Most of us know what it feels like to talk to someone who is not really listening. Dr Joe Dispenza argues that we do the same thing to our own lives every morning, before we have even got out of bed.
In this clip from his 2018 London Real interview, recorded around the release of his book Becoming Supernatural, Dispenza explains what he means by being present, why he thinks so many people live on autopilot, and what he believes happens when you train yourself out of it.
▶ Watch the full episode: Dr Joe Dispenza – Wild At Heart
Presence is a skill
Dispenza starts simply. Paying attention is being present, he says, and it is a skill like golf or tennis: the more you practise it, the better you get. We can all tell when someone is present with us, because they are paying attention to us.
His central idea follows from that: “where you place your attention is where you place your energy.” If your attention is in the present moment, so is your energy. He links this to his reading of the quantum model of reality, in which, as he puts it, all possibilities exist in the eternal now.
The morning autopilot
The most relatable part of the clip is his description of a typical morning. You wake up and start thinking about your problems. Those problems are tied to people, places and times, so in his view you are switching on circuits from the past, along with the emotions attached to them: frustration, anger, judgement.
Then come the phone, the messages, social media, the email and the news. Then the same routine: the same shower, the same clothes, the same cereal with the same spoon, the same drive to work and the same emotional buttons. Do that every day, he argues, and the body is programmed for a predictable future based on the past. People have, he says, “lost their free will to a program.”
Scattered attention
Dispenza goes on to describe what happens when strong emotions are tied to particular people and problems. Your attention, and with it your energy, gets pulled in many directions. Each of those people and problems, he says, has its own network in the brain, and jumping between them makes the brain incoherent. When the brain is incoherent, in his words, you are incoherent too.
Training the body back to the present
The practical part is about sitting with your eyes closed and noticing what the body does. At 8 o’clock it expects to be irritated in traffic. At 11 o’clock it expects to be judging emails. Images of an ex or a co-worker pop up, along with the feelings that go with them.
Each time, he says, you notice the feeling, settle the body back into the present moment and turn down the volume on that emotion. Every time you do it, in his view, you are reconditioning the body to a new mind and telling it that it is no longer in charge. “You’re the mind,” he says.
Where the joy comes from
Dispenza describes this as calling your energy back from all the people and problems it was tied to. At first it can feel chaotic, he says, like training an animal, but eventually the body gives in. What follows, as he tells it, is a person so content in the present moment that they do not want to open their eyes. “The side effect of that is called joy,” he says.
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 changing habits of mind, including Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, You Are the Placebo and Becoming Supernatural, and for meditation workshops he runs around the world.
This clip comes from his 2018 London Real episode, Wild At Heart. He returned later that year for Change Your Energy, Change Your Life, and again in 2019 for Break The Habit Of Being You.
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 – How To Be More Present And Break The Morning Autopilot
0:00 Dr Joe Dispenza: Paying attention is being present, and it’s a skill, just like golf or tennis. The more you practise it, the better you get at it. And you know when someone’s present with you in your life, because they’re paying attention to you. And you know when they’re not present with you, because they’re not paying attention to you.
0:17 Dr Joe Dispenza: So now, what’s the relevance of that? Well, there’s an intelligence that’s giving you life that’s always present. And many people don’t take the time to connect to it by being present, right? So where you place your attention is where you place your energy. And if all of your attention is in the present moment, you’ve got a lot of energy in the present moment.
0:38 Dr Joe Dispenza: Now think about this. When I talk about being present, I’m saying that once you fall into the generous present moment, according to the quantum model of reality, all possibilities exist in the eternal now.
0:53 Dr Joe Dispenza: So most people wake up in the morning, they come back to their senses. Your brain is a record of the past. It’s an artefact. It’s a circuit of everything you’ve learned and experienced to this moment. So people wake up in the morning and they think about their problems. Those problems are connected to certain people and certain things at certain times and places. The moment they start thinking about the problems, they’re turning on the circuits from the past. They’re memories.
