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Bruce Lipton: In a sense, we know through the study of the cell membrane, through the study of epigenetics, that this is fundamental. Epigenetics says the environmental signals influence gene expression, and these environmental signals are direct sometimes, and other times they’re interpretations, when these perception become beliefs. So, I have a belief about something, which is a perception, and I adjust my biology to that particular belief. As with terminal cancer, if I buy what doctors say, then they’re making a prediction about my life. If they say I have terminal cancer and I agree with them, then I will essentially die when they say I will. Who are the people that don’t? The “spontaneous remission” cases. Almost to a person, I’ll bet, they did not buy that diagnosis. And the only reason they got out of it was that they entertained another belief system that was completely different, and so they were able to change that.
Science of Mind: How can we change our perceptions or beliefs to that degree?
Bruce Lipton: The first thing is to acquire the new perceptions of how life works. Let go of or reconsider the perceptions we came with, which, inevitably, are victimization, I’m frail, the environment can attack me, sugar is bad. These are acquired beliefs. But the issue is, are they really true? They are true if that’s what you believe because perception runs the biology. If I’m programmed with the perception that sugar is harmful to my biology and I eat sugar, then I’m knowingly making my system toxic by the belief, not by the sugar. Most of these perceptions come with limiting or self-sabotaging beliefs about what we can and can’t do. Like self-healing. The tendency is, no, you can’t heal yourself, you have to go to someone else who will heal you. My goodness. After several billion years of evolution, the system was designed to heal itself. How many million years did humans go without medical doctors? Why do we need so many more doctors now? Because the perception is that we are weak and frail, and we require them to help us. Well, that’s a perception. When we eliminate this perception and start to put in new perceptions, then we change the response of our biology to the world that we live in. As we change our perceptions, we change our responses. The perceptions you’re operating from—are they supporting you or taking away from you?
These perceptions are in the subconscious, which runs 95 percent of our life. And, when it does so, it does so without us even observing that. We never actually see the programs that are automatic. They’re running because the conscious is busy, and the automatic programs take over. When the conscious is busy doing something, it’s not observing itself. There are two facts that help us make sense of this. One, the conscious mind operates on a 40-bit processor, meaning it can interpret and process 40 bits or nerve stimuli—a bit is a nerve stimuli—per second. Meaning, 40 stimuli are coming in every second, and the conscious mind is sorting and understanding them. The subconscious mind in that very same second is processing 40 million bits. Relevance: If I compare the processing of the conscious to the subconscious mind, the subconscious is a million times more powerful in processing information. Fact number two: Cognitive neuroscientists say that 5 percent of our daily behavior is controlled by the conscious mind and 95 percent is from the subconscious program. So in our day-to-day existence, the subconscious mind is the most powerful source of our biology. The subconscious mind is a tape player. There’s nobody in there. It’s basically a stimulus-response device. You don’t have to be conscious of it. You just go out in the world, and it will do what it has to do without you thinking about it.
When the conscious mind’s busy, it’s not observing the subconscious. And the subconscious is the fundamental programs we got from other people in our first six years. As you are living your life with your intentions and desires from your conscious mind, 95 percent of your behavior is coming from your subconscious mind, which was programmed by other people
And most of the programming is actually limiting. You can’t heal yourself, you’re not smart enough, you don’t deserve good things, you’re not good at art or whatever it is. These pronouncements become subconscious programs, running when I’m not paying attention. The conscious mind for most people is involved in thinking into the future or into the past. And if the conscious is doing that, at the moment of now, you’re really being run by the subconscious. Your conscious is busy trying to think,” I deserve a raise and I should be higher in this company.” While you’re doing that, of course, you’re operating from the subconscious, and that has a program that says you don’t deserve things. What behavior are you expressing? The behavior that’s coherent with “I do not deserve.” That means you will make mistakes or whatever that will make it legitimate that you don’t deserve things. You don’t realize it because you haven’t seen this happen, and you get frustrated with your life because you’re trying so hard to be successful and never getting anywhere And then of course, the tendency is, it’s not you, the world is getting in your way. The big, funny surprise is, the world will give you everything. It’s your own self that’s in the way.
Science of Mind: How do we overcome our subconscious programming?
Bruce Lipton: Become aware of it. There are a couple ways of doing that. The oldest way is Buddhist mindfulness. If you are conscious of being here right now, as you make this stupid mistake, you’d observe the mistake, and you could fix it. But consciousness is a very difficult thing to train, and it’s also a 40-bit processor trying to completely run the 40 million-bit processor. So, for most people it’s a very difficult process because their lives are so busy and they’re so engaged they can’t watch it themselves.
