A new science has emerged over the last 20 years called Epigenetics. It is the study of changes in gene activity that is not accounted for by alterations in the genetic code, but is still passed on to the next generation. It is through epigenetic “marks” that environmental factors such as diet, stress, emotions, exposure to toxins, prenatal nutrition, and parental influences can modify and regulate genes that are passed on to future generations.

Epigenetic research has established that DNA blueprints passed down through genes are not set in concrete at birth and can be modified. Our genes are continually being modified in response to our life experiences and how we perceive them.  Our cells respond to our thoughts and perceptions, and our perceptions shape our biology.  Each of the 75 trillion cells in the human body has a digestive, respiratory, excretory, endocrine, nervous, reproductive, and immune system.  Individual cells have intelligence and memory.

The Mind-Body Connection in our DNA

Researchers at Duke University recently concluded a long-term study on the effects of violence on children’s DNA.  The study, reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, found that children who had experienced violence had shorter genetic structures, called telomeres, than children who did not experience violence.  These children experienced physical abuse by an adult, were bullied frequently, or had witnessed domestic violence between the ages of 5 and 10.  The children who were exposed to violence had wear-and-tear to their DNA similar to that seen in aging.  This might explain why they face an increased risk of mental and physical disorders in adulthood.  It is estimated that children who had experienced multiple types of violence had their lives reduced by 7 to 10 years.

Our mind sends out impulses of intelligence and our DNA receives it.  We are continually conversing with our DNA.  Our emotions influence which genes are expressed and which ones are not. Every thought and emotion we experience sends a message which impacts each cell in our bodies and is registered in the memory of each cell.  This cell memory imprints automatically and unconsciously and is later referred back to continually as this has our belief system. 

Our beliefs alter our biology at every moment.  When we are feeling angry, isolated and tense our DNA retracts into tight coils.  When we feel uplifted and open our DNA expands into graceful spirals.  Our perceptions of the environment and resulting beliefs actually determine the expression of our genes and behavior.  By adjusting our perceptions, we can adjust our behavior.

It is our early experiences with caregivers that shape a child’s core beliefs about self, others, and life in general. Experiences of the baby and young child are encoded in the brain. Emotional experiences of nurturance and protection are encoded in the brain’s limbic area, the emotional center. Over time, repeated encoded experiences become internal working models – core beliefs about self, self in relation to others, and the world in general. These core beliefs become the lens through which children (and later adults) view themselves and others, especially authority and attachment figures. Core beliefs serve to interpret the present and anticipate the future.

The core beliefs of children who have experienced secure in the early years will enable them to feel a safe and secure attachment to others and life feels worth living.Whereas the core beliefs of emotionally neglected children tend to have compromised attachments that not only lead to emotional and social problems, but also result in biochemical consequences in the developing brain. Infants raised without loving touch and security have abnormally high levels of stress hormones, which can impair the growth and development of their brains and bodies.

Attachment is the deep and enduring connection established between a child and caregiver in the first several years of life. It profoundly influences every aspect of the human condition — mind, body, emotions, relationships and morality.

The neurobiological consequences of emotional neglect can leave children behaviorally disordered, depressed, apathetic, slow to learn, and prone to chronic illness. Compared to securely attached children, attachment disordered children are significantly more likely to be aggressive, disruptive and antisocial. Teenage boys, for example, who have experienced attachment difficulties early in life, are three times more likely to commit violent crimes.

Disruption of attachment during the crucial first three years can lead to what has been called “affectionless psychopathy”, the inability to form meaningful emotional relationships, coupled with chronic anger, poor impulse control, and a lack of remorse. Children who experience interpersonal trauma feel rejection, pain, fear and anger.

Writing the Code of Early Experiences

The baby’s brain is an “open-loop system,” dependent on the parent’s or caregiver’s support, security and emotional connection for healthy growth and functioning.

Early attachment experiences shape the brain’s structure, chemistry and genetic expression in the following ways:

• They activate neuronal firing, creating synaptic connections between neurons (“what fires together wires together”).

• Biochemicals are triggered and released. Secure attachment between baby and parent triggers the release of Dopamine (pleasure, closeness, motivation), Endorphins (reduces pain, enhances calmness and contentment), Serotonin (stress reduction) and Oxytocin (fosters maternal behavior and bonding).

• Early experiences of secure or insecure attachment are programmed into the implicit memory systems (preverbal and unconscious) of the brain’s limbic system and become mindsets and expectations that guide subsequent behavior. For example, you may fear intimacy and dependency as an adult because of experiencing abandonment and betrayal as a child.

Change is Possible

Although,early experiences are a significant indicator of attachment patterns that an individual often carries with them into adulthood. That, however, doesn’t have to mean that a child who has experienced abandonment, lack of love, trauma or abuse in the early years must struggle with the inability to form loving and secure relationships later on.

Many studies on therapy outcome, reveal that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is the primary factor associated with positive results – more important than any theory or methods used. The experience of a healing relationship, whether it is between a therapist and client, or parent and child, is the most change-producing factor. Positive change requires a relationship in which people experience trust, safety, empathy, support, healthy boundaries, and “limbic resonance” (emotional and mental attunement).

Set yourself Free … Change is Possible. Healing is possible through with effective experiential interventions, unhealthy and damaging attachment patterns can be transformed. There are new techniques for healing using effective Energy Psychology, such as EFT. You can rapidly initiate change, any unhealthy and damaging attachment patterns can be transformed.

…. Blessings and love, Christina

In order to make crucial decisions about what to do with our time, energy, creativity, material resources and our lives, we need to answer some very basic questions. Otherwise we are simply programmed robots, living and reacting (rather than acting) according to our familial and social programming.

