JA:
“E volve Your Your Brain: the the Science of Changing Yo Y our Min Mind”
Hi everybody, this is John Assaraf and thanks for joining us for another weekly, expert interview where we bring you great ideas for making more money so you can live that extraordinary life. I have a friend of mine on the call today and you are going to absolutely love this. this. He has one of the hottest new books that I am telling everybody about and we’ll talk about it in just a second. Joe Dispenza is just an absolute gem of a human human being. He’s a top expert on the human brain. He’s someone someone who I’ve studied through my own research. I was introduced to his work through the phenomenal, multiaward winning movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know”. For years I’ve been taking our clients and students to see the movie and talk to them about it. Everything he talks talks about is is right on the money. This is going to be an outstanding call.
Virtual Coaching C oaching with with J oe Disp Dispe enza Interv Interview iewed ed By J ohn Assaraf Recorded March 12, 2007
His new book is called “Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind”. It’s something you all know I’ve studied for years. It’s something we talk about and Joe understands inside and out. In the book he teaches why people tend to repeat the same negative behaviors, how to break the cycle and how to open yourself up to the new possibilities that exist within and all around you. And, as always, for contributing to the purpose of living an extraordinary life and for making a 1
difference on this planet, Joe, welcome to OneCoach. JD:
It’s a pleasure to be with you, John.
JA:
Joe, let’s get right into the book. You’ve done some great work in “What the Bleep”. I know that must have launched your career. And you have a phenomenal understanding of biology, neurophysiology, brain research, etc.
to overcome this condition (I had broken six bones in my spine), then I would spend the rest of my life investigating the concept of mind over matter. That’s exactly what I did. JA:
What inspired you to write this particular book? JD:
It seems we have a similar story. I was in a car accident and I ended up, not because of the car accident, but I ended up with ulcerative colitis and through some research was able to heal myself of that. I decided what a powerful tool we have in our brain, and realized we know nothing about it.
I think it was a combination of several different things, John. Just like you, I’ve been involved in understanding human potential from the time I started asking the question, “Is there more to life?” I began investigating every alternative idea that was important to me. I looked into hypnosis. I studied martial arts and yoga. My life was about alternative means of thinking and alternative means of health and looking at reality. In 1986 I had a serious accident. I was hit by a truck in a triathlon. It caused me to stop going at a very fast pace, to begin to ask some deeper questions and to see if some of those principles actually worked. Long story short, I was confined to bed for (supposedly) three to six months. They wanted to do radical surgery.
JD:
I think science is now beginning to scratch the surface. I’m sure that any neuroscientist or anybody investigating the brain will say, “The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.” We don’t have any definite answers, but what we do have now is functional brain scans. And functional brain scans give us the opportunity to study the concept called “mind”. Mind is the brain in action, the brain at work. That little clue has given us volumes of information about a healthy brain and an unhealthy brain.
JA:
I know you talk about emotions and we are addicted to our emotions. We consistently want to do the same things over and over again. How much potential do we have, as humans, to be able to stop the negative emotions or stop the emotions that are not serving us, and
Inside of eight weeks I was back in my office seeing patients. Two weeks later, no body cast, no surgery, no paralysis. If I was able 2
really help ourselves by doing things differently with the brain?
And, of course, if we’re experiencing the same emotion everyday, it means that nothing new is happening. If we’re experiencing a repeated chemical state, it means that we’re remembering past experiences to help us remember who we are.
I want to be careful obviously because I’m interviewing you. Some of the answers I know. But I want to hear it from your vantage point. JD:
First, let’s define emotion. Emotion comes from the Greek word emoverae, which means “to set into motion.”
If we believe that the quantum field has anything to do with our future, if we believe that thoughts have anything to do with creating reality, if we’re living the same feelings and emotions, it means we’re just creating more of the same. So most people think that’s normal and, in fact, given a scoop of humanity it really looks normal.
Emotions can be considered literally as something that sets the mind into motion. But I like to think of it as something different. I think emotions are always the end products of experience .
But, in the quantum field, there are so many experiences yet to have. And those new experiences, in my reasoning, would create new emotions and those new emotions would have nothing to do with those survival states that we live by every single day.
