You Are the Placebo Book Summary

You Are The Placebo by Joe Dispenza

“If this is your personality then your personality creates your personal reality. It’s that simple. And your personality is made up of how you think, how you act, and how you feel.

​So the present personality who is reading this page has created the present reality called your life; and that also means that if you want to create a new personal reality—a new life—then you have to begin to examine or think about the thoughts you’ve been thinking and change them.

You must become conscious of the unconscious behaviors you’ve been choosing to demonstrate that have led to the same experiences, and then you must make new choices, take new actions, and create new experiences.”

“When you learn new things and begin to think in new ways, you are making your brain fire in different sequences, patterns and combinations. That is, you are activating many diverse networks of neurons in different ways.

And whenever you make your brain work differently, you’re changing your mind. As you begin to think outside the box, new thoughts should lead to new choices, new behaviors, new experiences and new emotions. Now your identity is also changing.”

So, “In order to change your life, you have to literally become someone else.”

“Crossing the river of change requires that you leave the same familiar predictable self—connected to the same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, and same feelings—and step into a void of the unknown.

The gap between the old self and the new self is the biological death of your old personality. If the old self must die, then you have to create a new self with new thoughts, new choices, new behaviors, and new emotions.

Entering this river is stepping toward a new unpredictable, unfamiliar self. The unknown is the only place where you can create—you cannot create anything new from the known.”

“Some people call this experience the dark night of the soul. It’s the phoenix igniting itself and burning to ashes. The old self has to die for a new one to be reborn. Of course that feels uncomfortable!”
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“A new personality ultimately creates a new personal reality.”

“The word epigenetics literally means “above the genes.” It refers to the control of genes not from within the DNA itself but from messages coming from outside the cell—in other words, from the environment...

Epigenetics teaches that we, indeed, are not doomed by our genes and that a change in human consciousness can produce physical changes, both in structure and function, in the human body.

We can modify our genetic destiny by turning on the genes we want and turning off the ones we don’t want through working with the various factors in the environment that program our genes.

Some of those signals come from within the body, such as feelings and thoughts, while others come from the body’s response to the external environment, such as pollution or sunlight...

Epigenetics suggests that even though our DNA code never changes, thousands of combinations, sequences, and patterned variations in a single gene are possible (just as thousands of combinations, sequences, and patterns of neural networks are possible in the brain).”

“The second study, conducted in 2013, found that eliciting the relaxation response produces changes in gene expression after just one session of meditation among both novices and experienced practitioners alike.”

“Now you can understand that whether it’s joyful or stressful, with every thought you think, every emotion you feel, and every event you experience, you’re acting as an epigenetic engineer of your own cells. You control your destiny.”

“This is possible through mental rehearsal. This technique is basically closing your eyes and repeatedly imagining performing an action, and mentally reviewing the future you want, all the while reminding yourself of who you no longer want to be (the old self) and who you do want to be.

This process involves thinking about your future actions, mentally planning your choices, and focusing your mind on the new experience...

By keeping your focus on this future event and not letting any other thoughts distract you, in a matter of moments, you turn down the volume on the neural circuits connected to the old self, which begins to turn off the old genes, and you fire and wire new neural circuits, which initiates the right signals to activate new genes in new ways.

Thanks to the neuroplasticity discussed previously, the circuits in your brain begin to reorganize themselves to reflect what you’re mentally rehearsing. And as you keep coupling your new thoughts and mental images with that strong, positive emotion, then your mind and body are working together—and you’re now in a new state of being.

At this point, your brain and body are no longer a record of the past; they are a map to the future—a future that you’ve created in your mind. Your thoughts have become your experience, and you just became the placebo.”

“There are two times daily that are the most conducive to meditation: right before you go to bed at night and right after you get up in the morning.”

“On the other hand, emotions like gratitude and appreciation open your heart and lift the energy in your body to a new place—out of the lower hormonal centers.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions for increasing your level of suggestibility. It teaches your body emotionally that the event you’re grateful for has already happened, because we usually give thanks after a desirable event has occurred.

If you bring up the emotion of gratitude before the actual event, your body (as the unconscious mind) will begin to believe that the future event has indeed already happened—or is happening to you in the present moment. Gratitude, therefore, is the ultimate state of receivership.”

“By focusing more on what you do want and less on what you don’t want, you can call into existence whatever you desire and simultaneously “fade away” what you don’t want by no longer giving it your attention.”

“There are no schools of ancient spiritual wisdom sitting high on mountaintops in the Himalayas waiting to initiate us into becoming mystics and saints. Our lives are our initiation into greatness.

Maybe you and I should see life as an opportunity to reach greater and greater levels of self so that we can overcome our own limitations with more expanded levels of consciousness. That’s how a pragmatist, instead of a victim, sees it.

To abandon the familiar ways in which we’ve grown accustomed to thinking about life in order to embrace new paradigms will feel unnatural in the beginning. Frankly, it takes effort—and it’s uncomfortable.

Why? Because when we change, we no longer feel like ourselves. My definition of genius, then, is to be uncomfortable and to be okay with being uncomfortable.”

And remember that “To be happy with yourself in the present moment while maintaining a dream of your future is a grand recipe for manifestation.”

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