How I Reprogram My Brain Each Morning For Joy

If you had told me a year ago, before the pandemic, that today would mark SIX MONTHS of me meditating every morning, first thing, for 60-80 minutes at a time...?

First, I’d have laughed.

Then, I’d have gotten pretty overwhelmed as I imagined actually doing it somehow…

Today, I’m anything but overwhelmed. I’m excited, connected, and constantly recognizing all the opportunities in the world.

And I want to share that excitement with the world! Especially the musical soundtrack I've added to my process because my discovery of ZenLifeRelax and their youtube channel has only elevated my practice.

For me, everything started last summer, when I finally read a book I had bought over two years prior…

I guess, during the summer of the pandemic, I was finally ready to read it.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, by Dr. Joe Dispenza

In Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself, renowned author, speaker, researcher, and chiropractor Dr. Joe Dispenza combines the fields of quantum physics, neuroscience, brain chemistry, biology, and genetics to show you what is truly possible.

Not only will you be given the necessary knowledge to change any aspect of yourself, but you will be taught the step-by-step tools to apply what you learn in order to make measurable changes in any area of your life.

– Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself, back cover

And any fans of What The Bleep Do We Know !? might actually recognize Dr. Joe Dispenza.

His book, Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself, provides studies and citations, breaks down scientific concepts, and ultimately lays the groundwork and foundation for a solid hour-long meditation practice, one he recommends become a daily practice.

By starting to change your thoughts, you can start to change your life.

This is not a collaboration or sponsorship with his book. I genuinely use his process in my daily life. And today, I am merely sharing my process with you.

For the first three months of my practice, I worked with his audio recordings – he has a recording available where he walks you through the meditation instructions.

While you can get a physical copy from Amazon, you can also get a digital copy directly from his website. The meditation recordings are supplemental to the book, not an alternative.

After three months of listening to this recording of his voice every morning, I sought to integrate his concepts into something that could become a little bit more... mine.

My meditation would be something new, something I knew I'd have to figure out as I went.

...Which is why I'm so grateful for discovering this track, from ZenLifeRelax.

As they say in their own description, the 90-minute track contains nine frequencies, ascending in tone as you listen.

The following Healing Solfeggio frequencies are used:

✓ 174 hz - Foundation of Conscious Evolution

✓ 285 hz - Acceleration of Conscious Evolution

✓ 396 hz - Liberation of Fear and Guilt

✓ 417 hz - Facilitating Change

✓ 528 hz - Transformation and Miracles

✓ 639 hz - Connecting Relationships

✓ 741 hz - Consciousness Expansion

✓ 852 hz - Awakening Intuition

✓ 963 hz - Transcendence

Our sincere intention is to help you grow personally and spiritually.

This content was released to inspire harmony and peace.

I have effectively grown personally and spiritually. Now, after another three months of combining my meditation practice with this new track, my meditation practice has evolved. I'm six months in and it is mine.

Dr. Joe Dispenza made this the ultimate goal from the start.

Making periodic adjustments to your meditations is natural and to be expected, because you aren’t the same person you were when you began. If you keep up the daily sessions, your state of being will continue to evolve, and thus you will continue to recognize aspects of your old self that you want to change.

So, by sharing how my practice has changed (I no longer work with his audio-assisted meditation, but now with ZenLifeRelax’s evolving and soothing tones), I hope to provide my personal take on how I get “into the zone,” and how my process really has changed my life.

*If my summary of my meditation below at all intrigues you, you MUST read his book. He goes into far more detail with far more expert explanation.

Here, I’m sharing my spin on the concepts he introduced to me.

Dr. Joe Dispenza breaks up his recommended meditation into four parts (detailed further below, sure, but detailed the best in his book).

One of the benefits of switching to a music track/playlist for my take on his meditation is that I can now move through the meditation's four parts at my pace. I can spend more time on the part that I need that day. Or less time on the part I don’t need.

I can change my meditation each day based on what I need and this evolving flexibility only heightens my self-awareness and ability to take care of myself.

For the sake of walking you through my ever-changing process, I will share an average snapshot of how my meditation and this playlist might line up.

To start: I usually spend the first 10 minutes (the "Foundation of Conscious Evolution") of the music track getting ready... Preparing how I’m sitting, for example. Taking slow breaths. Sometimes I actually wash my face, just so I won't spend the meditation thinking about how greasy my face feels in the morning…

If I’m in a hurry and want a shorter meditation one morning (though, even my shortest only feels effective if at least 60 minutes), I’ll just skip to the first escalation in tone, ten minutes in.

After that first escalation and the start of "Acceleration of Conscious Evolution," I settle in and begin.

