Conscious Choice: Father of Intention

January 2005

Father of Intention

Best-selling author Wayne Dyer won't settle for millions of motivational books sold or an idyllic home in Maui. He wants more. He wants us to surrender to the power in each of our lives.

By Bob Condor

Playing tennis is important to Wayne Dyer. Where others see a fuzzy little ball, a high-tech racket and fancy-schmancy athletic clothes, he sees a chance for connection.

"You can apply spirituality on the tennis court all of the time,” says Dyer, just minutes before excusing himself from his picture-book Maui house to meet a friend for a match. “It’s a matter of letting go and enjoying yourself. You get into what athletes call‘the zone.’ That feeling connects me back to the Source."

Here’s what Dyer means about the zone: You learn proper technique, such as a strong forehand and competent backhand. You practice those strokes and practice some more. You study up on court strategy, make sure your first serve will land in bounds more than out. Then you take those lessons to your match. You play hard and stay focused on the task at hand. Your body and mind cooperate. You lose yourself in it.

"Exactly,” says Dyer. “Take your ego thoughts out of it."

Eliminating ego thoughts is a major step toward reaching your own personal zone of happiness and self-actualization (Dyer studied with Maslow while getting a doctorate). Dyer says this ego-checking allows you to discover “the power of intention,” which is the title of his newest best-selling book (from Hay House).

Gentle warning: Forget what you know or think you know about power or intention or both. Dyer wants to blaze a new way for us to think and act about our ability to “co-create” the life we want. Judging by the runaway success of his “Power of Intention” PBS series, which local stations are using without fail in critical telethon fundraising periods — Dyer is succeeding. It is Dyer’s fifth PBS series based on his books and by far the most watched.

The book and PBS series are merely first steps. Dyer is not about to stop until intention is a social movement. Personal growth will never feel quite the same.

"In my mind, intention is now something much greater than a determined ego or individual will,” he explains. “It’s something almost totally opposite."

No boundaries, all possibilities

To Dyer, intention is an energy field with no boundaries. He says everything in the universe has intention built into it, from the tiniest acorn that becomes an oak tree to people. We are “intended” from this energy field — Dyer labels it the Source, but you can substitute your own term for “God.” This energy is pure and limitless; it vibrates so fast that it “defies observation and measurement."

Nonetheless, there are certainly a growing number of scientists and researchers who are connecting this field of energy/intention to healing and natural order. For instance, Dr. Larry Dossey has written books and authored research analysis showing the deep reservoir of studies connecting prayer with medical recovery. He virtually stood alone publicly on the subject as an M.D. back in the mid-1990s. Recent surveys show more than 50 percent of patients want to say a prayer with doctors and most of those physicians are now obliging by at least listening as the patient or a family member prays.

But Dyer himself doesn’t hyperlink to prayer or religion when discussing intention. He leaves those choices to you. What he wants you to think about is removing ego thoughts (and cousins such as defensiveness, the need to be right, being one person but acting publicly like another) to make room to “reach” intention. You can determine how that Source looks or feels and what you call it. He simply wants to help you get there.

"I trust this power to take me to my destination, stopping when necessary, picking up companions along the way,” says Dyer.

Dyer has plenty of companions these days. He is the married father of eight children. Tellingly, he can tick off the ages without hesitation: the youngest is 14, then 16, 18, 20, 22, 28, 29 and 37.

He hasn’t written one of his 20 books in the last 25 years without the skillful copiloting of editor Joanna Pyle, who lives on Bainbridge Island.

"It is one of the amazing synchronicities in my life that I have edited Wayne Dyer’s books,” says Pyle. She is guarded about Dyer’s personal life, but Dyer himself credits her for turning his stream-of-consciousness writings into “a cogent format called a book."

For one thing, Dyer writes only with pen and paper, requiring Pyle to shift the manuscript into the digitized 21st century. Dyer doesn’t even own a computer or typewriter. His computer tolerance bottomed out a few years ago when he read that a dossier on a U.S. Supreme Court nominee included every movie the nominee had watched for the last 10 years.

