The Best Way to Break Bad Habits — with Joe Dispenza
Stop making the same mistakes and start breaking bad habits today...
Hebb famously repeated that ‘nerve cells which fire together, wire together’. This simple principle within neuroscience has become largely associated with Dr. Joe Dispenza, author of What the BLEEP Do We Know!?
…formally (the phrase) means that ‘any two cells or systems of cells that are repeatedly active at the same time will tend to become ‘associated,’ so that activity in one facilitates activity in the other’ — PMC PubMed Central
Now an important tagline in Dispenza’s lectures, how does it relate to breaking bad habits and forming new ones?
Simply put, Dispenza’s theory states that repeating the same experience, emotion, or action cycles eventually hardwire your biology. Whether you develop a negative or positive bias, either will become built upon in the subconscious. He continues by suggesting that we then become more predisposed to repeat the same cycles in the future, even if they aren’t desirable ones.
In order to change or break undesirable cycles and to arrive at a new vision of yourself, a change in personality must be made to rewire the bias in our subconscious. This change in personality is not meant to be superficial but a targeted attempt at proving to your mind that you aren’t in need of those undesirable habits anymore.
Personality = Personal Reality
If personality is created by how we think, act and feel. In theory, to create a new personal reality is then simple. If we want to create a new personal reality, we need to first focus on changing these factors.
Belief (Thinking): A belief is a thought that you keep thinking over and over again. Dispenza suggests that we are observers of our own thoughts and must interpret them in how they either add or subtract from the quality of our lives.
Ask yourself;
- What is my most common self-defeating thought?
- What am I going to do to disprove this thought?
- What thoughts do I want to fire in my brain instead?
Act: Probably the quickest and most noticeable change that you can make in your day-to-day life. Change your routine to disprove negative thoughts. Be the change that you want to see.
Feeling: The amazing thing about the human mind is that it holds everything it needs to create any desired emotion. Practise feelings of gratitude and contentment. Sit uncomfortably until you achieve it. Be patient with yourself on this excercise and do your research, there are many different techniques that you can use effectively.
Become the creator of your life versus the victim of it. Take personal responsibility over your life.
Not making the same choice as you did the day before
Dispenza emphasises the importance of consciously pruning out negative thoughts and aiming for greatness. He suggests that at the end of each day, to sit down with yourself and mentally review the choices and reactions you made. Are you happy with them? Were they aligned with your greatest self? What would you change tomorrow?
Things to remember if you need reassurance;
- Feeling uncomfortable is a good sign.
- The greatest habit that we have to sometimes break is the habit of being ourselves.
- You are trying your best, and that is enough.
Become so conscious that you don’t become unconscious again…
Door to the subconscious opens in the morning
When your body has done something over and over again, over a hundred times, everyday for years, your body eventually knows how to do these things better subconsciously rather than consciously.
An important part of affirmations is that you really must believe them for the practise to work. This is difficult to do in the beginning since our conscious mind is too logical to naturally get on board with the exercise. A little known fact about the potency of affirmations is the time of day that they are practised.
Time of day is very important in using affirmations as they mostly work when the brain is relaxed and suggestible. Thus, Dispenza recommends that you use morning and night wisely.
At the time of waking up or drifting back to sleep, your mind is crossing over the precipice between consciousness and unconscioussness, and is at its most suggestible.
In the morning, brain waves are going from delta to theta, alpha to beta
And when you go to bed at night beta to alpha, theta to delta
At these times of day, you slip through frequencies pretty quickly. The most important feature of meditation utilises this fact to get beyond the analytical mind to rewire the subconscious.
5% of your mind is the conscious mind, 95% is the programmed subconscious. If you can learn how to tap into your brain waves, get beyond the analytical mind, get into the operating system where you can re-write a programme and change your reality.
Mental rehearsal (more on belief & thinking)
Meditation is mental rehearsal. Becoming familiar with thoughts and feelings is a great way to pave new paths of thinking and wire new patterns in your brain. You can shift your perspective in any which way you prefer; you can give yourself either a positivity bias or negativity bias.
Benefits of mental rehearsal;
- Prime your brain
- Physiologically change your body
- Learn something new, make new connections.
- Install new circuits in your brain.
You will notice that behaviours will begin to match your intentions naturally.
More questions to ask yourself;
- What is the greatest expression of myself that I can be today?
- What two emotions do I want to embody today?
- When did I fall from grace yesterday?
- Acting this way will not make me happy, if I had another opportunity, what would I do differently?
Finally, mentally rehearse what you’d do instead, allow yourself to feel the feelings associated with the success of your actions. Attempt to visualise the situation as vividly as you can in your mind. Challenge yourself to feel the emotion before you get out of bed… Then, reward yourself with a bicuit or your own equivalent!
