Some call it socializing, some conditioning and some propaganda.
We all have it done into us. I can still hear voices from my childhood - good little girls are seen and not heard, you are a sinner bound for hell, Jesus loves the little children of the world, you can do anything you set your mind to... I can still feel the sting of the slap on my face, the pain of the yardstick on my legs, and I can hear the snap as the wood broke from the final blow for the day.
The things told to me while I was in the middle of emotional distress went deeply into my subconscious and conditioned me to have various biases about myself, others, and God, many of them contradictory.
It took me a long time to neutralize the harmful conditioning and reinforce the positive, helpful conditioning and to examine it all so as to be a whole and functioning woman able to make my own path of understanding.
We are conditioned in all areas of life from self worth, to spirituality. It seems to me that so many of us are so frantic about ourselves and our lives that we rarely focus on the most important area. Who are we spiritually? What about God? What about the teaching of our particular religion? Does it make sense? Is some or all of it contradictory? Am I living a life aware of The Presence? Am I preparing my soul for the journey after this body?
I think we would do well to look our conditioning in the face. Otherwise, we forget the most essential things and focus on illusions poured into our beings from others. Plato talked about living in a cave, facing the back and believing the shadows to be real. Hindus talk about the illusions that hold us. Jesus talked about judging not by appearances but righteous judgement.
Let's set ourselves free from illusion.
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