As Socrates said, “A life without enquiry is not worth living.”  A true scientist or searcher of the truth seeks continuously to uncover ever deeper answers in an endless attempt to explain the phenomena of this dimension of time, space, matter and energy. A seeker of what’s true seeks to free himself from illusions of the surface events and discover, not only the cause, but even more importantly, the purpose behind them. We are all scientists and seekers of truth. Some of us have simply fallen asleep at the job.

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… Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side?

NO, the truth is that we always take ourselves with us; even over the fence! Each of us create our own reality and we are all creating realities which offer us the most opportunities for personal growth.

For example, when we are unhappy, sometimes, we feel we would be happier living in a different place, in a different job, or a different relationship. Other times, we envy others for what they have or their good health or other life factors. The truth is that we are forgetting that we and they are the sole creators of our realities.

When living within our created reality, there is a distinction between who we are and our life changing experiences. For one, we need to realize that we are a constant immutable unchanging essence we call our Higher Self. It is this higher Self that pays witness to our life changing events and experiences. Even though, we create our reality, it is important to understand, that we are not the stories we tell ourselves. Our self-worth and security are not dependent on the aspects of our stories or how they change in our lives.  

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This post is the third in a series of three relating to understanding the concept of Oneness.

Quantum physics tells us that a photon or electron is actually a wave of possibilities until there is a witness that causes that wave to “collapse” into a specific particle in a specific place and time. It appears that the witness causes the wave of possibilities to leave that state of many possibilities and become one specific reality, as we know it.

We might imagine that something similar is happening between ourselves and life. Imagine life as a wave of possibilities, all of which exist together in a quantum zero state or implicate order or for the universal consciousness. In this nothing is formed yet. All is possible. Memories and programs are not yet limiting this conscious- energy.

Once pure consciousness begins to express itself through our programmed minds it becomes limited. It tends to attract what is in agreement with our memories and programming. Our beliefs and emotions cause the unlimited zero-point field of pure light consciousness to form into what we call our reality. This includes people, actions and events – all of which are reflections of and responses to our inner content.

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This post is the second in a series of three relating to understanding the concept of Oneness.

This concept of responsibility is quite difficult for most of us to digest. Can we take responsibility for other people’s irresponsible or unethical actions? How can we be responsible for those who are abusing women and children or killing innocent persons or wherever else? Are we to take responsibility for terrorist acts around the world? Such reactions naturally come to mind when we are asked to believe and employ this revolutionary system.

How can we be responsible for what “we” have not done and for what we would “probably” would never do? Doesn’t it seem unreasonable that we would be responsible for what others are doing on the other side of the world?  Are we responsible for actions perpetuated by leaders that we never voted for, do not agree with and even condemn?

This seems to be irreconcilable. So, how do we reconcile this?  The truth is that each of us in the exclusive creator of his or her reality and that others do not create our reality and we do not create theirs. Let’s go deeper in our understanding why we are 100% responsible.

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This post is the first one in a series of three relating to understanding the concept of Oneness.

All is one energy – one consciousness. We all constitute one united field of energy and consciousness that appears as separate beings and objects. This is the truth of Oneness … There is no you and me. Therefore, when we purify our individual energetic vibratory frequency to that system, we change the whole system.

We are all connected through a collective unconscious, a morphogenetic field, a united causal body or a quantum zero-point field or one united universal consciousness. This means that we affect each other with every thought, word and action.

The question is how do we affect each other and how is our personal and common reality created?

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What does it mean to Live Lightly? I’ll begin here with a simple definition of Lightly. It means with little weight or force—without care or concern—in a way that is not overtly serious—in a quick and graceful way.

I learned to Let go and Live Lightly while on two-year sabbatical in Greece many years ago. Yes, I literally let go of everything I had ever owned and was looking for a new beginning. I had everything I could want as far as material goods, but I was never going to be indicted into the “happiness hall of fame” by pretending I was happy when I was not.

Greece is beautiful and I had been there many times but one of the things I realized quite quickly, is that I didn’t need to go to away anywhere for my spiritual quest.  Why?  Well first off, we always take ourselves with us…. interesting that I never thought about this before I left!

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Emotions move us forward into our future; leave us stuck in place or drive us back to our past. A mind that is not aware and conscious leaves us swimming in our emotions. Your emotions are trying to tell you something, they are not intended to make you happy. Emotions are not what we think we know intellectually; they are what we know experientially.

We all get triggered by our unique experiences and it is these triggers set off or emotions. Emotions stem from the sub-conscious mind and are usually rooted from our childhood belief systems.  Today, even now as adults, this writing on our wall from childhood still remains with us. Our view of seeing the world is based on our childhood experiences.

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The human brain has about 86 billion neurons. It is a figure that was estimated in scientific research of 2009 in which the scientists used a new methodology. All electrochemical messages cause thousands of neurons to activate at the same time and transmit the message to neighboring neurons. This connection is called a synapse. Each neuron communicates in this way with hundreds of neurons receiving up to 500 times per second.
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As you set out to discovery your unique true essence, you will in all probability discover qualities and talents that you never knew existed. Alignment with your true self means becoming the person you were always intended to be. It brings a deep sense of fulfillment which extends to all aspects of life. In our everyday life it means that we eventually create the life pattern which best expresses what we have to offer. Unfulfilled people are restless and bored at home and at work, and with life in general. They are sometimes destructive and usually unhappy. Ego satisfaction is never more than temporary, and it is always illusionary. The true self is the source of creativity, individual expression and uniqueness.
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