What Happens When You Finally Commit To Change - Dr Joe Dispenza (4K)

1. 0:00 – 3:43

   What Joe Does

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Imagine if we had to do the podcast like this.

   2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza0:01

      Yeah, I was gonna say-

   3. CWChris Williamson0:02

      Just with an arm-

   4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza0:03

      Is that you over there? (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson0:03

      ... just an arm in the way of, uh... (laughs)

   6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza0:05

      Is that you, Chris? (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson0:07

      How would you describe what you do?

   8. JDDr. Joe Dispenza0:10

      Um, I think we, uh, teach people of the neuroscience and the biology of change, and the principle is just really simple, um, if you change, your life changes. And nothing changes in our life until we change. So one of the things that people come up against is, why is it so hard to change? So we've kind of come down through a lot of research, uh, a simple formula to help people to make transformations, first in themselves and then, and then their lives. And so we give people knowledge and information, and we use science as that language, that, to, to meet information, and we combine, uh, quantum physics with neuroscience and neuroendocrinology and psychoneuroimmunology and epigenetics and electromagnetism, and help people understand information that's philosophical, that's theoretical. And when you learn information, you make new connections in your brain. That's what learning is, uh, but if you don't review it, and if you don't repeat it, you don't think about it, those circuits prune apart within hours or days. So we run these courses, these events that are, uh, typically seven days where it's fully immersing yourself in, in this process of transformation. Give people the information, it's philosophical, it's theoretical, have them understand it, they have to be present with it, but now turn to someone and teach it back to them, what you've learned. Nerve cells that fire together wire together. So then, in time, you begin to install the neurological hardware in your brain in preparation for the experience, and the more you understand what you're doing, and the more you understand why you're doing it, the how gets easier, 'cause you can assign meaning to the task and get a greater outcome. If you can't explain it, it's not wired in your brain, right? So it's so much easier to forget the information than to remember it, and it just takes repetition and attention, um, to get the circuitry in place. And once you understand the what and the why, we set up the conditions and the environment to give people the proper instruction, and when you apply it, when you personalize it, when you demonstrate it, when you initiate that knowledge, and you get your behaviors to match your intentions, and you get your actions equal to your thoughts, you get your mind and body working together, you have an experience. Now, experience really enriches circuitry in the brain, and when those neurons organize into networks even further, the brain makes a chemical, and that's called a feeling or an emotion. So now when you feel abundant, when you feel successful, you feel unlimited, you feel whole, um, the experience is teaching the body chemically to understand what the mind has intellectually understood. So now the information's not in the brain anymore, the information's now in the body, and the person is embodying the truth of that philosophy, right? And somehow there's biological changes that take place as a result of it. The question is, okay, if you've done it once, you should be able to repeat the experience. And so, if people go through a seven-day immersion, and they keep repeating the experience, they begin to neurochemically condition their mind and body to begin to work together. And when you've done something so many times that your body now knows how to do it better than your conscious mind, now it's innate in you. You, you've become the knowledge, right? It's a subconscious program. It's, it's who you are. So we teach people to go from that kind of philosophical, theoretical, um, knowledge to the application, uh, to initiate it, to, to ultimately get wise about why they're doing it. And so we study the neuroscience and biology, and we work with, uh, University of California San Diego, and we, uh, publish papers, and we do extensive research, uh, really to demystify the process.

2. 3:43 – 9:40

   Why is it So Hard to Make Changes in Our Lives?

   1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza3:43

   2. CWChris Williamson3:43

      Why is it so hard to make genuine change happen in our lives? People want to change.

   3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza3:48

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson3:48

      They wanna do different things.

   5. JDDr. Joe Dispenza3:49

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson3:49

      Why is it so hard?

   7. JDDr. Joe Dispenza3:50

      Um, um, I think the biggest, uh, difficulty in change is, is making a different choice. Now think about the New Year's resolutions, everybody's, uh, very clear about what their intention is, what they want, wha- whatever that is. But if you keep making the same choices, you're gonna keep doing the same things, you're gonna keep creating the same experiences, you're gonna keep feeling the same emotions. And your biology and your neural circuitry and your chemistry and your hormones and even your gene expression's gonna stay the same because you're the same. But keep thinking the same way, uh, keep acting the same way, keep feeling the same way, and do it over and over again, those circuits in the brain ultimately become hardwired, and the emotions that are a response to someone or something, even your own thoughts, get conditioned subconsciously, uh, as a program into the body. So 95% of who we are by the middle of our life is an unconscious set of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that are automatically programmed into our biology. So, so the first step to change is not thinking positively. (laughs) You gotta become conscious of those unconscious thoughts when you decide to make a different choice, and it doesn't feel familiar, the thought that says, "Start tomorrow, it's too hard, just do it anyway, you know, go ahead and make that choice, do the same thing, you're not good enough, you'll never change, you're too much like your parents, you know, I failed last time." Um, you have to be able to become so conscious of those unconscious thoughts that you would never go unconscious to that thought ever again, and that's change. You'd have to catch yourself, how you speak, and how you act if you, if you wanna be happy, and you're blaming and you're complaining and you're feeling sorry for yourself, and, and, and you're judging everyone, um, those behaviors are not gonna make you happy. They're actually gonna make you unhappy. So you gotta become so conscious of those unconscious habituations that you wouldn't go unconscious and behave that way. And then, of course, you gotta look at those emotions that are pretty much chemical residue from the past, um, and decide, does this lack, (laughs) does this suffering, does this pain belong in my future? And, uh, that process of becoming so conscious that we don't go unconscious is the process of change, and how many times do we have to forget...... until we stop forgetting and start remembering, that's the moment of change. So the hard part about change is when you decide to make a different choice, get ready, it's going to feel uncomfortable. Like, there's gonna be uncertainty. Uh, you're not gonna be able to predict the n- next moment, it's gonna feel unfamiliar. So if the body has been conditioned to be the mind, then the servant is the master. So the body starts sending information back to the brain to think a certain thought so that you make the same choice, that you do the same thing, you create the same experience-

   8. CWChris Williamson6:37

      This is comfortable, this is familiar.

   9. JDDr. Joe Dispenza6:38

      ... ah, I'll get back to the same feeling of suffering. Oh, that feels so much better than the uncertainty of the unknown. Uh, so, so going from the old self to the new self and crossing that river literally is a neurological, it's a biological, it's a chemical, it's a hormonal, it's eugenic death of the old self. That's the phoenix lighting itself on fire. And, and most people would rather cling, uh, to that familiar place than, than take a chance on possibility. That, that void, that vacuum actually is the perfect place to create. And we discovered this, that, that the brain changes the most when you get to that point where you think you can't go any further and you wanna quit. If you go past that point, that is the unknown. Now, the unknown has always been in- wired in our biology, that the uncertainty of the unknown is always a scary place. Is that a tiger in the bushes or is that just a shadow? You know, so, so the unknown becomes a very scary place when we're living in survival, so, uh, most people never take that chance and possibility. But if a person's actually taught how to execute in the unknown and there's nothing scary there, and they can apply the same principle and say, "What thoughts do I wanna fire and wire in my brain?" Um, and a belief is just the thought you keep thinking over and over again. So what is the voice in my head that I wanna program my brain into thinking and believing? What behaviors am I gonna demonstrate in my life if I'm gonna not behave this way around this person or around this circumstance, and I wanna behave a different way? Let me rehearse in my mind, close my eyes, and get really clear on how I'm gonna respond or behave in this circumstance. And the act of mental rehearsal literally grows circuits in the brain. Now your brain's looking like you've already done it. Uh, your, your, your brain is no longer a record of the past, it's being, it's been conditioned and mapped into the future. So now you have the circuitry in place. So if you keep practicing that, the hardware becomes more automatic, it becomes more of a software program, and you start behaving that way. And then the biggest challenge then is, okay, if I'm not gonna feel suffering and I'm not gonna feel pain, uh, and I'm not gonna feel judgment, but I wanna feel grateful for my life, can I teach my body emotionally what my future will feel like before it happens? So once you start conditioning your body to an elevated emotion, we tend to see that the heart-centered emotions tend to be the ones that produce the most dramatic changes in our biology. And the body's so objective, it really doesn't know the difference between the real-life experience that's creating that emotion and the emotion that you're creating by thought alone, um, and the body starts getting lifted, uh, in a lot of ways. So keep thinking differently, keep acting differently, keep feeling differently. Uh, that's your personality, then your personal reality be- begins to change. And, and, and, and w- people who cross that river, uh, there's new opportunities, there's new experiences, um, there's new events that take place in their life. So that's what we teach.

