Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself Quotes

“And what happens if addicts can’t get more? They feel even angrier, more frustrated, more bitter, more empty. They may try other methods—add gambling to drinking, add shopping to TV and movie escapism. Eventually, though, nothing is ever enough. The pleasure centers have recalibrated to such a high level that when there is no chemical change from the outer world, it seems the addict now cannot find joy in the simplest things. The point is, true happiness has nothing to do with pleasure, because the reliance on feeling good from such intensely stimulating things only moves us further from real joy.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“And let’s say that our ambition in life is to become successful and to accumulate more things. When we do, we reinforce who we are, without ever addressing how we really feel. I call this being possessed by our possessions. We become possessed by material objects, and those things reinforce the ego, which needs the environment to remind itself of who it”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“So now you’ve got to bet $25,000 instead of $10,000 because otherwise, there’s no thrill. Once a $5,000 shopping spree does nothing for you, you’ve got to max out two credit cards so you can feel that same rush again. All of this is to make the feeling of who you really are go away. Everything you do to get the same high, you have to keep doing more of, with increasing intensity. More drugs, more alcohol, more sex, more gambling, more shopping, more TV. You get the idea. Over time, we become addicted to something in order to ease the pain or anxiety or depression we live by on a daily basis. Is this wrong? Not really. Most people do these things because they just don’t know how to change from the inside. They are only following the innate drive to get relief from their feelings, and unconsciously they think their salvation comes from the outside world. It has never been explained to them that using the outer world to change the inner world makes things worse … it only widens the gap.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“What you’re left with is who you really are (bottom hand), not how you appear. When your life is over and you cannot rely on your external world to define you, you will be left with that feeling you never addressed. You would not have evolved as a soul in that lifetime. For instance, if you had certain experiences 50 years prior that marked you as insecure or weak and you felt that way about yourself ever since, then you stopped growing emotionally 50 years ago. If the soul’s purpose is to learn from experience and gain wisdom, but you stayed stuck in that particular emotion, you never turned your experience into a lesson; you didn’t transcend that emotion and exchange it for any understanding. While that feeling still anchors your mind and body to those past events, you are never free to move into the future. And if a similar experience shows up in your present life, that event will trigger the same emotion and you will act as that person you were 50 years ago.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Think of emotions as “energy in motion.” If you share the same emotions, you share the same energy. And just like two atoms of oxygen that share an invisible field of energy beyond space and time in order to bond together in a relationship to form air, you are bonded in an invisible field of energy to every thing, person, and place in your external life. Bonds between people are the strongest, though, because emotions hold the strongest energy. As long as either party doesn’t change, things will be just fine.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“When we’re trying to escape this emptiness, or when we’re running from any emotion whatsoever that is painful, it is because to look at it is too uncomfortable. So when the feeling starts to get a bit out of control, most people turn on the TV, surf the Internet, or call or text someone. In a matter of moments we can alter our emotions so many times … we can view a sitcom or a YouTube video and laugh hysterically, then watch a football game and feel competitive, then watch the news and be angered or fearful. All of these outer stimuli can easily distract us from those unwanted feelings inside. Technology is a great distraction and a powerful addiction. Think about it: You can immediately change your internal chemistry and make a feeling go away by changing something outside of you. And whatever it was outside of you that made you feel better inside of you, you will rely on that thing in order to sidetrack yourself over and over again. But this strategy doesn’t have to involve technology; anything momentarily thrilling will do the trick. When we keep that diversion up, guess what eventually happens? We grow more dependent on something outside of us to change us internally. Some people unconsciously delve deeper and deeper into this bottomless pit, using different aspects of their world to keep themselves preoccupied—in an effort to re-create the original feeling from the very first experience that helped them escape. They become overstimulated so that they can feel different from how they really are. But sooner or later, everyone realizes that they need more and more of the same to make them feel better. This becomes an all-consuming search for pleasure and ways to avoid pain at all costs—a hedonistic life unconsciously driven by some feeling that won’t seem to go away.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“This is the midlife crisis that most people know about. Some try really hard to make buried feelings stay buried by diving further into their external world. They buy the new sports car (thing); others lease the boat (another thing). Some go on a long vacation (place). Yet others join the new social club to meet new contacts or make new friends (people). Some get plastic surgery (body). Many completely redecorate or remodel their homes (acquire things and experience a new environment). All of these are futile efforts to do or try something new so that they can feel better or different. But emotionally, when the novelty wears off, they are still stuck with the same identity. They return to who they really are (that is, the bottom hand). They are drawn back to the same reality they have been living for years, just to keep the feeling of who they think they are as an identity. The truth is, the more they do—the more they buy and then consume—the more noticeable the feeling of who they “really are” becomes.