Dr Rangan ChatterjeeThe Invisible Forces Keeping You Addicted, Tired & Behind in Life | Dr. Joe Dispenza
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
20 min read · 4,191 words- 0:00 – 0:24
How fast can meditation change how you feel? Set realistic expectations
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
How quickly might someone, if they wake up and they don't reach for the phone and don't put the news on and they decide to engage in a meditation, maybe with a premeditation ritual like you do, how quickly might someone start to feel a difference? One day, two days? Or is it realistic that within seven days someone's gonna start to feel quite differently?
- 0:24 – 1:49
Why knowledge fuels results: study the model so the practice doesn’t go stale
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Okay. Let's talk about this because, uh, I don't wanna mislead anybody. Knowledge is the forerunner to experience. The more people understand what they're doing and why they're doing it, the how gets easier, and this is a time in history where it's not enough to know. This is a time in history to know how.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
The practical application in understanding that philosophy, that theory, that intellectual knowledge, that information, once you start to apply it and personalize it and demonstrate it, the more you can understand that why you're doing and what you're doing it, you get greater value out of it. So we have people that are diagnosed with serious health conditions that are nurses, that are cancer researchers, that are physicians, that are engineers, or, or just a, a person who just really wants to understand the content. Now, this is... It's so much easier to forget this information than to remember.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
It's just... I, I, I always laugh at myself 'cause I have to go back and relearn it again, and I think I know it pretty well and yet I forget.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
I don't know why, but it's just the way it is. So, so when our meditations get stale, it's 'cause we forget what we're doing, right? So the person who really, really takes the time to study instead of watching Netflix, instead of scrolling through TikTok, instead of getting on their phone and doing mindless texts or whatever, they're gonna set aside an hour a day and I'm gonna learn this information. When they sit down to do the work, they're present.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- 1:49 – 2:16
Rewiring through emotion and rehearsal: genes, brain ‘hardware,’ and new self-talk
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
They're, they're... They understand if they feel this emotion, that they're gonna signal a new gene in a new way. If they feel the other emotion, they're gonna down-regulate that gene and up-regulate the gene for their disease. So now it's a, it's, it's an understanding.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
If I rehearse how I'm gonna be mentally, I'm gonna install the hardware in my brain. If I keep doing this, it's gonna become a software program. I'm gonna start acting that way. Okay. If I say, "I can't, it's too hard, I'm too tired, I don't feel good," those are the things that stop me.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm.
- 2:16 – 3:06
Early ‘proof points’: subtle subjective wins and gradual instrumental change
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Okay. But what if I just start saying, "Anything is possible. I believe in synchronicities." What if I, with my intention and attention, just really get clear on that? Would that be the no- new voice in my head? So now the person who's truly present and not thinking about their shower or the emails they have to do or their cell phone or their texts or when they have to take their kids to ballet or whatever, you're gonna get to all of that. The person who's truly present, if they follow the instructions, we've seen them have very significant changes, first in their subjective experience of themselves.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Like, "Huh. Wow, my back pain isn't there. That's kinda weird." Or, "God, I slept better last night." These small indicators are feedback to tell you that whatever you're doing inside of you is producing a result outside of you.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm.
- 3:06 – 4:20
Trauma and the uncomfortable moment: the real work is staying with it
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Keep that up over a period of time and you see instrumental changes taking place in the person. Now, another person who has had a series of traumas, been, uh, abused in some way from, from childhood, uh, is facing a lot of health conditions, a lot of emotional and psychological conditions, we don't want them to heal in one week. We [laughs] want them to work on overcoming those emotional states-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... and those are the victories. So sitting down in the meditation, and when their body starts getting agitated or starts getting anxious, instead of quitting and saying, "I can't meditate," 'cause that would be the extent-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Mm
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... of that person, just be curious. What's on the other side of this? Can I, can I lower the volume to this emotion? My body's craving this emotion. Let me settle it down into the present moment. That would be a victory.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
So that person with a lot of trauma, there's a m- moment in the meditation where they feel uncomfortable. The easy thing would be, "Hey, I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna put on Instagram. I'm gonna get a coffee. I'm gonna do anything else to distract me."
