YOU'RE NOT LAZY! How to Never Be Broke, Stuck & Exhausted Again | Dr. Joe Dispenza
Run a daily “state reset” before your day takes over: identify one automatic thought or emotion you want to interrupt, choose how you want to think, act, and feel instead, then mentally rehearse one likely situation where you will practice it. When stress pulls you back into the old pattern, pause f
48mSummary published by 1% Better, updated .
Key Takeaway
Run a daily “state reset” before your day takes over: identify one automatic thought or emotion you want to interrupt, choose how you want to think, act, and feel instead, then mentally rehearse one likely situation where you will practice it. When stress pulls you back into the old pattern, pause for a few breaths and return to the chosen state. Measure success by how quickly you notice and reset—not by never reacting.
Episode Overview
Dr. Joe Dispenza and Jay Shetty discuss how repetitive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors can become automatic patterns—and how deliberate awareness, mental rehearsal, and meditation can help interrupt them. The conversation emphasizes practicing a chosen emotional state during ordinary stressful moments rather than waiting for external circumstances to improve.
Key Insights
Familiar is not the same as good
Repeated thoughts and emotions can feel convincing simply because they are well-practiced. Dispenza’s central suggestion is to notice an automatic thought—such as unworthiness—without treating it as fact, then choose a different response before the familiar loop drives behavior.
Rehearse your response before the pressure arrives
Rather than relying on willpower in the moment, mentally prepare for predictable triggers: a difficult coworker, traffic, a Zoom call, or an interaction with an ex. Decide in advance how you want to behave, then repeatedly imagine carrying that out so your actions better match your intentions.
Stress narrows choices
The speakers connect stress with reactive behavior, from snapping at people to reaching for comforting food. A brief pause to breathe and regain the present moment creates space between the trigger and the habitual response.
A reset is a win, even if you need many of them
The goal is not to eliminate all reactions or achieve a permanently calm state. Progress is catching yourself sooner, returning to the present, and practicing the desired state repeatedly—even if that takes ten resets in one day.
Bring the practice into daily life
Meditation is presented as rehearsal, not an escape from life. The deeper practice is maintaining awareness with eyes open: walking, working, and relating to others from the state you intend to cultivate.
Frameworks or Models
The Experiment Called Life
1. Identify how you no longer want to think, act, and feel. 2. Decide how you do want to think, behave, and feel. 3. Rehearse these responses before real-world situations arise. 4. Notice when you default to the old pattern. 5. Reset and repeat, treating each day as practice rather than as a pass-or-fail test.
Present-Moment Reset
1. Notice that stress has pulled attention into a past-based story or predicted future. 2. Pause and breathe rather than immediately reacting. 3. Bring attention back to the body and present moment. 4. Remember the person you intend to be. 5. Choose the next action from that state; repeat as often as needed.
Notable Quotes
"That is the moment when the body is being reconditioned to a new mind."
"You're not waiting for your life to change to feel worthy. In reality, you are changing your life by becoming someone worthy."
"The question is, how long are you going to react? That's the real question."
"When it's hardest, that's when it matters most."
"You will fall many times, but sooner or later, once you start to change, it is very difficult to go back."
Action Items
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1
Map one default loop
Write one recurring trigger, the thought it produces, the feeling that follows, and the behavior it drives. Use this map today to recognize the pattern as it begins rather than after it has taken over.
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2
Set a 3-minute morning intention
Before checking your phone, choose one quality to practice today—calm, patience, confidence, or compassion. Ask: “How will I behave when this is tested?” Visualize one specific situation and your desired response.
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3
Use a stress reset
When you notice yourself reacting, pause before sending the message, speaking, or making a decision. Take several slow breaths, name the state you are in, and return your attention to the present before choosing your next action.
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4
Practice with eyes open
Choose one ordinary activity, such as walking to a meeting or making coffee, and deliberately embody your chosen state during it. Repeat the practice daily so it becomes available outside formal meditation.
Full Transcript
Transcript of YOU'RE NOT LAZY! How to Never Be Broke, Stuck & Exhausted Again | Dr. Joe Dispenza from On Purpose. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.
If someone has a negative and repetitive thought, specifically about their self-esteem or what they believe they deserve in love, where do they begin with that thought? Well, we mainly think; 90% of the time we have the same thoughts we had the day before. The challenge with that is that the thought you keep having over and over again becomes a belief. And nerve cells that fire together connect to each other. Therefore , the more nerve cells are activated , the more they develop long-term relationships and the more they become consolidated.
The more they become consolidated, the more automatic they become. The more automatic they are, the more unconscious they become. Therefore, the process of change truly requires being aware of your unconscious thoughts, which means that having that thought does not necessarily mean it is the truth. If you have that thought and accept it, believe it, and surrender to it without analyzing it, that thought will lead to the same choice, which will lead to the same behavior, which will create the same experience, which will produce the same emotion.