***Note: Each time I include this music track again throughout this article (in this video form), it will actually start at the timecode relevant to the part of the meditation I am discussing.

PART 1: Induction

Part 1 is known as the "induction." Dr. Joe Dispenza provides two options: a Body-Part Induction and a Water-Rising Induction. Both are meant to relax us and give us access to the subconscious mind — much like going under the hood of a car or reviewing the base code of a software program. The goal with either induction is to stay present.

For me, staying present became profoundly easier once I started utilizing the ZenLifeRelax track.

In terms of choosing which induction, I, personally, do the Body-Part Induction far more often. I appreciate the increased awareness and connection to my body, plus I love how it syncs up with this music. Even as the frequencies are ascending throughout the track, there is a small-scale tonal and melodic descent that informs and supports my awareness from my head down to my feet.

Per Dr. Joe Dispenza's instructions, I go through various body parts, starting with the lips and:

Become aware of the space that your lips occupy in space, and can you sense the volume of space that your lips are in… in space?

As we move through various parts of the body, some might not just occupy space, but also occupy volume and density. We feel each part of our body with these descriptors and remain present.

By ten minutes into the meditation (20 minutes into the audio), I’ve usually gone through my face (thank goodness if I washed it...), my ears, and my head.

As this next range of tones continues to escalate, moving on to the "Liberation of Fear and Guilt," I’m onto feeling the space, volume, and/or density of my neck, arms, chest… until I’ve gone through my whole body.

This music heightens and intensifies feelings of interconnection and presence, tying my awareness of my body to the calm and peaceful frequencies.

A peacefulness which, no doubt, links back to the liberation of oneself from fear and guilt.

Next, it's time to turn my attention outside of myself, specifically the space just outside my body and the room I’m in.

The last prompt of the induction is:

And can you sense the volume of space that this room takes up, in all of space…

And now can you sense the space that all of space takes up in space, and the volume of space that that space is in… in space…

Typing the words feels pretty anticlimactic, but when paired with this ascension in the music …

It's amazing.

Each day, at this point, I'm deeply reminded of these beautiful words from Neil deGrasse Tyson.

“Yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.”

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I sit in this thought. I feel it.

Any words to describe this feeling rely heavily on metaphor and visualizations, so none of them do the experience justice.

I just feel big.

This feeling marks the end of the induction – I let it take as long as it needs to take with the music.

If I need to spend more time with myself and these thoughts, then I end the induction with this ascension, instead, in the music just after...

...Which is followed by a break between music sections as we move on and up in frequencies. Next is "Facilitating Change" which is too perfect.

The break between sections is my last cue to wrap up the Induction and move on to Part 2, where a track that "facilitates change" will be very useful.

PART 2: Recognizing, Admitting, Declaring, Surrendering

Now you cannot create a new future while holding on to the emotions of the past. What was that emotion you wanted to unmemorize?

In his book, Dr. Joe Dispenza provides many prompts and journaling exercises to figure out which emotion is the right emotion to work to 'unmemorize.'

For every person, this part will be different.

But I will share mine.

My 'base emotion' that I no longer want to embrace is unworthiness which, for me, breeds insecurity and inferiority. I know I habitually combat these feelings with strategies of control, which are really just born out of fear, much like my regular distractions from my powerful, divine self. My distraction techniques include obsession (#lucifan forever), lack (why can’t I win a Vocal challenge already?), and neediness (please give me praise, give me accolades, make me feel worthy).

These are the nine hindrances I recall and I imagine them getting sucked out of me, sometimes like literal liposuction...

It’s time to free the body from the mind, to close the gap between how you appear and who you are, to liberate your energy. Release your body from the familiar emotional bonds, which keep you connected to every thing, every place, and everyone in your past and present reality.

Often, the time to "let go" and "free myself” of these hindrances matches exactly with this wonderful moment:

The music, at this timecode (39:18), is empowering and transformational. I declare who I no longer want to be and surrender to who I am, all while the build in the music takes me to an entirely new plane, one with an entirely new version of myself.

The music evolves from "Facilitating Change" at 417 Hz to "Transformation and Miracles" at 528 Hz.

PART 3: Observing, Reminding, Redirecting

Now, with my greater self clearer than when I sat down, it’s time to consider something specific: a moment in my life, usually from the day before, but sometimes from several days before (especially if it was a significant moment, I might need multiple days to move through a particular one).

I look at that specific moment, I observe it and consider it, but now as my new self. Like a scientist observing an anomaly.

A memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.

I typically start Part 3 at this point in the music:

We are at "Transformation and Miracles" at 528 Hz and will soon escalate to "Connecting Relationships" at 639 Hz.

