The last little while I have been thinking alot about conditioning. Not just the human condition but rather the conditioning and distorted thinking patterns we learn as we grow up and take with us into adulthood.I am starting to think that most of us are not born free.

The world would have us believe that we are all different. The world caters to the individual. It promotes selfishness and materialism. We market to our children that our self worth is tied to what we own and what  we do. Our world is divided and purposefully so.We have backed God into a corner.When we have modern comforts we dont need God.When we lean on our own strength, when we make ourselves personal gods we remove God from our daily life.

Much of life is divided into catergories and labels. Rich, poor, pretty, ugly, smart, stupid, good, bad etc.Without very much thought we are conditioned by class and race. We need only to look at our family of origin and society to see how we are shaped by this. Conditioning is the repeated messages we are exposed to year after year and how that impacts our behavior and actions.

For twenty some odd years I have fell victim to classic conditioning. I have learned helplessness, I have learned powerlessness, I have learned that love hurts deeply. I have lived my life from a stand point of fear and have grown unhealthy because of it.

After much prayer and meditation I realize that God never intended us to live in this way. Alone, scared and addicted.Rich in money but poor in spirit. He wants us to live with hope not fear. He wants us to love ourselves and others, He wants to teach us that life is a gift not a curse.

My personal healing journey as of late is recoginizing the lies I have believed in all of my life. And replacing those lies with the truth. If I could be conditioned through trauma painful messages of worthlessness than I can certainly change it through positive conditioning. God wishes to breathe new life into my soul. When I am ready to stop living in my comfort zone, when I dare to take a step towards healing, God is always there to meet me.

I am starting to see the world like a bunch of infants. We do things because it feels good, we want things because society says we should want it. We spend more time consuming and doing that we have stopped growing as a species. We remain in an infant state, crying out when things dont go our way, always focused on self. As long as this world can convince you that you’re ‘different’ and as long as you’re self worth is caught up in fear based and pleasure based consumptions, we’ll never realize what God already put inside of us.

 It’s not a matter of changing or breaking a bad habit it’s more of a matter of shedding the layers of crap and lies. It’s about discovering who you truly are despite what bad and horrible things you went through.I don’t want to be an infant anymore.It’s time to get excited about discovering your authentic self. The person God made you to be. I know I am.