Your Erroneous Zones

by Wayne W. Dyer

Learning to take total charge of yourself will involve a whole new thinking process, one which may prove difficult because too many forces in our society conspire against individual responsibility. You must trust in your own ability to feel emotionally

If you are in charge of your own emotions, you don’t have to choose self-defeating reactions. Once you learn that you can feel what you choose to feel, you will be on the road to “intelligence”—a road where there are no bypaths that lead to N.B.D.’

You have the power to think whatever you choose to allow into your head. If something just “pops” into your head (You choose to put it there, though you may not know why), you still have the power to make it go away, and therefore you still control your mental world.

“If you don’t control your thoughts, who does?” Is it your spouse, or your boss, or your mamma? And if they control what you think, then send them off for therapy and you will instantly get better.

Becoming a free and healthy person involves learning to think differently. Once you can change your thoughts, your new feelings will begin to emerge, and you will have taken the first step on the road to your personal freedom.

clear. You are the person responsible for how you feel. You feel what you think, and you can learn to think differently about anything—if you decide to do so. Ask yourself if there is a sufficient payoff in being unhappy, down, or hurt. Then begin to examine, in depth, the kind of thoughts that are leading you to these debilitating feelings.

A thought becomes a belief when you’ve worked on it repeatedly, not when you simply try it once and use your initial inability as the rationale for giving up.

Taking charge of yourself involves more than simply trying on new thoughts for size. It requires a determination to be happy and to challenge and destroy each and every thought that creates a self-immobilizing unhappiness in you.

Only you can improve your lot or make yourself happy. It is up to you to take control of your own mind, and then practice feeling and behaving in the ways that you choose.

Present-moment living, getting in touch with your “now,” is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can ever live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives. One thing is certain;

you cannot live it until it does appear. The problem here, however, is that we live in a culture which deemphasizes the now. Save for the future! Consider the consequences. Don’t be a hedonist. Think of tomorrow. Plan for your retirement.

Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you’ve lost them forever.

The only evidence of life is growth! This is also true in the psychological world. If you are growing, you are alive. If you are not growing then you might as well be dead.

You can be motivated out of a desire to grow rather than a need to repair your deficiencies. If you recognize that you can always grow, improve, become more and greater, that is enough.

Giving love to others is directly related to how much love you have for yourself. Love: A Suggested Definition

Once you recognize just how good you are, you won’t have to have others reinforce your value or values by making their behavior conform to your dictates.

Instead of hating yourself, develop positive feelings. Learn from the error, and resolve not to repeat it but don’t associate it with your self-worth.

While it is true that your original self-profiles were learned from the opinions of adults, it is not true that you must carry them around with you forever.

First you must destroy the myth that you have one single self-concept, and that it is either positive or negative all of the time.

You are human. That is all you need. Your worth is determined by you, and with no need for an explanation to anyone. And your worthiness, a given, has nothing to do

you. Decide to like the physical you and declare it as worthy and attractive to you, thereby rejecting the comparisons and opinions of others. You can decide what is pleasing and make nonacceptance of yourself a thing of the past.

images. You can choose to think of yourself as intelligent by applying your very own standards to yourself. In fact, the happier you make yourself, the more intelligent you are.

the happier you make yourself, the more intelligent you

It may surprise you to hear this, but you can choose to be as bright as you desire.

Aptitude is really a function of time, rather than some inborn quality. One support for this belief can be found in the grade norms for standardized achievement tests. These norms demonstrate that scores achieved by the top students at one grade level are achieved by the majority of students at a later grade level.

You are as smart as you choose to be. Not liking how smart you’ve chosen to be is mere self-contempt, which can lead only to injurious consequences in your own life.

