Beyond the genes: Are your emotions making you sick?

Are your emotions making you sick? Consider that “sick” is just the temporary inability to accommodate to the environment. The mind-body-spirit healing paradigm now contains some new science: the genes, the mind, the sphere of influence (epigenetics) that affects gene expression, and finally the spirit that holds it all together.

Spirit is universal intelligence, an intangible energy that encompasses us all: that creates night and day, and the seasons; that allows a fetus to develop (even when it does not yet have a brain) and that supports life of a cell without a nucleus. That which we can not see but by deduction in science now we know exists. Everything is guided by universal laws.

The body is the physical manifestion of who we are. Our cells are made of DNA and each strand then is further divided into genes. Bruce Lipton MD, author of The Biology of Belief, showed that when the researcher removes the nucleus — the control center of the cell containing the DNA — the cell still survives!

What allows this? Epigenetics. Current research in this new area of science is the hottest idea since the discovery of the gene. Epigenetics (“epi” means above) is the study of changes in gene activity that do not involve the alterations to the genetic code, but get passed down to at least one successive generation. These patterns of gene expression are governed by the cellular material: the epigenome sits on top of the genome and tells the genes to switch on or off.

If the genome is the hardware, then epigentics is the software that may be expressed differently depending. It is through the epigenetic marks that diet, emotion and other environmental factors directly affects our health and genes that are passed on to the next generation.

These epigenetic factors are part of a universal field that encompasses the thoughts, beliefs and actions of the individual and the thoughts and beliefs of others around you.

New discoveries are finding the limitations of the tangible and admit to a greater force of influence. We are no longer held captive by our genetic code but empowered to affect gene expression by changing our thoughts, beliefs and emotions.

The mind is the interface between the spirit and the body. It has an amazing capacity to integrate the abstract intuitive intelligence into the tangible body.

Emotion, or energy in motion, is the result of a disequilibrium in this conversation between spirit and body. Emotion is the dance to balance — a congruency between mind-body and spirit. William James in 1895 said there is no such entity as emotion, just a perception and a bodily response. So that if we change our perception, altering our thoughts and emotion, we design our health.

A “fight or flight” example illustrates the mind-body connection of our thoughts controlling our physiology in the short term. If I even think about seeing a rattlesnake, my pupils dialate, my heart rate, blood pressure and breathing increase, and there is increased gastric acid in my stomach. (Incidently, this is my same bodily response to a sexy man but then I label this a different emotion.)

The brain releases neurotransmitters and neuropeptides that are delivered to the cells. The mind talks to the body. But did you know that the body also talks back to the mind? Dr. Candace Pert, Nobel researcher, references these “molecules of emotion” that may hold a tissue memory.

Allow me to give you a clinical example. A patient presents with shoulder pain of insidious onset 10 years before. After a series of treatments there is full pain-fee range of motion, but now is plagued by nightmares of her mother. Her mother died 10 years ago and she hadn’t thought about her in years; it was just after that the shoulder pain appeared.

Has this lady been healed or have I just liberated molecules stored in the physical body for processing? I am grateful for hundreds of my own clinical cases that illustrate these mind-body conversations, correlating a location in the body to different emotion.

We see that emotions can make you sick, affecting physiology, so how do we process them? The object is to find balance; it is the journey in getting there that give us power. We can use an emotion to find the deeper belief or memory that caused the problem.

Invite emotions in for a conversation. “Fear of death, why are you here? How do you serve me, and where have I met you before?” The questions allow us to get friendly with emotion.

Emotion is a feedback mechanism to alert you to an incongruency in the system. It is natural, normal and useful. The emotion keeps us learning and growing and acts as a blueprint for finding our true purpose. It warns us of what needs further processing.

Candace Pert says God is a neuropeptide: that these molecules of emotion are the communication between the mind and body as an expression of spirit. Our thoughts produce molecules that affect the cells of the body. This cellular memory is stored in the tissues and may be liberated when the body works back to the mind for processing.

With this new understanding, is there such thing as a toxic person in your life? Toxic is your label based on that person challenging your values. There are just as many people who will call this person “nutritious.” Avoid the label and understand that the parts that hold the most emotion bring you to the next lesson.

In summary:

Genome is the hardware, epigenome is the software. Our life expression is within our control; just change the program.

Emotion is changing the program. It is the computer check screen that flashes: “Are you sure you want to do this?” It is a learning moment guiding you toward what you love.

Write your own program. Design your own emotional blueprint by asking yourself questions. Avoid judgements or labels. Understanding why the emotion is there and where it came from gives us the power to learn and grow.

Interested in more on genes? Check out this article!