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Right, right, right.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
You're saying that's the key moment. You wanna sit with that and hopefully break through that.
- 4:20 – 5:06
No bad meditations: overcoming yourself vs. judging the practice
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
What I'm saying is there's no such thing as a bad meditation. There's only you overcoming you. People think, "I'm doing my meditation wrong." No. [laughs] You're doing it right.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Even if it's difficult.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
That is the moment that is going to define the person. So, so then the person goes, "Oh, God, I feel really uncomfortable. I, I'm not a good meditator. There's something wrong with me. It's my trauma, it's my past, it's my parents, it's whatever." The person who says, "No. No, I'm gonna sit in the presence of this anxiety, and I'm gonna keep working with my body, and I'm gonna keep lowering the volume to that emotion." Now, listen. You keep lowering the volume to that emotion-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... you're gonna take your attention off that past problem because you only put your attention on that past problem because of the emotion. I'll never tell anybody to go back and review their past. I'll say, "Overcome the emotion. Overcome the emotion."
- 5:06 – 8:16
Should you revisit trauma? Insight vs. behavior change and the risk of rehearsing the past
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Th- this is a key point, I think, which I really wanted to talk to you about today, Dr. Joe. Trauma, right? There's a lot of awareness growing now about trauma, the impact of our childhoods, how we're spoken to, the beliefs we take on as kids, how that impacts us as adults. Now, one approach to deal with trauma is to go there, to go and unpick it and uncover it and see a therapist, and detail what happened, why it happened, you know, get an understanding of why you're behaving a certain way as an adult. Now, I think for many people, I include myself in this, that can be incredibly powerful and incredibly important. But I also see when I think of your work, I, I wouldn't say it's mutually exclusive necessarily from the outside at least-But is there a danger that we can spend too long in our trauma, processing our trauma, trying to think about it? Because effectively, a key message from your work is don't get stuck in those emotions of the past. Don't let your past define you. Think about that vision of the future. Start to feel what you wanna feel in the future so you can experience it right now. But can someone go back, revisit their trauma, try and process it?
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Mm-hmm.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
And is that approach consistent with yours, or would you say it's a better approach or a different approach is to not spend time there, just create the new reality?
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Yeah. I think I'm, like, I'm down the middle on this, okay? I, I, I think there are many modalities that work for trauma. What I've discovered is that insight never really changes behavior. You can see that your father was overbearing or was an alcoholic, or you could see all these different things, you know, uh, like you could come up with the insight of all these different things. The problem that I see with people is then they tend to excuse their change by saying, "Oh, I had a rough childhood. That's why I am the way I am." They're excusing their pre- present position. So, and again, trauma's a difficult thing, but for me, [chuckles] the person who's living by the identity in their life that they were traumatized as a child or whatever it is, or they've had a trauma in their life, I'm not saying forget the trauma and create another emotion. I'm saying that the person who's willing to go through the emotion and keep working on lowering the volume to it, the, the... We have had so many people in this work with brutal pasts, really, really difficult pasts, do the work, and finally they reach that point where they just break free from the emotion. They look back, and I have interviewed enough of them. It's the same thing. They look back at their entire past, and they don't wanna change one thing
- 8:16 – 12:57
The body as the memory: freeing stored emotion and stepping into the unknown
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
in their past 'cause it brought 'em to this elegant moment where they're liberated. They see their betrayers. They see their abusers. They have nothing but love for them. Now, the side effect of that, and many times they'll say, "It was like my heart blew wide open." They had to pass through the valley of the shadow of darkness to get there, and they just thought, "I, I don't know if I can go any further," and they went one more time, and the body literally was liberated from the past, right? 