Bruce Lipton on Understanding Yourself, Genetics, Beliefs and Breaking Free from Your Subconscious!

Bruce Lipton's speech is profound, but let's cut right to the heart of the message. You are not a victim of your genes. You're the architect of your life. That's powerful. We've been conditioned to believe that our biology is our destiny. Our DNA controls us, and there's very little we can do about it. But that's not true. Lipton is saying that your thoughts, belief, and environment directly shape your biology. You're not stuck in some predetermined path just because it runs in the family. The real takeaway here? Your mind is the driver of your life, not your DNA. That shift from thinking of yourself as a passive passenger to realizing you're behind the wheel is what flips the entire game. It's about breaking free from those subconscious programs that have been holding you back since childhood. The ones that tell you you're not good enough, not smart enough, or that things just happen to you. What Lipton's really pushing is personal empowerment. If your beliefs and perception influence your health, happiness, and success, then why not change those beliefs? Stop living out someone else's script and start rewriting your own. He's challenged you to realize that the life you dream about is within reach, but only if you shift your perception and take conscious control of the thoughts and beliefs running the show. At the end of the day, you're a creator, not just some cog in a biological machine. Own that power, change your beliefs, and watch your life follow. Special thanks to Celebrate Your Life's Liz Dawn for partnering with us to release this exclusive speech from Bruce Lipton on our YouTube channel. Enjoy the video and believe.

I get very excited about this talk because, as you know, we're going through some very interesting times right now. There's an evolution that's facing you within the next few months, and one of the most important understandings about this evolution is that it's not a passive process for us. This evolution means that we all are actual participants. But to understand the nature of your participation, the first thing is to understand the nature of who you really are. Because we've been misprogrammed with a belief of our frailty and our vulnerability and that we're all, you know, just like afraid of all the things around us—viruses, bacteria, you know, don't eat Twinkies because that'll kill you as well. And so we always buy into this reality, and it turns out this is totally untrue. We are more powerful than anybody really wants to recognize. And the significance, for example, is you can walk across fire if you so intend to do. You can lift up a car, as many women have done, and many reports of women lifting up a car after a child is caught in under an accident of some kind, and it's like beyond even weightlifters can do that. Down south in the United States here, we have Baptist fundamentalists work up into a religious ecstasy state, and in that state of ecstasy they testify that God protects them. And in that testifying, some of them play with rattlesnakes and copperheads and things like that, very poisonous snakes, even get bitten, don't have a problem. But those are the little guys, because the ones that I am just amazed at is some of them testify that God protects them by drinking strychnine toxic doses and have no harmful effects. So, I mean, if you can drink poison and lift a car and walk across fire, and these are not genetically different people than you, they're the same as you, all of us can do this. The question is, why haven't we been able to do it? And the answer is, there's an issue about belief and perception of who you are. And I'll give you a phrase right now, and hopefully during the rest of the presentation it will start to filter in, because It's a simple phrase, but it means so much. It's so profound. And the phrase is this, because we're going to talk about how the mind influences our biology. Well, I'm going to give you a simple fact. The function— listen to this— the function of the mind is to create coherence between your beliefs and the reality that you experience. So in other words, whatever beliefs you are manifesting, your life will present them to you through the action of the mind. This becomes very critical because most of the beliefs that we acquired, especially in the first 6 years of our lives, have been beliefs of disempowerment. It's necessary to understand that this is very critical to understand how you can regain your power and then actually help lead us into the next level of evolution. I'm a cellular biologist, and in that cell biology understanding, it's very important I'll talk about cells. You say, "Well, cells are nice, but they're so distant from me." And I'm going to say, "Well, here's an interesting fact about this. When you look in the mirror and see yourself, you have a perception of being one single human entity looking back." And I go, "Well, yes, you are one human entity, but what is a human?" And here's the point: you are comprised of about 50 trillion cells. Why is this relevant? The answer is this: the cells are the living entities. You, by definition, are a community. So when I say Bruce, I'm talking for 50 trillion cells. It's the cells that are the living entity. And if you understand that, then you understand the nature of your community of cells that comprise you. And understanding the nature of cells is important because you and the cells are one and the same in this regard. And what's very interesting about this as well is while you look at all your human capacities and capabilities, and I could give you a human textbook of all the functional systems in a human, here's an interesting reality. Virtually every cell in your body has every function that you express, meaning every cell essentially has a digestive, respiratory, excretory system, a nervous system, reproductive system, musculoskeletal system, endocrine system, even an immune system. And why this becomes relevant for me to present this is to let you understand a simple fact that you and a cell share the exact same functions. I mean, it makes logical reason for this. It's like, how can you do something that cells can't do since you're made out of out of cells. So, when we start to look at cells as miniature people, really, we start to recognize that wherever you have an organ in your body, a cell has a structure, those things inside the cell that are called organelles. So, there's a one-to-one relationship. If I show you where the stomach is in the human, I can show you the organelles where the stomach is in the cell. So, talking about people, it's very interesting in this regard because when we talk about people, what we're talking about is just miniature humans and they live in a society. And then all of a sudden I said, "Well, how's your society doing inside?" And then I would then come and tell you, as we're going to conclude, how's your government of your society? When the government is working in harmony with the community, then the community is healthy. When the government is antagonistic to the elements of the community, then the community falls apart. And then you say, "Well, who's the government or what's the government in your body?" And that's where it comes back to the mind. The mind is the voice of 50 trillion cells. They use that leadership to carry out their own lives, whatever's coming from the mind. Well, the interesting understanding for me is the cell biology, which I got into when I was really very young. I can remember in 1953, the newspaper that came to our house in New York always had a big photograph on the front and a big block letter headline. And this particular day in 1953, just before the summer, there was a report, and the whole newspaper, the front of the entire newspaper read, "Secret of Life Discovered." And the secret of life Watson and Crick presented us with the nature of DNA, double helix, and the meaning of the genetic code. And when this was revealed to science, science just finally said, ah, we have completed the puzzle about how life works. DNA controls the heredity, the characteristics of biology, and we know the genetic code. So essentially biology had felt that it had complete understanding of how life works using this DNA model. Within a very short time, 5 years after the model was presented, A concept called the central dogma was created by Francis Crick, one of the co-founders of the DNA model. And this is, I have it like the Ten Commandments because essentially it is the equivalent of the Ten Commandments of biomedicine. It is the fundamental belief on which we built the entire health structure on. And what is it? Well, it's a belief that Francis Crick came up with that shows the flow of information. And the flow of information starts with the DNA, the genes, and then flows into RNA, which is a copy of the gene, and the RNA is a template to make the proteins of the body. So the sequence is DNA, RNA, and protein. The body's proteins are the building blocks of life, and we're going to talk about them. And the significance of this is that the body proteins not only provide for your structure, the body proteins provide for your function. So a simple statement comes down and says the characteristics of the proteins provide the characteristic traits of your life. So whatever proteins you assemble, create the life that you have. Well, why is this relevant? Well, when we talk about the flow of information, we talk about the flow that DNA is the source, it goes into RNA, and then it goes into protein. And the arrows go in one direction. You go, okay, what does this whole central dogma mean? And here's why it's important, because it's the basis of how we do medicine. And it says that you come from your DNA. The traits and characteristics are in the blueprints called the genes. That the blueprints are copied into something called RNA, which is the actual working blueprint to make the proteins, and from the RNA come the protein. You are the protein. You are the bottom of this flow of information. And you say, well, why is— what are you getting at here? And what I'm trying to say is this. Note the flow of arrows. The information goes only from DNA to RNA and protein. You say, well, what's relevant? And I go, you are the protein. That's your life. That's your body. And the significance is, according to our belief system, you cannot send information back to your genetics. And if that's an understanding, that makes a limitation on your ability to affect your life. If your life characteristics and experiences don't feed back to the DNA, then the flow is only from the DNA forward. And the relevance about that is we come to the belief that genes control life because the genes are the DNA at the top of the of the rung of this information flow. So we say, "Okay, you've got genes, they control your life, and you cannot influence your genes according to the process." And we built a medical model on this. This is what we were teaching in medical school back in those days, and basically said that your life is essentially based on you being a biochemical machine, biochemicals that are controlled by genes. And if you understand this to be true, then you say, "Well, what's the role of the medical community?" And the answer is to understand the nature of the biochemicals and the genes. Why? Because they can help you. I say, "What do you mean they can help you?" Well, then I go to this picture and I say, "This is a cover of Life magazine, 'Were You Born That Way?'" And what does it represent? It says we bought into a belief that the genes determine not just our structural physical characteristics, but they also influence our behavior, our emotions, and the general demeanor of our lives. And then this concept is called genetic determinism. Genes determine the character of your life. Well, why is that relevant to this story? And the answer is this: as far as we know, you didn't pick the genes you came with. As far as we know. And if you don't like the genes that you have or the life that you're experiencing, you can't change the genes. And all of a sudden you realize also from the central dogma, you cannot send information back to affect the genes. Well, what does that mean? Well, since the genes control your life and you have zero influence over the genes, that makes you a victim. A victim of heredity. You know, it's running in your family. You say, you know, your boss is saying, well, you know, Bruce, you're a very slow and lazy worker. And I go, no, excuse me, boss. I want you to know that my grandfather was a sloth and my father, he was lazy too. And I can't help this. This is the consequence of my genetics. Well, it sounds kind of funny, but yet most people in some sense put the character attributes of their life onto this this genetic control, which then leads us to be irresponsible. Not by intention, but by the fact that if you can't do anything about it, then what can you do? Just live and enjoy with whatever you got and try to get by. So we teach this concept of victim. Now, here's an interesting understanding. If you believe you're a victim, what do you need? You need a rescuer. You need someone to come in your life and help you. So what does that mean? You feel yourself as being powerless in this, but you must find a professional who will interface your life for you to make your life better because you acquire this victim status. Well, here's a very interesting fact. The concept is called the central dogma. That's what it said. I taught it for 15 years in medical school, and not until I actually got out of the medical community did I actually look up the definition. Of the word dogma. And I said, dogma, the definition means a truth based on religious persuasion and not scientific fact. And all of a sudden I realized, my God, I've been teaching the central dogma all these years. I've been teaching religion instead of medicine. For the simple reason is this: the central dogma was never a scientific fact. It was a hypothesis. Because everyone believed that there was going to be a chemical that was going to control biology. When DNA got plugged into the equation, everyone just said, "Oh my God, we found it! That's what controls life!" And so when it was published in 1958 by Francis Crick, it was called a hypothesis. But everyone believed in it so much that they never did the experiments to actually prove it was right. It was just an assumption. And you know the meaning of assume. Well, all of us got hit with that meaning of assume because it turns out it was never scientifically correct, but it was repeated in the books year after year after year. And why is it relevant? Well, 20 years down the road, did this next generation of people reading the central dogma in the book know that it wasn't true? No, because it's in the textbook, must be true. And then it was 30 years and 40 years and 50 years, and at some point people started to say, this was never a scientific reality, it was a hypothesis, and now we know it's totally false. And why is that relevant? Because the concept of you being a victim is totally false, and that's why we have to understand the nature of how it works. But you buy into this story, and this is the problem, because the media encourages this story. The more victim you are, the more the rescuer can sell you things to fix you up. And so we are always being disenfranchised from our power to believe that we are so frail. I mean, I love this Newsweek article, "When Fat Attacks." Basically, what's the subtitle? How fat cells are waging war on your health. It's like, wait a minute, what's the belief system here? Even your own cells want to kill you. And it's like, we're just so victim, you know? We're victim of everything. And I just love it because the media, and especially the pharmaceutical industry, encourages your victimization. And I just love to show this. This is an ad that was on a drug called Liposyn. This is the most amazing ad I've ever heard. Yet, if you really read into the lines in between these ads, you can see they're all fake. But I love this one, so I'm going to play this one for you. It's a drug, Liposine, and I'll make a comment or two.

