Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (16 page)

Cellular Decision Making: Life and Death

Cell tension and shape orchestrate life and death.

Living cells do “either/or”: they
either
reproduce
or
they mature; they make copies of themselves or “grow up.” A reproducing cell exercises genetic intelligence only to make another cell—it doesn’t produce the resources a mature cell needs. The mature cell engages a different set of genes to provide for its livelihood, and it does not reproduce (see
table 4.1
). The hidden strings and fabric of the cytoskeleton regulate all of this.

When we look at how cells establish growth in petri dishes, we see them anchor firmly onto the surface and then spread out on their new plastic home. Cells attach, stretch, and spread out, signaling the genes to begin dividing. New cells are made until the entire surface is covered: just as skin cells cover a gash to heal the wound, cells stretch to make more cells.

If the plastic home gets too crowded, some of the stretched cells let go of the dish and begin to assume more rounded forms. If too many cells are competing for the same space and resources, genes that trigger duplication are turned off. Cells may even turn on self-destruct genes. Consider that cells “choose” to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the community, to make more room and food available for the rest. Is this a sign of cellular altruism?

Between the extremes of being stretched out with maximum tension (signaling growth genes) or balled up with little tension (signaling death genes), there are cells whose tension is “just right.” In this in-between physical state, genetic programs instruct cells to manufacture the special “goodies” of fully developed, mature cells. Mature genetic responses maintain what’s needed for their—and our—lives. Cells reproduce, mature, or die, one state at a time.

Table 4.1
Examples of Reproducing and Maturing Cells

All cells in the body carry the same genes. (The exception is mature human red blood cells, which have no genes.) One gene program is launched by a tug or pull on the cell, while another is launched when tension is released. The genetic instructions carried out are influenced by cellular tension, location, and the body’s chemical cocktails. The cytoskeleton is behind all of this cellular decision making.

Cells attached and stretched to their limits make copies of themselves. Over and over again, they repeat the same pattern. Cells that let go of their sticky attachments yet still retain flexibility and strength exert their maturation powers. Cells that do neither, completely let go—release—round in on themselves, and die a gentle death.

Cellular Buddhism?

Learn to let go and allow the changing mystery of life to move through us without fearing it, without holding or grasping. . . . Letting go and moving through life from one change to another brings the maturing of our spiritual being. In the end we discover that to love and to let go can be the same thing. . . . Both allow us to touch each moment of this changing life and allow us to be there fully for what arises next.

— JACK KORNFIELD
A Path with Heart

According to a Buddhist concept, when we learn to let go of attachments, we mature on our spiritual journey. So it is with our cells. When they let go some—but not too much—they evolve into more mature citizens. They are farther along in their life’s journey.

Could the idea of letting go of attachments to achieve spiritual maturity and enlightenment have arisen only from philosophical and psychological tenets? Or did clues for this idea originate with an observation or vision of the internal microscopic universe? What influenced the spiritual concept of maturity following a letting-go process?

REFLECTION

Attachments and Letting Go

A seed of the mighty oak tree nestles in the womb of Mother Earth.

Sending down shoots and roots, it attaches to the Earth Mother.

Only when it’s connected and attached can it grow upward toward the light.

A single, tiny fertilized egg, anchoring into the mother’s womb, attaches and proliferates into a trillion-celled baby. Letting go of the womb into the bright light of the world, the baby matures.

Throughout life we go through patterns of repeating ourselves, growing and maturing until our very last breath, when we fully let go.

EXPLORATION

The Three States

In teaching, I have discovered that when we embody cell behavior, we learn concepts physically through our bodies that may be difficult to grasp with our minds. The following exploration of cellular states helps engage your cellular wisdom. Give yourself at least fifteen minutes for this exercise. Have ready a pad of paper and a special pen or a set of colored pencils, or anything else you might want to use to write about your experience afterward. If you are in a group, one person can be a timekeeper, calling out when to change states at about five-minute intervals or longer. If you are doing this by yourself, you can sense when it’s time for you to change or set a timer.

