Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Read online

  Praise for Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

  “Dr. Joe Dispenza wants to empower you to let go of negative beliefs and embrace the positive. This intelligent, informative, practical book will help you be your best, freest self so that, as Dr. Joe puts it, you can ‘step toward your own destiny.’”

  — Judith Orloff, M.D., author of Emotional Freedom

  “In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Dr. Joe Dispenza explores the energetic aspects of reality with sound science and provides the reader with the necessary tools to make important positive changes in their life. Anyone who reads this book and applies the steps will benefit from their efforts. Its cutting-edge content is explained in a simple language that is accessible to anyone, and provides a user-friendly guide for sustained change from the inside out.”

  — Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., Director of Research, HeartMath Research Center

  “Dr. Joe Dispenza’s entertaining and highly accessible manual for rewiring your mental and emotional circuitry carries a simple but potent message: what you think today determines how you live tomorrow.”

  — Lynne McTaggart, best-selling author of The Field, The Intention Experiment, and The Bond

  “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself is a powerful blend of leading-edge science and real-life applications woven into the perfect formula for everyday living.

  “The hierarchy of scientific knowledge tells us that when new discoveries change what we know about the atom, what we know of ourselves and our brains must change as well. Through the 14 concise chapters of this book, Dr. Joe Dispenza draws upon a lifetime of experience to describe how subtle shifts in the way we use our brains are the quantum key to life-affirming changes in our bodies, our lives, and our relationships. In a responsible, well-researched, and practical manual that you’ll want at your fingertips for your personal practice, Dr. Joe’s easy-to-use, step-by-step techniques give everyone the opportunity to experiment with their own quantum field to discover for themselves what works best.

  “From the powerful exercises highlighting the thinking that keeps us stuck in old beliefs, to the simple practices that catapult us beyond our limiting beliefs, this book is the owners’ manual to a successful life we wish we’d been given in first grade. If you’ve always known that there’s more to you than you learned in Biology 101, but find yourself intimidated by the technical language of science, this is the beautiful book you’ve been waiting for!”

  — Gregg Braden, New York Times best-selling author of Deep Truth and The Divine Matrix

  “As a semiretired psychologist who has thought about many of these issues for years, I have to admit that [this book] will likely change some long-held beliefs in the field of psychology. Dr. Joe’s conclusions, which are well grounded in neuroscience, challenge our ideas of who we think we are and what we think is even possible. A brilliant and uplifting book.”

  — Dr. Allan Botkin, clinical psychologist; author of Induced After-Death Communication

  “We’re in the midst of an unparalleled new era of personal growth, in which a productive feedback loop has been established between the latest discoveries of neuroscience and the ancient practices of meditation. Dr. Joe Dispenza’s new book masterfully yet clearly explains the ‘hard science’ of how our brains and bodies work. He then applies it practically in a four-week program of fundamental personal change, showing how we can use a structured meditation program to consciously rewire our neural network for creativity and joy.”

  — Dawson Church, Ph.D., best-selling author of The Genie in Your Genes (EFTuniverse.com)

  “Dr. Joe Dispenza brings us the manual for becoming a divine creator! He makes the brain science practical; he shows us how to break free of the grip of our emotions to create happy, healthy, and abundant lives, and how to finally dream our world into being. I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time!”

  — Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., author of Power Up Your Brain and Shaman, Healer, Sage

  Breaking the Habit

  of Being Yourself

  ALSO BY DR. JOE DISPENZA

  EVOLVE YOUR BRAIN: The Science of Changing Your Mind

  Please visit:

  Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com®

  Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au

  Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk

  Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za

  Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Breaking the Habit of

  Being Yourself

  How to Lose Your Mind and

  Create a New One

  Dr. Joe Dispenza

  HAY HOUSE, INC.

  Carlsbad, California • New York City

  London • Sydney • Johannesburg

  Vancouver • Hong Kong • New Delhi

  Copyright © 2012 by Joe Dispenza

  Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com® • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Interior design: Nick C. Welch • Interior illustrations: Laura S. Craig • Indexer: Jay Kreider

  The following illustrations incorporate copyrighted images used with permission: Figure 1E, 3C, 7C: People figures, © Izabela Zvirinska - Fotolia.com • Figure 3B: Man silhouette, © styleuneed - Fotolia.com • Figures 3B, 5B, 5C, 6A: Human brain, © Alila - Fotolia.com • Figure 5B: Neurons and nucleus, © ktsdesign - Fotolia.com • Figure 6A: Human brain, © Pavel Eltsov - Fotolia.com • Figures 7A, 7B, 7D, 7E: Hands, © lom123 - Fotolia.com • Figure 8D: Retro laser gun, © LHF Graphics - Fotolia.com • Figure 8D: Sketchy bulb, © get4net - Fotolia.com • Figure 8K: Brain, © Oguz Aral

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dispenza, Joe.