When we experience anything in our reality – whether we’re seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, hearing – all of our five senses are immersed in the experience. Volumes of information are being sent back to the brain through five different pathways causing neurons to string together and release chemicals. Those chemicals that are released during that experience mark the experience as memorable. So the end product, the finality of an experience is called an emotion.
It’s not a bad thing to have it. The problem is after there’s a stimulus, after there’s something that elicits an emotion. The problem is if we’re repeating the same emotions there’s this period after the emotion called the refractory period. Some people have a reaction and that refractory period lasts hours, days, weeks, months, years. And the same chemicals that are being released in the brain over and over again, pushes the buttons, pulls the trigger that activates the genetics that begin to cause the person to live out their genetic destiny.
We can remember experiences better because we remember how they feel. If we understand that, then the question is, “How many new experiences have we had, number one. And if we’re experiencing the same exact emotion everyday, what does it tell us?”
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We’re just beginning to understand, in neuroscience, that we can shorten that refractory period. When we shorten that refractory period to any emotion, whether it’s anger, frustration, or suffering, then every other refractory period for every other emotion is shortened. So, during that refractory period, no new information can enter into the system. You can’t learn anything new. You can’t do anything differently.
The problem is it wears off and then you have to do it again. But you do it a little bit greater with a little bit more emotion. Next thing you know you’re in a repetitive cycle. JA:
It sounds like an addiction.
JD:
You know my definition of addiction has always been, and I’ve thought a lot about it, “something you can’t stop”.
As a matter of fact, you’ll do the same exact thing and expect a different result. JA:
That’s insanity, right?
JD:
That’s insanity.
If you’re in the midst of an angry experience, suffering, confusion, or any of those survivalist emotions and someone said to you, “Why don’t you just stop,” most Westerners would give you every reason why they’re feeling the way they feel. Something from their external world made them feel that way.
When we develop the ability to gain control over those emotional states by recognizing what they are and rehearsing new ways of being, we not only shorten those periods, but there are even individuals that have been tested with functional brain scans that can actually stop the reaction. This says that we have innumerable potential to no longer be enslaved to the habitual state that most people live in. Westerners think emotions are normal because they feel so real. They are really transient chemical reactions that we continuously live by. The problem is if we continuously create the same emotions, the rush of chemistry gives the body a boost to make us feel a little bit more alive, a little bit more super aware.
JA:
I’ve got a client right now who is so stuck on his story that he just can’t see it. He doesn’t want to break free from the story that’s repeating itself over and over and over again.
JD:
Yes. And every time we tell the story, we’re creating almost the same exact amplitude of chemistry as if it was actually happening. That’s the key. That’s what emotions do. We can remember those experiences better because we remember the emotions that are tied to them.
JA:
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Interesting. Can the brain, based on the latest research, stop that? Can we do something that will give us the ability to change our reality?
JD:
The idea is that if we just look at this particular topic, the question has to arise, “Do our thoughts control our emotions? Or do our emotions control our thoughts?”
understand is that there are definitely plastic, moldable portions of the brain that we can upscale the hardware to. The way we change the brain, the way we upscale the hardware is by learning new things and having new experiences. That’s what causes the brain to reorganize itself into new patterns and new combinations, new sequences that then create new levels of mind.
There’s an inverse law in the brain. I’ve studied this at length. There’s a part of the brain called the limbic brain or the anellian brain; that’s the emotional brain. That’s the chemical brain.
The problem is when we get to our mid-thirties, the personality (the identity) is sealed off. We spend more time feeling than we do learning. As a matter of fact, feeling becomes the means of thinking; if we spend more time feeling and we can’t think outside our feelings (we talk about that refractory period), then it’s impossible for new information to enter into the system. As a result, it’s impossible to learn new things. We’re just left with the circuits that we’ve been given genetically.
On functional brain scans, the more emotional the person is, the more they are swamped in their own emotional chemistry. The more activity there is in that part of the brain, the less activity there is in the frontal lobe. Frontal lobe is our seat of self. It’s where we have attention, intention, firm purpose, and a sense of identity, a sense of awareness. The more action and execution over their impulses, the more they have control over themselves and their life.
