Before approaching the Portrait, it is appropriate to describe the 11 Wrong Zones that Wayne Dyeridentifies in people and describes in his book:
- Take charge of yourself, you are solely responsible for your own life.
- The first love is Self Love. The work of self-esteem.
- You don’t need the approval of others. “ Approval is not an evil in itself; actually, flattery is delightfully pleasant. The search for approval becomes a wrong zone when it becomes a need instead of a desire … Find immunity from pain when you don’t get the applause you seek … “
- The break with the past. ” You are what you choose to be today, not what you chose to be before .”
- The useless emotions: guilt and worry. ” If you believe that feeling bad or worrying enough will change a past or future event, it means that you reside on another planet with a different reality system .”
- Exploring the unknown. ” Only the insecure crave security .” The Wrong Zone of fear of the unknown is waiting to be replaced by exciting and exciting new activities that will bring pleasure to your life. You don’t have to know where you are going; the important thing is to be on the road. “
- Breaking the barriers of conventions. ” There are no rules, laws, or traditions that can be universally applied … including this one .” The world is full of you must do this that people apply to their behavior without a prior evaluation, and the total of all these must make up a large erroneous zone. “
- The trap of justice. “ We are conditioned to seek justice in this life; and when we do not get it we feel anger, anxiety, or frustration. It would be just as productive if we looked for the fountain of youth or some other myth of the sort. Justice does not exist. It has never existed and will never exist. “The Concept of justice is external; a way to avoid taking over your own life. “
- Ending procrastination right now. The elimination of inertia as a strategy for living.
- Proclaim your independence. “ Being psychologically independent means being totally free from all compulsory relationships, and implies the absence of behavior directed towards others. It means that you are free from the obligation to do something that you would not otherwise choose to do, if that relationship did not exist . “
- Goodbye to anger. ” The only antidote to anger is the elimination of the internal phrase: If only you were more like me.”
These are the Bad Zones to be addressed and worked on.
And as a product of the success of the task, the individual free of Erroneous Zones emerges, this one whose description becomes a paradigm of personal growth:
The Portrait of a person who has removed all the wrong areas
A free man
Dyer says that a person who has eliminated his wrong zones is a “free man” who is too busy BEING to notice what his neighbors are doing.
This is possibly one of the highest concepts of Freedom, and the most sublime occupation that an individual can dedicate himself to: simply BEING, and therefore… letting be.
These free people, he says, “ do not easily fit into any role, specific job, geographic mold, educational level, or economic statistics… they can be rich or poor, male or female, white or black, live anywhere and do almost anything. They are a very diverse group of people who nevertheless have one factor in common: being free from Erroneous Zones . ”
Regardless of their conditions or situations, these people simply ARE. And they feel good being who they are.
“ … They enjoy virtually everything that life offers them; people who are comfortable doing anything and who don’t waste time complaining or wishing things were otherwise. They are enthusiastic about life and want everything they can get out of it. They like to go on excursions, go to the movies, read, play sports, attend concerts, visit cities, farms, see animals, mountains and really almost everything. They like life . ”
The subtle difference between someone who “likes life” and another who “likes life” is powerful. Life is simply greater than everything else, it is the source, the main resource. People spend a lot of time evaluating only THEIR life, qualifying the small proportions of their reality, but when the lens focuses on the whole it conditions the part. Appreciating Life in its generic and total sense leads immediately to the appreciation of personal life. This is a subtlety that must be distinguished.
Who enjoys what Life is (in general), actually enjoys what his life is (in particular).
Dyer continues: “ When you are close to a person free of Erroneous Zones, you notice the absence of laments and even passive sighs. If it rains, they like it. If it’s hot they enjoy it instead of complaining.Whether they are in the middle of a traffic congestion, or at a party, or all alone, they are simply doing their best. It is not about enjoying everything that happens, but about a wise acceptance of what is, a rare ability to delight in reality . ”
At the end of these sentences is raised the most moving conclusion of the character of these free people: their ability to delight in reality.
Possibly this is the final imperative.
The vast majority of people sustain a permanent struggle with Reality, they try to conform to what their expectations and interests dictate. In this process, life passes, without victory and joy, like the story of that horse that chases a carrot tied to its forehead and never reaches it.
However, having the “ability” (the specific word is important), to DELIGHT with reality, involves reaching a total communion with Life. Not only do you accept it reverently and flow intelligently with it, but also enjoy it in every part of the process.
It is not the same to fight in Life as to fight against Life. The latter is a contest that cannot be beaten.
Developing the “ability” to delight, in reality, gives the necessary advantage to fight and achieve expectations and purposes because one’s own energies are aligned with those imposed by Life. And if this “alignment” is governed by joy and delight, the process has as much or greater value than the goal itself.
