Bruce Lipton: An awakening weekend in Athens
A warm, sweet and beautiful creature embracing a genuinely curious mind. A noble and humble individual, whose caring soul glows through the tone of his voice. Bruce Lipton is traveling the world spreading the essence of quantum physics: “Everything is Energy!”
A seminar at the Dais Conference Center in northern Athens earlier this month took off from the main question “How many Earths do we need if the world’s population lived like Australia, the USA, Switzerland, South Korea…?” The list went down 10 more places to reach India. We would need 5.4 Earths if we lived like Aussies, 4.8 if we lived like Americans, 2.9 if we lived like the Japanese. The only workable solution on the list was India. In that case we would only need 0.7 Earths. We presently live on 1.6 of Earths capacity. Scientists, according to Lipton, have observed that 75% of insects have disappeared while they estimate that by 2048 there will be no more fish in the ocean. Thus, the sixth mass extinction on Earth has officially begun. The last one (when the dinosaurs went extinct) happened 66 million years ago. However, this time it is our fault, because we are destroying the environment. Thus, the end of civilization as we know it has already begun. The situation is irreversible. The root cause of all the above is that humans act in competition and not in collaboration with each other. All the above could have been avoided if we acted in collaboration, just like nature does.
Lipton explains the biology of things, essentially showing through science that our genes do not determine who we are nor what happens to us. It is the story that we tell ourselves about who we are that determines our life outcomes. It is the environment in which our cells grow, rather than the cells themselves, that determine disease and happiness. Thus, what we believe to be predetermined due to our bad genes is only the consequence of our bad beliefs.
To make matters worse, Lipton explains that what kids have been taught in school for the past seven decades about DNA is a central dogma. The story that DNA controls itself and that one cannot change their genes has never been proven by science. Thus, in fact, what we teach in schools about genes is something like religious beliefs and not science.
Lipton goes on with biology, physics, math, chemistry, this time blending the findings and theories of great minds in human history with philosophy. Now Socrates and Democritus are referenced along with Albert Einstein, Rosalind Franklin and Max Planck. This journey is indeed beautiful. However, the most important element is that it is greatly informative and amazingly interesting. And the best: It makes sense!
So, genes do not control biology. Genes are blueprints and the mind controls these blueprints. So, when you change your mind, you change your genes. That’s why 99% of disease comes from the mind and our lifestyle and only less than 1% of disease comes from genes. In fact, Lipton goes one step further and explains that a mere six diseases are caused by genes, and thus are hereditary. Cancer is not one of them. These diseases are: cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, Huntington’s disease, Tay-Sachs, Marfan syndrome, and hereditary hemochromatosis.
Scientific studies have shown that nine in 10 cancers are caused by lifestyle, while genes of patients with cancer have changed after following a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and moderate exercise. In the same line, studies have shown that 75-90 percent of all visits to physicians are for stress-related ailments and complaints.
How does stress work? Stress is a tricky creature. When we are not under stress and we function normally, then our forebrain (our conscious) is in charge. However, when we are under stress it is our hindbrain, which is the reflex, that is activated, while the conscious is disactivated. This is exactly what happens when we play a game of Pac-Man. When the ghost is anywhere around us, then the hindbrain is activated because we will lose.
In the old times, when man had to hunt in order to eat, when a lion would chase you, stress, as a result of fear, would release all the bad hormones, such as cortisol, norepinephrine, cytokines and histamine. Too much cortisol for example can lead to weight gain, osteoporosis, muscle weakness and mood swings. Thus, overproduction of these hormones in our body can cause all kinds of undesired effects.
Now, when in fear, a signal is sent from your brain to your adrenal glands and the alarm (stress) goes off: “Fight or flight.”
Under stress, the body – as an automatic reflex – shuts off blood supply to viscera, shuts down the immune system, and shuts down the conscious mind. This is why stress is the reason for more than 90% of disease. Because not only does it shut down the immune system, but it doesn’t even allow you to think normally and find workable and reasonable solutions to the cause and not the symptom.
However, when we fill our lives with love, the chemicals released are dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin and the growth hormone. Dopamine makes you feel happy, oxytocin (otherwise called the love drug) affects behavior such as social bonding, love, reproduction and childbirth. Growth hormone (GH) stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration, thus being important in human development.
Now, while in stress, the subconscious or the reflex is activated drawing from the pool that was installed in our brain before the age of 7. That is all the “programming” that we have received from our family, close ones, and society to a certain extent. If we have received “bad programming” then our reactions are not healthy, we don’t love ourselves, we don’t believe we are safe, we don’t think we are healthy, and consequently we make life choices in line with all these negative beliefs about ourselves. But we don’t realize.
Now the important thing about Lipton’s teaching is that even though the programming has taken place before the age of 7, we can still use our brain, daily habits, meditation along other practices, to “reprogram” our subconscious mind and change all our negative beliefs about ourselves to positive. And this is how we can change our lives. To achieve that we need to increase our levels of conscious thinking and practice different daily habits.
Lipton’s talk came at a perfect time, as with everything in life. I kind of intuitively knew that this is how things work, because I have shown this to myself to be true. However, I had no clue there was science behind it, and in fact, that quantum physics is what lies behind all this. What matters at the end of the day is not who you are, but the story you tell yourself about who you are. It’s your beliefs that will determine your life outcomes. Change your beliefs, and that will change your life!
And if we don’t live in fear, then we don’t need to be competitive with everyone and everything around us. We can simply fill our lives with love, collaborate with each other and make this world a better place.
Marina Selini Katsaiti is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Economic and Regional Development at the Agricultural University of Athens.