Long before the books and the sold-out workshops, Joe Dispenza says he received what he calls a wake-up call. In 1986, during a triathlon in Palm Springs, he was hit by a car and broke six vertebrae. In this clip from his 2018 London Real interview, he tells Brian Rose the story he has told many times since: how he turned down major spinal surgery and how, in his account, he worked on his own recovery through focused attention.
It is the story at the root of his life’s work on the mind-body connection, and it is told here in his own words. It is his personal account, not a medical case study.
▶ Watch the full episode: Dr Joe Dispenza – Wild At Heart
The accident
Dispenza describes the moment in detail. During the cycling leg of the race, a police officer waved him round a corner, unaware of the traffic behind. As he passed two other cyclists, a four-wheel-drive vehicle travelling at around 55 miles an hour hit him and threw him from his bike.
He says the impact caused compression fractures in six vertebrae. The worst, T8, was compressed by more than 60%, its arch broken “like a pretzel”, with bone fragments pressing on his spinal cord.
Turning down surgery
The standard treatment he was offered was Harrington rod surgery: removing the back parts of the vertebrae from the base of his neck to the base of his spine and fixing stainless steel rods in place. He says he was told that without it he would probably never walk again. He sought four opinions from leading surgeons in Southern California, two of them at Scripps.
He decided against the operation. Lying face down with nothing else to do, he reasoned that the intelligence that keeps every one of us alive knew how to heal, even if he did not.
Six and a half weeks of focus
His method, as he describes it, was to give that intelligence a plan: to reconstruct his spine in his mind, vertebra by vertebra, while staying fully present, and then let go. At first it was, in his words, “six and a half weeks of absolute hell.” His mind kept drifting to the worst outcomes: a wheelchair, selling his home, selling his practice.
That, he says, taught him something he still teaches. Under stress, the body’s survival hormones push us to focus on the worst-case scenario. Each session took him around three hours, and he was never satisfied, until one day he got all the way through without losing focus. He compares it to hitting a tennis ball in the sweet spot.
From then on, he says, it became easier. In his account, his pain levels dropped and he had more energy, and he was back on his feet in ten and a half weeks and training again by 12 weeks.
What the doctors said
Brian asks how his doctors reacted. Dispenza says they had been clear he would never walk again, and even suggested that his head injury meant he was not fit to make the decision. When he later returned to see the medical director at Scripps in San Diego, the doctor who had pushed back hardest, he says, was amazed and happy for him.
During those weeks, Dispenza made himself a promise: if he walked again, he would spend his life studying the mind-body connection. He says he has been doing that ever since.
This is Dr Joe Dispenza describing his own recovery, not medical advice. Spinal injuries need urgent medical assessment, and nothing here should replace treatment from a qualified doctor.
Who is Dr Joe Dispenza?
Dr Joe Dispenza is an American author, lecturer and educator who trained as a chiropractor. He is known for his books on the mind and change, including Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, You Are the Placebo and Becoming Supernatural, and for workshops and retreats built around meditation.
This clip comes from his 2018 London Real episode, Wild At Heart. He has since returned several times, including for Break The Habit Of Being You in 2019.
See everything Dr Joe Dispenza has done with London Real on his guest page: Dr Joe Dispenza on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Dr Joe Dispenza – The 1986 Accident That Broke His Back And Changed His Life
0:00 Dr Joe Dispenza: Well, I think for some of us to wake up, we need a wake-up call. And in 1986 I got the call. I was in a triathlon in Palm Springs, California. I was on the biking portion of the race. I was making a turn, and there was a police officer on the corner, pointing at me and telling me to make this turn. And there were two cyclists on the corner, and I swung around the cyclists and passed them. The problem was, the police officer had his back to the oncoming traffic.
0:26 Dr Joe Dispenza: So when I passed the cyclists and made the turn, this four-wheel-drive vehicle, going about 55 miles an hour, catapulted me off my bike, and I wound up breaking six vertebrae in my spine. The force of hitting the ground compressed the vertebrae: they’re called compression fractures. And when you compress a volume of material like that, it’s got to go somewhere, so it went back onto my spinal cord.