3. 9:40 – 14:24

   Creating Deep & Sustainable Changes

   1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza9:40

   2. CWChris Williamson9:40

      So it is the issue that people, when they want change, they don't change deeply enough? They're just looking at, "Well, if I do this particular new physical habit, that will be able to change things," but the underlying currents that are driving that behavior are always going to come in and then take over, despite the fact that you don't wanna eat sugar anymore or you want to be more polite with your partner or you want to be more y- it's too surface level with a lot of the change that tries to be attempted?

   3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza10:06

      Y- yeah, I think, uh, I think that people, um, unfortunately, uh, they have to get knocked to our lowest level sometimes, you know, um, where you're no longer inside the jar. When you're inside the jar, you can't read the label. You, you gotta get so uncomfortable that you could actually see yourself, right? And so that tragedy, that, that, that crisis, that disease, the diagnosis, the loss, it's gotta be so severe that you finally look at yourself and say, "Maybe it's me. Oh my God, could it possibly be me?" But you're looking at yourself kinda through the eyes of someone else because you don't feel like you in that moment, you're so uncomfortable that you can see yourself. That, that concept is called metacognition, right? So, so a lot of times people wait for that crisis or the diagnosis or the ch- betrayal to go, "Oh my God, I, I, I gotta really change 'cause I'm really unhappy," or, "I can't blame that person or my past or my circumstance because I s- uh, nothing's working here. I, I gotta really start making those changes." So, so when they see themselves separate from their program, they're becoming conscious of their unconscious self, um, that is the first step to change. Now, I say you can learn and change in a state of pain and suffering, which most people like to do, or you can learn and change in a state of joy and inspiration, right? So could you be defined by the vis- a vision of the future, and could you get up from your, your morning practice actually believing in your future more than you're believing in your past? So from that elevated state where you combine a clear intention with an elevated emotion, from an elevated state instead of a self-limiting state, you can be conscious of that old self as well. And so I think, I think, God what a great time in history to be alive because this is a time in history where it's not enough to know. This is really a time in history to know how. And I, I've been at this long enough, Chris, to know that 20 years ago, people d- didn't hear it like they hear it now. The information is readily available and people are realizing, "God, if I, if I have this dream, if I have this goal, how bad do I want it?" And if they really want it...Um, and we've all done this. You sit down and you say, "What would it be like to be super healthy, super wealthy, s- super in love, super mystical, um, you know, transcendental?" Whatever it is. Like, you ask that question and your brain gets, gets really creative. It starts s- c- c- combining circuits in new ways, and you start getting this vision of the future, this possibility that you actually put yourself in this future reality. It becomes so real that you start to feel the emotion as if you were actually there. And so that moment when you come out of your resting state, the stronger the emotion you feel when you hold that vision, the more you'll remember that vision. That's, uh, that's creating a memory. So the person comes out of their resting state and they make a decision with such firm intention that the amplitude of that decision carries a level of energy that causes their body to respond to their mind, that their choice that they're making in that moment becomes a moment in time that they would never forget. They'll say to you, "I remember the moment I made up my mind to change. I was in this place, I was with these people, I was this, this particular, uh, time." That, that the event is a long-term memory, and they've come out of the resting state, and we could say then they're giving their body a taste of the future emotionally, and somehow they begin to embody whatever that future is, and now they begin to move in a different direction. And so they start trusting in their future more because they feel like they're connected to it. So then the person who's really interested in making a change would have to come to that same state again in order to produce the same effect. If they say, "I don't feel like it," or, um, "I wanna be nicer," or whatever, and it's, there's nothing really at stake. You know, intention is really meaning. You gotta have, you gotta have a meaning behind what you're doing. So people who, who now say, "I want a better life, I can't have a better life unless I change, yeah, uh, and when I change, my life will change," now you're not so interested in what's happening out there. You're more interested in what's going on inside of you.

4. 14:24 – 20:28

   Becoming Comfortable With the Unknown

   1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza14:24

   2. CWChris Williamson14:24

      To go from any state that we're in now to a new state, that transformation process requires stepping from known to unknown.

   3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza14:34

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson14:35

      How can people get more comfortable with stepping into the unknown, and why is it such a scary place?

   5. JDDr. Joe Dispenza14:40

      Ah, let's see if I can w- explain this on two levels. Um, the brain is a record of the past. Uh, the brain is a reflection of everything in your environment that's known to you. It's an artifact. It's a repository of everything you've learned and experienced in your life. It's a memory bank. And so people wake up in the morning, and every person, every object, everything, every place, every experience that they've had in their life is mapped neurologically in their brain. So they wake up in the morning and the first thing they do is they think about those problems, and those problems are memories that are really tattooed in the recesses of their gray matter, and the moment they start remembering the problem, they start remembering the past, they're, they're thinking in the past. Every one of those experiences or problems has an emotion associated to 'em, so the moment they think of the past and they start feeling unhappy or anxious, now their body's in the past. Thoughts are the language of the brain, feelings are the language of the body. Thought and feeling, an image and an emotion, a stimulus and response, and you're conditioning the body emotionally into the familiar past. And the body's so objective, as I said, doesn't know the difference between the real-life experience and the one that you're imagining. The body's actually believing it's living in the environment where that problem's actually existing in the present moment. So that becomes the familiar past, and we call that the known. Then people get up and then they rush through a series of automatic routine behaviors. They're on automatic pilot because they do the same thing today as they did yesterday, and a habit is a redundant set of automatic, unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that's acquired through repetition. So now the person is in the habituation of program, and their body's dragging them into the same predictable future based on what they did in their past. In f- in other words, we could take a, their yesterday and set it on their tomorrow and there's gonna be a lot of predictability. So if you can predict something, then that's the known too. So the familiar past is the known, the predictable future is the known. There's only one place left where the unknown exists, and that's the sweet spot of the generous present moment. And so we teach people how to master the moment, how to master their attention, and where you place your attention is where you place your energy. And, and paying attention is being present, and you know when someone's paying attention to you because, uh, they're present with you, and you know when they're present with you because they're paying attention to you. Well, it's the exact same thing. So you're sitting with your eyes closed and you start thinking, "How long's this gonna go? Um, I got a lot of things to do. Oh, God, I gotta think about that place I gotta go to and meet that person. I got another meeting over there." And now your brain is actually defaulting and going to that predictable future. We discovered that you're not a bad meditator actually at all. This is actually how you do meditate. You become conscious that you've gone unconscious in your predictable future and you return your attention back to the present moment. That's a victory. Okay, so then your body says, "Hey, it's been, um, about an hour." You usually get pretty judgmental around this time. You get in traffic, you get really angry, and you're sitting in a meditation and all of a sudden you start feeling aroused and impatient and frustrated, and people, most people think, "Oh, well, that means I can't meditate." Well, actually, your body's used to being stimulated from something outside of itself. You settle the body back down into the present moment and you tell it it's no longer the mind, you're the mind. Do this enough times and train the body to be in the present moment, to be in the unknown. There'll come a moment where the body is no longer the mind.The servant's no longer the mi- master. You're the mind. And when that occurs, there's this tremendous liberation of energy that takes place in the body. The body's going from particle to wave, it's going from matter to energy. The body's being freed from the chains of the past or the predictable future, and we discover energy actually kind of moves right into a person's heart, and they start feeling really grateful to be in the present moment instead of being in the unknown and, and trying to predict the next moment. So, it's a practice, and if you practice it on a regular basis, we discovered you can get really good at being in the unknown and going against thousands of years of programming that says the unknown is a dangerous and a scary place. There's better chances of survival if you run from the unknown than you embrace it. So, you put the person that keep relaxing into the unknown, and sooner or later they're, they realize nothing bad is happening in the unknown and they just start relaxing and expanding, and there's a, just a host of biological changes that begin to take place. So, I think, I think you can make that a skill or a habit.

   6. CWChris Williamson19:26

      In other news, this episode is brought to you by LMNT. Stop having coffee first thing in the morning. Your adenosine system that caffeine acts on isn't even active for the first 90 minutes of the day, but your adrenal system is, and salt acts on your adrenal system. It tastes phenomenal. It's the way that I've started my day for over three years now, and this orange salt in a cold glass of water first thing in the morning is like beautiful nectar. It is my favorite way to start the day. It helps to regulate my appetite, it curbs cravings, and it improves my brain function. You might not actually be that tired, you might just be dehydrated, and LMNT is going to help. Best of all, there is a no BS, no questions asked refund policy. You can buy this box completely risk-free, try it all, and if you do not like it, they will give you your money back, and you don't even need to return the box. That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Head to the link in the description below or go to drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom for a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box. That's drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom.

5. 20:28 – 33:10

   Are We Addicted to Our Own Thoughts?

   1. CWChris Williamson20:28

      How do people become addicted to their own thoughts? It seems like there is this degree of familiarity with what we're used to here. But there would be a question, if these thoughts are negative, if they're negative emotions, if they're tormenting me, if they're making me feel bad, why would I continue to just be my own torturer-

   2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza20:46

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson20:46

      ... 24 hours a day?