1:18 Dr Joe Dispenza: All those memories are connected to emotions, because emotions are the end product of past experiences. So that problem has the feeling of disgust, frustration, anger, judgement, hatred. And how you think and how you feel creates your state of being. Thoughts are the language of the brain and feelings are the language of the body. That person’s entire state of being is in the familiar past. And when you’re in the familiar past, you crave the predictable future.
1:42 Dr Joe Dispenza: So then what happens next? They come back to their senses, they sit up, they check their cell phone. They do their WhatsApp, they do their Twitter, they do their texts, they do Facebook. They take a picture of their feet, they post it on Facebook, they tweet something. They check one email, they check another email, they check the news. And now their entire brain is connected to everything known in their life.
2:03 Dr Joe Dispenza: Then they stand up and they go through a series of routine behaviours. They use the toilet, they go to the kitchen, have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. They go in the shower, they wash themselves the same way, they put on the same clothes. They walk out to the kitchen, they eat cereal with the same spoon facing the same direction. They drive to work the same way, they do the same thing, see the same people and push the same emotional buttons. And they do this every day.
2:28 Dr Joe Dispenza: So now their body is programmed into a predictable future based on what they did in their past, and they’ve lost their free will to a program. And so now, if you’re not getting up in the morning defined by a vision of the future, then you’ll be predictable in your life. You’re left with the old memories of your past.
2:49 Dr Joe Dispenza: So then, as I said, the stronger the emotion that you have to some problem or person in your present reality, the more you’re going to pay attention to that person or problem. And if where you place your attention is where you place your energy, all of your energy and your attention is going to all these different people and problems and places. And now every one of those people and problems and places has a neurological network in your brain, throwing a little chemicals of stress. And now, as you shift your attention from one person to one problem, you’re activating those circuits. And if you’re measuring a brain that’s doing that, it’s very incoherent. When the brain’s incoherent, you’re incoherent.
3:26 Dr Joe Dispenza: So then, when I talk about the generous present moment: the person is sitting there and the body’s going, well, it’s 8 o’clock in the morning. You normally get p*ssed off, excuse me, you normally get frustrated when you’re in traffic, and we’re on a schedule here. Well, you’re not in traffic. You’re sitting with your eyes closed. The body goes: well, let’s just get a little irritated, right?
3:49 Dr Joe Dispenza: And you make that person become aware that that feeling of irritation is the body craving that addictive emotion. And you settle the body back down into the present moment and you unfold back into possibility. Every time you do that, you’re reconditioning the body to a new mind. And you’re telling it it’s no longer the mind. You’re the mind. And now your will is getting greater than the program.
4:12 Dr Joe Dispenza: And then the body says: well, it’s 11 o’clock. This is normally when you check emails and judge everybody that sends you an email. And now you’re sitting and the body’s looking to judge. And then all of a sudden you get images in your brain of your ex, or your co-worker or whatever. And all of a sudden you realise that that emotion is connected to them. You settle the body back down into the present moment, and you lower the volume to that emotion.
4:34 Dr Joe Dispenza: And when you do that, you take your attention off that person or thing. And now you’re breaking your energetic bond with everyone and everything in your life. Now you’re calling energy back to you. Now that is available energy to heal. That’s available energy for you to design a new destiny.
4:51 Dr Joe Dispenza: And when that energy comes back, it’s chaotic energy. The person’s going through this disturbance internally, and yet they’re working with their body. And there’ll come a moment, the body’s the animal, just like training an animal, sooner or later it’s going to surrender to the mind. And when it does, there’s a liberation of energy.
5:10 Dr Joe Dispenza: And now the person doesn’t want to think about the predictable future or their familiar past, doesn’t want to get up and open their eyes, doesn’t want to go to the bathroom or eat anything. They’re so happy in the present moment that they’ve freed themselves from the chains of their own personal limitations. And the side effect of that is called joy. Joy is the absence of that habituation, or that emotion that’s been conditioned.
