Epigenetics: Shaping Your Genes for a Better Tomorrow

The stories we tell ourselves often hold more power than the facts we know. As a psychotherapist, I have spent much of my career helping people reshape their inner narratives, guiding them to see that they are not defined solely by past experiences or inherited traits. Yet the story I now share is not a clinical example or a composite drawn from my practice. It is my own story, rooted in my family’s journey and shaped by the determination of one man, my father, Dr. Rajan Kumar, whose understanding of epigenetics transformed not only his life but also the lives of those who followed him.

My father was both a scientist and a seeker. As a molecular biologist, he spent his professional life studying the intricate codes of DNA. But long before he entered a laboratory, he understood in a deeply personal way that genes are not destiny. He had grown up watching his own father wrestle with the invisible scars of poverty, trauma, and relentless stress. These hardships expressed themselves as chronic anxiety and depression, casting a long shadow across the household. That shadow inevitably touched my father as well. Brilliant though he was, his mind often felt like a battlefield.

The turning point came during his doctoral studies. Immersed in genetics, he encountered a field that was just beginning to emerge with force- epigenetics. He explained it to me years later with a metaphor: imagine a blueprint for a house. The structure is fixed, but which rooms are lit, which remain dark, and which are expanded or ignored depends on how you choose to live. Our environment, our habits, even our thoughts, can determine which genetic instructions are carried out and which remain silent.

For my father, this was more than a scientific insight; it was a revelation. If genes could be influenced, then perhaps the legacy of anxiety and depression he carried need not dictate the future of his kids. He resolved to test this possibility in the most personal way -by transforming his own life.

The transformation began quietly. Each morning, long before dawn, he sat in meditation. At first, his thoughts swirled, and the practice felt impossible. Yet over time, his breathing steadied, and the restless storms within him began to calm. Anxiety, once a constant companion, loosened its grip.

Yoga entered his life as a natural extension of meditation. The physical postures were demanding, but he quickly discovered that they were more than exercise. They taught him the subtle connection between body and mind, and they gave him a way to release tension that had built up over decades. Together, meditation and yoga began to reshape his inner world.

Gradually, he extended this discipline into every part of his life. He honored sleep, no longer treating it as expendable. He adopted a diet of whole, unprocessed foods and found joy in regular movement—running, lifting weights, hiking in nature. Even his approach to work changed. Once driven to exhaustion by long hours in the lab, he began to set boundaries, leaving in time for family dinners, for friends, for music, books, and laughter.

Years passed, and the change was unmistakable. The anxious, overburdened scholar I had known as a child gave way to a man of composure and strength. He had not erased his inheritance, but he had rewritten how it was expressed. The genetic weight he once carried no longer defined him.

When he and my mother, Meera, decided to start a family, my father did so with a rare peace of mind. He believed he had done everything possible to give his children a different starting point, one unshaped by the shadows that had burdened him.

As I grew, I felt that difference. My father was not simply present; he was deeply engaged. He listened, he guided, he taught by example. Only much later, as I trained as a psychotherapist, did I realize the magnitude of what he had achieved. His efforts were never only for himself. They were for us, his children, and for the generations yet to come.

Now, as I write these words, I see his legacy clearly. This book is meant as a guide to those seeking freedom from trauma, anxiety, and depression through the lens of epigenetics. But at its heart, it is also a tribute to my father, Dr. Rajan Kumar. His life affirms that we are not prisoners of our DNA. We can change. We can heal. And we can pass on a new inheritance of resilience and well-being.

The most important story you will ever tell is the one you tell yourself. Let it be a story of possibility, of strength, of transformation. My father told such a story. So can you.

About the Author

Dr. Avinash Sharma earned his Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Writing under the name Holmes, he is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the field of aging at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. He is passionate about travel, photography, and science communication, especially on health and the biology of aging. He also writes science fiction and crime thrillers, blending his scientific training with imagination and narrative craft.