Joe Dispenza has been mentioned in several threads, but I wanted to post about his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself (2013) _http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Habit-Being-Yourself-Create/dp/1401938094/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447450437&sr=1-1&keywords=joe+dispenza. When I was in EMDR therapy, my therapist mentioned the name of someone I’ve since forgotten, but when I did a search I found a video of this guy interviewing of Joe Dispenza, so a serendipitous path to discovering his work.
At one point in this book he says something to the effect of people asking “Well all of this neuroplasticity information is great but how do I DO it? How do I change my brainÉ” The first part of the book goes into the information about neuroplasticity and the second part is actual writing exercises and meditation for each week. I downloaded the sound files from his site at _https://rf127.infusionsoft.com/app/storeFront/showStoreFront. He give a 4-week program, which is a loose framework and can be extended. In the writing exercises you choose one emotion you want to work on/rewire, do the writing exercises along with the meditation. The meditations really work the “being present” attention muscles.
The first week’s meditation work with what he calls induction, using a technique I’ve not come across before. Rather than focusing on breathing or your body, you focus on the SPACE that different parts of your body occupy in space, or the space around different parts of your body and then beyond your body. This creates a powerful state of what he calls coherence, all the parts of the brain are brought into a coherent alpha state. It almost feels like your body has disappeared sometimes (for me anyway), so it’s not a distraction.
I had some skepticism about this initially, because I’ve been working to reconnect with and be aware of my body, a challenging task for chronic PTSD peeps. But it truly is powerful. In my particular journey, I think it was necessary to work through some of the worst trauma memories with EMDR therapy before I could move to this step. He uses a term I’ve not come across before “memorized emotions” that our bodies operate from. This term is very powerful for me because it is so neutral. There is no blame attached to this term, just acknowledging where I’m operating from, my own ignorance in a neutral way and helps me work from the objective observer to make more enlightened choices. Our bodies are running the show/our brains from these memorized emotions. From other psychology books, like Strangers to Ourselves, understanding that 95% of our thought processes are run by System 1, it brought so many things into focus. He says in the meditation something like “Once you become the observer of the program, you no longer are the program”.
By doing the writing exercises, the meditations daily, I find I’m uncovering deeper and deeper layers of limiting emotions and beliefs. The process is constantly evolving. The guided meditations are like training wheels, but at present, I still need the structure. Some of it is not fun (to say the least), but well worth it. Another powerful aspect, and something else unique to what he does in one stage of the meditation, is when noticing the emotions/thoughts/behaviour you’re working on coming up, saying “change” out loud to yourself as well as a reinforcing statement like “that state of being was never loving to me”. This is used throughout the day, not just in the meditations, but you reinforce during the meditations. Eventually this overrides the habitual thoughts and rewires the neurons in new ways in a continual positive feedback loop. From my experience it’s doing the Work on steroids; not just catching myself and observing the program, but being proactive and choosing to change it with new thoughts/feelings/behaviour.
I experienced a vivid example of how it’s working the other night coming home from work on the train. The ticket police came by checking fares. The standard response to this was always instant knee-jerk reaction of fear even though I always have my fare, like a kick in the gut. I didn’t realize it until I got home that there was NO reaction that night. I was engrossed in my book and when I looked up and saw them, I pulled out my ticket, showed them and went back to reading. If a deeply embedded, unconscious, illogical fear program like programmed fear of that “authority figure” can be totally transformed, anything is possible!
He also focuses on the spiritual aspect, tapping into the universal mind, as he calls it, making a conscious choice to relinquish the programmed limitation to a greater mind to resolve in a way that is just right for you and then asking open questions in the meditation which stimulate the prefrontal cortex. These are also part of the writing exercises.
So many dots are connecting. The C’s talking about making small choices every day
Q: (L) Alright. So, when I gave these talks here at these meetings we had a few years ago, and I described making a decision to help and just do one thing after another, day after day; in making such choices one day after the other, will this gradually move you step-by-step to a different timeline?
A: Yes
Q: (L) So it's accumulation of daily steps, daily choices, daily activities?
By going after these core beliefs and the emotional baggage attached to them, I am also retraining my brain/mind that I DO have the power of choice. It may seem like a basic Life 101 to some peeps, but for me it is a skill I have struggled to learn and develop. It is painful to look honestly at how I have lived my life by default for the most part, because that’s the way the neural pathways were set up from the abuse and my own ignorance that it was possible to make choices and that they could be in favour of my destiny. Better late than never! And how can one move to an alternative reality if they can’t even see the choices available to be made, let alone make the choices that contribute to a different reality than the one psychopaths have created?