0:55 Dr Joe Dispenza: And because of the way that I landed, and that I flexed forward very hard, the top vertebra, T8, thoracic number eight, compressed more than 60%, and the arch that the spinal cord passes through broke like a pretzel. So I had multiple compression fractures, I had bone fragments on the cord, and I had the neural arch of T8 broken.
1:18 Dr Joe Dispenza: The typical protocol for that is what’s called Harrington rod surgery, where they do a full laminectomy. They cut off all the back parts of your vertebrae, in my case from the base of my neck to the base of my spine, and screw in these stainless steel rods. The action of screwing the rods into the vertebrae could cantilever the spine off the cord and make some room. But if it doesn’t work, you still have the same condition. And they told me that if I didn’t have the surgery, I’d probably never walk again.
1:57 Dr Joe Dispenza: I had four opinions from four leading surgeons in Southern California. Two were from Scripps, and two were from JFK in Palm Springs.
2:07 Brian Rose: Yeah, that’s my hometown. Scripps, yeah.
2:09 Dr Joe Dispenza: So I decided against the surgery. And I just thought: hell, I’m not going anywhere, I’m not doing anything, I’m lying face down. There’s an intelligence that lives within each and every one of us that’s giving us life. And that intelligence is consciousness, and consciousness is awareness, and awareness is paying attention. So I reasoned maybe it was paying attention to me, so I’d better start paying attention to it.
2:29 Dr Joe Dispenza: So I said: let me see if I can connect with it. If I could connect with it and give it a plan, a template, a design, and when I was happy with that design and I was completely present, I would surrender my creation to this greater mind. Because I certainly couldn’t do the healing, but it knew how to heal.
2:47 Dr Joe Dispenza: Anyway, six and a half weeks of absolute hell. I couldn’t get my mind to do what I wanted it to do. I’d start reconstructing my vertebrae in my mind, and then the next thing, I’d start thinking: am I going to live in a wheelchair? Should I sell my home? Should I sell my practice? I became aware that I kept focusing on what I didn’t want to have happen, instead of what I do want to have happen. So I realised that when we’re under stress or some type of trauma, the hormones of stress cause us to always focus on the worst-case scenario. That’s what survival is about. So after six and a half weeks, I started getting on top of it.
3:27 Dr Joe Dispenza: It took me about three hours every day in those first six and a half weeks to go through it, and I was never satisfied. But at about six and a half weeks, I felt like I hit a tennis ball right in the sweet spot. I went through the whole thing, I never lost my focus, because if I lost my focus I’d have to start all over again, because it wasn’t clear.
3:48 Dr Joe Dispenza: When I went through that process, Brian, and I made it through, something clicked, and all of a sudden it got easier. And my body started to respond to my mind, I mean quickly. Pain levels dropped, my neurological condition changed, I felt like I had more energy. What took me three or four hours to do, I was doing in 45 minutes. And all of a sudden my body started healing. I was back on my feet in ten and a half weeks. I was back in my life at 12 weeks. I was training again at 12 weeks.
4:21 Brian Rose: What did the doctors say about this?
4:23 Dr Joe Dispenza: Well, the doctors were absolutely clear that I would never walk again, and they were absolutely clear that I had a head injury, that I was not fit to make those decisions. In 1986, you just didn’t do that back then.
4:35 Brian Rose: What caused you to even think of this? What was Joe like back then? Were you open-minded to different ideas?
4:42 Dr Joe Dispenza: I think I was somewhat open-minded. I was more of a philosopher. I loved the principles, but this was an initiation. This was putting it all on the line. I figured: look, if I’m going to be in a wheelchair, possibly, at least I gave it my best shot. They told me that if I didn’t have the surgery, they’d have to put me in a body cast for six months to a year.
5:06 Dr Joe Dispenza: When I went back to see one of the doctors, who was the medical director at Scripps Hospital in San Diego, he was blown away and was so happy for me. He was the one that was giving me the hardest time, and he just couldn’t believe it. So during that time, I made a deal with myself that if I was ever able to walk again, I’d spend the rest of my life studying the mind-body connection and mind over matter. And I’ve been doing that since 1986.