The same emotions then drive our same thoughts. Over time, our biology, our neural circuits, our neurochemistry, our hormones, and even our gene expression remain the same because we are the same. So , in the process of change, when you confront that unconscious belief and make it conscious, most people feel uncomfortable when confronting that thought. And they are stopping an automatic process. And the body, which has been conditioned to be the mind because it does something over and over again , which is a habit, craves the experience because it wants the emotion associated with it, right?
Therefore, the thought of being unworthy produces the feeling of being unworthy. That feeling, when a person feels unworthy, tends to make them think more thoughts of unworthiness. And it only takes one thought and one feeling, one image of yourself and one emotion, one stimulus and one response, and you can condition the body to memorize that behavior and that emotional state better than the conscious mind. So , the moment we inhibit that thought or become aware of it and no longer accept it, a biological desire occurs in the body because the body has been conditioned to be the mind.
So the body begins to influence the mind to think more corresponding thoughts, equal to that feeling. Then, the attack comes. And you're not just unworthy, you're everything else that comes with that feeling. And this is where people have to decide if they really want to change, because if you decide to confront that thought and make a different decision, be prepared because you're going to feel uncomfortable. It will feel unfamiliar, and there will be some uncertainty because you are leaving familiar territory. Now, you are leaving the familiar and venturing into the unknown.
Now, this is really when you leave the stands and enter the playing field, because the brain immediately looks around to see if anything is changing because you are changing, and you see that nothing in your world changes because you haven't actually changed at all yet. So, when we look for evidence in our lives and don't see it, sooner or later most people accept that thought which leads to the same choice, which creates the same behavior which creates the same experience which produces the same feeling. Then they say, "Oh, this feels good to me." No, that feels familiar because you've just returned to your familiar self.
I believe that when people truly want to decide to change and become so aware of those unconscious thoughts, they would never again be unconscious about them. That is the moment when the body is being reconditioned to a new mind. If you inhibit that choice that leads to that habit or behavior, a habit is when you have done something so many times that the body knows how to do it better than the brain. Now you are preventing the body from being in its automatic state, on autopilot.
And if the body craves the feeling of unworthiness and you prevent the body from feeling that way , and you are mindful in your life of how you speak, you are mindful of how you feel and you check yourself saying, "Do I really want to feel this way?" This is that river of change where you pass from the old self to the new self. So it makes sense that if those principles in biology work that way, they could work in our favor. So if you were to say, "Okay, I'm going to sit for a few minutes.
I'm going to be so aware of my unconscious self, my unconscious personality, that today's victory would be not to become unconscious of those thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Okay, let me become so familiar with them that I don't slip into unconsciousness. Okay, I get it . I love that. What thoughts do I want to activate and connect in my brain?" And if a belief is a thought that you keep repeating over and over again with intention and attention, you'll activate the prefrontal cortex, you'll give meaning to the act, and you'll start installing new circuits in your brain .
If you keep doing that over and over, it becomes more ingrained, it becomes more automatic. And now you're installing a new belief that you are worthy of love, you are worthy of abundance, you are worthy of healing, whatever that may be. That's the thought you really want to believe. And when it matters most is when it's hardest . Hmm. Because if you don't have the circuits installed, you'll revert to the old programs, right? So, if you You might ask yourself: "How am I going to behave today on my Zoom calls?
How am I going to act in traffic today? How am I going to be with my ex, with my coworkers?" And you would start thinking and rehearsing how you would act in certain situations. The brain doesn't really know the difference between real-life experience and what you 're imagining. Research on mental rehearsal shows that the brain will eventually seem as if it has already had the experience and is not lacking anything. Now, keep activating and connecting those circuits and you'll start behaving that way . So now, you're installing circuits to use in your life and make your behaviors match your intentions.
If you were to say, "How would it feel to be worthy of love? How would it feel to be grateful for life? How would it feel to be worthy of abundance?" And you would say, "I'm going to teach my body emotionally how this feels before the event manifests." You're not waiting for your life to change to feel worthy. In reality, you are changing your life by becoming someone worthy. You are generating abundance. You are generating love. You are creating a heightened emotion. Now, our data is so compelling because when you actually begin to elevate your emotional state and can focus on those elevated emotions, your body is so objective that it truly believes it is living in a completely new environment before the environment actually changes.
In other words, the body believes it is in that new future. And if the environment sends signals to the genes, and it does, and the end result of an experience in the environment is an emotion, you are actually sending signals to the genes before the environment and your body will begin to condition itself to a new mind. Now, think about this. If you did that every day, the word meditation literally means to become familiar with. You become familiar with your old self, you become familiar with your new self, and you say, "I won't get up until I feel this ." And then you say, "I want to be able to evoke this feeling whenever I want." I will continue to remember this feeling over and over again.
