Dr. Joe Dispenza's first book, Evolve Your Brain, was in my opinion, a fantastic book, yes it was a bit heavy in some parts, but I loved the science in it. Obviously, off course, some people simply skipped to page 381, to skip the "science stuff" and read the chapter starting on that page "The Art and Science of Mental Rehearsal". "Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself" raises the bar completely, with now the "How To" companion in easy to follow steps to be comprehended and practiced. The book was also a very easy to read, straight to the point, with fantastic images to compliment nicely the information conveyed, in almost every chapter to understand more of Dr. Joe's message.
This is a book I could not put down. I am now up to doing the Induction Step of the Meditation, and I quickly rushed to Dr. Joe's website to purchase the audio materials for the meditation. The book has been divided into 3 parts, I have written my notes on each chapter as follows:
PART I - THE SCIENCE OF YOU
Chapter 1: The Quantum You:
-You and the world are made up of energy and matter.
-If you look at the body, including the brain, at the cellular level you have: Tissues > Cells > Molecules > Atoms > Subatomic Particles > Energy.
-Your thoughts have an effect on the Quantum Field.
-We are in control of our past, present, and future.
-When we focus on a thought. Single--mindedly, we make it more real than anything else. We are experiencing the thought beyond the physical realm.
-We can create our future.
Chapter 2: Overcoming Your Environment:
-The environment causes us to think. Familiar places, things, people and circumstances fire a set of circuits which cause the brain to think in certain ways (an external stimulus is causing us to think).
-If the environment causes us to think, firing the same circuits over and over, the circuits become hardwired and part of our being.
-"Nerve cells that fire together wire together" - Hebbs Law
-To change then is to think greater than the environment and any external stimulus.
-Mental Rehearsal plays a major role in building new neuron networks in the brain.
Chapter 3: Overcoming Your Body
-Every time you have a thought you make a chemical.
-If you think the way you feel, and feel the way you think, over and over, you create a state of being.
-Positive thoughts alone will not work to change this.
-The environment pushes genes in our bodies, which cause stress, disease, or happiness and joy.
-If you ever forget to remember a phone number, you pick up the phone and you just put your fingers on the buttons, and suddenly your body knows better then your brain.
-To change is to pull the mind out of the body and put it back in the brain.
-To change is to think greater than how you feel.
-Mental Rehearsal also contributes to changing the body physically and mentally.
Chapter 4: Overcoming Time
-We happen to live in the emotions we have memorized from the past.
-We need to live in the present moment and focus on new emotions.
-When we watch a movie, read a book, go on a long drive, etc - we lose track of time.
-To change is to change the emotions we memorize, we need to move from a state of anger or jealousy to a state of thankfulness and gratitude.
Chapter 5: Survival Vs Creation
-Living in a state of survival creates stress, disease, and it activates the fight or flight nervous system.
-To change is to be selfless, not selfish. Forget about: Time, Your Body, Your Environment.
-True Creation is forgetting the "Big 3".
1. Metacognition: Become self-aware, an observer.
2. Create a new mind to think about new ways of being... asking questions like: 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, what traits do they have I can resemble?
3. Make thought more real than anything else is creation.
PART II - YOUR BRAIN AND MEDITATION
Chapter 6: Three Brains: Thinking To Doing To Being
-We go from: Thinking (Neocortex) > Doing (Limbic Brain) > Being (Cerebellum)
Emotions (in the limbic or mid brain) are the end products of experience.
-If you wake up from meditation differently before you sat down before, you have changed. You feel different.
-However, you must think and feel in harmony, you can not think one way and feel another way.
-When you think and feel different, and once you do something and taking action consistently, you will eventually be that new person. You will be in a new state of being, which is wisdom.
-A new state of being creates a new personality... A new personality produces a new personal reality.
Chapter 7: The Gap
-We only get our identity from other things, people and circumstances.
Our cars, phones, jobs, etc make us feel good.
-When we die, none of this exists... so where does true happiness come from?
-Happiness must come from within, not from the outside world.
-What we appear on the outside is different from what we really are.
-We need to close the gap and start being happy inside - meditation will help with this.
Chapter 8: Meditation, Demystifying The Mystical And Waves Of Your Future
-Remind yourself who you no longer want to "be" until this becomes so familiar that you know your old self - thoughts, behaviours and emotions connected to the old you that you want to change - to the extent that you unfire and unwire the old mind away and no longer signal the same genes in the same ways.
-Then repeatedly contemplate who you want to "be".
-This will fire and wire new levels of mind. Eventually this will become second nature, and that is change.
PART III - STEPPING TOWARD YOUR NEW DESTINY
This particular part goes into Chapter 9: The Meditative Process: Introduction and Preparation - which explains all the tools you need to prepare you for the meditation. The chapters that follow after, are all the steps clearly explained for your meditation journey.
Part III is the "how to do it" part of the book - with fantastic ways and variations to do the meditation. If I was asked today what would be the only book I could recommend for creating change in our lives and breaking old habits and routines, I would answer "Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself - By Dr. Joe Dispenza".
Update 13/10/2012: To compliment this book in terms of also breaking habit's, I highly recommend the book "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" which can be purchased here on Amazon!