   4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza20:48

      Well, an addiction is something that you think you can't stop. An addiction is when you know something is not good for you and you tend to choose and do it anyway, right? So, turns out that living in stress is living in survival, and when you perceive a threat or a danger or you perceive something that's potentially gonna get worse in your life or y- um, you can't control or predict something in your life, you switch on that primitive nervous system called the fight or flight nervous system, and it's secreting a lot of chemicals to get you awake. It's getting you ready. It's, it's wanting you to perform and, but if it gets... there's too much, uh, the rush of that adrenaline is, uh, is, is like a, a surge of energy. It's an arousal. And people get addicted to that rush of energy, so they use the problems, they use the conditions, the stories of the past in their life to reaffirm their addiction to that emotion. So, so they need the bad job, they need the bad relationship, they need the challenging conditions in their life 'cause it ma- it makes them feel something, right? So-

   5. CWChris Williamson22:00

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza22:01

      Okay? So, when you're living in stress, stress is when your brain and body are knocked out of homeostasis. Stress is when your brain and body are knocked out of balance. So, the moment you react to someone or something in your life and you switch on that system of arousal and it's an emergency system, your body moves completely out of balance. It's mobilizing all of its energy for some threat, real or imagined, okay? The problem with human beings is for zebra or for a gazelle w- if it outruns the lion, it goes back to grazing. The event is over and the stress is short term. But if it's a constant exposure to stressors in your life, what becomes once was maladaptive... A- adaptive becomes very maladaptive, because when you turn on that stress response and you can't turn it off, now you're headed for disease because your body's constantly out of homeostasis and balance. So okay, so the event is over and someone betrayed you or you lost your job or you got fired and you can't stop thinking about it. So every time you think about that problem, you're turning on the stress response just by thought alone. So if the hormones of stress are addictive and you can turn on the stress response just by thought alone-

   7. CWChris Williamson23:13

      Mm.

   8. JDDr. Joe Dispenza23:13

      ... you could become addicted to your own thoughts. And if you, uh, and if you have to keep talking about those problems to get the rush of adrenaline, your thoughts can m- m- knock you out of balance as well. And it's a scientific fact that the long-term effects of the hormones of stress push the genetic buttons that create disease, which means your thoughts could literally make you sick. So then if your thoughts can make you sick, the, the fundamental question is, can your thoughts make you well? And that's what we're, you know, interested in uncovering.

   9. CWChris Williamson23:44

      Talk to me about stepping into that loop, that addictive loop of the negative thoughts.

   10. JDDr. Joe Dispenza23:51

       Um, yeah. So, every time you have a thought, you make a chemical. And if you have a, a happy thought or think of something happy, you turn on a set of neurological networks in your brain that fire in a sequence, a pattern, a combination that signals another part of the brain. The brain makes another chemical that's a, a chemical messenger that makes you feel a certain way as you secrete a certain hormone. Okay? The moment you start to feel happy, the moment you start to feel joyful, your, your brain is checking in with your body saying, "Chris, you're feeling pretty joyful." And so then the chemistry influences you to think more wonderful thoughts. And so the cycle of thinking and feeling and feeling and thinking creates what we call a state of being, okay? But you could...... have thoughts that make you feel guilty. And you can turn on a different set of circuits in your brain that signal a different batch of neuropeptides, that signal a different hormonal center to make you feel differently. The moment you feel miserable, the moment you feel victimized, the moment you feel suffering, the mor- the moment you feel pain and you can't think greater than how you feel, the brain's checking in with the body and saying, "You're really miserable." And it generates more corresponding thoughts equal to that feeling. So it's thinking and feeling and feeling and thinking, this loop of thinking and feeling and feeling and thinking creates a state of being. And again, the thought and the feeling, the image and the emotion, the stimulus and response is making the body become conditioned subconsciously into the past. And so now, the person has to feel that same emotion to reaffirm their identity. So that becomes their state of being, and now they behave as if they're in their past and they think as if they're in their past.

   11. CWChris Williamson25:41

       What ways do our memories lie to us?

   12. JDDr. Joe Dispenza25:46

       Wow. Um, well, everybody has a story, right? And, and th- the way we make memories is from emotions. So if you have an event in your life that's highly traumatic, just as an example, the moment you perceive that event in your life through your senses, the, the chemical information that's coming back e- as information to your body is telling you to, to be altered. So once you begin to change your internal state, the greater the change in your internal state from its normal continuity, the more the brain freezes a frame and takes a snapshot, and that's called the long-term memory. So then the person thinks neurologically within the circuitry of that experience and they feel within the boundaries of the emotions of that experience. Every time they review the event in their mind, they're producing the same chemistry in their brain and body as if th- the event was occurring. So again, the body's reliving the trauma 50 to 100 times in the day, and now the, the trauma's no longer in the brain. The trauma's emotionally conditioned in the body, right? So if you say to the person, "Why are you so bitter?" Uh, "Why are you so sad? Why are you so unhappy?" They'll say, "I am this way because of this event that happened to me 10 years ago." What they're really saying is, "After that event, I changed and I have not been able to change since this event." Well, the research on memory says that if you ask that person that story of the actual account, 50% of that story is no longer the truth. In other words, they're embellishing the story so they can excuse themselves. They're making it worse. They're making the conditions worse. They're telling the story and, uh, they're embellishing it to some degree to excuse themselves from changing, right? So if 50% of that story isn't even the truth, they're reliving a miserable life they never even had, all to reaffirm their addiction to that emotional state. So, so here, here, here's the crazy part because we work with, we work with, uh, veterans and, and, and Navy SEALs. And, and, uh, can you then forget about the memory and just overcome the emotion? Because the memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom. And now you no longer belong to the past, you're ready to create a new future. And so, the stories we tell about our past are only stories we tell when we feel those emotions. (laughs) We would never tell that story when we feel a different emotion.

   13. CWChris Williamson28:30

       Why?

   14. JDDr. Joe Dispenza28:30

       Because, because the person's telling, th- feeling that emotion and that emotion is the record of the memory chemically. So they, they're telling the story because they can't think greater than that feeling. Feelings have become the means of thinking. But what if you told a different story? And that's exactly what we teach people to do. Stop romancing your past. Start romancing your future. Stop telling the story of your past. Start telling the story of your future. Stop believing in your past. Start believing in a new future. And, and that process is an unlearning and a relearning process. It's literally breaking the habit of being yourself and reinventing a new self. It's, it's pruning synaptic connections. It's routing new connections. It's unfiring, it's unwiring, it's refiring, it's rewiring, it's deprogramming, it's reprogramming. It's losing your mind and creating a new one. It's-

   15. CWChris Williamson29:19

       (laughs)

   16. JDDr. Joe Dispenza29:19

       ... un-memorizing emotions that are stored in the body and then reconditioning the body to a new mind and to a new emotion. And so what happens in this immersive experience when we do our weeklong events is we take that person right to that point of that emotion where they say, "Uh, um, I gotta go. Uh, this is too uncomfortable." And we don't, we don't want them to white-knuckle it there. We give them something to do. And if they practice that formula and they keep lowering the volume (laughs) to that emotion, sooner or later, their body becomes liberated. They're stepping out into the unknown. And we've seen people who have had the most brutal, the most horrific, the most difficult pasts, um, uh, look back at their past and say, "I would, I would never wanna change one thing in my past because it got me to this moment." And that's the moment the past no longer exists. They look at their betrayers, they look at their abusers, and they see the h- they see the purposeful good and the meaning behind all of that that had to happen because it would've never brought them to this moment. And I, I think that's the moment the past no longer exists.

   17. CWChris Williamson30:30

       What is one of your favorite stories of somebody who's been locked into one of these loops for a little while?

   18. JDDr. Joe Dispenza30:39

       Um, gosh, there's, there's so many of them. Um, we just had a, a woman on the stage, uh, uh, in Dallas, and, um, I watched this woman come to the event months before it was... This event in Dallas was an advanced follow-up, but she had done the week-long seven-day retreat. And, uh, she was in Dallas, and she was sitting, um, uh, sorry, she was in Denver, and she was sitting in the f- in the front, away from the, th- the audience, under a, a screen, you know, under the, the screens. And she was in a, a lounge, and she had a wheelchair, and she had a scooter, uh, and she had oxygen, and she had, uh, well, crutches. Uh, and she was kind of camped out in that area there. And, um, uh, she had about five different, uh, serious health conditions. And, and, um, at the end of... Uh, of course, she couldn't, uh, get up, uh, a- and get out of, get off the couch. If she went to the bathroom, uh, s- uh, she was done for the day in terms of her amount of her energy she had. She was living on six foods. Uh, she was on all kinds of medications, a lot of, uh, and, and couldn't think greater than how she felt, right? So if you see a person like that, you think, "Oh, there's really not a whole lot of hope, uh, for this person." And yet, um, she began to learn the information and began to practice the information, uh, for the entire week. Um, and at the end of the, uh, seven-day event, we were doing a walking meditation as a group outside, and, um, uh, I saw her out of her wheelchair, smiling and walking, and, and they sent me her testimonial. Um, uh, uh, and I read the whole thing. And then sh- when she was in Dallas, um, she came to the event's follow-up and they brought her backstage to, to, uh, tell me the story. And, and she told me the story, and then it wasn't until she got on the stage that I realized that that was the woman that was in Denver because she did not look (laughs) like the same person. She, she looked like a completely, a completely different person. She has none of those health conditions any longer. Um, she's doing all the things that she was doing before she had them, and, and she, she broke out, you know? She had her moment, uh, and when she changed, um, her biology changed.