Then the second half of our life we start heading for the destiny that our parents had. That’s the story of most people. When we learn it and we apply what we learn, when we personalize what we learn, we demonstrate what we’ve learned. For example, someone takes your course or you’re a consultant for somebody; you can give them all the philosophy, all the understanding, because you’ve already experienced what you’re teaching them. They take that knowledge and they never apply it. It’s just good dinner conversation. It’s philosophy.
If there’s less activity in the frontal lobe, then you tend to see more impulsive, emotional behavior. If there’s more activity in the frontal lobe, you have a person who is less emotional, less impulsive and more able to reason answers and solutions beyond what they already know. Science used to say, 25 years ago, that the brain was hard-wired, meaning you were born with a certain amount of circuits and you’re going to turn out like your parents and that’s the end of the story. But what science is beginning to 5
But when they take your concepts and principles and begin to apply them, they’re setting themselves up for a new experience. They’re breaking their habitual ways of doing things. They’re reviewing it in their mind and creating a plan of how they’re going to execute exactly what you taught them.
And that state of being means that we had the experience enough times that we’ve trained the body to know as well as the brain and the body will actually do it while the brain can think of other things. That’s why when you can’t remember a phone number, you can pick up the receiver, look down at the keypad, and let your hands do the dialing because your conscious mind can’t remember.
That plan, that rehearsal, that process of thinking of how they’re going to do it already begins to reorganize circuits in their brain. It may take a little practice. It’s like tennis, golf or anything else.
Your subconscious mind was pretty much trained; your body was trained by the mind. It’s not enough to just learn information. Sure we’ll upscale the brain’s hardware, but until we integrate it into the body, until we have mind and body working together, then we’ll always have opposition. We’ll never reach our goals because when the frontal lobe is really working, that’s the seed of our divinity. That’s the place where we work from.
But there’ll come moments of increased awareness and increased attention where you’ll begin to produce different and modified experience. And that experience will no longer keep the person in the same story, no longer keep them in their same emotional state. They’ll embrace a new set of emotions and those new emotions have nothing to do with survival; they tend to be joy, excitement, enthusiasm, all those that I call the natural state of being. That then allows them to create new memories.
When the front lobe is working properly, that’s when thought and action are aligned. That’s when intent and behavior are working together. When that’s lined up and you’ve got body and mind working together, pretty much the human being is invincible.
But it’s not enough to do it once. Mastery is to be able to repeat that experience over and over again. That’s what I investigated and created in my book called “Thinking, Doing and Being”. We changed the memory systems in the brain when we get to that point of being it. Now it’s hard-wired. Now it’s second nature. Now it’s easy. Now it takes no effort at all. Now it’s familiar.
JA:
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When I was in my early twenties and I started getting some training in business and sales I remember Tommy Hopkins said, “You got to fake it ‘til you make it. Just fake it in your mind. There’ll come a time where it will just become a reality.” I don’t think anybody at that time, 27 years ago, understood what we were
actually doing. But now with brain scan imaging we can now see what’s happening, how we are changing the wiring of the brain.
remember those, then you’re more than likely going to walk into that experience because the brain is already prepared for the experience ahead of time. That’s the name of the game.
Is that what you’re saying? JD:
I think “fake it ‘til you make it” is a good beginning explanation. I like to use the words mental rehearsal. Those are the words I use in my book and in my lectures. It means a little bit more of a formal plan. It’s remembering a new way of being. If we can rehearse it in our minds and think about how we’re going to do it and execute it and review the knowledge and put ourselves in the experience, there’ll come a moment of where we’re truly intentional and truly focused where the brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s happening in its external world and what’s happening in the mind.
JA:
When you talk about mental rehearsal are you talking about visualization?
JD:
I don’t like to use “visualization” because again that word has been over utilized. A lot of people start to visualize and the next thing they know they get off on tangents, they’re swimming with dolphins and they’re doing different things than their original intention. Mental rehearsal involves intent. It
involves placing yourself in the experiences; concepting yourself in the experience; remembering what you would do in the midst of that experience.