Sit comfortably on the floor and let your mind and space be free of any distractions. Imagine yourself to be a cell that has choices to make. Do you want to be one that is attached, stretched out as far as you can reach and clinging to the floor, making more cells, repeating yourself? Next you might choose to experience being all balled up, surrendering to a gentle dying process. Or you could become a maturing cell, no longer tightly attached to the floor and now gaining in maturity; you can do this acting as any kind of 82 secrets of Your cells
fully developed cell, such as one of the immune cells, a dancing neuron, or a beating heart cell. Use your imagination and pay attention to which state you want to enact first. Be with it for at least five minutes. Then shift to another state, feeling and sensing what that’s like. Finally, choose the third state. You can do this in any order. When you feel the exercise is complete, write down what you experienced. What did you become aware of and what did you learn?

This is always a fascinating exploration during which people learn a great deal about themselves—it may be even more important than a better understanding of biology. Consider these states as metaphors for your own behavior. What were you drawn to first? Do you need to be making more of yourself, repeating some behaviors? Are you stuck in the same repetitive patterns, holding on too tight and not able to let go? Is there something you must fully let go of? Are you in a maturing phase of your life?

One of my students said that before doing this exercise she did not want to experience the death phase. So she put it off until almost the last minute. When she finally allowed herself to experience fully letting go, she felt great relief. It wasn’t scary at all.

Letting Go—What If . . .

Until the summer of 2010, I saw the letting go process mainly in cellular, psychological, and metaphorical terms. Then I met someone who led support groups for people with cancer. In our discussions about cells and healing, a new possibility in letting go arose.
⁸

He told me about people he’s worked with whose cancer healed or went into remission when it “shouldn’t have.” The common factor he observed was that they’d let go of something
big.
Maybe it was their fear of dying, perhaps a detrimental relationship: a
big
letting go. He included himself in that group, now six years in remission after a deadly diagnosis of advanced stage IV lymphoma.

I reflected with him on the cell’s letting-go process, and we both made huge discoveries and insights. Let’s revisit that conversation now.

Cells attached with extreme tension keep making the same cells. The more attached and tense we are about something, the more we make the same thing: the same mistakes, the same program, body, mind, and cell. Unable to get free, we are forced to repeat the same old stuff.

My extreme mental tension about
not
—not having enough, not being good enough, the whole knot of “nots”—may hold me attached to that position. What if I finally let go of “not enough”? Will my body and mind allow me to receive a different message? Would moving my body through the different cellular states help me release this old pattern?

When we fully let go of attachment, of our “stuck-ness,” perhaps we enable our cells to let go of a program they no longer need to carry out. If we fully let go, is it just possible that the cells we no longer need, like cancer cells, can now program themselves for death? Is it possible that people with cancer who let go
big
give their cancer cells permission to let go, effectively initiating the cells’ own death?

What if a more intimate understanding of our cells gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves? What if letting go of a fear or a relationship or a destructive situation is not simply about emotional changes but exists concurrently on a cellular level? Just what if . . .

The questions we pursued in this conversation, which I have reflected on ever since, do not lead to the conclusion that a person’s cancer remains because he or she doesn’t/won’t/can’t let go: cancer is far more complex than that. These questions simply—or not so simply—offer a compelling idea about healing.

Doorways to the Unknown: About Cancer

Is it possible to change cancer cells by changing their tension, or their environment? Scientists in the lab are beginning to discover that some cancer cells are more rigid than normal, healthy cells, and that rigidity or stiffening triggers disorganization away from normal
cell growth.
⁹
When I first read that mammary tumor cells were stiffer than normal breast cells, I was not surprised, since many cancer cells are less mature and thus less flexible than normal cells. In general, normal immature cells are more rigid than mature cells. University of Pennsylvania scientist Dr. Valerie Weaver, examining cells grown in tissue culture, discovered rigidity in cancerous mammary tissue relative to healthy tissue. Not only that, she demonstrated that healthy cells that were grown on stiff materials showed abnormal tissue organization. Why? Because their cell “strings” were being pulled, increasing the mechanical tension.
¹⁰

By contrast, chemicals that prevented pulling, attaching, and tensing permitted cells to grow into more normal-looking mammary tissue. Weaver hypothesized that mutant genes could activate biochemical pathways that increased cell tension, an early event leading to cancer. Furthermore, she suggested that by interfering with the mechanics of a cancer cell, we may be able to override aberrations in its genes. Researcher Donald Ingber is also studying whether changing the physical environment of a tumor can reverse the cancer process; he’s attempting to manipulate a tumor’s microenvironment by implanting artificial materials that mimic a healthy matrix. Will giving cells a softer “mattress” upon which to grow provide an environment in which cancer cells can change their genes?