Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to create a new life with the power of your mind with Dr. Joe Despenza. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. So how many people in this audience believe in the idea that the way you think has some effect on your life? Just curious.
So I'm in the right place, yes? Yes. So all of this knowledge that you're learning this week, every time you learn something new, you make new connections in your brain. That's what learning is. And the Nobel Prize laureate, Candel in the year 2000, found that when people learn just one bit of information, they doubled the number of connections in their brain from 1,300 connections to 2,600 connections. But if they didn't review that information,
If they didn't repeat it, if they didn't think about it, those circuits were pruned apart within hours or days. So if learning is making new synaptic connections, then remembering is maintaining and sustaining those connections. And I now know that if you give people sound scientific information,
And science is the contemporary language of mysticism. Science demystifies the mystical. And if you can combine a little quantum physics with a little neuroscience, with a little neuroendocrinology, with a little psychoneuroimmunology, little epigenetics, all of those new sciences point the finger at possibility.
And as people begin to engage information, philosophical, theoretical knowledge, intellectual data, as they make those new connections in their brain, if they can turn to the person next to them and explain what they just learned, they're firing and wiring those circuits in their brain, installing the neurological hardware in preparation for the experience. So then when they apply what they learned, when they personalize it,
When they demonstrate it in some way, they're going to have to modify their behaviors. And if they can get their behaviors to match their intentions, they can get their actions equal to their thoughts. If they get their mind and body working together, they're going to have a new experience.
And in the midst of an experience, all of your five senses plug you into the external environment. And as your brain is gathering all this vital sensory data, all that information rushes back to your brain and jungles of neurons begin to organize themselves into networks. Moment those neurons string into place, reinforcing and enhancing the philosophical circuits that were made. The brain makes a chemical.
And that chemical is called a feeling or an emotion. And now you are teaching your body chemically to understand which your mind is intellectually understood. We could say that knowledge is for the mind and experiences for the body. And in that moment, you are embodying the truth of that philosophy, chemically instructing your body to understand which your mind is intellectually understood.
The moment you feel that emotion, you are literally signaling new genes and new ways, and you are rewriting the biological program. But if you've done it once, it means you should be able to do it again. And if you can repeat any experience over and over again, you are going to neurochemically condition your mind and body to work as one.
And when you've done something so many times that your body now knows how to do it better than your mind. Now you're mastering that philosophy. It's a nadon you. It's second nature. It's easy. It's familiar. You've practiced it so many times that you no longer have to consciously think about it. You know how you do it, but you don't even know how you know how because it's now a subconscious program. So our job then,
is to go from philosopher to initiate to master, from knowledge to experience to wisdom, from mind to body to soul, from thinking to doing to being, to learning it with your head, practicing with your hands and knowing it by heart. And you and I have all the biological and neurological machinery to do this.
And I can tell you right now that common people around the world are doing the uncommon. They're healing themselves of fatal diseases, reversing scars and wounds that were from past experiences, creating better lives for themselves and new opportunities, and having mystical experiences that transcend language.
So what I'd like to do today is I'm going to develop concepts and ideas. And when I see you wrap your mind around that concept or idea, and you go from beta brainwave patterns to alpha brainwave patterns, I know then you're consolidating that information neurologically in your brain.
And you're going to begin to fire and wire those circuits in your brain in preparation for experiences. You're going to begin to install the neurological hardware in your brain so that in your future, you can access those circuits to do something differently. How many people understand?
So then, if we set up the conditions in the environment and you get your behaviors to match your intentions, there should be some type of transformation in some way. And then when you walk back into your life, then your biology will be greater than the conditions in your life. So then, how many people here believe in the idea that your thoughts have something to do with your destiny? You do? Well, you think 60 to 70,000 thoughts in one day.
Out of those 60 to 70,000 thoughts that you think in one day, 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts as the day before. So if you believe that your thoughts have something to do with your destiny and 90% of your thoughts are the same thoughts as the day before, then your life should stay the same. Yes or no?
The same choices are going to lead to the same behaviors. Yes or no? Yes. The same behaviors are going to create the same experiences. Yes or no? Yes. Same experiences are going to produce the same emotions. Yes or no? Yes. And those same emotions are going to drive your very same thoughts in your biology.