All it takes is a thought and a feeling, an image of the future and an emotion, a stimulus and a response; You can condition your body to believe that it is living a completely new life. And when you feel the emotions of your future, something amazing happens. You are no longer in a state of lack or separation, so you no longer seek to have the event eliminate that feeling of lack or separation. Your body actually believes it's at the event. And then, since you're not looking for it, you feel like it's already happened.
Get ready, because that's when your life starts to change. And so, we have discovered that if you really practice this and fully immerse yourself in that experience for 7 days. The amount of metabolic and biological changes that will occur in your body will be so significant that your body will actually believe it is living in that future. And yet, most of the people who come to our workshops are literally in a ballroom. Nothing really exciting is happening in their surroundings, but their bodies believe they are living a completely new life.
Much of the anxiety and stress we feel is because we hope to never feel anxiety or stress again. So there's that feeling of: "Okay, I can get to a place where I never experience anxiety." I almost think that sets us up to be hurt more by the anxiety and inevitable uncertainty we will feel . I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Wow, I'd love to answer this. I have three thoughts happening at the same time. that. So, to answer the first part of that question, it's an experiment.
OK? It's an experiment. Life is an experiment. So, if your personality creates your personal reality, and your personality is made up of how you think, how you act, and how you feel, if you keep thinking the same way, keep acting the same way, keep feeling the same way, your life will continue to be the same because you are the same. So the experiment is: okay, let me start thinking differently. So, I have to remind myself how I do want to think and I have to remind myself how I no longer want to think, so as not to act by default and become unconscious.
Let me remind myself how I'm going to behave so that my actions match my intentions, and let me remind myself how I'm going to feel. If I succeed that day, then there should be some change in my life. That's the experiment. And if it doesn't change, that doesn't mean the law won't work for you. It's just that you're not that good yet. You just have to keep practicing, right? So, the act of disconnecting from your life enough to remind yourself who you do want to be and who you no longer want to be.
That experiment, then, is the experiment called life. Now, it's not that you react. The question is, how long are you going to react? That's the real question. Because I mean , I react all the time. I mean, everyone does it. But if you stay there and live in that emotional state, you will see life through the lens of that emotion. TRUE? So now it gets complicated, because the stronger the emotion you feel towards certain people or problems in your life, the more attention you pay to them.
And where you place your attention is where you place your energy. So, from a purely biological and quantum state, we could say then that you are using that person or circumstance to reaffirm your dependence on feeling that emotion. So, you have to hate your enemy . And if your enemy dies, you'll find someone else to hate because that's the answer, right? Therefore, the body is the animal. He has been conditioned in a certain way, and if he has been doing something and feeling something for a prolonged period, a modification occurs in his receptor sites.
He needs those emotional states. So, in the process of change, just be prepared because you're going to feel uncomfortable most of the time. Now, the question is, do you want to stay there? So, most people think they have no control over their emotional state. They think, "I'm just like this and I feel this way." Well , we can actually show people that that's not true, that when it 's hardest is when it matters most , and if you're able to work and train your body really like you train an animal to stop feeling one way and start feeling another.
If you believe you are an eternal being—let's say, I mean, most religions talk about us being eternal and most schools of thought (only a few don't)—whether you go to heaven, hell, nirvana, or the cycle, you're practically going to be around for a very long time. That moment matters a lot in the light of eternity because it is the moment when you decide not to let yourself be defined by your past anymore. Why do you let your past define you ? Because emotions are a record of the past.
So, if you're feeling that emotion, your body believes it's back in that same past experience. So, the more knowledge we have and the more we understand that, justified or not, those feelings don't hurt anyone but you, because the long-term effects of living in those emotional states, those survival states, actually inhibit genes and create diseases. Sooner or later you're going to have to ask yourself, is this loving towards myself? And forgiveness is simply when you overcome the emotion, you take your attention off that person or that problem, and you are freeing yourself, and you are freeing them.
So people do the best they can with what they believe they have available. That is my belief. And if you are not aware that you can control your emotional states, you will depend on something external to yourself to do so. Whether it's a video game, a Netflix series, a drug, whatever you need to make that feeling disappear, you depend on your outside world; And I think that's hypnosis, it's conditioning. It teaches people that they can actually regulate and change their emotional states, and gives them the tools to literally step into a new future.
So, that process, of course, is extremely uncomfortable, and the question is, how long are you going to stay in that emotional state? And 50% of the story that most people tell about that past experience isn't even true, because they make things up and do it to justify why they haven't changed since some past event. Most people reach a point in their lives where they face a crisis, an illness, a diagnosis, a loss, or a betrayal, where they finally say, "Wow, it's time for a change." I believe that change is an ongoing process, and the more we change, the more we should see evidence of it in our lives.
