Wayne’s Blog

Keeping Up Appearances

One of my most memorable moments as a doctoral student in the 1960s occurred during a seminar in an advanced course on counseling psychology, taught by the most prestigious professor at the university. I, along with 11 others, studied the research and conclusions on self-actualization, including the specific characteristics of highly functioning people. These exceptional people, some of them historical figures, were called self-actualizers. The purpose of this advanced seminar was to teach us how to identify these traits and to help others embrace them to live fuller and more deeply passionate lives.

The traits of these self-actualizers included appreciation for beauty, sense of purpose, resistance to enculturation, welcoming the unknown, high enthusiasm, inner-directedness, detachment from outcome, independence of the good opinion of others, and absence of a compelling need to exert control over others. Each week we discussed the strategies we could employ as therapists to encourage clients to become self-actualized. At the halfway point of the semester, our distinguished professor gave the midterm examination, which consisted of only the following question: Continue Reading

The Secret Garden

When I was 10 years old, my mother remarried and she was able to reunite our family for the first time since I was a baby. My slightly older brother Dave and I had lived in foster homes together all those years.  There we were at last, all under the same roof again, my wonderful mother, my not-so-wonderful alcoholic stepfather, my oldest brother, Jim, whom I barely knew, Dave and me. We lived in a tiny duplex that year that I entered the 4th grade at Chester Arthur School. My teacher Mrs. Engel had a rule that if the class was quiet and well-behaved, she would read aloud to us from 2:45 until 3:10 when it was time to go home.  I took it upon myself to be the classroom enforcer and keep the other kids in line because I really wanted to hear that story. (Here’s where I first learned that I could influence people when coming from a positive place.)

Mrs. Engel was reading to us from The Secret Garden. Does anyone remember that classic children’s book? It was written by British author Frances Hodgson Burnett and first published in 1911. I loved being read to and I really loved this story about Continue Reading

My Father’s Day Treat

I always joke that my kids’ favorite holiday is Father’s Day. They love the way I celebrate the occasion by writing each of them a thank-you letter and a generous check. It’s my way of letting them know how much I appreciate the great pleasure and privilege of being their dad. I have eight children, with ages spanning more than 20 years. They have been powerful and important teachers in my life, always keeping me humble and grounded. Over the years, they have given some of my greatest material. If you have ever been to one of my speaking engagements, you’ve heard my stories about them and seen one or more of them on stage with me.

Poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran, said, “Your children are not your children….They come through you but not from you….though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.” Gibran advised looking at your children, divine beings that they are, with awe and wonder. You might strive to be like them, but Continue Reading

Hay House World Summit FREE Online Event! June 1-10

We are so proud to introduce to you the first-ever Hay House Global Online World Summit, premiering June 1st to 10th, 2013.
Join over 100 World-Renowned Teachers, including Dr. Wayne Dyer in this FREE Online Event as they share their stories, powerful exercises and advice on how to live your best life!

As a special Thank You to the Wayne Dyer online community, and to celebrate the tradition of learning and sharing, Hay House has created a new, free, online event just for you: the Hay House World Summit.

Listen in June 1st-June 10th to over 100 hours of incredible wisdom as our experts share their stories, powerful exercises and practical advice on how to live your best life. Popular self-help authors and visionary teachers from an array of fields will sit down for enlightening conversations hosted by industry professionals and fellow authors.

Check out who’s joining in the conversation. Click here for the full schedule and daily happenings! Continue Reading

Why the Inside Matters

I’m in the middle of what has become my annual Canada tour and it’s such a pleasure to feel all the love from my spiritual kinspeople here. I think of myself as “almost Canadian” since my parents were both born in Ontario, my father in Chatham in 1914 and my mother in Hamilton in 1916. I grew up in Detroit and Canada is part of my world. Last month I spoke at the Hay House I Can Do It Conference in Vancouver—wonderful and beautiful as always. And on June 29, I’ll be speaking at the Hay House I Can Do It Conference in Toronto. It’s the weekend before Canada Day on July 1 so maybe we’ll have some early fireworks to enjoy.

I have some great Canada stories, like the time I got lost in Vancouver’s Stanley Park and instead of my usual six miles ended up running a marathon before I found my way out! Lately, I’ve been sharing one of my favorite Toronto experiences with my audiences. It happened several years ago when an unsuspecting young man helped me illustrate an eternal truth we all need to be reminded of:

I was preparing to speak at an I Can Do It conference and I decided to bring an orange on stage with me as a prop for my lecture. I opened a conversation with a bright young fellow of about twelve who was sitting in the front row.

“If I were to squeeze this orange as hard as I could, what would come out?” I asked him.

He looked at me like I was a little crazy and said, “Juice, of course.”

“Do you think apple juice could come out of it?”

“No!” he laughed.

“What about grapefruit juice?”

“No!”

“What would come out of it?”

“Orange juice, of course.”

“Why? Why when you squeeze an orange does orange juice come out?”