   19. CWChris Williamson33:09

       To a lot of people, that

6. 33:10 – 39:48

   Dealing With Miraculous Stories of Success

   1. CWChris Williamson33:10

      sounds fantastical. It's, it, it sounds a- almost unbelievable, and I know that-

   2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza33:15

      It is unbelievable.

   3. CWChris Williamson33:16

      (laughs)

   4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza33:17

      It really is unbelievable. I mean, I have difficulty believing some of the things in terms of the testimoni- testimonials on transformations we've witnessed. I mean, I, I, I have watched certain testimonials of people giving their accounts of all kinds of crazy changes in their health conditions, like, uh, like, uh, muscular dystrophy. Like, I mean, I've never seen a case of that reversed. I, I, I know that it's a degenerative condition, and yet, um, this guy left the event walking and, and he was in a wheelchair when he came, and I watched that testimonial. I must have watched it 100 times. I watched it 100 times 'cause I couldn't believe it. I could not believe that this guy was standing and, and I could not, I could not stop looking at the joy on his face, and the excitement and the enthusiasm he had for life. It was so real and so authentic. I couldn't bel- I couldn't believe it, and so it's c- it's, it's difficult to believe this. I have difficulty believing it, uh, in, in a lot of, a lot of times, but there's nothing like a good story, because that s- person who's standing on the stage who's telling their story is a four-minute mile. They're breaking through some level of consciousness or unconsciousness, and they're the example of truth. They're examples of the truth to the collective, and the collective who's listening to the story of transformation, and they're seeing that the persons doesn't look vegan, and doesn't look ketogenic, and doesn't look young and buffed but looks like a normal person, uh, and that person is seeing and they c- they became blind, or they're hearing because they were deaf, or they had stage four cancer and they don't have it. Invariably, someone in the audience is gonna look at them and say, "Ah, they're no different than me. If they can do it, I can do it." And that, that, that now is information for the collective to believe in a greater level of possibility, and I, and I think that, that that's exactly how it becomes infectious as health and wellness become as inf- as infectious as disease, and we see this at events all the time. So yes, it, it is unbelievable, and I have to catch myself. You tell me, "Pick one," and I think, "Oh, uh, half of these ones I would tell you p- most people wouldn't believe 'cause they're unbelievable," but we have a lot of those.

   5. CWChris Williamson35:31

      Well, you have a huge research team that's been collecting, I think I heard, 500 billion pieces of data in one form or another. Given the fact that these outcomes that you're talking about are so unbelievable, are you having to work additionally hard, be additionally rigorous when it comes to the science in order to dispel any accusations of the pseudoscience stuff?

   6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza35:51

      Um, gosh, what a great conversation. Thanks for asking the question. Um, the whole reason that I started measuring, and we've been measuring for a long time now, um, was because when I saw someone with MS in a wheelchair come to the event in a wheelchair and walk out without one, I said, "We gotta start measuring." I mean, what is happening in that person's brain? What is happening in their body? What's happening in their biology? What's happening on a cellular level? What's, is there information in their blood? What's happening to their immune system? And we, we started, you know, gathering, you know, um, a lot of data. I mean, we have (laughs) way over 500 billion data points. Uh, that's usually just one or two studies. And, and so when we started partnering with University of California San Diego, I simply said to those scientists, "Okay."Same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, same experiences, same emotions, that's the known, same biology. Sounds right. New thoughts, new choices, new behaviors, new experiences, new emotions, new biology. Possibly that's a good hypothesis. You wanna measure it. So we've measured so many things in the human body that says that you can change your brain to work way better in four days, you can make your heart way better, you can express new genes, uh, you could release thousands of metabolites, thousands and thousands of metabolites in seven days that promote growth and repair in your body. Um, we find information in a meditator's blood that has a resistance to viruses, all kinds of viruses, even ones with spikes. Um, that the information in advanced meditators' blood somehow diminishes mitochondrial function in cancer cells. That's the, that's the energy in the cell. Not a little bit, but 70%, which is dramatic, and if cancer cells love to multiply and move, and they have no energy, um, they don't live as long. Uh, there's information in the blood of advanced meditators, uh, that somehow downregulates the genes for Alzheimer's. Uh, we're finding, uh, robust amounts of endogenous opiates that reduce pain across the board. We measured 63 different health, uh, conditions, 63 different diseases, um, all different diseases, one intervention, and, uh, uh, the majority of those people have a significant reduction in pain and a very elevated level of endogenous opiates in their, in their bloodstream. You know, natural, uh, pain relievers, natural chemicals that make you feel good. Um, uh, and, and, um, so we just, we've explored the microbiome, we've seen that you can change your microbiome in seven days to look like a way healthier person without taking a probiotic, without changing your diet, without el- eliminating anything. Somehow, um, the, the microbiome changes dramatically for the better, and the reason is because they're not the same person any longer. (laughs) or a different person. Um, so we've spent the last four years working with the University of California San Diego and doing extensive research on the brain, extensive research, uh, on heart, uh, heart measurements, um, a lot of blood values, urine, uh, um, everything. We've measured, we've mea- we measure saliva, we measure breast milk. (laughs) We measure tears. I mean, we've measured, uh, just about everything. Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson39:29

      And are these published? These results are published?

   8. JDDr. Joe Dispenza39:31

      Yes. We have some papers that are published now. Um, we have some papers that are in peer review right now. We have about five more papers, uh, that we're, uh, getting busy writing. But we have, we probably have the largest database, uh, in the world on, on meditation right now.

7. 39:48 – 44:10

   Most Common Criticisms of Joe’s Work

   1. CWChris Williamson39:48

      What are the most common criticisms that you get?

   2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza39:50

      Wow. Um, I would say that, you know, when you see the empirical science, uh, a lot of people, um, that see the data, uh, whether we show it to reputable universities and, and professors or to NASA or to whoever, I think one of the things that people have the most... that there's the most shock and surprise is that you never see these type of changes in seven days. Like, a drug study, you don't ever see these kind of... we're talking about, uh, thousands of genes upregulated to suggest the person's living in a completely different environment, a completely different life, and they're in a ballroom, you know? So, so when you see the effects change like that in seven days, anybody who's a scientist that has that, uh, trained mind, they're gonna fall out of their chair because it's the, the, the metagenomics around it is not just one or two people, it's the, it's the whole entire group. So think about it, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 different people, all different genotypes. Everybody has their own gene sequence. Okay? At the end of seven days, 77% of those people are signaling the same genes and making the same proteins. That's kind of wild. That means that the flock, the herd, the school, you know, they're, everybody's evolving. There's an emergent consciousness that's actually... everybody's biology is evolving together. Like, and that's, and that's exciting because people change people. That's what we discovered. So when we show the data to people, um, and you, they see it, uh, the conversation that we used to have where we'd have to be on the defense has changed dramatically because these are double blind and triple blind placebo studies. These are j- we're, they're s- very, very rigorous studies. So, so the scientist that sees it questions the time, and then, you know, a drug study is about, uh, 25% effective, you know? And it usually takes, um, three to six months before you see the efficacy turn out. Our data's, like, somewhere, uh, uh, between 75 and 100%. So it's, it's, it shows that (laughs) that the nervous system is the greatest pharmacist in the world that actually works better than any drug. So, so when, when people really begin to see the science and, and, and, you know, they... it challenges their belief, it challenges... I keep telling the scientists, "I can't believe this is the truth." Like, I'm more surprised than anybody. But I also say to them, "Where do those chemicals come from? Where are they coming from?" The person's not taking opiates. They're not taking a, an anti-carcinogen. They're, they're not taking anything, uh, to change their biology. Like, this is, it's coming from within them.Um, so it's been changing the conversation, uh, in medicine, uh, quite a bit and we're just working on finding the language, but- but- but people who see the data, um, are very surprised and they want to know, uh, what we're doing, which is- which is a different conversation that we've had, uh, in the past.

