It's me! I'm the root of the problem. The good thing is that I am also the solution. Well, according to one writer specifically.
No matter the genre, there is often an author whose works give us pause for thought. In the self-help space, one such writer (at least as far as I am concerned) is Dr Joe Dispenza. On the homepage of this site, I mention that I will touch on the aspects of books that stand out for me particularly. While I could relate to the entirety of Matthew Johnstone's (admittedly short) book I Had A Black Dog: His Name Was Depression, Dr Joe Dispenza's work is considerably more complex. As I read the first of his books (not the first in his chronology, though), it became clear that, although I appreciated the bulk of the work, there was a point at which I couldn't relate to it (and didn't want to, if I am being candid). But, more about that later.
To be clear, I loved Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. The aspects of it that I did relate to hit hard and frequently. Dr Dispenza's book is decidedly scientific, covering concepts from epigenetics to neuroscience, brain chemistry to quantum physics. The author makes these concepts easy to grasp, relying on detailed explanations and (sometimes) graphics at various points for emphasis and clarity. I had over a few 'put the book down and absorb' moments and regularly returned to highlighted excerpts. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself dares us to consider that we do not need to remain victims of our past or genetics. It presents that reprogramming one's thoughts and biology and essentially 'breaking who we are' can change our outlook and our lives. The book cannot be covered in a single post, and I would be doing the text an injustice if I did. That said, it is perhaps best to follow the book's flow and encapsulate it into separate blog posts.
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself is divided into three parts:
Part I: The Science of You
Part II: Your Brain and Meditation
Part III: Stepping Toward Your New Destiny
Part I is the longest segment of the book, so given its length and the import of its content, I will dedicate two blog posts to it.
Chapter 1 cuts straight to the chase when Dr Dispenza asks the reader to consider whether using one's mind to create reality is possible. Within the span of a page, he answers his question by writing that:
"Your thoughts have consequences so great that they create your reality."
So, if you think unhappy thoughts, you will be unhappy. Similarly, if you think happy thoughts, you will be happy. The same applies to lack and abundance, success and failure, or health or illness.
From the offset, Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself is very scientific and pretty philosophical. The author cites the French philosopher Rene Descartes, who hypothesised that mind and matter were separate. The philosopher also believed in a three-dimensional (static) space and a flow of time separate from events. Known as Cartesian dualism, the concept suggests that the physical relates to the material world and includes objects and physical beings that conform to the laws of physics. The mental, however, relates to the consciousness or the mind, that includes self-awareness, thoughts and emotions that do not adhere to physical laws. Cartesian dualism questioned how these two substances (the mental and the physical) interact, and it became known as the "mind-body problem".
Of course, Einstein would change all this, reshaping our understanding of the physical universe. His theory of relativity (i.e., the spacetime continuum—of which E = mc² is a part) combines Descartes's three-dimensional understanding of space with the one-dimensional concept of time to make a consolidated four-dimensional framework. By doing this, the scientist demonstrated that time and space are relative to the observer's state of motion (more about the observer below). This is where the gist of Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself begins to take shape.
In 'The Science of You', Dispenza writes that Einstein's most notable equation E = mc² established that:
"energy and matter are so fundamentally related that they are one and the same."
Delving any deeper into the scientific and/or philosophical elements of Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself will alter the purpose of this blog, so I won't go (all the way) down the deep (though admittedly fascinating) rabbit hole that is Part 1. However, crucial to his first chapter is a sub-section titled 'The Creation of Reality: Energy Responds to Mindful Attention'.
Here, Dr Dispenza mentions the "observer effect", the concept that observing a phenomenon or a situation changes it. He writes that:
"At the subatomic level, energy responds to your mindful attention and becomes matter."
The author challenges the reader to question how life could change if we learned to channel the observer effect into a reality of our choosing and thus create the life we want. In layman's terms, if the mind is energy and the body is matter, and energy can alter matter, by the transitive property of equality, thought (energy) can change our physical being (matter). Umpteen scientific studies prove the extent to which laughter (for example) can alter our brain chemistry. Laughter releases 'feel good' hormones, reducing cortisol levels in our bloodstream (i.e., the stress hormone) by raising dopamine, endorphin and oxytocin levels. So, thinking about something funny changes our state of being - in this instance, to happiness. The thing is, we can't spend our lives watching funny movies, and no one laughs continuously, indeed not someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, so the key is to reach a point where you're able to regulate that balance yourself and with your thoughts, no less. In my experience, there have been moments - though few and far between - where I have been able to temper my anxiety or depression by taking a step back to acknowledge (or observe) my state of being and then breathing my way through it and replacing that thought/feeling with more accurate facts. I have yet to improve upon, let alone master, this task of observing.
Amongst a plethora of worthy quotes from Chapter 1, there is one that I latched onto, and it appears within the first two pages of said chapter. The author posits that if we bought into the idea that our thoughts brought about actual effects, would we not aim to avoid letting a single thought cross our consciousness that we didn't want to experience? Well, of course, right? This is what cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is all about; it's what mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is.
The problem is that focusing on CBT or MBCT is incredibly difficult when it's all one can do to not sink (further and further) into the quagmire of anxiety and depression. These conditions also come with survival/trauma response habits (developed over many years), and it is challenging to break that cycle. Dr Dispenza writes about stepping from the known into the unknown - to a future different from the one we know (and there are, apparently, infinite possibilities). In my previous blog post, I mentioned that, strange as it may sound, there's a degree of comfort and familiarity with depression and anxiety. That's because it often becomes a part of our identity, which can be hard to change. Herein lies the crux of Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself. While the author is clear that change is difficult and will feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar, he writes that you must modify your energy - your very self to change your circumstances and produce a fundamental shift in your thoughts and emotions:
"If you want a new outcome, you will have to break the habit of being yourself, and reinvent a new self."
So, there you have it. I am the problem. At least the current version of myself is. Do I have the grit (and perseverance) to create a new version of myself? Will I be able to become an observer to the extent that I can access any number of infinite possibilities, including one in which I don't struggle with anxiety and depression? Gary Hensel famously said (in his book of the same name):
"I Am: Two Of The Most Powerful Words, For What You Put After Them Shapes Your Reality."
Is it possible, as Dr Dispenza suggests, that there exists an outcome in the quantum field where I can alter my very existence so I can say, "I am at peace" (instead of "I am anxious") or "I am happy" (instead of "I am depressed")? I want to think so, and this is where my self-help journey begins.
Gary Hensel's book I Am: Two of the Most Powerful Words, For What You Put After Them Shapes Your Reality, will be covered in the coming weeks.
Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself is available to purchase at the affiliate link below.
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