As soon as we come into life, we begin acquiring conditioning. As soon as we are born, our parents and others begin teaching us about life, either intentionally or unintentionally, and we take in what they teach us. Like a sponge, we absorb what we experience in our environment and learn from it. Some of what we are taught and what we learn is useful, necessary, and true (at least some of the time), but much of it is not.

Even before we have a capacity to understand language, we learn from the environment. As infants, we draw certain conclusions that may or may not be correct. Often they are not correct. The conclusions we draw as infants and children are usually narrow representations of what is true about a situation, and these conclusions are often unconscious. For example, if you were hooked up to tubes as an infant to keep you alive, you may have concluded that you are weak and powerless, or you may have concluded that the world is frightening and dangerous and that you are very vulnerable. You didn't realize that the tubes actually represented how much people loved you and valued your life. Your conclusion actually didn't represent reality very fully or truly.

Children, and to some extent adults, draw negative or incorrect conclusions about their experience all the time, and these conclusions determine how they respond to others and to their environment. These mistaken or narrow conclusions are part of our conditioning, and they need healing because they interfere with responding to life as it presents itself in each moment. Instead, we respond according to an idea (conditioning) from the past. For example, if an experience caused you to conclude that men with mustaches are mean, then when you encounter someone with a mustache, you'll respond to him as if that were true. You will see meanness even if it isn't there, and you might evoke or provoke it by your prejudicial attitude.

Most of us also have conditioning from our previous lifetimes that interferes in the same way, and those mistaken beliefs also need healing. Conditioning from previous lifetimes operates just like conditioning acquired in the current life, and it is often more powerful. It may have been reinforced over many lifetimes, or the experience that created it may have been so traumatic that the conclusions that were made as a result of that trauma feel very true, even though they aren't true at all. This can be some of the most difficult conditioning to heal.

Much of our negative conditioning came from outside ourselves, that is, it was given to us by others and not the result of conclusions we came to. When we are young, we believe what we’re told by our parents and others we’re dependent on. We trust them to tell us the truth about the world and ourselves, and we accept what they tell us as true. Unfortunately, much of what we’re told when we’re young is either not true at all or only true some of the time.

When we are young, we aren't able to evaluate what we’re told, so if we’re told to believe something or if others around us believe something, then that belief is incorporated into our belief system until we’re old enough to evaluate our beliefs ourselves. Still, some of our beliefs are never questioned, and many remain unconscious and outside our awareness, where they are safe from scrutiny but still drive us in detrimental ways.

If the beliefs you were given as a child were primarily positive ones (e.g., "You are a good person,” “You can do anything you apply yourself to,” “Life is meaningful and supportive"), then those beliefs are likely to serve you and help you cope with life. If, on the other hand, your conditioning was primarily negative (e.g., "You can't do anything right,” “You'll never amount to anything,” “People are bad,” “Life is always going to disappoint you"), then those beliefs are likely to interfere with trying new things, taking advantage of opportunities, getting along with others, and being happy. Positive conditioning helps us cope with life, while negative conditioning—conditioning that causes us to see life as bad or frightening and ourselves as bad or impotent—not only doesn't help us cope with life, but makes it difficult to cope with life.

The more negative our conditioning is, the more difficult life will be; and the more positive our conditioning is, the easier life will be. This is because positive conditioning creates a positive mind and feelings, which generally produce and attract good results in the world, while negative conditioning creates a negative mind and feelings, which generally produce and attract negative results in the world.

A negative mind results in a vicious cycle: Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings and possibly negative actions, which lead to more negative thoughts, feelings, and actions. Negative thoughts make us feel angry, sad, jealous, guilty, hateful, resentful, bitter, and unhappy, and then we feel bad about ourselves for having those feelings, and we may even do things that make us feel worse about ourselves. That leads to more negative self-talk and more negative feelings, all of which can block us from fulfilling our potential.

Fortunately, positive thoughts do the opposite: They create positive feelings and actions and a positive feedback loop. Positive thoughts make us feel happy, strong, competent, kind, loving, and supported. We feel good about ourselves, and that results in more positive self-talk and positive feelings and less self-blocking.

Practice: Examining Your Conditioning

Make a list of some of the conclusions you have about yourself, others, and life. To help you get started, write: "I am…," "Others are…," and "Life is…" and fill in the blank with as many statements as you can think of. Then, for each statement, ask, "Is that true?" You may believe that it is true, but is it absolutely true of yourself, others, and life? If you can find even one contradictory example, then it isn't true. Another test would be if everyone in the universe agrees that it is true. Add more statements to this list as you discover them.

Becoming aware of what you believe is the first step in freeing yourself from mistaken and counterproductive beliefs. You will discover that you have been allowing many untrue or partially true beliefs to define you and shape your life, your experience, and your interactions with others. Partially true beliefs just aren't that useful. They aren't good guides for how to live your life.

How we feel about ourselves and about life has a big impact on how we respond to life and on how life responds back. That's why our conditioning matters so much. Our beliefs determine our experience of life: When our beliefs are positive, we experience life positively; when our beliefs are negative, we experience life negatively. This is how it is until we begin to wake up to the fact that our conditioning is determining our reactions and behavior. Becoming free of our conditioning is a two-fold task: We can free ourselves from our negative beliefs by reprogramming our mind with positive beliefs. And we can become free by seeing that our beliefs are just conditioning and that that conditioning doesn't have to be what determines our actions and reactions.

Something else besides conditioning is propelling our lives forward, and its actions aren't based on thoughts or on conditioning. You are a spiritual being who is programmed to behave like a human being, with all sorts of conditioning, but the spiritual being that you are functions perfectly fine without most of your conditioning, particularly your beliefs. The spiritual being that you are moves you, breathes you, inspires you, and communicates through you. It acts and speaks in your life, and when it does that, those actions and speech feel right, true, and fulfilling.

The you that you usually think of yourself as, on the other hand, is created by the mind. This you is really just thoughts about you: "I like…,” “I want…,” “I hope…,” “I am…,” “I was…,” “I need…,” “I feel…." These “I” thoughts give you a sense of self and the impression that you exist as the person that you think you are. But, really, you are a spiritual being masquerading as the self that you think of yourself as. The false self only exists as ideas. The true self, the divine self, is all that is really here and all that has ever been here, but the divine self allows you to believe that you are the false self.

This masquerade enables the spiritual being that you are to have the experience of being human. You get to try on being this character, and because this character feels so real to you, you experience very intense emotions. You become identified with this character so deeply that you believe you are this character. Masquerading in this way is the only way that the spiritual being that you are can have a full experience of being human. Nevertheless, there's a point in everyone's spiritual evolution when it is time to wake up from this illusion, remember who you really are, and begin living as your best self most of the time instead of as the false self. You are probably at this place now or you wouldn't be reading this.

Negative conditioning keeps us identified with the character we are playing because it keeps us involved with negative thoughts and feelings and with trying to fix those thoughts and feelings. When we are deeply involved with negative thoughts and feelings, there is little opportunity to experience our true nature. We are stuck in the egoic mind’s image of ourselves and believing that we are small, weak, unkind, selfish, judgmental, and in that state of mind, grasping the truth about who we really are is difficult. We're too busy trying to think and act our way out of the unhappy situation created by the false self. However, the more we think, the more troubled we feel because thinking, especially negative thinking, takes us farther away from who we really are, not closer. To experience who we really are, we have to stop listening to the voice in our head and drop into our present moment experience, where we are able to be in touch with the spiritual Heart, the seat of intuition and spiritual guidance.