That's what makes it exciting. I 've discovered that we often don't have a crisis of values, but a crisis of habits, because people don't know how to reprogram their habits and have begun to assume that the way they feel is who they are. Do you know how long you have to take a feeling seriously, effectively, and evaluate it before acting on it ? Our feelings and emotions are the end product of past experiences, and we can remember experiences because we can remember how they feel. The stronger the emotion we feel in response to an experience in our life, the more disturbed we are inside.
The brain freezes a frame and takes a snapshot. And that's called long-term memory. That image is being neurologically recorded in the brain. So what most people don't know is that every time they remember that event, that trauma, that betrayal, that loss, whatever it is , they are producing the same chemicals in their brain and body as if the event were happening. So, what happens over time is that this conditioning process conditions the body to literally live in the past. Therefore, if a person lives with the same familiar feeling every day, whether it is guilt, unworthiness, pain, suffering, victimization, depression, or whatever, it is very important that they confront that emotional state because they are confronting the familiar.
The fundamental question for that person then becomes: is it possible to feel a different feeling? Now, if you can't feel a feeling different from what you're used to feeling, that should tell you a lot about that feeling, because it's going to influence your very thoughts. So, the research we've done time and time again is that the only way you're really going to reprogram your brain to work in your favor is by learning how to regulate your brain waves. In order for us to start changing those programs, we need to enter the operating system.
The only way to do this is by slowing down our brain waves in that thinking neocortex. The challenge for most people is that they have too many demands on their lives . They have so many emotional responses to life's circumstances that they live in a state of stress and in a state of survival. In a state of stress and survival, you don't close your eyes. You have to keep your eye on the ball. You need to keep your attention on the outside environment. So, their brains tend to work on a higher, mid-range or high-level brainwave pattern, the beta wave pattern.
That's like driving your sports car in first gear. It's...it's a lot of energy for the brain. So, learning to regulate and slow down brain waves is something that has interested us a great deal. When you teach people to do that, it can become a skill. And, when the brain begins to relax and moves from that constant mental chatter to a more imaginative state, the brain thinks in images and figures. It's more creative. We are entering that alpha state. So now, the door between the conscious and subconscious mind opens by overcoming our analytical mind.
And our analytical mind is, in fact, what separates the conscious mind from the subconscious. So, by slowing down your brain waves and entering alpha, you access the operating system. And that's where you can rewrite a new program. That's where you can rehearse a new script. That's where you can start planning your behaviors in an intentional way. If you can't change your brainwaves, it's like your computer going crazy with all those programs and you yelling at it to stop. You are not in the operating system. Some people manage to relax so much that their body enters a light sleep, but they remain conscious and awake.
And now they are in that theta brainwave pattern. And in theta, it's a hypnotic state. We are very susceptible to our thoughts. We are very susceptible to information in that state. And that state is where we see most of the change happening. Therefore, a person can literally change from within when they learn to enter the operating system. You just hit the nail on the head with the constant experience we all have . I believe, going back to what I was saying, that when we try to make a change, what usually blocks us is stress.
If I try to be a kind, caring, and compassionate person, but I'm stressed, I'm more likely to be curt, rude, and condescending. If I try to have a healthier diet, but I'm stressed or exhausted, I'll reach for sugary foods, carbohydrates, or fats. That comes from nothing other than stress. To eliminate that feeling. That feeling, right? Yes. So, let's be very clear, because I think it's important for people to understand: when we talk about stress and living in survival mode, it's crucial to name those emotions. Because anger, and frustration, and control, and hatred, and envy, and jealousy , and insecurity, and worthlessness, and guilt, and shame, and suffering, and depression.
All of that is derivative. These are emotions derived from stress hormones, and psychology calls these normal states of consciousness. Those are altered states of consciousness. Because under stress, physiology takes us out of homeostasis. We become unbalanced because we are perceiving some threat, some danger, some emergency. And that's why, the stronger the emotion you feel in response to any stressful factor in your life, the more attention you will pay to it. And so, over time, you have to keep your attention on all the important elements of your life.
So, you sit down to meditate, and when you live with stress, and you live in survival mode, there are only three important things at that moment. Your attention is on your body because you have to preserve it. Your attention is focused on something in your environment, and what is in your environment? People, objects, things, places, and you're very worried about time. And when you're under stress and in survival mode, the brain goes into a default mode and naturally tries to predict the next moment based on what it has learned in the past.
And then, since you always try to predict the future based on your memory of the past, you can't be in the present moment, right? So, and yet , what our model of change discovered is that the only way a person can change is when they go beyond their body, beyond all the elements of their environment, beyond that predictable future and that familiar past, and immerse themselves in the present moment, which is the unknown. So, if you can't do that because of stress hormones, most people will sit down and say, "Okay, I'm going to close my eyes, and I'm going to start this process where I'll rehearse how I'm going to be today." And they start thinking about their cell phone.