A man free from guilt and worries
Says Dyer: “ Healthy and fulfilled people are free from the feeling of guilt and all anxiety that occurs when using the present moments immobilizing themselves by events that happened in the past… The total lack of guilt is one of the characteristics of people healthy. No regrets for what happened and no efforts to get others to choose blame … ”
Human being has the natural right to make mistakes, they will populate life from awareness to the final moment.
You cannot walk in life bearing guilt!
The past is inaccessible, it cannot be changed. And as long as it is left there and constitutes, in the best of cases, experience or learning, it plays in its favor. But when guilt emerges, the present is conditioned, and thus not only is the healthy delight with reality eliminated, but it is also prone to making more mistakes.
On the other hand, says Dyer, “ People free from Wrong Zones do not torment themselves with worries… They are neither future planners nor future savers. They refuse to worry about what will happen in the future and are free from the anxiety that accompanies worry. They don’t know how to worry. It is not part of their way of being . ”
No blame for the past, no worries or anxiety about what may happen in the future. This is the challenge, the path of peace.
The powerful concept here is: ” They don’t know how to worry .”
Extraordinary!
It’s not about “not worrying.” It’s that healthy person who just does DON’T KNOW how to do it.
They live in complete and premeditated ignorance of worrying, or to put it another way, they explicitly KNOW the banality of worrying.
In a motion picture that exposes the story of the exchange of the Soviet spy Viliam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel) for Gary Powers, the American pilot of the U2 plane shot down in Kamchatka during the cold war, an American government agent tells Fisher: “No he seems concerned about his situation, “and Fisher responds,” Would that help my situation at all?
Worry is one of the most useless acts around, and healthy people know it.
A man who always enjoys the NOW, the present moment
Dyer continues his description: “ These people love ambiguity. They enjoy the now on all occasions, convinced that it is all they have … The moments between events are as livable as the events themselves, and these people have a rare ability to get as much enjoyment out of their daily lives as possible … They always enjoy because they simply realize how absurd it is to wait to enjoy . ”
There is no better term to express this: it is certainly ABSURD to wait to enjoy!
Isn’t this nonsense approaching the ridiculous?
Why then is it a life practice of almost all the beings that populate the planet?
Corresponds, of course, “to get as much enjoyment as possible from daily life”, from each moment, from each event. Life is nothing more than that, a sum of small investments.
An independent man
Wayne Dyer states: “These very healthy people are remarkably independent. They are people who are outside the nest, and although they may feel great love for their family and be closely linked to it, they think that independence is more important than dependence in all human relationships … They refuse to depend on people and that they depend on them in a mature relationship … They do not need to be loved by everyone, nor do they have an excessive need for approval . ”
Genuine love is based on detachment, on the ability to love without dependence, and the possibility of knowing oneself is valuable without external stimulation.
If it is accepted that this is called Maturity, it will also be accepted that most people behave like children in understanding their relationships with others and with themselves.
A man with a sense of humor
These people, says Dyer, “know how to laugh and make people laugh. They discover humor in almost all situations and can laugh at the most absurd events as well as the most serious and solemn … They are not serious or serious people who walk through life with leaden steps and a severe face … They do not laugh at people, laugh with people. They laugh at life and see everything as great fun, although they take their projects very seriously. “
Sad is the fate of people who lack a Sense of Humor.
The Sense of Humor is a powerful vehicle to build a relationship with people and from there vital to developing faith, recognition, perceptions of protection, and love.
The very meaning of the term explains it all: “The sense of humor is an attitude that allows us to face the various situations of life without letting go through defeat. As if it were a kind of bulwark, people with a sense of humor are capable of getting ahead of the most delicate matters by letting themselves be guided by hope and the certainty that things can improve. ”
A man who despises the Complaint
On the other hand, says Dyer, “people free from Wrong Zones are people who accept themselves without complaint… they know what their physical appearance is and they accept it… They have accepted themselves and therefore they are the most natural people. . No hiding behind artifices or apologizing for what they are. They don’t know how to be offended by anything that is human. They love themselves and accept who they are. “
It doesn’t take much insight to understand the edge of cowardice involved in complaining in general. But the drama is greater when it comes to complaining to yourself.
Nor is it difficult to understand the value of the ability to accept reality and the things that determine life, but it is already more complex to understand that people deny themselves and do not accept themselves naturally.
This is possibly the most painful of the Bad Zones for anyone.
A man who is not subdued by Problems
Healthy people, Dyer continues, “are not monopolized by problems in their emotional world. For these people, a problem is really just an obstacle to overcome and not a reflection of who they are or cease to be as people. Their self-worth is located within themselves, so that any external problem can be seen objectively, and not, in any case, as a threat or a challenge to their own worth. “
The subject-object relationship of the people with the problems is managed, most of the time, without the necessary understanding of the division that exists between them.
