A&A Ep. 99
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Karrie: [00:00:00] Welcome to Awakened and Alive After 40.
Dominique: If you're searching for inspiring and easy to apply Enneagram and Human Design content, then you've come to the right place. We're your hosts, Dominique
Karrie: and Karrie, two friends and coaches who are passionate about sharing our knowledge and insights on these two powerful self awareness systems to help you step outside the box and into a life that is true to who you really are.
Dominique: We're so grateful to have you here. Let's jump into today's episode. Hey there friends. And welcome back to Awakened and Alive After 40. Or if this is your first time joining us, a great big welcome. Thank you so much for hitting play. Today's episode is going to be sharing a little bit more on something that we often talk about, which is conditioning. Karrie and I recognize that we talked so much about this, [00:01:00] but we were at one point newbies at this kind of language. And I know for myself, I had no idea what conditioning meant and what it looked like and how it worked in our lives. And so we decided we would dedicate an episode specifically on unpacking conditioning and specifically how it shapes our beliefs, our behaviors, and our perceptions. For myself, when I first started to learn about conditioning, I came across a quote by one of my favorite human beings, Carl Jung. He was a Swiss psychologist, and this quote carries into my life today. It has been so life changing and it's until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. And this is something that I sat with for a very long time to really grasp the understanding that I was not stuck with the supposed cards I was [00:02:00] dealt even though I believed there was nothing I could do to change the outcomes and experiences in my life until I came to realize that there was a lot that was blocked from me because of conditioning. So Karrie, when you think of conditioning, and we've talked about this between the two of us off air plenty of times, if you could give us one example of what conditioning has looked like in your life, and I'll share one as well.
Karrie: So a big piece of conditioning that I have realized in myself and am still continually working through has to do with money mindset and how I view money, how I take in money. And this is a big one that a lot of us have because when we're children, we are passively witnessing our caregivers relationship with money. If you grow up with people who are always [00:03:00] perpetuating a feeling of lack or that there's not enough money, then that becomes your conditioned or inadvertent relationship to money. I have really recognized that in myself and have started to retake back the power and rewrite my own thinking about money, that it is an abundant resource. It's merely a representation of energy exchange and I'm still working through it, but the first step is recognizing where does that original idea about anything come from? Is it yours or did it come from someone else in your life, in your past?
Dominique: Yeah, yeah, I definitely have my own blocks about money and have worked with that a lot. When I think about, of course I have many things that have gone on in my own life that I've worked through. But one in particular that I can really think of because it stands out [00:04:00] is my playfulness as a child and how I came to believe that it was not okay to be playful because there were occasions where I was maybe playful at the wrong times, if my grandmother had friends over and of course I needed to be well behaved. And if I crack jokes, sometimes I would get in trouble. It's understandable. You have to be respectful in a lot of ways. That's just part of educating a child is when to know what to say. But I kind of took that as like, Oh, it's not good. It's not okay for me to be playful and silly, not understanding it depends on the context and the time. This is how that experience, repeated a few different times, impacted my belief and behaviors where I then became very reserved and very serious. It's almost like it was all or nothing like, well, okay, I'm not going to be silly or [00:05:00] playful at all then because I obviously don't know when the right time is to do that and to be that. I had a very serious demeanor when I was growing up, and I lost that playfulness. And not until I recognized that, hey, that's who I am and there's nothing wrong with it, then I was able to kind of work on that belief over time, and now have been able to reconnect with that playful side, that silly side of myself after years of shutting that down because of my own belief. It's not that anyone did anything wrong. It's just what I created for my story out of the experience.
Karrie: I think that's an important point to make that when we talk about conditioning, we usually have to go back to our childhoods, but we're never coming at it from a place of blame or that our caregivers messed us up in some way or did something wrong, because [00:06:00] everyone is just doing the best with what they know, and this is a really relatively new idea that people are just sort of starting to understand and understand the impact that it has on children, especially between the ages of birth to seven years old when their brains are just so open and taking in everything, and it's uncomfortable for us to think about ourselves as being programmed, but we all were. We all were programmed by our caregivers, by our culture, by our society, by our families, by whoever was around us in those early developmental years. It's no one's fault for passing on faulty information because anyone who passes faulty information was given faulty information by someone else who didn't know better.
