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Our past, our reservoir of personal experiences (conditioning)
contorts our thoughts and distorts our judgment. To experience
effects of physical conditioning, fold your hands comfortably
together. Notice which little finger is on the bottom and how
that position feels. Now refold your hands by rearranging your
fingers so your other little finger is now on the bottom.
Please notice your discomfort with this slightly different
position. I’ll bet one feels “right” and the other feels
“wrong.” Now, just to reinforce my point, fold your arms
“normally” and then refold them “the other way.” The latter
somehow feels wrong,” doesn’t it? Is either position truly
right or wrong? This effect is the result of conditioning from
when you were very young. Like everyone else, you probably
began to fold your hands or arms in a certain position and
simply got used to it, got comfortable with it. No right or
wrong about that.
Similarly, as you grew older and participated in sports, maybe
you fell into bad habits shooting baskets, throwing a ball or
swinging a bat or a golf club. When a coach called your
attention to those habits, you probably vowed to change your
ways¾but I’ll bet it
took a while because the old way felt so right. And if no one
had pointed out your bad habits, you’d have kept doing the
same things quite “naturally,” wondering why your game
(quality of life) never got any better.
Those examples of physical “conditioning” have nothing deep
inside and personal attached to them, yet such small habits
accumulate and stick with us for a lifetime.
Emotional and behavioral conditioning, however, is
deep inside and personal. It begins the moment we’re born
and has a much greater effect on our lives than how we swing a
bat. It’s hard to break because we have no idea when
it’s happening—or that it’s happening at all.
If we come from a loving, affectionate, open and communicative
family, we’re likely to pick up habits and patterns that train
us to deal with people outside the home in a similar way. If
we grow up in a family that doesn’t show physical or emotional
affection, or never talks about feelings or beliefs, then
ideas like punishing children is more useful than praise and
“big boys don’t cry” become qualities we see as normal. No one
will say, “Watch out! You’re forming patterns that are making
you fearful and guarded, patterns that might cause you future
problems connecting emotionally with other people.” No one
warns you about these patterns or how they color your thoughts
and judgment in the future. No one warns you because this is
simply how life and people are—that is, “normal is as normal
feels.”
Feelings of normal emanate from our male gene pool¾our
male heritage. As second-millennium males living in the
third millennium, we’re descended from a lineage of “real” men¾heroic
hunters and warriors. They saw themselves as centers of the
universe, the focus of everything important. They met violence
with violence, were spontaneous and ruthless, ate what they
killed and depended upon themselves and other warriors of
their tribe or clan for protection. They had to stay alert and
scan their options constantly and, as a result, they developed
a powerful “me against you” model of the world. This “do or
die” perspective kept men’s thoughts at a reactive and shallow
level. They were obsessed with tactical thinking, perfecting
the skills of war, and focusing on meeting the security and
physical needs of their family and tribe. “Male” was
synonymous with powerful, violent, reactive, logical, and
unfeeling—harsh.
The best warriors were
those who made the rest of the tribe feel the safest; they
were regarded as heroes. They differed greatly from their
female counterparts, who developed from a lineage of
gatherers, mothers and nurturers. “Female” was synonymous with
receptive, intuitive, supportive, kind, feeling, patient, and
insightful¾in a word,
gentle.
The severe and inherently grim nature of a man’s life in real
terms was so challenging that men hardened their hearts and
repressed any natural feelings of compassion in order to
survive. Once confronted with an “enemy”—personal, tribal or
environmental—men dare not hesitate, dare not relate to or
“connect” with that enemy, or their survival and possibly that
of their clan and tribe would be endangered. Thus, the idea
that “nice guys finish last” was planted millennia ago as
compassionate, feeling, intuitive men were ruthlessly weeded
out of the gene pool.
And still we make decisions based upon what’s normal for us.
And as a species, still we ignore the need to restore what we
lost. How ignorant and dangerous is that?
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