Consciousness, Perception and The Biology of Belief

I finished listening to Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief.  For those who are more convinced by scientific belief than by simple faith about such concepts, his work is very good.  I was not surprised to see him hook up with Gregg Braden (see post in his section about a seminar in CA).  They both are interested in the things DNA is telling us about belief and it isn't that we are controlled by our genes.  I highly recommend this read.  It satisfies scientific longing but is easily understandable by the non-medical, non-scientist layman.

I wanted to share a bit about the role of the subconscious and the ways that work, and the methods that work less well, as regards the subconsious and what it is and how one can change that programming.  He goes into great detail about how the brain develops in childhood and for those familiar with brain wave therapy (Kelly Howell's Brain Sync or Centerpointe Research Institute's / Bill Harris' Holosync), it may be surprising to learn that up until the age of 2, a child is entirely in Delta (which is what we adults use to fall asleep) and from 2 to 6 yrs of age, the child is in Theta (which is used for altering the subscious patterns of the adult brain). 

In Theta, which is akin to those moments that we are falling asleep, when reality and fantasy or dreamland mix in ways that are hard to tease apart, the young child actually is not yet conscious, which was a big surprise for me because I have one who has just left that stage (now age 7 yrs) and one smack in the middle being 4 yrs old.  At this age, it is “instant download” with no resistance, rather than conscious thought, and that is why children with older siblings learn from the older ones with such ease.  What you “say” to a child at this age, can impact their entire life, as we spend 95-99% of our waking hours controlled or directed by the programming in our subconscious minds.  “You don't deserve”, “you are a bad”, etc are devastating.  And even though we've all been impacted by such words growing up, it is a burdensome responsibility as the parent of a young child to realize this.

Anyway, what he says really goes along with some of the teachings of Eckhart Tolle.  Bruce describes the dialog that you can hear going on in your head, something that Tolle describes as the Ego.  Bruce Lipton describes these as tapes playing from the subconscious mind. Most of this is laid down by the people we were exposed to between the ages of 2-6 yrs.  Some of it is laid down later as experiences repeat themselves in similar fashion time and again.  Some of the work of the subconscious is to help us walk from point A to point B or any of the other bodily functions that must be carried out to sustain our lives.

Psychologists tell us that 70% or more of the tapes that play in our heads are negative or redundant.  Most of these kinds of thoughts run along the lines of “Oh, that will never work.” or “That can't happen.” or “I can't get that.”  These “background” messages negate the conscious intentions that we have for our lives.  That powerful processor, the subconscious mind, which is more powerful than the conscious mind, operates from 95% to 99% of the time that we think we are being conscious.  Some of these “programs” are going to provide your life with things you didn't want consciously.

As Bruce became aware of these messages in his own mind, his subconscious mind would say “I can't get that”, and his conscious mind would answer with “Wait, I can have this.”  So similarly to what Tolle suggests, if you can become conscious of these thoughts when they occur, you can interact with them when they manifest and change them “live time”.  Through such a process, and with habituation, you can re-write these negative codes.  The problem with this is, in the world that we live in, with so much activity and the speed of life that we go by, most of us don't have at our fingertips, the ease and comfort of sitting back to listen and communicate with our thoughts.

Later Lipton discovered that this process of which he had become aware was also known in Buddhism as “mindfulness”, being mindful, being conscious all the time.  That alone is where the power is for this reason, the conscious mind has all the wishes, desires and aspirations that you have for YOUR own life.  If you stay conscious and stop daydreaming and thinking about the past and the future, and be here NOW (as Tolle recommends strongly in his own teachings), then you actually are running the machine “live” with the intentions that YOU like.  Yet, the moment life starts to get busy and you start thinking about things, contemplating the past or the future, then you automatically start operating off of the subconscious mind that has the programs that do NOT support you.

He has found another way that is effective and requires less attention consciously and that is clinical hypnosis.  The reason that is effective is that is the same state in which the subconscious was programmed originally.  We were below Alpha wave activity and in Theta wave activity.  Theta is the hypnogoic trance.  By going back into a hynogoic trance with the help of a clinical hypnotherapist, the patient can be helped to slow down their conscious thoughts, get into that hypnogoic state (or Theta wave aspect of mind) and while there, re-program the beliefs that had been loaded into the subconscious mind.

Bruce doesn't mention this but this is why I believe that Brain Wave therapies, such as Brain Sync or Holosync are effective because they can place us at the Theta level and either provide affirmations or allow subconscious material to surface, where we can look at it consciously.  It is a kind of self-hypnosis.