That’s the moment that new circuits are up-scaled and formulated.
There’s been enough tests to know that when people do that, when they remember, plan, apply what they’ve learned, repeat it and they mentally rehearse physically doing it that they grow the same amount of brain circuits as the people physically doing the action. This means they change their brain by thinking.
That’s a stage to which to execute that knowledge and the person who rehearses will do it easier, will make it look more natural, will make it look like it’s less effort because he/she already has the circuitry in place.
Rehearsal usually involves a little
“Fake it ‘til you make it” was a good slogan in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And it has some value. But I think that people get hung up on that because it has an overused connotation. If we see that we can mentally rehearse something, plan our actions and
more vigilance. It involves a little more intention. I like that word better than visualization because some people don’t visually process information the same way in the brain as other people. That hangs people up because they say they 7
can’t see it. If you say “rehearse”, it loosens it up a little bit and they can throw themselves into it a little easier. That gives them the paradigm that’s a little more acceptable. They can recruit all their senses to be able to formulate a scenario. JA:
Let’s talk about a couple of chemicals in the brain. The chemical in the brain that makes us feel good is called dopamine. The biggest reason people don’t want to change is because change is uncomfortable. It means you have to break the neurochemical habit of being yourself.
There’s plenty of this in your book. By the way, Joe’s book “Evolve Your Brain” is not a book you’re going to read in one day. This is a book I want each one of you to get. I want you to make it a part of your library. I want you to study it and go back and review it. It’s 60 days since the book has been out. It’s the best book on the market, bar none. Joe knows his stuff. It’s been well researched. It’s one of the books I use for my own research. If I’m using it, chances are it’s one of the best ones out there.
JD:
Thanks, John.
JA:
No, Joe, I told you when you wrote the book, you sent me a couple chapters ahead of time, you’re right on the money. We might as well go to the best there is.
You can declare, “I want to do this. I want to be this. I want to have this. I want to make $1M.” You can consciously declare that and yet your attitude keeps remembering a different story in your example. That story produces a certain amount of chemicals which entrains the body to believe something else. So now all of a sudden you say, “I want to be wealthy. I want to be successful. I want to be powerful. I want to make a $1M or $10M.” However, the memories and the thoughts that you’ve been processing on an unconscious level have trained the body, the subconscious element of the body, to actually believe something different. So you start off intentional. You start off clear. You start off declaring it. Then in a matter of days you’re on the couch eating bon bons with your remote control and you don’t even know how you got there. That’s because the body is running a different program than the mind.
Let’s talk about why change is so hard. I know you talk about the implicit memory system and the explicit memory system. Can we talk about that for a moment? I want people to get a handle on how change is possible and some things they need to do. But why is it so hard? JD:
Now, brain circuits work in combinations, sequences and patterns. If we keep processing the same exact thoughts everyday,
Let’s make it simple. I won’t use the concept of implicit and explicit. 8
thinking about the same things, the same people, the same events, remembering past information, those brain circuits will strengthen. At the same time they become hard-wired and also release the same chemistry because it’s the same stream of consciousness.
differently, act differently, behave differently, and they have to create a new state of being. That interrupts the normal neurochemical cycle. The brain stops making the same chemicals. The cells of the body, which have been pretty much conditioned to those thinking processes, start sending information back up to the brain through the spinal chord right back up to the neural net start saying, “You’re no longer producing the same chemistry we’ve been conditioned to experience.”
If we do that enough times we formulate a box of our own thinking. Now it’s not a literal box in the brain; it’s the most commonly fired, most accurately wired sequenced combinations of circuits that we process that we use to identify. It’s our autobiographical self.
All of a sudden you start hearing these voices in your head: you’re not good enough, you can start tomorrow, this doesn’t feel right, it’s too uncomfortable, let’s go get a beer, let’s forget about it
Now to think outside the box is to force the brain to work in different sequences, different patterns and different combinations. That takes will and effort. It takes interrupting the programs that we’ve lived by that have become so convenient. We’ve hard-wired enough automatic programs that allow us, by the time we’re 35 or whatever to begin to formulate this.
