The state of mind from which we are living determines the quality of our life. Our state of mind is creating our state of body. Mind and body create our health.
Which state of mind and body are you living from?
Living in survival vs. in creation
We either live in survival or in creation. Living in stress is living in survival mode.
What is stress?
Stress is a mental, emotional or physical tension as a result of very demanding circumstances.
Stress is created when:
- we can’t predict a future outcome
- we feel we can’t control a situation
- we have the perception that there is a threat or a danger in our environment or something is going to get worse in our lives
There are 3 types of stress: physical stress, emotional stress and chemical stress.
- Physical stresses are things like traumas, accidents, injuries, falls,…
- Emotional stresses are family tragedies, traffic jams, single parenting, financial issues, relationships, work place, …
- Chemical stresses are flus, bacterias, viruses, blood sugar levels, toxins in food, endocrine disruptors from chemicals that we are exposed to in our environment,…
How does stress affect us?
All these stressors knock our brain and body out of balance. When we live in stress, our brain and body is knocked out of homeostasis.
“Stress is one of the biggest causes of epigenetic change, because it knocks your body out of balance.” Dr Joe Dispenza.
The stress response is an innate response of our body to go back to order. When we perceive a danger or a threat in our external environment, our reaction is to fight, flee or freeze. This is a natural response of our sympathetic nervous system called fight & flight. This process requires our body to innately mobilize enormous amounts of energy and resources. All of it is used to be able to adapt to the stress in the environment. We tap into the body’s vital resources so we can survive the condition in our outer world.
The chemistry of our body is enhanced with the stress response. We get a rush of adrenaline and cortisol to be able to survive the threat or danger of our environment. This is a survival mechanism that is very adaptive and is hardwired in us since our creation. Once the threat or danger is gone this chemical response of fight & flight is switched off and the body can go back to balance. After there is a stress response, we need to rest and repair because the body has to come back to balance to regenerate its energy.
We are all meant to tolerate these short-term stresses. The problem is that we perceive stress in our environment all around us, all the time. From our boss, our co-workers, our friends, our mother-in-law, our partner, traffic, our financial issues, our traumas,… We find ourselves constantly in that state of fight & flight. We maintain that stress response and we end up living in survival mode all the time. So what was once an adaptive process becomes very mal-adaptive. When we turn on the stress response and we can’t turn it off, we’re headed for disease. No one can live in survival mode for an extended period of time!
If we keep mobilizing enormous amounts of energy to fight a threat in our outer world, there is no energy left in our inner world for growth and repair.
Most people become habituated to that state as stressors are repeated and constant. For most people, they’re living in that survival state 70% of the time!
When a person is constantly living in a state of stress, they become like an addict. They are conditioned to the rush of the arousal of these chemicals. The arousal of the senses that come from the stressors, put them in survival mode and it’s like a rush of energy. In time, they will begin to use the problems and conditions in their life to reaffirm the need for that rush of energy.
We can become so conditioned to these chemicals and so addicted to that emotion of stress, that like a drug addict, we need the bad job, the poor relationship, we need a difficult situation in our life to keep getting that rush of adrenaline and energy. People then become addicted to the life they don’t even like!
This is why change is so hard. Being in survival mode becomes an addiction. People become very dependent on the stimulation from their outer world to make them feel something in their inner world.
Just by thinking about our problems, we can turn on the stress response. Just by thought alone, we can keep ourselves in survival mode. This means we can get addicted to our own thoughts.
It is a scientific fact that the long term effects of the hormones of stress push the genetic buttons that create disease. Genes get down regulated because of the hormones of stress. Since you can turn on the stress response just by thought alone, it means that your thoughts can literally make you sick!
So many diseases are created by the immune system being suppressed by that stress response, by living in survival mode. Everything from cancer, MS, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, food allergies and sensitivities. They are all compromising the immune system.
“Your thoughts are incredibly powerful. Choose yours wisely.” Dr Joe Dispenza.
If your thoughts can make you sick, is it possible that your thoughts can make you well?
How does long term effects of stress affect our brain?
When we’re in survival mode, it’s not a time to create, it’s not a time to open our heart, it’s not a time to learn anything new, it’s not a time to sit still and go within. When we are in that state, our senses are heightened and we become narrow focused.