'Cause the trauma's not just in the brain. The trauma's stored emotionally in the body. So you wanna take the body out of the past, out of the known. What do you think the body's gonna say if it's been conditioned to be the mind? The unknown is a scary place. You step out into the unknown, you're gonna be unprepared for that trauma. You don't know how it's gonna happen. And so the person keeps clinging to the known and, but when the person finally overcomes the emotion, the body literally is freed from the chains of the past. The side effect of that is seeing the past from a greater level of consciousness. Lo and behold, there goes the suicidal tendencies. There goes the dysfunction. There goes the irritable bowel syndrome. That's 'cause the body was still living in that past event by living by the same emotion. So the research on memory is kind of fascinating, and I just... I've studied it enough and I, and, and it, the, the way we recount the past is not the way it happened, even if you absolutely think you remember it being that way. So we don't have the same brain as we did when we were 8 years old or 12 years old or 20 years old. We have a different brain. We have a completely different brain. So the fabrication of the story for many people, they embellish the story and make it seem even worse than what it was. But you're really, what you're saying is, "I changed in those moments, and from a biological standpoint, I haven't been able to change since. So let me tell you why it's been so hard for me to change." And the story becomes dramatized or embellished. A, a person works them up, fire themselves into this emotional froth, and then fires and wires the same circuits in the brain, and they're actually reaffirming their limitation. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. I think, I think we're just, we're just taking too long, right? So 50% of that story isn't even the truth. It means, in a sense, we're reliving a miserable life that we never even had, and we don't want. But, but the, but the, the unknown, people would rather cling to their suffering. None... And this is not a judgment. We all do this. We'd rather stay in the known than take a chance in the unknown because those emotions of survival are saying what? "Run from the unknown. The unknown is a scary place." So now the unknown, you gotta come up against that moment where you're gonna actually leave that behind and step into the unknown. This is not a intellectual process. This is, this is David and Goliath. There's a battle going on where the body keeps wanting to go back to its familiar state 'cause it's subconsciously been conditioned to be the mind and stay in the known. So then if the person keeps revisiting the trauma from the past, I'm not certain enough that when they revisit the trauma from the past, unless they learn how to desensitize their emotional response to it, that it's gonna work for them. What I learned is that if the person overcomes the emotion, the memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom, and now you no longer belong to the past. So the body gets frustrated in the meditationInstead of taking your, uh, blindfolds off or turning the lights on and say, "I listen to the voice. I can't meditate. There's just too much," the sincere person says, "What's on the other side of I can't? What's on the other side of this emotion? Let me see if I can s- settle my body back down out of that emotion and recondition it to a new mind." And the act of doing that in the beginning is very tedious, and all of a sudden the person starts getting better at it, and they're telling their body it's no longer the mind, that they're the mind. They're executing a will that's greater than that program. And just like training an animal, you stay. You're not gonna die. I'm gonna feed you. You can check your emails. You can check your texts, but this is my time right now. And you keep doing that when the body keeps settling it down to the present moment. It acquiesces. It surrenders to a new mind, and when that happens, we've seen this, we've measured it, there's a liberation of energy. We go from particle to wave. We go from matter to energy. That emotion is liberated from the body, and now, now there's energy to heal. [laughs] There's energy to create a new life. It's, it's, it's available energy. It's free energy.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- 12:57 – 14:08
From charge to wisdom: liberation, love for the past, and biological upgrading
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
So the person goes, "Wow, I, I see it from a different level of conscious. I have nothing but love." Or, "My goodness, I, I'm, I'm no longer that person." Uh, and, and they're now free from the past. Now, the side effect of that is that there's a biological upgrade. There's a neurological upgrade. There's a chemical upgrade. There's a genetic modification that's taking place. Why? You think the same way. You make the same choices. You do the same things. You create the same experiences. You feel the same emotions. Your biology will stay the same 'cause you're the same. [laughs] Now the person's thinking differently. They're making different choices. They're doing different things. They're behaving in different ways. They're having new experiences, and they're certainly feeling different emotions. The body reorganizes to-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... a new chemistry. And, and, and they'll tell you, "I'm not that person any longer. I'm literally not that person." And, and their betrayers, even if they're family members, they have forgiveness for them, and what is forgiveness? You take your attention off the emotion. You overcome the emotion. You don't pay attention to the person or the problem. Now you're free. You free yourself, and you free them, and-
- 14:08 – 16:05
Forgiveness when it feels impossible: reframing, physiology, and the cost of resentment
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
What, what if someone says to you, Dr. Joe, "Look, uh, I, I get what you're saying, uh, but my ex-husband cheated on me, right? They shouldn't have done it. I cannot forgive them for what they did." And the reason I'm asking is because this is exactly what happened with one of my patients. 'Cause this often happens. So I talk a lot about forgiveness, and a lot of people push back. They go, "Yeah, I want to, but you don't know what happened to me. This was really, really bad. Like, this cannot be forgiven." What would you say to that person?