• • • • • •
The body has become the mind; to change is to put the mind back on the throne, which is in the brain. To do that, it means that we have to train the body to be its servant.
Children’s brains are so neuroplastic that they can be sad one minute, the next moment be a bunny rabbit, and the next moment be an astronaut and forget that they were ever sad or crying two minutes before. That’s because their brain is that plastic.
Most of the time people will start off for a period of time and within days they’ll go back to their bodily needs and sensations. Then the dream or idea disappears because they go back to the same habits of thinking.
Adults have an incident and then they relate with that feeling because they think that feelings are real. So when a person makes a concrete decision that they’re going to change and the moment they begin to change, they have to think 9
JA:
So it goes back to their addictive emotions.
JD:
Really what they’ve done, we can use the word “addicted,” but they’ve conditioned themselves into a state
of being. They’ve conditioned themselves into feeling unworthy, feeling sad, feeling less than, feeling like a failure. Then, all of a sudden, they make an attempt to be something different.
environment; greater than your circumstances. When you do that, now the brain is already mapped for the experience ahead of time. That means we’re going to walk right into it.
However, as they start having this model in their mind, they never give it enough attention. They don’t cultivate it. They don’t develop it. They don’t become familiar with it. It takes that process of rehearsal to begin to interrupt the programs of habitual thinking. That habitual thinking when we begin to force the brain to fire in new patterns and combinations and break that habitual thinking, that’s difficult. In the beginning your brain wants to rush to what it has been used to doing. It wants to rush to the hard-wired programs.
JA:
I study this stuff just about everyday, Joe. Every time I speak with you it just blows my mind just how much deeper and deeper you go into it and you come up with new analogies and new ways. So I know you’re evolving your own brain on a daily basis, as well.
JD:
That’s all I want to do.
JA:
You and I share the same passion that there’s so much we’re capable of as human beings. We’re scratching the surface of our understanding of how powerful we really are and how spectacular this beautiful, little, blue planet, this universe of ours is. Whenever I speak with you I have a big smile on my face, my friend.
However, if we persist we know from neuroscience that nerve cells that no longer fire together no longer wire together. Those circuits begin to break down and they start to reorganize themselves and that’s called change. It takes more effort because most of the time Westerners believe that it should be our external world that causes us to think. And if we allow the external world to cause us to think, then we’ll never think greater than our reality.
Mental rehearsal, obviously it’s one
of the core elements of change and to get that frontal lobe working, the CEO of our life, to get that working properly is where we want to be from what I’m hearing and from what I’ve read. Mental rehearsal, how can people
start to apply some of that?
To be great, to be an individual, to be a maverick is to think greater than your environment. That’s my definition of evolution. My definition of evolution is to think and be greater than the conditions in your
JD:
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You have to stop and ask yourself some important questions. This is inconvenient, by the way. I want you to know that it takes time and energy.
It means not turning on the television or going to the computer.
be happy? What would it be like to be successful?” You’re foregoing your normal way of thinking and you’re speculating possibilities. That’s what the frontal lobe loves to do. It loves to speculate opportunities. It will begin to cool off the circuits you normally use and begin to reorganize your past knowledge and experience to formulate a new way of being.
It means sitting down and start to say, “What’s my problem?” You have to define who you are. You have to define the state you’re in. You have to ask, “Who am I? What are my repetitive thoughts? If thoughts have anything to do with my future, and I keep getting the same future, I have to start examining my thoughts. I have to start examining my thinking, my attitude.”
Now if you ask those questions every single day and you begin to rehearse yourself as this new person, thinking about what it would be like, thinking about what you have to change, thinking about where you fall from grace, thinking about what limits your genius, thinking about where you’re not telling the truth in your life. What things are stopping you. You begin to organize that type of thinking. That’s rehearsal.
You have to start asking those important questions, to construct the questions that will lead you out of this quagmire. The questions have to be, “What would it be like? How do they think? What would I have to change about myself to be a success? What areas do I still have problems? I need to be honest. Where am I limited? How do I change it?”