   3. CWChris Williamson43:04

      In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentous. A lot of supplements say that they're top quality, but very few can actually prove it, and Momentous has the most rigorous third-party testing of any supplement company that I've ever found. Andrew Huberman is the scientific advisor for them. My favorite product from them is their Sleep Pack, which contains everything that you need for a good night's sleep, including Magnesium L3-- threonate, apigenin, (laughs) and L-theanine in the optimal doses to help you get a better, deeper, more restful night's sleep. This is all that you need. You can throw it in your bag, you can take it with you on the road, or you can just take it every single evening. It's made a massive difference to the quality of my sleep. Best of all, they've got a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can buy anything and try it for 29 days, and if you don't like it, they will give you your money back. They ship internationally and you can get free US shipping on orders over $75. Right now, you can get a 20% discount on everything site-wide by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernwisdom using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's livemomentous.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Are you doing longitudinal

8. 44:10 – 54:55

   Long-Term Impact on Joe’s Clients

   1. CWChris Williamson44:10

      studies? Are you seeing how long the immersive stuff... What- what sort of effects does this lock in over time?

   2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza44:16

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson44:16

      Are people reverting as soon as they're out of this very energetic group of people? What's happening over time?

   4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza44:21

      Yes, that's a great question. Um, so, um, that's one of the things about, uh, this work that I really, really love in terms of our community. Um, it's not like people go, "Oh, fu- woo, I gotta go meditate today. It's the morning." It's not- s- not how our community is. Like, the majority of the people that come to a week-long event keep doing the work, or the majority of them do because the magic in their life is starting to happen, and why would you want to stop, um, from- from having those events, uh, you know, actually take place? So, we see that people who heal, and this sounds kind of crazy, and we've s- there's- we've had a lot of people instantaneously have a reversal in a health condition from one meditation, from one inward experience. There's an arousal that takes place in their nervous system. They move into these heightened states of gamma brain wave patterns. Uh, uh, the person is having an inward experience that's greater than the betrayal or the trauma from the past, and somehow there's a- there's an upgrade in their biology. Like, there's the eczema, now it's gone. Um, there's the myasthenia gravis, now it's gone. There's the Parkinson's. It was there, now it's gone. There's the cancer and now it's gone. There's the deafness, now the person's hearing. Now the blindness is- the person's seeing. It's like that. It's like the person comes back and there's an upgrade, right?

   5. CWChris Williamson45:45

      What do you think is happening inside of the body?

   6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza45:47

      Oh, they're connecting. They're-

   7. CWChris Williamson45:47

      What's going on?

   8. JDDr. Joe Dispenza45:48

      Okay. So anyway, let me f- let me finish that- that thought and then I'll answer it, 'cause- 'cause it's important to ask that question. Those people who have those biological upgrades that are instantaneous, um, when we measure them three d- three months down the road, six months down the road, about nine months down the road, there's a- there's a sustained change. Uh, they got the upgrade.

   9. CWChris Williamson46:07

      If they continue to do the practice?

   10. JDDr. Joe Dispenza46:08

       No, no, no. Even if they don't do the practice, they got a- they got a very good upgrade. Now a certain percentage of people that- that have an upgrade like that and they go back to the stressful life, uh, the Parkinson's returns, the cancer returns because they're back to the same personality again and they're making the same chemistry. Now many of those people continue in that direction. Other people catch themselves and they said, "If I change this Parkinson's once, because my father's in the hospital and I'm emotionally reacted, I can change it again." And they actually change it again, right? So, um, so, um... And then there's people who go through that process of breaking the habit of being themselves and- and becoming and reinventing th- another person, and it's a- it's a constant process-

   11. CWChris Williamson46:52

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JDDr. Joe Dispenza46:53

       ... uh, of change.

   13. CWChris Williamson46:53

       You kind of got a super responder with the first-

   14. JDDr. Joe Dispenza46:56

       Right. You have-

   15. CWChris Williamson46:56

       ... one and done type person.

   16. JDDr. Joe Dispenza46:57

       Yeah, one- one connection, um, one moment, uh, of connection, uh, like a- like a brainstorm, uh, and those people who cross the river of change, they tend to do the work, uh, consistently because they want to keep changing. They're not doing their meditations to heal. (laughs) They're doing their meditations to change, and then they understand when they change, they heal. So, it's the process of change that they're interested in. So- so we have a good percentage of people who do the work and after they finish the immersive experience, that sustain those changes, and we have a lot of people that sustain changes whether they do it or- or they don't do it. So what's happening in their biology? That's a great question. Um, let me see if I can answer this, um, in a methodical way. Um, your senses plug you into three-dimensional reality, right? So if I took away your sight, if I took away your hearing, I took away your smell, your taste, and feeling with your body, you would have no experience of three-dimensional reality, but you would still be conscious, but you would be conscious of nothing material or physical. You would just be conscious that you're conscious, and you would be conscious of nothing, in a sense. So, when a person is immersed in three-dimensional reality, um, their neocortex, their thinking brain, is super busy scanning the environment and associating knowns and- and, uh, it's got to process a lot of information that's coming in through the senses, what it's seeing, what it's hearing, what it's smelling, what it's tasting, what it's feeling, and that... A lot- a lot of that information is coming in. The brain's job is to create meaning between your inner world and your outer world, and if you were to measure a person's brain waves, they're pretty much in beta brain wave patterns, and that means you're conscious, you're awake, and you're aware that you're in a body local in space and time. You're aware of your environment and you're aware of time.And that's how we navigate in three-dimensional reality, and there's neurotransmitters in the brain that support that, okay? If I said to you, um, "You gotta do a speech and it's gotta be done, uh, by, by, uh, without any notes, uh, you got about 45 minutes to prepare," um, your brain would kind of perk up a little bit and you'd... It would be kind of a good stress. You'd have to perform. You're confident. You'd have to get ready. You'd have to change your state. You'd have to think. You'd have to... All right, what do I want to talk about? I gotta, I gotta change my state. You would move into mid-range beta, light bulb gets a little brighter, and you're a little bit more ready, uh, in a sense. But when you react, and you're emotional, and you're stressed, and you're out of balance, you go into this very high beta brain wave pattern, and that's three times as high as low level beta. That's when the brain is in first gear on the freeway. It is, it is u- consuming all of its energy and it's sweeping the environment and it's shifting the attention from one person to another person to another problem to another thing to another place. It's trying to forecast. It's trying to predict. And the brain starts firing very, very disintegrated-ly. It's, it starts, it's firing incoherently, out of order. And people have... They need a drug or they need a drink or they need something to take away that kind of state and, and their, th- their thoughts are literally driving the brain into higher and higher states of, of beta. Their, their, their addiction to those thoughts are driving the brain out of balance. Okay, so when you're in that state, you're very narrow focused. You're, you're obsessing, uh, on things. That's what most of the brain does. It overthinks. It over, it overanalyzes. Uh, so if you can change your brain waves from beta to alpha, now your inner world starts becoming more real than your outer world, and in a sense, you're, you become more creative. Your brain stops talking to you in your head. You stop analyzing. You start seeing images. You start seeing pictures in alpha, which is an imaginary and very creative state. You're still aware of your outer environment, but not so much. Okay, so here's the answer to your question. If you can get so relaxed that your body moves into a light state and it's in a light rest and you're conscious and awake, now you're in theta, and that's a very hypnotic state. And when you're in a hypnotic state, you're in a state of trance and you're very suggestible to information. And suggestibility is your ability to accept information, to believe in information, to surrender to it, and, and that's what can program a person to do about... just about anything, right? So a hypnotist uses, uh, when he's, when he's s- making suggestions, the person who's in theta, the door between their conscious mind and the subconscious mind is wide open to information. Okay, so that makes sense, uh, if you're getting information through your senses and you're in theta, you're in a hypnotic state, but what if the person's eyes are closed? What if, uh, there's music filling the space, they're not eating, they're not tasting, they're not smelling, they're not experiencing, they're not feeling, and they're in that realm of theta, and I ask them instead of the put... They're all of their attention on everything physical and everything material to open their awareness instead of narrow their focus, broaden their focus and put their attention not, not on the material, but on the immaterial, not on the particle, but the wave, not on matter, but on energy? And, and, and the atom is 99.9999% information and energy, okay? So having the person focus on nothing... This is the funny part about it. And broadening their focus, if they can dial down their thinking neocortex to theta, they'll have no experience of their body, no experience for the environment, and no experience of time. And they're in theta, they're still suggestible to information, but they're not aware of their outer environment, but they're still suggestible. There's only one other place that information comes from and that's frequency. And all frequency, radio waves, Wi-Fi waves, uh, x-rays, uh, all carry information. So when the person opens their awareness to the wave function, to energy and to information, they pay more attention to that and less attention to themself, more... They connect more to that and less to the three-dimensional reality. If there's... if there's coherence in the brain, all of a sudden the person has a moment of connection and the brain goes into a gamma brain wave state. And gamma now is an arousal, it's super consciousness, but it's not coming from fear, it's not coming from aggression or anger, it's not coming from pain. The arousal is ecstasy. A person is making connection and, and when we measure the amount of gamma that's taking place in the person's brain, 3%, uh, 2% to 3% of the population in anything that we're measuring really good is three standard deviations outside of normal. Uh, these people are 200, 300, 400, 500 standard deviations outside of normal and three is really great.