In today's meditation (as an example), I thought of an event from a couple of days ago when I grew short with a group of my friends. I rewatched the event from my new point of view and tried to figure out just why I gave in to my own habits of inferior thoughts. Because I'm now my new self, I observe it, scientifically and deliberately.

It’s a time to transform and connect, which means it's also time to be brutally honest with myself, which the music supports. It’s kind, subtle, and just warm enough to create sensations of comfort and empowerment.

Maybe those two words (comfort and empowerment) might not usually go hand in hand, but I think they do here.

To be brutally honest with yourself is often empowering, but seldom comfortable.

To have a piece of music that somehow encourages both states — well, that’s how I start to feel like I can change.

Which leads perfectly to: The Change Game.

I generally move through the change game a bit faster, often replacing Dr. Joe Dispenza’s sample situations with my own.

The point here, as I understand from Dr. Joe Dispenza, is to start practicing and rehearsing the implementation of my new point of view in my life.

How do I overcome the habits I’ve formed that build up who I am?

By practicing new ones.

Because nerve cells that no longer fire together, no longer wire together.

Our willpower alone is not enough to break down physical habits in our body, we have to imagine the physical change taking place.

We have to learn to break down those neural pathways and create new ones.

PART 4: Create & Rehearse

Now what is the greatest expression of yourself that you can be? How would a great person think and act? How would such an individual live? How would she or she love? What does greatness feel like?…

The 639 Hz of "Connecting Relationships" gives way to 741 Hz of "Consciousness Expansion."

It’s time to create and rehearse this new better version of myself.

When you change your energy, you change your life. Let the thought become the experience, and let that experience produce an elevated emotion so that your body begins to emotionally believe that the future you is already living now…

Dr. Joe Dispenza explains and refers to multiple fascinating studies. For example, there is one study where participants grew muscle mass and altered their body, just by imagining exercise each day.

People were able to change their bodies with their minds.

Elsewhere, fitness experts recommend attention and focus (ie., being present) during exercise, rather than merely turning on Netflix and exercising, because a lack of attention and focus actually decreases the physical effect.

The mind is powerful.

The mind-body connection is even more powerful.

If we can see it, we can do it. Literally.

That’s why once we’ve created and rehearsed our best version of ourselves, we can create a new destiny.

We can manifest the changes we want to see in our lives.

From this new state of being, form a picture of some event you want to experience and let the image become the blueprint of your future. Observe that reality and allow the particles, as waves of probability, to collapse into an event called an experience in your life. See it, command it, hold it, and then move to the next picture…

Let your energy now become entangled with that destiny. That future event has to find you because you created it with your own energy. Let yourself go and create the future you want in certainty, trust, and knowingness…

We are now moving from "Consciousness Expansion" at 741 Hz to "Awakening Intuition" at 852 Hz.

This is always my favorite part. It's the time to let my daydreams be so much more. It's time to let my hopes and dreams for myself elevate me, make me happy and grateful (not bummed and wistful).

I, personally, choose to organize these "daydreams" into three categories for myself (and often envision a triangle of light forming from the combination of each one).

Connection: I want more connection with myself. I want to live my life, taking up space and being unashamed of my presence. Something as simple as taking deeper belly breaths strikes me (I spent most of my life thinking shallow chest breaths were totally normal). As an actor and comedian, I aim to solidify a mind-body connection so strong, I have everything available to me (even crying on cue...). Most of all, I think of the person I want to be... I compare this "new me" to all the greats I've wanted to work with at some point: Christopher Nolan, the Lucifer writers, Regé-Jean Page... and I look forward to the day that she (the new me) is who I want to work with the most.

Translation: Writing is important to me. In addition to the articles I’ve been publishing on Vocal and other forms of short-form content, I’m also working on a novel. I do imagine success for myself as a writer, but I’m careful to distinguish this imagined "success" from "neediness" for approval or accolades. For now, the distinction comes best with the term ‘translation’. I don't want to "succeed" from a place of want or lack, I merely want the many oddities in my own brain to be successfully translated to as many people as possible, to make them understandable and potentially even helpful.

Abundance: Choosing the freelance artist's life is ... well, not always abundant. Here, I remember gratitude for all that I’m able to do, that so many others cannot do. I also remind myself that the paradox of having gratitude and wanting more is okay.

Your life is exactly as it should be right now — AND we want more for you.

— Brian Patacca

The paradox is one of our most valued spiritual possessions.