Your neurocircuitary, your neurochemistry, your hormones, and even your genetic expression will stay the same. And there's a principle in neuroscience that says that nerve cells that fire together, wired together. So if you keep thinking the same thoughts, making the same choices, demonstrating the same behaviors,
creating the exact same experiences that stamp the same networks of neurons into the same patterns, all for the familiar feeling called you. And you do that over and over again. I don't know, let's be conservative. 25 years. Would you agree that you will begin to hardwire your brain into a very finite signature?
And that finite signature is called your identity, your personality. It's the box of the brain, the most commonly fired, neurologically wired set of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that's acquired through frequent repetition. So then, how you think, how you act, and how you feel is called your personality. And your personality creates your personal reality. That's it.
So the present personality who's sitting here today called you has created the present personal reality called your life. Yes or no? Yes. So then if you wanted to create a new personal reality,
a new life, you would have to change your personality. Yes or no? Yes. Which means you're going to have to start thinking about what you've been thinking about and change it. Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes. You are going to have to become conscious of your unconscious habits and behaviors and become so aware of them that you don't go unconscious again. Yes or no? Yes.
And then you're going to have to look at those emotions that keep you anchored to the past and decide, do these emotions belong in my future? Yes or no? So most people try to create a new personal reality as the same personality and it doesn't work. You literally have to become someone else.
Your brain is organized to reflect everything you know in your life. Your brain is a record of the past. It's an artifact of everything you've learned and experienced to this moment. Are you with me still? So then if you're not being defined by a vision of the future, you're left with the old circuits of your past and you will be predictable in your life. Yes or no?
And if feelings and emotions are the end product of past experiences and we can remember experiences better because we can remember how they feel. The moment you wake up in the morning and you come back to your senses and you lay in bed and you start thinking about all your problems that are connected to different people and places and conditions and things in your life, the moment you get in touch with a familiar feeling called you, you're in your past.
And if those emotions are driving your thoughts and you can't think greater than how you feel or feelings have become the means of thinking, then you are thinking in the past. Yes or no? Yes. And you just told me that you believe that your thoughts have something to do with your destiny. And if you can't think greater than how you feel, your past is your future. Yes or no? Yes. How you think
and how you feel is called a state of being that thoughts are the vocabulary of the brain and feelings are the vocabulary of your body. That cycle of thinking and feeling creates your state of being. Now think about this. If your brain is a record of the past, hardwired to be a certain way because most people are thinking, acting, and feeling the same way,
And they have emotions that they've become so familiar with that they don't even know that they feel guilty. It's just as how they feel. They don't even know that they're unhappy because that's how they define themselves. And if those emotions are driving their thoughts,
turning on the same circuits in their brain, firing in the same exact sequence, patterns and combinations, firing and wiring those circuits to produce certain chemicals for them to feel more suffering and more guilt. The moment they feel more guilt and more suffering, they say, while I'm feeling pretty bad, so they think more thoughts equal to how they feel. Are you with me still? And the cycle of thinking and feeling creates their state of being.
And the redundancy of that process conditions the body to subconsciously become the mind. And now their entire state of being is in the past. Are you with me still? And they can't go to a new future holding on to the emotions of the past. Now your body is your unconscious mind. And it does not know the difference between an experience in your life that creates an emotion.
and emotion that you are creating by thought alone. So the body is believing it's in the same past experience, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And if the body's been conditioned to be the mind, the body literally is in the past. How many people understand?
So then to change then would mean then you'd have to be greater than your body. Yes or no? Greater than the emotions that keep you anchored to the past and greater than those habits that keep running you unconsciously into the same future. Are you with me still?
You've all had experiences in your life that have produced a strong emotion. Yes or no? Yes. Whether it's a trauma or betrayal or a shock or something amazing that happens. The moment you feel differently inside of you, you pay attention to what caused it outside of you. And the moment that happens, the brain takes a snapshot and that's called a memory. So the stronger the emotional quotient from an experience, the greater the long-term memory. Yes or no?
So then people have a reaction to someone or something in their life. And they don't know how to control their emotional reaction. And they allow that emotional reaction to linger for hours or days. You know what that's called? That's called a mood. What's wrong with you? I'm in a mood. Really? What's wrong? I thought you never asked.
I had this thing happen to me five days ago, and I'm memorizing my emotional reaction. Yes or no? And if you keep that same refractory period of chemicals running for weeks or months, that's called a temperament. Why is he so bitter? Why is he so angry? I don't know, let's ask him. What's wrong with you? I had this thing happen to me seven months ago, and I'm having one long emotional reaction.