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“By our mid-30s or 40s, when the personality is complete, we have experienced much of what life has to offer. And as a result, we can pretty much anticipate the outcome of most experiences; we already know how they’re going to feel before we engage in them. Because we’ve had several good and bad relationships, we’ve competed in business or settled into our career, we’ve suffered loss and encountered success, or we know what we like and dislike, we know the nuances of life. Since we can predict the likely emotions ahead of an actual experience, we determine whether we want to experience that “known” event before it actually occurs. Of course, all of this is happening behind the scenes of our awareness.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Then we really get busy. We go to school, then possibly college; we buy a car; we move to a new town, state, or country; we begin a career; we meet new people; we get married; we buy a house; we have kids; we adopt pets; we may get divorced; we work out; we start a new relationship; we practice a skill or a hobby…. We use everything that we know in the external world to define our identity, and to distract us from how we really feel inside. And since all of these unique experiences produce myriad emotions, we notice that those emotions seem to take away any feelings that we are hiding. And it works for a while.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“I was totally addicted to my environment, and I was dependent on external cues to reinforce my emotional addiction. What a moment for me. I had heard a million times that happiness comes from within, but it never hit me like this before.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Open your heart and think about how it would feel if you embodied a combination of all the traits that you admire and that make up your ideal self.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“To do this, you can pick a potential in the quantum field and get in touch with how it would feel if you were experiencing it. I’m asking you to use thought and feeling to put yourself in the shoes of that future self, that possible you, so vividly that you begin to emotionally condition your body to believe that you are that person now. When you open your eyes after your meditative session, who do you want to be? What would it feel like to be this ideal self, or to have this desired experience? To fully break the habit of being yourself, say good-bye to cause and effect and embrace the quantum model of reality. Choose a potential reality that you want, live it in your thoughts and feelings, and give thanks ahead of the actual event. Can you accept the notion that once you change your internal state, you don’t need the external world to provide you with a reason to feel joy, gratitude, appreciation, or any other elevated emotion?”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Remember: the quantum model tells us that if you have created a new mind and a new state of being, you have an altered electromagnetic signature. Because you are thinking and feeling differently, you are changing reality. Together, thoughts and feelings can do this; separately they cannot. Let me remind you again: You can’t think one way and feel another and expect anything in your life to change. The combination of your thoughts and feelings is your state of being. Change your state of being … and change your reality.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“new state of being creates a new personality … a new personality produces a new personal reality.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“If I asked you to think about the qualities that your ideal self would possess, or if I suggested that you contemplate what it would feel like to be a person of greatness such as Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela, then just by contemplating a new way of being, you would begin firing your brain in new ways and making a new mind. That’s mental rehearsal in action. I’m now asking you to reflect on what it would feel like to be happy, content, satisfied, and at peace. What would you envision for yourself if you were to create a new ideal of you?”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“My definition of mastery is that our internal chemical state is greater than anything in our external world. You are a master when you’ve conditioned yourself with chosen thoughts and feelings, you’ve memorized desired emotional/chemical states, and nothing in your external life deters you from your aims. No person, no thing, and no experience at any time or place should disrupt your internal chemical coherence. You can think, act, and feel differently whenever you choose.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Instead, by surrendering old thought patterns, interrupting habitual emotional reactions, and forgoing knee-jerk behaviors, then planning and rehearsing new ways of being, you are putting yourself into the equation of that knowledge you learned, and beginning to create a new mind—you are reminding yourself who you want to be.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Then you review what those books said to help you plan how you want to think, feel, and act toward your MIL. You ask yourself, How can I modify my behavior—my actions—and my reactions so my new experience leads to a new feeling? So you picture yourself greeting and hugging her, asking her questions about things you know she is interested in, and complimenting her on her new hairdo or glasses. Over the next few days, as you mentally rehearse your new ideal of self, you continue to install more neurological hardware so you’ll have the proper circuits in place (in effect, a new software program) when you actually interact with your MIL.