REMOVING THE PROGRAMMING, Part 1
Part of my healing process involved examining what I believed to be true. In my twenties, I realized that so much of what I believed then had been passed on to me mainly through my father. His comments to me over the years set the tone for my actions as an adult and also what I thought about myself.
The earliest instance of him programming me happened when I was about six. My brother and I were playing with the kids next door. Since I was the youngest in the group, the older ones picked on me making fun of me and calling me names. I don’t remember what the one boy said to me, but it made me so angry, I picked up a big push broom to defend myself. The heavy broom end of it was up in the air and I quickly lost control of it. It fell hitting the boy in the head. His mom was understandably upset and told me to go home.
When my father heard what had occurred, he said to me, “Don’t get mad. People won’t like you.” I carried these words with me for much of my life, never allowing myself to show or express any anger out of fear someone might not like me. This programming kept me from defending myself in many instances where my anger would have been appropriate. It took me many years to reverse this conditioning and eventually I made peace with my anger. I learned how powerful anger is and how to use it in a constructive manner.
In my mid-twenties, I confronted my father about something he said to me whenever I wanted to do something that he didn’t agree with. He always told me, “I think you’re stupid, but you go ahead and do what you want.” He had no idea how these words hurt my feelings and my ability to choose what was important to me. The implication was that whatever I wanted to do was out of stupidity. I finally confronted him, in a nice way, letting him know how much it hurt me each time he said I was stupid. He looked right at me and said, “well, you are.” I knew right then and there it was his problem, not mine. I knew that I wasn’t stupid, and I didn’t have to believe it when he said it.
Our parents program us from the day we are born. We are subject to whatever they may feel and usually accept what they say as true. Realizing that they were also programmed by their parents gives us the freedom to make our own choices about what is true for us or not. We don’t have to accept their truths as our own. We can pick them apart, look at them objectively and decide whether we want to continue to believe as they do.
When we get into school, we are conditioned with a whole new set of “truths”. We might question them under threat of retaliation such as being sent to see the principal. It’s all about control and conformity. The threats served to keep us in line. While many of these new rules were meant to keep us safe while we were at school, they mostly gave the teacher power over us while we were in the classroom.
One rule stands out to me and I was in my early thirties when I finally broke it. We were always told never, never write in our textbooks. The textbooks were used year after year by other children so we were expected to keep them as nice as we could. The message I got was writing in books was taboo. Then one day, after years of being out of school, I was looking through the books in a friend’s bookcase and commented on how she wrote notes in the margins of many of them. I questioned her about her writing in her books. She answered that they were hers and she could do what she wanted to with them. The school rule no longer mattered.
It is up to each of us to debunk the control stories of our youth. In examining what we believe to be true, we can compare those beliefs with our present reality. Many of them just no longer make any sense for us to keep living as if they do. It’s a process that requires some soul searching of what we do believe. Much of what we consider true is no longer valid. As adults and spiritual beings, we choose what we believe and discard what no longer has any meaning for us. We choose our own truth.
(If you receive any value from this post, please give it a “like”. If you would like to receive future post like this one, you can subscribe on the Contact page to receive emails from divinewarrioress.wordpress.com.)