They start thinking about all their emails and begin to think, "I can't meditate." Something is wrong with me. It's my mother's fault, you know, and they really believe that thought is the truth and then they get up and say, really reaffirming , they say, "I can't meditate." Now, I can tell you that if you're willing to see that a thought is just a thought in your brain and you're curious to know what's on the other side of that thought, yes, you're going to feel uncomfortable. But if you had some tools and skills to apply and could take your attention off your cell phone and set your body back in the present moment, that would be a victory.
And then your body would say, "Come on, you have to feel a little frustration. Now you have to be impatient. You have to be critical. Come on, that's how you always think. That's how you always feel." And you, like an animal, make the body return to the present moment and tell it that it is no longer the mind, that you are the mind. That's a victory. Then the body says, "Hey, buddy, you're super busy. You have so many things to do. You have so many people to see.
You have so many places to go. You have so much to do, and you've been doing the same thing every day." Your body is going to want to get up and do something. You're going to want to give up because your brain is telling you that you can't do this . If you had the awareness to establish the body again in the present moment, you would be executing a will that is greater than the program, because most people lose their free will to those programs and it is that tedium at the beginning that is an uncompromising will where you keep training the animal to stay, to take all its attention away from the environment, to go beyond all the cravings , the feelings, the habits of the body, the impulses of the body.
And catching yourself defaulting back to that predictable future, bringing your body back to the present moment, diverting energy , your attention to the past based on those familiar emotions from the past. We've discovered that if you're willing to do that for just a few days, you could release a huge amount of energy from your body. You go from particle to wave, from matter to energy, and you are literally transmuting those limited emotions into elevated emotions, and something really beautiful happens if you are willing to light the crucible and sit through it long enough, all these emotions move, that energy moves directly into the heart , and the person begins to fall in love with life.
They begin to feel this state of gratitude, this thankfulness for being alive, um, this ineffable word of relaxed and awake. And something truly magical happens when we've discovered, uh, this simple little thing . When that energy reaches the heart, there's only one place it wants to go. And it goes straight to the brain. Then, the person begins to relax in their heart when they feel this. And the more they relax in their hearts, the more their brains suddenly begin to activate . And they begin to enter these elevated patterns of gamma brain waves.
However, gamma is not unconscious. Gamma is, in fact, super-aware. He is, in fact, super-aware. You are now out of the program. So when that happens and the brain enters gamma wave patterns , what we discovered is that it's not ...it's not a little bit of gamma. It's not a little gamma. It's not a large amount of gamma. It's a supernatural amount of gamma. Herein lies the beauty. We can see people do this in 15 minutes. The most important conclusion of all this is that the feeling they are experiencing does not come from anywhere outside of themselves.
Nobody is doing that. No wardrobe change is doing that. No sports cars, no football matches. Nothing is doing that to them. Actually , it comes from within. That is the moment when they stop looking for it outside themselves and the love story begins. And so, when we begin to feel these elevated emotions, these more altruistic emotions, it's not that you have to try to forgive. Actually, it's a side effect of changing your emotional state. You no longer desire anything because you feel very fulfilled. How could you want anything?
So we started interviewing people when they were having these moments, and they felt an incredible amount of love. We measured their oxytocin levels. Their love chemicals were very high. Its gamma quantity in terms of coherence was 200, 300, 400 standard deviations out of normal in coherent gamma. Now, three standard deviations outside the normal range in gamma is approximately 2% of the population. 200, 300, 400, lots of energy in the brain. Then, the brain is suddenly receiving a huge amount of energy. So we've discovered: relax in the heart and awaken the brain.
In that process of transformation lies your willingness to sit beyond that thought, beyond that emotion, and continue training the animal. And sooner or later you can recondition it to a new mind. And the system for this new mind and this journey you speak of is meditation. It's as if this comes through a meditative practice. Is that similar to the breathing meditation practice you just researched, or is it completely separate? These, wow, okay. Yes, so our week-long events are a total immersion experience. We've conducted the largest meditation studies ever done , simply because we have a community of 1,800 people who come to an event, get up at the same time, do the same things, practically choose the same food, and it's basically one big laboratory, right?
And so, our discoveries by working with 1,800 people measuring their brain waves, their brain function before and after the event, measuring their gene expression before and after the event. We are measuring 2,882 metabolites in your blood. We are measuring DNA expression, we are measuring urine, we are measuring saliva, we are measuring room energy , we are measuring everything. One of the interesting things we've discovered is that we have so much compelling data suggesting that you are bigger than you think, more powerful than you know, more limitless than you could ever dream.
We have compelling data that suggests your nervous system is the world's best pharmacist, making medicines that work better than any drug from a pharmacy. A drug study has about 18 to 25% causality of cause and effect. Our data shows between 75 and 85% cause and effect. This is a person creating their own pharmacy of anti-inflammatories, their own pharmacy of anti-cancer chemicals , their own pharmacy of painkillers. So, we're seeing this over and over again . So, we have this incredible information that says this is no longer pseudoscience.
