Growing Up Is Outgrowing Your Conditioning - Grasshopper

How badly we want to defend our conditioning is a barometer on how immature we are.

I continue to threaten to write my book on growing up. I have an outline and a chapter or two written. Here's my lame excuse for not completing the project: the longer I wait the more insights I get. Conditioning is the latest ah-ha.

 

We have been molded by countless belief shapers including our early caregivers through the constant bombardment from culture's mouthpiece - advertising. We have been conditioned to be a certain way - a way that often doesn't work. Think of smoking parents to the onslaught of smoking ads from the 40s through the early 70s as an example.

 

I am forever grateful to one of my early hypnosis teachers, Barry Beder for the phrase "Outgrow the old way and grow into a new way." What is it that we want to outgrow? Our conditioning is the answer.

 

Most of our unacceptable behavior is juvenile in nature - a refusal, on some level, to grow up. You know you have met an immature person if you ever hear any version of this phrase leave their mouth: "That's just the way I am." No, "That's just the way I've been conditioned" is a more accurate answer - one that has a chance of giving you a glimpse of your immaturity and the option to outgrow it.

 

Take a child that's been conditioned to hate another race, religious or ethnic group. Their rhetoric, as an adult, seems childish to anyone but them and those conditioned like them. They will fight for their false, conditioned, superior image for a lifetime, unless they outgrow it.

 

Outgrowing immaturity gives you a seat at the adult table where what you do is more important than what you say.

 

An inspection of our beliefs is a good place to start. How did we get most of our beliefs? Through conditioning. The real answer is that most of our beliefs are someone else's beliefs that we've been conditioned to believe. Many of those beliefs were ingrained before we even knew what a belief was.

 

Inspect a belief that's not working for you. Even though you've believed it your entire life, the evidence just isn't there to back it up. That's a belief that's not working. Look at it from the angle of conditioning. How did I get this belief? Chances are your parents, grandparents and beyond also had this belief.

 

Recognizing a belief in this new light gives you insight and the opportunity to outgrow it. I recently had lunch with someone who is a victim of their own belief. They are struggling financially. What's totally outside of their awareness is this conditioning: "There's not enough money to go around." Where did they get that idea? They were conditioned into it and, worse, they believe it. As long as that remains a belief, the struggle will continue.

 

Most of our beliefs are well-conditioned myths. The myth buster is recognition. Recognize that a belief isn't working for you and you'll begin the process of outgrowing the old way and growing into a new way.

 

All the best,

 

John