Dominique: Yep, yep, exactly. And by just having the awareness of this, and this is the whole point behind us doing this episode, is to bring awareness of how conditioning impacts your life and the life you are [00:07:00] experiencing right now, the life that you are in the process of designing as well. Conditioning impacts our behaviors, our beliefs, and our perceptions. Some other examples, Karrie gave the example of belief around money. There's also how we are brought up and believing our behavior in social situations, like I just shared. And then also like around gender roles, that's another big one. I'm glad that you brought up, Karrie, that it's not we're passing judgment on anyone because everyone in our lives just did the best they could with the knowledge they had at that time as well. I also saw somewhere online, there was a quote that gave me a really great understanding of the difference between the subconscious and unconscious mind. It was the subconscious is like a personal assistant, always working in the background, whereas the unconscious is more like a hidden [00:08:00] treasure chest holding secrets and untapped potential. I loved this because I used to ask like, well, what's the difference between subconscious and unconscious? And if you think of like, when you learn to ride a bike, you can't unlearn that. That's something that you can't unlearn. However, when you become aware of behaviors that are not supporting you, you can unlearn those things. You can reteach yourself, relearn, create new pathways of behaviors and beliefs that serve you better. At one point, we held on to beliefs and behaviors that did serve us that we believe served us. But maybe now, you're starting to recognize like, hmm, you know what? That's not really true for me anymore. Conditioning is not fate, and with awareness, you can change that.
Karrie: Letting go of conditioning now as an adult is just taking control over how you want your life to be, but also honoring that the conditioning you went through as a [00:09:00] child and the whole reason that it happens to all of us is because we want to be loved and accepted by the people around us. We've talked about it many times in previous episodes that humans are social beings. And so being a part of the pack is really innately intuitively embedded in us. It's part of our survival mechanism to be really susceptible to this conditioning as children. But like Dominique just said, if there's something about your own thinking or your own behaviors or the patterns that you see yourself living in your day to day life that you see are not serving you anymore, you have complete control over it. It's not always easy, but you have the power to make the changes in your life.
Dominique: Now, I am so curious, Karrie, when it comes to conditioning and the Enneagram, because that is a major role to [00:10:00] better understand your Enneagram type and all that goes with it in identifying the ego structure and conditioning. What can you share with us when it comes to the Enneagram and conditioning?
Karrie: Well, this is in my opinion, the whole point of the Enneagram and how it can best serve you. I had first heard about the idea of conditioning as a young adult. I think my current partner is the one who really started talking about it, because he was very aware of it and had been on a deconditioning path before I was even aware that I was conditioned. But the Enneagram for me, I tend to love systems and frameworks and structure in a lot of things, so it really clicked for me because of that, because it gave a really clear idea for me to better understand myself and what my conditioning was through this system. Because what the Enneagram is able to shed light on is [00:11:00] those patterns that you don't even know you're doing. You just think this is how everyone operates. That's the big thing with the Enneagram that I've heard so many clients, so many people say, oh, I thought that's what everyone's core desire in life was. And it's like, no. We all are so different and so nuanced that we all have these little different things motivating us and driving our behaviors. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, I have no idea what my conditioning is, I don't know what's driving a lot of my behavior, the Enneagram might click for you or be a good place to start looking at the nine types and what resonates with you, because they show what motivates you through the core desire, which is the thing you're trying to go after, most of your behaviors are trying to get this. And then the core fear, most of your conditioned behaviors are trying to avoid this and not experience this.
Dominique: That's awesome because I remember when I was [00:12:00] first introduced to the Enneagram, I was already well on my path to deconditioning and I was like, dang it, like if I had only learned this sooner, I feel like I would have expedited the process, you know, coulda, woulda, shoulda. But at the same time, even though I felt like, oh, I'm already deconditioning, it gave me so much more insights on the areas that still needed a little bit of tweaking or awareness in myself. It was amazing when I came across the Enneagram, and I feel like it can work for any stage of that whole process of deconditioning, whether you're just starting out or you're well along your journey, like I was when I first came across it.
Karrie: Yeah, I think it's a great place to start, and then if you're on this path and it's resonating and you're seeing growth, I think Human Design is the next logical step in order to dive deeper into the deconditioning process. And Dominique, maybe you can talk a little bit about that because Human Design [00:13:00] is so good at supporting us in the deconditioning process because of what it shows us about our true nature, our true essence underneath all the conditioning.