When we are in survival mode and we have the arousal of those chemicals, we start to control everything in our life. We try to predict things. We are craving the known because the unknown is a scary place. As we shift our attention from one thing to the next, each of these elements has a neurological network in the brain. The arousal of those chemicals cause these circuits to be highly activated. Because our brain is mapped to everything that’s known in our life, our brain then looks like a lightning storm and that puts our brain in a very incoherent state. This state makes us become over analytical, over focused, over critical and over judgmental.
So when we’re stressed, we keep thinking about the same thing over and over again. The hormones of stress cause our brain to be narrowed-focus and we keep focusing on the cause of our stress. That’s what we do when we’re living in survival. As a result, we think about the worst possible scenario and we prepare for the worst. Most people spend the majority of their life preparing for the worst thing that could happen to them when they’re living in a stressful state.
If we don’t know how to regulate or stop that emotional reaction to stress, and we keep that same reaction lingering for hours and days, that’s called a mood. If we keep that mood for weeks to months on end, that’s called a temperament. If we keep that same emotional reaction going on for years on end, that’s called a personality trait. And most people’s personality traits are defined by their past experiences.
Things to remember:
- Stress is when the brain and body are knocked out of balance.
- The hormones of stress suppress the immune system and push the genetic buttons, which in terms create diseases.
How does living in survival mode affect our health?
When we’re in survival mode, living in fear, we take all of the available energy of our body and use it for fight & flight purposes. We shut down growth and we shut down the immune system. The chemistry of the blood will then redirect the genetics of the activity from growth into protection. And we can’t be in both at the same time. What determines the difference is our perception and then that perception is translated into chemistry by the brain. The chemistry goes into the growth medium called blood which nourishes and directs the activity of all the cells in our body.
This is how a thought changes the genetics of our activity because our thoughts are converted into chemistry by the brain.
The perception of fear will release chemistry that will shut down growth and shut down the immune system. And we need to grow every day. Hundreds of millions of cells that die every day have to be replaced every single day until we die!
The problem is that we have been trained to live in fear. The stressors in our lives are 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. They never go away! And that means everyday we are compromising our growth because of the stress hormones. Everyday we are compromising the action of the immune system. The result of that is illness and disease. That’s the one consequence from the chemical of fear. In today’s world, we are driven and motivated by fear, all day, every day.
Our negative thinking is taking away our health because it releases stress hormones that shut down growth and the immune system, opening us up for disease. Belief, positive or negative (placebo and nocebo effect), is equally powerful in shaping our life. It’s consciousness controlling biology.
How disease is not genetic but rather, is related to stress and lifestyle
The function of our immune system is tied directly to our perception of life. Stress inhibits the function of the immune system. Stress comes from our perception of our environment, our experiences.
“Your perception of any given thing, at any given moment, can influence the brain chemistry, which, in turn, affects the environment where your cells reside and controls their fate.” Dr Bruce Lipton.
Genes are not responsible for our diseases!
“Genes are not destiny!” Dr Bruce Lipton.
For the longest time, we have believed that every characteristic of the human being was associated with genetics that they possess (the negative ones and the good ones too). We assumed that specific genes must be responsible for a specific illness. So we want to change the malfunctioning gene that is responsible for the disease. And that’s why the pharmaceutical industry wants to give us medicine, drugs and chemicals to change how the cells read the information. But here’s a scientific fact: turns out less than 1% of disease is connected to genetics! The rest is influenced by lifestyle. Most diseases are the result of how we are responding to the world around us. That is based on lifestyle.
There are no cancer genes! There are no genes that cause cancer. Most diseases are actually related to stress. When we stress a situation, the gene can precipitate the disease. The gene doesn’t cause the disease but is correlated with the disease.
This puts responsibility back on us! When you’re saying the genes did it, you’re saying “I’m a victim and somebody has to heal me”. You are not the victim! You are the creator! You can create cancer or you can create health.
Most diseases are due to stress and lifestyle. That’s why most of the illnesses and diseases on our planet will not be resolved with chemical healing. Artificial drugs won’t help fix these issues. The answer is not outside of us. It is within us!
The problem is that the medical industry is biased by the pharmaceutical industry, which includes some of the largest corporations in the world. And as a corporation, their only interest is profit. They make money off of you being sick. They don’t really care about your health, they are caring for the profit of the corporations.
