I was purging my bookcases the other day (downsizing) and came across a number of books by Wayne Dyer, one of the more prominent Spiritual authors and tv personalities of recent years. I was reminded of an article from 2016 about his re-energizing that is well worth revisiting. The following is and edited and updated version of that article.

The Fountain of Youth is a term that is bantered around a lot. I’ve used it off and on for well over 15 years to describe that mental and physical state of energy and electricity that we, as seniors, get when we are “in the zone” of personal energy, when we feel vitally alive. It’s that personal energy and vitality you feel in your body when you momentarily peak physically, and you laser focus your mind when you are inspired. You feel it in your Spirit when you are at one with yourself in your own space in this universe. Some call it being “in Flow”.

Wayne Dyer was an author of numerous books, his most famous being his first, Your Erroneous Zones, which he wrote at age 36. His appearances on PBS Television are legend.  Wayne Dyer died a number of years ago at age 75.

It was about the time he wrote that book that Dyer made major changes in his life that resulted in his continuing on as a highly prolific, and highly read, author and speaker. What were those changes?  He began making changes in his eating and exercising habits. He began running eight miles a day, and according to his book, You’ll See It When You Believe It, he continued to run eight miles a day without missing a single day.

He cut out alcohol out of recognition that he had become or was becoming an alcoholic drinker. In his movie, The Shift, He relates the story of how he stopped drinking after a dinner and an unintentional intervention by his daughters, and never resumed. In his books, he alludes to the Spirituality and Power of 12 Step Programs without mentioning them directly. He also cut out cigarettes and dramatically changed his eating habits.

Dyer said that as a result of exercise, diet and changing other habits as well, his mental and physical capacity was dramatically improved. He told Michael Jeffries, author of Success Secrets of the Motivational Superstars that “the results were dramatic; he immediately began to experience a sense of vitality and well-being that he had never experienced before.” Dyer added: “His whole body and mind felt revitalized and rejuvenated, and were now operating at a whole new level.” He continued: “His thoughts took on a tremendous sense of clarity and focus. For the first time in his life he began to experience his spirituality at a deep and profound level. This spiritual transformation that Dyer was going through began to express itself in both his speaking and writing.” *  There’s a message there for us to absorb.

In an interview with Tony Robbins shortly before he passed,, Dyer said that he credited exercise with not having any major illness since his mid-thirties. He commented that: “You must exercise; you can’t let an old person come into your body.”  Hmm, there’s that message again.

This sort of transformation comes to those who seek it. It eludes those who don’t recognize the value of making those physical and mental changes through movement and food. Where do you find it? Don’t seek so much in the world around you; seek it in your world within. How do you find it? It takes action in mind and body and is simply “there” for those who actively take action. It doesn’t come to those who aren’t in the arena of life. It comes to those who seek it, discover it within themselves, and “come alive”.

It was Joseph Campbell who said, “People say they are seeking the meaning of life. I don’t think that’s what they are looking for. I think what they are really seeking is the experience of being alive.”

Thank you for reading.

* Success Secrets of the Motivational Superstars, Michael Jeffries, p. 66

“You have an evolutionary addiction to exercise.”

That’s according to Tom Rath, author of the book Eat Move Sleep. He says, “We get a natural ‘high’ when we exercise.” He doesn’t refer to addiction as it relates to the negative effects of substance abuse, that weakens or destroys our minds and bodies. He looks at addiction to exercise as a Positive.

William Glasser, MD in his book, Positive Addiction used running as an example of positive addictions. His research showed that when you do it for at least an hour a day, six days a week, that within six months, you will become addicted to the point where you experience serious withdrawal symptoms when you stop. He says that when one is running (exercising) to the point where it is addictive, one will reach a state of “euphoria, a complete loss of self, a sense of floating.” That sounds strikingly like the state of “flow” that I have written about in a number of previous articles.

Biochemists are revealing how this “flow” state or “runners high” occurs. They are learning that physical activity triggers the release of brain chemicals which literally put you into an “altered state of consciousness” — where time slows down and you have the feeling of euphoria that I referred to above. Michaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience describes it as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake.”

At that point, exercise itself becomes the source of MOTIVATION, an intrinsic motivation that requires no outside stimulus other than the activity itself. Exercise can form a positive addiction that is well worth being addicted to.

But can exercise be addictive in a negative way? Yes! And while this article is meant to look at an addiction to exercise in a positive way, there are circumstances where exercise becomes an addiction in the negative sense. There are a surprisingly large number of people who have built their lives around exercise and who exercise five and six hours a day. They exercise to the point where they are breaking down their body rather than building it up. These are not performance athletes but are regular people who are obsessed with exercise in much the same way as those with an eating disorder. Their obsession with exercise is a psychological malady rather than a physical one.

The hardest part of exercise is the first five minutes. After a while it becomes addictive. You notice it in the way you feel when you don’t exercise.

As your appearance, your attitude, your posture, your bearing, and the pizazz with which you approach life, all change noticeably for the better, exercise becomes part of your identity or persona. It’s simply a part of what you do every day.

When you set up a regular exercise program for yourself, the internal and external rewards are miraculous. It’s a great feeling! IT’S ADDICTIVE!

Thank you for reading.