Change Your Programming

What I do is based on what I believe.

What I believe is based upon my programming

So to change what I do I need to start with the programing.

How I feel is based on all of the above.

Now what do I mean by programing? It is, of course a computer term and would have had little meaning to Bill Shakespeare. Programing, in this context, means the messages I have received over and over and over again.

Eric Hoffer has a quote that goes something like this: we know ourselves by hearsay.

We know who we are, and what we are like by what others have said to us starting with our childhood. We have received this information so often that it stops being something said to us, and becomes something we know deeply within our very core. We know this hearsay stuff so well that it is no longer the opinion of others, it is something we believe.

"I'm not good at math."

"I was born with the ability to draw."

"If someone insults my family, I can't help it, I have to kick their ass, that's just the way I am."

We are not what we are programed to be, but our programing is so powerful it often becomes (on a practical level) the truth about who we are and what we are like. If we believe our programing then to change seems not only useless, it seems impossible. If you believe you have to hit someone who insults your mama, then that is what you do when someone insults your mama. If you are programed to be a loser then you will constantly find evidence that you are indeed a loser. You have no motivation to look for successes, or to change your loser behavior, because why try to change what is unchangable.

Repetition is a convincing argument. ~Helmstetter

If I want to feel differently I need to change my beliefs, and changing what I believe is hard becaue it is very hard to change my programing. Afterall, the programing starts at our birth and continues on for the rest of our life. We are especailly vulnerable to the programing we received in our childhood. As kids we tend to believe what our parents tell us. If we are told we are a bother, incompetent, dumb (or athletic, or funny, or a good singer) then we are programed to be what we were programed to be.

To change this programing is going to take a lot of time and effort. Just telling yourself once that you are too smart, is not going to overcome being told you were stupid 100,000 times by your parents and siblings.

. . . don't say yes to thoughts that strike deep at our self-esteem. We step outside of the interpretation. . . . we don't have to engage with them. We don't have to believe them. ~Ihnen and Flynn