Back in the early 90’s, I began following the latest research related to how emotions can affect our DNA, and this included the work of Gregg Braden and HeartMath.
It was the global crises of the late 20th Century, which saw Gregg leave his corporate life to begin a quest for the solutions he believed had survived in the oldest records of our past. He is now recognised as a leading authority on bridging the wisdom of our past with the science, medicine, and peace of our future.
Fast forward to current time and science continues to discover more and more how Epigenetics (the study of the chemical groups that stick to DNA and act as switches to turn genes on and off) can affect our emotions.
Emotion has been described as the experience of energy moving through the body.
It is typically felt as ‘sensations of contraction such as tension’, or ‘sensations of expansion such as calm’.
The Latin derivative for the word emotion, ‘emotere’, literally means ‘energy in motion’.
Simply put, when we are feeling a FEAR-based emotion such as anger, revenge, anxiety, depression etc, these feelings in our body, this contracted energy flow, causes more of the genes on our DNA to be switched off.
And conversely, when we are feeling LOVE-based emotions such as compassion, tenderness, forgiveness, understanding, gratitude…these feelings, this expanded energy flow, causes more of the genes on our DNA to be switched on.
The more the genes are switched on, the healthier our immune system…and the healthier our immune system, the healthier the chemicals that go to our brain.
It’s not rocket science and on some level I believe we all know this!
Why? Because I believe this is our own innate wisdom, (the ancient wisdom that Gregg Braden talks of).
We just need to be reminded of it…to bring it back into our consciousness, so we can be more aware of what we are feeling, thinking, saying and doing… and make more positive, supportive choices in our lives – individually and collectively.
And just to be clear, I am certainly not saying to deny our ‘fear’ based emotions because sadness, anger, anxiety etc are part of our emotional repertoire as human beings. It is though, about not remaining stuck in them, through excuses, judgment, denial, blame etc.
The old adage, ‘we reap what we sow’….has a lot of truth to it in light of this research.
I also remember what Buddha said “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
And one last thing……Gregg’s initial findings in the 90’s, resulted in his video ‘Awakening to Zero Point’ which is still on YouTube. It goes for 3.5 hours. If you don’t feel to watch the lot of it, it’s worth going to the two hour mark, where he talks about our DNA and emotions.
Here also is a link to part of the interview I had with Gregg in 2007 on the ‘Language of Human Emotion’
Until next time, take care.