Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

Dr. Joe Dispenza (left) with Jonathan Lockwood

My apologies for the delay in this report.  Along with more than 300 others, Rachel and I attended Dr. Joe Dispenza’s “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself - How to Lose Your Mind and Create A New One,” held April 17th & 18th in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Before I give you my thoughts, I want to take a minute to make something clear. If you’ve paid any sort of attention to this site, I make clear that I am not billing myself as an LoA expert–but that, while I make contact with people throughout the U.S. and record their stories–I hope, not only to publish them for your benefit, but for mine too.  So it doesn’t make any sense for me to give praise to something I don’t really like.

That said, we loved this event.  For me it was the ideal combo of both Science and Spirituality. I mean, I knew that, with a degree in Biochemistry and currently studying neuroscience, we were going to get the science.  But I was impressed with the frequency with which he kept bringing things back to the spiritual as well. As Joe would later reveal, the path he has chosen is one that helps people change. There was lots of information about the relationship between thoughts and emotions.  They so often work against us in that negative thoughts produce negative emotions, which brand these thoughts into our long-term memory.  Negative emotions, in turn, bring back negative thoughts and so on, and the cycle continues as both our mind (through thoughts) and body (through emotions) become conditioned in an ever-repeating negative loop.

The good news, of course, is that this loop works just as well with positive thoughts and emotions too.  The problem?  The negative thought/emotion cycle is so engrained in us, it takes work to change it.  As Joe said, “The greatest habit to break is the habit of being ourselves.”

As a chiropractor, Dispenza is clearly interested in optimum health, and this is never far off from anything he’s discussing.  He explains that we are always in one of two states:  survival or creation, and we only have so much energy for both.  If you are nearly always living in that stressful, anxious survival mode, there will be little energy left for growth and repair–which includes the energy needed to prevent disease from taking hold of your body. So he urges us to closely consider what we are “mentally rehearsing” every day, and what our bodies are doing every day.

And he reminds us:  “nerve cells that fire together wire together.”  He showed a remarkable video, demonstrating how, when we stop having a thought, the connection in our brain that it corresponds to…will disconnect.  Likewise, if we continue to have a new thought, say, one that isn’t part of the negative programming most of us hold–but perhaps a willful, positive thought…powerful, new connections in the brain are made.  So we really can use our intentional thoughts to change our brains and our reality!

The thing most people remember Joe from is his interviews in What the Bleep Do We Know? It’s been well documented that his description of how he ‘creates his day’ was the most popular portion of the film.  The fact that it was so attractive to people is one of the motivations behind this site:  people want to know what precisely to do. It’s encouraging to hear people like Bob Proctor express so confidently what the LoA is and how it works every time.  It’s fascinating to hear quantum physicists explain the actual science behind intention.  But so many people still ask, “Yeah…but what do you actually do?” And Joe delivers well in this area.

One of the most captivating mental pictures he drew for us brings life to breaking the habit of being ourselves:  “We are riding on the back of a giant, and we have to learn how to whisper in his ear.” Joe reminds us that we have access to about ten percent of our brain, the part that is conscious, logical and reasoned.  But ninety percent, the subconscious, brimming with all of the negative and positive habits and behaviors is not readily accessible.

Meditation is what can open the door between the conscious and unconscious mind, and this is best accomplished when the brain slows down to that theta brain wave state.  This, he says, is “magicland,” when the body is asleep, but the mind awake.  At the end of Saturday’s session, he led us through a guided meditation that Rachel and I thought was incredibly well done.

There are three words that form the basis, I think, of Dispenza’s message:  change, evolution and neuroplasticity, and they all point to the same things.  We can experience amazing, positive changes, if we just break the habit of being ourselves–and whisper into the ear of the giant that is our human potential.

I’m only a little way through his 2007 book, “Evolve Your Brain, The Science of Changing Your Mind,” and every page so far has been exciting.  In my notes, I found this personal entry:  “This has been the greatest uniting of science and spirituality I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.” So let it not go without saying… I enthusiastically recommend his work!  Do visit his website when you get the chance.   http://www.drjoedispenza.com/