. He’s in college at the University of Central Florida and doing fine, but his whole life is about surfing. He gets up in the morning and checks where the waves are all over the world. I tell him he doesn’t have to get a business degree now; he doesn’t have to go to college in his 20’s. He talks endlessly about surfing—the feeling of being on a surfboard, riding that wave, being at one with the ocean.

I tell him there’s a way to make a living while following his passion. Imagine yourself there—teaching people to surf, working in a surf shop, starting a surf shop, making surfboards, studying oceanography, being a boat captain who takes people to surfing locations. There are endless ways to be connected to your dream, to follow your bliss. And it doesn’t matter how old you are or how long you’ve been doing something. Men in their 40’s and 50’s tell me, “I can’t change professions now. I’ve been doing it for 25 years.” I ask, “Who decided you would be an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer?” “I decided when I was 18.” “And now you’re 50? Would you go to an 18-year-old for advice on what you should be doing with your life?” Not unless that youngster tells you to listen to your bliss! I think it’s a really important lesson for us all.

 

Namaste,

Wayne

Dr. Wayne Dyer featured on HealYourLife.com

Dr. Wayne Dyer is now a featured author on the recently launched HealYourLife.com a new site by Hay House Publishers. In addition to a featured column, the site hosts the Dr. Wayne Dyer blog and Daily Inspiration. The interactive site also allows members to share and save articles and favorites to the MyLife section of the site. Featuring your favorite Hay House authors, the site aims to help users improve the quality of their lives.

At HealYourLife.com, you will meet the world’s foremost best-selling authors and leading experts who will share their secrets, their experience, their personal stories, and their wisdom so you can start to live the life you have always dreamed of–now!

HealYourLife.com is the fastest growing personal growth and self-help Web site and is part of Hay House, Inc., the world-renowned publishing company founded in 1984 by Louise L. Hay as a way to produce her first two books, Heal Your Body and You Can Heal Your Life. Both have become international bestsellers (You Can Heal Your Life has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide) and have established Louise as a leader in the transformational movement. Visit the site at http://www.healyourlife.com.