   17. CWChris Williamson53:48

       Is this on an fMRI? Something similar?

   18. JDDr. Joe Dispenza53:49

       This is on a quantitative EEG. And we see the same pattern, the limbic brain, the seat of the autonomic nervous system is functioning in a very, very coherent, highly organized, very, very fast frequency of gamma. Now remember, stress is autonomic dysregulation, right? Dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system moving out of balance. These high states of gamma is autonomic regulation. Now the autonomic nervous system controls and coordinates every system in the body and if it's, if it's processing an energy in a frequency that fast, every single cell in the body is getting the information and the body's literally raised in energy and raised in frequency. And that's when you see the instantaneous, uh, upgrade that goes on biologically in a person's body. And we actually now can predict it. When we see a person move into a certain level of theta, we can say, "Oh boy, this is going to be really good, like really good." And that person, um, is having a very, very powerful internal experience.

9. 54:55 – 57:25

   Real-Time Experiences of Clients

   1. CWChris Williamson54:55

      What is the felt sense...... that somebody will tend to go through during that process?

   2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza55:01

      Um-

   3. CWChris Williamson55:01

      What's the, what's the embodied s- subjective experience of going through this?

   4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza55:04

      Ah. So we have a, we have, um, a scientist that, uh, uh, studies the language of transformation, uh, from the University of Central Oklahoma. A super, uh, great guy, and he's been studying the language of transformation and all the testimonials of all the, many of the people who have had these moments, and, um, the subjective experience is twofold. Um, it's very, um, somatic. When I mean somatic, I mean like they say, "Oh, like every single cell in my body, uh, was vibrating at a faster frequency. I felt, uh, the incredible... My heart felt like it was gonna blow open. Um, I felt like I was filled with light," and they'll give you, like, something very somatic, like, "Oh my God, it was r- I felt this in my body." And then it's also very emotional. That's the other part, but it's that, like, emotional, like, "I've never felt love. I thought I understood love. I thought I have felt love. I've never felt love like this. I felt so connected. I felt so whole. I felt so pure. Um, I f- I felt it was the most familiar unfamiliar feeling I've ever had. Oh my God, I forgot, uh, I forgot that I was, that it was within me," whatever. Um, and then, and then the other element is after that, they, they have a language where they only can use metaphor to describe the unknown experience. They'll say, um, you know, "My heart turned on like an engine. The, you know, the top of my head blew off. There was lightning coming out of my fingertips." They're, they're tr- they're trying to explain, but they'll say, "Well, it wasn't lightning really. It just felt like this, but it was more like this," so, um, so the, the language, uh, specialist that has been studying this had his own moment, uh, at, uh, an event we did in Marco Island, uh, last September where he connected (laughs) and, um, I sat down with him and talked to him, and he could not find the language. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson57:05

      The language guy.

   6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza57:06

      The language guy, could not find the language to explain what the heck happened to him, but he was totally switched on. So, so there's, there's an arousal that takes place. Uh, there's high gamma brain wave patterns. It's autonomic regulation. It's very somatic. It's very emotional. And, and, um, they're, uh, people describe it kind of like a connection.

10. 57:25 – 1:00:11

    Why Fear is So Pervasive

    1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza57:25

    2. CWChris Williamson57:25

       I wanna talk about fear. Why do you think it's such a pervasive emotion given that we're living in a time which has never been safer than ever before?

    3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza57:34

       Yeah. Well, I think fear has been very adaptive for us as human beings. I mean, I think, you know, if you, if you have a lot of common sense and you're navigating in your life, um, there's certain things that you s- you avoid, um, that I think is healthy, and I think there's, uh, uh, things where, uh, you can't predict something or you can't control something, uh, and you kinda get ready. Uh, that's when... The early stages of fear is that you kind of rev up and you get ready. You're ready to perform-

    4. CWChris Williamson58:06

       It's anticipation.

    5. JDDr. Joe Dispenza58:07

       ... you're ready to act. You're, you're ready for something, right? And, and I think that's healthy, um, um, when it's within a, a limit. And then when it gets to that point where you absolutely have the perception that it's going to get worse instead of get better, um, that's when the brain goes into these, these high states of arousal, and the arousals really, pay a lot of attention to your body. Pay a lot of attention to everything in your environment. Do not take your attention off-

    6. CWChris Williamson58:34

       It's a degree of vigilance.

    7. JDDr. Joe Dispenza58:35

       Yeah. Uh, that's, it is vigilance. And, and try to predict the worst thing right now that could possibly happen. Predict the worst because if you can get ready for the worst, and you're, and you're ready for it, anything less that happens, you're gonna survive. So the brain s- actually predicts the worst case scenario. When it picks that worst case scenario, uh, the body goes into a, an, a s- a heightened state of fear, right? And, and now in fear though, um, the conditioned response that takes place from feeling that emotion is storing that emotion in the body, right? So now-

    8. CWChris Williamson59:09

       What do you mean when you say, "Storing the emotion in the body?"

    9. JDDr. Joe Dispenza59:12

       Um, okay. So, um, fear creates an arousal that switches on the fight or flight nervous system, right? So keep having the thought, keep having the response, and you're taking thought in, in the form of chemistry, in the form of emotion, and you're literally activating that third center, and now that third center is storing an enormous amount of energy in it. And when there's an enormous amount of energy in that, that plex- solar plexus, um, that cen- that center is driving more information to the brain for you to be more ready for the next possible thing that can go wrong. And so you could have 10 really great things that go on in your day and one thing that goes wrong, and you're gonna focus on that one wrong thing because you gotta be prepared for it if it happens again, so. So I think fear was adaptive, um, at one point, and it's become very maladaptive because again, uh, people are always, uh, uh, trying to forecast the worst case scenario.

11. 1:00:11 – 1:08:35

    How to Fear Less

    1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:00:11

    2. CWChris Williamson1:00:11

       How can people fear less if we've got this intrinsic drug dealer, this endogenous drug dealer inside of us that continues to just tick the button, just keeping on pressing it, pressing it, pressing it, pressing it? Is becoming aware, is it stepping into noticing when that, uh, arises? Is it trying to find a degree of safety?

    3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:00:35

       Yeah. Um, well, I think, I think what we discovered is that, um, uh, m- most people don't think that they have control over that. I mean, it's- it's so primitive. It's so in our biology. It's hard to think that you have control over a r- a fear response. Now, um, there's nothing wrong with having a fear response. There's no- nothing wro- wrong with getting aroused. The question is how long?...like, "How long is this gonna go on for?" So, you have a reaction five days ago from something that's happened and you're still, you're still aroused by that event, you got to agree that y- you're addicted, you're addicted to that, that emotion. Keep it going and it'll become more automatic. And you'll, you'll constantly, uh, um, be th- thinking certain ways and doing certain things to reaffirm that addiction to fear. Um, so, so for the short term, you know, uh, have the fear response. If you can't shorten the refractory period of that emotional response, more than likely, uh, i- i- it's g- you're gonna be in a program for the remainder of your day. So, what we teach people is how, uh, to master the fear. So, so take a- anxiety as an example, right? Many people come to the work and they have a high amount of anxiety; CEOs, engineers, doctors, nurses, uh, dentists, people who can't cross a bridge.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:02:03

       There's a business book called Only the Paranoid Survive, I think.