He may have been getting a little exasperated with me at this point. Continue Reading

Recreating The Honeymoon Effect – Love for the Making

Wayne Reviews The Honeymoon Effect by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Love | 5 Comments

There’s a wonderful new book coming out this week from my good friend, cell biologist and mystic, Bruce Lipton. I loved Bruce’s first book The Biology of Belief, now out in a 10th Anniversary edition, which reveals his scientific findings on the power of belief to shape our lives. Science revealing that our thoughts can trump our DNA is nothing short of revolutionary.  In his new book, The Honeymoon Effect: The Science of Creating Heaven on Earth, Bruce takes on another subject of deep interest to every human being— love. He defines the Honeymoon Effect as “a state of bliss, passion, energy, and health resulting from a huge love.” Under the influence of this love, your life is so beautiful that you can’t wait to get up to start a new day and you thank the Universe that you are alive. Most of us have experienced this huge love, but for so many, Continue Reading

A Perfect World

In honor of National Poetry Month, here’s one of my favorite poems by a Victorian Englishman known for his spiritual optimism:

The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world.

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

The way to a peaceful life is to notice the perfection in God’s world and in ourselves, and nurture that perspective. When you look out with wide eyes of wonder and appreciate all that you see as a gift from God, including your own life working in harmony with nature, you will know what the poet meant.

Rather than seeing ourselves as connected to this world, we often feel we are in it to push it  around and make it conform to us. Rather than accepting it, we twist it to feed our ego,  creating havoc, imbalance, and what we call imperfection. Then the ultimate irony, we blame God for the very conditions we create out of the perfection that is our gift from God. The poet  says, Continue Reading

Quiet the Critics

One of my greatest teachers was Dr. Abraham Maslow who wrote about highly functioning people—what he called self-actualizers. The number one quality of these people is that they are independent of the opinions of other people, particularly the good opinions of other people. I wrote a lot about approval seeking in my very first book, Your Erroneous Zones, 1976. But I didn’t always follow my own advice in those days. When I’d do an interview or appear on a talk show, I’d read the stories about me the next day. I’d look for reviews of my books and so on. Today, especially in the last four or five years, I feel like I’ve really and truly gotten into a place in my life where it just doesn’t make any difference. The reviews are something that I now have very little concern for.

I gave a speech in Las Vegas recently and I talked about the whole idea of living your life free of concern about outcome. If you can stop worrying about whether people are going to like it or not, what a freeing place to be in your life. You can learn to treat other people’s opinions, whether good or bad, exactly the same way. If someone tells you how wonderful you are, you can treat that exactly the same as if they tell you how awful you are. One of the places I practice this is on Amazon. They have book reviews and almost every day there’s a new review or two. One will have five stars and then another will have half a star and say—“he’s writing books because he’s just there to try and make money.” I know that’s coming from someone who has no idea why I write.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure Continue Reading

Make Love Your Habit

On the recent Hay House Mediterranean cruise, “In the Wake of Our Spiritual Ancestors,” we visited historic sites of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. One highlight of the trip was a stop at the ruins of Ephesus on the coast of Turkey, where I was scheduled to lecture. I’ll tell you about an experience I had there that illustrates the importance of our power to choose who we are.

That day in Ephesus there were many tourists in the area and, thus, a long line for the bathroom. Once inside I saw that there was a man handing out little pieces of paper to the people after they washed their hands. My first thought was an immediate throwback to a younger version of myself. “What is this guy doing in this toilet and is he expecting me to give him a tip? I don’t want to have to give someone a tip for just going to the bathroom. I just had to pee. I don’t think I should have to pay for that. I don’t want to have to deal with this. I don’t want to have to look at him. Here’s someone who’s trying to take advantage of me. He wants a coin. I don’t have any coins.” These thoughts flew into my head spontaneously. I took the piece of paper and walked out.

I got about ten feet away and then realized Continue Reading

Farewell to Edwarda

In 1995, I first heard the amazing story of a family who had been caring for their comatose daughter for 25 years. The daughter, Edwarda O’Bara, had slipped into a diabetic coma at the age of 17. Her mother, Kaye, had promised that she would not leave her daughter’s side and, true to that promise, she cared for her daughter at home until her own death five years ago. Edwarda O’Bara passed away on November 21, 2012, 42 years after becoming comatose. Edwarda’s sister Colleen called to tell me. Colleen had been lovingly caring for Edwarda since their mother’s death.

My introduction to the O’Bara family in 1995 led to a lifelong friendship with these beings of love and light. My wife Marcelene and I wrote a book called A Promise Is a Promise about the remarkable devotion of Kaye O’Bara and the lessons to be learned from her about unconditional love. “I’m doing what I think I should do,” she wrote. “All I ever wanted in life was to have two girls. God was very good and granted me my wish. So, if He gave me what I wanted, then I feel I should care for Edwarda until He is ready to either heal her, or take her to heaven.” Kaye continued to care for her daughter in all ways Continue Reading

It’s No Accident

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