179: New Life Perspectives with Liz Larson and Bill McKenna - Episode 179179: New Life Perspectives with Liz Larson and Bill McKenna - Episode 179
UK Health Radio Podcast
Liz Larson and Bill McKenna talk about research suggesting that thoughts and feelings can affect others and even plants, and share practical techniques to process difficult emotions and cravings. The conversation connects everyday moods with wider wellbeing, relationships and personal change.
45:10•5 Oct 2026
How Your Thoughts Quietly Shape Other People’s Lives
Episode Overview
- Scientific studies suggest thoughts and feelings can measurably affect another person’s body, even at a distance.
- Experiments with plants and other living systems indicate that clear harmful intention triggers strong physiological responses.
- Emotional states such as agitation or calm appear to spread through groups, influencing relationships, work life and even finances.
- Cultivating happiness and processing guilt, shame, resentment and fear is framed as a moral duty because these states impact others.
- Simple eye-movement exercises from the Cognomovement approach are presented as a way to release heavy emotions and reduce cravings.
“We have a moral responsibility to be happy, to feel good about ourselves.”
What drives someone to seek a life where thoughts and feelings genuinely matter? This episode of New Life Perspectives with Liz Larson and Bill McKenna digs into the idea that your inner state might be influencing others far more than you think. You’ll hear Bill explain "remote influence" through quirky but serious experiments, starting with Dr Rupert Sheldrake’s work on the sensation of being stared at.
People in controlled trials physically reacted when someone silently focused on them, even from another room. Then things get stranger: Bill shares Cleve Baxter’s famous lie-detector tests on plants, showing how a simple intention to burn a leaf sent the polygraph needle "wild", as if the plant felt sheer terror. The conversation moves from plants and shrimp to everyday human emotions.
Studies by William Broad and Marilyn Schlitz show that calm or agitated thoughts can measurably change a stranger’s nervous system. That idea quickly becomes personal: if your mood affects people around you, what does that mean for families, classrooms, workplaces, and anyone trying to heal emotional patterns or addictive behaviours? Liz and Bill talk about a "moral responsibility to be happy", not in a fluffy way, but because unresolved guilt, shame, resentment and fear can ripple into others.
They introduce simple eye-movement techniques from their Cognomovement system to help the body process heavy feelings and even reduce powerful cravings. The focus is on allowing sensations instead of fighting them, so that more natural states like love and calm can surface. With science stories, practical tools and a fair bit of "this sounds nuts, but…", this episode speaks to anyone curious about how their emotional hygiene affects their relationships, health, and potential recovery from self-sabotaging habits.
If your feelings are contagious, what do you want to be passing on today?
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