Did you know you have thoughts that don’t belong to you? Thoughts that form beliefs about people who are perceived as different. It’s ok if you didn’t know. These thoughts are sneaky. They come in through the back door and embed their belief in you.
Now, what if these thoughts were sneaking through the back door continuously from the day you are born? These thoughts enter with the same belief. The more that come in, the stronger the belief becomes. Now, this is fine if it’s a belief you are consciously creating or one that aligns with your value system.
Unfortunately, these sneaky thoughts rarely share the same values as you do. They play a big part in segregating you from other people. And they create unexplained barriers between you and people you perceived as different.
These sneaky thoughts are unconscious to us. Yet when we see, hear, or are in the presence of a person who is perceived as different from us, some clues appear:
- We feel unpleasant emotions of anger, fear or uncertainty
- We experience uncontrollable physiological responses like sweating, altered breath patterns, and heat flushes
- We feel unsafe and uncomfortable.
We feel all these things but often have no personal justification or reason why.
This is the key to knowing you have conditioned thoughts hiding in the shadows of your unconscious mind.
Once we recognise there may be something hiding there we’re not aware of, we can start to search for the culprit. When it’s located, we can bring it into the light of our conscious mind. From here, we can observe that thought and question whether it aligns with our values.
These thoughts are constructed and upheld by members of our society. They’re cues, directives, and beliefs the dominant culture of the community put out to maintain power & control. This is social conditioning. Where society conditions you to think, feel, and act in certain ways about certain things. Like, observing a person who you have been socially conditioned to believe is different from you.
There can be beautiful types of social conditioning. Where the belief uplifts and support people in a mutually beneficial way. There are terrible forms of social conditioning too. They separate, demonised, belittle, and dehumanise groups of people in our community. This type of conditioning is particularly prominent in Australia concerning Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples as well as other marginalised group.
Daily, we’re receiving messages to our unconscious mind on how we should or shouldn’t behave in society.
The way that people are portrayed in images, news, movies and other forms of visual content does this. So does:
- the way people are portrayed in written or verbal forms of communication,
- the way we structure ourselves within society, the hierarchy,
- who we perceive as valued members of our community,
- the way our communities are built and set up,
- the processes and systems we use in workplaces, schools, and other community spaces
- … and in every part of our society, including within our families and within our homes.
We are social beings. We watch what is and isn’t acceptable in group settings. Often accept what is seen as acceptable without question or challenge. We all have a need to belong somewhere. The acceptance of social behavior or belief is one of the ways we can feel like we belong. Sameness and like-mindedness is something that we associate with ‘belonging’ in western culture.
But, what if I told you those beliefs are causing pain, hurt, trauma, and segregation of your community members?
What if I told you they, are contributing to serious and dangerous social issues in our society today?
Would you want to know what those thoughts are? Would you want to bring that unconscious social conditioning and into your awareness?
When it’s in your awareness, you have the power to look at it and choose whether it’s a thought you want to keep. You get to decide whether it stays or goes. And you get to assess whether it aligns with you, or your value system.
This is not about trying to put a blanket of rejection to every form of social conditioning. This is about:
- claiming back the power and sovereignty of your mind.
- becoming aware of the social conditioned messages trying to sneak through the back door (and putting a stop to it). And…
- having control over your mind to choose your beliefs. The ones that align authentically with who you are.
Do you want this for yourself?
If you do. I can help you find the unconscious social conditioning you didn’t know you had.
You can book a 1-on-1 session with me here.
And if you would like to book a more in-depth session you can choose from the options here)
I will also mention that if you’re a small business owners and want to explore unconscious conditioning from a business perspective, I’m hosting a 1hr webinar on Tuesday 18th August 2020 at 11am AWST (local Perth) for small businesses. The Early Bird offer for this ends tomorrow. You can book a spot at the webinar here.
Thanks for reading!
Feature Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels