Dr. Wayne Dyer once said these words that change everything about our reality. He told his audience: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Take a second to read that again and then tell me you are not at least a bit curious about this statement. I know I was when I first heard it. Does this mean I can actually have a say in what happens to me? Better yet, can I control ‘MY OWN’ reality?

And indeed that’s what he meant, because once you understand the profoundness and the depth of this truth, it will change your life and turn it upside down. When was the last time you felt that all things are pointed against you. Did you ever think that there is nothing you can do to change the world around you because you are just ‘one’ person and there are so many unknown factors?

What if I told you that against the seemingly staggering odds of you affecting anything in this world, there is a surprising and simple way to change what you experience ? Would you be cusrious to know a bit more ?

Of course you would.

Reality is a subjective experience for each of us, which explains why one and the same objective experience can prompt people to have completely different labels for that experience.  Let’s take a simple example to illustrate my point on that: Imagine you are waiting at a bus stop and the bus is late. That is a common experience most of us had in our lives. Now imagine that one person is putting the label on this event that says: “I hate the fact that the bus is late because it will cause me to waste my time here while I could be doing something else. ” The other person looks at the SAME event with a different label and thinks positively: “I don’t mind that the bus is a bit slower today because I have an interesting book with me and since I’m in the middle of the chapter, I’ll probably get a chance to finish this one while I am waiting. ”

As you can see from this example, the choice in the label is what decides whether we have a positive or a negative experience. Let me give you a quick story from my own life that just might convince you. A couple of years ago I rented the two top floors of a large old house in an area that had some problems with frequent break-ins. It wasn’t really a bad area of the city, but because most houses had lots of lush greenspace and there wasn’t too much street-lighting, it was an easy neighborhood for thieves.

In that house there also was a basement unit that had a seperate entrance around the side of the garden. That unit waqs home to the teenage son of the homeowner and a friend of his and shortly after they moved in they ended up with a puppy. It wasn’t a small dog either, they had gotten a Rottweiler. Within a few months the dog had grown and slept outside in the yard. All along the dog was fairly noisy at night, scratching, whining and at times barking at a squirrel in the bushes. At first that bothered me since the favorite area where the dog slept was right below my bedroom window and sleep was only possible with a few interruptions. So what to do about the noisy dog ?

One day, I decided to reconsider my options in the matter and looked at the situation in a different way. I no longer viewed the dog as a nightly nuissance because of the noise, and instead I was thankful that we had such a large dog to guard the property at night. Suerely, if I can hear the dog, everyone else could too, and no burglar would be dumb enough to climb over a gate straight into the yard of a male Rottweiler. And here is the amazing thing that happened right after that decision. 

I never once had a noise issue with the dog again. It was in the yard every night and did it’s rounds, but there was little barking, scratching or other disruptions to my sleep. I actually slept much better than before becaue my mind was made up that we were not going to have a break-in at this place due to an attentive watchdog that I had embraced as part of the household.

There is an element of the subconscious mind that makes a switch and suddenly you see the world around you with a different filter. You may argue that nothing has changed to the outside observer, but I am here to tell you that it doesn’t even matter because the only reality that will matter to you is the subjective experience of it.

I suggest you make a list of things that are currently weighing on your mind and then see if you can’t find a shred of good in each of them. Once you have that anchor, rewrite each with the new label and then throw out the page with the old issues. You will be amazed at what regular practise of this simple strategy can do to improve your life every day.

Over time, the new way of thinking will take hold in your subconscious mind and you will default to positive interpretations of your reality shedding the burden of being a victim of your daily life and taking control of your reality.

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