This is real, this is truly science. The side effect of a person's transformation is that it has changed my belief about what is possible. I've seen people go on stage with stage four cancers that were in every organ of their body and had metastasized, and they have no trace of cancer in their body. And we have data that suggests that if you put the blood of an advanced meditator into a uterine cancer cell or a pancreatic cancer cell, 70% of the mitochondrial function in the cancer cells decreases.
Mitochondria are the cell's energy centers. It is taking energy away from the cancer cell. It works perfectly with what we are seeing in the testimonies that people are sharing around the world. We have seen blind people see, we have seen deaf people hear, we have seen people with spinal cord injuries walk again. We have seen ALS change. We've seen all sorts of incredible health conditions change simply because a person changes the way they think, the way they act, and the way they feel. How long have you seen certain things last?
Or how long does the practice have to continue daily to maintain the impact? When a person has that activation, where they feel that heightened emotion and have their eyes closed, they are in a room with 1,800 people. There is music playing in the background. They are not eating. They're not smelling. They're not enjoying it. They are not moving or playing. On a certain level, they're having an inner experience, right? And the body is so objective that it literally believes it lives in a new environment. And that heightened emotion somehow tends to pull the body out of the past and into the present moment.
Many people with all kinds of problems, from eczema to muscular dystrophy. When they have these events, a biological change occurs in their body where they feel completely different. However, some people do heal completely. Some people get out of their wheelchairs and walk again, but they limp. And that doesn't mean it's over. It just means they made contact, that they hit the nail on the head. So we see varying degrees. We have seen people work for 7 years in a terminal health condition . It took them 7 years to heal from that health condition.
For some people it takes 2 years, 3 years. Some people achieve it in 3 months. There is no predictable menu that we can say is this way. Now, when people have those deeper states of activation, it seems that their change is much more immediate and much more permanent. But for the most part, we see that people's response is quite dramatic. It is also important to mention that we have seen people heal from terminal cancers, stop feeling those heightened emotions, and return to responding to the circumstances and conditions of their lives, reverting to their original personality.
Yes, the same personality is the same personal reality, and your body believes it lives in that same environment; They feel the same way, they have the habit of acting the same and thinking the same, and, lo and behold , the condition returns. We have seen people heal from Parkinson's disease more than once. They have a response to some very serious event in their life that produced a very strong emotion. And within an hour, his condition returned. Mhm. Because they literally reverted to their former selves, and we have seen that person turn around and reverse the condition again.
Again, people do the best they can with what they believe they have available. The person standing on the stage that...we have had numerous doctors and researchers standing on the stage. They are the 4-minute mile. They are telling the community, "I am the example of truth." This is no longer philosophy. This is no longer theory. Here are my scans. We had someone with bilateral breast cancer very recently. With no evidence of cancer in her breasts or lymph nodes, it is no longer in her liver. I look at the audience and they all lean forward.
There's the 4-minute mile, that person tells the truth and tells a story, and it's not a pretty one. It's not always rosy. They went through many dark nights. They went through a great worsening of their condition, but every day they had to make an effort for themselves. If they stopped showing up and doing the work, they would n't really believe it was possible. But if they showed up and did the work, it means they believe it's possible. And I think that when you believe in the possibility, you have to believe in yourself.
Mhm. When you believe in yourself, you have to believe in the possibilities. When someone else who may not have had that experience yet or is not trained in it, they just think: well, how do I solve the problem? Right? It's like they're listening to me and thinking : well, but I can't because I just need to solve this problem. Like saying, "Oh, I'm going to be 30 minutes late for a job interview." Or I just had an argument with my partner this morning and I also have an important presentation at work.
I'm stressed now because I'm thinking about that. Or my son just, yes, I had to take him to the hospital and now I'm late. I suppose when you look at it from a very human point of view , it's really hard to understand the value of this. What do you say to someone who thinks and feels that way? No, I think it's a reasonable conversation. I mean, sometimes we have to be super alert. Sometimes we really need to pay attention, and sometimes there are threats and dangers where that primitive nervous system actually works in our favor; That's the emergency system, but you also have to realize that you only have a certain amount of energy.
And if you live in emergency mode for an extended period, there is no energy for growth and repair, no energy for long-term construction projects. So when it's necessary and you have to flee from the predator, you go. Yes. Don't sit around trying to befriend the predator. We're not that good. Yes, you run, right? The problem is that if you keep that alarm system on all the time, it becomes very addictive. Great response. It's very addictive, isn't it? I've looked at people's brain scans , seen how their brains deteriorated at first, and tapped them on the head saying, "What were you doing in there?" 100% of the time, they were analyzing their life problems from that disturbing emotion.
And if an emotion is a record of the past and they cannot think beyond how they feel, they are thinking about the past. There is no solution there. Cross the river, overcome the emotion and you will see possibilities, because you are no longer in the box of that emotional state. Now , that's much easier said than done, because you're going against thousands of years of programming to live in survival mode. I mean, 200 years ago it wasn't easy being human . In other words, we were in survival mode the whole time.