The emotions are so intense that they can generate a problem that ends up being part of the subject’s reality, and forms a third reality: “a subject in trouble.”
In this third entity the subject does not always take control of the problems, they are the ones who take control of the subject.
Problems can be considered as objective entities (that is, they exist), but also the relationship of people with them must start from objectivity, from the clear idea of the division that exists between the person and what happens to him. You are not what happens to you.
This is well understood by the person who has removed their Erroneous Zones.
A man who does not fight uselessly
“Healthy people never fight uselessly,” says Dyer. If the fight can bring about a change, then they will fight, but they will never fight in vain. They are not martyrs, they are doers. They are also people who help others ”.
Fighting in life is one thing, a need to govern the ship in the face of the conditions that the environment presents to continue en route and achieve the objective.
But fighting against these same conditions when the effort is useless or living in conflict with others for things that finally constitute a trifle from the perspective of the grandeur of life and the universe that shelters it is something else.
Carrying struggles and quarrels to bed, populating the mind and resting with them, nullifies all productive dispositions and neutralizes effective action.
The psychologically healthy man does not confront uselessly, rather he builds benign bridges to take advantage of the positive energy of others.
A man who is not immobilized by trifles
And in a more practical, but equally momentous sense, Dyer comments:
“These people are not sick people. They don’t believe in the immobility of colds and headaches… They treat their bodies well. They love themselves and consequently eat well, exercise regularly (as a way of life) and refuse to experience the kinds of ailments that render many people useless for various periods of time. “
A man is honest with himself, and as a consequence, honest with others
Honesty is another quality of these fully-functioning individuals:
Their answers are not evasive nor do they pretend to lie about anything. They consider lying to be a distortion of their reality and refuse to engage in any kind of behavior that serves to deceive themselves… These people do not blame others. Their personality orientation is internal and they refuse to hold others responsible for who they are. “
Deception is the antipode of honesty, and surely there is no more destructive deception than that which is established within oneself, since from it comes, almost immediately, the compulsive need to blame others and thus alleviate the pain.
If there is a type of honesty that must be rescued as a foundation of character, it is honesty with oneself.
A man who manages his Energy very well
On the other hand, says Dyer, they are people who “undertake anything in their own unique and particular way, be it making a bowl of soup, writing a report or mowing the lawn… They don’t feel the obligation to do things in a certain way… These are people with especially high energy levels. They seem to need less sleep and yet they are energized by life. They live and are healthy… They don’t know how to be bored… There is no boredom in their lives because they channel the same energy that others have in productive ways for themselves. They are aggressively curious. They never know enough. “
The connection between the “Wrong Zones” of individuals and personal Energy Management is very interesting because finally, it is a fact that as long as there are “black holes” that condition behavior, they absorb vital energy that could be used for more productive.
The more people are “lighter” from negative conditioning, the better the fate of the energy supply and the greater the strength of the positive aspects.
The circuit acquires virtuosity by the simple flow that personal energy takes.
What about boredom?
Isn’t it just the state where energy is lacking or is being replenished for purposes that lack stimulus?
A man without fear of failure
People without Wrong Zones, Dyer continues, “are not afraid of failure. They do not equate success in a company with success as a human being … They know that failure is only an index of other people’s opinion and they should not be afraid of it since it cannot affect their self-worth. “
What is the failure of a confident person? Isn’t it just the assessment that others give to the outcome of certain events?
How can a person who does not measure his worth in terms of externalities feel like a failure?
A man who does not fall for the seduction of anger
On the other hand, says Dyer, “they never choose anger that immobilizes… They accept others as they are and work to change the facts that they dislike. Thus, anger is impossible because there are no false or exaggerated claims. “
This “management of expectations” that psychologically healthy people have helped to solve many worldly problems that haunt people since if the assessment of success is not part of an expectation of the judgment of others, the perception of failure does not exist. And if, on the other hand, no claims are made regarding the behavior of others, any disturbance regarding it dissolves, including, especially, anger.
“Expectation management” is possibly the main virtue of people who have eliminated their Erroneous Zones.
A man without borders and limits
Finally, Dyer comments that for these free beings “their values are not local values. They do not identify with family, neighborhood, community, city, state, or country. They consider themselves part of the human race and for them, an unemployed Austrian is no better or worse than an unemployed Californian… They have no heroes or idols. They look at all people as human beings and place no one above themselves in importance. They do not demand justice every time… They want to be victorious and efficient because of their merits instead of winning because of the failures of others ”.
This is the summary of the portrait of an individual that cannot be understood as an ideal, but rather as a north that guides the transformation efforts.
Reaching the best version of oneself is not only a healthy ambition that every individual must sustain, it is an obligation that one has before the magnanimity of life and the nature of everything that populates it.
From the humble position held by everyone who is on purpose, goes the appreciation of Wayne’s Dyer’seffort to put some light on the path.
