Your erroneous areas is u Of the most read and respected works of all literature of self-help. Is a Book that I read less than a year ago and that I recommend to anyone who wants to lead a healthy life, have well-being and avoid falling into any psychological disorder.
In fact, it is a book that many psychologists often recommend and it is that many principles are mentioned to be healthy psychologically. It is not a work in which abstract concepts are difficult to understand. Rather, the author -Wayne Dyer- has focused on identifying the aspects that he considers most important to be independent, happy, and mentally sound.
Notice! This is a long article but it will be worth it. If you have not read this book, it will mark a before and after in the way you see the world.
Wayne Dyer is a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan and a psychotherapist with more than 20 years of experience. If you want to read A personal development book , Self improvement, self help or whatever you want to call it, I recommend you start with this and it is that in my opinion, it is fundamental and sure that it will change your life for good.
As Dyer says in the same book, each chapter is written as if it were a psychotherapy session: an erroneous zone or self-destructive behavior is discussed, explains why and provides a strategy with which you can solve that negative behavior. This summary will be based on explaining the wrong zones so as not to make it too long.
On the other hand, something the author stresses is to live the present to be happy and to eliminate those erroneous zones (self-destructive behaviors that impede your well-being and happiness). We spend a lot of time thinking about the past and the future and many wrong areas are efforts to live outside the present.
These are the most important points of the book. I hope this review and summary will help.
It is not people or things that make you unhappy, but your thoughts about them. - Wayne Dyer
1-Taking charge of yourself
If your stay on earth is so short, it should be at least pleasant. In short, it is about your life; Do with her what you want.
Feelings are not simple emotions that happen to you. Feelings are reactions that you choose to have.
In today's society people tend to think that smart people are the ones who have many academic degrees, take good marks in exams, are good at math or physics, speak well and politely or have a lot of memory. However there are many people like these who suffer from depression, anxiety or even are in some psychiatric.
An intelligent person should be described as happy and effective in everyday life, who knows how to solve problems, creates resources, is autonomous, independent and overcomes adversity.
In addition, an intelligent person accepts problems as part of daily life and has the ability to feel the emotions he wants in every vital moment.
Feelings are not simple emotions that happen to you. Feelings are reactions that you choose to have. You are responsible for what you think and what you feel and you can learn to think differently about anything. From you and the choices you make depends on the experiences of your life are stimulating and pleasant.
2-The love itself
Self esteem can not be verified by others. You go because you say that it is so. If you depend on others to value yourself, this valorization will be done by others.
In society it is well seen to treat others well and to love them, nevertheless he forgets that to achieve happiness it is fundamental to love oneself and to value oneself.
It all begins by loving oneself. That way you can love others and do things for them for the mere pleasure of being generous and expecting nothing in return. Have you thought about the value that would give something from a person who is worth nothing? How can you give love if you are not worth anything? What value would your love have?
You yourself choose the value you have and you do not have to ask or give explanations to anyone. Your own value is a fact that is not related to your behavior or your feelings. You can choose to be valuable forever; It does not matter that in a moment you have done something of what you feel regretted.
3- Do not need the approval of others
The need for approval from others is equivalent to saying:"What you think of me is more important than Opinion I have of myself.
You may want to Approval of others , Since it is natural to feel happy with the support and acceptance of others. But needing it, is one of the most negative erroneous areas.
It is negative to require the approval of a person and even more, to need it every time you want make a decision , solve a problem Or do anything.
Get rid of the need for approval if you want to be happy and develop yourself.
4-The rupture with the past
Only ghosts wallow in the past, explaining themselves with descriptions based on their past lives. You are what you choose to be today, not what you chose to be.
People are often anchored in the past and put on labels. Comments like the following are frequent:"That's me","I've always been like this","I can not help it"or"It's my character".
Self-labeling or self-definition is not inappropriate in itself, although it may be inappropriate if used in a harmful way. Likewise, it is usual to use these labels as excuses to remain the same and not strive to change. If those self-classifications are negative, you are losing your growth potential.
