I am home from Vegas and Hay House’s I Can Do It conference. This was the most amazing conference I’ve ever been to for many reasons, most important of all: it gave me a shot of positive energy!
For someone who was focusing on cultivating belief in self, this couldn’t have come along at a better time! I’ll write more about my overall impressions in another post, but first, I want to share what I learned from Wayne Dyer. I’ve been following Wayne Dyer for years! He’s an inspirational speaker and great story teller.
Friday night, his main focus was to find meaning in our lives. He talked about how, early on in life, we learn to “follow rules.” And this is what starts to trip us up.
The Rules
- Go to school
- Get good grades
- Do what you’re told
- Tow the line
- Get a good job
- Earn status
- Get married and have kids
- And many more….
Dr. Dyer tells us that our main goal during our formative years (“the morning of our lives”) is to follow rules and fit in…denying what’s inside of us.
He goes on to say that “later in life, these rules become a lie.” Somewhere deep inside of us, lies this dream or a passion to do what is truly meaningful for us.
So what happens if we are doing something that is NOT meaningful to us? In my work as a coach, I have found that this creates a “misalignment.” An internal dissatisfaction with life in general. Often it can lead to body symptoms, illness and addiction. Wayne Dyer says that in “the afternoon of our life,” we want meaning. For some people (who are willing to face fears that come from breaking the “rules”), he says that all of the rules take a backseat to finding meaning in your life.
After years of following rules and focusing on “living by getting” or by ambition, we have few role models or pathways to understand how to go after what will give our lives meaning. This often results in fear…what will people think, will I make enough money, etc.
These fears often push us back into our box, saying, “well, what I’m doing isn’t so bad, what’s my problem for wanting to change? I can keep going.”
Yet our hearts yearn for something else.
Wayne Dyer says “learn to be soft and learn to be flexible. Trust in your true nature.” If you are trying to find meaning in your life while still living by rules, it’s easy to see how you could give into your fears. Your false self is when part of you is living your life worried about what others will think of you.
He urges you to find a space in your home that is YOURS. It could be a corner of your room. In this room, put your vision board and all the things that inspire you and are meaningful to you. Sit here and dream, meditate, write, journal.
In this place, cultivate what is meaningful in your life. Find your courage here.
“Everything has to take a backseat to your calling.” We get out of alignment when we keep ignoring our calling because of the rules.
Do Nothing
As Dr. Dyer started moving into the “afternoon of his life,” he found a new calling and wanted to focus on living a life of meaning. He began studing the Tao Te Ching.
There are 81 verses in the Tao Te Ching and he spent 4 days on each verse.
Now it doesn’t take this exact approach to learn how to live your life with meaning — the key here is FOCUS. For all that time, he focused on changing his thoughts. This process changed his life. It’s confirmation for us that when we focus on creating the THOUGHTS that support us, our lives change accordingly.
Much of what Dr. Dyer learned is not at all about getting, but about being. There is nothing to DO. The Tao teaches us how to be and in being, we start to find ourselves and what is truly meaningful to us.
I’ve always loved listening to Wayne Dyer and it was amazing to hear him speak live.
He played Cecilia’s Amazing Grace at the end of the session. This was a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace by a singer who hits 3 octaves…and it had sounds of the humpback whales in the background. It is truly beautiful and Dyer explained that it resonates at a level of consciousness of 600 (beyond unconditional love). It certainly moved the audience to tears of joy and wonder.
Bulimia and Finding Meaning in Life
Bulimia, eating disorders and other addictions are certainly complex. We think they own us, we fear them when we are trying to recover, don’t we? And yet, I’m finding more and more that these “symptoms” are gifts. They tell us that we are ignoring what’s inside of us. We are doing something that perhaps, makes us feel hopeless and out of control.
We are often full of fear, forgetting how powerful we are. We are stuck in DOING and forget who we really are. We KNOW we have something inside of us, but are too locked up to do anything with it. We may be successful, but we have no meaning in our lives.
After working with so many clients and looking back at my own life, I see this playing out again and again. And recovery is not so much about stopping the behavior of bingeing and purging, starving or whatever else we are doing to harm ourselves. It is about realigning our hearts, minds, bodies and souls.
It is learning to live.
It is recognizing our power to create the lives we love and realzing that our thoughts (that WE get to choose) are how we create our experiences. It’s a new way of BEING that few of us have learned. There are more and more teachers showing us the way and our job is to TRUST and cultivate these new thought habits so we can break free from bulimia, anorexia, addiction.
Wayne Dyer is one of those teachers…go see him live if you can! If not, catch his appearances on PBS. He continues to remind us to reach for our greatness. It’s an injection of positive energy that we can all use when we forget who we are and who we are meant to be.
by djuro
24 May 2007 at 19:08
It’s uplifting to hear you say that fearing your addiction is a gift.
Lately I’ve been feeling and subconsciously thinking like: ” I was safe with this disorder. It was my identity.” Now that I’m walking away from it (as the beautiful side effect of exploring your true self), my ego – I suppose, feels threathened by losing its tortured identity.
Guess I should practice more of that trust thing..
Funny how you have, lose and then try to regain trust- in yourself, the world, life… and then backward.
p.s. I love Wayne Dyer’s stories and teachings, too. Have you noticed how similar paths your
teachings have – from motivational to spiritual?
by Heather
27 May 2007 at 22:21
Hi Djuro, It sounds like you are so aware of the process you are going through and I acknowledge you for that! Somehow, we’ve been taught to think that our shadow sides are bad and should be suppressed. We forget to accept ourselves and heal from a place of acceptance. We are not our addiction, but we end up identifying ourselves as if we are.
And yet we are so much more! I totally understand what you are saying about walking away from that identity. It’s like a safety blanket until we stop fearing the unknown. That’s where the trust comes in, right?
It’s funny you bring up Wayne Dyer. He talked about his own path to recovery from alcoholism. Did you know his daughter was an alcoholic as well? She’s almost 6 months sober now.
Doreen Virtue says that if you want to be in a healing profession and have some type of dysfuntion like an addiction, you could be an earth angel. I guess our path is to work out how to deeply love ourselves first. This frees us to heal ourselves and become healers for others.
I believe we can still heal others along the way, but that our power grows exponentially when we are grounded in self-love.
Maybe we go through this to show others it’s possible.
Love,
Heather