The Biology of Belief

The Taos chapter of IONS(Institute of Noetic Sciences)showed a video by Bruce Lipton, "The Biology of Belief" this past week at the Taos public library. IONS is devoted to the exploration of the intersection between spirituality and science; often revealing the academic explanation for metaphysical phenomena. Bruce Lipton is a renown biologist and demonstrated in this 2 hour video how cellular biology supports what many in the "new age" postulate: that our lives are created by and through our beliefs rather predetermined by our DNA. I can't do justice to his lecture on how cells respond to energy in the environment; however suffice it to say that the all cellular activity is mediated thru the brain. It is our frontal lobe, corpus callosum, that makes judgments, discernments, and perceptions of our environment and this in large measure - except for the color of our eyes, hair, skin color - creates our health, attitude and longevity. As an example he flashed a slide of a half dozen women in the 60's and 70's dancing in a "broadway" style revue - all of whom looked at least 20 years younger than their chronological age. He argued that their vitality and health wss ensured due to their passion for dancing and their belief in their ability to continue to make the same moves they had in their younger years. The old adage, "use it or lose it" is a truism that most people accept. Anyone who has ever suffered from a broken bone or sprain can attest to the muscular atrophy that universally occurs due to lack of use. However, it may be a bigger leap to endorse the notion that we create our health and/or change the course of disease thur our beliefs and attitudes. He didn't of course say that we are guilty of our own cancers, accidents or injuries; however, he did say that we can play a "huge" role in our recovery and dismissed the concept of fate/a doctor's prognosis in determining our lives.

As I mentioned in earlier posts I recently cut my left hand and had subsequent surgery to ostensibly repair the nerve. As it turns out the nerve was fine and the surgery was probably unnecessary. The doctor in the ER impressed upon me the seriousness of the injury and the urgent need to schedule an appt with a hand surgeon - as soon as the surgeon saw me - he recommended surgery with the caveat being that if I didn't have surgery I might never regain full use of my hand. I got caught up in their urgency, fear(of malpractice most likely)and imbued authority and against my inner belief (my intuition told me I would be fine and that it would simply take awhile to have full feeling back in my fingers)and followed their recommendations.... Now I have a much bigger scar on my hand and it is much stiffer and sore than it was previously. I don't blame the doctors; I consciously decided to adopt their beliefs at the time - in contradiction to what my inner self knew.
This lesson seems to keep coming up for me - in costly (both financially and emotionally)ways - the latest one has cost fulfilling the @2000 deductible for my insurance as well as dealing with more impairment than I had originally. Discerning the difference between internal and external beliefs/judgments/opinions will be the subject of another blog.....