  Breaking the habit of being yourself : how to lose your mind and create a new one / Joe Dispenza. – 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes index.

  ISBN 978-1-4019-3808-6 (hbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Change (Psychology) 2. Thought and thinking. 3. New Thought. I. Title.

  BF637.C4D56 2012

  158.1–dc23

  2011042878

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-3808-6

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-4019-3810-9

  15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1

  1st edition, February 2012

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Robi

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Daniel G. Amen, M.D.

  Introduction: The Greatest Habit Yo
u Can Ever Break Is the Habit of Being Yourself

  PART I: The Science of You

  Chapter 1: The Quantum You

  Chapter 2: Overcoming Your Environment

  Chapter 3: Overcoming Your Body

  Chapter 4: Overcoming Time

  Chapter 5: Survival vs. Creation

  PART II: Your Brain and Meditation

  Chapter 6: Three Brains: Thinking to Doing to Being

  Chapter 7: The Gap

  Chapter 8: Meditation, Demystifying the Mystical, and Waves of Your Future

  PART III: Stepping Toward Your New Destiny

  Chapter 9: The Meditative Process: Introduction and Preparation

  Chapter 10: Open the Door to Your Creative State (Week One)

  Step 1: Induction

  Chapter 11: Prune Away the Habit of Being Yourself (Week Two)

  Step 2: Recognizing

  Step 3: Admitting and Declaring

  Step 4: Surrendering

  Chapter 12: Dismantle the Memory of the Old You (Week Three)

  Step 5: Observing and Reminding

  Step 6: Redirecting

  Chapter 13: Create a New Mind for Your New Future (Week Four)

  Step 7: Creating and Rehearsing

  Chapter 14: Demonstrating and Being Transparent: Living Your New Reality

  Afterword: Inhabit Self

  Appendix A: Body-Part Induction (Week One)

  Appendix B: Water-Rising Induction (Week One)

  Appendix C: Guided Meditation: Putting It All Together (Weeks Two Through Four)

  Endnotes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOREWORD

  Your brain is involved in everything you do, including how you think, how you feel, how you act, and how well you get along with other people. It’s the organ of personality, character, intelligence, and every decision you make. From my brain-imaging work with tens of thousands of patients worldwide over the past 20 years, it is very clear to me that when your brain works right, you work right, and when your brain is troubled, you are much more likely to have trouble in your life.

  With a healthier brain, you are happier, physically healthier, wealthier, wiser, and just make better decisions, which helps you be more successful and live longer. When the brain is not healthy for whatever reason—such as a head injury or past emotional trauma—people are sadder, sicker, poorer, less wise, and less successful.

  It is easy to understand how trauma can hurt the brain, but researchers have also seen how negative thinking and bad programming from our past can also affect it.

  For example, I grew up with an older brother who was intent on shoving me around. The constant tension and fear I felt then led to a higher level of anxiety, anxious thinking patterns, and always being on guard, never knowing when something bad was about to happen. This fear caused long-term overactivity in my brain’s fear centers, until I was able to work through it later on in life.

  In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, my colleague Dr. Joe Dispenza is your guide to optimize both the hardware and software of your brain to help you reach a new state of mind. His new book is based on solid science, and he continues to speak with kindness and wisdom, as he did in the award-winning film What the BLEEP Do We Know!? and in his first book, Evolve Your Brain.

  Even though I think of the brain like a computer, with both hardware and software, the hardware (the actual physical functioning of the brain) is not separate from the software or the constant programming and reshaping that occurs throughout our lives. They have a dramatic impact on each other.

  Most of us have had trauma of some kind in our lives and live with the day-to-day scars that have resulted. Cleaning out those experiences that have become part of the brain’s structure can be incredibly healing. Of course, engaging in brain-healthy habits, such as a proper diet and exercise and certain brain nutrients, is critical to the brain working right. But in addition, your moment-by-moment thoughts exert a powerful healing effect on the brain … or they can work to your detriment. The same is true for past experiences that can become wired in the brain.