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“You decide not to react to her with your typical set of automatic programs. Instead, you begin to think about who you no longer want to be, and who you want to be instead. You ask yourself, How do I not want to feel, and how am I not going to act, when I see her? Your frontal lobe begins to “cool off” the neural circuits that are connected to the old you; you’re starting to unwire or prune away that old you from functioning as an identity. You could say that because your brain isn’t firing in the same way, you’re no longer creating the same mind.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Next, you have to memorize that feeling and move what you’ve learned from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. You’ve already got the hardware to do that in the third brain area we’ll discuss.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“The limbic brain (also known as the mammalian brain), located under the neocortex, is the most highly developed and specialized area of the brain in mammals other than humans, dolphins, and higher primates. Just think of the limbic brain as the “chemical brain” or the “emotional brain.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“But did you know that you can also go directly from thinking to being—and it’s likely that you’ve already experienced this in your life? Through the meditation that is at the heart of this book (this chapter will give you a prelude), you can go from thinking about the ideal self you want to become, straight to being that new self. That is the key to quantum creating. Change all begins with thinking: we can immediately form new neurological connections and circuits that reflect our new thoughts. And nothing gets the brain more excited than when it’s learning—assimilating knowledge and experiences. These are aphrodisiacs for the brain; it “fondles” every signal it receives from our five senses. Every second, it processes billions of bits of data; it analyzes, examines, identifies, extrapolates, classifies, and files information, which it can retrieve for us on an “as needed” basis. Truly, the human brain is this planet’s ultimate supercomputer. As you’ll recall, the basis for understanding how you can actually change your mind is the concept of hardwiring—how neurons engage in long-term, habitual relationships. I’ve talked about Hebbian learning, which states: “Nerve cells that fire together, wire together.” (Neuroscientists used to think that after childhood, brain structure was relatively immutable. But new findings reveal that many aspects of the brain and nervous system can change structurally and functionally—including learning, memory, and recovery from brain damage—throughout adulthood.)”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“When you’re living in survival, you’re trying to control or force an outcome; that’s what the ego does. When you’re living in the elevated emotion of creation, you feel so lifted that you would never try to analyze how or when a chosen destiny will arrive. You trust that it will happen because you have already experienced it in mind and body—in thought and feeling. You know that it will, because you feel connected to something greater. You are in a state of gratitude because you feel like it’s already happened. You may not know all the specifics of your desired outcome—when it will take place, where, and under what circumstances—but you trust in a future that you can’t see or otherwise perceive with your senses. To you it has already occurred in no space, no time, no place, from which all things material spring forth. You are in a state of knowingness; you can relax into the present and no longer live in survival. To anticipate or analyze when, where, or how the event will occur would only cause you to return to your old identity. You are in such joy that it’s impossible to try to figure it out; that’s only what human beings do when they are living in limited states of survival. As you linger in this creative state where you are no longer your identity, the nerve cells that once fired together to form that old self are no longer wiring together. That’s when the old personality is being biologically dismantled. Those feelings connected to that identity, which conditioned the body to the same mind, are no longer signaling the same genes in the same ways. And the more you overcome your ego, the more the physical evidence of the old personality is changed. The old you is gone.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“When the thought that you are attending to becomes the experience, the frontal lobe quiets down the rest of the brain so that nothing else is being processed but that single-minded thought. You become still, you no longer feel your body, you no longer perceive time and space, and you forget about yourself.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“To initiate this step of creation, it is always good to move into a state of wonder, contemplation, possibility, reflection, or speculation by asking yourself some important questions. Open-ended inquiries are the most provocative approach to producing a fluent stream of consciousness: What would it be like to … ? What is a better way to be … ? What if I was this person, living in this reality? Who in history do I admire, and what were his/her admirable traits? The answers that come will naturally form a new mind, because as you sincerely respond to them, your brain will begin to work in new ways. By beginning to mentally rehearse new ways of being, you start rewiring yourself neurologically to a new mind—and the more you can “re-mind” yourself, the more you’ll change your brain and your life. Whether you want to be wealthy or a better parent—or a great wizard, for that matter—it might not be a bad idea to fill your brain with knowledge on your chosen subject, so you have more building blocks to make a new model of the reality you want to embrace. Every time you acquire information, you’re adding new synaptic connections that will serve as the raw materials to break the pattern of your brain firing the same way. The more you learn, the more ammo you have to unseat the old personality.