 Over two thousand years ago, the Buddha declared: ‘We are formed and moulded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.’ Today’s research is reinforcing what wise students of the human condition have known for millennia. Neuroscientist Candace Pert PhD tells us that, ‘the molecules of our emotions share intimate connections with, and are indeed inseparable from, our physiology... Consciously, or more frequently, unconsciously, we choose how we feel at every single moment.’ Practices for health and wellbeing that were once the exclusive prescriptions of sages and priests are now being reinforced by the discoveries of today’s geneticists and neurobiologists.
An unlimited supply of wishes
In the tales of the Arabian Nights, when Aladdin rubbed the magic lamp, the genie appeared and granted him three wishes. In the story, once he makes his wishes, the magic vanishes. He had to think long and hard on which three things he chose to wish for.
In the real world, given the lamp of our understanding and the genie in our genes, we have an unlimited supply of wishes. Whatever wishes we put into the lamp manifest genetically. If we fill our lamps with healing words, our genes rush to fulfil our wishes – within seconds. If we fill our lamps with poison (negative thoughts and emotions), we damage the ability of our inbred genetic servants to heal us. While the mechanisms by which such differences occurred may have seemed like magic when viewed through the lens of allopathic medicine – the conventional system of treating symptoms with agents that produce an opposing effect – the results are not. In The Genie in Your Genes, we look in detail at the precise genetic and electromagnetic mechanisms that make such healing magic not only possible, but scientifically predictable.
Designing happiness
The understanding that much of our genetic activity is affected by factors outside the cell is a radical reversal of the dogma of genetic determinism, which held for half a century that who we are and what we do is governed by our genes. Research is showing a much more interconnected reality in which our consciousness plays a primary role. Far from who and what we are being determined by our genes, research is now revealing that we are rewriting the expression of our genes in every second, by our choices of what we do, say and think. The choices we make with our consciousness are being genetically encoded in our brain structure daily, reinforcing the pathways that correspond to experiences we have frequently, and reducing pathways we use infrequently. But more than the ‘use or lose it’ axiom, activity-dependent genetic expression tells us that we can ‘experience it and create it’ as we encode new pathways in our brains that correspond to a particular experience.
This research placed primary responsibility for health and healing back in the hands of the individual. It makes us aware that it is not doctors, hospitals, acupuncturists, homeopaths, chiropractors, energy workers or other health professionals who are responsible for our wellbeing. Health begins with us.
We must consider the implications of the fact that our emotional and mental environment, which we create as individuals, is one of the primary influences turning genes on and off in our cells. The ever-changing, synchronous flow of opportunities that this vision opens up for us are so vast and exciting that it will take medicine decades to grasp the full scope of these potentials. While it may require hundreds of scientific studies to chart the links between specific environmental influences and specific genetic activations, we as individuals can start to use this knowledge to affect our own health right now.
Consciousness change as medical intervention
The awareness that we each create our mental environment, and that the genetic effects of environmental changes begin to occur within seconds, provides us with an exciting new awareness of the degree of control we enjoy over our wellbeing.
It also counteracts the prevailing feeling of helplessness that many patients feel when enmeshed in the medical system. When we realize that we have conscious control over the biochemical environment in which we bathe our cells, we suddenly become acutely aware of which ingredients we are dropping in the stew. Like the cook mixing the stew, we can choose to put only tasty thoughts and feelings into our cells. We would no more put toxic thoughts into the stew of our consciousness than we would throw rat poison into the stew.
We likewise become aware of which emotions we harbour. We perceive emotions not simply as experiences that happen to us, but as aspects of our environmental cocktail that we can cultivate to bring beauty and nourishment to the garden of our health. Over the last few decades, research has sought to understand the mechanisms that underlie the health effects of positive consciousness. We know that altruism, optimism, prayer, meditation, spirituality, social connectedness, and energy medicine have positive effects on our health and longevity. Now we’re starting to understand that our consciousness conditions our genetic expression, moment by moment. This insight allows us to use consciousness change as a medical intervention. For instance, studies have shown meditation to have benefits that are similar to anti-depressant medications, regulating the serotonin and dopamine levels in our brains, as well as stimulating our immune systems. Other research shows that we can alleviate chronic pain through meditation, and that our brain’s response to pain is reduced by meditation.
Each new discovery is another indication of how important consciousness is for healing. We are learning to see our cells and our bodies as malleable, influenced by every thought and feeling that flows through us. We can claim responsibility for the quality of thought and feeling we host, selecting those that radiate benevolence, goodwill, love and kindness. Doing this, we are doing more than conscious epigenetic engineering on our bodies; we are nudging the whole world imperceptibly in the direction of vibrant health.
From The Genie in Your Genes, © 2007 Dawson Church, this edition published by Cygnus Books, exclusively for Cygnus members.
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