Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself
How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One
Book Edition Details
Summary
"Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself (2012) shows you how to tap into your mind's unlimited potential and transform your life from the inside out. Get ready to break free from limiting beliefs and negative thought patterns and become the master of your destiny."
Introduction
Most of us wake up each morning and slip into the same routine thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that have defined us for years. We unconsciously recreate the same version of ourselves, day after day, wondering why our lives never seem to change. The truth is, we've become so addicted to our familiar emotions and habitual ways of being that we've literally hardwired our brains to live in the past. But what if you could break free from this cycle? What if you could actually rewire your brain, reprogram your body, and create a new version of yourself that aligns with your greatest aspirations? This journey requires more than positive thinking or wishful hoping. It demands a fundamental understanding of how your thoughts create your reality, how your emotions become your personality, and how you can consciously evolve beyond the limitations of your current self. The moment you decide to become greater than your environment, your body, and time itself, you step into the realm of true transformation.
Understanding the Science of Personal Change
At the quantum level, your thoughts are not just mental activities but actual electrical impulses that influence the physical world around you. When you observe reality through the same lens every day, thinking the same thoughts and feeling the same emotions, you literally collapse the same possibilities from the quantum field into your experience. Your familiar thoughts fire the same neural networks, creating the same chemical reactions in your body, which generate the same feelings that influence the same thoughts. This creates a loop that keeps you locked in your current reality. Consider Bill, a 57-year-old roofing contractor who developed malignant melanoma that kept recurring despite repeated treatments. Through deep self-reflection, Bill realized he had been stuck in resentment for over 30 years, always feeling like he had to give up what he wanted for others. His body had become so conditioned to this emotional state that it was literally living in the past experience of disappointment and bitterness. Bill's transformation began when he retreated from his familiar environment for two weeks in Baja, Mexico. He spent the first week becoming conscious of his unconscious thoughts and feelings, observing how resentment had become his automatic response to life. In the second week, he mentally rehearsed being a new person who responded with kindness and generosity instead of burden and blame. To create lasting change, you must first become conscious of your unconscious patterns. Start by observing your automatic thoughts throughout the day without judgment. Notice which emotions you return to most frequently. These repetitive mental and emotional patterns are the building blocks of your current personality. When you can observe them objectively, you begin to separate your consciousness from these programs, creating space for something new to emerge. Remember that your personality creates your personal reality. If you want a new life, you must literally become a new person by changing how you habitually think, feel, and act. This isn't about suppressing negative thoughts but about consciously choosing which neural networks to strengthen and which ones to let weaken through disuse.
Overcoming Your Environment, Body, and Time
Your external environment constantly triggers familiar thoughts and emotions because your brain has associated every person, place, and thing with past experiences. When you see the same people, go to the same places, and do the same things, you activate the neural networks that keep you thinking and feeling in familiar ways. Your environment essentially controls your internal state, making change nearly impossible. Take Pamela's story of financial struggle. For two years, her unemployed ex-husband hadn't paid child support, leaving her feeling victimized, angry, and lacking. During a workshop meditation focused on breaking energetic bonds with past experiences, Pamela recognized how deeply she was connected to emotions of victimization and resentment. These feelings had become so much a part of her identity that they influenced every decision and opportunity in her life. When Pamela truly let go of these memorized emotions during the meditation, something remarkable happened. She released the energy that had been bound up in those destructive feelings, freeing it to create new possibilities. The very same day, her internet business generated nearly $10,000 from a promotion she had launched that morning. Three days later, her ex-husband sent a check for the full $12,000 in back support payments he owed. To overcome your environment, you must first recognize which external triggers automatically activate your old self. Create a new environment for meditation where familiar associations cannot pull you back into old patterns. During your daily life, consciously choose different responses to familiar situations. When someone or something typically makes you react in a predictable way, pause and ask yourself who you want to be in this moment. Your body has also become addicted to familiar emotions through repeated chemical responses. These emotional addictions are as real as drug addictions, requiring increasingly intense experiences to generate the same feelings. To break free, you must be willing to feel uncomfortable as your body withdraws from its chemical dependencies. This temporary discomfort is the price of freedom from your past self.