Finding inspiration

Dyer is a voracious reader. Lots of people are described that way. Dyer’s books and everyday conversations make it clear he has a love affair with the written word. He was reading Carlos Castaneda’s final book, “The Active Side of Infinity,” in the days before undergoing a cardiac procedure to open one clogged artery that had caused a mild heart attack.

The procedure worked, but Dyer’s life changed even more for the positive by this passage he found in Castaneda’s book: “Intent is a force that exists in the universe. When sorcerers (those who live of the Source) beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up the path of attainment, which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do."

Whoa, thought Dyer, intention is not something you do, but rather a force that exists in the universe as an invisible field of energy.

Dyer proceeded to follow a regular habit. He made up a card with the passage on it, then laminated the card and carried with him into the catheter lab for his minor surgery. He began talking soon thereafter about intention. He included it in speeches and looked for references in his reading and experience.

His kids know that Dad tries out his latest book ideas on them and the adult children call anyway for frequent advice. For instance, his 20-year-old daughter, Sommer, called one day to say she quit a temporary restaurant hostess job before resuming her college studies.

"What makes you feel most purposeful and happy?” asked Dyer.

"Teaching horseback riding to young kids,” said Sommer, who added she wasn’t about to return to a horse barn where she worked the previous summer because she was “under-appreciated, overworked and unpaid” there.

Dyer says he launched into his “intention-as-a-force-in-the-universe” spiel.

"Open up to receiving the assistance you desire,” Dyer said. “Trust in intention. It exists for you. Stay alert, and be willing to accept any guidance that comes your way. Stay in vibrational harmony with the all-providing Source."

Not your standard father’s advice, to be sure.

The next day, Dyer’s daughter called back.

"You’re not going to believe this, Dad,” said Sommer. “On second thought, I’m sure you’ll believe it. Remember yesterday how you told me to be open to intention?

Yes, mmm hmmm.

"I was skeptical, even thinking,‘That’s my weird dad,’ but I decided to do it. Then I saw a sign on a telephone pole that said “Horseback Riding Lessons” and there was a phone number. I wrote the number down and just called it.

"The woman who answered told me that she needed to hire someone she could trust to do trail rides with young kids. She pays exactly double what I was making at the restaurant. I’m going out to see her tomorrow. Isn’t that cool?"

Cool? Hell, yes, it’s cool! thought Dyer.

Hearing the call

When you call Dyer’s cell phone, you get this message: “This is Wayne Dyer that you’ve reached, and I want to feel good. If your message is intended to do anything other than that, then you’re reached the wrong number and I suggest you call Dr. Phil."

It’s meant to be funny, says Dyer, but also serves as yet another way he reminds himself that he really does want to feel good.

Feeling good is paramount to tapping into the power of intention. Dyer suggests repeating five words to yourself throughout the day, especially during moments of high stress: You can choose between “I want to feel good” or “I intend to feel good."

Dyer makes an important distinction between low-energy and high-energy sources that flow through us. Low-energy is letting your ego take over a situation. High-energy is “moving toward Universal Spirit,” says Dyer. His own example is deciding to quit drinking alcohol because “several teachers had told me complete sobriety was a prerequisite for the work I was called to do."

Low-energy is all that brain noise we experience when worrying about work or finances or where our teenage kids are going at night. It doesn’t necessarily equate to low effect in the body, just low connection to feeling good.

An example: Dyer’s oldest son called one night, years ago, to report that he was feeling maxed out about deadlines and work projects. Every time the son took a shower, he would towel off and be sweating in minutes.

"Your mind is not at rest when you’re taking a shower,” Dyer told his son. “During that entire time you are in the shower, you’re in a rush and thinking,‘I have to get through this and hurry up and get dressed — I’ve got deadlines.’ Your body is reacting as if it were still running or exercising, because your mind controls the body."

