If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Dr Wayne Dyer.
This is one of Dr Wayne Dyer’s most famous quotes. But what does it actually mean?
In life, what we look at is not nearly as important as how we look at it. Our perception of the world is what creates our life experience.
Behind every human being is a story, a rich personal history that is filled with the tales of our experiences in life, both good and bad.
Such experiences and their memories create our perception: Our unique view of the world around us. For example, if a dog bit you at a young age, you may have a slight prejudice towards or even fear of dogs. Similarly, if you had a happy and loving pet growing up, you will likely project some of that positive feeling about animals into your present reality.
When we explore and are eventually able to understand this concept, we have the capacity to make adjustments to our personal perception.
If you have always been afraid of heights but one day, you happen to suddenly remember that time when you were 4 years old and you got stuck really high up a tree, the fear becomes somewhat silly. You may realise that the fear you felt so strongly for so long is not actually real, and that you have been creating it from the place of your 4 year old self.
This is what it means to change the way we look at things.
This concept can be compared in a small way to the Universal Law of Relativity. That is, when we compare something with something else, it may seem better or worse. But the thing itself doesn’t change, only our perception of it does.
Our thoughts remain real and true until challenged. If you take a moment to look a little deeper at your thoughts, and their origin and justification for existing, you may find that your perception has been somewhat skewed and is therefore not true at all.
It is the spiritual individual’s quest to seek out truth, and personal truth is a large part of that journey. Personal truth is, among other things, to have a deep and honest knowledge of ones perception of life and therefore ones ‘self’.
When we set this quest for truth as our intention, we are opening ourselves up to finding a new awareness of what is, rather than what we believed previously. Only then can we allow the screens of judgement and bias that we have manufactured within us to slowly drop away. This is a life-long process, but it is empowering to know and understand that almost anything in life can be adjusted with a change of perception.
What is your interpretation of this famous quote by Dr Wayne Dyer? Share it in the comments below!
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – Watch our inspirational video on this principle here