If you did it every single day, it would begin to organize those patterns and sequences together, mend or formulate new neural networks in your brain that would then make it easier for you to be that person during your normal day, instead of the unconscious person living by those habituations.
When you start to ask these questions, the frontal lobe is like a symphony leader. It begins to quiet certain centers in the brain and it begins to gather all the knowledge and experiences that you’ve had stored in your brain. It begins to reorganize those circuits to create a new picture. You’re forcing your brain and your mind to begin to organize, construct, develop a new model of being.
It takes asking those important questions. No one likes to ask those questions because a lot of times, quite frankly, we don’t like the answers. If we run from our own disgrace and we run from our own suffering, we’ll surely run into it a lot faster. We run from that because with entertainment, work and social events, we don’t have to confront
The moment you ask yourself the question, “What would it be like to 11
issues. Anybody who has made any personal change that was worth it has separated themselves from those elements, took a deep look and began to make up their mind. When you say, ”I am going to do this independent of the circumstances, independent of time and not in my environment”, when we make up our mind with that type of intention, that’s the moment the frontal lobe turns on. That’s the moment we start putting the mind back in the brain and on the threshold. And that sometimes, quite sadly usually, takes some type of near fatality for a person to do that.
particular level of humanity. That’s how greatness is formed. JA:
I totally agree. I have a question to ask you. It revolves around our old conditioning, going to school, getting a degree. They used to tell us that getting a degree would pretty much ensure our successful. My belief is that regardless of your education, you make your choices and then you go out and either live and die by those choices or succumb to all the circumstances you want to tell yourself about.
And yet all the greats in history: Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, William Wallace, Mahatma Ghandi, etc. made these commitments: I have a principle and I’m not compromising to it. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what anybody else is doing. I’m not going to out-compromise my thoughts and my actions. I’m going to keep them aligned.
What is your experience with somebody who is highly educated and successful versus somebody who does the right things, has the right thoughts and is successful? JD:
That’s kind of a funny balance. I’ve discussed this a few times in the past. There’s this dance that has to take place between having too much knowledge and not enough experience. If you have too much knowledge and not enough experience, you’re a philosopher. If you have very little knowledge and a lot of experience, more than likely, if it’s tipping the scales, you’re ignorant because it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have the experiences that are going to shape or evolve you.
There’s this period of chaos because it creates inconvenience. Yet if we can hang on, the cream rises to the top and you have what’s called an individual. And that individual is uncompromising. They will not compromise their truth because they’ve already earned the right to have thoughts and ideas and behavior lined up. They’re uncompromising and beyond reproach. No one is going to bribe them. No one is going to change their mind. No one is going to find a way to undermine them at that
When one gains knowledge (even if it’s a small amount, even if someone hears something and it sticks and they’re willing to run with it, apply 12
it, use it), they’ll move faster than the person who has all this knowledge but never really makes any moves. Even if those people who have energy, enthusiasm, interest – they’re excited about learning and very willing to use it and apply it – those are the people that will move the fastest. The ones that analyze, rationalize, think about it, forecast which way it will go and what will happen, they don’t want to get out of the armchair. They want to sit there in their intellectual quiet because they may fail.
just a lesson and meant that I should just do it again, but a little bit differently.
A person who doesn’t have a problem with failure is usually a person who will take small bits of knowledge and integrate it very quickly, and is the one who will move the fastest. JA:
JD:
JA:
I’ve seen that time and time again. The right information in the right order backed by action is where I’ve seen the most success happen. I’ve always said to people that my blessing was my not feeling good about something I did or said for a momentary period of time.
JD:
We’re certainly conditioned in different environmental settings and family settings to have it mean different things.
JA:
I know in my own children’s lives any time they failed or fell I looked at them and said, “Get up. That’s just part of the whole game.”
JD:
The biggest question we have to ask ourselves, and this is what I ask my kids, “Let’s sit down and think about this. How would you do it differently if the event came again? Think about it. Let’s decide a new way of handling this when it happens.” That’s plasticity. It’s modifying our act – end of story. If you teach a child that type of plasticity, that type of adaptability, that’s evolution. When we no longer adapt to circumstances because we freeze, that’s what survival is. Survival is freezing. You freeze when you’re in survival because you don’t want a predator to spot you. We freeze in our life in the same way. We’re afraid to move outside the forest because we’re afraid we may actually become prey.
