Changing our Minds The Edge Interview with Dr. Wayne Dyer by Phil Bolsta First of a two-part series Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, affectionately called the "Father of Motivation" by his fans, is one of the most widely known and respected authorities in the field of self-empowerment. He became a well-known author with his best-selling book, Your Erroneous Zones, and has gone on to write many other self-help classics, including Meditations for Manifesting, Staying on the Path, Your Sacred Self, Everyday Wisdom and You'll See It When You Believe It. Despite his childhood spent in orphanages and foster homes, Dyer, who has a doctorate in counseling psychotherapy, has overcome many obstacles to make his dreams come true. Today he spends much of his time showing others how to do the same. His latest Hay House titles of books and audiocassettes include, Secrets of Your Own Healing Power, Wisdom of the Masters, Creating Your World the Way You Really Want it to Be with Deepak Chopra, and How to Get What You Really, Really, Really, Really Want, also with Deepak Chopra. When he's not traveling the globe delivering his uplifting message, Wayne is writing from his home in Florida, where he lives with his wife and children. Dr. Dyer will return to the Twin Cities for a motivational seminar from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, April 20, at Washburn High School, 50th and Nicollet, Minneapolis. The headline on the ad promoting your seminar is, "There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem," which is also the title of your new book. I'm reminded of H. L. Mencken's quote, "For every difficult and complex problem, there is a solution that is easy, simple and wrong." How does one begin the process of finding the right solution, the spiritual solution to a problem? Wayne Dyer: I think one does it by recognizing that problems are only things that exist because of the way we process our lives and everything that happens in our world. We need to learn to process things in a different way. I always think of everything in terms of energy. To me, problems represent living in a world of low energy. When you bring higher energy to the presence of lower energy, it dissolves it, it dissipates it, it can't survive. That's why I based the second half of the book upon the prayer of St. Francis: Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; Where there is hatred let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; and Where there is sadness, joy. Oh divine Master, grant that I may not so much Seek to be consoled as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Each one of those first seven lines is the title of a chapter in the book. What he's saying is that darkness is a lower energy than light, and when you bring light to the presence of darkness you don't have to warn it, you don't have to announce to it, you don't have to tell it that it has to get away. It can't survive. Light dissolves darkness. And so does love dissolve hate and so does joy dissolve sadness and so does faith dissolve doubt and so on. And once we begin to put our problems into that context, we see that the slowest and lowest energies are the energies of the world of the solid, where everything that we call problems exist. And if we can bring spiritual energy, which is love, kindness, forgiveness and so on, to the problem, we can dissolve it. It's really just a matter of changing our mind about how we're going to process the events of our lives. A Course in Miracles states, "You don't have any problems, though you think you do." The Course teaches us that these things we call problems are just our ways of processing things in our lives. The opening line of Genesis in the Old Testament says, "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth," and then 31 lines later it says, "And all that God created was good." So if God created everything and everything God created was good, disease and disharmony and disorder and all the things we call problems are really something that can't exist except in our mind when we separate ourselves from God. So is it a matter of reframing problems and seeing them as opportunities for growth? Dyer: Right, but I wouldn't even call them problems. I think of it in terms of what kind of energy am I bringing to it? Am I putting my attention on what I don't want, on what always has been, on suffering, on disease? Because what we think about expands. And if what we think about is what we create our world out of, and our thoughts are on what we don't like or what's wrong or what's missing, then we will attract more of what we don't like or what's wrong or what's missing even if we despise it. It's not so much a reframing thing. It's putting our attention on what we intend to manifest at this moment in our life. When we do that, when we put our attention on that and act upon what our thoughts are, we attract more of it, rather than attracting more of what we don't want. One of the reasons most people are not good at solving problems and manifesting or attracting into their life what they want is because their thoughts are always on what's wrong and on what's missing and on the problem. (Abraham) Maslow taught me, years and years ago, that when you're working with a patient, never let them spend more than a few moments on the problem, because what you think about is what expands, and if they're talking about the problem all the time, when they leave your session, the problem will expand. Get 'em to put their attention on what they intend to create, or on solutions. Doesn't this involve drilling down to the essence of reinventing your worldview? Because the way you look at the world and at God influences your thoughts and actions, and by shifting how you approach the world, that automatically shifts your thoughts and actions in a more positive way? Dyer: Yes, absolutely. I call it rewriting your agreement with reality. You're making a new commitment to what your world is going to be and how