Dominique: Exactly. And it shows us it gives us a map of how to actually do it. And the thing that I really love about Quantum Human Design, specifically, is that, of course, it takes traditional Human Design, but it then puts in science and what we have learned about psychology and behavioral sciences and us as human beings over the years because traditional Human Design came about a little while ago. With traditional, they talk a lot about conditioning through open centers. And yes, that is one of five ways we become conditioned. According to Quantum Human Design, there's five key areas of conditioning. One of them, like I just mentioned, the open centers, and we talk about how the open [00:14:00] centers are the white areas in your chart, and this is where you are drawing in and amplifying the energy from around you. So an example would be something I often talk about on the podcast is the emotional solar plexus. How mine is open, it's white, and yours, Karrie is defined. So say you and I grew up in the same environment, and I was around your consistent emotional energy, I could take that on and amplify it. Over the years, even when I go out on my own, I may identify as having a lot of emotional ups and downs because of being conditioned by this energy around me, your energy, even though it's not mine. Open centers are a place where we can hold on to conditioned beliefs and behaviors. Imprinting is another one. And so imprinting, if you think of like all of the beliefs and behaviors that your parents [00:15:00] or grandparents have passed down, that's what you can consider imprinting. You're looking at how they do things, their behaviors, and how they say things. Then there's generational patterns, and this comes from more so the grandparents, great grandparents did something one way, and then it kind of flowed over into how your parents did something. And then maybe now it's flowing over into how you are doing certain things, so passed along in generations. The fourth one is genetics, and within our genes, we hold beliefs and behaviors that come from, and I believe it's up to seven generations. That blew my mind when I learned about that, and this is in epigenetics, the science of how genes are expressed, how we express genes through our thoughts, our beliefs, and they can be upgraded through the stories that we tell ourselves, or downgraded. It affects our [00:16:00] health. So genetics is a big one where this is passed along through generations. And then lastly, the fifth one, life experiences. We all have different life experiences. These experiences lead to altered states of behaviors and beliefs in order for us to cope, become coping mechanisms, protective mechanisms. So in reality, traditional Human Design talks a lot about open centers, which is one of five ways of conditioning. So it's very complex. But Human Design starts to give you a map of how you can navigate your journey in the deconditioning process, how you can become more aware of what really is yours, what your story really is, and how you can start rewriting the story as well, which is what I have been on the path of doing for many years. And it's constant work. It's not just a one and done. We are constantly evolving, we're dynamic beings. [00:17:00] And so it's constant awareness and checking in with ourselves to see that we are continuing to follow our path and our truth.
Karrie: We are planning on doing a whole episode about deconditioning and getting into the details of that. But just to give a little taste of how to start breaking free and unconditioning yourself from some of these unwanted patterns in your life. We've already mentioned two of them, and that is possibly getting to know yourself through the Enneagram system or through Human Design or a combination of the two, because for us personally, those two systems have been integral in our own growth work and our own deconditioning journey.
Dominique: I think the thing that helped me the most when I started the process, which I think is a powerful starting point for anybody right now is to identify with curiosity, and that's a big point right there with curiosity, what are [00:18:00] repeating patterns and themes that you're noticing or have noticed carrying through in your life? For me, it was people pleasing, and why was I always people pleasing? Well, because I was afraid of saying the wrong thing because I didn't want someone to not like what I wanted or I just wanted to be easy. I didn't want to step on toes. I began to notice that this is a theme that's continuing in a lot of my relationships, personal, every other area, family. And once you get a better idea of what these patterns and themes are, then ask yourself, how are they no longer serving you? And just get curious about it. So identify what are you not really liking and then how is this no longer serving you? So you can start to work toward identifying what is going to better serve you.
Karrie: For me, I really started noticing how much I corrected people and criticized [00:19:00] how they did things and how they approached life, essentially. And I didn't even know I did this, but I started noticing it. I did it all the time with a lot of people in my life. It's not easy always recognizing these patterns or behaviors because a lot of the times the ones we want to change are the unwanted ones, the ones that aren't serving us. So maybe they have a more negative connotation to them or they show us how we've been possibly sabotaging our relationships or pushing people away, and it can get uncomfortable, but it's worth the work, because when you start noticing it, you can do differently. You can make a different choice and you can get onto a path that is going to better serve you.
Karrie: Thank you for listening to this episode. Your support is so appreciated.
Dominique: If you'd like to have a question answered about your Human Design or [00:20:00] Enneagram type in a future episode, you can submit it through the link in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.