Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza has to be one of the most influential books I have discovered. The purpose of the text is to supply you with the tools and understanding necessary to achieve and manifest the life you desire. He has a simple way of explaining complex ideas while also giving you practical methods on how to apply the science. Towards the end of the book, Dispenza gives a series of meditations to practice that are intended to break thought patterns that no longer serve you. However, this book started changing me from the first chapter, before learning any of his techniques.
I was intrigued by the book title, as I had some habits that I was looking to break. My initial goal when purchasing his audio book was to stop rehashing the memories of my past relationship that were sending me spiraling emotionally and keeping me from exploring new connections with other people. It had been two years since I split with my ex and it was a messy breakup to say the least. What made it even more difficult to let go, was that I continued seeing him well past our break up and each time I would leave feeling depressed, insecure, angry, rejected, unworthy, pathetic and ashamed. I was stuck in a loop of chasing a relationship I knew was never going to work. I was determined to not give another second of my time or energy to this dead end situation that was slowly stealing my joy ~ I knew I needed help in doing so.
As I listened, I learned that thoughts are addictive and like any addiction, the more you engage with it, the more likely you are to return to it even when it is no longer joyful. If we think about something enough, it becomes a belief, and beliefs become our identity, and our identity becomes our personality, and ones personality then affects the choices we make, the friends we keep, and the life we live. There was no denying, I was addicted to an unhealthy thought pattern, and it was going to take some effort to “get clean”.
Dispenza recommends to begin slowly; every time a memory about my ex would come into my mind, I committed to “changing the channel” and focusing on something else, literally anything else. I found myself making excesses to replay past memories by justifying them in any way I could. “I don’t want to forget the good times we shared”, “people can change”, “maybe I was the toxic partner”, and so on. But Dispenza also prepared me for that. He warns listeners/readers that the brain will play tricks to keep you stuck to your old habits because your mind has neural pathways that get strengthened everytime you repeat a thought. I had been strengthening mine for almost 3 years at this point. Resorting back to thoughts of my past relationship was easy. My brain didn’t have to do any work building new pathways if I continued thinking the same thoughts. And the brain doesn’t just grow new pathways because we want it to, it takes practice. With persistence, I was amazed that after only a few days of redirecting my thoughts, I started to go hours and then whole days without thinking about my ex. To my surprise I started to feel different almost instantly.
After only a few days of bringing new awareness to my internal world, I began to take it a step further. I extended this redirection to all negative thoughts towards others, myself, and the world at large. Any thought that came into my mind that made me feel upset, frustrated, insecure, angry, or annoyed; I would simply rephrase or refocus. I noticed that this quickly began to change my behaviour. When someone was driving too closely behind me, I would move out of the way and think “perhaps they are in a rush to an important meeting, I should move for them”. If I looked in the mirror and saw my cellulite, I would stop looking in the mirror or turn my attention to a part of my body I did find beautiful and admire that. When a co-worker would say something I didn’t agree with, I would remember a time when I was once wrong about something and how much I have learned since. I brought compassion, empathy and love to each thought.
My world began to change in ways I never imagined. Within only a few weeks of changing my thoughts I noticed I didn’t have a desire to drink alcohol, I stopped overeating and became more open to connecting with people. I realised I had been avoiding social gatherings because it left me feeling anxious. The anxiousness came from me silently judging people and myself, and this judgement consequently then led me to feeling lonely. The feeling of loneliness was a part of the reason I kept seeing my ex partner. I also wasn’t overeating anymore as a way to comfort myself, and this led me to feeling more confidentin my body. I was having deeper sleeps because I wasn’t drinking alcohol at night to numb myself. Having quality rest then led me to waking up earlier and having more energy throughout the day. In turn, I was makingnew connections, and now have more patience and clarity like I have never experienced before. I was beginning to connect the dots.
One evening an old friend randomly invited me to a gathering and where I would have said no previously, I had the energy, openness and desire to attend. I ended up meeting an interesting man at that gathering who I was keen to get to know. Normally I would be stuck in fear and never reach out, but when the thought came up that he could reject me, I instantly changed that thought to one of positivity. I changed from “he could have a girlfriend” or “I might seem desperate if I reach out” to “if he has a girlfriend than maybe we can just be friends” and “maybe he is shy like me and won’t reach out so I better take the first step”. It was a no-brainer, I was going to contact him and make a connection. I messaged him saying it was great to meet him. He replied and it turned out he didn’t have a girlfriend and was also feeling the same attraction for me. We eventually met and ended up having such a beautiful time together.
In three weeks of changing my thoughts, I was able to manifest a connection with someone and also change a number of other things that I didn’t even set out to change. I began to feel more alive, more free, and synchronicities began to appear everywhere. Now, its too soon to say if the connection I made with this new person will last and blossom but that wasn’t even my main intention, my only goal in listening to Dispenza’s book, was to meet other people and most importantly, stop desiring my ex partner. Not only did I accomplish that goal, but I also met someone at that event who gave me a contact for a new retreat centre. I had been looking for months for a new space to hold my events and was hitting dead ends with no luck in sight. My work began to flourish, I made new friends, I started to tone up my body ~ all from changing my thought pattern.
Dispenza speaks about the quantum field a lot in this book and explains that your manifestations will come from unexpected places, and synchronicities will start to arise when we align our internal world. Previously in my experience, if someone had told me that I could get fit just from changing my thoughts, I would have laughed and thought they were a bit loopy. My pessimistic attitude disguised as practicality, would have made me write them off immediately. But after feeling the power of the techniques this book speaks about, I feel like I am a true believer that we really can manifest anything we want. I even began to think that perhaps previously I set my goals a little too low, and now I am beginning to move onto bigger concepts that normally I would have thought would be incredibly difficult to achieve. I know now that when we focus on what we want, embody the feeling of those outcomes and live in a positive mindset, anything is truly possible.
My advice to readers is to give Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself a go, read/listen to the book and start implementing the changes Dispenza suggests and then, just sit back and enjoy the ride.