connected you're going to be to your Source, to God and to a higher energy or whatever you want to call it. And knowing that, you can call upon that at any given moment in your life. And if you make that shift, then your thoughts and actions, in turn, will change. Dyer: Exactly. The Law of Attraction then ensures that you start attracting more of what you want into your life instead of what you don't want or instead of what always has been. The highest functioning people never even put their energy on what is if they don't like what is. That's an important difference, because most people who have a lot of "problems" in their life are constantly talking about them and focusing on them, so they just keep attracting more of those circumstances into their lives because that's where their thoughts are. And isn't it also important to recognize that it doesn't matter how long they've had their problems? It doesn't matter how long the room has been dark. When you switch on the light, the darkness is gone. Dyer: Exactly. It doesn't matter how long what "always has been" has existed. Once you put your attention, your thoughts, your energy, your consciousness on a new intention, that's what you begin manifesting into your life. The word "intention," I believe, is really important, because it doesn't leave any room for doubt or maneuvering: "I intend to create this in my life out of the circumstances that I'm now experiencing." Isn't it also important then, instead of worrying about having what you want to put your attention on wanting what you have? Dyer: That's a very good point, because if your thoughts are always on what you want, then you're always be in a state of wanting. That's why I say you need to put your attention not on what you want so much as on what you intend: what you Intend to create, what you intend to manifest. And it's also important to be in a state of gratitude. Rumi once said, "Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment." And being in a state of bewilderment is really being in a state of gratitude. What does bewilderment bring to you? Dyer: It puts you in a sense of awe. It gives you a sense of appreciation. The lowest energy you can have is the energy of depreciation, and the highest energy you can have is the energy of appreciation. If you do a kinesthetic test on a person who's in a state of depreciation: "I don't like the weather, I don't like this house, I don't like my children, I don't like the economy, I don't like this president," you'll find that they will be physically weakened. Whereas, if you change that thought to one of appreciation in which, wherever you are, right in this moment, you can look around and find hundreds of things to appreciate, the opposite occurs. There are so many people in this world looking for occasions to be offended -- and they're almost never disappointed. There's always somebody that you're not going to like, or something you disapprove of, or something you don't agree with, and if you're constantly in that state of depreciating, you will constantly be weakened. How can a spiritual approach to healing help overcome health problems, which for many people is the biggest challenge in their lives? Dyer: When you walk into the presence of people who calibrate at the very highest energy levels, just being in their energy field, everything that is diseased or in disharmony is healed. When you bring a higher and a more loving energy to the presence of disorder or disharmony or disease, you are really bringing a healing energy. And that's what healing is involved with: It's no longer allowing yourself to wallow around in a process in which you tell yourself that you don't have the capacity to be able to transcend whatever it is that's bothering you or hurting you or killing you. And that you take total responsibility for what you have without any guilt, whether it's cancer or arthritis or whatever it might be. You can say, "I take responsibility for it and I'm going to bring as much higher energy to it as I possibly can. I'm going to dissociate myself from identifying myself as this body that might have some things going on that are incompatible with perfect health." And as you detach from it and get outside of it, you have much more of an opportunity to bring love to it and divine energy and even miracles. And miracles can occur when you are in that state of detachment. Doesn't being more loving and positive also help the world at large because, as Deepak says, your efforts strengthen the "unified field?" Dyer: Yes, absolutely. Everything is connected, and those who live at the very highest and fastest energies are able to compensate for people who live at very low and slow energies. They say that on a scale of one to 1,000, with a 1,000 representing divine unity consciousness and a one representing the lowest energy, that one person at 1,000, let's say it was Jesus Christ walking among us, would counterbalance the negativity of everybody else on the planet. And one person at 900 can counterbalance the negative energy of 90 million people. Without the people who represent the highest and the fastest of spiritual energies among us, all of humanity would literally self-destruct. There's a wonderful book about this called Power vs. Force by David Hawkins, a medical doctor. He talks a lot about the counterbalancing effect of higher energies on people who compute at very low energies. It's wonderful reading. Next month: Dr. Wayne Dyer offers another way to view the War on Terror. Tickets to Dr. Wayne Dyer's motivational seminar, "There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem," are available for $49 ($55 after March 15 and at the door). To charge by phone, call Ticketworks at (612) 343-3390 or online at ticketworks.com. For more information on Dr. Wayne Dyer, go to his website at www.drwaynedyer.com. Phil Bolsta is a certified massage therapist. To make an appointment, contact him at (763) 553-7703 or at PhilBolsta@attbi.com Copyright (c) 2002 Phil Bolsta
March 2002