— Carl Jung

I imagine a day when it’s not a financial hardship to travel. I imagine an artistic office space that is mine, that I love working in. Plus, that elusive "passive income"?... I definitely want some of that. These are just some of the many details I envision for myself each day.

And I envision these future events with gratitude.

Want and desire come from a place of lack.

Gratitude changes my mindset and seals in my positive outlook, better preparing me for my meditation's end.

Feel how you will feel when these things manifest in your life, because living in a state of gratitude is living in a state of receivership.

Feel like your prayers are already answered...

Gratitude is the most important part and the best way to transition from the meditation's end to the beginning of my day.

The sun always looks a little brighter.

My body always feels a little lighter.

And I always know the next right thing to do. How I should start my day!

Like I said previously in this article, for the meditation to feel effective, it usually needs to be at least 60 minutes long. Today, I came in just under 60 minutes, ending at 1:08 (don’t forget, I use the first 10 minutes as prep time).

Some days, I take longer. If I feel like I need more time, I take it. A big benefit of this track is that no matter how I time out my meditation, the music supports my elevation.

Once, I even meditated all the way to the end of the track (that’s a full 90 minutes! 80 if you subtract my 10-minute start). That only happened once and it certainly took me by surprise when it did.

If I want to finish sooner, then I still let the rest of the track play out, listening to "Transcendence" at 963 Hz, often as I journal or eat breakfast, who knows?

The relaxing yet elevating tones of the ZenLifeRelax music perfectly complement wherever I go in my process. It supports visualizations and often inspires new ones.

Sometimes, my visualizations are very much inspired by the last movie or television show I saw …

After the WandaVision finale, I imagined a powerful light beam type of force bursting from within me, surrounding me.

After Falcon & The Winter Soldier, I imagined gliding on the wind, my own wings finally free from my fear.

I embrace these visualizations, all of them. None of them are silly.

Especially to this music.

The music adds to these visualizations and uplifts them. Much of the experience is and will always be mine and mine alone. Even as I share the details now, I can only share what I can translate into our language. The original stimulus will always only exist in my perception. Even my retelling of these moments in my journal loses aspects of the experience upon recall. It's never the same as it was in the middle of that one meditation with that particular moment of music from the ZenLifeRelax track.

And this is a good thing. It's good to let my experience evolve and then separately seek to translate it with an altogether new outlook.

It means I'm embracing the present.

And accepting that I can only share what I can.

I actually shared one of my visualizations with you all recently …. my recognition and utilization of my fear of heights.

I love the consistency yet freedom to let each daily meditation be different.

Sometimes, I need more time.

The more time I give myself that is just for me, the quicker I can move through my feelings and make space for something new, something like gratitude or trust. Love and acceptance.

Since starting my day this way (something I’ve done every day for 6 months now), I’ve found that:

• Those emotional phases of feeling overwhelmed and powerless never last as long.
• My body is my ally more than it has ever been before (no more getting sick at the worst possible time or oversleeping on accident).
• My mind has been clearer and more productive than ever.

I often finish my meditations inspired to start my day.

I also take responsibility for my joy and happiness.

If we sit long enough without doing anything, we begin to feel something. That something is who we really are.

Our personalities are not set in stone. They are built brick-by-brick, with each brick representing a choice. We can be who we want to be. It just takes work.

The problem is that we have developed habits that limit our true greatness... In fact, the corresponding states of mind that correlate with stress truly are the reasons why we are controlled by our emotions, live by a lower denominator of energy, and are enslaved by a set of beliefs rooted in fear. These so-called normal psychological states have been accepted by most as ordinary and common. They are the real “altered states” of consciousness.

If any of this process sounds overwhelming to you, it did to me too! Yet, I see from this end of forming the new habit (having accomplished this daily practice for six months now) that I have been incredibly blessed to discover this new toolset for taking on the world, plus such a wonderful musical track from ZenLifeRelax to accompany and elevate its effectiveness.

See, somewhere, a long time ago, my body learned to bury emotions it thought were "ugly."

About a month ago, such an emotion struck; it was well hidden for most of my day until the next morning when I sat down to meditate. This work brought the emotion (largely inferiority and worthlessness) to the forefront. I cried through the whole meditation – one of the most healing experiences I’d ever had.

Everything about the meditation was different that day — and that was okay. In fact, it was more than okay. It was something I needed to move through to make space for the light and love I want in my life.

And this ZenLifeRelax musical track, with its elevating tones and ascending frequencies, perfectly synchronizes with the conscious expansion for that space, both in myself (my personality) and in my perception of the world (my personal reality).

*~*~*

If this was any help or provided any zen for you, please give this article a heart, share the link, or let me know what you think on Twitter or Facebook.