Does it seem like no matter what you do, you just can't get rid of excess body fat? It's not your fault. Many of us have simply given up the hope to lose weight.

Body fat builds over our midsection, on top of the muscle underneath the skin, and over the years, It gets worse. Body fat increases from having kids, stress at work, lack of exercise, and poor diet. The Obesity Research Institute has found the solution.

It's called Liposyn. Miracle! What's even more amazing is that people were not asked to change their daily lives. It's so easy. Just take Liposyn. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your It's not your fault.

And the joke is on us. Because as they were saying it's not your fault, they listed what was the cause. So let's see what the causes are. Poor diet. Now I know that's not your fault. I mean, poor diet is not your fault, okay? Lack of exercise. Well, that has nothing to do with you. So don't worry about it, you're a victim. Stress at work. Don't, don't, you know, again, you're just a victim, the victim, the victim. And the fact is, what did they say? Don't change your life, just take the drugs. And the idea is, if your life, which is based on this, is causing the problem, then what does this obviously mean? It means that you are a victim of your belief system, that you're a victim, and that they will sell you these drugs by encouraging you not to be healthy. Because if you become healthy, then who needs to buy the drugs? And you say, "Well, why is all this happening?" The answer is very clearly this: it's Big Pharma. Pharma makes money because you think you're a victim and they sell you drugs, and they're also one of the leading causes of death in the United States. 300,000 people die every year from taking pharmaceutical drugs by prescription. And right away I would find that a little bit horrible. But here's the other problem: when they run out of The conventional diseases, what does the pharmaceutical company do? It's disease mongering. They spread a fear and then they sell you a treatment. And I'm unfortunately going to have to just put into this, off the record in front of everybody, the swine flu is such a thing happening for us right now. It's disease mongering. And the relevance about this, and I'm going to show you this slide, and this is not a joke. I want to emphasize the next slide is not a joke. There's an actual, in the psychological handbook of diseases, it's a healthy food obsession. There's a new eating disorder. What is it called? There it is down there. Orthorexia nervosa. And I'm sure as hell, this is not a joke, but I bet you more than half of you are legally having a neurological eating disorder. I'm sure, without even asking you why. Because what is the meaning of it? And the answer, as it says, is— let's see, well, I'll just read it off. It says, "Orthorexia nervosa sufferers," listen to this, "like to focus on righteous eating and have rigid rules about avoiding certain foods." Now, if you have a rigid rule about not eating a Twinkie because it's not good for you, then legitimately you have a neurological disorder according to the psychiatrist. And they have a drug for that too, I'm sure. So the relevance about all this is, well, what is this whole story about genes? Well, genes apparently control the traits. Okay, cool. But inside the cell there's a structure, a larger structure, the red structure in the center of my picture here called the nucleus, and it's an organelle, meaning small organ. Its function is it contains essentially all the genes. Well, why is that relevant? Well, if the genes control life and essentially your genome is in that thing called the nucleus, then by definition the nucleus is the organelle that controls the functions of the cell. This is what they say in the textbooks, OK? It's still in there. The nucleus controls the functions. I say, well, that's really interesting. What does it also mean? Well, it means that the nucleus must represent the equivalent of some human organ. So then I would say, well, in your human body, what human organ is it that controls the functions of your body? And the answer is? The answer is the brain. So the nucleus represents the brain of the cell. And that's what they say in the textbooks. So it's a given. The nucleus is the brain of the cell. And then I say, well, really? And I go like this. Well, if the nucleus controls the functions and the nucleus represents the cell's brain, then here's a fact. If you remove the brain from an organism, the immediate consequence of that action is the organism dies. That makes sense. Take the brain, throw it away. The organism dies. Then I say, "Okay, go into a cell, remove the nucleus from the cell." It's a process called enucleation. I used to do it a lot in my own research. Here's the surprising consequences. You can remove the nucleus, which means removing the genes, and what happens to the cell? Absolutely nothing happens to the cell. The cell still lives, still carries on the same behavior that it has. Many cells can live for 2 or more months with no genes in it. And it's during this time, it's not just sitting there, it's eating and digesting food, breathing, moving around, communicating with other cells, avoiding toxins or parasites in the field. So I'm saying the cell has a life for at least 2 months in many cases with no genes in it and no nucleus in it. Well then how legitimate can the belief be that the nucleus is the brain of the cell? It can't be the brain of the cell. The cell still has a brain coordinating its functions when there are no genes in it. So the first big mistake is Saying that genes control your life. And this is the big error. And then I said, well, yeah, but what do genes do? I mean, obviously the nucleus is a giant structure in there. I said, what is the function of the nucleus? Well, I said, ah, it has the genes. I said, yeah, but what are the genes? They are the blueprints to make the proteins of the body. I go, that's cool. So I say, when do I need the genes? When I need to replace a protein, I need to have the gene blueprint. So I say, oh cool. So I say, then what's the function? Well, the function of the genes is to reproduce the proteins of the cell as well as reproducing the whole cell. And then all of a sudden I say, well wait, if that's the function of the genes in the nucleus, then what organ does the nucleus represent? And the answer is the gonad. And so rather than the brain, the nucleus of the cell is reproduction gonad. And I've said this for years, but it's still absolutely true. Science is a male-dominated profession. And since males apparently think with that organ, making the brain of the cell that organ automatically fit. But the reality is it is a reproduction organ. So I'm going to give you a fact. This is an absolute fact. And the fact is this. Genes do not control biology. Control is an active process. If I said there's a light switch on the wall and the light switch, when you turn it on and off, turns the lights on and off, and somebody will say, yep, the light switch controls the light. And I would say, that's not really true. Why? Because if we all leave the room and the light switch is in here, is the light going to go on and off if the light switch decided it wanted to go on and off? And the answer is no. You have to have somebody activate the light switch. Well, guess what? Genes are patterns and blueprints but they're not self-actualizing. They can't turn themselves on and off. Why? Because a gene is a blueprint. And you go, "Well, give me some more meaning." So I say, "Okay, look. Go to an architect's office. The architect is working on a blueprint. You lean over her shoulder and you go, 'Excuse me, is your blueprint on or off?'" And she would look at you and go like, "What are you talking about? There's no on and off to a blueprint. It's a blueprint." And I'm going, Exactly! Genes do not have an on and off. Genes are blueprints. Relevance is very, very important because a blueprint does not read itself. If a blueprint could read itself, then the architect would only have to go by the building site, throw the blueprints into the lot, drive away, and come back in a couple of months and the building would be there because the genes would have controlled it. And yet we talk about that as like a reality in your life. Oh yes, your genes controlled your life. And it's like, No, they didn't. They're potentials, but they're blueprints. They're not self-actualizing, meaning it cannot turn itself on or off. There is no on and off. So anytime you read that a gene controls something, you're reading a mistake. Genes are contributing to the expression of something, but in control? No, they don't control. And so this becomes important because the first thing to do is get back the belief that the genes are controlling you because it turns out there's a contractor that reads the genes in your body. The contractor? The mind. The mind is the contractor. And therefore the genes are really related to the perceptions of the individual. So, I go back and say we have a model, that biochemical machine controlled by genes, medicine operates by this way, but guess what? This model is totally incorrect. Genes control nothing, so we must put in a new model to replace this version. Where did I get information from this? Well, I was working on stem cells. Important point, all of you have stem cells. Every one of you has stem cells. The reason why I can say that, if you're here and alive, you've got stem cells. And you say, well, what do you mean? I say, well, here's a fact. I said you're made out of 50 trillion cells. And every day you can lose 100 billion cells to attrition. 100 billion cells are aging and dying. Every 3 days the entire Your entire digestive tract lining is replaced. Billions of cells. Where do they come from? Your blood cells are dying and turning over all the time. Your skin cells are dying and turning over. Your hair cells, in my case I have to talk to them because they died but they forgot to turn over again. But that's something the contractor will have to work with on that. Well, why is this relevant? Because at some point we also bought into the belief that you have stem cells and they don't really work. And that we need to give it to the pharmaceutical company and let them do a lot of research on stem cells so that we will be able to work with our stem cells. And I'm thinking, just be logical for one second. Do you think God gave you stem cells only to hold on to them until the pharmaceutical company figured out how to use them? Well, obviously you have stem cells and they work. How do they work and why don't they work is a better question. And that was my opportunity to get involved. Because I was cloning stem cells in 1967. 42 years ago I was cloning them. What does that mean? Well, in cloning stem cells, I would take stem cells out of an individual. I was working with animals and humans. And I'd take a stem cell out and put one stem cell in a Petri dish, just one. And when I put that one stem cell in the dish, it would divide every 10 hours. So 10 hours, there was 2 cells. 20 hours, 4 cells. 30 hours, 8 cells. So it kept doubling and doubling. 