Yes or no? And if you keep that same refractory period of emotions running for years on a net, that's called a personality trait. And most people's personalities are defined by their past experiences. And they wear their emotions on their sleeve because that's who they think they are. Are you with me still? So then you say to them,
Buddy, why are you this way? They'll say, I'm this way because this experience happened to me 10 years ago, which from a biological standpoint, it means I had an event in my life that altered me and I have not been able to change since that moment. Yes or no? Yes. So then think about this. The latest research in memory
The latest research tells us that 50% of what you talk about in your past isn't even the truth. You make it up that memory is creative. So many people are reliving a past they didn't even have. How many people understand? So then you wake up in the morning and you go, wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't feel anything. Wait, wait. Oh God, I feel a little guilty and sad. Okay, now I'm ready to start my day.
Yes or no? And so then the moment you feel that emotion, then you're in your past because emotions are the record of the past. Yes or no? And if those emotions are driving your thoughts and driving your behaviors, you are going to be predictable in your life because your past is going to be your future. How many people understand now?
So you think an insecure thought, you feel insecure, yes or no? The moment you feel insecure, the brain's checking in with the body and says, oh, you're really feeling insecure. So you're going to generate more insecure thoughts, yes or no? What you're going to make more chemicals for you to feel insecure? And then the moment you feel insecure, those feelings are going to drive your thoughts, yes or no?
And so then you're going to continuously hardwire your brain because you keep thinking the same way. And you continuously condition your body emotionally into the past. How many people understand? So then your entire state of being is in the past. And if you're not being defined by a vision of the future, then your past will be your future. How many people are understanding?
So then to change then would to be greater than your body, greater than the body conditioned into the past. Are you with me still? So then you wake up in the morning, the moment you come back to your senses, you glance over to the person laying next to you and you say, Oh God, how did I get here? Who is that? Oh yeah, I'm back in this reality.
Oh, then you go, wait, wait, let me think about all my problems. Oh, now I'm starting to feel like myself. And then what does every do after that? What do you do? I'm going to tell you, you reach for yourself.
And then you check your WhatsApp. Then you check your Twitter. Then you check your Facebook. Then you check your text. Then you check your one email. Then you check your other email. And then you know you check your Instagram. And then you take a picture of your feed posted on Facebook. And then you tweet something. And now you're really connected to your past present reality. Yes or no? Yes.
And you get up out of the same side of the bed because you sleep on the same side, you put your slippers on, you scratch yourself the same way, you put your robe on, and you have the thought of the toilet. And the next thing you know, your body follows your mind right to the toilet. Yes or no? And then when you're on the toilet, you have this vision of your future, the coffee maker.
The next thing you know, your body follows your mind to the coffee maker. Yes or no? And then while you're drinking your coffee, you have the vision of the shower. And the next thing you know, you're naked and you're in the shower. And you're washing yourself the same routine way. And then while you're in the shower, you have this incredible vision of yourself dressed. And what you're going to wear them there, you wore your dressed.
And then you walk back out into the kitchen and you drink that coffee out of your mug. You know that one that nobody touches. And then you eat cereal facing the same way in the same chair with the same spoon.
And then, of course, you check a few emails, you watch the news to remind you how bad the world is. Get in the car, back up, drive to work the same way. See the same people that push the same emotional buttons. The people use their boss to reaffirm their addiction to judgment. They use their enemies to reaffirm their addiction to hatred. They use their coworkers to reaffirm their addiction to competition.
They use their friends to reaffirm their addiction to suffering. They use their parents to reaffirm their addiction to guilt. And then they do the same things that they've memorized and can do so well. Then they finish work.
They drive home, they stop at the grocery store, they walk into the grocery store, they turn right, because 95% of the people that enter a grocery store turn right. So you turn right, and you buy the same food, you go home, you cook the same meal, you eat the same food, you sit in the same chair, you watch the same favorite television shows.
You get done, you call your sister and you complain about how bad your day was and then she complains back and you complain to her and then all of a sudden you get ready for bed and you put on your lotions, your potions, your creams, your brush, your teeth, your floss. You get in bed and you go to sleep. You wake up the next morning and here we go again. Yes or no? So did your brain change it all that day?
