✶Explainer04:00
Why change is so hard: 95% of you runs on autopilot
Dispenza explains that by mid-life around 95% of who you are is an unconscious set of thoughts, behaviours and emotions programmed into your biology. Because you keep making the same choices, your neurochemistry, hormones and even gene expression stay the same. The first step to change is not positive thinking but becoming conscious of those unconscious patterns.
- Repeated thoughts, actions and feelings hardwire circuits and condition the body
- The same choices reproduce the same experiences, emotions and biology
- Emotions become a subconscious program automatically run by the body
- The first move is metacognition, not affirmations
“the first step to change is not thinking positively you got to become conscious of those unconscious thoughts”
#change#subconscious#neuroscience#habits
✶Explainer06:30
Crossing the river from the old self to the new
Dispenza describes going from the old self to the new as a neurological, biological, chemical and genetic death of the old self, the Phoenix lighting itself on fire. Most people cling to the familiar rather than enter the void. But the brain changes most at the point where you feel you can't go further and want to quit; going past it is the unknown.
- The conditioned body pulls you back to the comfortable, familiar past
- The void or vacuum is actually the perfect place to create
- The brain changes most just past the point where you want to quit
- The unknown feels dangerous because of thousands of years of survival wiring
“the brain changes the most when you get to that point where you think you can't go any further and you want to quit”
#transformation#identity#unknown
✶Explainer10:00
You can't read the label from inside the jar
Dispenza argues people often only change when a crisis, diagnosis, loss or betrayal makes them uncomfortable enough to see themselves from the outside, a state he calls metacognition. But you can also learn and change from a state of joy and inspiration rather than waiting for pain to force it.
- When you are inside the jar you can't read the label
- Crisis creates enough discomfort to see yourself separate from your program
- Seeing yourself apart from the program is becoming conscious of the unconscious self
- You can choose to change in joy instead of waiting for suffering
“you can learn and change in a state of pain and suffering which most people like to do or you can learn and change in…”
#metacognition#crisis#self-awareness
✶Explainer21:00
How you get addicted to your own stressful thoughts
Dispenza explains that the rush of adrenaline from the fight-or-flight response is an arousal people become addicted to. Because you can switch on the stress response by thought alone, replaying a past problem re-triggers the hormones, so people use the bad job, relationship or story to reaffirm their addiction to the emotion.
- Stress is being knocked out of homeostasis into survival
- The adrenaline surge is a rush people get hooked on
- You can turn on the stress response purely by thought
- People keep the problems alive to keep getting the chemical hit
“if the hormones of stress are addictive and you can turn on the stress response just by thought alone you could become addicted to your…”
#stress#addiction#hormones#adrenaline
✶Explainer16:30
The familiar past and predictable future are both the known
Dispenza maps out that waking to remember your problems puts you in the past, while running through automatic routines drags you into a predictable future; both are the known. The only place the unknown exists is the present moment, so he teaches people to master their attention and settle the body into the now, which he frames as the actual skill of meditation.
- Remembering problems on waking plants you emotionally in the past
- Automatic routines make the future predictable, which is also known
- The present moment is the only doorway to the unknown
- Noticing you drifted and returning attention is a meditation victory
“the familiar past is the known the predictable future is the known there's only one place left where the unknown exists and that's the sweet…”
#present-moment#meditation#attention
✶Explainer48:30
From high beta to gamma: the brain-wave map of transformation
Dispenza walks through the brain-wave spectrum: stressed high beta is the brain firing incoherently in first gear, alpha makes the inner world more real and creative, and theta is a suggestible hypnotic state. When the analytical mind quiets and coherence builds, the brain can spike into gamma, an arousal of ecstasy rather than fear, correlated with the instantaneous biological upgrades he measures.
- High beta is three times low beta and burns energy incoherently
- Alpha shifts you into imagery and creativity; theta is hypnotic and suggestible
- Suggestibility opens the door between conscious and subconscious mind
- Coherent gamma is superconsciousness from ecstasy, not fear or aggression
“these people are 200 300 400 500 standard deviations outside of normal and three is really great”
#brainwaves#meditation#gamma#neuroscience