2 weeks, I have thousands of cells in the Petri dish. Yes, but what's important about the experiment? And the answer is this. Although I have thousands of cells in the dish, guess what? They're all genetically identical. Why? They came from the same parent cell. So I have a clone of 1,000 genetically identical cells. And I said, yeah, but what was my experiment though? Now that was the wake-up part. What I did is go to my cell dish with my stem cells. I would take out a bunch of those cells from my culture dish and put it into another Petri plate with a different environment. And for the cells, the environment is the culture medium. The culture medium to their environment is the same as air, water, food to our environment, but cells live in a fluid environment. And they live in this environment and I create a different environment with different chemicals and guess what? The cells that I put in that dish turn into muscle. And then I, here's the experiment fun, I go back to the very same source dish with the stem cells, take more cells out, put them in yet a second dish with a different environment, and the cells form bone. I go, wait, wait, not finished yet. Go back to the original source dish, take more stem cells out, put it into a third Petri dish with a different environment, they form fat. And then the big question now, and you don't have to be a rocket engineer to get this one, but here's the question. Controls the fate of the cells? The environment. Absolutely. They were all genetically identical, so the only thing that was different was the environment. The cells become a complement to the environment that they live in. And this is very relevant for this. Listen to this. I take a healthy dish of cells and put it into an environment that is not that healthy. And I can tell you, you can watch them. The cells will start to actually get sick physically. You can see them getting sick. The cells will actually begin to die. And the cultures will inevitably crash. And I say, well, what drugs should I give my cells? And the answer is absolutely no drugs. Just take the dish from the bad environment, put it back into the good environment, the cells will automatically recover their health again. So it's not like liposine, just keep it that way and take the drug. No, it's like don't keep it that way, change the environment and don't take the drug. That's really what the, the answer to the whole understanding is. People say, well, how do cells work? Well, this is the fun part because I'm going to give you a little bit of mechanistic approach. And the significance is if you understand the mechanism, then you can become a master of the mechanism if you understand how it works. So I said, well, what's the first thing? The first thing is this. I said cells are made out of protein building blocks. They're like the building supplies. It's like going to a Home Depot building store or Lowe's building store and they have all the racks of parts. And you can build anything you want. You can go into the electric department, buy boxes and switches and wires and all the things and create anything you want. Well, the proteins are the building blocks, and when you assemble them, they create the structure called the cell, and then the cells collectively create the structure of the body. There are over 150,000 different proteins. So each protein is different. And why is each protein different? So biochemically, let me illustrate it. Is actually a string of amino acids, just like all those pop-it beads right there. But there are 20 different amino acids, so each protein has a different sequence of amino acids. Well, when you use pop-it beads, I would show two different strands with two different sequences of beads representing two different sequences of amino acids. But they all look the same. And I say, well, that's because the model falls apart here. And the model falls apart for this reason. In the popit bead model, all the amino acids look exactly the same except for the color is different. And I go, no, each amino acid has its own shape. So now all of a sudden here's a big question, big quiz question. How many different shapes of amino acids are there? Look at the number on the screen. 20. 20, okay? So I can assemble a different sequence of amino acids that have a different shape. So let me show it to you in a different way. Here are 3 amino acids in a popit bead configuration, but they all look the same. I say, no. It's more realistic to see the amino acid as having different shapes. So I say instead of pop-it beads, I'll use these pipe fittings. I have 3 different shapes. And that's 3 out of 20. So there's 17 other shapes I'm not talking about. I say now what if I assemble these pop-it bead pipes together, what would it look like? And I would say it looks like that. It's a sequence. It's like pop-it beads, but now there's a rigid shape to it. And here's the most important question. If you can imagine this in your mind, here it goes. If I disassemble the pipe fittings as you see them on the screen, I disassemble them and reassemble them in a different sequence, will I get the same shape, yes or no? No. Okay, now you understand protein chemistry. What is it? 150,000 different shapes because there's 150,000 different sequences of amino acids, okay? So basically it says I have 150,000 different parts. When the string is made, like the pop-it bead string, It's made like a linear string like this. What I'm going to show you is a, this is actually a molecular reconstruction of what happens after the string is made. It doesn't just sit still like a piece of string. It actually moves and folds up into a shape. I'll just tell you there are patterns that occur in proteins that biochemists call ribbons and helices. And so when you see the string, they're going to put like ribbons with arrows on them and helices as it folds up. Folds up. But this is what happens, and here's how fast this happens. It happens in about a ten-thousandth of one second. So what you're going to see happens in one ten-thousandth of a second. The protein starts to assemble by itself. It's moving around. Nobody's touching it. It's all assembling. And it starts to form a pattern and it ties itself up into a wire sculpture. In this case, the yellow ribbons are there and they're helices as well. But why is this relevant? A protein will assemble itself into a structure. That's what it's saying. So when I look at different proteins like this, I say, oh, these are different proteins. I say, yeah, but where's the shape come from? I say, ah, underneath that calm exterior, there's a backbone with helices and ribbons that give it the unique shape. So each protein has its own unique shape. So how does it work? I say, can you imagine this wind-up watch working where the gears would move? So gear A turns this way, gear B turns that way, gear C turns that way. I say, can you in your mind visualize this moving? Say yes or no. Yes. Thank you for saying yes. OK, why is it relevant? Because this is a man-made metal machine. I say, wait, replace the gears with proteins. So I blow up the proteins to extremely large size, of course. I replace the gears with proteins. But then I ask you a question. Can you imagine the proteins as gears so that when one protein moves, it turns the other protein, turns the other proteins? I say, well, if you can imagine that, They say, "Let's get rid of all the man-made parts." And I say, "Well, here's a bunch of 3-protein gears right here. Can you imagine one protein turning and then the other one turning and the other one turning?" Well, that's exactly how systems work in biology. The functional systems in your body—respiration, digestion, excretion, whatever the functions are—are due to proteins with different structures engaging like a machine and moving. The word pathway is just a descriptive word to say a group of proteins that carry out a function. So if I said respiratory pathway, it would mean, oh, a group of proteins that when they interact and move create respiration. I say digestive pathway, they go, oh, a group of proteins when they interact and move create digestion. So basically they're protein mechanisms inside that create the functions. Yeah, but if the gears are just gears and they don't move, then nothing is going to happen. And so the relevance is, where does life come from? And this is the big issue. Where does life come from? And what do I mean by life? Movement. Where does the movement come from? And here's the fun part. Remember that protein as it folded up and changed shape and then assembled? If you change the environmental information, like the pH, whether it's acid or base, or you put charges like ions, like calcium or sodium, into the field, the electrical changes in the field cause the protein to unfold and refold in a different direction. So basically it says when you change the environmental, what we call signals, the signals cause the protein to restructure themselves. Well, that movement that you see changing from one shape to the other shape, that movement is harnessed by the cell to do the functions of life— digestion, movement, nerve function. They're all related to proteins changing shape. Well, how does it work? Well, here are protein gears. From the environment are signals. Signals are like keys that plug into the proteins which act as lock. So it says different gears require different signals. So one signal can activate digestion. Another signal can activate respiration. Another signal can activate muscle contraction. How does it work? Well, I say no behavior, no behavior, no behavior, boom! Once the signal binds to the protein, it causes the protein to change shape, and in changing shape movement occurs, and movement is the force of life. So if the signal goes away and the proteins stop and I say, I want this function to go again, what must I do? Add another signal. Yeah, the moment I add another signal, once it binds, lock and key, the gears start working again and the function goes. So you control your functions through the control of the signals. At some point. So I show you an example. These are 3 different proteins with different signals. So annexin has a nice little twisty head movement like that, you know. Dehydrogenase is a very polite bow. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Like that. And calmodulin is very deep. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And you say, yeah, each protein does these little movements. I say, well, where does life come from? Integrating all these movements in a sequence create the functions of life. So I'll show you an example. This is a protein called kinesin. It looks like two pipe cleaners twisted together in a helix. And at the bottom of each pipe cleaner is a foot. And what happens is the foot is protein, that's the blue part, and there's a structure at the bottom called the microtubule, which I'll show you in a second, which is like a railroad track. And when the foot touches a railroad track, the foot being a protein touches the other protein, that's a signal. It causes the protein to change shape. And watch what happens. When it does that, there's a trailing foot and a leading foot. So the leading foot is, it shows red. The trailing foot would be in yellow, a yellow bond. So all of a sudden the one touches, changes shape, becomes a trailing foot. The next one touches, is now the leading foot. But now that it touches, a chemical reaction occurs, changes the shape, and now that becomes the trailing foot. The other one is the leading foot. And that, as it touches, changes shape, causes a change again in shape, so the trailing foot becomes the leading foot. And you say, well, what's going on? Well, the thing's walking. And I say, yeah, but what's it doing? Well, at the other end of the string up here, the helix, it carries the product. This is how things are moved through the cell. One protein is walking on the other protein carrying a protein as it walks. So basically, you say, well, How does life work? 150,000 different kinds of little machines like that together create the function of life. So now you understand the whole nature of how life works. I can summarize it for you in a very simple slide. You are a protein mechanism. Your structure, your physical structure, and your behavior is due to protein. What interacts with a protein to cause it to change shape? Signal. And where do you think the signals come from? The environment, the field in physics, the field, but it's the environment. Well, medicine says, yeah, the signals are chemicals because medicine is a Newtonian science based on chemistry. It says all signals are chemicals or drugs. So a drug is a signal. Buy drugs, change the signaling of your body. And I say, okay, cool, but the new physics, quantum physics says the most effective signals are energy vibrations, not chemistry. So that energy vibration, such as consciousness from your mind, is more powerful as a signal than as a chemical. And it gives us this concept of a vital force, an energy that runs through your body to give you life, a vital force of energy controlling the movement of the proteins. So I say, okay, what happens when a signal binds to the protein? When a signal binds to the protein, it causes the protein to move. The movement is called behavior. So I say, what controls your behavior? And you're going to have to say there's only two things: A, the proteins, and B, the signals that cause them to move. So I say, now here comes the interesting part. What if you have a disease? Well, what does a disease mean? It's not functioning right. And I say, okay, the behavior is not functioning right, I have a disease. But here's the fun part. What can I attribute the disease to? And why is it a fun part? Well, there are only two things on the equation. Either the protein has got to be bad if there's a disease or the signal has to be affected. Those are the only two things. Well, let me tell you something about the protein. You can have defective proteins, but here's the point. Less than 5% of the population, closer to 2.5% of the population, can legitimately say, "My life is impacted in a negative way because I have a bad protein." I say, how come you have a bad protein? The answer is birth defects where I have an alteration of my genetics and the protein I create from my gene doesn't exactly work. And I say, well, people do have this problem. But I said, yeah, but less than 3% of the population. What relevance is this? Well, that means 97% or more of the population has no excuse that their proteins are defective if they have a disease. Well, then all of a sudden I say, well, if the proteins aren't defective, then what would be the cause of a disease? And if any of the members of the 97% of the population have an illness or sickness, I say, what could cause that disease? And the answer is, well, it's not the protein because those people have good proteins. It has to be the signal. I say, yeah, well, then what can affect the signal and cause a disease? And here's the fun part. Only 3 things. So we simplify life really quickly right here and say, okay, If you got here with good genes, 97% or more, and you have a disease, then it's through the signal. I said, well, how can you interfere with the signal and cause a disease? And there's 3 things. Trauma. If I fall off this podium, wrench my back, and interfere with my nervous transmission, then the signaling through my body is interfered with and my functions are interfered with. Does that make sense? Okay. Here's the other one. Toxins. If you put chemistry in your body that doesn't conduct the signal appropriately, then a distorted chemistry will cause a distortion a distortion of the signal, there's a distortion of the function. Does that make sense? Okay. So, trauma and toxins are two that we focus on, but it turns out the third one is the most important cause of disease in the world today, and that's thought. It has nothing to do with anything physically wrong with your body at all. Thought means that if you send the wrong signal to the system, then the system makes a response to that, but it was the wrong signal, then you're going to create an out-of-balance situation which will lead to a disease. So I'll give you a very simple example. If we had an anorexic person, I would bring this person up to the front of the stage. Everyone would look and go, "Huh, that person's skin and bones and near death." I say, "Wow, yeah." And I say to the anorexic, I say, "When you look in the mirror, what do you see?" They say, "Oh, when I look in the mirror, I see an overweight, bloated person." I say, "Ah, so your signal that you have perceived in your mind is that you're overweight. Are you really overweight?" The answer is, "No, it's a distortion." "Yeah, but does the brain know it's a distortion? Does the body know?" "No, it's just responding to the signal." So, an anorexic who believes they're overweight will send signals to the body to do what? Reduce the weight. And then that person may die. And I say, "Well, what was wrong with them?" The answer was, well, absolutely, physically nothing was wrong with them. It was a distortion of the signal. And so that's just an example to say if your signals are not in harmony with the life you're leading, then your signals could detract from your health and your vitality by making you function out of sequence with the world that you live in. That's basically what it's all about. So it says the 3 causes: trauma, toxins, but the most important cause of disease is the mind. Because the mind can send signals that are incorrect, and in sending those incorrect signals, the mind can cause a disease. So I say, well, what controls the cell? It's not that big red thing that we talk about in the textbooks, the nucleus that controls the cell, because we now know that's the gonad of the cell. So I say, well, what controls the cell? And the answer is the brain. Yeah, but where's the brain? And here's the fun part. The brain is the membrane. The skin of the cell. And it makes sense. I'll tell you why. The skin of an organism, be it the skin of the cell or the skin of you, is the barrier between the outside, not self, and the inside, self. So the skin as a barrier reads two different environments at the same time and in that position is able to reflect on what's going on in the world and what's going on in the body and make an adjustment. When I'm adding chemistry to my clonal culture dishes, what's going on in the culture? And the answer is, well, let's say, look at the chemistry like rain. Here's my cells in a Petri dish. I add chemicals and what happens? Ah, well, the chemistry falls in like rain. Some of the chemistry lands on the surface of the cell, becomes a signal when it lands on the skin. And in the place of landing on the skin where it's bound, The signal from the chemistry is translated into the cell and the signal can control the behavior inside the cell. And if I don't have the right proteins to carry out that behavior, well then the signal goes into the nucleus and the signal then activates the reading of the genes and when I activate the genes then I can make the proteins that are necessary for the behavior that I want. So the cell surface becomes this interface where environmental signals influence the fate of the cells. Well, in the surface there are about 50,000 switches. It's just like light switches, but the switches respond to different signals. So there are 50,000 different kinds of switches, but they're all basically the same kind of structure. They consist of two basic proteins built into the membrane. One protein is called a receptor. I don't have to be too scientific, but what do you think a receptor does? Receives. Receives. Do you have receptors? Give me the big receptors, the big ones. I'll say one, eyes. You ready? Ears, nose, taste, touch, temperature, pressure. Where are all the receptors that we're talking about that you have? On the skin. Ah, you and cells are images of each other. So when I'm talking about a cell, I could be talking about you in the same case. And what does it mean? There are receptors at the surface that respond to the environmental signals. Yeah, but how do I send the signal in the inside? And the answer is the second protein. The second protein is called an effector. And if a receptor is a receiver, an effector makes an effect. And the effect it is, it sends a signal inside the cell to coordinate the functions of what's going on. So how does it work? Well, environmental signals show up. They cause the antenna on the receptor to, like a tuning fork, to respond to the signal. What happens when a signal binds to the protein? Hurry. You forgot. The protein changes shape. So when a signal shows up, the receptor couples via the green protein, a processor, to the effector. And then the effector changes shape. And when the effector changes shape, this one is called a channel, it opens up and sends a signal inside the cell. And that becomes a biological signal like a key to cause one of the functions inside to be turned on and off. This is a generic switch. How does it work? Well, let's look at it dynamically. The receptor on the left with the antenna, the effector on the right. This is the equivalent of the channel. I say, well, how does it work? I say, well, you want to connect the switch, you have to connect it with the green protein, the processor. And I say, well, look, here comes the processor. Look at the shape of the processor and look at the shape of the receptor. They don't fit, so I can't activate the switch. But when a signal comes from the environment, it changes the shape of the receptor, allows the processor to couple, change the shape of the channel, and that sends a signal into the cell to control respiration, digestion, excretion, whatever the functions are inside the cell. So this is a switch. When the signal goes away, the receptor goes back to the original shape and the switch doesn't work. If you want to turn that function back on, you need a signal to come from the environment that would cause the receptor to change the shape again. And when a receptor changes shape, just watch it one more time, the bottom of the blue receptor, when a signal shows up, here it is, receptor changes shape, couples to the channel which changes shape, in this case opening, and sending a signal inside the cell to control the function. And when the environmental signal goes away, the protein goes back to the original shape and the switch is broken. That is how all switches work, 50,000 different versions in your body. This is an illustration from a modern textbook and it deals with something new called signal transduction. You say, what does that big word mean? It says how you convert an environmental signal into a biological response. So the image is an illustration showing the pathways of where signals go through the cell. So a signal shows up at the surface and activates the switch. The switch sends a signal inside which activates the next protein, which then activates the next protein, which then activates another protein. And every time you activate a protein, you cause it to move, and the movement of a protein generates behavior.

