Hiding From The Fear of Human Conditioning - Grasshopper

I am a world-class hider. I've come to realize that everyday human actions scare me to death and I default to pulling the covers over my head.

Here's the rub: I interact very well in social situations but what I find is that I have to steer the conversation in order to avoid the scary side of humanity. That's a lot of work, so I default to social unemployment.

 

When I drill deeper into my fear, I find that it is peoples' conditioning that scares me the most. What I mean by that it is that most people, in my experience, act out conditioning that they had no say in getting. They unconsciously modeled the people in charge of their early development and got their beliefs and conditioning by osmosis. They are acting out, for the most part, outdated beliefs that they got by accident.

 

I am more comfortable around a person who has the courage to examine their beliefs rather than blindly defend them and be boxed in by them.

 

Let me offer an example: I know a man who is locked into a poverty mindset. He has abundant skills that would lend themselves to making money but he has struggled his entire life going from hand to mouth. This is where the conditioning comes in. He learned at the knee of limitation. When you hear him speak, his bias and prejudice is against people of means. He views them as the enemy and he circles the wagons and defends those beliefs. That scares me. It tells me that he will hold that limiting belief for a lifetime and any conversation with him about that topic has to be steered into other topics or I am treated to the angry venom that he unconsciously exudes.

 

Unless he hits the lottery, he will be struggling financially for the rest of his days unless he examines those underlying beliefs in the light of day.

 

That applies to all of us. The question we may want to get curious about is: What belief do I own that's standing in the way of me succeeding in a certain area? Rooting out the belief takes courage, and outgrowing it takes deliberate action.

 

It's peoples' anger that scares me the most. You just can't predict when it will erupt. My best guess is that they're really angry about being a helpless slave to their conditioning which has no chance of moving them forward.

 

What are you angrily defending that's not working for you? If you examine that belief in non-judgemental way, you are more than likely to find a way forward. You will see other options previously blocked by conditioning and angry denials.

 

I'm not optimistic that the reflection I'm recommending will become a movement. I am, however, as confident as I can be that examination and deliberate action will yield results.

 

Perhaps I should poke my head out from the covers and preach that message. More options means less anger, and less anger means I get out more often.

 

All the best,

John