Dyer suggested his son get “very, very quiet” in the shower, even if the shower is one minute. Always treat shower time as peace time, he said. It worked. The son called the next day to report no sweating after toweling off.

Shower meditation is one thing (I have an editor friend who says she “writes” her best headlines in the shower when they pop into her head from seemingly nowhere, but Dyer would say it’s the intention field). But keeping your ego in check, that’s another sweatbox of a challenge.

"I silently repeat the word‘intent’ or‘intention’ to help me get my ego and my self-absorption out of the picture,” said Dyer.

Dyer has lived through no shortage of ego involvement and self-absorption. His father was an alcoholic who abandoned Dyer’s mom and three sons when Dyer was a baby. His mother gave up the kids for adoption, forcing him to live in several foster homes until he was 10, when his mother and a stepfather took him back. The stepfather had his own drinking problem.

As a father, Dyer has struggled with a child who has “a serious drug problem” but has undergone a detox program.

He is adamant that politicians are not leaders, even though they insist on the label.

"Rosa Parks is a leader,” says Dyer.

On the move

Dyer is an enthusiastic proponent of walking. He’s just about to power-walk out the door to meet a tennis partner, but he has a few remaining volleys related to movement, patience and, of course, intention.

"It’s one of the most important things you can do,” he says. “It’s movement, it’s circulation, and staying as physically active as you possibly can is important. I think Einstein said,‘Nothing happens until something moves.’ “

Walking — or running or tennis or dancing or you pick — literally gets you going in a better direction. You tap into intention and “embrace the silence.” A change in how you lead your life is the follow-up.

"I think the clearest way to a higher consciousness is acting in the service of others and losing your self-absorption,” says Dyer. “It’s the best cure for depression there is. Just go out there and stop focusing on yourself. Figure out a way to serve others in some capacity. The depression almost always disappears."

Dyer said patience is at the root of wisdom. We all associate wisdom with years of experiences, maybe learning the hard way. But patience is deeply implanted. So you can find wisdom and intention at all points universal, including, naturally, that stoplight that never seems to turn green in rush-hour traffic.

"When you’re at a red light,” says Dyer, “try this: Recognize the fact that you have to sit there for a minute or two whether you like it or not. Now you have a choice — you can either sit there and fret and look at your watch and stomp and be all upset while you wait for the light to change. Or you can sit there for the same two minutes and meditate. You can get very quiet."

Either way, the reality hasn’t changed, says Dyer, just your path or roadblock to intention.

"The only thing different is how you process the red light,” he says. “You are either relaxed, even blissful, or you are hurried, harried, and your blood pressure goes up.”

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Intentional Success

Wayne Dyer is not afraid to say out loud that making money and feeling secure in your finances do not conflict with surrendering to intention. Here are his steps to abundance in all forms.

Step 1: See the world as an abundant, providing, friendly place. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. When you see the world as abundant and friendly, your intentions are genuine possibilities. They will, in fact, become a certainty, because your world will be experienced from the higher frequencies. In this first step, you’re receptive to a world that provides rather than restricts. You’ll see a world that wants you to be successful and abundant rather than one that conspires against you.

Step 2: Affirm: I attract success and abundance into my life because that is who I am. This puts you into vibratory harmony with your Source. Your goal is to eliminate any distance between what you desire and that from which you pull to bring it into your life. Abundance and success aren’t out there waiting to show up for you. You are already it, and the Source can only provide you with what it is — and, consequently, what you are — already.

Step 3: Stay in an attitude of allowing. Resistance is disharmony between your desire for abundance and your beliefs about your ability or worthiness. Allowing means a perfect alignment. An attitude of allowing means that you ignore efforts by others to dissuade you. It also means that you don’t rely on your pervious ego-oriented beliefs about abundance being a part of or not a part of your life. In an attitude of allowing, all resistance in the form of thoughts of negativity or doubt is replaced with simply knowing that you and your Source are one and the same. Picture the abundance you desire freely flowing directly to you. Refuse to do anything or have any thought that compromises your alignment with Source.