My name is Liz Dawn, and I'm with Celebrate Your Life Events. And the presentation that you've been listening to was recorded live at one of our Celebrate Your Life conferences. And this program was created exclusively for Evan's audience, and I'm super thrilled to share this information with you. So come check us out, take a look at all of our retreats and programs and conferences that we have to offer. Click the link below, and hopefully I'll see you in person. All right, now let's get back to the presentation.

So the cell creates behavior by responding to the signals. Interesting fact, if I cut the receptors off the surface of the cell, The cell has no behavior. No behavior. And yet once the receptors are back on the surface of the cell, the cell responds. And so there's a logic statement in there and it says what controls the behavior of the cell? The answer is the signals from the environment because if there are no signals coming in, there's no behavior. So you are a reflection of how you respond to the environment. Well, sometimes the signals from the cytoplasm will go into the nucleus. And in the nucleus, they bind to the proteins on what is called the chromosome, and that's how they regulate gene activity. This is a new specialized area of information. Let me tell you the name of it: epigenetic control. If there's nothing else you learn from today, listen to this. I taught, and you were programmed, with a belief called genetic control. What does that literally mean? Genetic control means control by genes. And that's what we teach. The new science is called epigenetic control. And it is a revolution because the whole thing is turned upside down. Let me tell you what the prefix epi means. Epi means above. So when I say epidermis, that means the skin, which is the layer above the dermis. Now I say epigenetic control. What does it mean? Listen. Control above the genes. And all of a sudden it says, no, the genes had no control. It's epigenetic control. And what is epigenetic control? How environmental signals control genetic activity. Now I'm going to show you how it works because it's this simple. A chromosome is the hereditary unit. A chromosome has 50% protein and 50% DNA. When we were studying DNA research, we would take a chromosome out of a a cell, separate the DNA from the protein, save the DNA to do the very special research on heredity, and throw away the protein. Well, at some point after about 50 years people said 50% of the chromosome's protein is probably not just space filler. It's probably doing something. Now, here's the answer. And this is how it works. So now you'll walk away with a complete understanding of how a gene works. And here's what it looks like. A chromosome is like my arm with a sleeve on it. So basically I say this is a chromosome. Underneath my protein sleeve is a core of DNA, a gene. If I took a magic marker and did the genetic code, all those A, T, C's and G's, and I wrote out a code and I said this is the gene for blue eyes, the code, and I hold up my arm and I'll ask you, Can you read the gene for blue eyes, yes or no? Okay, and if I write it with magic marker you would be able to read it, okay? And I say, okay, but I say what does it look like when it's back in the cell? Oh, it looks like this. Can you read the gene for blue eyes, yes or no? If you want to read the gene for blue eyes, what do you do? Pull the sleeve off. What's the sleeve made out of? What causes a protein to change shape? Signal. So when the right signal comes in, the sleeve comes off and then the gene can be read. The gene didn't tell the signal to come, it didn't make the signal. The gene didn't tell which protein sleeves had to come off. So let's illustrate it in animation. This is a chromosome, protein sleeve, DNA core with genes inside. At the beginning of each gene segment is a special protein called a regulatory protein. And I would say, hey, what do you think a regulatory protein does? I hope you say regulate. How does it regulate? Well, here's how it works. That environmental signal that was going through the cell goes into the nucleus. The environmental signal is a key and binds to the lock of that protein. It specifically picks that protein lock and key. So what happens? Well, when a signal binds to the protein, it causes the protein to change shape. When the protein shape changes, the sleeve pops off and now you can see the gene, which is a blueprint. Now, what happens next? Well, you make a copy of the blueprint. This is DNA, so I'm going to make a copy. The copy is the working blueprint that goes into the cell. It's called RNA. So you just saw DNA being converted into RNA. That blueprint goes into the cell to make the proteins. Now that I have the RNA, I don't need the gene, so the signal pops off and the sleeve covers up the gene again. Now, you talk about the gene being on and off, and the fact is, what did the gene do? We put 50 years into rooting for the gene. So in the last couple of minutes, let's root for the gene. Come on, gene, baby. Do something, baby. Come on, gene. You are intelligent. You control. You know everything. You do something. You do something, gene. You've got to do something now. Come on. Come on, do something. The gene is a blueprint. It does nothing. It has potential. And the potential is elicited by the signals from the environment. And all of a sudden, then you can't really worship the genes controlling you. You have to recognize the signals from the environment. When we were teaching the central dogma, what was the belief? This is what everybody learns. They learned this in school yesterday. DNA goes to RNA goes to protein. Primacy of DNA. What that means? First cause. So when you go for a medical treatment, when they look at you, they want to know, hey, the first cause of your illness appears to be the genes are not working right. So let's manipulate your genes. And the point is, first of all, this is not right. And I'll tell you why. Where are the chromosome proteins? Oh, they never put that in because they threw them out for 50 years. Oh, I put the chromosome proteins in? Yeah, they form the sleeve over the DNA. And I go, yeah, we have regulatory proteins. And that's really cool. I say, yeah, but regulatory protein doesn't control itself. What controls the protein? Environmental signal. Now when you look at the flow of information, Is that really the primacy of DNA? Where's DNA? It's in the middle. The primacy is what? The environment. The environment is the primacy that controls your biology. That's why when I put my cells into a different environment, the cells had a different fate. So it's regulating the environment. It's the primacy of the environment. Now here's one last thing. Epigenetics does not just mean a signal comes in and exposes the gene so you can read it. It's bigger than that. It's so big, it's the most amazing thing for this reason. The signals from the environment cannot only cause the reading of the gene, it can modify the readout of the gene. Listen to this number. Every gene in your body can be modified to create 30,000 different variations from the same blueprint. What's the point? Genes are potential. It's the environment that selects the potential and modifies the expression. Relevance? You could have been one of those people that got here, 97% of the people got here with a perfectly adequate set of genes to have a healthy, happy, loving life on this planet. But if you respond to the environment inappropriately, you can make one of those genes read in an incorrect fashion, make a modification of it, and cause a disease. So what do we find out today? That big search for cancer genes never turned up anything. And it now turns out that most cancers are actually not related to the genes but to the epigenetic control of the genes, that the person's responding inappropriately to the environment, changes the variation of their readout of the gene from a healthy readout to a mutant readout, and you can get cancer. But then it also explains very much the same response as to spontaneous remission. What's spontaneous remission? They changed the signals, the way they perceived life, changed the signals and immediately rewrote the genes. So you can spontaneously rewrite the genes. Unfortunately, we didn't know we were doing it. And if you don't know you're doing it, then you didn't know you probably took your good genes and probably modified them by the way you were living. To show you also this, you can have a bad gene and modify it. The mouse on the left is called an Agouti mutant. It's obviously obese, got different color fur, has cardiovascular issues and diabetes, and dies very young. The mouse on the right, of course, is what a normal mouse looks like except for this. The mouse on the right is also an Agouti mutant. You say, well, what's the difference? And the answer is this: the two embryos were put into two different mothers, and the mother of the mouse on the right was fed some of these elements that affect epigenetics during a window of gestation. And what did it do? It covered up the mutant genes. Epigenetics can even, even if you had a mutant gene, you can cover it up and have a normal life. So you're not controlled by the genes, okay? So what's the name of the switch that controls stuff? 50,000 different switches. What's the name of the switch? Well, I say, I'll give you the scientific name, which is like the church's Latin. I give you the name in science and you go, I don't know what that means. And that's why we do it that way. Basically, I could tell you what the name of the switch is. It's called the receptor-effector integral membrane protein complex. And everybody goes, wow, I can't wait to go home and talk about that. And the fact is, no. Let me give you the name of the switch based on a definition. And when I give it to you based on a definition, it changes the meaning. So before I give you the definition, do you understand what the switch does? It interfaces the environment with the functions and genetics of your cell. It controls the genetics and behavior In a sense of activating a pathway. I say, what's the function of the receptor? What's the function of eyes, ears, nose, taste, and touch? Awareness of the environment. That's what the receptors are for. I said, what's the function of the effector, the second protein? I said, well, that's the one that sends the signal into the cell. So I say, oh, the function of the effector is to create a physical sensation that goes into the cell and regulates the different activities. So I say, what's the definition of the switch? And the definition of switch is, listen, an awareness of the environment through a physical sensation. You go, well, that's nice. It's certainly a lot better than integral membrane protein complex, but it doesn't mean anything yet until I show you the dictionary definition. And here out of the dictionary is the definition. The word perception, what does it mean? Awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation. So I say, what is the name of the switch that controls your biology? Perception! Yes, it's how you perceive life that adjusts your biology. If you go into life very fearful, afraid, or programmed that you're going to be sick, that's a perception. And if you program you're going to be sick, then a perception will manifest the program. So if you were diagnosed with a cancer and you really believe that, then your mind will generate a cancer because the function of the mind is to take that belief and turn it into reality. So the conclusion that we can come to at this point is switches called perception, which is how you see the world, perception controls behavior. I say why? Because a signal causes a protein to move. And when the protein moves, that's where behavior comes from. Perception controls genes. Yes, through epigenetics the signals from the environment go in and select which genes are going to be read and can modify the readout of the genes. I didn't have time to tell you, but perception can even lead to a rewriting of the genetic code. So you can even rewrite your genetics based on how you respond to your life. So it's perception that controls biology, not genes. They have nothing to do with that. And then I talk about it and I said, remember I said that petri dish? I take it from a good environment and put it in a bad environment and cells get