Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

person with arms wide open standing above low tide water during sunset

You are a multidimensional being who creates your reality. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself means that you are going to have to lose your mind and create a new one.

To live in the realm of the unpredictable is to be all potentials at once.

To biologically, energetically, physically, emotionally, chemically, neurologically, and genetically change ourselves and to stop living by the unconscious affi­rmation that competition, strife, success, fame, physical beauty, sexuality, possessions, and power are the be-all and end-all in life is when we break from the chains of the mundane. I fear that this so-called recipe for ultimate success in life has kept us looking outside of ourselves for answers and true happiness, when the real answers and true joy have always been within. – Dr. Joe Dispenza

Have you seen “What the Bleep Do We Know?” I haven’t yet too, hehe. It’s an award-winning documentary that featured Dr. Joe, which he has been well-known for. It’s likely worth checking out given the vast knowledge he shared in this book.

It’s where science meets spirituality. He used scientific language to explain spiritual concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. He cited many scientific studies and researches to back up his explanations. And for better comprehension, the book has several diagrams too.

It contains three major parts. The first two are theories, the knowledge part. And the last is the application of those theories, the experience part.

Let’s recreate ourselves!

The Observer Effect

What quantum physicists discovered was that the person observing (or measuring) the tiny particles that make up atoms affects the behavior of energy and matter. Quantum experiments demonstrated that electrons exist simultaneously in an in­finite array of possibilities or probabilities in an invisible fi­eld of energy. But only when an observer focuses attention on any location of any one electron does that electron appear. In other words, a particle cannot manifest in reality—that is, ordinary space-time as we know it—until we observe it.

Simply put, we (the observer) won’t see it until we observe it. Or we can also say it’s not there until we believe it’s there. Beliefs create our reality.

The moment the observer looks for an electron in that invisible field of energy, there is a specific point in time and space when all probabilities of the electron collapse into physical reality. This means that electrons (subatomic particles) exist as pure potential while they are not being observed.

It also means that everything already exists potentially having all possibilities of manifestation in the physical reality. It just depends on the observer where he puts his attention.

This is why Dr. Joe calls us “The Quantum You,” because we can learn to direct the observer effect and collapse (manifest) infinite probabilities into the reality that we choose.

Our greatest potential already exists in the quantum field (non-physical reality). It’s about time we actualized ourselves!

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Joe Dispenza

Electromagnetic Signature

All potential experiences exist in the quantum ­field as a sea of in­finite possibilities. When you change your electromagnetic signature (by changing how you think and feel) to match one that already exists in the fi­eld, your body will be drawn to that event, you will move into a new line of time, or the event will fi­nd you in your new reality.

If you already got your head wrapped around some Law of Attraction principles, you probably know by now that we attract who we are being. That’s our “electromagnetic signature.” (Cool term!)

So how do we know our electromagnetic signature? Through our thoughts and our feelings.

A study that took place at the HeartMath Research Center in California demonstrates that the quantum field doesn’t respond simply to our intention — our thoughts. It doesn’t just respond to our emotions — our feelings. It only responds when those two are aligned or coherent — that is, when they are broadcasting the same signal. (HeartMath calls this “heart coherence”)

Heart Coherence = thought + feeling = electromagnetic signature = state of being

Dr. Joe finds it a useful model to think of thoughts as the electrical charge and feelings as the magnetic charge in the quantum field. The thoughts send an electrical signal out into the field and the feelings magnetically draw experiences back to us.

All potential experiences exist as electromagnetic signatures in the quantum field — for genius, for wealth, for freedom, for health, for awesomeness — everything.

The question is what are we broadcasting (consciously or unconsciously) on a daily basis?

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Joe Dispenza

Breaking the Habit

The quantum model of reality tells us that to change our lives, we must fundamentally change the ways we think, act, and feel. We must change our state of being. Because how we think, feel, and behave is, in essence, our personality, it is our personality that creates our personal reality. So to create a new personal reality, a new life, we must create a new personality; we must become someone else.

To change, then, is to “be” greater than our present circumstances, greater than our environment.

“Face the reality,” if you don’t want to be called “crazy.”

But to think, feel and act in the same way, and expect different results — doesn’t it sound crazy to you?