Mastering Meditation to Access Your Subconscious Mind
Meditation is not about emptying your mind or achieving perfect stillness. It's about changing your brain waves from the high-frequency beta state of normal waking consciousness to the slower alpha and theta states where real transformation becomes possible. In these deeper states, you can access your subconscious mind where all your habits, beliefs, and automatic behaviors are stored. Jose discovered this power accidentally in his twenties when he had ten olive-sized warts on his left hand that embarrassed him deeply. One evening, following instructions from a meditation book, he focused on his breath and allowed his mind to expand beyond his body's limitations. As he entered a deeper state of consciousness, something profound shifted within him. The next morning, all ten warts had completely vanished without a trace. Jose's experience demonstrates what happens when you get beyond your analytical mind and enter the operating system of your subconscious. In this state, the universal intelligence that maintains your body's functions can restore perfect order when you stop interfering with limiting thoughts and emotions. The warts returned to the quantum field from which they came because Jose's coherent mind aligned with the body's natural healing intelligence. Begin your meditation practice by learning to slow your brain waves through focused attention on your body in space. Sit upright with your spine straight and systematically place your awareness on different parts of your body, sensing their weight and volume in space. This process naturally shifts your brain from beta to alpha waves, opening the door to your subconscious mind. Practice this daily at the same time and place, preferably in the morning or evening when your brain chemistry naturally makes it easier to access deeper states. Consistency is more important than duration. Start with 20 minutes daily and build a strong foundation before attempting more complex techniques. As you become proficient at entering alpha states, you'll begin to experience the gap between thoughts where infinite possibilities exist. This is where you can plant the seeds of your new self and watch them grow into your new reality.
Creating and Living Your New Reality
Creating a new self begins with a clear vision of who you want to become. This isn't about fantasizing or wishful thinking, but about using your frontal lobe to construct a detailed template of your ideal self. When you repeatedly rehearse being this new person in your mind, you literally install the neurological hardware needed to support this new identity. Monique, a therapist from Montreal, had lived most of her adult life in a constant state of lack. Despite her professional success, she always felt there wasn't enough money, time, or energy. During meditation, she recognized that all her decisions came from this scarcity mindset. She decided to completely change her personality by creating a template of someone who made all choices from abundance of energy, time, and money. Monique began living her life from the perspective of this new identity, feeling wonderful about her unlimited resources even before they manifested. Several weeks later, while working with her last client of the day, she felt inspired to buy a lottery ticket on her way home, something the old Monique would never have done. That ticket won exactly $53,000, the precise amount she and her husband owed in credit card and auto loan debt. To create your new reality, first become crystal clear about who you no longer want to be. Write down the specific thoughts, feelings, and behaviors you want to change. Then create a detailed vision of your ideal self. How would this person think, feel, and act in various situations? What would their energy be like? How would they speak to themselves and others? Spend time each day mentally rehearsing being this new person until the thoughts and feelings become familiar. Your repeated mental rehearsal will create the neural networks needed to support this new identity, making it easier to access these new patterns in your daily life. The key is to feel the emotions of your new identity so strongly that your body begins to believe this future self is your present reality. When mind and body are unified in this new state of being, you broadcast a different electromagnetic signature that attracts experiences matching your new identity. Remember that creating from a state of joy and gratitude is infinitely more powerful than creating from lack or need. When you feel grateful for your new life before it manifests, you send a signal to the quantum field that these changes have already occurred.
Summary
The greatest habit you can break is the habit of being yourself, and the greatest habit you can create is expressing your true divine nature through conscious choice and elevated emotion. As this work reveals, "when you change your mind, you change your life" because your thoughts literally create your reality at the quantum level. When you break free from the unconscious programs that keep you recreating the same experiences, you open the door to infinite possibilities. Your transformation begins the moment you decide to observe your old self with such clarity that you can consciously choose a new way of being, then rehearse this new identity until it becomes as natural as breathing. Start today by spending just twenty minutes in meditation, becoming familiar with who you no longer want to be, and planting the seeds of who you're becoming. The universe is waiting to respond to the new signal you're ready to broadcast.
By Joe Dispenza