There is a 3rd way, new modalties known collectively as Energy Psychology.  This is not cognitive therapy at all.  It involves energy in the field, characteristics of super learning, it allows for openning up the brain and downloading information at rates of speed that are just phenomenal.  Many of these modalities have letters like EFT (the Emotional Freedom Technique used heavily during the Boundless Living 45-Day Challenge and with which I am personally familiar), TFT, EMDR, some are body talk, Avatar is one and Psych-K, which is the one that Bruce personally works with.  These modalities allow us to impact the program in the subconscious using an energy process wherein we can change beliefs that have limited us our whole lives, even 50 or 60 yrs, and with these modalities actually change a belief in only about 10 mins or so.  Allowing us to walk away from this practice a completely different person.

All of this means, we start to get an entirely new understanding of who we really are, we are not the genes, we are not the physical body.  We are the mind inside the system.  The mind via the perceptions control every aspect of our biology, our behavior and our genes.  We must understand, that if we experience problems in the world that we live in today, it's not because there is something wrong with us and our biology, its almost inevitably because there is something wrong with our programming and our belief about who we are and why we are on this planet.

If we begin to understand this nature, if we begin to understand that we can re-program ourselves, we can free ourselves from the past, we can free ourselves from the limitaton, we can change our health, all of this, by changing our mind.  In Science of Mind - they long had the phrase - Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.  It is the same phrase that Dr Wayne Dyer uses in his book title for his study of the Tao Te Ching which we are working our way through here in this pod.

Re: Consciousness, Perception and The Biology of Belief

If you haven't already, you guys should try it!  It's great!

Re: Consciousness, Perception and The Biology of Belief

Thanks for sharing this great posting, I have Dr. Lipton's book in my list of must-buy books.  I was listening to him in Hay House Radio and found his work fascinating.

Re: Consciousness, Perception and The Biology of Belief

Look: on a gaiaperson's blog I found this quotation from lao Tzu, who agrees:  

Re: Consciousness, Perception and The Biology of Belief

Thanks, Alan

That is a really cool thing, you click and get a quote from Lao-tzu.  Neat.  I should do a quote a day … in our daily guides.

On my 2nd try, I got this one that I really liked

>>>Giving birth and nourishing, Bearing yet not possessing, Working yet not taking credit, Leading yet not dominating, This is the Primal Virtue.<<<

I will be sure to thank Leela for this and give her a link too.

Deb

More about Bruce Lipton & The Biology of Belief

Bruce Lipton is getting alot of attention these days and for good reason.  He is using his background in science to smooth the way for a greater acceptance of what would have been taken on faith alone not that long ago.

Super Conscoiusness magazine features him on the cover in their Sept-Oct 2008 issue.  I can't say I learned anything new that I did not get from the tape, of his new book that I listened to recently, but this is such important information and I am going to highlight here the best of that article.  If you are interested in receiving this publication, you can go to www.superconsciousness.com to subscribe.

To reiterate his main point - genes are not turned on or off by the genes themselves but through external, environmental stimuli.  This idea runs contrary to the idea of genetic determinism that rules so much of medical practice to this day.  The new emerging field is called epigenetics.  These theories are slow to gain acceptance because the training of health professionals is deeply vested in the pharmaceutical industry and the even greater promise of lucrative gene therapies.

What does epigenetic mean?  Epi means “above” and so this means that the control is above the gene.  And so, how is this different than genetic determinism?  Genetic determinism means that our lives, which are defined as our physical, physiological and emotional behavioral traits, are controlled by the genetic code.  This kind of belief turns people into victims.  If genes controlled our lives, then our life would be controlled by things outside of our ability to change that.

When we buy into being a victim, then we need a rescuer.  We have to accept that somebody else must save us from ourselves.  We believe that illnesses and diseases are passed down to us in our family's genes.  Yet, laboratory evidence proves that is not true.

This belief has been in revision for 15 years but only biomedical research scientists have embraced it.  The mass media continues to portray that “a gene controls this” and “a gene controls that”.  Why doesn't the medical industry want the masses of people to know this?  Because they want to sell genes, they want to sell gene cards “buy a gene card and read your future”.  In actuality, that technology has no more scientific value, and maybe even LESS scientific value, than astrology.  Advanced, ancient systems of astrology are probably more accurate than gene reading cards.

Epigenetic control reveals that environmental information alters the read-out of the genes without changing the underlying DNA sequenced code.  From a single gene, epigenetic regulation can provide 30,000 different variations of expression.  When scientists undertook the Genome Project, they expected to find 150,000 genes because there are 150,000 kinds of protein.  They found 23,000 genes.  To understand the potential variations of genetic expression, you must multiply each of these 23,000 genes by 30,000 possibilities.

One does not change the original DNA, only its expression, and those variations are potentially unlimited.  Our genes are the fundamental programmers that take the fertilized egg to the stage where the developing cells begin to look human.  From this fetal stage on, however, the modifications are now epigenetically controlled - meaning influenced by the environment.  If survival is threatened, then the physiology of the body changes to create a body that will withstand that threat.