Step 4: Use your present moments to activate thoughts that are in harmony with the seven faces of intention (creativity, kindness, love, beauty, expansion, abundance and peaceful receptivity). The key phrase here is present moments. Notice right now, in this moment, if you’re thinking that it’s hopeless at this stage of your life to change the thoughts that comprise your belief system. Do you defeat yourself with thoughts of having had such a long life practicing affirmations of scarcity and creating resistance to your success and abundance that you don’t have enough time left to counterbalance the thoughts that comprise your belief system?

Make the choice to let go of that lifetime of beliefs, and begin activating thoughts right now that allow you to feel good. Say I want to feel good whenever anyone tries to convince you that your desires are futile. Say I want to feel good when you’re tempted to return to low-energy thoughts of disharmony with intention. Eventually your present moments will activate thoughts that make you feel good, and this is an indicator that you’re reconnecting to intention. Wanting to feel good is synonymous with wanting to feel God. Remember: “God is good, and all that God created was good."

Step 5: Initiate actions that support your feelings of abundance and success. Here, the key word is actions. I’ve been calling this acting as if or thinking from the end and acting that way. Put your body into a gear that pushes you toward abundance and feeling successful. Act on those passionate emotions as if the abundance and success you seek are already here. Speak to strangers with passion in your voice. Answer the telephone in an inspired way. Do a job interview from the place of confidence and joy. Read the books that mysteriously show up, and pay close attention to conversations that seem to indicate you’re being called to something new.

Step 6: Remember that your prosperity and success will benefit others, and that no one lacks abundance because you’ve opted for it. The supply is unlimited. The more you partake of the generosity of the universe, the more you’ll have to share with others. In writing this book, wonderful abundance has flowed into my life in many ways. But even more significantly, book editors and graphic designers, the truck drivers who deliver the book, the auto workers who build the trucks, the farmers who feed the auto workers, and bookstore clerks, all receive abundance because I’ve followed my bliss and have written this book.

Step 7: Monitor your emotions as a guidance system for your connection to the universal mind of intention. Strong emotions such as passion and bliss are indications that you’re connected to Spirit, or inspired, if you will. When you’re inspired, you activate dormant forces, and the abundance you seek in any form comes streaming into your life. When you’re experiencing low-energy emotions of rage, anger, hatred, anxiety, despair, and the like, that’s a clue that while your desires may be strong, they’re completely out of sync with the field of intention. Remind yourself in these moments that you want to feel good, and see if you can activate a thought that supports your feeling good.

Step 8: Become as generous to the world with your abundance as the field of intention is to you. Don’t stop the flow of abundant energy by hoarding or owning what you receive. Keep it moving. Use your prosperity in the service of others, and for causes greater than your ego. The more you practice detachment, the more you’ll stay in vibratory harmony with the all-giving Source of everything.

Step 9: Devote the necessary time to meditate on the Spirit within as the source of your success and abundance. There’s no substitute for the practice of meditation. This is particularly relevant with abundance. You must have an understanding that your consciousness of the Presence is your supply. By repeating the sound that is in the name of God as a mantra, you’re using a technique for manifesting as ancient as recorded history. I am particularly drawn to the form of meditation called Japa. I know it works.

Step 10: Develop an attitude of gratitude for all that manifests into your life. Be thankful and filled with awe and appreciation, even if what you desire hasn’t arrived yet. Even the darkest days of your life are to be looked on with gratitude. Everything coming from Source is on purpose. Be thankful while empowering your reconnection to that form from which you and everything else originated.

The energy that creates worlds and universes is within you. It works through attraction and energy. Everything vibrates; everything has a vibratory frequency. As St. Paul said, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance.” Tune to God’s frequency, and you will know it beyond any and all doubt!

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