From Getting Free: How to Move Beyond Conditioning and Be Happy

The different types of conditioning could be categorized as follows:

1.    Conditioning that helps us function in society, be safe, and fulfill our potential. Examples are rules and beliefs that promote safe, healthy, loving, and otherwise positive behavior. This type of conditioning is considered positive or at least neutral.

2.    Beliefs, prejudices, and opinions we acquire while growing up and continue to acquire from others, our culture and society, and books and other media. As children, and even as adults, we absorb both verbal and nonverbal messages from our environment. The type of conditioning we absorb this way is mostly negative, since most beliefs and certainly prejudices and opinions aren't true enough to serve us well. Even a belief such as, "women need taking care of," which seems like it could foster caring, is only true in some circumstances. Such beliefs, prejudices, and opinions are generalizations and, as such, have minimal value, and when applied inappropriately, do more damage than good.

3.    Beliefs, prejudices, and opinions we acquire as a result of an experience that we may or may not be consciously aware of. Much of our conditioning is made up of conclusions we've come to about life and about ourselves and others as a result of our experiences. Some of our beliefs, prejudices, and opinions are the result of conclusions we drew in previous lifetimes, which continue to influence our current lifetime. Like many beliefs, these conclusions often result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if you concluded you aren't lovable because you didn't get enough love as a child, that belief is likely to cause you to act as if you aren't lovable, and others will take you at your word. That's how beliefs create our reality, or at least our experience of it.

4.    Attitudes, ways of being, behavior patterns, and automatic responses that stem from unconscious beliefs or emotional wounds from this lifetime or others. Our conditioning is not always conscious. When it is unconscious, it is reflected in our behavior, in certain stances toward life, phobias, compulsions, addictive behaviors, and automatic and sometimes irrational responses. This type of conditioning especially needs healing and is the most difficult to heal because the source is unconscious.

5.    Conditioning/programming that comes from the astrology chart and other esoteric sources. Our personality and drives are part of our programming, as represented in the astrology chart. Our personality and its drives can be expressed negatively or positively. The programming itself, however, is neither positive nor negative. The character we are playing in this lifetime is unique because it is programmed to be unique. This uniqueness is purposeful and allows the Divine to have a unique experience through us.

6.    Positive, loving beliefs we acquire as a result of our evolution. As a result of our experiences, we often gain wisdom, or positive conditioning. For example, when as a result of some experience, we conclude that love is more important than things, that is wisdom. The new understanding replaces the ego's erroneous belief that possessions or security are more important than love. Life reconditions or de-conditions the mind by bringing us experiences that can result in wisdom.

All of this conditioning determines our behavior for the most part. Although we have free will and we can act outside our conditioning, we usually don't. Because we are programmed to focus on and believe what we are thinking, our responses and actions generally follow from our conditioning. Until we begin to examine our thoughts and become aware of our conditioning and question it, there is little chance of becoming free of it.

Seeing the truth about your conditioning is the key to getting free of it. Being aware of your conditioning isn't enough if you are still identified with it and believing it. To become free from your conditioning, you have to see the truth about it—that most of it isn't true, helpful, or worth listening to. Once you begin to see how false and unhelpful most of your thoughts are, the spell cast by the egoic mind is broken, or at least greatly weakened, and you can begin to see what else is here living your life.

From Getting Free: How to Move Beyond Conditioning and Be Happy