    5. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:02:05

       Yeah (laughs) . Yeah, there you go. Um, and they've tried everything, um, to try to change their anxiety, but what they haven't done is they haven't caught themselves feeling the feeling of fear and practicing with their eyes closed first. Not, not in their life when they're feeling fear, but let's practice when you're sitting in the meditation and your body starts getting a little anxious, starts getting a little worried, starts getting a little aroused. What are you gonna do in that moment? Can you become aware that the body's feeling that emotion and could you like ch- like taming an animal, settling the body back down from that aroused state back into the present moment? Okay. It goes, "Great, I'm gonna do this for two seconds," and like a spoiled child, it goes, it starts getting aroused again. Now most people think, "I, I'm never gonna be able to overcome this." But the act of sitting with that and keep lowering the volume and, and not, not letting the body be the mind, but you, you actually executing being the mind. Do that enough times and you'll condition the body to a new mind. And, and that, what that ha- what happens is the brain stops firing those same circuits. Okay? Then the person says, "But what if this happens? And what if that happens? And then what if this happens?" And they catch themselves going to the worst case scenario or going to the memory of the past and they keep bringing their attention back to the present moment. W- what we discovered is if you keep doing that, you get better at it. And, and when the body, as I said, finally surrenders into the present moment, uh, the, it cannot be in fear any longer. So the person then that returns back into their life and has lowered the volume to the fear because they've been practicing it will respond less emotionally in their life because they've overcome it, right? If they haven't overcome it, then the response is gonna be the same. So first thing, eyes closed. You gotta practice with your eyes closed, but get so good at doing it with your eyes closed that you can do it with your eyes open. And when it's the hardest, it matters the most. And so justified, valid or not, those chemicals are not good for you. They're not good for you. Whether you're right, whether you're justified, the only person that's hurting is you, right? So then the person says, "Okay, well, is this l- is this loving to me?" Okay. So, if fear is real, okay, so what, what emotion could you change from fear into, okay? So we teach people, okay, "Can you practice breathing and slowing your brainwaves down, working with the animal, working with the body, slow your breath down, slow your brainwaves down?" "Yeah, but I don't want to." "Okay. Do it anyway." Practice slowing your breath down, breathing a little bit slower, your brainwaves start to change, put your attention on your heart. We have great data to show where you place your attention is where you place your energy. You see a very low frequency of the heart starting to build in the person, so now the heart is getting energy and then parasympathetic nervous system starts coming up, the body starts moving into that state. Okay. That's really great, and keep doing it over and over again, keep relaxing into your heart, energy moving into the heart. The heart informs the brain, "The trauma's over. Betrayal's over. The, uh, the event is over. What you're afraid of is, is over." And it resets the baseline in the amygdala for trauma. And the side effect of that is the person now when energy moves into their heart like that, they start getting very creative. The heart is a very creative center. "Okay, well what do I wanna do now? Like what do I wanna create now?" So, so, uh, it's something that you can only talk around, but when you're in the work and you're practicing it, it's first so important to face off with it with your eyes closed. And it's David against Goliath in the beginning because the program is so ingrained in our biology, and yet people who keep practicing lowering the volume, lowering the volume, we see the brain scans of CEOs, as I said, all kinds of different athletes. Um, you see the dramatic change in the brain. There's the anxiety, and now it's gone, and there's just a significant changes in, in a person's subjective view of the world as well.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:06:16

       Is this your format, your process to move through most painful emotions?

    7. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:06:24

       Um... That's one of the ways, uh, that we do it. I think just it isn't enough to inhibit the thought and the feeling. I think it's practice- practicing feeling something else. And, and then we use, we use technology to actually tell you when you're doing it and when you're not. That's so important. So, so take a, a Navy SEAL, for example, who has, um, done all the talk therapy, uh, tried all the pharmaceuticals, uh, tried all the antidepressants, uh, tried all the pain relievers, tried the ayahuasca, tried the plant medicine and, and they still can't function in their life, right? And so, why can't they function in their life? Because...... uh, they, they haven't gotten beyond the emotion that's keeping them connected, uh, uh, to the past, so-

    8. CWChris Williamson1:07:17

       Well, if you cont- if, if what you said earlier on is true and you continue to replay this story, and if your body and your physiological system and your endocrine system and everything else is just cascading down the same... It- it's like you're reliving, it is actually like you're reliving that same experience over and over and over and over again, so it does make sense. It would be like trying to fix a soldier's PTSD while he's still in the field.

    9. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:07:43

       Exactly.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:07:44

        Because that is where the brain is taking him back to.

    11. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:07:47

        Yeah. So, so, um, we have seen people come right up to the edge of their emotional belief, you know, where the, where the pain, where the emotio- emotion is r- at its height, you know? And th- and the hardest part of, uh, every war is the last battle. And, and, uh, they, they go one more time, you know? They just say, "I'm gonna go again." And when they, when they go again, um, many times, they, they're, they ha- that's when they have their breakthrough. And the breakthrough isn't, as I said, just like, um, a little breakthrough. It's an immediate relief, uh, for the person. And, and so that's the moment then when they look back at their past, they s- they see it through a whole different lens.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:08:34

        I wanna

12. 1:08:35 – 1:11:54

    Responding to Theo Von & Sean Strickland

    1. CWChris Williamson1:08:35

       show you a clip of Theo Von with Sean Strickland. So Sean Strickland is the current UFC middleweight champion, and in a podcast with the two of them, he talks about some trauma that he's been through in his past.

    2. You know what I'm talking about? (laughs) Huh? Yeah, my guy. Have you ever heard that? Yeah, I'm sorry, bud. So... Ah, man. I'm sorry, buddy. We don't have to talk, man. I can just sit here with you for a minute. Oh, fuck. Uh, I think... some hard things that people don't understand about, like, trauma, you know? Yeah.

    3. What do you see when you look at that?

    4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:09:26

       Oh, I, I see a real vulnerable moment, moment for somebody. Really vulnerable moment. Uh, and, um, yeah, I think childhood trauma is, yeah, I think probably the biggest, uh, trauma for many people to overcome because, uh, children, their brainwaves are very slow. I mean, um, in alpha, in, in theta, and, uh, information goes in very quickly, right into their subconscious. And I, and I think that, um, we figure out adaptive ways, uh, to not have to feel those emotions or not have to look at that past. But it's, we're always aware of it, it's always there, right? It's th- uh, but, but we don't really have a moment where we fully allow ourselves to experience it. And, and I think he had a moment, uh, where, by association, um, he let himself be vulnerable, which I think is great.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:10:25

       That video is, every single time I watch it, is very difficult to watch for me. And it's twofold. It's first off, someone that's become a professional hard person, right? He just punches people in the face, he likes violence. Him opening up and him struggling, and then Theo saying, "It's okay, man. We don't need to talk. We can just sit here for a while if you want." I can't... It's, it's so beautiful.

    6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:10:48

       Yeah. Yeah. There's a... And I, and I think, um, uncertainty and I think that moment of vulnerability needs space. I think it needs space, um, and it needs time, uh, for the person to sit in that and allow themselves to fully feel it, right? And, and, uh, that- that's how, that's how it... You, you sit in it long enough, it goes away. It, it finally goes away.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:11:14

       What's your advice for somebody playing the Theo role? Someone's having a conversation with somebody else who is on the verge of opening up, they're on the cusp of, of feeling something uncomfortable or trying to open up about it. How can someone hold space more effectively?

    8. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:11:29

       Oh, I think, I think all people really wanna do is feel safe and feel loved, you know? So again, I think he played that really, really well, and that is just, uh, let that person know that they're, that you're there for them and, and give them a- uh, the room to go as far as they wanna go. Uh, and, and, and some people, uh, uh, feel really safe, uh, when that happens and I think they, they, they release it.

13. 1:11:54 – 1:18:58

    Learning to Reconnect With Your Feelings

    1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:11:54

    2. CWChris Williamson1:11:54

       You mentioned before about this, uh, discomfort with feeling feelings, and we live in a world which is very good at distracting us from feeling feelings. There are a whole host of drugs, philosophies, technologies, ways of thinking that can distract us away from feeling feelings. And if there's somebody that's listening to this and s- thinking to themselves, "I don't think I'm feeling my feelings that fully," how can someone get back in the rhythm of feeling their feelings again?

    3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:12:27

       Yeah, you gotta sit with yourself. You gotta take your device and set it in the other room. You gotta shut it off and feel without that thing, uh, and you gotta think for yourself. And I think, um, the, the, that kind of art of contemplation, um, has been lost because I think that process of self-reflection kind of is a building process neurologically i- in our brains. And so to, to, to... You know, we joke all the time with people who go through a week-long event. I say to them, "When's the last time you sat with you this long till you finally like you?" You know, if you sit with yourself long enough, um, those feelings are gonna come up. They're g- they're, they will come up because, uh, um, you have nothing to do...... if you have nothing to do, uh, your inner world and how you're thinking and how you're feeling is going to become very obvious to you. Um, and so I think, um, people ask all the time, "Well, well, why is my health condition like this? What do I, what are the thoughts, what are the feelings that I need to change?" It's really simple. Sit with yourself, uh, and you'll, you'll know exactly what it is that y- that you need to change. So, um, I, I think it's, I think you gotta create the time to invest in yourself. Um, one of the things that I've discovered with many people that tell us, uh, stories of transformation is that they kind of have this kind of belief like, "I believe this stuff works. Um, I just never believed it could work for me." I mean, that's a really, really fundamentally key moment in a person's evolution, because that means they actually have to change their belief. (laughs) And that's sometimes a, that means they gotta come out of their resting state, and they gotta choose themselves every day.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:14:14

       I see that with a lot of things that, that's something that's nice, but for other people. That's something which I believe could be true, the data seems to be, to be true, but that's not for me.

