295. Are you a prisoner to your conditioning?

heididawson.com Book I referenced in show:  Awareness by Anthony Di Mello We all do it. Sometimes it’s worse than other times but we generally have preconceived ideas and lenses from which we view the world and they can be very very hard to overcome if we are living on autopilot especially. So we have this lens and it’s clouding our vision. When we realize this it’s extremely eye opening. If you’re awake you might ask where else am I allowing this lens to cloud my judgement? But that gets too murky. It sends you down a different rabbit hole of trying to identify all of your preconceived notions. And Unfortunately there are a lot. So I propose simply being aware when something makes you uncomfortable, notice the thoughts that come with it. You don’t have to be a prisoner of your conditioning. I have touched on this before but I believe we can circumvent a lot of these preset lenses by being aware that we have these filters in the first place. Whether it be a filter of past events, a filter of labels we have for ourself or others. A filter of stereo types. We like to put things in boxes. This means that. But does it?  When you see a priest with his black coat and white collar, does that bring you comfort? You may say of course, it would bring anyone comfort, my husband was born and raised a catholic so when he sees a priest, he feels a level of respect. Well I grew up with religious literature showing a person wearing a priest outfit as evil and it usually included fire and tortured souls along with it. It was associated with something scary. So when I see a priest I still even after 25 years of not believing that way, I still want to steer away from him. That’s because I was conditioned for 30 years. There’s a big difference in how my husband and I were conditioned. I now notice it and my thoughts that come with it. Just noticing it and being aware of it gives me the chance to be open to change.