Why & How To Let Go Of Fear
Spirituality & Health|September/October 2017

The simple step is to understand the basic patterns driving our evolution

Bruce Lipton
Why & How To Let Go Of Fear

Scientists have known for a long time about the biological imperative, an inherent mechanism that engages the drive to survive. How it’s activated is unclear, but every organism, from a bacterium to the most advanced creature, can read the environment and sense whether its life is in threat or not. If it’s in threat, the system engages the imperative, which activates behaviors that will ensure survival. The immediate imperative for personal survival is to breathe air, drink water, and eat food—all the activities that support life. When forces outside the body threaten life, the imperative will read the situation and engage life-sustaining behaviors. These functions are not only activated in the brain, but are also experienced in the gut as a feeling that the situation is in some way life-threatening. I believe that’s what civilization is experiencing right now.

The biological imperative is directing people to discover how to become more secure, and the fundamental resolution to that quest is to form community. It is important to understand that this drive to be in community is not just an expression of our biological imperative; it is also our evolutionary imperative. Our consciousness is driving us to assemble and survive through the creation and support of a global community.

The evolutionary imperative is simple to understand, and it can be profoundly liberating—a way to transcend fear. Let me explain:

This story is from the September/October 2017 edition of Spirituality & Health.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the September/October 2017 edition of Spirituality & Health.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM SPIRITUALITY & HEALTHView All
ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
Spirituality & Health

ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY

CREATURELY REFLECTIONS

time-read
4 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
Spirituality & Health

THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION

THE HEART OF HAPPINESS

time-read
5 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
WAITING IN LINE
Spirituality & Health

WAITING IN LINE

OUR WALK IN THE WORLD

time-read
2 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
ENTER THE SAUNA
Spirituality & Health

ENTER THE SAUNA

Journalist Emily O’Kelly shares some uplifting research on the benefits of sweat bathing, a global healing practice not just limited to Northern climes.

time-read
2 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
the trail of ATONEMENT
Spirituality & Health

the trail of ATONEMENT

One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.

time-read
10+ mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
STALKING YOUR Mind
Spirituality & Health

STALKING YOUR Mind

Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.

time-read
10+ mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
LEAVING MESA VERDE
Spirituality & Health

LEAVING MESA VERDE

After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?

time-read
5 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE
Spirituality & Health

BECOMING YOUR OWN LEAD RESEARCHER IN HEALTHCARE

PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.

time-read
6 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
Spirituality & Health

ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY

\"Is astrology true?\" is the wrong question, writes RABBI RAMI SHAPIRO. He suggests that the truth is out there, but out there is really in here.

time-read
6 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023
WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spirituality & Health

WELLNESS IN THE WILD

Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.

time-read
3 mins  |
Sep/Oct 2023