The other way is, you can go back in there and rewrite the program, but there are two things you have to do: one, identify the program, and, two, carry out a process to rewrite it. What that reflects is something most people haven’t paid attention to and where most of the problems come from. They think they can just talk to the
Science of Mind: How can we change our perceptions or beliefs to that degree?
Bruce Lipton: The first thing is to acquire the new perceptions of how life works. Let go of or reconsider the perceptions we came with, which, inevitably, are victimization, I’m frail, the environment can attack me, sugar is bad. These are acquired beliefs. But the issue is, are they really true? They are true if that’s what you believe because perception runs the biology. If I’m programmed with the perception that sugar is harmful to my biology and I eat sugar, then I’m knowingly making my system toxic by the belief, not by the sugar. Most of these perceptions come with limiting or self-sabotaging beliefs about what we can and can’t do. Like self-healing. The tendency is, no, you can’t heal yourself, you have to go to someone else who will heal you. My goodness. After several billion years of evolution, the system was designed to heal itself. How many million years did humans go without medical doctors? Why do we need so many more doctors now? Because the perception is that we are weak and frail, and we require them to help us. Well, that’s a perception. When we eliminate this perception and start to put in new perceptions, then we change the response of our biology to the world that we live in. As we change our perceptions, we change our responses. The perceptions you’re operating from—are they supporting you or taking away from you?
These perceptions are in the subconscious, which runs 95 percent of our life. And, when it does so, it does so without us even observing that. We never actually see the programs that are automatic. They’re running because the conscious is busy, and the automatic programs take over. When the conscious is busy doing something, it’s not observing itself. There are two facts that help us make sense of this. One, the conscious mind operates on a 40-bit processor, meaning it can interpret and process 40 bits or nerve stimuli—a bit is a nerve stimuli—per second. Meaning, 40 stimuli are coming in every second, and the conscious mind is sorting and understanding them. The subconscious mind in that very same second is processing 40 million bits. Relevance: If I compare the processing of the conscious to the subconscious mind, the subconscious is a million times more powerful in processing information. Fact number two: Cognitive neuroscientists say that 5 percent of our daily behavior is controlled by the conscious mind and 95 percent is from the subconscious program. So in our day-to-day existence, the subconscious mind is the most powerful source of our biology. The subconscious mind is a tape player. There’s nobody in there. It’s basically a stimulus-response device. You don’t have to be conscious of it. You just go out in the world, and it will do what it has to do without you thinking about it.
When the conscious mind’s busy, it’s not observing the subconscious. And the subconscious is the fundamental programs we got from other people in our first six years. As you are living your life with your intentions and desires from your conscious mind, 95 percent of your behavior is coming from your subconscious mind, which was programmed by other people
And most of the programming is actually limiting. You can’t heal yourself, you’re not smart enough, you don’t deserve good things, you’re not good at art or whatever it is. These pronouncements become subconscious programs, running when I’m not paying attention. The conscious mind for most people is involved in thinking into the future or into the past. And if the conscious is doing that, at the moment of now, you’re really being run by the subconscious. Your conscious is busy trying to think,” I deserve a raise and I should be higher in this company.” While you’re doing that, of course, you’re operating from the subconscious, and that has a program that says you don’t deserve things. What behavior are you expressing? The behavior that’s coherent with “I do not deserve.” That means you will make mistakes or whatever that will make it legitimate that you don’t deserve things. You don’t realize it because you haven’t seen this happen, and you get frustrated with your life because you’re trying so hard to be successful and never getting anywhere And then of course, the tendency is, it’s not you, the world is getting in your way. The big, funny surprise is, the world will give you everything. It’s your own self that’s in the way.
Science of Mind: How do we overcome our subconscious programming?
Bruce Lipton: Become aware of it. There are a couple ways of doing that. The oldest way is Buddhist mindfulness. If you are conscious of being here right now, as you make this stupid mistake, you’d observe the mistake, and you could fix it. But consciousness is a very difficult thing to train, and it’s also a 40-bit processor trying to completely run the 40 million-bit processor. So, for most people it’s a very difficult process because their lives are so busy and they’re so engaged they can’t watch it themselves.
The other way is, you can go back in there and rewrite the program, but there are two things you have to do: one, identify the program, and, two, carry out a process to rewrite it. What that reflects is something most people haven’t paid attention to and where most of the problems come from. They think they can just talk to the
