Walking with Rowdy & Wayne Dyer
December 6th and 74 degrees. It’s a strange world we live in. Stranger still is my relationship with Rowdy, my son’s dog, who remains by my side 24/7. Nevertheless, Rowdy and I have gotten into the habit of going for a mid-morning walk almost every day, a walk that has proven both health enhancing and often optimally meditative. I find the hour spent outdoors, moving my body through time and space, inordinately invigorating and always the perfect time for burning off frustration and moving my thoughts around.
This morning, Wayne Dyer walked with me, offering words of wisdom, laced with a touch of humor and a whole ton of experience. He referred to his first book, Your Erroneous Zones, which I remember reading when it came out in the 80’s and later passing around to everyone I knew, as a book he had written while still heavily under the influence of psychology. He has since gone beyond psychology to help spark a trend that has expanded the spiritual horizons for so many.
During our life time a shift has taken place in the psycho/spiritual world, a shift that though I have sensed its for as long as I can remember, have only recently begun to name. At the risk of repeating myself, we are a generation raised by parents who didn’t know the first thing about subconscious behavior. Freud provided us with the first glimpse into our subconscious motivations, and the recognition that we were being motivated by things outside of our awareness. As a result, the majority of us ran as fast as we could away from the church and straight into the arms of psychology.
We began to believe that our hope resided in our growing psychological awareness and understanding of ourselves and our relationships. This was would be the vehicle that would bring us to a place of peace and happiness. We just needed to know ourselves better, to understand our motives, heal our wounds and let go of the guilt, then we would be free to live and love fully. If that didn’t work, or took too much time, there was always the medication alternative to treat our unrelenting angst. Depression, anxiety, ADD, were as physiological phenomena, were beyond our ability to control using psychological tools, perhaps. We were let off the hook. (*See note below)
Jung stepped things up a bit, nudging us a bit closer to an awareness of the spiritual component that was ignored or overlooked. As we grew angrier and more frustrated with organized religion, we became less willing to even entertain any notion of its relevance. Thanks to Freud, we can now see that we were repressing our spirituality, which began to come out in all sorts of unattractive predilections. Sublimated spirituality is left to find its way into all sorts of unpleasant diversions, such as, promiscuity, violence, and narcissism. As we struggled to find our lost spiritual identity we left the church in droves, or became social activists, or the like. The nature of spirituality of our parent’s did not speak to us. It could not reach our deepest needs and our most profound despair.
Here we are, decades later, and I see a further shift taking place, a gradual letting in of all things spiritual. We are waking up to the fact that no matter how hard we try, we do not have all the answers in our earthly awareness of things. Once more we were trapped by our hubris. Once more we must lift our eyes unto the hills from whence cometh our help.
Is this what we came for? Our generation? To carry the world further along on its path toward enlightenment, bearing the burden that we will likely never see it come to fruition? Is this what we were placed on this earth to discover? Our generation of psychological know-it-alls? To discover that even psychology doesn’t have all the answers?
So much more to say, but suffice it to say for now, that I am regularly blown away by an intuitive awareness that something profound is taking place in the hearts and souls of men and women everywhere. I know many of you feel it too. A powerful force for goodness, truth and beauty…a powerful force that can only be described as something beyond the everyday work-a-day world, beyond our ability to perceive and quantify, perhaps beyond many people’s awareness; a cosmic energy that can only be described as something akin to what we used to call God, is uniting us, coalescing our energies, and empowering the force for good.
*Note: I would never, for a minute, devalue the place of medication in the treatment of mental illness. In many instances mental illness is profoundly painful, debilitating and difficult to treat. Medication, indeed, has its place. It is not, however, a panacea and I believe should be distributed more judiciously than it has been in recent decades.
© Dorothy Sander 2013
MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Toward a Philosophy of Forgiveness
Dis-ease and the Value of the Healing Journey
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Hi Dorothy…you raise some very interesting questions in this post and as you say the conversation has only just begun. I too walk almost every day with my little dog Kloe and scads of other speakers (like Wayne Dyer) and many many others who fill my mind and soul with similar questions and ideas. I agree that the day of our parent religion is long past and am not sure where it leads to–but it is my sincere hope that it is an experience that is more personal to each individual, so much so that we can all recognize that we are connected and that we are all in this together regardless of what religion we were raised with or what part of the world we come from. What it looks like, and how that will eventually play out is anyone’s guess. But I trust…and know all is well. ~Kathy
I have the same sense about things, Kathy. All is, indeed, well. I feel so fortunate to have this venue to discuss these issues with people like yourself. I learn so much from the feedback. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Dorothy, Great, great post. I’m very much in agreement with you and am glad you are voicing this. Thanks so much.
Great minds think alike! 🙂
This is so true. I believe that in so many ways we have stepped away from the Divine in a way that is not always our best choice. I know longer believe in the “GOD” of my childhood, but have a deep spiritual awareness and love for the Divine. I wish there were a word for that.
I too have struggled with words around this subject, Jill. They seem so inadequate somehow. I have always loved the Old Testament name of – YHVH (Yahweh) – “I am that I am” – the Source of all being – utterly transcendent – nameless. And yet, the NT introduced us to the very personal nature of God.The ever present source of being that was ever present to US. Names are so important even as they can be limiting. We want to “know” our God and naming implies knowing. Perhaps our struggle for words is just that, our desire to “know” this power that we recognize as the source of all being. DS
As always, thought-full, and logically laid out – I love how your mind works! For me, the core of healing has always been ‘where was God when……….’. At one time I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to not be physically able to work, living in a cabin in the Maine woods a quarter mile from anyone in the winter [on a lake, so not quiet in the summer]. I spent six to eight hours a day in prayer. Best and most terrifying months of my life. I let go of ‘God’ and let in ‘Sacred Mine’, for All That Is Sacred, intimately loving me [takes my breath away even now as I write how many years later! ] I am beyond grateful for the therapists/ group therapy members that came later, and, the core of every cell of my being is still the Sacred. Of course life being what it is, there is also a Higher Power in my life know as FLO; the L and the O are for Learning Opportunity. You can fill in any F you’d like. Go walk Rowdy, Dorothy, I can’t wait to read what’s next!
“I let go of ‘God’ and let in ‘Sacred Mine’”…beautiful. What an experience that must have been! I was just listening to more of Wayne Dyer this morning on my walk and he talked about a friend of his who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Without telling her family of her illness she went to a place such as you described and spent 7 months in silence….the silence of nature. She never returned to the doctor. Dr. Dyer received a letter from her 12 years later. There is clearly a power beyond our understanding in silence, in prayer and in nature…a place to connect with “Sacred Mine”. Thanks for sharing your story, Kathy.