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As beliefs control our lives, then how to change our self-limiting beliefs to achieve the desired result. What are the control means available with each of us, then this critical piece of knowledge is for you. It covers the biology of our body cells, the environmental effects on them, how mind is different from brain, the synergy between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind with a lot of real-life examples. Earlier also, I had given reference to Bruce Lipton from his life-changing book titled The Biology of Belief.
Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.: The Jump From Cell Culture to Consciousness
Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., cell biologist, and lecturer, is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. Bruce was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and later performed groundbreaking stem cell research at Stanford Medical School. His pioneering research on cloned human stem cells presaged today’s revolutionary new field of epigenetics. He is the bestselling author of The Biology of Belief and The Honeymoon Effect, and he is the co-author, with Steve Bhaerman, of Spontaneous Evolution. Bruce received the prestigious Goi Peace Award (Japan) in honor of his scientific contribution to world harmony.
IMCJ: How do the conscious and subconscious minds work together?
Dr. Lipton: I could look at my life and I say, “I want my conscious mind to run my life; that would be really great. Behavior would be controlled by wishes, desires, and aspirations, and I should be able to manifest it.” Well, here is the interesting conundrum: What happens when the conscious mind is engaged and not focusing on the world?
For example, Craig, what are you doing on Sunday at 2:00 PM? If you are going to answer that question, recognize that you have to take your conscious mind away from observing the world around you. It must go inside your head and look for the answer. Because the answer to “What are you going to do in the future?” is locked in some calendar inside your head. When you are thinking, the conscious mind has to go inside to process the information. Wait, if you are driving your vehicle, your biology is using the conscious mind. Then I start thinking, “Then who is controlling the vehicle at that moment?”
In the moment that the conscious mind is engaged in thinking, all functions are taken over by the habits stored in the subconscious mind. By definition, subconscious means “below consciousness.” That means I can continue walking down the street while my conscious mind is internally engaged in thought. As I am walking, I am not going to walk into a tree or fall off the curve because my subconscious mind functions as an autopilot.
I can either use my conscious mind to create my life or if my conscious mind gets engaged in thinking or focusing on something, my life is taken over by the autopilot: the subconscious. On autopilot, the behavior that is going to be expressed comes from programs that were already downloaded into my mind. Here comes where the rubber hits the road on this. Before you create consciousness in your life, you have to have programs in your subconscious to give you a parallel story.
Consider that I go to the Apple Store and I am interested in buying a brand-new iPod. I am so excited; I got this new device. I get it out of the box and on the front of the iPod is something called the touch screen. This is where you have conscious control over the program. On the touch screen, I push play, and nothing happens.
Now I am really upset because I just spent all this money on a damned iPod and it does not work. There is this little 5-year-old kid standing next to me, looking up at me like I am an idiot. “Hey mister,” he says, “you can’t play any music until you download some music.” I say, “Oh yeah, there is a hard drive in the iPod.” You can put programs and music in the hard drive and then once you have these programs, you can use the touch screen to be creative with them.
The conscious mind is the touch screen. The conscious mind is creative. I can imagine things and I can do all these things, but the conscious mind cannot work if there is no program in the subconscious mind. This is why the first part of our lives, from the last trimester of pregnancy through the first 7 years of our lives, our brains are functioning at a lower vibration, as determined by electroencephalograph, or EEG. The brain predominantly operates in vibration or frequency called theta for the first 7 years. Theta is a frequency lower than consciousness. Theta is actually a brain function associated with imagination.
Think about it. A kid under 7 years of age is riding a broom as a horse. In the mind of the child, that is not a broom anymore; that’s an actual horse. The kid can visualize being on a physical horse, riding it around when it is only a broom. That is theta; that is imagination. If the mother says, “Give me the broom back,” the child thinks, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about; this is a horse.” That is the character of theta. Theta is also hypnosis.
The relevance is that consciousness as a brain function, expressed as alpha EEG activity, does not really kick in until about age 7. If you do not have any data on the hard drive, you have nothing to be conscious of. Your biology provides the first 7 years as a download period. When you get to age 7, your consciousness then can have access to these programs and create a life from them. Just like I cannot create music playlists on my iPod until I download some music, first.
The issue is that the fundamental programs in our subconscious mind did not come from our personal wishes, our desires, or our spiritual quest. The first programs that come into our minds go into the subconscious mind as downloads via hypnosis in the theta period. But where did those programs come from? Observing others. Observing our mothers, our fathers, our siblings, and our communities in the first 7 years is how we acquire the behaviors to become a member of the family and a member of the community. These behaviors do not reflect our wishes and desires; they are just copied from other people.
Here is the problem: The subconscious programs do not necessarily reflect or support my own wishes or my desires for health, happiness, and love. These things may not be in those programs I downloaded from other people. Then you say, “Okay, I’m not going to default to those programs. I’m just going to operate my life with my conscious mind.”
That is a wonderful intention. Scientific assessments reveal that the wishes, desires, and aspirations of our creative conscious minds only control cognitive behavior about 5% of the time. Subconscious programs are in control 95% of our lives. Why should that be? The answer goes back to, “Hey, Craig, what are you doing on Sunday?” That means your conscious, creative mind is now going inward-looking for some answer in thought. At the same time, because it is going inward, it is not paying attention to what is going on on the outside. That is when the autopilot subconscious kicks in and controls our behavior.
Of the downloaded behaviors acquired before age 7, the vast majority—70% or more—are programs of limitation, disempowerment, and self-sabotage. These programs were acquired from other people, not from ourselves. Again, being subconscious, these programs are occurring without conscious recognition and awareness. Therefore, though we have the perception in our mind that we are controlling our lives with our wishes and desires, the truth is far from that. Since thought causes 95% of our cognitive behavior to be controlled by the subconscious—ie, below the conscious—mind’s “invisible” behaviors, we struggle to manifest our conscious mind’s wishes and desires.
IMCJ: How does this interplay affect genetics?
Dr. Lipton: Becoming aware of the subconscious source of our behavior gives us an opportunity to change our lives by rewriting the programs of limitation or the things that interfere with us. If we change those programs, we are empowered; free to express the wishes and desires of the conscious mind. This is really what the whole new biology is all about. Take us away from, “You are a victim of life,” to introducing the fact that we are the creators of our life. Our consciousness is the source of the great potential of creating heaven on Earth.
We must leave behind the notion of the victim and recognize the new science of epigenetics—the science of mind over genes—in order for us to regain power and create the lives we would like.
Articles from Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal are provided here courtesy of InnoVision Media
