Who’s Been Talking to My Genes?

“Who’s been talking to my genes?” is a playful way of asking a serious question. What influence might our experiences—including our relationships—have on how our bodies function? Nobody is whispering instructions directly to our DNA. But what happens around us, and how we experience it, gives us something worth investigating.

WHO’S BEEN TALKING TO MY GENES?

Alice stops outside the door.

She reads the sign twice.

“I wasn’t aware they were taking visitors.”

The Rabbit checks his watch.

“Perhaps we should find out who’s been admitted.”

The Hatter straightens his coat.

“I’ve brought references.”

For once, that might be useful.

We ended the last article with a question: “What is one response you would like to practice differently?”

Did you find the exercise helpful? If you haven’t yet had a chance to read Change Is Possible. Begin Practicing It!, you’re welcome to begin there—or join us here. If you tried that little experiment, keep your experience in mind as we explore the next question.

Understanding is only the beginning

As a music education instructor teaching college students, I learned how useful questions could be.

Some students would have preferred a ready-made answer. They could file it somewhere in their brains, hopefully retrieving it at precisely the right moment while standing in front of a band. If only teaching came with that convenient filing system. But knowing an answer isn’t the same as knowing what to do with it. That requires practice, application, and sometimes discovering that the first answer raises three more questions. I wanted students to practice finding their way toward an answer, rather than waiting for me to supply every one.

Self-discovery is a powerful tool! It also played an important role in how I developed a wholeness practice that became part of everyday life. I encountered various explanations for what I’d spent years practicing after I had already begun living the process I describe in Activate the Mountain. I hadn’t followed the teachings of Joe Dispenza, Caroline Leaf, Bruce Lipton, or Gregg Braden to arrive there. That doesn’t mean nobody influenced my journey. If you read my About page before October 2026, it’s worth another visit. I’ve added the story of a conference experience that became a catalyst for what I began practicing.

Later, I discovered others discussing ideas that resembled aspects of my experience. I didn’t agree with everything they said, but I recognized a familiar thread:

Could we begin in English?

Before we go farther, let’s unpack a few expressions from the Lipton and Dispenza videos in the Change is Possible. Begin Practicing it article. Otherwise, we could spend the afternoon nodding intelligently while wondering what anyone is talking about.

“Synaptic connections,” announces the Hatter.

Alice folds her arms.

“Could we begin in English?”

Excellent suggestion.

• Synaptic connections and neural circuits: Brain cells communicate through connections and networks. Learning can change how those connections work.
• Neurons that “fire together, wire together:” Repeatedly using certain connections can strengthen them. It’s a shorthand for learning, rather than a rule that every repeated thought becomes permanent.
• Subconscious programming: In these discussions, this describes familiar responses that can happen before we deliberately consider what we’re doing.
• Conditioning the mind and body: Through repeated experience, we can learn responses that include actions, expectations, and bodily reactions.
• Moving from knowledge to experience: Knowing how to ride a bicycle and actually balancing on one are different kinds of learning. Practice connects them.

Did you notice how often repetition appears in those explanations? That caught my musician’s attention. We practice something until it becomes more familiar—and sometimes we’ve been practicing without realizing what we’re learning. What we practice can become familiar. That doesn’t mean it defines everything we are—or everything we can become.

Knowing what to do—and learning how

Caroline Leaf’s emphasis on recognizing and changing familiar thought patterns also caught my attention. I recognized something from my own experience: knowing that I wanted to respond differently wasn’t the same as learning how to do it. You can read her description of her approach here.

“So understanding the instructions isn’t the same as doing them?” asks Alice.

The Hatter looks down at his unopened instruction manual.

“That would explain several things.”

How do we move from understanding an idea to living it? How do we notice a response that happens so quickly we barely recognize it until afterward? And what might we practice instead? This brings us to neuroplasticity—the brain’s capacity to change. It also raises another question: how might our experiences influence the activity of our genes?

Those questions are related, but they aren’t interchangeable. Learning a different response doesn’t automatically demonstrate an epigenetic change. Still, it gives us something worth exploring. My starting point was practical. I wanted to live differently, rather than simply collect more information about how that might be possible.

Are those glasses covered in marmalade?

A paradigm is a way of looking at things—a collection of assumptions that helps us decide what something means. Think of it as the pair of glasses through which we’re interpreting life. Wear them long enough, and we may forget we’re wearing them.

“Mine are perfectly clear,” says the Hatter.

Alice examines them.

“They’re covered in marmalade.”

Sometimes another perspective helps us notice what has been coloring our own. We learn expectations through experience, including our relationships. We may begin treating an assumption as a fact simply because it has become familiar. Someone makes a comment, and we immediately decide what they meant. A situation reminds us of an earlier experience, and we anticipate the same outcome.

What are we expecting? Where did that expectation come from? Does it fit what’s happening now? Dispenza discusses familiar cycles of thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses in the opening portion of his video. You don’t have to agree with every explanation to consider whether you recognize a pattern in your own life. I certainly did.

