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Hello and welcome to Find Yourself, Change Your Life. I’m your host, Mary Clavieres. This podcast is here to help you rediscover yourself and become the leader of your life, however you want that to look.

Last week’s episode kicked off the Summer of the Self series, which I’m really excited about because I feel very passionately about the self and how much we are or are not connected to ourselves. I really believe that everything related to our purpose, our direction, how we live our lives, whether we feel in alignment or not… it’s all connected to the self and to that relationship.

So we started last week with awareness, bringing awareness to the self. And now this week, I want to go a little bit deeper with that and talk about where different things come from and how we are influenced in our relationship with ourselves.

This is called conditioning.

What Is Conditioning?

We’re conditioned all our lives. We are conditioned the moment we’re born through our parents and family and loved ones. We’re conditioned in school by teachers and classmates. We’re conditioned overall by society and culture. All of that shapes us in different ways.

And what happens is, over time, that conditioning builds. And it may lead us to being more disconnected from our true self and our true nature.

So if there are times when you remember, from when you were little, you were embarrassed by something someone said, or you shut down in some way, you got shy or you felt bad about something, and then maybe you never tried to do that thing again, that all goes into stories about yourself and your relationship with yourself.

It can be really subtle. There are maybe some of the bigger ways and some specific memories you remember, but there can also be smaller ways that it just gets to us over time and time and time again.

Where Conditioning Comes From

It’s really important, if you’re going to move to have a deeper connection with yourself and move beyond the expectations and the stories that you’ve inherited, to have an idea of what those might be.

Family conditioning. An easy one to pick out is anything around money beliefs. You’re probably very familiar with the phrase money doesn’t grow on trees. Whether or not they said it in your family, you probably heard it somewhere in your younger years. And that’s an example of carrying a belief that’s rooted in scarcity and lack. It’s meaning that money is not easy to access and it doesn’t grow on trees, it’s not abundant, it’s not everywhere.

I’ve definitely caught myself almost saying money doesn’t grow on trees to my kids, especially when they want a piece of junk that just feels like a waste. But I really try to refrain myself because I don’t want them to associate that. I want it to be about understanding what they already have and sustainability and all of those things. So it’s really important to notice and say, okay, where are these stories? What are these stories that I have and where are they coming from?

Workplace conditioning. Especially in the corporate workplace, there’s a lot of conditioning around how we’re meant to act. What’s considered professional or not. Perhaps you were told you’re not supposed to express your emotions, or you’re not meant to be friends with the people at work. We’re entering a new era now… different ways of doing business. But this is just to give you an idea of how it might show up.

Social conditioning. I know a big one that I see a lot, and that I had sometimes as well, was when I was pregnant. Loads of people will just give you unsolicited advice when you’re showing a belly because they want to impart their wisdom or they want to preach to you what to do or what not to do. And depending on how you take on that information, it can give you different experiences going forward.

Or you may have had a situation and then you thought, oh, I wish I said something differently. Or maybe you decided to shrink more because you thought, I just want to stay small. I don’t want to deal with people saying those things, so I’m just going to hide away.

Mom guilt conditioning. After becoming a mom, there’s so much judgment with being considered selfish. Anytime you want to do something for yourself, it’s considered selfish. That’s a huge one. Of course, that disconnects you from yourself because then you start thinking, oh, I’m a terrible person. I’m a terrible mom. I shouldn’t have this time to myself. All of that nonsense because it is nonsense.

So those types of things are inserted into us and they can take hold after a while.

Is This Actually Me, or Was I Taught This?

All of that conditioning is floating around in your head. So when you want to go through this process of reconnecting to yourself, it’s important to see, well, what are those things? And what am I holding on to? How have I been conditioned?

This is the invitation: to get curious and start asking, is this actually me or was I taught this?

And as you explore that in different scenarios, in different situations, you’ll be able to get a taste and a flavor to really see what really feels like you or not.