I mean, famines , you know, all diseases. In other words, it was, it was difficult to be human. So we have to abandon the same things we've used all our lives to get what we want, so that something bigger can happen, and that goes against thousands of years of programming. It's not something you get good at by doing it once. You need to keep practicing. So, you really have two ways of looking at it. If you live under stress and live in survival mode, and that system is turned on, everything will be a threat.
Everything will be dangerous. Everything will be a reason to hurry, to be impatient, to get frustrated, to judge, because that, that is consciousness. That is the emotion under which we live. So, now you have a problem with a coworker, you have a problem with your partner, whatever it is you used as an example, and you have to give a presentation. Now you really have one of two options. You may be a victim of those conditions in your life and remain in that emotional state, and I will say to you, "Jay, why are you like this?" Well, I am like this because of this person, because of this circumstance.
That person or circumstance is controlling how I feel and how I think. Everything that controls how I feel and how I think makes me a victim, right? OK. Or I can be a creator right now. Okay, so when it's hardest, that's when it matters most. Well, there will be a story , a valid story that will accompany those emotions that you will have to renounce, which you can address at another time from a different state. If you are upset in that state and you say something, do something, write the email or send the message, you will always regret it.
You'll always say, "I should never have said that." "I should never have done that." We need to learn that at that moment we are in an altered state. So, there are only two options. Either you stay there all day telling that story to everyone, or you say, "Okay, let me take a moment." Remember, this is the experiment called life. Okay, let me practice relaxing. Let me calm the animal down. Let me practice for a few minutes now. Let me breathe. Let me regain my status. Let me change everything.
Okay, let me remember who I am , who I want to be when I open my eyes, and let me practice that again. Now, even if you had to do that 10 times a day, I'd say it was a day worth living. I would say it was a day worth living. And when we do walking meditations at our retreats, we do walking meditations so you can practice doing it with your eyes open. Yes. Like, if you're going to be relaxed in your heart and awake in your brain, and you can do it with your eyes closed, well, let's try it.
Yes. Let me open my eyes. Let me pay a little more attention to my inner world. Let me practice feeling this feeling. Let me practice feeling this way, and let my brain do what it does. Let me finally change my physiology. Let me change my status. Let me walk as the healed person. Let me walk as the abundant person. Let me walk as if my prayers have been answered. Let me walk in this state. If I keep practicing that over and over, it will become a habit, right?
So we attacked it in as many ways as we could. We have at least seven or eight different types of breathing because we see how they all work in the brain. We have all kinds of meditations. We have meditations sitting, standing, walking, and lying down , because we want you to be able to do it with your eyes open, closed, standing , walking, in any way so that you don't fall into the habit of becoming that person again. Now, if you fall again , you haven't failed.
It's a program. You simply lost consciousness. And how many times do we have to forget until we stop forgetting and start remembering? That is the moment of change. Nobody cares how many times you fell off your bike if you now know how to ride it. You ride a bicycle. So it's a constant process every day. And I think that sometimes we look for evidence in our lives and it doesn't appear, and I think it's very important that we remain present. Yes. Yes, because that's where you change the most.
And when you reach the point where you don't care whether it happens or not, because you feel so happy and grateful for who you are, get ready, because your life will begin to change in magical ways. I am very proud of our community, not because they do the work every day, nor because they try to be good or please anyone. They do it because they don't want the magic to really end. And the experiment is too good. They will continue to be the creators of their own lives.
So, when they change the way they feel and think, and begin to see results in their lives, they will remember what they did inside to achieve it and will feel more like creators and less like victims of their lives, and that is empowerment. Yes. And nobody can take that away from you. You can no longer tell me that you are too sick to do that. You can't tell me you 're too old to do it. You can't tell me you had a horrible past or that you're out of shape.
You can't even tell me you 've never meditated, because people come who know nothing, dragged along by others, and they have the deepest experience because they expect nothing. And we have data that suggests that when you expect nothing , you'll have a profound moment. So everyone can do it. No one is so special as to be excluded from this process. And we have had people with brutal pasts, of abuse and trauma . We've seen Navy SEALs and prisoners with horrific memories, literally transformed, literally transformed in 7 days.
And I can say right now that you take the time each day to decide who you're going to present to the world, and you wake up being that person. You will fall many times, but sooner or later, once you start to change, it is very difficult to go back. There's nothing wrong with stress hormones. I mean, that's the only way we could actually survive. We are part human, part animal, part divine. I mean, we have two things working here. I think the biggest challenge for many people, and 70% of the time, is that people live in that state of survival, living in that state of stress.
