In writing about the effect thought and emotion have on the expression of our genetic potential in 'The Biology of Belief,' Bruce H. Lipton provides a unique perspective as a cellular biologist that has implications for our understanding of influence.
Lipton's thesis revolves around the fact that just about everything that can be said about complex organisms like animals, can be said about a single cell, including the capacity to perceive its environment. What I would like to discuss here, is the implication this has on our understanding of consciousness and specifically the way our consciousness effects others.
Lipton and others in the field of epigenetics have overturned the dominance of the gene, by putting the DNA's role in the life of a cell in perspective. In this era where popular science has created the urban myth of genetic determinism, this is a refreshing and much needed re-setting of the debate.
What Lipton proposes, and provides ample evidence of, is that the cell's experience of its environment acts as a switch that turns genes on or off, and in some cases creates new DNA code from the substrate within the cell.
With somewhere between 50 and 70 trillion cells in our body, we have an information storage capacity of 210 trillion bytes per human being. Each cell contains 2 strands of DNA, each roughly 2 metres in length and with an information capacity of 3 gig. Lipton proposes that this mind-boggling amount of storage allows the cell to store and reproduce its genetic memory back to its first ancestor. And, even more incredibly, to call on just the right code in response to what it experiences in the environment.
Lipton provides evidence that our cells became communal some 750 million years ago when smart cells figured out how to cooperate with each other and group together to create the first multi-cellular organisms. It was from this point that cells began to differentiate their functions, so not all cells had to do everything. This specialization was only possible because of cellular cooperation. These two complimentary functions define all animals biologically: our cells cooperate to create tissues and groups of cells specialize to create organs.
It is interesting to note that these two functions - cooperation and specialization - have been the mark of human society since before civilization began.
Lipton proposes repeatedly that there is little that we attribute to the behavior of a human being that cannot be equally said about a cell; it perceives its environment, it cooperates, it specializes, it learns, it acts and it communicates.
These themes are not Lipton's alone, but are common to a whole generation of geneticists, cell biologists, quantum biologists and epigeneticists. Where Lipton has taken this argument further is into the realm of belief.
What we 'think' is communicated to our cells - our cells are listening and their response to the environment is colored by the thoughts the cell is exposed to. Just as Gariaev and Popponin revealed in separate experiments that our DNA is affected by our emotional state and this switches codes on and off, likewise Lipton shows that a whole cell, and entire groups of cells, are affected by our thoughts and emotions.
What we believe, pervades out thoughts and influences the decisions our cells make - which codes to switch on, or off, or whether to make new code.
It is in this way that our cells are influenced by our thoughts and beliefs and in turn, our thoughts and beliefs are influenced by the activation, or not, of our DNA. This influence extends beyond the cell, to the tissues and organs of the body, and then via our DNA's ability to affect electromagnetic fields in our environment. It is easy, then, to quickly perceive how circular this chain of cause and effect becomes. Ironically, we all may be, at the deepest level, self-fulfilling prophecies.
So what does this have to do with our influence as Thought Leaders?
I believe it has everything to do with the subject. From the effect our energy state has on an audience, or client, to the way a message is received. Because it is not just our own cells that are listening. Every member of an audience we speak to, train, coach, mentor or reach via a publication has 50 to 70 trillion cells evaluating the message and responding at a molecular and cellular level. How our message resonates with these cells creates an energetic state which is then broadcast via our DNA into our environment, interacting with the broadcast of every other person in the room. Should the broadcasts be in alignment the effect is magnified.
So, whenever we wonder if our message has created change for good in our audience, we might first ask ourselves were we in alignment with our message - what response does our message create in our own bodies? Does the message resonate as truth, do we live our message by 'walking our talk?'
Because when we do; and our minds, hearts and bodies are in alignment with our message, the effect is palpable. And it is that truth, that state of alignment within us that creates belief, and with that belief comes influence.
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