sick and die? Well, you know what? I said you're made out of 50 trillion cells. And the relevance of you being made out of 50 trillion cells is this. Think about it. You are skin-covered petri dishes. You're walking around with 50 trillion cells inside your dish. I say, yeah, you have a culture medium. Yeah, you've seen it, sometimes not because you wanted to. It's called blood. The blood is the culture medium. Does that make sense? So in a plastic petri dish, I put the medium in, I control the contents of the medium, and the medium controls the fate of the cells. That's my experiment, right? Now guess what? You're a skin-covered petri dish. You got growth medium in you called blood which controls the fate of the cells. Relevance? You take your skin dish or a plastic dish, put them into an environment that is not supportive, and the cells in the plastic dish and the cells in the skin dish will both get sick. You want to make them well? Don't give them drugs. Take your skin dish and the plastic dish and return it to a good environment again and health will automatically come back into the system. Well, how does it work? The environment provides the signals and there's two environments. I have an environment outside and I have an inside environment inside my body. Yeah, but where are the perception switches? Ah! The brain! The function of the brain through all the nerves, eyes, ears, nose, taste, touch, The brain is perception. So you read the environment through the nervous system and you perceive it in your brain, right? Okay, for your skin is passing into your brain. Let me just tell you something. The brain comes from the skin in embryology. So the brain is still an extension of the skin, just like the cell. And I say, so the perception, you just got a perception from the environmental system through your nervous system. I said, yeah, but what do you have to do next? Interpret it. The perception? Ah, interpretation, that's the role of the mind. The mind looks at the perception, says good, bad, indifferent, whatever it is, it makes up a decision about it. And then here's what happens next. When the mind makes a perceptual awareness, it sends information back to the brain. And then the brain changes the chemistry of the blood and sends signals to the cells to control their behavior and gene activity. So here's a simple point. Yes, the blood is the culture fluid in your skin-covered petri dish. And the chemistry, when you change the chemistry of the culture medium, it changes the fate of the cells just as I did in a plastic dish. I say, yeah, but what controls the chemistry of your blood? And the answer is the nervous system and working with the mind. So when I talk about a cell biologist, I say you're a cell biologist. You are— I like this— you are a self-biologist. You are creating a biology of yourself. How? Because the brain, as you perceive life, changes the chemistry of the blood, which in turn controls the activity of the cells. Relevant? If I have love in my mind, the chemistry that comes out of my brain contains different chemicals such as oxytocin, serotonin, and growth hormone. And what do these chemistries— what does it do when it's in the blood? Well, this chemistry causes the body to grow, maintain itself, and stay in wonderful health. So when you're in love, you're always healthier. Why? Because you're releasing the chemicals into the culture medium that encourage health and growth. But on the other hand, you can change your mind. At a moment's notice, you could be in fear. And the moment you're in fear, you've got a completely different set of chemicals going into the blood. This time cortisol, norepinephrine, and histamine. What do they do? Well, in a moment of fear, what they do is they shut down the biological system to get you ready for fight or flight. Well, they shut it down? Yeah, to conserve energy so you could run away from the saber-toothed tiger. So what do you shut off? Growth and maintenance and the immune system. You shut off the immune system when you're under stress. Meaning, the more stressed you are at work or in your life, the more likely you're going to get sick. Why? Because you shut off the immune system to save energy. So I said the function of the mind was what? To do the interpretation of the perceptions and then take those perceptions and then create a biology that manifests the belief that you have. So the function of your mind, it creates coherence between your beliefs and the reality. If you believe you have a disease and you really believe it, you will manifest the disease. If you believe this pill that I give you is going to cure you of cancer, and you really believe it, then the pill will cure you of cancer, whether it was a sugar pill or a chalk pill or Laetrile, which had no functional significance except for the belief system behind it. So all of a sudden it's like you're more powerful than the chemistry. Your belief will take sugar and turn it into the miracle healing drug, if that's what you believe. So let's talk about two different natures of how your mind can change your biology very quickly, and it deals with stress. But there are two kinds of stress, so I've got to make a very clear separation. One is called eustress. That's good stress. You say, stress that's good? I say, yeah. Go outside and take a hike. Go up a mountain. You're stressing your body, but you're not threatening your body. You're just causing it to be more active and to encourage its growth and its maintenance. Or go play some sports. When you're doing sports, you're stressing your body, not in a bad way. You're putting stress on it to cause it to improve its growth and maintenance and function. The bad stress, though, is called distress. And the difference with distress is this: it's a stress that is related to a threat on your life in any sense, that you somehow will interfere with your life. When you have stresses that seem to get in the way of your health or your happiness, those are called distress. Okay? Well, I'll show you what happens. I put cells in a petri dish. I split the cultures into two sets. I put nutrients in front of the cells in one dish, toxins in front of the cells in a second dish. And then I put the dishes back into the incubator and I'm going to come back. Now the question is this, and again, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to answer the question. When I come back and look at the cells in each dish, where are they going to be in each dish? Where do you think they're going to be? So where are they going to be in the dish on the left when I come back? Where are the cells going to be? They're going to go to the left. They're going to go to the food. Why? Because that's for growth. So cells move, listen to this, because it's, I'll say it again more clearly, cells and people move toward environmental signals that encourage growth. Growth. Does that make sense? Okay, so if there's something over there that gives you growth, man, you're going to go for it. Are you going to go for it with your arms open or closed? There's something out there that you really want. Are you going to go like this or what are you going to do? You're going to go open, right? Why? Open is assimilation. If I want to bring something in to grow, I have to be open for it. In contrast, the cells in the other dish in front of the toxins, well, they went the opposite way. Why? Because the toxins are threatening. If there's stimuli that threaten you, you don't go to the stimulus, you go away from the stimulus. Do you go with your arms open or do you close yourself down? Close yourself down. Now here's a simple reality. Think about it. In growth, you move to a stimulus with your arms open to assimilate it. In protection, you move away from the stimulus with yourself closed down. Relevance? Cells cannot move in both directions at the same time. You can't move forwards and backwards at the same time. You can't be open and closed at the same time. Relevance? Very important. You cannot be in growth and in protection at the same time. One excludes the other. Okay? When I talk about cells responding to stimuli, I said, yeah, they have actually 3 choices to any stimulus. If they perceive the stimulus as promoting growth, they move to it open. If they perceive the stimulus as threatening, they move away from it, closing themselves down. And there's a third response, which is the neutral one, which I call elevator music. And it basically goes like this. You go in the elevator, the music's playing, you're not going to dance, and you're not going to die. It's just background. So you've got 3 responses. A cell has 3 responses to any stimuli: go to it, away from it, or if it finds it innocuous, No response at all. Humans do this too. When cells respond to stimuli, they move, so stimuli promote motion. A human is a little bit more of a sliding scale with 50 trillion cells. It's not all digital because some cells can be in growth and some can be in protection based on what the mind is perceiving. Yet it's still exactly the same. Humans move toward anything that offers growth, and love is the most effective nutrient of a human person on this planet is love. That's the most effective growth that you can have. Fear is completely the opposite. Fear is shut down, close yourself off, wall yourself off, and that means growth has to stop when you live in fear. And elevator music is in the middle. So humans move and have motion in response to the stimuli, but in humans we actually cause— we can clarify or classify the motion in regard to emotions. Emotions are responses to stimuli, moving forwards or backwards or ignoring them at that point. Just to give you an insight to how it works, I want to talk about the HPA axis and what it represents. It's called the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. It's a stress-controlling information pathway in the body, signal transduction. How does it work? The hypothalamus perceives the environment and says, "Oh, that stimulus is stressful." And so it says it has to coordinate 50 trillion cells to respond to a threat. A saber-toothed tiger is coming. This is stressful. What am I going to do? Well, I have to get 50 trillion cells immediately to change their actions and behaviors to respond to the stress. Well, how do I do that? Well, I send a signal to the pituitary gland. That's where the pituitary comes in. I said, remember the name in high school, pituitary gland? Master gland. It's the one that controls 50 trillion cells. Well, in a state of being chased by a saber-toothed tiger, the pituitary gland will activate the adrenal glands. High school name? Fight or flight. So the nature is this. The saber-toothed tiger is coming. The hypothalamus interprets threat, sends a signal to the pituitary. The pituitary says, "I'm going to organize 50 trillion cells to respond to this saber-toothed tiger." and cause the adrenal gland to release stress hormones. And then listen to what happens. The first thing the stress hormones do is cause the blood vessels in the gut to constrict shut. You say, why? Because it causes the blood to go out to the arms and legs. And why is that important? Because the blood is where all the energy comes from. So if you need to run away from a saber-toothed tiger, you don't want the blood in your gut, you want the blood in your arms and legs so you can run. So the first thing is stress hormones cause the blood vessels in the gut to constrict. Then I have to ask you a fundamental question. What's the role of the organs in the gut? Growth, maintenance, and taking care of the body. So what does it mean if you're running from a saber-toothed tiger? What about your growth and maintenance? Is it being taken care of, yes or no? No. You cannot be in growth and protection at the same time. You shut off your growth to put energy into your protection. Does that make sense? Okay. Comes the next one. This one is where all the real problems come from. There are two protection systems. There's the immune system, protects me from threats on the inside, and the adrenal system protects me from threats on the outside. Now, I want you to put yourself in the part of your brain, and there's a little room in there somewhere where they control the economy. And you're a director of the Treasury or whatever inside your brain. And here's what happens. You're sitting at your