If you think about it, if you know you’re going to make it sooner or later, you wouldn’t mind failing. If you don’t know you’re going to make it, failing is going to become a very big issue. That’s the key right there.
All these mechanisms kick in and that defines the extent of our growth and evolution. There are really two states of being: creation and survival. We spend most of our time in survival. In creation it’s really a
I think also the meaning you give failure determines whether or not you’re okay with it. I was taught in my late teens that failure was just one way that it didn’t work. It was 13
simple process, integrate new information into the system.
cross to the other side onto new territory are so glad they went for the adventure.
Let’s think about a new way of doing it. Let’s get excited about it and let’s want the experience to come so we can do better the next time. The circuit is in place. The information is organized in our brain, yet we resist that experience. Still, that experience has to come in order to create our own. JA:
JD:
Adventure is the thrill in itself. Breaking down thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions, breaking those down by the very simple monitoring of our own thinking and reacting will create chaos for the body initially. In a sense the body is just an animal and so it’s like you’ve trained an animal to act in certain ways and all of a sudden you’re going to allow it to do something differently.
Whenever someone is thinking about (or doing) something new, there is going to be some stress. Chemicals are going to be released. How does somebody feel those chemicals and do it anyway? Any recommendations?
The animal will still do the same thing even though you’ve given it freedom. There’s that first period where the trained dog even though it has freedom will keep doing what it does. Then there will come a period where there will be a sense of freedom and then there’s a reconditioning period, which means I want to make you do this now. I want you to be aligned with my mind now. I want my mind and body to be one. But in the beginning stages, that chaos that’s created, the thing that has to be understood is that that is absolutely normal.
That’s my definition of genius, being uncomfortable and being okay with it. That’s my definition of genius. If you know that when you begin to make a change and you start to think and act differently, that your body is going to feel uncomfortable. I always say that it is like crossing the big river. You’re going to step into the water and it’s going to be cold. You’re going to look back like you want to go back on familiar ground. Then you’re going to start walking and it’s going to get a little deeper and a little colder and the current is going to get a little stronger and there are going to be brambles flying by. There could be fish in there or whatever else, slippery. You’re going to get half way across and you’re going to say, “I want to go back because this is too much.” Those who persist through it and
Evolution is not a comfortable process until there is reconditioning. We always say the same thing and that is, “I’m so glad I left the shire and went on a big adventure.” That’s what that whole movie was about, leaving familiar territory and being confronted with adventure and once that adventure takes place, you can’t not want to go again. Even though you’re happy to be home, 14
you say, “You know, I’m going to go on another one.” That’s life. That’s the beauty of life. JA:
that change is always gain. In always some way or another I’m out of routine, I’m out of habit. I have to start acclimating with new habits. I have to upscale my mind to match a new future.
Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977 for his chaos theory (contributions to nonequilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures). Basically decreeing that every living organism will go through absolute chaos where it looks like, feels like, smells like, and tastes like you’re in hell until you evolve into a higher, living organism.
Most of us really want to move away from that. Yet when we rise to the occasion and put a little bit more effort into it, we’re always amazed at what a great job we do. That’s the bottom line. You can’t bring it out of somebody unless there is chaos. Chaos is the defining element of self. JA:
That’s what I’m hearing. Is that accurate? JD:
That’s exactly what it is.
JA:
For all of you who are feeling right now that you’re in chaos, chaos is good. Change your meaning of it. You’re obviously evolving and growing. It’s so much more palatable. I’ve gone through so many changes in my life and, Joe, I know you have. I have such a different meaning to it right now.
Joe, based on your research, how long does it take for somebody to start seeing or feeling the beginnings of “I’m a different person who is capable of achieving X”? Have you done some research on that? I’m interested for the people listening because they’re business owners from around the world and they all want to take their success to another level.