Those self-labels come from the past but the past no longer exists, the only thing we have now is the present. Every time you use phrases like"I am like this"you are giving yourself a justification for not changing and improving or being happier.
Change the"I am"by"I have chosen to be"to be the product of your choices.
5- The useless emotions: guilt and concern
If you think that feeling bad or worrying enough will change a past or future fact, it means that you reside on another planet with a different system of reality.
Two of the most useless emotions of a lifetime are the guilt For what is done and the concern for what will happen. With guilt you waste your present moments and with worry you keep immobilized.
You can continue to regret every day, feeling guilty and still not solve anything or improve the way you behave. Even if you feel guilty, you're not going to change anything. What will do is to learn to learn from what happened and change.
In addition, concern serves to evade what really needs to be addressed. If you watch yourself worrying, ask yourself: What am I avoiding by spending this moment in worries? After that, act on what you are avoiding. The best thing for concern is action.
6-Exploring the unknown
Only the insecure crave security.
As long as you are a human and live in this world, never You can have security . And if it were so, it would be very very boring. The sure thing eliminates the excitement and the emotion.
The security that if positive for your personal growth is the internal security of Have confidence in yourself .
The education we receive in this society teaches us from children that we have to tread carefully; Caution is encouraged and not curiosity. "Do not go there","Do not talk to strangers","Do not go just anywhere"are frequent phrases.
It is believed that the unknown is equal to danger. You think that what you have to do in life is to go to safety and go where the rest of the people go. Only adventurers or"daredevils"dare to take risks and explore what is not known.
If you believe in yourself, you can explore areas of life that do not offer you anything safe and avoid following the path that everyone else walks. People who have historically excelled (Da Vinci, Beethoven, Van Gogh, Einstein or Neil Armstrong) are not characterized precisely by following the footsteps of others and not venturing into the unknown. In fact, they were the pioneers in entering new and unknown territories.
He abandons the belief that the familiar is better than the unknown. The insecure and unknown can cause us insecurities but are necessary to change, improve and live new emotions.
7- Breaking the Conventional Barrier
There are no rules or laws or traditions that can be applied universally... including this one.
Our whole life is plagued by"you must do this"and people apply them without thinking about the why and the consequences. The sum of all those"debes"are another wrong zone.
This is not to suggest that you disregard the law. Laws are necessary for a civilized society, but if one obeys blindly to the conventions, it is something different and can be very destructive.
When these laws do not make much sense and stop working efficiently, you could reconsider those rules and your behavior regarding them. Too much conditioning to society can be neurotic behavior and lead to depression, anxiety and unhappiness.
Abraham Lincoln said:
" I never had a policy I could always apply. I was just trying to do what I thought was sensible at the right time."
Behaviors that result from"should and should not":
- Dress for an occasion of an uncomfortable or that you do not like (for example putting on a suit of jacket to 35ºC).
- Drink alcohol to socialize because it is the"normal".
- Attend a wedding even if you do not know the bridegroom or you fall out.
- Wash the dishes and clean the house because you are a woman.
- That because you are a woman do not invite a man to leave even if you like it.
- Having to always look for the right way to do something: a food recipe, a repair...
- See the game because it is important and everyone will see it even if it does not influence your life.
- Glue jumps for a goal because everyone else does.
- Enter a disco or go to a concert by someone you do not like because your friends are going.
8-The trap of justice
If the world were so organized that everything had to be fair, there would be no living creature that could survive a single day. Birds would be forbidden to eat worms and care should be taken Of all human beings.
People want to seek justice and if they do not find it they feel frustration, sadness or anger. However, justice does not exist and will never exist. The world works this way and it will continue.
One only has to observe the history, the nature and the actuality to realize. Our culture promises and values justice, and politicians talk about it in many of their speeches.
However, few of them follow suit. Some animals eat others, there are earthquakes, droughts and floods suffered by people who have not deserved it, wars, drugs, crimes, murders. But all this is part of the way the world works.
Demanding justice is not a negative behavior but it becomes a wrong zone if you punish yourself when you can not have the justice you want.