So, how do we trigger or master our gene expressions?  Our brain is the transducer device.  It reads the environmental signals and then regulates the body's chemistry that controls the genetic expression of the cells.  If the brain perceives images that are threatening, it will release different regulatory chemicals into the body, than if it is perceiving a love image.

Interpretation by the mind is critical because the brain reads environmental images but has no opinion as to what those images mean.  The mind interprets the environmental signals based upon our learning experiences.  Therefore, what we “learn” as children can affect whether we perceive something as threatening or not.  Once learned, whenever X comes into our environment, the mind's interpretation will stimulate the brain to release neurochemicals that control cell behavior and gene activity to corrdinate a protection response.

There is a cycle here -
     Our environment impacts gene selection
     Which then impacts the selection of the proteins
               our bodies use to build tissue
     Which then impacts our health and quality of life
     When then impacts our environment

How does having this knowledge allow us to make different choices, that will get us on a new path, when we seem stuck in such a cycle?

We are active participants in controlling the character of our health and behavior.  Our ability to consciously control our perceptions and environment has a profound influence on our lives.  When we live in the here and now, present all the time, and actively exercise our consciousness to run the show, we create the life we want, it becomes heaven on earth.

Does this not sound like all the Science of Mind, Abraham-Hicks or other metaphysical teachings we have taken on faith and experimental experience, without knowing the science that proves the reality?

Dr Lipton explains how cells respond to chemical and energy signals -

[1]  When a chemical signal is sent to a cell, it must first bind with a receptor molecule on the cell.  The coupling of chemicals is always assoicated with “heat of reaction” meaning heat is given off by the chemical bonding reaction.  Heat is disorganized or wasted energy.  When a chemical is used as a signal, 98% or more of the chemical's available energy is wasted as heat of reaction.

[2] Electromagnetic vibrational energy can be used instead to convey information to the cell. Vibrational or frequency signals are one hundred times more efficient than chemical signals because they do NOT give off heat, when bonding with a cell's receptor.  Energy signals are ultra efficient: a single photon of light can hit a receptor molecule in the cell membrane and cause the cell to respond.

Cells are able to process either or both chemical and energetic information.  Survival is based upon an organism's ability to respond to environmental signals.  This is the physical foundation for the emerging field of energy medicine.

Signal-receiving molecules (receptors) in the cell membrane act as an information processor.  They are programmable and can read and write information the same way that a computer reads and edits files.  The cell's behavior and gene activity can be reprogrammed as fast as one can type on the keyboard.  Spontaneous healing is related to this process.  Changes can start to occur in half a second.  

In experiments, if Dr Lipton put 1,000 cells in a culture dish and exposed them to a broadcast energy signal, 1,000 cells responded instantaneously.  If he exposes them to a chemical signal, it will take longer for the chemical to reach and bind to the cells, creating a lag phase between the stimulus and the response.  Unfortunately, since energy medicine does not serve the interests of the chemical-selling pharmaceutical industry, conventional medicine has not interest in endorsing energy healing modalities.

It is the pharmaceutical industry's funding of research and media campaigns that discourages energy healing.  They need us to believe that genes control our lives, so that we are their victims in need of their rescuing.  It is not because valid details of Dr Lipton's concepts stated here are not supported in scientific literature, because they are there in the literature, but are not utilized by most of that industry (the medical-chemical complex).

Dr Lipton has separated himself from the financial and professional security of the contemporary and conventional medical establishment because he believes that by making us aware of, and giving us the knowledge of, these concepts; we will be able to become responsible for our own lives.  He cites biologist Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Field theory (which I have discussed in this pod before and which explains, for example, the 100th Monkey effect) to support his effort.

The more this information gets out into the field, the more it becomes repeatable, and the more quickly (and naturally) it becomes accepted.  This is why I am ever encouraging you to put metaphysics to the test in your own life and prove it to yourself.  This is what Living Metaphysics encourages us each to do.

Re: More about Bruce Lipton & The Biology of Belief

Dear Deb,

I can't even begin to tell you how profoundly grateful and emotionally touched I am by this post of you and  your reference to the biology of belief. I am in the process of listening to all of Liptons vids, but I'll take it slow to let it sink in.
If this goes for DNA as far as our personalities go, it must be true also for inherditary mutants in dna that is believed to cause fatal illnesses?

If this is true, OMG I might see some light on the end of a tunnel, a light of great hope.

I have been wrestling with some serious  issues for quite a while now, but the medical world only seems to believe and offer nightmare alternatives.
I would like to get as much of information about this as possible.