desk. You got two phones on the desk. One phone rings, you pick it up and they said, "My God, we're being chased by a saber-toothed tiger." So all of a sudden you have to say, "Well, I have to allocate energy to run away from that saber-toothed tiger." But at the same time the other phone rings and says, "Just want to tell you we got a severe bacterial infection in the gut here and we got some diarrhea going on." Now the question is this. You're at the desk, you have to make a decision. How much of the energy are you going to use to run away from the tiger and how much of the energy would you use to fight the bacterial infection? How much? All of it to go to the tiger, right? You know, the simple reason is if the tiger catches you and eats you, the bacteria become the tiger's problem, not yours anymore. So what's the point? When you're in fear, when you're in threat of an external threat, then the stress hormones shut off the immune system to conserve energy until you get away from the saber-toothed tiger. Does that make sense? Okay? Now, one more aspect of stress. Not only did it shut off your growth and maintenance of your body, not only did it shut off your immune system— I'll give you a little hint about the problem with the immune system. I can take a blood sample from every one of you in this room right now and I can assure you one fact. Every one of you is already infected with almost all the basic viruses, bacteria, and parasites that affect humans. And you're going to say, "Yeah, but I feel really good." And I'm saying, "Yeah, because if you're in a balanced state of health, then you're putting energy into the immune system." The function of the immune system is to suppress these organisms that scientists call opportunistic organisms. Opportunistic. What does it mean? You give them the opportunity and they'll take it. If you are in fear, then you're giving them the opportunity because you've shut off the immune system. But the insult to injury comes not from shutting off the gut, not just from shutting off the immune system, but from this. When you are in threat and you have to respond to that saber-toothed tiger coming, I ask you a simple question: are you going to use conscious reasoning or are you going to use reflex behavior? Ah, reflex behavior is the hindbrain. Consciousness is the forebrain. Relevance? When the fear hormones go through the body, remember I told you they cause the blood vessels in the gut to shut down? They cause the blood vessels in the forebrain to shut down too. Why? Push more blood to the hindbrain so I can do reaction. Yeah, but forebrain is conscious reasoning, logic, and intelligence in that level. So what does it mean when you're in fear? You become less intelligent when you're in fear. And it shows you— here's a study they did with a person playing something as benign as a Pac-Man game. In the Pac-Man game, the player P, if it's far enough away from that little ghosty thing that eats it up, then you look at the brain scan of the person playing the game, you can see that the functional activity is in the forebrain. They're thinking about the move. I could go here, I can do this, I can plan out a strategy, I can do all this stuff. So the forebrain is creative, right? But if the gobbler gets within, and they actually measured it, so many centimeters of the player, look what happens to the brain. So if your brain can shut down your consciousness from playing Pac-Man, it sure as hell can shut it down if you watch Fox News. And the government makes use of this for the simple reason is when you are afraid, you become less intelligent. If you remember the previous administration, Anytime they needed anything, there was a terror alert. And Tom Ridge has now reported those were manufactured terror alerts to sway the votes of people who would respond from hindbrain reflexes rather than thinking when put in that fear situation. Okay? So, here's the big shutdown part of what does all this mean. The mind controls the biology. But there's two parts to the mind, conscious and subconscious. The conscious part that we call self-consciousness is an evolutionary advance that lower organisms— there are other self-conscious organisms, elephants, dolphins, chimps, they're self-conscious, but not to the degree we are. But when you go much lower than that, then there's no self-consciousness. And the reason is this: self-consciousness is derived from the front end of the brain, an evolutionary front piece called the prefrontal cortex, right behind your forehead. This is the evolutionary advance where where the self-consciousness seat comes from. And in contrast, the rest of the brain, besides the prefrontal cortex, constitutes what is called the subconscious mind. That was there before consciousness evolved. So consciousness was added on to the subconscious. But here's the difference. Now watch. The subconscious— I mean, the conscious mind, the self-conscious mind, is the seat of your personal identity. It's your source. It's the seat of where your spirit is. That's where you operate your brain with your self-involvement, with your spiritual character, whatever, coming from that part. So the conscious part of the brain is identity, source, or spirit. Its primary function is creative. The conscious is creative for this reason: it can look into the past, it can see into the future, and it can solve problems. And it's creative. Okay? And if it's creative, why is that irrelevant? Because if I say, "What do you want from your life?" If I ask you that question, the answer is it's got to be creative because it's something I'm asking about what you want in the future. So you have to create it. So I say, if I ask you what you want from your life, which part of the mind is going to deal with that? The conscious part. Okay? So that's where your wishes and desires and aspirations— you came here today, you have a lot of wishes and desires about what you want from your life. And I say, "Yeah, but where are they held?" They're in the conscious or self-conscious part because that's the creative part of the mind. It's also where positive thinking comes from. Positive thinking is creative thinking. I would like it to be this way. I'm creating what I would like. Okay? In contrast, now this is critical, the subconscious mind has no entity in it. There's nobody in there. It's a machine. It's a record-playback device. You learn experiences and it records it, and then push the button, it plays it back. So the function of the subconscious mind is habituation. You learn how to walk, you don't have to think about it now. You learn how to drive a car, you can go down the street and have a conversation with a passenger, not pay any attention to the driving. It will all happen automatically. Your behaviors in the subconscious are habits, primarily. And the significance about it is, where'd you get them from? Well, instincts were passed on genetically. Yes, you don't have to go to school as an infant to learn if you put your hand in the fire, if it burns, you yank your hand out of the fire. Why? It's an automatic response. Instinct. But your life experiences become habits. So what you learn can become habituated. Okay? And more importantly, it's really where we acquire our learning programs. What we acquire indirectly from teachers and our guides and Whoever we see as leaders, we get that from them. Now here's an important difference. The conscious mind is a very small computer processor. The NI, 40 NI, stands for 40 nerve impulses per second come into the conscious mind and the conscious mind can resolve it. In contrast, the subconscious mind can process 40 million nerve impulses per second. So here's a simple fact. As an information processor, The subconscious is 1 million times more powerful than your creative conscious mind, your habit mind. To show you the difference, imagine there are 40 million pixel dots of color making up this picture of Machu Picchu. And I say, okay, every pixel dot represents a nerve coming into the brain, and I would tell you a fact. In 1 second, the subconscious analyzed and responded to every one of the 40 million pixel dots making that picture. I say, in the same second, How much does the consciousness respond to? This much. Oh, you have trouble, let me put an arrow on this. 40 bits. Why is it relevant? Because your consciousness can only focus on a small amount because of the size of the processor. That means all the rest of your behavior is controlled by what? The habits of the subconscious mind. Okay? So whatever you focus on, you can manage, but whatever you're not focusing on will be controlled by the subconscious mind, which handles all the rest. So how does it work? And here's the very summary if I don't get finished with it, and it goes like this. You want to train an elephant in India, here's what you do. You take an elephant as a baby, a couple of feet tall, you tie a big rope on its leg, you tie the rope to a big stake, and for 2 months you let the elephant hang out with a rope on its leg around the stake. And what does the elephant do for 2 months? Every day it gets up and tries to get away from the stake. It yanks and kicks and pulls, rolls on its back, does everything it can to escape from the rope. The rope that's holding it still. By the end of 2 months, guess what it learns? Can't get out of here. So what's the habit? The habit is if the rope is on my leg, I'm stuck. Well, that was a 2-foot-high elephant. Now this thing grows up, it's a 10, 12-foot monster. And why is that important? Because if you tie a rope on that leg and tie it to your house, the elephant could probably pull it down. I say, yeah, but how do you keep it tied up? And here's the joke. You just tie a rope on the elephant's leg and you don't even have to tie the rope to anything. The point, once the rope is on, the habit kicks in and the elephant will stand there as timid as anything. And the point is, all of us have had ropes tied on our legs from the very beginning and we are much more powerful than we are except for the beliefs we were programmed with. Where do we get the beliefs from? Well, they start in utero. And the reason why this is important is because environment controls the fate of the cells. And I say, yeah, but what's the environment for a fetus? And the answer is the mother's environment. In medicine, we talk about the role of the mother. In embryology, we say, what is a good mother? Well, she's, you know, nourishing the baby, right? The blood from the mother, the nutrition from the blood crosses the placenta and nourishes the fetus. And I say, so then if you want to be a good mother, and I'm being I'm a medical doctor and I'm going to suggest what you should do. I say, well, eat well, take vitamins and minerals, and exercise. Because that way the nutrition across the placenta will be much healthier for the child. And everyone goes, oh cool, what about the baby, anything else? And I say, no, the baby is genetically controlled. Remember that concept? Genes control it. So I said, oh, you just have to feed it, the genes will make it. And it turns out, well, that's totally untrue. The genes are controlled by the environmental information. I say, "Yeah, but what's the information?" Now here's the catch. Do you think nutrition is the only thing in blood? If you do, then that's all the mother would be providing. But the fact is, no. The emotional chemistry, the hormones, the growth factors, the regulators of the physiology are in the blood as well. So if the mother is having an experience, then the chemistry of that experience crosses the placenta And the fetus is having the exact same experience. If the mother is happy, the fetus is happy. Why? The chemistry affects the fetus just as it does the mother. If the mother is angry, upset, or afraid, so is the fetus. If the mother rejects the fetus because it throws an impairment in the family plan, then the fetus is bathed in rejection chemicals through its gestation period and knows it's rejected even before it's born. Half of our personality is developed before we're born by patterns of behavior that go across the placenta from the mother. And just to illustrate it, this is a sonogram. It's in Italian. It doesn't make a difference about the language. It is an argument between a mother and father. Watch what happens to the fetus. Sound. Basta! Niente fatto! Non ti sopporto