If your interest is in Self-Improvement, starting a business, or just making a little extra cash from online activity, then this is for you. I suspect your interest is in one, or possibly more, of those areas, and you will have heard talk of conditioning before.

Not only that… this post is another example of how you can create content for your website. Whether or not this or any other content will have any benefit for a reader is not really for you or I to judge.

Here’s my reason for writing this today.

As I was washing my “smalls” in the bathroom this morning, an expression came into my mind. It was something I heard my Mother say in my childhood, when I went with her to buy clothes.

Often we would go to the local Co-op department store, where she would buy school clothes and underwear for me. It’s probably the underwear that triggered this thought, as it was those garments I was washing at the time.

There was also a ladies’department and, as I was a youngster, my Mother would sometimes have me with her when buying things for herself.

Now, don’t ask me why this particular phrase sticks in my mind, but it does. And don’t think the phrase, when you hear it, or read it, has had any bad effect on me as I’ve grown. In fact, this is the first time I can ever recall the expression “double gusset” coming back to me in the whole of my sixty plus years on this planet.

Now, c’mon. I’m not muckin’ about here. I’m not writing this to get a laugh.
It’s serious stuff, the way seemingly stupid and obscure things from deep, deep, in your memory can sometimes surface. And, just for clarification, it was so long ago that  I have no idea if the “double gusset” was with reference to my Mother’s underwear or mine. Not that it matters.

If such an obscure, insignificant expression (for me, at least) can surface, a term that was possibly mentioned just once in my presence, just think the effect other things probably had on you which were repeated over and over again. And it’s still going on.

We are constantly being conditioned from all angles, whether you’re aware of it or not. In these days of mass media, high powered marketing, and financially desperate governments, with similar messages coming from many sources, repeated by many who “jump on the bandwagon” or simply follow like sheep and repeat what they believe (or suits them to believe) in a parrot fashion… conditioning is all around you.

Hearing the same, or similar, messages over and over again, can have an empowering effect on you, or a disarming effect. Either way, it depends on the message and the way you choose to interpret that message.

The same effect comes from often repeated messages and experiences you had as you were growing up. Even the crowd you chose to “hang out with” as a youngster probably had some effect on you. Feedback from teachers and others of influence in your young life all made a mark to some degree.

No doubt you’ve heard or read this before, but it’s worth repeating… and I don’t mean from the point of view of conditioning.

Or is it the same thing? As I said above… it all depends on the message and the way you choose to interpret that message. Positive messages, repeated often or from many sources, will have a positive effect. The opposite is also true.

Those neighbourhood kids who wouldn’t let you join in their Team ‘cos “you’re not good enough”; the teacher that called you “Idiot” and told you “You’ll never make anything of yourself”; protective parents who guarded you, when small, against what might harm you, and, as you grew, guarded or advised against things they thought might not be good for you.

All those things are implanted in your memory, in your mind, and they might be influencing your choices and behaviour without you knowing it. The only time you become aware of them is if and when they surface.

So, as far as the above item is concerned, regardless of value, it demonstrates the amount of “stuff” we all have stored in the deepest, maybe darkest, recesses of our mind.

Every thought you have is generated for a reason. What that reason might be is something which you don’t readily see. The thought might have been generated for you to simply share it in case others might receive something from it.

Maybe the thought was for your own benefit. Could it reveal some awareness of a personal trait that could do with improvement? And I’m not talking about  “double gussets” from a personal point of view.

You might see that a hasty reaction made by yourself or another was not, after all, the wisest way to behave at the time.  And being responsive, rather than reactive, is an area where I might just have to raise my hand and come clean on a later occasion.

Meanwhile… be aware of the conditioning in your day to day living, both online and off.

As I said above… it all depends on the message and the way you choose to interpret that message.

The value in this article is in the fact that you’re now aware of the conditioning, if you weren’t aware of it before. But the real value is in the fact that you have a choice on how to deal with all the past conditioning.

If you have any memories of past “put downs” from kids in your childhood, teachers from schooldays, and over-protective parents, and you think it could be those old taunts and caveats that are holding you back now… you have a choice whether or not you believe what they said.

You see… all that old input, good or bad, is within you somewhere.
Don’t let it keep you from where you want to be or from what or whom you want to become.

If you think old conditioning could be holding you back, even though it’s hidden, one  way to deal with it is to bring it out into the light through meditation. Expose it and dismiss it as the redundant input that it is.

Take care… and Believe in Yourself.

KenW