Human conditioning - how does it affect your life?

It is morning, still very cold, and just barely spring. You look out the window of a small cabin in the woods. Everything is wrapped in a thick layer of mist. A white, translucent veil over the world. It feels a little mysterious, and you know that soon it will be a beautiful, sunny day.

As humanity, we live within a layer of conditioning that keeps us from being free. It is the mist that has become so familiar we no longer notice it.

As children, we learn things like ‘I can’t be vulnerable, because that makes me weak’ or ‘I’m only valuable If I work really hard .’ As we grow up, we are slowly shaped into patterns. We inherit many good things - caring for others, for instance, or resilience. But there are also many patterns that are outdated and hold us back, such as self-rejection. As a result, many of us have, to some degree, lost touch with our authentic selves. This makes life harder than it needs to be, and brings with it a great deal of unnecessary suffering - within ourselves and in the world.

At its root, our conditioning had good intentions: to stay connected to our parents and others, and to cope with difficult or traumatic experiences. It helped us - and those before us - to survive. It is often unconscious, and gets passed down from generation to generation. So unconscious, in fact, that we sometimes don't know that a different reality is possible - one that is more connected and in harmony with life.

We are all in it together, within the human conditioning, each with our own unique share of unhelpful patterns. We can learn to bring it into awareness and allow it to integrate, creating space for new ways of being. These are old parts of ourselves that need loving attention, so that we can be guided from a healthier place.

And then slowly, the mist begins to lift on its own, and we can become a bit less serious again ;)

April 2026

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