In my experience, this is the best “how to” book I’ve found. All of the books I’ve read contribute to my understanding and are fascinating, but this book is application 101.
At one point in this book he says something to the effect of people asking “Well all of this neuroplasticity information is great but how do I DO it? How do I change my brainÉ” The first part of the book goes into the information about neuroplasticity and the second part is actual writing exercises and meditation for each week. I downloaded the sound files from his site at _https://rf127.infusionsoft.com/app/storeFront/showStoreFront. He give a 4-week program, which is a loose framework and can be extended. In the writing exercises you choose one emotion you want to work on/rewire, do the writing exercises along with the meditation. The meditations really work the “being present” attention muscles.
The first week’s meditation work with what he calls induction, using a technique I’ve not come across before. Rather than focusing on breathing or your body, you focus on the SPACE that different parts of your body occupy in space, or the space around different parts of your body and then beyond your body. This creates a powerful state of what he calls coherence, all the parts of the brain are brought into a coherent alpha state. It almost feels like your body has disappeared sometimes (for me anyway), so it’s not a distraction.
I had some skepticism about this initially, because I’ve been working to reconnect with and be aware of my body, a challenging task for chronic PTSD peeps. But it truly is powerful. In my particular journey, I think it was necessary to work through some of the worst trauma memories with EMDR therapy before I could move to this step. He uses a term I’ve not come across before “memorized emotions” that our bodies operate from. This term is very powerful for me because it is so neutral. There is no blame attached to this term, just acknowledging where I’m operating from, my own ignorance in a neutral way and helps me work from the objective observer to make more enlightened choices. Our bodies are running the show/our brains from these memorized emotions. From other psychology books, like Strangers to Ourselves, understanding that 95% of our thought processes are run by System 1, it brought so many things into focus. He says in the meditation something like “Once you become the observer of the program, you no longer are the program”.
By doing the writing exercises, the meditations daily, I find I’m uncovering deeper and deeper layers of limiting emotions and beliefs. The process is constantly evolving. The guided meditations are like training wheels, but at present, I still need the structure. Some of it is not fun (to say the least), but well worth it. Another powerful aspect, and something else unique to what he does in one stage of the meditation, is when noticing the emotions/thoughts/behaviour you’re working on coming up, saying “change” out loud to yourself as well as a reinforcing statement like “that state of being was never loving to me”. This is used throughout the day, not just in the meditations, but you reinforce during the meditations. Eventually this overrides the habitual thoughts and rewires the neurons in new ways in a continual positive feedback loop. From my experience it’s doing the Work on steroids; not just catching myself and observing the program, but being proactive and choosing to change it with new thoughts/feelings/behaviour.
I experienced a vivid example of how it’s working the other night coming home from work on the train. The ticket police came by checking fares. The standard response to this was always instant knee-jerk reaction of fear even though I always have my fare, like a kick in the gut. I didn’t realize it until I got home that there was NO reaction that night. I was engrossed in my book and when I looked up and saw them, I pulled out my ticket, showed them and went back to reading. If a deeply embedded, unconscious, illogical fear program like programmed fear of that “authority figure” can be totally transformed, anything is possible!
He also focuses on the spiritual aspect, tapping into the universal mind, as he calls it, making a conscious choice to relinquish the programmed limitation to a greater mind to resolve in a way that is just right for you and then asking open questions in the meditation which stimulate the prefrontal cortex. These are also part of the writing exercises.
So many dots are connecting. The C’s talking about making small choices every day
Q: (L) Alright. So, when I gave these talks here at these meetings we had a few years ago, and I described making a decision to help and just do one thing after another, day after day; in making such choices one day after the other, will this gradually move you step-by-step to a different timeline?
A: Yes
Q: (L) So it's accumulation of daily steps, daily choices, daily activities?
By going after these core beliefs and the emotional baggage attached to them, I am also retraining my brain/mind that I DO have the power of choice. It may seem like a basic Life 101 to some peeps, but for me it is a skill I have struggled to learn and develop. It is painful to look honestly at how I have lived my life by default for the most part, because that’s the way the neural pathways were set up from the abuse and my own ignorance that it was possible to make choices and that they could be in favour of my destiny. Better late than never! And how can one move to an alternative reality if they can’t even see the choices available to be made, let alone make the choices that contribute to a different reality than the one psychopaths have created?
In my experience, this is the best “how to” book I’ve found. All of the books I’ve read contribute to my understanding and are fascinating, but this book is application 101.