    5. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:14:26

       Yeah.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:14:27

       The weight loss isn't for me. The transformation isn't for me. The relationship that's healthy isn't for me. The group of friends that genuinely want the best for me isn't for me. This ... It's like solipsism, in a way.

    7. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:14:43

       It's persistent disbelief.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:14:46

       Yes, but only around you.

    9. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:14:48

       Of course. But, but there all there is is you. (laughs) So, so that person then who's, who's arguing for some limitation just doesn't believe that they can change their life. They don't believe that their thoughts have something to do with their destiny. They don't believe, they don't believe in possibility because they don't believe in themselves. You cannot believe in possibility without believing in yourself, and you ca- if you believe in yourself, that means you gotta believe in possibility. And that means then, uh, that means you gotta do something. You gotta get off the couch. You know, you gotta get up and you gotta get engaged, uh, in your world. And you gotta be a creator in your life in, in ... and instead of a victim in your life. Now, that, that's an easy thing to say, um, but it means, that means you have to carve out some time for you. I mean, and when you invest in yourself, invest in yourself and invest in your future. Do it and get uncomfortable, and know that that's normal, that's natural, that's the unknown. Okay. If you a- if I keep making the same choices, I'm gonna keep having the same health condition. If I keep doing the same things, I'm gonna still have the same level of abundance. Okay, so I gotta start making changes. It's not that hard to do it if you really wanna do it. I mean, if you really wanna do it, then you'll, you'll invest in yourself. Now, for me, I think everybody, to some degree, Chris, believes that they have a hand in creating their life, unless they've had a really, really, a horrible, uh, childhood and past. But on some level, people believe it, right? So people say, "Well, yeah, okay, so I, I believe that I can get the car, I can get the vacation, I can get the new home, I can get the relationship, I can get the second home." I don't know, whatever it is that people want. But, but the way they're gonna do it is, "Okay, I'm gonna work really hard, I'm gonna study a lot." There's nothing wrong with this, by the way. Um, "I'm gonna be trained. Uh, I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna make a bunch of wrong choices. I'm gonna learn from my mistakes. And then I'm gonna get really good at gathering a lot of things and doing these things. Okay, I've created this certain degree in my life." But people who really, really start shortening the distance between the thought of what they want and experience of having it, something changes. They may say, "Oh, I have the belief that I create my, uh, my life in some way." But is it possible that it's more than the synchronicity? You know, more than the parking space? More than thinking of a friend and they call you? Like, everybody kind of accepts that as kind of, "Oh, that's possible." Well, why don't you take it to the next level? I mean, what, what if there, what if you could actually do more of that? Like, is that a belief that you can begin to, uh, embrace? So that means if you believe that on some level, that you can create something greater of s- like, of greater magnitude, of greater amplitude, um, that means then you'd have to get involved in the experience a little bit more. That means I'd have to believe, "How, how could I possibly do that? Like, what would it take for me to do that?" And so, people evolve their belief around creation when they start seeing bigger synchronicities happen in their life, like the opportunity, the, the, the job, the, the, the phone call, the synchronicity, the coincidence that's bigger than the parking space, because they're investing in themselves. Now, here's the cool part. The moment they have that synchronicity and it has something to do with what they're doing inside of them, they're gonna pay attention to what they did inside of them and they're gonna do it again. They're gonna believe now, "Oh, I actually am the creator of my life. I'm, I'm no longer the victim of my life." Keep practicing that over time, keep getting better at it. You don't have to go anywhere and do anything to get things. Somehow, they seem to come to you. Somehow, the opportunity's coming to you and you're not having to do it. Now, that's another way to create. And, and that, we're all creators, so taking time to be a creator, taking time to invest in yourself, taking time to get involved in the experiment. This is an experiment to see, to measure the effects of you at cost, right? So do it really good one way, and then find out a way, if there's a way to flow, if there's a way to change, that it all of a sudden allows your environment to, uh, change around you, uh, when you change. That's when the experiment gets exciting.

14. 1:18:58 – 1:27:34

    What People Get Wrong About Gratitude

    1. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:18:58

    2. CWChris Williamson1:18:58

       I wanna talk about gratitude. What do most people get wrong when it comes to a gratitude practice?

    3. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:19:05

       Get wrong, huh? Um, well, if you think about it, when you receive something favorable or just receive something favorable, if something wonderful is happening to you or something wonderful just happened to you-... the feeling that's created from that experience is called gratitude. So the emotional signature of gratitude means something wonderful is happening to you, or something wonderful has just happened to you. Um, gratitude is the ultimate state of receiving. That's, that's... It's, it's the ultimate state. So, um, yeah, you can, you can practice with a gratitude journal and write down the things in your life that you're grateful for, and I think that has a, a really great reminder to, to manage your attention and to manage your energy. Um, but by the same means, can you be grateful for things that you haven't had yet, uh, but you believe enough that you can have? Now, we only accept, believe, and surrender to thoughts that are equal to our emotional state. We'll never accept, believe, and surrender to thoughts that are not equal to our emotional state. So if you're feeling really unhappy, and you're feeling really negatively, and you're thinking positively, the thought of thinking positively never makes it past the brainstem to get to the body because the body is feeling miserable. Positive thought never changes the biology, okay? So (clears throat) people who accept, believe in, uh, surrender information equals their emotional state, you watch th- something on a, on a program and you get fear, the information that comes in after that fear, you're gonna accept. You get a diagnosis, the doctor says, "You got this amount of time to live," and you're in that state, that information's gonna go right into your subconscious mind because you're... that, um, information is equal to the emotional state that you're in. Make sense? So you can't think positively, say, "I'm, I'm healthy, I'm wealthy, I'm, huh, I'm free, I'm, uh, I'm unlimited," and your body's going, "No, you're not, dude. You're, you're miserable." So thought never makes it to the body, okay. So that means then we would have to change the emotional state of the body, and we're doing research on this, really, really fascinating research on this now. So the person then wants to accept, believe, and surrender to thoughts of their future, and they wanna reprogram their subconscious mind to a new future. If they're feeling gratitude, and gratitude is the ultimate state of receiving, they will actually accept, believe, and surrender to the thoughts that they're thinking equal to that emotional state, and that's exactly what programs the autonomic nervous system to begin to f- make a pharmacy of chemicals that causes the body to move into restoration, growth, and repair, and, and a lot of immune function. So we took a group of people, um, in a study and, um, we measured their cortisol levels, and we measured, uh, uh, an immunoglobulin called IGA, immunoglobulin A. It's your body's natural defense. It's the body's flu shot. In fact, it works better than any flu shot. Um, and so as cortisol levels go up, uh, IGA levels go down, because if you're in an emergency, your immune system's compromised. If all your energy's going to the outer world, your... and you have no energy in your inner world, uh, you're, you're gonna be unhealthy and the internal protection system kind of closes down. Okay, so, um, four days of changing their emotions from resentment, and judgment, and frustration, and impatience, uh, to gratitude and appreciation. Four days. And we measured their hearts, because when you're frustrated and you're impatient, um, and you're judgmental, your heart beats very differently than when you're grateful. Or when you're grateful, um, your heart starts to beat in a more rhythmic way. And there's a couple pathways where oxytocin signals nitric oxide, and nitric oxide signals another chemical that causes the arteries in your heart literally to swell, to open up. And so when you actually feel gratitude, there's a physiological component that takes place where your heart feels full. And when energy or blood makes it to the heart and energy makes it to the heart, it's a different consciousness, right? It's a, it's a different level of awareness than when you're feeling resentful or you're feeling impatient. So feel the emotion of gratitude and open your heart, keep activating that center. We discovered that when person, a person feels that emotion, they do it for four days, their IGA levels went up 50%, uh, just in four, uh, four days. So there's an, uh, robust immune response that takes place by just, uh, changing, uh, from, from those limited emotions to more elevated emotions. So we saw that when a person's feeling gratitude, um, and their heart goes from kind of a, a very, uh, incoherent state to a more regulated and organized state, that once energy makes it to the heart, um, as I said earlier, um, somehow it begins to move to the brain. And if you were to imagine, like, grabbing a big sheet and going like this, it's almost like the heart is causing this beautiful pattern of energy moving to the brain, causes the brain to move in these beautiful alpha brainwave states. That is that state of imagination. So I think when we're grateful, um, those social networks turn on where we wanna connect. I think we, we have more appreciation for the moment, uh, and, and I think we're more prone to give, uh, which actually releases more oxytocin, which releases more nitric oxide, and causes us to feel even... and feel even better. So we teach people then to feel grateful for things that they haven't had yet, as well as the things that they have in their life, and it tends to produce profound changes in their biology.

Episode duration: 2:47:18