Are you using your energy for growth or protection? How you answer this question can be the difference between a life full of vitality with a robust immune system and fearful, ever-diminishing life with a weakened immune system.
Cellular biologist Bruce Lipton was studying human blood vessel cells and observed three responses to external stimuli:
- A Growth response. A movement towards nutrients.
- A Protection response. A movement away from toxins
- A Neutral response. No movement in response to innocuous things.
Humans work much the same way as they do on a cellular level. Our brains distribute energy for our bodies based on these same stimuli. If there are things that give us health and love, we move towards them. Our energy goes toward taking in these good things and producing growth and more energy. If there is danger, we move away from it. Our energy is shifted towards defense, which means we close ourselves from receiving anything bad or good from the outside. Or if it is an internal threat, like a virus, all our energy goes towards destroying it. In the protective mode, you expend energy, but you produce nothing on either a cellular level or on a human development level.
Indeed, there are actual threats to your lives, like when a car shifts into your lane without seeing us. The part of your brain that seeks to maintain a healthful, balanced bodily state, the hypothalamus, seamlessly shifts you into protection mode, marshaling your resources to act quickly by sending out the necessary hormones to the parts of the brain and the body needed for fighting or running away. These hormones are great for short-term defense, but if they remain in your system at high levels, they are corrosive to your health. If you are continually feeling under threat, you expend energy that would be used for growth, and you will weaken your immune system. You can not move toward and away at the same time. You cannot protect and grow at the same time. And if you aren’t growing, you are dying.
The irony is that if you spend all your energy trying to protect yourself from COVID-19 or some other threat, then you make yourself more vulnerable to it. A healthy immune system can fight this virus in most cases. So what is Lipton’s solution? It is not enough to eliminate threats and stressors; this just gets us into a neutral, non-growth state. He says, “To fully thrive, we must not only eliminate the stressors but also actively seek joyful, loving, fulfilling lives that stimulate growth processes.”
Lipton’s advice reminds me of a teaching of Jesus. In Jesus’ day, the religious leaders focused much on avoiding sinful activities. In terms of our discussion, this is a protection response. They were spending their energy moving away from “toxins.” Jesus, on the other hand, promoted loving action and never treated people as toxins. Consider the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells this story in response to a legal-minded man who posed the question, “Who is my neighbor?” in regards to the command to love our neighbor as ourselves.
A man is beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the roadside. Various religious leaders walk by him, keeping their distance for fear that he was unclean and would make them unclean. They had identified the man as a potential toxin and moved away from him just like those cells in a petri dish. But then comes a Samaritan man, definitely unclean as far as the religious leaders of the day were concerned. He stopped and took the man to a nearby inn so that he could tend to his wounds without concern for his safety and at his own expense. Then Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
And today, I would ask the question, “Which of these do you think acted out of a growth mode rather than a protection mode?” The answer, of course, is the same- the one who had mercy. I am not suggesting that amid this pandemic, we should be risking other people’s lives by not keeping an advisable distance from others. But it is a matter of mindset. If we are in a protective mindset, we are more vulnerable and make others more vulnerable. We must try to keep in growth mode. We must seek loving, joyful, fulfilling lives. So, what does that look like?
One of my coaching clients is a pastor of a small, rural church—a church that up to a month ago was fairly technologically averse. Rather than just shutting everything down to wait out the virus in protection mode, this pastor decided to innovate. Not only did she begin live broadcasting the service through social media, but she also had an engineer set up a low-frequency radio station so that the church members could safely gather in their cars in a makeshift “drive-in” worship experience. Between those tuning into the broadcast through social media and those in the drive-in, worship attendance has increased rather than decreasing.
Also, they are redoing their website, upgrading their wi-fi, switching to online giving, holding meetings through Zoom, encouraging members to call each other. She said, “The church has never been more energized!” And I noted that I have never heard her more energized. She sounded loving, joyful, and fulfilled—like this is what she had always longed for. This pastor chose to move into a growth response rather than a protection response. This healthy choice put her and her congregation in a place of learning and innovation. The result is more energy rather than less. The unseen result is that the members of this church are less vulnerable to the virus and its effects because of their bolstered immune systems.
Unlike individual cells in a petri dish that brainlessly reacts to stimuli, your cells are under the command of a brain that has choices…if it is not being controlled by fear, that is. I am reminded of another scripture: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18 NRSV) Just as growth and protection cannot exist at the same time in your body, love and fear cannot coexist in your mind. When you focus your mind on loving, you will grow, and at the same time, you will do the right thing. We will lovingly keep our distance right now unless coming to someone’s aid will save their life. That’s a choice you can make. We wear our masks because it is both the right thing and the loving thing. But let’s not shut each other out. Let’s reach out to others lovingly in new ways. Let’s take this opportunity to learn and grow. And when this crisis is over, we will be stronger, smarter, and more loving—we will have grown.
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