Dr. Joe teaches us a principle in neuroscience called Hebb’s law: “nerve cells that fire together, wire together.” If we keep firing the same neural patterns, by living our life the same way each day, re-acting in the same manner to the experiences we have in our familiar reality, then we “hard-wire” our brains to those conditions.

In time, whatever those repeated thoughts, feelings and actions are, they will become an automatic, unconscious habit. When the environment is influencing our minds to that extent, our habitat becomes our habit.

This is when you get “stuck in a rut.” You have formed the habit of being yourself by becoming stuck in your environment.  Your thinking has become equal to the external conditions, and thus as a quantum observer, you are re-creating a mind that only re-creates similar circumstances into your reality.

So how do we break the habit?

To rephrase Einstein, we cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it. We have to think in new ways and therefore, feel and act in new ways too.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Joe Dispenza

That’s the good news! We can end the habit and create a new beneficial one.

Neuroscience has proven that we can change our brains (and therefore our beliefs, attitudes, and habits) by thinking differently. We do it through mental rehearsal — repeatedly imagining performing an action. We can make our thoughts so real that the brain changes to look like the event has already become a physical reality.

“Create your reality,” that’s what is called “awesome.”

Epigenetics

Just by changing our thoughts, feelings, emotional reactions, and behaviors (for example, making healthier lifestyle choices with regard to nutrition and stress level), we send our cells new signals, and they express new proteins without changing the genetic blueprint. So while the DNA code stays the same, once a cell is activated in a new way by new information, the cell can create thousands of variations of the same gene. We can signal our genes to rewrite our future.

Did you know that we currently use only 3% of our current 2-strand DNA? And that the 97% is dormant and considered as junk because science can’t figure out what it’s for?

Hmmm… what if that 97% is our unrealized potential? Could it be our Divine Nature of Awesomeness (DNA)???

Dr. Joe says that our genes are as changeable as our brains. They are always changing and being influenced. There are experience-dependent genes that are activated when there is growth, healing, or learning; and there are behavioral-state-dependent genes that are influenced during stress, emotional arousal, or dreaming.

Epigenetics (meaning “above genetics”) is the study of how the environment influences gene activity. It gives us knowledge that we can activate our gene activity and change our genetic destiny (for example, hereditary sickness).

Genes are activated by chemical signals through the emotions we have from experiences. So what we can do, based on what the quantum model suggests, is pretend we are already having the experience to elicit an emotion. And we can do that by thought alone.

Want to activate your Divine Nature of Awesomeness? Think awesome. Feel awesome. Be awesome.

becoming supernatural joe dispenza

Don’t Become Some-body

If the quantum model of reality ultimately defi­nes everything as energy, why do we experience ourselves more as physical beings than as beings of energy? We could say that the survival-oriented emotions (emotions are energy in motion) are lower-frequency or lower-energy emotions. They vibrate at a slower wavelength and therefore ground us into being physical. We become denser, heavier, and more corporeal, because that energy causes us to vibrate more slowly. The body quite literally becomes composed of more mass and less energy . . . more matter, less mind.

Your honor, exhibit 5A. The image you see below was taken from the book.

comparison of survival emotions and elevated emotions

Dr. Joe observed that negativity runs so high because we are stressed by living in survival mode. This happens when we focus on what he calls the Big Three: body, environment, and time. As a result, we begin to define ourselves within the confines of the physical realm; we become less spiritual, more material.

He reminds us that who we really are has nothing to do with the Big Three. Who we are is a consciousness connected to a quantum field of intelligence (Source).

When we become “somebody” else other than who we really are, we feel disconnected or separate from Source. This separation creates those survival emotions with lower vibrations: fear, anger, lack, etc.

What we want is to become “some-one” — oneness with Source. This becoming is what we call “ascension.” We ascend to higher consciousness. We energetically vibrate higher. More energy, less matter. We become more spiritual, less material.

How can we do that? To become that some-one, we have to think as the Source thinks.

How can we know we’re thinking as the Source thinks? We feel good. We feel love. We feel awesome!

Frontal Lobe

When we are in creation, we are activating the brain’s creative center, the frontal lobe (part of the forebrain and comprising the prefrontal cortex). This is the newest, most evolved part of our human nervous system and the most adaptable part of the brain. It tends to be the creative center of who we are, and the brain’s CEO or decision-making apparatus. The frontal lobe is the seat of our attention, focused concentration, awareness, observation, and consciousness. It is where we speculate on possibilities, demonstrate firm intention, make conscious decisions, control impulsive and emotional behaviors, and learn new things.