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Your attention is where you place your energy. To use attention to empower your life, you will have to examine what you’ve already created. This is where you begin to “know thyself.” You look at your beliefs about life, yourself, and others. You are what you are, you are where you are, and you are who you are because of what you believe about yourself. Your beliefs are the thoughts you keep consciously or unconsciously accepting as the law in your life. Whether you are aware of them or not, they still affect your reality. So if you truly want a new personal reality, start observing all aspects of your present personality. Since they primarily operate below the level of conscious awareness, much like automatic software programs, you’ll have to go within and look at these elements you probably haven’t been aware of before. Given that your personality comprises how you think, act, and feel, you must pay attention to your unconscious thoughts, reflexive behaviors, and automatic emotional reactions—put them under observation to determine if they are true and whether you want to continue to endorse them with your energy. To become familiar with your unconscious states of mind and body takes an act of will, intention, and heightened awareness. If you become more aware, you will become more attentive. If you become more attentive, you will be more conscious. If you grow to be more conscious, you will notice more. If you notice more, you have a greater ability to observe self and others, both inner and outer elements of your reality. Ultimately, the more you observe, the more you awaken from the state of the unconscious mind into conscious awareness.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Living in creation is living as a nobody. Ever notice that when you’re truly in the midst of creating anything, you forget about yourself? You dissociate from your known world. You are no longer a somebody who associates your identity with certain things you own, particular people you know, certain tasks you do, and different places you lived at specific times. You could say that when you are in a creative state, you forget about the habit of being you. You lay down your selfish ego and become self-less. You have moved beyond time and space and become pure, immaterial awareness. Once you’re no longer connected to a body; no longer focused on people, places, or things in your external environment; and beyond linear time, you’re entering the door of the quantum field. You cannot enter as a somebody, you must do so as a nobody. You have to leave the self-centered ego at the door and enter the realm of consciousness as pure consciousness. And as I said in Chapter 1, in order to change your body (to foster better health), something in your external circumstances (a new job or relationship, perhaps), or your timeline (toward a possible future reality), you have to become no body, no thing, no time.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“This kind of repetitive stress is harmful to us, because no organism was designed with a mechanism to deal with negative effects on the body when the stress response is turned on with great frequency and for long duration. In other words, no creature can avoid the consequences of living in long-term emergency situations. When we turn on the stress response and can’t turn it off, we’re headed for some type of breakdown in the body. Let’s say you keep turning on the fight-or-flight system due to some threatening circumstance in your life (real or imagined). As your racing heart pumps enormous amounts of blood to your extremities and your body is knocked out of homeostasis, you’re becoming prepared by the nervous system to run or fight. But let’s face it: you can’t flee to the Bahamas, nor can you throttle your fellow employee—that would be primitive. So as a consequence, you condition your heart to race all the time, and you may be headed for high blood pressure, arrhythmias, and so on.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“Every time we knock the body out of chemical balance, that’s called “stress.” The stress response is how the body innately responds when it’s knocked out of balance, and what it does to return back to equilibrium. Whether we see a lion in the Serengeti, bump into our not-so-friendly ex at the grocery store, or freak out in freeway traffic because we’re late for a meeting, we turn on the stress response because we are reacting to our external environment. Unlike animals, we have the ability to turn on the fight-or-flight response by thought alone. And that thought doesn’t have to be about anything in our present circumstances. We can turn on that response in anticipation of some future event. Even more disadvantageous, we can produce the same stress response by revisiting an unhappy memory that is stitched in the fabric of our gray matter.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

“when you write, you are creating words (whether on the physical page or in a digital document). The same creativity is operating when you paint, play a musical instrument, turn wood on a lathe, or engage in any other activity that has the effect of breaking the bonds that the Big Three hold over you. Why is it so hard to live in these creative moments? If we focus on an unwanted past or a dreaded future, that means that we live mostly in stress—in survival mode. Whether we’re obsessing over our health (the survival of the body), paying our mortgage (the survival need for shelter from our external environment), or not having enough time to do what we need to do to survive, most of us are much more familiar with the addictive state of mind we’ll call “survival” than we are with living as creators.”
― Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One