You are as socially adept as you choose to be. If you dislike the way you behave socially, you can work at changing the behavior and not confusing it with your own self-worth. Similarly, your artistic, mechanical, athletic, musical and other abilities are largely the result of choices and should not be confused with your worthiness.

which often turns out to be choosing hamburger-helper over lamb chops, it is because you don’t feel you’re worth the better cut. Perhaps you’ve been taught that common courtesy calls for denial of a compliment or that you really aren’t attractive.

complaint. Fully functioning people never complain, and particularly they don’t complain about the rocks being rough, or the sky being cloudy or the ice being too cold. Acceptance means no complaining, and happiness means no complaining about the things over which you can do nothing. Complaining is the refuge of those who have no self-reliance.

“Why are you telling me this?” or “Is there anything I can do to help you with this?” By asking yourself the same questions, you will begin to recognize your complaining behavior as ultimate folly.

you don’t feel well. If you are tired, you can exercise several options, but complaining to even one poor soul, let alone a loved one, is abusing that person. And it won’t make you less tired. The same kind of logic applies to your “not feeling well.”

Complaining about yourself is a useless activity, and one which keeps you from effectively living your life. It encourages self-pity and immobilizes you in your efforts at giving and receiving

refuse to grow into a self-loving person is a deathlike choice. Armed with these insights into your own behavior, you can begin to practice some mental and physical exercises to encourage the growth of your own self-love.

• In a restaurant, order something you really enjoy no matter what it costs. Give yourself a treat because you are worth it. Begin to select items that you would prefer in all situations, including the grocery store. Indulge yourself with a favorite product because you are worth it. Outlaw

Someone can always choose another without having it be a reflection on you, and (2) whether or not you are chosen by any significant other is not the way you validate your own self-worth. If you make it that way, you are doomed to eternal self-doubt, because of the uncertainty of how a particular

good nutritional foods, eliminating excess weight (which can be a health risk as well as an indication of self-rejection), taking regular walks or bicycle rides, choosing plenty of healthy exercise, getting outdoors to enjoy fresh air because it feels good, and in general keeping your body healthy and attractive. Provided you want to be healthy. Why? Because you are important and are going to treat yourself that way. Any total day spent cooped up or inactive in boring routine activities is a vote for self-enmity. Unless you actually prefer being cooped-up, in which case you make that choice.

But that doesn’t mean that you are without worth. You must know for yourself, that you are worth something regardless of your achievements. Without this knowledge, you will be persistently confusing yourself with your external activities. It is just as absurd to make your self-value depend upon some outside accomplishment as it is to tie it in with some external person’s opinion of you.

Can you accept yourself without complaint? Can you love yourself at all times? Can you give and receive love?

The need for approval must go! No question marks here. It must be eradicated from your life if you are to gain personal fulfillment. Such need is a psychological dead end, with absolutely no benefits accruing to you.

Only a ghost wallows around in his past, explaining himself with self-descriptors based on a life lived through. You are what you choose today, not what you’ve chosen before.

The very act of labeling might be a specific deterrent to growth. It’s easy to use the label as justification for remaining the same. Sören Kierkegaard wrote, “Once you label me, you negate

The connectors that keep you from growing, changing and making your life (from this instant on—which is all the life you have) new, exciting and heaped with present-moment fulfillment.

You can begin to unknot the ropes that link you to your past and eliminate the fruitless sentences which are spoken to keep you just as you’ve always been.

If you are a finished product, all tied up and put away, you have stopped growing, and while you may very well want to hang onto some I’ms you may find that others are simply limiting and self-destructive.

You get good at what you practice, not what you shun.

challenge any aspect of your life in which you’ve chosen to be a finished product. The number one payoff for hanging onto your past and resting on your I’ms is avoidance of change.

There is no such thing as human nature. The phrase itself is designed to pigeonhole people and to create excuses. You are the sum product of your choices, and every I’m you treasure could be relabeled, “I’ve chosen to be.”

Any I’m that keeps you from growing is a demon to be exorcised. If you must have an I’m, try this one on for size. “I’m an ‘I’m’ exorcist—and I like it.”

It isn’t the experience of today that drives men mad. It is the remorse for something that happened yesterday, and the dread of what tomorrow may disclose. You see examples

Guilt and worry are perhaps the most common forms of distress in our culture.