Don’t die with your music still in you. — Wayne Dyer
This morning I woke from a delightful dream that brought with it a visitation from one of my favorite psycho-spiritual teachers, Dr. Wayne Dyer. I encountered his work in the 1980’s while in college and he continues to inspire me to this day. In the dream, I was at a conference where he was speaking. It wasn’t massive as I could have expected it to be given his notoriety, but instead, small and intimate with fewer than 50 people present. Wayne was one of the intrepid pioneers of the spiritual movement. I remember paging through Your Erroneous Zones as I was embarking on my career as a therapist and found it to be a pivotal read. I may even have the original copy somewhere in my copious collection. It was followed by Excuses Begone!, Wishes Fulfilled, I Can See Clearly Now, You’ll See It When You Believe It and his most recent, Memories of Heaven. Each one carries with it the message that we are powerful co-creators with a Universal Life Force Energy. He was frequently seen on PBS shows that offered wit and wisdom. I had the joy of interviewing him many years ago, twice, if memory serves. The second time, he had been experiencing a series of life crises, including a heart attack. He was stunned at that since he had become health conscious after entering into recovery from alcoholism. His comment to me in the interview, “I don’t do heart attacks.” He bounced back from that condition. I remembered that line when mine occurred in 2014. It helped me to rebound as well.
Sadly, Wayne’s dance on this Earth was too short, as he died from a heart attack on August 30, 2015.
As I sat in the dream-scape audience, I felt an intimate, heart to heart connection and a ‘Vulcan Mind-meld’ download of information from Wayne. I nodded and smiled. I noticed he was wearing one of his signature hats, a fisherman’s cap; purple (my favorite color) that covered his bald pate. When he exited the room, he had taken it off and laid it on a table. I was cleaning up the area and discovered it. It seemed that he had left it there for me to find. I put it on and walked out into the rest of my day, feeling uplifted and grounded simultaneously. When I awoke, it felt like I had been given an answer to some queries that have been roaming and, in some cases, rampaging through my mind.
Knowing what I do about dreams, that they are spillover from the day’s events and that each part of the dream is an aspect of the dreamer, the messages are becoming clear even as I type these words. I had seen Wayne as a way-shower and evidence of what I can achieve that had felt out of reach. He spoke before vast audiences on what I call ‘the big stage,’ where I desire to be. He too was a therapist turned author. His messages were both psychological and spiritual. He overcame addiction to enter into a new life. My addictions of workaholism and co-dependence almost cost me my own. The hat was a visible symbol of the many hats I wear, encapsulated into one. I’m certain that more revelations will occur to me as time passes.
Back in 2011, I sat with two friends, who like me, were on a dedicated spiritual path as we watched a movie, called The Shift. For two hours, we were mesmerized by a story woven through the lives of a group of people who come together at the lovely, wind and wave-swept Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California, seemingly for many different reasons, but for a single purpose: transformation. The central focus was the teachings offered by Wayne Dyer, whose life and work shifted dramatically when he merged psychological and spiritual concepts, despite the conventional wisdom at the time that those types of books wouldn’t sell. He disproved that in spades.
Some of the takeaway messages from the film:
He muses about the idea that for the first nine months from conception to birth, all of our needs are provided for and we have no thought or worry about it. Why he wonders, do we then angst about it once we are born? Because we ‘interfere’. What if we knew for sure, that despite appearances at times, that continues to be true? I have found myself (or rather, lost myself) tumbling into what I call ‘spiritual amnesia’ when I forget that God/Goddess/All That Is has my back (front, sides, top, and bottom too) Once I am reminded of that, my life flows with more grace than I had ever imagined.
Wayne refers to shifts as quantum moments that have these qualities in common, regardless of the form they take:
They are vivid. They are surprising. They feel good. They are enduring.
Wayne had a morning ritual that included two words that he repeated a few times before he slid his feet into black Birkenstocks as he arose from his bed. They were simple and what might be considered a potent prayer, “Thank you.” This has been my morning ritual for as long as I can recall. Thank you for this day, whatever it brings. Thank you for the love. Thank you for my life.”
He also taught the concept of a conditioning process that occurs throughout our lifetimes and begins with an initial disappointment that we then allow to define us and (potentially) forever, shape our perceptions which then inform our thoughts and then our actions, leading to certain predictable outcomes.
In his blog, Wayne has written: “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.”
Inspired by Wayne, my music continues to play on as I dream on.
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