The more you understand what that really does to you, the better decisions you can make about how long you really want to stay there. Here's an example. Many people who are changing a health condition at our work, start doing the work, start noticing that I sleep better, have less pain, regain my appetite, and feel that I have more energy. They begin to notice these subtle subjective changes. They go to the doctor and their scans still show that they have their health condition. So, they're noticing a change, but they're not completely cured .
Now, they're not saying it didn't work. They say, "What do I still need to change to heal?" What thought, what behavior, what emotion? So, they're a work in progress, right? Many of these people discover that they have a really good hour of meditation where they feel connected, feel their heart open, feel their brain coherent, feel really good, and don't want the moment to end. And then they spend 15 or 16 hours of their day back on a schedule, running around, back in their emotional states, responding and reacting.
And they realize how one hour of an elevated state could weigh more than 15 or 16 hours of my response to everyone and everything in my life, which emotionally stems from those familiar emotions of fear, anger, hatred, pain, or suffering, whatever . Okay, so this is where the practice really takes it to the next level because they're no longer just sitting around rehearsing who they want to be. They are actually rehearsing for their lives. Mhm. They say, "Okay, when I see that person, when I'm in that circumstance, I can't lose consciousness and feel this emotion, nor lose consciousness and say these things or act this way." How will I act?
What would love do? What would greatness look like? "They don't know it, they read about it. They get more information and they're building this model, and now, suddenly, their response to people, circumstances, and problems in their lives is changing. That's because they're changing. Then they notice that their health starts to improve a little more. And now they no longer say, ' Why hasn't my Alzheimer's, my Parkinson's, or my ALS been cured?'" "They say, ' How much more can I open my heart? Mhm.'" During the day and feel this with your eyes open all day?
"If I understand that if I live through these emotions, I'm sending signals to my genes before the environment, I'm going to stay in this state because it's this emotional state that's actually going to heal me. So I must remember this feeling. And now they're not trying to remember the feeling just for another reason, but because they want to remember it when they're awake. Now, they understand that the more they change, the more their health changes. And you can have the best diet, do the best exercise, and be very strict about your food choices, vitamins, and minerals, and keep your body chemically and physically balanced, but if you're not emotionally balanced and you're constantly in that fight-or-flight system, stress is what throws your body out of homeostasis.
Stress is when your brain and body lose their balance. So you could have all those things going for you; but if you're living in fear, or you're controlling, rigid, a perfectionist, and hard on yourself , it makes sense that that has to change for you to change, right? And then people start to understand. They start to Grasp it. That's the only way I'm going to change. If I don't change, nothing will change. 95% of who we are by middle age is a collection of unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.
That is, those are the beliefs and perceptions we have about ourselves and our lives. In other words, this is a never-ending process of self-discovery. There will always be challenges in your life that will initiate you into becoming aware of what you are unconscious about. And you have to face those challenges from a higher level of consciousness than the level that created them. And you can't. If you don't, your response, your way of feeling and thinking will be the same, and if you believe that how you think and how you feel creates your life, if you don't change the way you think and feel, your life will stay the same because you are the same.
In other words, that's how it works. Therefore, it's crucial that people understand that change is truly possible. You know, when I think about families who live together, or couples, or partners, or whoever , when they sleep together, when they wake up to At the same time, when they sit down to eat together, we notice, and we know that science shows their heart rhythms synchronize. Like, their heartbeats sync up when you're with someone, and I find that really interesting because I think today, in our individualistic world, there's this huge desire to do things on our own time, when we want, and how we want.
But if you're really trying to build a relationship with someone else or build a community, there's a lot to be said for doing these basic practices at the same time, right? It's really hard to be in community when you're in survival mode. Because survival makes us focus our attention on ourselves, right? And I think when people aren't living in survival mode, when they move beyond it, our true nature is community, culture, and connection. And it starts with oneself, then with our closest relationships, and it expands from there.
And I think that's a healthy model for the world. I mean, when you work on yourself and I work on myself, and I'm okay with myself and you're okay with yourself, we'll all be okay, you know? And I think when we're not okay with It's when we're on our own that things get complicated. That's incredible. To everyone listening and watching, please be sure to follow Joe on social media. We'll put the links to everything in the relevant sections so you can follow him. But I want to make sure you share your biggest takeaways with me.
Tag me and Joe on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok— whatever platform you're using. Tell us what you'll be practicing. I hope there are parts of this conversation that you listen to again and again because you need to understand that the first time you hear it, there might be some inspiration or an idea; but the second time, that repetition will help you really apply, reconnect, and reconfigure. So be sure to repeat, listen, and also be sure to share this with a friend so you can discuss it, talk about it, and adapt it to your own language and vocabulary.
That's a really important part of putting this into practice, too. Joe, as always, thank you so much for putting in the time and effort. I know unpredictable things always happen. in your life, like this morning, but you chose to be here, and thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Jay. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you. If this clip provided you with value and you'd like to see more, this next video has been specially selected for you based on your viewing habits.
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