più! Watch the fetus jump. Basta! One more time. Just look at it. The fetus is responding to everything the mother experiences. You say, "Why would nature do that?" Watch. Watch what happens. Basta! Mi è stufato! Non ti sopporto più! Basta! Basta! Quando un bambino nasce ha già un passato. The question is, why have that happen? And the answer is this: the mother lives in the environment that the fetus is going to live in. The mother is the Head Start program that tells the fetus about what's going on in the environment so that the information that crosses the placenta can change the epigenetic readout of the child to match the needs of the child for the environment it's going to live in. The mother was saying, "Stop, I'm fed up with you, I can't take you anymore." And during that process, the child was jumping. Why? Because that's a loss of the relationship of security. So it's not just the mother that is important. Because the father screws up, it changes the mother's behavior, which in turn changes the fetus's genetics. Parents are genetic engineers because parents determine the environmental signals that control the readout of the child's genes. So all of a sudden there's a responsibility to mothering besides eating well and taking vitamins and supplements. You are controlling the genetics of the next generation. And here's the most important part. When a child is born, the first 6 years of its life The brain activity of a child is primarily in theta and delta. This is called a hypnagogic trance. Consciousness appears after age 6. And focused consciousness, schoolroom consciousness, beta, as compared to alpha, which is calm consciousness, starts at age 12. The most important thing you can see here is that up through age 6, a child is not in consciousness. Absolutely. And the reason why If a child was just born and it was conscious, I could say to a child, "Well, tell me something." The child just came out of the birth canal, "Tell me something." Yeah, but a child would say, "I don't know, I just got here. What do I know? I don't know anything." I say, "Well, the mind then is like an iPod. I give you a brand new iPod, you take it out of the box, I say push play. You push play. Does anything happen, yes or no?" No. Why not? No programs! The child needs programs before it can become conscious. So what did nature do? Nature created the first 6 years of a child's life child's life is download. It is in a hypnagogic trance. It watches the mother, the father, the family, and the community and downloads everything it sees into the subconscious mind. Why? Conscious mind's not even working. And if you think this is new science, I want to tell you something. The church has known this for over 1,000 years. The church would say, the Jesuits would say, you give me a child and I will show you the man. Or you give me the child for the first 6 years, it will belong to the church for the rest of its life. What did they know? The first 6 years is downloaded programs. It's the subconscious programs. And they knew if you can program the first 6 years, you control the rest of the child's life. Do you think that little tiny fact escaped the leaders of this world in the last 1,000 years? The answer is no. We have all been programmed in the 6 years to be what? Disempowered, and losing our ability to control our lives and create the lives we want. We are creating other people's lives because we bought their beliefs. And the relevance— this is how we get culture, and unfortunately, this is where we get self-identity. If you were a child and programmed with, "You don't deserve something," "You're not smart enough," "You're a sickly child"— if you're under 6 and those words are coming into your life, that goes straight into your subconscious, and your conscious mind wasn't working so it didn't review it, it just downloaded it. And then you say, "Well, why is that relevant?" Because the new science reveals something profound. It says, "What are you running your life with?" You would say, "Well, I'm running my life with my conscious wishes and desires and aspirations." I say, "Yeah, that's the conscious mind, but what does this article say? We are only conscious of about 5% of our cognitive activity." Point? You are only controlling your life with your wishes and desires and aspirations not more than 5% of the time. 95% of your life comes from the subconscious habits, and the most important aspect of the subconscious habits is that the subconscious habits came from other people primarily. You are living other people's belief systems and you don't see it. And so basically, when you recognize only 5% from consciousness, 95% from subconscious, that means your wishes, desires, aspirations, and positive thinking don't amount to very much against the subconscious belief systems. You are struggling. You say, "But I would see if I was sabotaging my life with beliefs that don't support me." And here's where it goes wrong. I'll give you a simple story and it goes like this. You have a dear friend, a close friend. You know your friend's behavior and you happen to know your friend's parents. And at some point you say to your friend, "You know, Bill, you're just like your dad." Back away from Bill. Back away. Bill's gonna be the first one to vent on you to say, "How can you compare me to my dad?" Is anybody familiar with anything like that? Well, why is it relevant? We're all Bill. We're all Bill. All of us, like Bill, are operating 95% of the time from the subconscious, and the primary belief programs in there came from other people. We are living other people's lives. And until you reprogram that, You are a victim of other people's programmings. And as this last slide shows, this is right out of the journal Science, what it really represents, it says, environmental processes influencing the propensity to disease in adulthood. Meaning, the environmental influences that determine your adult health status, cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's, those diseases of adults, say, when did they get started? It said, These potentials influencing disease operate during the periconceptual, the fetal, and infant phases of life. Your programming that you got before you were conscious is the primary programming that controls your life. If you were given limitations, then your life is limited. And down in the other hemisphere where I teach in New Zealand and Australia a lot, I just love it, they have a term called cutting the tall poppies. What does it represent? A gardener plants poppies, all the poppies grow up to the same height, and every now and then one poppy grows up higher than the other. What does the gardener do? Cut the head off the tall poppies. Why do they refer to that in regard to child raising? Because when a child starts to show exceptional behaviors, it is the duty of the parents and the community to cut the head off and make them average again. And the reality is, we are so far beyond that level of power and yet we don't believe it. We buy into victim, we buy into weakness, we buy into frailty because that's what we've been told. And why is that relevant? If you buy the belief, you manifest the belief. And when you stop buying the belief, you get a chance to create what you want. But remember this problem. The problem is this: you are operating from 95 to 99% with invisible behavior from the subconscious mind. Your sabotaging is not your creative wishes and desires and aspirations and positive thinking. That really has a hard time getting itself planted because it operates less than 5% of the time. If you become aware of this, then you have great opportunities. And the great opportunities are you can rewrite the programs. When you rewrite the subconscious programs, you become the master of your life, and it's fun. You know why? Because when it's an automatic program, you don't even have to think about it. It will just automatically create. And so, as I close down with, in this regard, I'm gonna probably suggest that every one of you, if I go back and tell you when, will go back to a time in your life where you created heaven on earth. I'm gonna go back and tell you there's a point where you were the healthiest you ever were. You had more energy than you could ever believe. You couldn't wait for the day to start because it was so damn beautiful. You just had to be here. You say, "When was that?" And I go, "When you fell head over heels the first time, big time in love. I mean, you went way over head over heels in love. Go back. Stop for a moment. Were you healthy when that was happening? Did you have a lot of energy? Didn't you make love for like 4 or 5 days in a row, no sleeping anywhere and all that stuff? Didn't you look forward to the next day because it was so exciting to be here?" What's my point? You created heaven on earth. The significance was it was not an accident, it was a creation. And if you change the subconscious programming, it doesn't have to be limited to the honeymoon. It could be every day of your life. But you also have to recognize where the control is and how to get back into that. On my website, brucelipton.com, There's a list of resources of how you can get into that subconscious programming, how you can change it. And so it's very important for you to know that. The point is why I'm telling you all this is I don't have the full 12 hours I'd love to spend with you, but I wanted to give you enough insight to say this: you are creating. If you don't like the creation you have, it's not because that's what you consciously created, it's what you unconsciously created. The last point, I keep going to the last point, I have about a million last points, but here's the last point just to help you with the— so what are the programs in your subconscious that you got before you were conscious because you weren't here to consciously reflect on the programs? Here's the point. Since your life is 95% from the subconscious, I'll give you a simple fact. Your life is a printout of your subconscious programs. Relevance? The things that work in your life work because you have belief systems that support it. The things you are struggling with, with your life, represent the programs in the subconscious that are not supporting you. So you don't have to go back and find out who did what to who. That's totally irrelevant. What you want to do is go from here forwards. And how do you do that? Find the issues in your life and recognize they already represent subconscious programming that you need to rewrite. When you rewrite them, you control and own your life and you can create heaven on earth, and I know it. I know it from a practice myself. 14 years I've been with my partner, and every day we wake up, it's still the honeymoon. 14 years in a row. Why? It's a belief system. I had to go back and rewrite that crap that other people gave us to disempower us. I don't want you to be disempowered because, as my next book, the Spontaneous Evolution book, talks about, There's an evolution that's happening right now and it takes us as participants. And to be a participant, you must let go of the limitations that we were all programmed with because there is a future that is so fabulous and it's in front of you by months or a year. There's going to be an upheaval on this planet. You're going to be here to be part of it. You can't watch it. You are part of it. So please, Own the powerful person you are. You are that powerful person. I wasn't raised in the Christian tradition, but when you think about everything I just said, come all the way full circle, come all the way around back to what I just said. I wasn't raised in tradition, but Jesus said you could do all the miracles that he could do, even better than he can do it. But what was the problem? You don't believe it. And now it turns out there's a scientific reality for that. Because you can do all of that healing and everything if you own who you are. And I own who you are and appreciate your being here. Thank you very much.

For another amazing Bruce Lipton video, check it out right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

As you know, of course, my main work has been the Biology of Belief, which really talks about the nature of how your personal beliefs affect your personal lives. In the process, of course, what I started to recognize is that while we all have our personal beliefs,