You can choose to be happy or unhappy but this is not related to the injustice you see around you. You can work to help eliminate injustice and you can decide that you will not let yourself be overcome psychologically by it. Why worry about justice if you do not try to solve it?
9-Finishing with postponements
It is not necessary to spill a single drop of sweat to postpone doing anything.
There are few people who can say they never do Postponements Although in the long run they are counterproductive.
The postponement itself is not neurotic, but the emotional reaction that accompanies it and the immobilization it produces. If you like to postpone things, do not feel guilty about it or do not hurt you, continue procrastinating. But for most people postponing is a way to escape and live the present moment.
If you are the typical person who says you will change and live differently, saying it will not do you any good (unless you do it with a real commitment). To say it usually serves to postpone the action and never finish doing something.
What you do is the only meter to measure as a person, not what you say or what they say about you. Emerson said:
Do not say things. What you are, glitters over you as you do, and draws with such force that I can not hear what you say against it.
The next time you are talking about something you are going to do, knowing that you will not, remember the previous sentence as it is the solution to postponement.
10- Proclaim your independence
In any human relationship in which two people become one, the result will always be two half people.
The issue of abandoning the nest and being independent is complicated because our society teaches us that we must fulfill what is expected of us in some relationships, which include parents, children, authority figures and loved ones.
If you enjoy the way you interact with people and they do not interfere with the goals you have set in life, you do not need to change that way of iterating.
However, depending on a person psychologically is different and harmful. It implies an unelected relationship and with which you feel compelled to be someone you do not want to be, in addition to being forced to behave in a certain way.
If you want that kind of relationship and it means well-being, it's not insane. But if you need it to feel well or you feel obliged to have it, assuming you feel discomfort or resentment, it is a wrong zone.
It is the obligation that constitutes the problem: obligation produces guilt and dependence, while free choice produces love and independence.
Be independent It means being free from compulsory relationships, lacking behavior directed at others, not needing someone to be happy (other than wanting relationships with others) or making decisions.
11- Farewell to anger
The only antidote to anger is the removal of the inner phrase"If only you were more like me."
Although the expression of anger is healthier than suppressing it, the healthier it is Not feel her at all . There is no need to feel anger, it is not something"human"as is usually justified and, in fact, is a wrong zone that incapacitates psychologically.
It is a choice and a habit that is learned in the face of frustration. It is debilitating and can lead to insomnia, tiredness, ulcers or hypertension, leading to guilt or depression.
When you face a situation that does not work as you would like, you feel frustration and react with anger. However, you have the ability to choose: anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have enough power to choose either.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of healthy people is a sense of humor without hostility. A good remedy for anger is to help yourself and others to choose laughter and learn from outside to observe the incongruous and absurd situations that occur in life.
12-Portrait of the person without erroneous zones
- They are too busy to look at what their neighbors do.
- They enjoy everything that life gives them; Feel comfortable doing anything and do not waste time complaining or wishing things were otherwise.
- They are free from guilt and events that occurred in the past.
- Do not worry about worry. Some circumstances that other people spend thinking about for hours and hours will affect them.
- They do not need approval from others.
- They laugh and make fun of almost anything and everything, of absurd events and of the most serious and solemn.
- They accept themselves without complaint. They accept that they are human beings and that being involves certain human attributes. They know what their physical appearance is and accept it.
- They appreciate nature. They love to be outdoors enjoying, running, walking or doing anything that does not harm them.
- They have no emotional commitment to problems. They accept that they are part of life and that allows them to overcome them easily.
- They do not need to draw attention to themselves and do not criticize, they are doers.
- They help others. They pursue social change but do not care about problems at night or think about injustices without taking action.
- They are honest, they do not pretend to lie or evade.
- They believe that what they are is their own responsibility and never blame others for what happens to them.
- They have high energy levels. They need little sleep and are healthy.
- They are very curious, always looking for things to know, do and learn.
- They are not afraid of failure and risk venturing into the uncertain and unknown. They do not equate external results with their success as a human being.
And what do you think of this book? Do you agree that wrong zones prevent people from being happy? Do you think they can be corrected?