Can I write you about this situation  in PM for I very much want to protect someone from these issues? I have been walking around with this for quite some time now, not knowing where to turn (but prayer) but i would really like to share it and literally shine some light on it.

Thank you.
oh how can I say how I love you

Lucienne

Re: More about Bruce Lipton & The Biology of Belief

Lucienne,

Of course you can - any time -

>>>”Can I write you about this situation  in PM for I very much want to protect someone from these issues?”<<<

You can use the Profile Email or if you need my other one, I can give it to you.  To be honest, I check Gaia more.  The other is so full of junk, ya know?

Hugs-
Deb

Newsweek - When DNA is NOT Destiny

In the most recent issue, Dec 1, 2008, of Newsweek magazine is an article by the science editor, Sharon Begley called “When DNA Is Not Destiny” that I believe goes along with the discussion of Bruce Lipton's work The Biology of Belief.  You can read the article in its entirety here - http://www.newsweek.com/id/170381.  I summarize as follows.

Although that belief has found support in both casual observation and science, it suffers from a basic fallacy.  Just because something does not change, doesn't mean that it cannot change.  Just because personality seems stable over the years, doesn't mean it's immutable.  Instead, maybe we just haven't identified what changes it.  And that goes for genes, too: with the growing recognition that experiences can silence genes or activate them, it is clear that even traits under genetic influence are in play.

One hint of the mutability of personality comes from the arrival, finally, of long-term studies that follow people for decades. As people age from 20 to 40, a 2006 study reported, they tend to become more conscientious and emotionally stable. After age 40, they tend to become less open to new experiences and ideas, and less outgoing. All of these traits have been linked to genes.  But curiously - and here's hope for anyone who resents his genetic baggage - the influence of genes wanes with age: in middle and later adulthood, environment plays a larger role than genetics in shaping personality, a hint of the power of accumulated experiences.

Psychology researcher Carol Dweck of Stanford University says, “… extroversion, openness to new experience and resilience” - all of which are thought to be partly genetic can change by intervention. “More and more research is suggesting that, far from being simply encoded in the genes, much of personality is a flexible and dynamic thing that changes over the life span and is shaped by experience,” she argues in the December issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. In particular, traits such as how you cope, how you perceive yourself and others, and how you act in everyday situations are malleable.

Ironically, the belief that personality cannot change may be self-fulfilling. “Whether you believe that your core traits, such as intelligence, are fixed, or are things you can develop, matters a great deal,” says Dweck. In a recent study, she and colleagues taught a group of students entering junior high that intelligence is malleable, that the brain forges new connections throughout life and that it grows in response to intellectual challenge.

These kids became significantly more conscientious and diligent compared with kids who didn't receive this lesson. “Beliefs about yourself play a causal role in how likely you are to seek out challenges and in how resilient you are,” says Dweck. “If you change beliefs, you can change broad traits that many people think of as stable, including openness to experience, conscientiousness and sociability. Beliefs can be changed, and when they are, so is personality.”

No one claims that genes play no role in shaping personality. But it's time to junk the old idea that only the part of a trait under environmental, not genetic, control is malleable: the life we lead and the experiences we have reach deep into our double helix.

Re: Newsweek - When DNA is NOT Destiny

Beautifully put, Deb, “The life we lead and the experiences we have reach deep into our double helix”.  I like that. :-) 

We (most of us) vastly underestimate our ability to impact our inner and outer worlds, based on limiting beliefs picked up as children–'that's the way it's always been, so that's what it'll always be like”.  Indeed, we're told that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results…. true but there's a kernel in there, a desire to achieve different results, is there not?  So if we have a yearning for different results, and we know that doing the same thing doesn't get us there, it leaves us with a couple of options.  The old idea would say “try gene therapy”, splice and dice your genes to get different results, or try again next lifetime.  Hmm, might it be easier to change your behaviors?  OK, maybe not exactly EASY, because conditioning kicks in, and the Law of Inertia.  The Law of Inertia being so powerful, I can understand why scientists and others thought that genetics is destiny…. most people would rather be mediocre or even miserable than risk change.  But the flip side of the Law of Inertia is that once an object is finally in motion, it takes a greater force to stop it–yay!!
I think it's pretty darn cool that by getting our proverbial butts in gear and consciously creating change, we can change our outer experiences, our inner experiences, and even our actual biology.  Aren't we just the luckiest beings in the Cosmos?!
Love to all,
Johanna

Re: Newsweek - When DNA is NOT Destiny

Lelazjia,

All you wrote is beautifully put and this so true -

We ARE just the luckiest Beings in the Cosmos ! ! !

Deb

Re: Newsweek - When DNA is NOT Destiny

A HO!!  I could just pinch myself!!!  :-)
Love to all, Lelazjia