The other thing I know as a human being is that we are forever changing. Changing is our only constant. You have to get comfortable with change because that means you’re growing. JD: JD:
I agree. I think one of the reasons we started OneCoach was to help people through that chaos, to help people understand that it’s normal, to give them the accountability part of doing what they do on a consistent basis so that change is a little bit easier. Not uncomfortable, but a little bit easier when you understand it.
One of the more prevalent times that change becomes a big issue is when we think we’re going to lose something. The truth is that I’ve had to condition myself to understand 15
I will tell you that they used to say that it takes twenty-one days to break a habit and create a new one. To some extent that’s true, but it’s not totally true. The truth is that if you understood how rehearsal works and
how to reach deeper levels of mind, then it could happen overnight.
and actions aligned. I always say that if you make the effort every single day, you’re sincere, and you apply what you learn, there should be measurable feedback every single day. I expect that in my life.
Change doesn’t necessarily have a timeframe attached to it. It’s equal to our focus, our intent, and our willingness to let go and surrender. I know that sounds like the biggest oxymoron that was ever said. But that’s the dance.
I expect the feedback to let me know that I have thought, action, deed, and purpose, all in alignment. Some people will do it in a very short amount of time. Those are the people that apply it, personalize it, and run with it. They’re enthusiastic to adapt; if it doesn’t work they’ll put a little extra energy into it. The other person will over-analyze, overscrutinize, try to figure out what’s wrong. They’ll spend too much time.
The dance is setting the intention, having the idea, falling in love with your future. Then, if you take time out of your day to do that, there should be some sign in your world that you’ve taken time to interact with the greater mind and that you should see something happen in your world that is a signal that you’ve made contact with it.
That dance between time to wire it in your brain and then surrendering it to a greater mind is the art. That’s the art right there.
If you’re sincere and you’re making those efforts, you should have initially no signals because you’re in chaos and then all of a sudden you’ll start experiencing little signals to let you know you’re moving in the right direction; signposts, if you will, or, mile markers.
JA:
That’s the art of believing. Everybody on this call should, if you have been in OneCoach for a while, understand what Joe’s talking about as he discusses a greater mind as well as getting into some quantum physics here.
The brain learns by feedback. The greatest feedback we get is always from our environment. If we’re making changes internally, there should be some reflection in our external world. To make the finality of change we think that we see changes to reach our goals, goals are finite and purpose is infinite. Of course, we all have a purpose. The goals we set up along the line are just different markers to let us know that we kept our intention and we haven’t left or broken from having thoughts
I’m going to give you the opportunity to let people know where they can get a copy of your outstanding book, “Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind”. I’m going to share with people that I am studying this book right now. I’m recommending it to everybody I know. It’s not just because Joe and I are friends. He’s 16
just done the most research and has put it together in a way that it’s worthy to be in your library.
JA:
Learn yourself. Learn with your spouse. Teach it to your kids. Make sure their teachers have a copy of it so that they start to help our younger ones understand. With adults we have to change our mind. With kids we just have to help them make theirs up.
All the best to everybody this week. Thanks. This is John Assaraf on behalf of everybody on the OneCoach team saying goodbye. Thanks, Joe, have a great one. Bye now.
Where do people get the book, Joe, and how would you like to leave the listeners of OneCoach? JD: JD:
My book is listed on Amazon.com. You can visit my Website, www.drjoedispenza.com. It’s on sale this month actually. The book was probably twice the size that it is now; we whittled it down; I wanted to provide a manual for people to begin to make measurable changes in their life.
JA:
If the book is half the size, you had an encyclopedia before. There is so much great material. I don’t read Joe’s book, I study it. Joe’s done so much phenomenal work to bring us to the forefront of what’s possible and he teaches us how to do it, which is what I’m all about, taking action. This has been an absolute joy. Thanks for teaching me and for sharing your wonderful work, wisdom, heart, and your love with us.
JD:
To all our friends all around the world, you guys are the best. Keep making sure that you learn and apply that information and share it with somebody else so you make a difference in other people’s lives.
Thank you, John; it was a privilege. 17
Thanks, John.