Living in survival: things to remember
- Living in survival is living in our animal state.
- When we live in survival, we live in stress.
- When the body is in that state, diseases, imbalances and degeneration are created.
- Emotions are fear/anger/sadness, which are the primary emotions of survival.
- The self comes first.
- All our attention is on our body, our environment and time.
- We lose energy.
- We live in emergency mode.
- The heart and brain live in a very incoherent state.
- We’re narrowed focused. The hormones of stress create incoherence in the brain and in the heart keeping our focus narrowed to the known. In that state, we see a limited amount of possibilities because it’s not a time to create.
- We are determining our reality with our senses. Meaning if we can’t see it, smell it, touch it, hear it, feel it, it doesn’t exist.
- We’re living by cause and effect. We’re waiting for our environment to change to give us relief from the discomfort that we’re feeling inside of us.
- We feel separated.
- In survival, we are craving the known because the unknown is too much of a scary place.
Living in creation: things to remember
This state of mind and body is the exact opposite of living in survival.
- The creative state is the divine aspect of us.
- In creation, the brain and body move back into homeostasis.
- There is an expansion and release of energy.
- The body goes into rest & repair mode.
- There’s health, there’s order, there’s regeneration taking place in the body.
- Elevated, heartfelt emotions like love/joy/trust/gratitude mobilize chemicals that begin to repair and regenerate our body.
- We tend to be less selfish and more selfless.
- Energy is always created in the creative process.
- There is growth and repair.
- We broaden and open our focus.
- We feel less separated and more connected to something greater.
- We look at all possibilities instead of limited possibilities.
- The brain and heart go into coherence.
- And now the unknown becomes the adventure. If we’re going to create something new in our life, we have to crave the unknown.
How can we shift out of survival into creation?
Change your perception. Set an intention.
We might not be able to control our outer world of circumstances but we can control our inner world of thoughts and feelings. We can control our perception and our response to the stressors in our life.
We need to take our attention off our body, the people in our life, the circumstances in our environment,… When we’re no longer putting any attention to the things we own, our environment, time,… we’re disconnecting our attention from this 3 dimensional reality. And this begins to change our brain state.
Perception and intention are important to heal yourself. How you perceive your life is directly going to affect your health. Likewise, your intention to heal will also set you on the path for healing.
Open your awareness. Broaden your focus.
Go from narrow-focused to open minded. The act of opening our awareness causes us to stop thinking and to stop analyzing. Then we’re no longer activating those circuits in our brain. Our brain activity is slowed down and we get beyond our analytical mind. This eventually causes different compartments of the brain to synchronize and unify. So we go from brain incoherence to a more organized, coherent brain. The side effect from more brain coherence is that the body goes back to balance. The brain and body can move back to homeostasis. And the nervous system goes back to what it does, which is maintaining order and balance.
Open your heart. Feel elevated emotions like gratitude, love, joy and peace
These emotions will restore and repair the immune system. They will also prevent any imbalances from arising or coming back.
Live in the present moment
Practice mindfulness. Be present in the moment. Connect to the now. Practice meditation and deep breathing.
Go from doing and having to being
Focus on being a wholehearted healthy person rather than pursuing things or keeping you busy and distracted.
Become a new you
From the old self to the new self. Change who you are. We have to change our story. We need to stop believing in our past experiences and start creating a new future.
Choose to think new thoughts, start acting differently
A new thought will create a new action. A new action will create a new experience. And a new experience will create a new emotion.
Seek help
You do not have to go through this alone. If the load of the stressors in your life is too heavy and you don’t know where to start or how to deal with them, don’t worry. It’s ok to ask for help. Therapies like BodyTalk, and other types of energy medicine practices, can help with removing the stresses that you hold in your body and mind.
I hope to have brought you some more clarity on these 2 opposite ways of living your life. Remember, you always get to choose your perception and reaction to the circumstances and experiences in your life. You get to choose how you see your life and how you see yourself. You get to create who you want to become. You get to create your health and your life.
So choose wisely, and just BE.
This article was inspired by the work on epigenetics of both Dr Joe Dispenza and Dr Bruce Lipton.
Recent Comments