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
I'd say to them, "I want you to think about something in your life that you've done that you would like forgiveness for, that you don't feel good about, and forgive that person the way that you would wanna be forgiven, and you would be forgiven yourself." I mean, we all have done, we've all had indiscretions. Nobody's, nobody's, [laughs] nobody's-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... perfect. So, so that person that is in that state is still in the emotional state. The problem with that is that no new information can enter the nervous system that is not equal to the emotion the person experiencing because it's not relevant. So the question really is, is how long do you wanna do that? How long do you wanna do that? And, and again, knowledge and information about what that is doing to that person's health and their biology. If you reason with... I mean, we've had this happen enough times in our work. That's not an uncommon situation. When the person finally, finally takes their attention off that and puts it on something else, they notice that they feel differently.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
If they can... You can't just tell a person to forgive, uh, because it's an eth- it's, it's kind of an etherical thing. It's a, it's a subjective process, right?
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
So if you're... We've seen this. Our oxytocin levels in a lot of our participants go up 200 times, right? That's a l- that's a lot of, that's a lot of love. Oxytocin signals nitric oxide.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- 16:05 – 23:04
From reaction to identity: mood → temperament → personality trait
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Nitric oxide signals another chemical that literally causes the arteries in your heart and lungs to actually expand. There's more energy. There's more blood going into your heart. Okay. So when that person takes their attention off their ex, takes their attention off their past, and starts looking at themselves, denaturing that identity that's built on the past. See, that person had a reaction to that circumstance, and that reaction produces a refractory period of chemicals and emotions, right? And if you don't know how to control that refractory period, and it lasts for hours or days, it's called a mood. You keep that same refractory period going on for weeks or months, now it's a temperament. One long emotional reaction. You keep that refractory period going on for years on end, that's a personality trait.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
And most people's personalities are defined by, "I am this way because my husband cheated on me." What you're really saying is you haven't changed in 10 years, and you're giving your vital life force to that person. Who is worth 10 years of your life?
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Who's worth it? So then the stronger the emotion we feel, the more we pay attention to the cause. Where you place your attention is where you place your energy. That person's giving their vital life force to heal, their life force to change to that person or that circumstance. Lower the volume to that emotion-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... you take your attention off that person or problem. It's not the person or the problem. They're using unconsciously that person or that circumstance to reaffirm their addiction to that emotion. That's why they keep thinking about it. If they weren't addicted to that emotion, they would stop, they would stop thinking about it. So then, is it the person? No. It's the... You're left... We'll t- we'll take your ex-husband and put him in a, a rocket and a straitjacket. Let's shoot him to the moon. Now what?Now what? Now wha- now what are you gonna do? You still have that-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Still got it
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... embossed in your brain and conditioned in your body. At what point? So then the research on oxytocin, is you can't, you can't, you can only talk around this. [laughs] You c- you can't say to someone, "Forgive," if they still feel the emotion. That's, uh, they're separate from the act of forgiving.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Imagine feeling so much love by, by... No one's doing it to you. It's actually coming from within.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
W- you have that em- you have that moment, that catharsis, where you feel that emotion. Oxytocin levels go up, just slightly in the research, just a little bit more elevated. An elevation in oxytocin makes it impossible to hold a grudge. They've done the da- the research on the data. You cannot hold a grudge. It's impossible.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
You just, you just go, "I like this feeling better than that feeling, and because I like this feeling better than that feeling, you're okay. Forget about it."