Meet the CEO. Dr. Joe says this is the domain of creation and change. It has three essential functions, which will come into play when we learn and practice meditation techniques.

  1. Metacognition: Becoming Self-Aware to Inhibit Unwanted States of Mind and Body

The first function of the frontal lobe is to become self-aware. Before we create the new self, first we have to stop being the old self. We have to become aware of how the old self thinks, feels, and acts. We have to “know thy self.”

The purpose of becoming self-aware is so that you can scrutinize your thoughts, actions, or emotions that you no longer want to experience. You are able to inhibit the states of being that cause the firing and wiring of the same old, same old neural networks and thus, no longer signaling genes in the same way. This process is where you begin to “lose your mind.”

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Joe Dispenza

  1. Creating a New Mind to Think about New Ways of Being

The second function of the frontal lobe is to create a new mind — rewiring and creating new neural pathways of the brain. This is where we begin to ask ourselves questions about what we really want, how and who we want to be, and what we want to change about ourselves and our circumstances.

Then, the frontal lobe gathers information and combines them in new ways to create a new mind. Information may come from books you’ve read, experiences you’ve had, and so forth.

  1. Making Thought More Real Than Anything Else

The frontal lobe’s third vital role is to make thought more real than anything else. Dr. Joe explains that when we’re in a creative state, the frontal lobe becomes highly activated and shuts off all the other circuits in the brain to focus on a single-minded thought.

It’s where the ego quiets down its noise. It’s where we transcend, become BIGGER than the Big Three. There is no-thing: no time, no space, no body. “Nobody, nobody but You.” Pure consciousness. Pure creativity.

And when we’re in that creation mode, the frontal lobe is in control. It becomes so engaged that your thought becomes your reality and your experience.

The Gap

When we memorize addictive emotional states such as guilt, shame, anger, fear, anxiety, judgment, depression, self- importance, or hatred, we develop a gap between the way we appear and the way we really are. The former is how we want other people to see us. The latter is our state of being when we are not interacting with all of the different experiences, diverse things, and assorted people at various times and places in our lives. If we sit long enough without doing anything, we begin to feel something. That something is who we really are.

Your honor, exhibit 7D. Again, taken from the book.

the gap illustration showing new identity

Dr. Joe realized this gap when he personally experienced it at the peak of popularity of What the Bleep Do We Know? Despite reaching massive “success” as we like to perceive it, he felt empty. He felt “the gap.”

The gap is the emptiness we feel when how we appear on the outside (top hand) is not how we feel on the inside (bottom hand). It’s the identity gap created when we become “some-body,” somebody else than who we really are.

Dr. Joe describes that we wear various emotions that form our identity. In order to remember who we think we are (“some-body”), we need to recreate the same experiences to reaffirm our personality and the corresponding emotions. To reconstruct our ego, we become attached to our external world by identifying with everyone and everything. It becomes a habit, an addiction.

Want to close that gap? Dr. Joe stresses that change — closing the gap — must begin from within. This is why we have to do the inner work of becoming self-aware. We have to confront those feelings. We have to look at the dark places inside of us where we try to hide who we really are.

When we break the chains of that bond, we liberate the body. When we liberate the body emotionally, we close the gap. When we close the gap, we release the energy that was once used to produce it. With that energy, we now have the raw material we can use to create a new life.

Closing the Gap

In other words, how do you become more observant; break your emotional bonds with the body, the environment, and time; and close the gap? The answer is simple: meditation.

In the Tibetan language, to meditate means “to become familiar with.”

We’re already equipped with the frontal lobe. Now comes the tool, meditation — to become familiar with ourselves — first with the old, then with the new.

If you want to be happy, the first step is to stop being unhappy — stop thinking thoughts that make you unhappy. You have to decide to stop being your old self. Become aware of how the old self thinks, feels, and acts. Then, change them. Think, feel, and act in a new way to create the new self that you want to become.

Another meaning we have in Sanskrit, to meditate means “to cultivate self.” Think of it as a gardening practice. You cultivate the soil, uproot the weeds (old self), and plant new seeds (new self). And you attend to the garden consistently so it bears new fruit (new life).

