This Is Why Therapy Stops Working — And You’re Still Stuck | Dr. Joe Dispenza

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   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 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 want to feel in the future so you can experience it right now. But can someone go back, revisit their trauma, try and process it?

2. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:23

   Mm-hmm.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23

   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?

4. JDDr. Joe Dispenza1:35

   Yeah. I think I'm, I, 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 are excusing their pre- present position. So, and again, trauma's a difficult thing, but for me, [laughs] 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 in their past 'cause it brought them 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 was because 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 eight 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, 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 isThis 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 [laughs] 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 meditation. Instead of taking your, uh, blindfolds off or turning the lights on to 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. Then 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.

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:47

   Yeah.

6. JDDr. Joe Dispenza7:47

   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." A- a- 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-

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:35

   Yeah

8. JDDr. Joe Dispenza8:36

   ... 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-

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:58

   Wh- wh- 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?

10. JDDr. Joe Dispenza9:29

    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-

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:48

    Yeah

12. JDDr. Joe Dispenza9:49

    ... 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... And we, 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.

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:35

    Yeah.

14. JDDr. Joe Dispenza10:35

    If they can... Uh, you can't just tell a person to forgive, uh, because it's an eth- it's, it's, it's kind of an etherical thing. It's a, it's a subjective process, right?

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:43

    Yeah.

16. JDDr. Joe Dispenza10:44

    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.

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:55

    Yeah.

18. JDDr. Joe Dispenza10:55

    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.

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee11:05

    Sorry to interrupt. If you're enjoying this video and want to learn more, you can download my free special guide containing six simple breathing practices that will help you calm your mind, lower stress, and improve your energy. To get ahold of this guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.

20. JDDr. Joe Dispenza11:26

    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-

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee11:59

    [laughs]

22. JDDr. Joe Dispenza11:59

    ... refractory period going on for years on end, that's a personality trait.

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:02

    Yeah.

24. JDDr. Joe Dispenza12:02

    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?

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:20

    Yeah.

26. JDDr. Joe Dispenza12:20

    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. [laughs] Lower the volume to that emotion-

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:43

    Yeah

28. JDDr. Joe Dispenza12:44

    ... 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... Your 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?

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:11

    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: 13:32