Lessons Learned from Wayne Dyer

Choose your response, question blame, and bring more kindness to the way you see yourself and others.

Someone behaves in a way you don't like. Your mind starts building the case for why they are responsible for everything you do next.

But their behavior and your response are different parts of the situation. You can examine your part without excusing theirs.

In this episode, I reflect on teachings from Wayne Dyer that influenced my work. They invite us to pay attention to perspective, responsibility, self-love, and the experience we are creating now.

Own the response you make

You may be able to justify a reaction by describing what someone else did. That doesn't remove your ability to evaluate the reaction.

Did you act in a way you respect? Did the response serve the outcome you wanted? What would you like to do differently?

Those questions keep your attention on choices you can work with. You don't need to wait until the other person behaves perfectly to choose your own conduct.

Taking responsibility for your response gives you something practical to learn from.

Notice how perspective changes experience

You can look at a relationship through a long list of complaints. You can also examine what you appreciate and what you want to understand.

The person may remain the same while your experience of them changes. You are paying attention to different details and giving them different meaning.

The Self-Coaching Model connects thoughts to feelings, feelings to actions, and actions to results. A changed interpretation can lead to a changed response.

Ask how you are currently looking at someone. Is that perspective helping you participate in the relationship as you want to?

Question the usefulness of blame

Blame can keep your focus on the person or situation you want to change. You may spend hours explaining why they shouldn't have done what they did.

Then ask what the explanation has changed in your own life.

You can acknowledge responsibility for an action while also choosing what you want to do next. Repeating the accusation isn't the same as responding to the problem.

When you notice yourself blaming, redirect attention toward a useful choice: a conversation, a boundary, a change in your thinking, or an action that addresses the task.

Care about character more than controlling reputation

Other people will have opinions about you. You can't manage every interpretation they make.

You can give attention to your own character: how you act, what you practice, and whether you are living according to values you respect.

Trying to control every opinion can pull you into people-pleasing or constant defense. Working on your own conduct gives your effort a clearer place to go.

Ask what kind of person you want to be in the next interaction, rather than only what you want someone to think of you afterward.

Keep both people whole in a relationship

You and another person don't need identical preferences, opinions, or routines to have a relationship.

Trying to become one shared identity can turn ordinary differences into problems. You may expect agreement on everything from food to how the house should look.

Consider what changes when each person is allowed to be distinct. You can communicate, coordinate, and care for each other without requiring sameness.

Notice which differences need a practical agreement and which you can simply allow.

Practice enjoying your own company

Your relationship with yourself deserves attention. How do you speak to yourself when no one else is present? Do you make your own company a kind place to be?

You can work on both appreciating yourself and choosing how you spend time alone. What interests you? What would feel caring or meaningful?

This doesn't require pretending you never want connection. It asks whether you can bring more respect and enjoyment to the time you have with yourself.

Use one lesson today

Choose a current situation and ask which of these ideas applies. Perhaps you want to respond more deliberately, let someone have an opinion, or stop making a difference into a conflict.

Write the thought you are practicing and the feeling and action it creates. Then choose one more useful response.

You don't have to collect another idea before applying this one. The lesson becomes part of your life through the way you use it.