If there’s one piece of advice you can get from anyone or anything and one practice you can make to really change your life — MEDITATE.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Joe Dispenza

Small Steps into One Easy Habit

In the beginning, the newness of the task you are undertaking might cause you to feel unsettled or uncomfortable. That’s okay. It’s just your body, which has become your mind, resisting the new training process.

Whenever you’ve learned anything new that required your full attention and committed practice, you probably followed specific steps during your initial instruction. This makes it easier to break down the complexities of the skill or task at hand so that the mind can stay focused without being overwhelmed. In any endeavor, of course, your goal is to memorize what you’re learning so that eventually you can do it naturally, effortlessly, and subconsciously. Essentially, you want to make this new skill a habit.

The last part of the book is all about the application of the theories and principles presented in the preceding parts.

Here’s an overview of the 4-week meditation process offered in the book:

  1. Induction – opening the door to your creative state (shifting your brain from Beta to Alpha state)
  2. Recognizing – identifying the problem
  3. Admitting and Declaring – acknowledging your true self rather than “some-body” else
  4. Surrendering – yielding to a greater power and allowing it to resolve your limitations or blocks
  5. Observing and Reminding – dismantling the memory of the old you
  6. Redirecting – playing the change game
  7. Creating and Rehearsing – creating a new mind for your new future

As we go about this unlearning and learning, breaking, and recreating process, Dr. Joe reminds us to be patient with ourselves.

It took time when we unconsciously learn the old patterns of our old self. It will also take time, as our awareness expands, to consciously unlearn them and create new patterns. And we create the new self by taking small steps until they form into one easy habit.

It will be difficult at first. But over time, with practice, it will get easier and easier.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Joe Dispenza

Greatness in You

When you demonstrate change, you’ve memorized an internal order that is greater than any environmental condition. It’s keeping your energy up, staying conscious in a new reality, independent of your body, independent of the environment, and independent of time. If you can live your life in the same energy that you created with, then something different should show up in your world—that’s the law. When your behaviors match your intentions, when your actions are equal to your thoughts, when you’re being someone else, then you are ahead of your time. Your environment is no longer controlling how you think and feel; how you think and feel is controlling your environment. That’s greatness, and it’s always been within you.

When we have closed the gap, when how we appear is who we really are, when the “some-body” finally becomes “some-one,” we are releasing the past, the old self. We break the habit of being the old self. We feel free. That freedom brings us joy — the joy of Being — new self.

This new self holds so much promise of a new life for you.

There will come a moment when your life begins to unfold with new and wonderful events, there will come a moment that you will be in awe, wonder, and utter wakefulness when you realize it was your mind that created them. In your rapture, you will look back from this vantage point at your entire life, and you will not want to change anything. You will not regret any action or feel bad about whatever has happened to you, because in that moment of your manifestation, it will all make sense to you. You will see how your past got you to this great state. As the result of your efforts, the consciousness of the greater mind has begun to be your conscious mind; its nature is becoming your nature. You naturally become more divine. This is who you really are. This is your natural state of being.

Dr. Joe assures that when you have come to memorize your new state of being — a new personality — your world and your personal reality will begin to reflect your internal changes. You are headed to a new destiny.

Your job then is to consciously stay in alignment with your new mind, independent of your environment, and insist on being your new self.

So, are you ready for the new you?

Break thy self. Know thy self.

Then, BE thy self!

Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

 

PS: Thank you for taking the time to read. Tell me, what insight most resonated with you?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DR. JOE DISPENZA first caught the public’s eye as one of the scientists featured in the award-winning film What the BLEEP Do We Know!? Since that movie’s release in 2004, his work has expanded, deepened, and spiraled in several key directions—all of which reflect his passion for exploring how people can use the latest findings from the fields of neuroscience and quantum physics to not only heal illness but also to enjoy a more fulfilled and happy life. Dr. Joe is driven by the conviction that each one of us has the potential for greatness and unlimited abilities.

Dr. Joe received his doctor of chiropractic degree from Life University, graduating with honors. His postgraduate training covered neurology, neuroscience, brain function and chemistry, cellular biology, memory formation, and aging and longevity. When not lecturing and writing, Dr. Joe sees patients at his chiropractic clinic near Olympia, Washington.

Visit him at drjoedispenza.com

Other Books by Joe Dispenza

Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon
You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter
Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind

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