We recently talked about our unconscious conditioning in a post about how a football game helped me grow spiritually. Yes, you read that correctly… Because the universe is so smart that it uses anything and everything to give us the opportunity to grow. It’s actually happening all the time, so it’s a nice thing to know about. And if we don’t take an opportunity or if we don’t feel ready or up for it, or if we don’t even recognize it as an opportunity, then we’re still every bit as innocent! It’s all good, and it’s all about timing. I mean, it’s going to happen at some point. So we can usually be pretty relaxed about it.
So I wanted to just talk a bit more generally about this unconscious conditioning. Because it really blew my mind when someone pointed out that if you want to shorten the word “culture,” you get “cult.” WOW. And what do most of us think about when we think of “cult?” Brainwashing. So if you take a close look, anyone that comes from a culture is brainwashed to some degree. And who comes from a culture? Everyone.
If you really look, we all come from lots of different cultures, both big and small and everywhere in between. There’s the culture of your family, friends, school, hometown, state, region, country, skin color, race, ethnicity, sports preferences, political views, hobbies, preferences, generation, sexual orientation, gender, and on and on and on. It’s literally endless. These are all different lenses through which we view the world, and some lenses are thicker for a given person than others. Some are more cracked and distorted and dusty than others. Some are more clear than others. When we become aware of this, we can start to ponder how life would look with different lenses or glasses. And then we can start to ponder how life would look without them.
When we do this sort of thing, it will usually flush up some old feelings or energies, often called pain, from our body. It’s just like I described in the football game post mentioned above. That was some serious fire that I burned in! But it was so crazy that it didn’t even last long. I burned in some far nastier stuff a little over a year ago, and it lasted much longer. I wrote about it here and then followed it up here. It was when I just couldn’t sleep one night, and yes, it was over a girl… And it was this intense lava in my body. But even then, it only lasted about six hours. And then I was so astonished, because it was gone. GONE. Totally gone. It was amazing. Because this was some major core stuff… so when you really think about it, six hours of laying there trying to sleep while your inner child totally freaks out ain’t bad. Because it’s growth; all that sludge is leaving your system. And what I didn’t understand back then was that the bulk of this pain is actually old stuff leaving. Goodbye. And then the client sessions the next day totally shifted, too. Much deeper. I mean, I noticed it. It was super obvious, not subtle at all. It’s strange how the outer world seems to shift with the inner
So there we go, just a few words about conditioning. And really seeing that a huge part of the human condition in this day and age is being born and then being totally brainwashed. Yay brainwashing! Yay conditioning! Nobody is doing anything maliciously; they’re just living according to their own conditioning, and as a little kid you’re like a sponge with no say in the matter. And then as you grow up and start to notice it, you start to have some choice. And I’m just telling you my stories in case it can help you deal with and heal from yours. And we all grow together. And as always, let me know if I can help.