Over the past few years my life has taken some rather dramatic turns. I’ve learned things about the way the world works that I never would have imagined. My eyes of pure optimism have been shown depths of dark murky truths, hatred and greed. I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotion, with seeds of my true nature peeking through moments of despair to remind me – this can all work out – this can all become just the bumps on the path to an amazing future. Consequently, I’ve been walking a fine line. Knowing that broadened awareness is the key to turning things around, but simultaneously not wanting to engage the fear and despair that I have experienced, within others. As the extent of the deception continued to be revealed, I was intimately connected to days of grief and feeling powerless like never before.
Food had become almost an obsession as I worked diligently to protect my family from all the evils of genetically engineered (GE) crops, yet the harder I tried to avoid them, the more pervasive they seemed. They were turning up everywhere; in the carefully selected items from the health food store, the feed from some of the local farms where we had been so proudly purchasing our meats and eggs, even raw milk wasn’t necessarily immune. I started to feel defeated. If I couldn’t avoid gmo’s how could I, in good conscience, go out and tell others to avoid them? I even started to feel poisoned. I began to think back to a prior idea that had plagued me. I’m always on the look out for people handling life situations better than me, so I can learn from them and implement any tools that I deem beneficial to my situation. One faction of people who I had taken note of along the way were those who were extremely selective when it came to food, I had failed to jump on board during many prior exchanges with them, because along with their improvements in some areas I had also noticed an increased sensitivity to those foods that they deemed ‘bad’. I perceived that as a weakness. Now, even after all my great successes through food with my health and happiness, I’d found myself in the same place. Some minor food indulgence that at one time would have been no big deal now fraught me with an extreme physical (and inevitably emotional) response, but why? Had I become more susceptible to the potential harm of these foods? And if that was the case, was this a better situation? My mind spun and twisted about trying to find the meaning and purpose of this whole journey.
It was just as I was digesting this food for thought that I was re-acquainted with one of my favorite areas of scientific study: epigenetics. I was first introduced to this ‘new biology’ at a conference in Boston where Dr. Bruce Lipton was speaking about Epigenetic Control. After being completely captivated by his presentation, I immediately bought his book ‘Biology of Belief’. His theories enthralled me at the time, but as the years had passed the imprint had begun to diminish from my psyche. When I began to remember all the possibilities that came to light through my understanding of epigenetic control, I was filled back up with personal power. The basis of his work is that our genes do not have omnipotent control over our lives and traits, as we were taught in school, but instead it is our mind that tells each of our genes to either function or be turned off. Dr. Lipton recounts data showing that anywhere between 33 and 66% of all healing can be attributed to the placebo effect. A potent fact that displays the capacity of the mind in health and healing. (A fact that is often glazed over by the medical profession. Why would medical professionals ignore such powerful information? It’s not in the financial interest of the pharmaceutical industry which currently runs the medical community.)
So, what does epigenetic control and placebo effect have to do with eating gmo foods? Well, I realized that I had fallen out of balance when it came to food; and remembering the power of the mind brought me right back to my center. Now I could value the information I had gained about food and work toward improvement both at home and out in the world, but I could also shed the fear and the guilt – those aspects that were not serving me positively. I again began recognizing that my mind has the ultimate say on how my body responds to any stimuli or situation. This is not to be confused with simply enacting positive thinking, because as Dr. Lipton expanded on, it is the subconscious mind that is in the drivers seat 95% of the time. A subconscious mind that was programmed through it’s environment, from conception until about the age of six. These are deeply ingrained beliefs, that operate most often without our conscious knowledge and can profoundly affect our perceptions of any circumstance. Where does this leave us? Usually with a driver headed in a direction that may or may not be in direct opposition to your conscious desires. Five percent of the time saying, ‘hey this is what I want’ and then banging our head against a wall two weeks later when we ended up in a divergent situation. With this new-found integration, along with some tools to correct limiting beliefs held in the subconscious, I was able to function and be happy with my progress without having to be perfect in every moment.
So why am I sharing all this with you? Because I want you to be empowered and I want us to fix this planet together. It can happen and it will happen, the speed of which will be determined mainly by the number of human beings that are willing to participate.
Here are some ways you can work on fixing your subconscious belief patterns, helping you to stay positive in uncertain times:
1. Meditation
2. Hypnosis
3. Emotional Freedom Technique
4. Consciously Connected Breathing/Rebirthing Breathwork
Here are some ways we can help clean up the food system:
1. Buying locally (decrease the use of fossil fuels)
2. Buying organic or cultivated without chemicals (decrease the use of pesticides)
3. Recognize the differences between the terms “local”, “organic”, “biodynamic”, “raw” & “non-gmo” – they are not synonyms, though each have their benefits.
4. Be willing to pay more to a farmer who is going the extra mile – that is what makes it possible for them. (we can pay now and feel good about our contribution or we can pay later, through medical expenses, tax money for subsidizing gmo crops or for environmental cleanup that will inevitably be required down the line)
5. Get involved in sub-presidential politics and elections. (change needs to start from the bottom up – elect officials that share a feeling of urgency with these topics)
