We are going to present this article in two parts. Included in this newsletter is Part 1 which discusses how we received negative conditioning and its consequences. Part 2 will follow in our next newsletter in September which deals with the process of coming home to ourselves.
In October we will be doing an Online Event on the topic.
One of the universal experiences that we all share one way or another is that of being conditioned.
Unfortunately, most often our story of conditioning is one of being distracted from our authentic self and molded in a way that is not in tune with our nature, our energy, our potential, and our fulfillment.
This can include being infected with toxic shame from being humiliated, criticized, compared to, or having to live up to unrealistic expectations to get love and approval, or being neglected. It can also include being exposed to experiences which imprinted us with deep fear and mistrust. In addition, we are deeply affected if a parent is depressed, has an addiction or is not responsible for his or her energy. Or if we were not wanted or welcomed into this world.
The story of conditioning happens in very specific stages.
It is helpful to describe these stages in as simple a way as possible to get more clarity for the whole process.
Stage 1: The Innocent Child
We come into this world with pure innocence, spontaneity, curiosity, energy; alive, natural, and unique. But we have no idea how to be in this world or even who we are. We have no consciousness of self or other at first. This learning comes from interactions with our caretakers and peers.
However, as a child we also have innate and natural feelings and needs which have to be met and validated for us to develop into an integrated, confident, vulnerable, capable, and sensitive person.
To make it simple, we can describe our basic emotional state as either calm or disturbed. Even as a child, we will begin to experience our emotional state in these two simple terms; before we can distinguish the unique experiences of fear, insecurity, anger, sadness, hurt, and joy.
There are four basic needs that we have as an innocent child that we need to receive from our caretakers in order to form a solid sense of self and trust in ourselves and the outer world:
- To receive a calming, playful, life affirmative, and soothing energy and environment with a solid sense of safety, free of violence, chaos, financial stress, or unreasonable and age-inappropriate expectations.
- To receive generous and abundant unconditional love and present touch. To be welcomed with warmth and appreciation.
- To receive empathic mirroring, validation, acceptance, and understanding of the emotional states we described above.
- To receive support, inspiration, and guidance to discover and develop our innate gifts, potential, and passions so that we can discover and develop as a confident, unique, and valuable person.
Stage 2: The Negative Conditioning
The second stage of this process is to bring awareness to what we received that differed from what we described above. It is extremely rare that we received anything close to what we would have needed because mostly our caretakers, even though they often do the best they can, lack the consciousness of raising a child as he or she needs.
However, for many people, it is difficult to take off the veil of denial and stop minimizing the negative conditioning we received. We may firmly believe that what we received was fine, loving, and appropriate until we have the awareness of what we actually missed because we don’t have anything to compare it to. And we are so good at adapting and adjusting to very difficult or painful situations.
There are many reasons that we keep our negative conditioning in the darkness of denial. We may fear to offend or hurt our caretakers if we admitted and exposed the truth of the pain of what we received or what we missed and how it affected and still affects us. We may even feel that we have betrayed our parents and family if we expose it to a therapist or even to a friend.
We may lack the motivation to look deeper because perhaps we don’t see the value of exploring the past. But still, we suffer because we can’t understand why there is so much dysfunction in our lives today.
We may be discouraged and feel that nothing changes anyway and inner exploration is a waste of time, energy, and money. Or we just believe that the past is over and it’s time to move on. This attitude itself could be a direct result of our conditioning.
Each of us has a different story of negative conditioning and of different degrees of severity. And it is rarely black or white. There may very likely be many positive qualities and experiences we received.
But for our healing and transformational process, it is crucial to clearly identify what we missed because it has profound consequences on many aspects of our life. It affects our self-esteem, our relating and intimacy experience, it affects the developing and flowering of our creativity, how we relate to our bodies and energy, how we relate to living in this world, and most importantly, how we connect with the spiritual and higher meaning of our lives.
When we look deeper, it can be helpful to compare our past experiences with the essential needs that we presented above.
As you read through the following list of negative conditionings, perhaps consider which ones may apply to you.
- Instead of being raised in an environment that was calming, playful, life affirmative, and soothing, you may have experienced violence, seriousness, depression, addiction, outbursts of anger, shaming, isolation, and/or neglect.
