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9.07.2015

The Self-help Guru Wayne Dyer Reminded Me Of My Dad

They were both born on May 10th but my dad was 10 years older.
For such a devout Catholic, my dad seemed to have an unusual amount of books that dealt with self-help and cosmic juju.
My dad was into yoga before it was cool.


He taught us all how to stand on our heads--yes even my sister Karen, with the soft un-fused fontanel head--learned this at a young age.
And speaking of young age, I read a lot of my dad's books on transactional analysis, meditation and intuition before my 12th birthday. Not that I understood a thing.
Anyway, one of the books I read as a child was a book called, Your Erroneous Zones, by
Wayne Dyer.
(No, this was not a book on sex--but rather a book on changing one's negative thinking).

I few years ago, I rediscovered Wayne Dyer and hoped to even attend one his lectures one day however last week, Wayne Dyer died.
So I guess attending a lecture by him is not meant to be.
Sigh.
A quote of his I liked was:

“My belief is that the truth is a truth until you organize it, and then becomes a lie. I don’t think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace. What I tell people is don’t be Christian, be Christ-like. Don’t be Buddhist, be Buddha-like.”
~Wayne Dyer

While I am in fact a Christian (and a Catholic) I am not blind and do not think that mere identifying with a group leads to everlasting peace.  As I attempt to be Christ-like in my life today, I also try not to judge what other believe in. (well except when it comes to my family. I am still trying to coerce them)

Other Wayne Dyer quotes that I like:

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”

"When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

“Conflict can not survive without your participation.”

“You can not be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.”

With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”

“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you.  The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration.  You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.”

“Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say.”

“It makes no sense to worry about things that you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.”

“Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.”

-Wayne Dyer May 10, 1940-August 30, 2015