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
"Like, like, I'm good. I'm good." That person who falls in love again, that, whose husband cheated on them, who falls in love again, and finds a person who is intelligent, and caring, and kind, and, and loving, and, and provides, all of a sudden they can forgive that person. Like, "Oh, my God, I got... That wa- had to happen because now I have a better-"
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
"... person in my life." Well, well, you're, if you don't let go of that, you're never gonna have this. In fact, if you bring that into the next relationship-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
You're gonna have a-
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... you're not gonna have a healthy relationship, 'cause there's gonna be a trust issue on every level. So then you want an equal? Write down exactly what you want and become that person, and see what... in the experiment, see what comes to you. Try it out. Try it out as an expe- if I forgi- if I really work on, my God, this emotion is... Actually now that I understand the science behind this, this emotion is actually weakening me every day. It's, it's, it's knocking my brain and body out of homeostasis. [laughs] Stress is when our brain and body are knocked out of homeostasis and balance. Turning on the stress response just by thought alone. Hormones of stress downregulate genes and create disease. My thoughts are making me sick. Is that person or that circumstance worth it? If my thoughts could make me sick, is it possible that my thoughts can make me well? Well, now you gotta come up against the belief. "No, I don't really wanna believe this." Then that really means that you wanna stay in that [laughs] emotional state. But go to the, go see some testimonials of people who, who've had that, and see their l- the life that they're living now. They, they, the, [laughs] the miracles, the synchronicities, the opportunities, the coincidences, the healings. They bless their past. They say, "Ah, my, my disease, that, that condition, that was my greatest teacher."
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
"That was my greatest teacher." And, and now the, the soul is free. Like, let, let's get on. W- and eternity, it's a big place.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
You gotta hold onto that emotion for how long? You're not doing anything wrong. You're just taking too long, that's all.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Uh, and, and it works, it works with anything. With an- with any... Some people want wealth, some they went bankrupt, some people their business partner, uh, you know, took the, you know, took all their money. Uh, some people it's a relationship, some people it's, uh, trauma from childhood. It's all the same. But what we're looking for is wholeness. So then it's not just the emotion. The emotion is driving a certain behavior. The emers- the emotion is driving a certain habit of action. The emotion is driving a certain series of thoughts that are associated with that, with that person or that-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... circumstance. If you truly believe that you have the power within you to change, the first step would be s- would be saying, "I have to take responsibility for myself right now, because I gotta start thinking differently, I gotta start acting differently, I gotta start feeling different, and it's gonna be hard."
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- 20:56 – 23:04
Taking responsibility and building a new life: ‘become the person’ and keep practicing
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
Uh, and, and it works, it works with anything. With an- with any... Some people want wealth, some they went bankrupt, some people their business partner, uh, you know, took the, you know, took all their money. Uh, some people it's a relationship, some people it's, uh, trauma from childhood. It's all the same. But what we're looking for is wholeness. So then it's not just the emotion. The emotion is driving a certain behavior. The emers- the emotion is driving a certain habit of action. The emotion is driving a certain series of thoughts that are associated with that, with that person or that-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... circumstance. If you truly believe that you have the power within you to change, the first step would be s- would be saying, "I have to take responsibility for myself right now, because I gotta start thinking differently, I gotta start acting differently, I gotta start feeling different, and it's gonna be hard."
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
If it was easy-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
[laughs]
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... everybody would be doing this. But how is self-love born? I've studied this. When the person sits through the fire, and sits through all of that anxiety, all that hatred, all that anger, and keeps lowering the volume, sooner or later the body's gonna release it. And when they, when it's released, [laughs] forgiveness is the side effect. You, you take your attention off-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... that person, uh, because you no longer have the emotion to keep your attention on. And in fact, you feel so good, this feels better, that you-
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
... naturally forgive. It's not like, "Now you're forgiven." It's not like, "Hey, look at me, I'm forgiving you." It's just kinda like, "Wow, isn't life great?"
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
"Whoa, you're good. I mean, you're good. I'm getting on with my life right now." Right? So, so emotions keep us stuck in the past.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
Yeah.
- JDDr. Joe Dispenza
And we tell that story, and we reaffirm it, and we get in trouble.
- RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee
If you enjoyed that short clip, I think you are really going to enjoy the full conversation, which you can check out here. [outro music]
Episode duration: 23:04
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode uFblepQKYqU