Recognition opens the door

Once we recognize a way of thinking or responding that no longer serves us, what comes next?

For me, this is where transformation enters the discussion. By transformation, I mean a meaningful change in how we understand, respond to, and participate in our lives. Recognizing that something needs to change opens the door. Practicing a different response is how we begin walking through it. When learning music, I could recognize that a passage needed work. Improvement required attention, adjustments, and practice. In life, transformation began when I put an action behind a new and different way of doing something. 

Recognizing an unhelpful pattern was also a beginning. Transformation involved learning what to practice instead. I couldn’t expect my hands to stop reaching for the wrong notes merely because I announced that I preferred the right ones. I had to give them something different to practice.

Understanding HOW transformation could take place and then putting what I discovered into practice is what pulled me out of a 19-year illness. If I can do it, so can anyone else! I show you what worked for me, which is where we go next...

Override is a choice and overwrite is the art of practicing it.

I’m using these words to describe learning and practice, rather than literally deleting a memory or rewriting DNA. The old negative behavior may still show up. That doesn’t mean the new practice routine has accomplished nothing. It just means that there's need for more practice!

Musically, my hands sometimes returned to an old mistake when I was tired, distracted, or playing too quickly. Or sometimes in the middle of a recital (horrors!) but that's just how it goes. When you're nervous or frustrated, some goofy things can happen. That's a reason to pay attention and adjust the practice routine. Those mistakes helped me hone my practice skills so I could learn the music so well, by recital time, my hands went on autopilot and I could relax and have a good time playing the recital. 

The same perspective helped me approach changes in my own life. I could notice something that needed an adjustment, choose to override the unhealthy behavior, then through practice, overwrite the behavior with something more positive, where I could begin again without turning the moment into a declaration that I was incapable of changing. The key? Overwriting requires an action that's practiced.

“I’ve played the wrong note again,” says the Rabbit.

“Then you’ll recognize it,” Alice replies.

The Hatter raises his teacup.

“To useful information.”

Back to the question over the door

So, who’s been talking to my genes? Lipton and Dispenza invite us to consider that our environment includes more than what happens around us. Their explanations emphasize how we perceive and respond to our experiences.

That raises a possibility I want to explore: as we change familiar ways of thinking and responding, might changes also occur in how our bodies regulate gene activity? I came to this question through dealing with a 19-year illness. I discovered a way to address the issue before encountering explanations of those I mention in this article. My starting point was practical:

What was I repeatedly agreeing with, and what could I begin practicing differently?

For a musical illustration, imagine the genes as piano keys. Epigenetic mechanisms help regulate which instructions cells can use—loosely comparable to influencing which keys to play on a piano and when to play them. That is an analogy, not a complete description of biology. However, this piano example is used by some neuroscientists, many who aren't even musicians. Our thoughts aren’t fingers that consciously select individual genes. But the image helps provide a distinction: having the same underlying instrument doesn’t mean the same music must always be played.

I’m interested in exploring how experience, perception, behavior, and biology might participate in that dance of life. Some connections have been studied directly. Others remain questions or interpretations. We can investigate those connections while also paying attention to what we’re practicing today.

Shall we review the guest list?

Before the next article, here are a few questions for your consideration and pondering pleasure.

You don’t need to answer all of them. Begin with whichever catches your attention. Grab a notebook and start writing. You might be surprised by what you come up with. 

• Is there a behavior or habit you would like to change? Write it down. What tends to happen just before you do it?
• Have you ever surprised yourself with a response? Perhaps you wondered, “Where did that come from?” Describe what happened without immediately judging yourself.
• What thoughts keep returning? Which seem to bring fear, anxiety, stress, or one of their negative cuddle buddies?
• Which thoughts and experiences help you feel peaceful, hopeful, or grateful? Give those some space in your notes, too.
• What happens in your body as you notice these different experiences? You’re making observations, rather than trying to diagnose yourself or measure your epigenetics.

The Rabbit studies his list.

“Must we fix everything before tea?”

Absolutely not.

For now, we’re noticing. Choose one negative or unhealthy response you’d like to understand better. What tends to happen before it? What do you tell yourself in that moment? What happens next?

The Hatter writes NEGATIVE CUDDLE BUDDIES at the top of his page.

“I suspect I’ve been offering some of these permanent accommodation.”

Alice pours the tea.

“Perhaps we should review the guest list.”

That’s our starting point. We can begin questioning what we’ve accepted as unhealthy without condemning ourselves for having learned it. In the next article, we’ll explore what we might begin practicing instead.

Did you notice who joined us for this conversation? Alice, the Hatter, and the White Rabbit also wander through the email adventures that follow Frequency Basics when you subscribe to the HFM newsletter. Expect music, questions, listening experiments, and the occasional interruption over tea—plus free gifts and our best discounts, reserved for subscribers. To join us, find “Want a FREE Song?” near the top of the right sidebar and enter your first name and email.

“The song is free?” asks Alice.

“Yes,” says the Rabbit.

“And the tea?” asks the Hatter.

We’re still negotiating that part. Come explore with us!

Del