We could say that you were thinking the same thoughts, performing the same actions, living by the same emotions, but secretly expecting your life to change. So if a habit is a redundant set of automatic, unconscious thoughts, behaviors, and emotions that's acquired through frequent repetition,
A habit is when you've done something so many times that your body now knows how to do it better than your mind. Would you agree then the moment you wake up and you've been doing that for 20 years, your body's on autopilot. And it's dragging you into a predictable future based on what you did in the past. Yes or no. And we can take your past and lift it up and set it on your future. And you know what that's called? Karma. That's it.
because you're living the same life every single day and you've lost your will for a program.
And 95% of most people by their time they're 35 years old is a set of automatic programs, automatic thoughts, emotional reactions, unconscious behaviors and beliefs and perceptions and attitudes that function just like a computer program. And now they're gonna try to change their life with the 5% of their conscious mind working against 95% of what they program subconsciously. Are you with me still?
Yes. And they can think positively all they want. They can say, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy. And that thought's going to stop right at the brainstem and never make it to the body because the body's programmed into the past. Are you with me still? Yes. So then, if you're not being defined by a vision of the future, the moment you wake up in the morning,
and you see the same people and you go to the same places and you do the exact same thing at the exact same time every single day. It's no longer that your personality is creating your personal reality. Now your personal reality is creating your personality because it's your environment that's causing you to think and feel equal to everything that you know. Come on, are you with me?
And as long as you're thinking and feeling equal to everything that you know, you keep creating more of the same. How many people understand? So every single person in your life, every single thing, every single object, every single place has a neurological network in your brain that's mapped because you've experienced them. Yes or no?
So the moment you see your boss, the moment you see your partner, the moment you're in your house, the moment you're driving your car, the moment you're reacting to someone or something, the moment you see that person, it's your external environment that's turning on different circuits in your brain, causing you to think equal to everything that you know. So then as long as you're thinking equal to everything that you know, you keep creating more of the same. Yes or no? Yes. So then to change.
truly change is to be greater than your environment, to be greater than the circumstances in your life, to be greater than the conditions in your world, in every great person in history understood this. So then the moment you are being defined by a vision of the future,
And that vision is greater than the conditions in your environment, and you would have to agree with me, you're no longer in your past, and you're being greater than the conditions in your environment. Yes or no? So then, if you're not being defined by a vision of the future, and what does it take to be defined by a vision of the future? Number one, a clear intention.
Come on, you've all done this already. How many people in this audience got a wild idea? You asked yourself, what would it be like to be wealthy, to be healthy, to be free, to be in a new relationship? The moment you asked that frontal lobe question, all of a sudden the creative center of the brain turned on. And this is what you did. You said, oh my God, let me just be open to an answer.
And the frontal lobe has connections to all other parts of the brain. Unlike a great symphony leader, it begins to call up different networks of neurons that are already mapped in your brain from the things you've learned and things you've experienced in your life. And it seamlessly pieces them together and you get a vision.
And that's called intention. You're selecting a new potential in the quantum field that you haven't experienced yet. Yes or no? Yes. And to the passionate person, the moment they have that vision, the thought becomes the experience and the end product of an experience is an emotion. And they start to feel the emotions of their future before it's happened. Are you with me still? Yes. And the moment you feel that emotion, you're raising your energy and your body is getting a sampling.
a taste of the future. And when you combine a clear intention with an elevated emotion, you just changed your state of being from living in your past present reality to living in your future present reality. Yes or no? Yes. But that's the beginning.
because everybody in this audience sat down and said, okay, what choices do I have to make? Let me review them in my mind. Yes or no? Then you said, what behaviors do I have to demonstrate? What are the things that I have to do in review those? Yes or no?
What goals do I want to accomplish? What experiences await me? I wait for me. And as you began to write those goals and experiences down, you started to feel more elevated. Yes or no? Yes. And then you did something really brilliantly.
You wrote down the thoughts that you no longer wanted to think. And you became conscious of those unconscious thoughts that said, I can't. It's too hard. I'll never do it. It didn't work in the past. I'll start tomorrow. I don't feel like it. And you became so conscious of those unconscious thoughts. They would never slip by your awareness unchecked. Yes or no? Yes. Then you said, what choices do I have to stay away from?
