The Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton [72]
In humans as well, the fundamental behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes we observe in our parents become “hard-wired” as synaptic pathways in our subconscious minds. Once programmed into the subconscious mind, they control our biology for the rest of our lives … unless we can figure out a way to reprogram them. Anyone who doubts the sophistication of this downloading should think about the first time your child blurted out a curse word picked up from you. I’m sure you noted its sophistication, correct pronunciation, its nuanced style, and context carrying your signature.
Given the precision of this behavior-recording system, imagine the consequences of hearing your parents say you are a “stupid child,” you “do not deserve things,” will “never amount to anything,” “never should have been born,” or are a “sickly, weak” person. When unthinking or uncaring parents pass on those messages to their young children, they are no doubt oblivious to the fact that such comments are downloaded into the subconscious memory as absolute “facts” just as surely as bits and bytes are downloaded to the hard drive of your desktop computer. During early development, the child’s consciousness has not evolved enough to critically assess that those parental pronouncements were only verbal barbs and not necessarily true characterizations of “self.” Once programmed into the subconscious mind, however, these verbal abuses become defined as “truths” that unconsciously shape the behavior and potential of the child through life.
As we get older, we become less susceptible to outside programming with the increasing appearance of higher frequency alpha waves (8-12 HZ). Alpha activity is equated with states of calm consciousness. While most of our senses, such as eyes, ears, and nose, observe the outer world, consciousness resembles a “sense organ” that behaves like a mirror reflecting back the inner workings of the body’s own cellular community; it is an awareness of “self.”
At around twelve years of age, the child’s EEG spectrum begins to show sustained periods of an even higher frequency defined as beta waves (12-35 Hz). Beta brain states are characterized as “active or focused consciousness,” the kind of brain activity used in reading this book. Recently, a fifth, higher state of EEG activity has been defined. Referred to as gamma waves (>35Hz), this EEG frequency range kicks in during states of “peak performance,” such as when pilots are in the process of landing a plane or a professional tennis player is engaged in a rapid-fire volley.
By the time children reach adolescence, their subconscious minds are chock-full of information that ranges from the knowledge of how to walk to the “knowledge” they will never amount to anything or the knowledge, fostered by loving parents, that they can do anything they set out to do. The sum of our genetically programmed instincts and the beliefs we learned from our parents collectively form the subconscious mind, which can undo both our ability to keep our arm raised in a chiropractor’s office and our best New Year’s resolutions to stop sabotaging ourselves with drugs or food.
Again I go back to cells, which can teach us so much about ourselves. I’ve said many times that single cells are intelligent. But remember, when cells band together in creating multicellular communities, they follow the “collective voice” of the organism, even if that voice dictates self-destructive behavior. Our physiology and behavior patterns conform to the “truths