In his 10th edition of The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton (2015) draws “the proverbial line in the sand” when he states, “On one side … is a world defined by neo-Darwinism, which casts life as an unending war among battling, biochemical robots. On the other side … is the ‘New Biology,’ which casts life as a cooperative journey among powerful individuals who can program themselves to create joy-filled lives.” Shattering the old argument of whether nature overrides nurture or genes trump environment, has become Lipton’s life work. As a former scholar of cell biology, he sums his research up with the following words —
Human beings are multicellular organisms … a bustling cooperative community of more than 50 trillion individual cells.
… a cell’s life is fundamentally controlled by the physical and energetic environment with only a small contribution by its genes. Genes are simply molecular blueprints used in the construction of cells, tissues and organs. The environment serves as a “contractor” who reads and engages those genetic blueprints … It is a single cell’s “awareness” of the environment that primarily sets into motion the mechanisms of life. Just like a single cell, the character of our lives is determined not by our genes but by our responses to the environmental signals that propel life. … biology’s most cherished tenets regarding genetic determinism were fundamentally flawed.
In summary, Lipton had the following epiphany — he could change his character by changing his beliefs. One of the most obvious character changes we witness is when a person drops their “victim” persona and chooses to become a “co-creator” of their life. Regardless of these new discoveries (beliefs) in cell biology and quantum physics, as human beings we have a long history of sticking to false beliefs.
Point of fact, I spent the last two decades peeling away my own layers of false and self-limiting beliefs, and I know I am not alone. I can safely say that 100% of the people that come to me for coaching are engaged in the same act. It occurred to me that listing even a small portion of these false beliefs might be helpful reminders of what our evolutionary path looks like.
False Beliefs:
- When you get frustrated and angry at someone, they deserve it because they have wronged you.
- You are not creative.
- You dislike your ex-lovers because of what they did to you.
- You are a negative, depressed person because your parents are/were negative depressed people.
- Striving, driving ambition is the foundation of a successful person.
- Logical rational thinking is more important than intuition and innovation.
- As a rule, the world is a dangerous place.
- Your personal feelings do not belong at work or in a board room.
- The more you can control your environment, the safer you will be.
- Humility, gentleness and tears are signs of weakness.
- For the most part, people are not to be trusted.
- If you don’t do it yourself, it will not be right.
- Pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain make for a healthy, happy life.
- Punishment rehabilitates criminals.
- Fear is a better motivator than love.
I could continue ad nauseum, but I am more interested in how you reacted when you read each false belief. I suspect you hit at least one that you had to wrestle with. Maybe, you just flat out disagreed with me. If this is the case, don’t just gloss over that belief and quickly opt for seeing me as wrong. Instead, ask yourself “Why do I think this is not a false belief?” Remember, our subconscious beliefs are deeply buried from our conscious mind. You may need to ask “Why” five times before you begin to uproot the truth.
On a final note, I hope we can all finally agree that “when we transform our conscious and subconscious thoughts, we transform our lives, and in the process, help humanity evolve to a new level of understanding and peace.