  The study we do at the Amen Clinics is called “brain SPECT imaging.” SPECT (single-photon emission computed tomography) is a nuclear-medicine study that looks at blood flow and activity patterns. It is different from CT scans or MRI, which examine the brain’s anatomy, because SPECT looks at how the brain functions. Our SPECT work, now over 70,000 scans, has taught us so many important life lessons about the brain, such as:

  Brain injuries can ruin people’s lives;

  Alcohol is not a health food and often shows significant damage on SPECT scans;

  A number of the medications people routinely take, such as some common anti-anxiety medications, are not good for the brain; and

  Diseases like Alzheimer’s actually start in the brain decades before people have any symptoms.

  SPECT scans have also taught us that as a society, we need to have much more love and respect for the brain, and that allowing children to play contact sports, like football and hockey, is not a smart idea.

  One of the most exciting lessons I have learned is that people can literally change their brains and change their lives by engaging in regular brain-healthy habits, such as correcting negative beliefs and using meditative processes such as those discussed by Dr. Dispenza.

  In one series of studies we published, the practice of meditation, such as what Dr. Dispenza recommends, boosted blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the most thoughtful part of the human brain. After eight weeks of daily meditation, the prefrontal cortex at rest was stronger, and the memories of our subjects were better, too. There are so many ways to heal and optimize the brain.

  My hope is that, like me, you will develop “brain envy” and want a better-functioning brain. The brain-imaging work we do has changed everything in my own life. Shortly after I started ordering SPECT scans in 1991, I decided to look at my own brain. I was 37 years old. When I saw the toxic, bumpy appearance, I knew it was not healthy. All of my life I have been someone who rarely drank alcohol, never smoked, and never used an illegal drug. Then why did my brain look so bad? Before I really understood about brain health, I’d had many bad brain habits. I ate lots of fast food, drank diet soda like she was my best friend, often slept only four to five hours at night, and carried unexamined hurts from the past. I didn’t exercise, felt chronically stressed, and carried an extra 30 pounds. What I didn’t know was hurting me … and not just a little.

  My last scan looks healthier and much younger than it did 20 years earlier. My brain has literally aged backward—that’s how changeable your brain is, too, when you make up your mind to take care of it properly. After seeing my original scan, I wanted my brain to be better. This book will help yours be better, too.

  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

  — Daniel G. Amen, M.D.,

  author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

  INTRODUCTION

  The Greatest Habit You Can Ever Break Is

  the Habit of Being Yourself

  When I think about all the books on creating the life we desire, I realize that many of us are still looking for approaches that are grounded in sound scientific evidence—methods that truly work. But already new research into the brain and body, the mind, and consciousness—and a quantum leap in our understanding of physics—is suggesting expanded possibilities on how to move toward what we innately know is our real potential.

  As a practicing chiropractor who runs a busy integrated-health clinic and as an educator in the fields of neuroscience, brain function, biology, and brain chemistry, I have been privileged to be at the forefront of some of this research—not just by studying the fields mentioned above, but also by observing the effects of this new science, once applied by common people like you and me. That’s the moment when the possibilities of this new science become reality.

  As a consequence, I have witnessed some remarkable changes in individuals’ health an
d quality of life when they truly change their minds. Over the last several years, I have had the opportunity to interview a host of people who overcame significant health conditions that were considered either terminal or permanent. Per the contemporary model of medicine, these recoveries were labeled “spontaneous remissions.”

  However, upon my extensive examination of their inner journeys, it became apparent to me that there was a strong element of mind involved … and their physical changes weren’t so spontaneous after all. This discovery furthered my postgraduate studies in brain imaging, neuroplasticity, epigenetics, and psychoneuroimmunology. I simply figured that something had to be happening in the brain and body that could be zeroed in on and then replicated. In this book, I want to share some of what I learned along the way and show you, by exploring how mind and matter are interrelated, how you can apply these principles not only to your body, but to any aspect of your life.

  Go Beyond Knowing … to Knowing How

  Many readers of my first book, Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind, voiced the same honest and heartfelt request (along with a fair amount of positive feedback), such as the person who wrote: “I really liked your book; I read it twice. It had lots of science and was very thorough and inspiring, but can you tell me how to do it? How do I evolve my brain?”

  In response, I began teaching a workshop series on the practical steps anyone can take to make changes at the level of mind and body that will lead to lasting results. Consequently, I have seen people experience unexplainable healings, release old mental and emotional wounds, resolve so-called impossible difficulties, create new opportunities, and experience wonderful wealth, just to name a few. (You will meet some of those people in these pages.)