Why do Americans shake hands, Italians kiss each other when they meet, and Thai people bow when they meet?
Why is it a compliment to belch after a meal in some countries but horribly rude in others?
Why does slurping your soup mean it’s awesome in Japan but do that in London & you’ll get horrified looks?
They are all a form of societal norms that we call social conditioning. You remember the about the importance of belonging to us in terms of survival. We adapt to the “rules” of the tribe around us in order to be accepted. Naturally anything that looked different from your ingrained idea of “right” would be perceived by your brain as “wrong”….even if it was basically the same thing.
Conditioning is the expected and accepted behavior that goes along with a label of belonging.
The more communities you are involved in, the more conditioning you have.
– You will have Nationality conditioning (what does it mean to be American, what does it mean to be French etc.)
– You will have gender conditioning (girls don’t dress like that, girls don’t curse)
– You will have financial conditioning (people in our social class don’t behave like that.)
– You will have educational conditioning (How does one from Harvard have to behave compared to someone from a state school)
– You will have professional conditioning (expectations of life as a professor are very different than those of a banker)
– You will have local community conditioning (how do people in the north of the country behave compared to the south)
– You will have family conditioning – we’ll spend much more time on this in the next seminar.
The bottom line is that your brain is filled with layers of rules, regulations and expectations that – very rarely – you consciously agreed to adhere to. For the majority of our lives we stick to them. They are second nature to us, but at a certain point a little voice inside of us says “Do I really believe this?” “Is this what I really want” and to use the quote of Anais Nin “the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
So we make changes in our external universe to reflect a different set of thoughts about the world. People destined to become bankers become personal trainers. People who were expected to marry & have children announce their gay. People who were expected to become ballerinas become CEO’s. We’re starting to get used to the idea that we can rewrite the rules that govern our lives. That we have the right to write our own path.
But those are the pieces that are visible to us. It’s the invisible rules that are the hardest to see & change. We’ll look at those next time.
Feel stuck in life?
Check out my bespoke personal development program.
Greatness awaits!