The question always comes back to why. Kids love this question. I remember when my daughters were younger, oh my gosh. There’s a phase of their life where they just ask why all the time for everything, like a broken record. And then it becomes so funny and fun for them that they keep doing it as a joke. But really when you think about it, it’s a really good question. Because you can always go a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper.

So taking a look to see — well, why do I believe this? Who says it has to be this way? Just starting to understand and get curious and get to know yourself. What is really yours and what isn’t.

Awareness Is Always the First Step

I will also say, with the nature of this prompt for today, you may want to keep a small notebook or use the notes app on your phone so that you can notice what comes up and record it in the moment, because it’s sometimes hard to remember over time.

We have so many of these stories and beliefs. If you find in your self-awareness journey and this activity that you’re identifying more than one, please feel free to write those down. It will not go to waste to record those. But for the purposes of this activity, you really just need to pick one.

You don’t have to do anything with them right now. Just notice what they are. The doing something will come later. This is really first about just building self-awareness.

We’ll do other episodes that go into things around the mind and some of that reprogramming. But the first part is just awareness, and taking a look at where you are right now. Because you can’t go farther with it until you know that.

Your Reflection Prompt for This Week

Pick one belief you’ve been carrying for a long time and ask yourself: where did this actually come from? Does it still serve you?

Just one. Identify one that came to you somewhere along the way and ask yourself — where did it actually come from? Because chances are it’s not really yours and it doesn’t serve you. Maybe it served you at one time, but it’s probably not serving you now.

So it’s an invitation to get curious about that and start to see — okay, relationship with self. How are things showing up and is this working for me or not?

For next week we are going to go even deeper and we’re going to look beneath the conditioning and the stories to the roles that we play. We play so many roles every day. I’m so excited to be here with you on this journey.

As much as you can, you are encouraged to do the activities and to check in on the reflections, because they can be really powerful — simple and powerful at the same time.

I so appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will speak to you next week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What does conditioning mean? A: Conditioning is the process by which the beliefs, expectations, rules and stories of other people get absorbed into how we see ourselves and the world. It happens all our lives… through parents and family, teachers and classmates, workplace culture, society, and social environments. Most of it happens subtly, not all at once, which is why it can be hard to spot.

Q: How do I know if something is conditioning or actually me? A: The question to ask is: is this actually me, or was I taught this? When you sit with a belief or an expectation, does it feel like it’s yours or does it feel inherited from somewhere else? It can take time and reflection to tell the difference, which is exactly what this series is designed to help with.

Q: What are some common examples of conditioning? A: Family conditioning around money (i.e. the saying money doesn’t grow on trees), workplace conditioning around emotions and professionalism, social conditioning through unsolicited advice or judgment, and the pervasive idea that taking time for yourself as a mother or caregiver is selfish. These are just a few… conditioning can come from anywhere and show up in any area of life.

Q: What is the Summer of the Self series? A: It’s a summer podcast series from Find Yourself, Change Your Life focused on your relationship with yourself. Each episode is short and includes one reflection prompt. The series covers different aspects of the self: awareness, conditioning, the roles we play, beliefs, the mind and body, all to help you reconnect to who you really are underneath all of it.

Q: What is this week’s reflection prompt? A: Pick one belief you’ve been carrying for a long time and ask yourself: where did this actually come from? Does it still serve you? You don’t have to fix or change anything yet… just identify it, write it down, and get curious about where it came from.

Q: Do I need to do anything with what I find? A: Not yet. The first step is awareness. Notice the belief. Write it down. Ask where it came from. The doing something comes later.

Q: What comes next in the series? A: Next week’s episode goes even deeper… looking beneath the conditioning and the stories to the roles that we play. We play so many roles every day, and exploring those is the next layer of coming back to yourself.

Q: What is deconditioning? A: Deconditioning is the process of unlearning the conditioning you’ve accumulated over your life and coming back to your true self. It’s a term used in Human Design but applies broadly to anyone doing this kind of inner work. It’s not about rejecting everything you were taught… it’s about examining it and choosing consciously what actually serves you.

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