- Instead of receiving generous and abundant love, caring, and warmth, you may have received unpredictability and inconsistency or being ignored, unwanted, receiving impatience, resentment, punishment, judgment, and/or rejection.
- Instead of receiving empathic mirroring, validation, acceptance, and understanding of your emotional states, and taught to identify and learn to be with every experience that comes up, you may have been told what to feel and what not to feel. Instead of being helped to explore and understand why different feelings happen and helped to accept all of your feelings, you may have been repressed and judged for your feelings.
You may have been raised in an environment where only some feelings were accepted and others considered unimportant, unacceptable, and/or a distraction. Perhaps being expressive and full of energy was not permitted. You may have witnessed some of your caretakers unable or unwilling to feel, distracting themselves from pain, shame, or fear with addictions, or judging you or others for feelings and behaviors which threatened them. - Instead of being guided, inspired, and supported to discover and develop your innate gifts and potential to become confident as a unique person, you may have been encouraged to become what they considered valuable. You may have received validation and respect only if you behaved as they wanted. You may have been indoctrinated with certain values that they believed in without any tolerance or encouragement to develop your own. You may have received love and approval only if you lived up to their expectations and pressure and shamed when you didn’t fit in. Many of us were more valued for doing than being.
- And none of this even mentions the poisonous effect of a child receiving or witnessing violence, sexual, or verbal abuse. This is unbelievably common and unmeasurably traumatic. We now know that any version of violence and abuse, can cause severe symptoms of PTSD leading to frequent outburst of uncontrollable anger, hypervigilance, chronic anxiety, severe relationship dysfunction, inability to have healthy boundaries, addictions, phobias, isolation, low self-esteem, and depression.
Stage 3: The Consequences of Negative Conditioning
Here are some of the most common consequences of negative conditioning. As you read through this list, consider which may apply to you:
- I am disconnected from my feelings, needs, and heart but I don’t know or understand why.
- I suffer from a state of deep mistrust in people or in life.
- I suffer from unworthiness and low self-esteem.
- I push myself to be better, look better, impress people, strive for more success, money, respect, and appreciation and I cover my shame with pretending it isn’t there.
- I feel so overwhelmed with my pain, shame, and fear that I am drawn to substance abuse, addictive behaviors, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and self-destructive behavior
- I feel like an imposter even if I have success.
- I suffer from feeling sexually inadequate especially when I open deeply and become more vulnerable.
- I seem to attract unavailable partners or when someone is available, I get bored and judge them.
- I lose myself when I come close to someone especially in my romantic relationships and I even allow myself to be mistreated.
- I experience anxiety, dissociation, freeze, or confusion without knowing why.
- I have troublesome body ailments that affect the quality of my life.
- I find myself unable to create a nourishing relationship or struggle with the one I am in.
- I often feel depressed, have low energy, and am unable to find meaning in my life.
- I am reactive and have problems controlling my anger or other emotions.
- I am unable to set boundaries, scared of conflicts and I tend to please the other person.
- I discover that I have been living a false self, lacking honesty, meaning, and integrity. I feel like living in a void without a clue of who I really am or how to find the real person buried inside.
- I often feel resentful, irritable, and angry, but I don’t know why.
- I don’t like to be alone and am constantly looking for entertainment and something to keep me from getting bored.
- I tend to choose safety and security over novelty and new experiences.
- I often find myself full of self-doubt and have a hard time making decisions and choices, often later regretting my choices.
- I often lie about myself, am dishonest with others and don’t honor my agreements or commitments.
- I give away my power easily, make concessions and compromises even when I know that it is not right for me, but I am too afraid to stand up for myself.
In this part, we have described how negative conditioning happens, how it differs from what we needed as an innocent and trusting child to develop into a confident, integrated, and sensitive person and the ways that we often minimize or deny that it happened or how it happened, and the consequences in our life today.
In Part 2, we will go through the specific steps needed for the deeper transformation in order to recover and come home to ourselves again.
This journey takes a lot of motivation, commitment, perseverance, and devotion to the inner search.
The beautiful thing is that in our experience, there is no amount of negative experiences in childhood that can prevent us from coming home again and realizing our potential. Knowing that transformation is possible and is in our own hands is deeply touching and liberating. Nothing or nobody needs to change for us to realize inner peace and freedom; it is just a matter of rediscovering who we are.
Much love, Krish and Amana