And you began to become conscious of those unconscious choices you've been making all day and you became so conscious of them that you wouldn't go unconscious again. And then you said, what behaviors and things that I'm gonna stay away from and change and you reviewed them. What experiences, I know that I have to stay away from in my environment and what emotions will bring me to a lower denominator. And every day you reviewed
who you no longer want her to be and who you did want to be. And over and over again, you kept doing it. And you know what you did? You gave up your social engagements. You may not have slept in. You might have been a little bit more passionate because you were putting your attention and your energy in the future instead of in the past. Yes or no? And over and over, you did that. And all of a sudden, you started getting signals in your world.
little synchronicities, little coincidences, little signs that your environment was reflecting back to you that you were on the right path. And then there came a moment where you knew it was going to happen. And you took your foot off the gas.
The moment you did that, you wanted the experience to come to you and it was no longer about the material thing you created or the wealth. It was the fact that you were able to do it. Yes or no. In the moment that experience came, you felt the emotion and you felt more whole.
And you were more giving, and more loving, and more caring, and more present, and more forgiving in your life, because you felt better about yourself. Yes or no? Yes or no? So now, here's my question. Think of a time in your life where you were being defined by a vision of the future you sought, and it didn't happen. What happened then? You got a clear intention. You got inspired. You felt the elevated emotion. You were in a whole new state of being.
And then you know what happened? I'll tell you. You got busy. You didn't have enough time for it. You know, you had people to see and places to go and things to do and parties and dinners and you got distracted by your external environment. Or you just didn't feel like it one day because you were tired or you had a headache or you had to fight with somebody three days ago. And all of that means then is that it was your body
your environment in time that talked you out of that future. And the moment you shrunk back into mediocracy, you found people in your life that did the same and people use each other to reaffirm their addiction to suffering and victimization. We call that normal. Yes or no? So the hardest part about change is not making the same choice as you did the day before.
And here's the old self, and here's the new self, and you got across a river. And the moment you decide to make a different choice, get ready because it's going to feel uncomfortable. There's going to be some uncertainty. It's going to feel unfamiliar. It's going to become unpredictable.
In the moment you say, I'm going to do this or I'm going to change and you decide to make those changes, you just stepped into that river. And if the body has been conditioned to be the mind, the servant is now the master. Now the body's running the show. And guess what happens? The moment you step into the unknown. The body says, whoa, this doesn't feel right. And it starts sending signals back to the brain.
And you start to hear voices in your head. And those voices are, start tomorrow. This doesn't feel right. It's my mother's fault. It's my ex-husband's fault. This is too hard. What's wrong with me? The analytical mind starts going. And it's the same thoughts that you've always had as just happening behind the scenes of your awareness. But now you're conscious of them.
And if you respond to that same thought as if you always do, the same thought is going to lead to the same choice. The same choice is going to lead to the same behavior. The same behavior is going to create the same experience. The same experience is going to produce the same emotion. And then people say, this feels right. Know it feels familiar.
Going from the old self to the new self is the neurological, the biological, the chemical, the hormonal, the genetic death of the old self. And people say to me all the time, Dr. Joe, I'm in the unknown. I can't predict my future.
And I always answer them the same way. The best way to predict your future is to create it. Not in the known, but in the unknown. And becoming comfortable in that place is the mastery. What thoughts do you want to fire and wire in your brain? And put your attention behind. What behaviors do you want to demonstrate in one day, one lifetime? And as you begin to rehearse those behaviors in your mind,
And you're truly present. The brain does not know the difference between the experience going on out there and the experience going on in here. And now you're installing the neurological hardware to look like the experience has already occurred. And now your brain is no longer a record of the past. Now it is a map to the future. And so then the last part is the tough part.
because can you teach your body emotionally what that future is going to feel like before it's made manifest? That means you cannot wait for your wealth to feel abundance and worthiness. You can't wait for your success to feel empowerment and gratitude. You can't wait for your new relationship to feel love.
You can't wait for your healing to feel wholeness. You can't wait for it a mystical moment to feel awe. That's the old model of reality of cause and effect. Waiting for something outside of us to give us relief from the emptiness or the pain we feel inside of us. The moment we feel better inside of us, we pay attention to whoever or whatever caused that. And that's called the memory. That's Newtonian physics, cause and effect.
The quantum model of reality is about causing an effect. The moment you start feeling worthy and abundant, you are magnetizing your wealth. The moment you are empowered in a state of gratitude, you are walking towards your success. The moment you're in love with yourself and in love with life, you'll create an equal. The moment you are in awe of the moment you're going to have a mystical experience.
And the moment you feel whole and complete is when your healing begins and that's causing an effect. And there isn't a person in this room that's so special to be excluded from that equation.
