Dana Marrocco - The Top Ten Lies We Tell Ourselves: And How to Stop Living Them

I f laughter is the best medicine for physical illness, imagine what it might do for spiritual ailments.

Educational psychologist and self-help stand-up comedian Dana Marrocco explores this idea in her first book, a work inspired by the spiritual thought system A Course in Miracles. Dr. Dana explains that the egothe fear-soaked part of our mindis happiest when we try to do everything it asks, even when it makes little sense. Following in the footsteps of Marianne Williamson, Gerald R. Jampolsky, MD, and Gabrielle Bernstein, she uses both humor and a solid base of academic and practical knowledge to expose these hidden and harmful messages that, far too often, we blindly accept as true.

Recommending a gentle, lighthearted roasting of our self-deceptions, Dr. Dana tackles ten of the typical ego lies. Each of the ten lies comes with a twenty-four-hour challenge: to refrain from acting on or believing it for one day. With the rare, deft touch of someone who has actually tested her spiritual studies against everyday challenges, Dr. Dana offers a trustworthy, down-to-earth guide to recognizing the typical lies we all tell ourselvesand how to stop believing them.

One of the keys to happiness is remembering to laugh, and Dr. Dana reminds us frequently of how to do that in The Top Ten Lies We Tell Ourselves. Shes not just joking around, though, because she knows her stuff. She connects the most important principles of A Course in Miracles to her knowledge of psychology and then makes it clear that shes really used both in her own life. After this book, lying to myself wont be such a big deal anymore!

Maria Felipe, author of Live Your Happy

Dr. Dana Marroccos beautifully written guide through the egos biggest lies is a heavenly compass for spiritual progress. Grounded in psychology and academic research, The Top Ten Lies We Tell Ourselves invites the reader to walk through an internal process of compassionate self-awareness to turn our fearful perceptions on their heads and return to a high-voltage perception of love. Dr. Danas series of exercises take us beyond the limitations of our conditioning and fear-based mental hooks to a brighter experience of life.

Lyna Rose, author of Enlighten Your Life

The Top Ten Lies We Tell Ourselves is a humorous look at the upside-down, fearful thought system of the ego part of our mind. By exposing our most common but not-so-obvious beliefs, this book will help you shift your mind to a right-side-up way of thinking, thereby freeing your mind from fear and setting you on a path of peace. The exercises throughout facilitate this awakening, and the twenty-four-hour challenges are brilliant!

Corinne Zupko, EdS, author of From Anxiety to Love

Open this book, begin to read, and see if you cant find the truth, which will make you free. According to A Course in Miracles, we do not perceive our own best interests and need clarity to better understand what those interests are. This is an overall theme in Dr. Danas conscientiously written book, reinforcing the practice of looking inward with total honesty to experience the happiness we deserve.

Jon Mundy, PhD, author of Living A Course in Miracles

Dr. Danas voice speaks to me exactly where it helps most. She points to the hidden traps I have fallen into and how I can reverse my addictive beliefs that led me down the rabbit hole. The reader can easily identify with the ten lies we grew up with, mistakes that weaken us and will persist until we change our mind. I recommend this book to anyone who chooses to see things differently and stop living the mistakes of the past.

H. David Fishman, author of Into Oneness

THE TOP TEN

LIES

WE TELL

OURSELVES

Copyright

Copyright 2018 by Dr. Dana Marrocco

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

The Top Ten Lies We Tell OurselvesAnd How to Stop Living Them is a new work, first published by Ixia Press in 2018.

Acknowledgments

All quotes from A Course in Miracles are from the Third Edition, published in 2007. They are used with written permission from the copyright holder and publisher, the Foundation for Inner Peace, PO Box 598, Mill Valley, California 94942-0598,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Marrocco, Dana, author.

Title: The top ten lies we tell ourselves : and how to stop living them / Dr. Dana Marrocco.

Description: Mineola, New York : Ixia Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018007301| ISBN 9780486821542 (alk. paper) | ISBN 0486821544 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Self-deception. | Self-perception

Classification: LCC BF697.5.S426 M37 2018 | DDC 158.1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007301

Ixia Press

An imprint of Dover Publications, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

82154401 2018

www.doverpublications.com/ixiapress

I dedicate this book to my husband and childrenthe greatest symbols of love I could have imagined.

CONTENTS

by Gary R. Renard

FOREWORD

I first met Dr. Dana several years ago when I went to the Unity Spiritual Center in Pattenburg, New Jersey, to give a Sunday afternoon workshop. I also was scheduled to speak at the Sunday morning church service, and an old friend of mine, John Beavin, was there to supply the music along with several other members of the regular church band. Dana was part of it, and they had humorously given the group the name Dr. Dana and the Infinite Patients. I liked that name a lot. If theres one thing we need more of in the realm of spirituality, its humor.

When I found out that Dana was a psychologist, I was a bit standoffish, because I thought shed probably figure out pretty quickly everything that was wrong with me. Still, I enjoyed the music and the day very much. A few of us, including Dana, went out for dinner after, where she and I started to get to know each other better.

As the years went by, Dana and I would exchange e-mails about our chosen spiritual path, A Course in Miracles (also called ACIM or simply the Course), and Id see enlightening videos that she did on YouTube. Wed also see each other and get to talk at dinner whenever I did a workshop at the church, which has been almost every year. I was always struck by her smarts and funniness. It was clear she understood the Course much better than most people. Her background in psychology and her open-mindedness made her a natural, and I found her humor to be both inspired and entertaining.

If youre like me, youre going to enjoy this book, The Top Ten Lies We Tell Ourselvesand How to Stop Living Them. Dana has a gift for satire, and shes aware of the meaning of an important quotation from the Course, Into eternity, where all is one [notice it doesnt say where all was one], there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity.

Although Dana has remembered to laugh, most people have forgotten to laugh at the silly dream-illusion known as the world. And thats a big part of the problem with the world. People take it so seriously, and they take their spirituality