Ep 4 - What is conditioning?

Episode Summary

In this episode, Sarah dives into the concept of conditioning - the beliefs and patterns we develop in life that shape how we think and act. She explores how conditioning starts from birth and discusses positive vs negative conditioning. 

Sarah also shares a personal story of how not trusting herself earlier in life led to fear of decision-making down the road, and how she worked through this.

Key Topics Covered

- What conditioning is and how it forms from infancy based on culture, upbringing, life experiences
- How conditioning impacts how we show up as adults – as parents, at work, in relationships
- Identifying negative conditioning or limiting beliefs
- Sarah's example of not following her instincts at university and the long-term effects
- The role of the 7 energy type authorities vs the mind/conditioning in decision-making
- Techniques Sarah has used like coaching, RTT, Akashic Record journeying and energy clearing to uncover conditioning
- Sarah's ongoing work to overcome her fear of visibility and being seen as a leader
- Using conditioning as an opportunity for growth and evolving your answers through high-quality questions

Notable Quotes

"We experience things, nobody should take away from your experience. You might have two people going in to watch the same film. But they will receive the messaging in very different ways."  

"I didn't stay true to myself. I trusted that he was the authority. I allowed myself to get talked out of it."

"What I now recognize is that I was swimming against the tide for a whole year." 

"The quality of the answers you receive is directly impacted by the quality of the questions that you ask yourself."

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Transcript

0:03

Welcome to the Energetics of Being Podcast, a podcast that delves into the fascinating world of human design and unravels the layers of conditioning beliefs and expectations that can influence who we become and how we show up in our lives. I'm your host, Sarah Atkins, and I'm really excited to share this journey with you. This podcast is for you if you're tired of feeling stuck, held back, or disconnected from your true self. My intention for this podcast is that we're going to shine a light on the patterns and behaviors that can prevent us from fully expressing our authentic self. Together we'll uncover the tools, insights, and practices that can empower you to release the limitations that no longer serve you. We are gonna tap into the power of energy, intuition, and self-awareness to unlock your true potential so that you can live a life that aligns with your authentic self. Join me each week as we engage in thought-provoking conversations with experts, practitioners, and individuals who have experienced their own profound transformations. We'll explore topics such as human design, gene keys, astrology, holistic approaches, coaching, neuroscience, and psychology. We're gonna draw from a rich tapestry of wisdom to help you navigate your own personal journey of self-discovery. So whether you are new to human design or have been on a path of self-discovery for years, this podcast is for you. This is your invitation to step into your power, embrace your uniqueness, and create a life that resonates with your soul's deepest desires. So if you're ready to dive in, let's go.

Sarah: 1:48

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Energetics of Being a Human Design podcast. Now in our last episode I talked about family dynamics and understanding the different nuances and how we express our energy and how it has had a profound effect on my family life. The Emotional regulation and the calmness of the atmosphere in our family and our and in our family home. This week I wanted to talk about conditioning, like what is it? So conditioning is thoughts, behaviors, how we feel about ourselves. And these things, that basically the conditioning starts from the moment we are born. And it continues throughout our life. Conditioning is the beliefs that we form based on culture, how we're brought up, the countries that we live in, or the countries that we're born into, our life experiences, our education. The things that we read, the things that we watch on TV, teachers that we may have had, friendships that we've had, relationships that we've had, all of these things form our conditioning. Not all conditioning is bad, by the way. I know that when I first started kind of digging into this, especially when you start on that personal development journey, Beliefs quite often get lauded about or thrown around as limiting beliefs. Not all beliefs are limiting, but yes, some of them are. I remember reading, the first personal development book I read was actually Playing Big by Tara Mohr. And it was given to me by, or sent to me by my very first coach way back in 2017? That's quite a long time ago now. And it's a great book, if anybody is interested, I'm quite happy to make recommendations. It's specifically targeted at women, but it talked a lot about the roles that we play and a lot of the conditioning that we are. susceptible to just through cultural influences. And I've read other books that cover this from different angles as well. I know that Denise Duffield Thomas, Mindset Mentor author of Get Rich Lucky Bitch, she talks a lot about the conditioning of women who throughout, throughout history if you're a Disney film connoisseur, the rich women are portrayed as being a bitch. The rich and successful women are the villains in the piece. So how much of that is our conditioning? Or how much of that do we unconsciously take in as part of our conditioning? So some conditioning is good, some conditioning is bad, but it essentially, we all receive information in different ways. And I think it's really important to understand that we experience things, nobody should take away from your experience. You might have two people going in to watch the same film. But they will receive the messaging in very different ways, and some of that is down to our conditioning. We see things differently, we have different perspectives on things. And when we're talking about conditioning in terms of human design, we talk about the undefined centres, so your open centres in your chart is where you are, more sensitive or susceptible to the conditioning influences of the other designs of the people around you. So if you have an undefined crown center like me, and both my parents had defined crown centers, I was very sensitive, or I can be very sensitive, to mental pressure. Feeling the pressure from other people to come up with the right answers, the right solutions. When you understand that about yourself, I remember crying if I got put on the spot by a teacher in a classroom or just feeling the emotions coming up because I might get asked for quite an answer to a question and I would feel really intense pressure to get it right and quite often I never used to say anything because I would also be harboring this fear that I'm gonna get it wrong so I'd then not say anything. And so our conditioning can have an impact then on our experiences as we grow up, which will then in turn have an impact on how we show up in our adult selves. So this is why the conversation around conditioning can be really interesting. And this comes up with all of my clients, whether they are neurodivergent or not, but We all experience conditioning and sometimes it can leave a lasting impression on ourselves. So it can impact how we show up in, as a parent. It can impact how we show up as a particular friend or in particular friendships and relationships. It can show up how, or it can impact how we show up at work, for example. In business, if you're running a business. It can really show up everywhere. The key thing here is that our brains, essentially, from a neuroscientific point of view, your brain is here to keep you alive, right? It's here to help you survive. Which is where I guess that phrase of limiting beliefs come in. Because if we've had a bad experience or we've received some negative conditioning but we may not necessarily identify it, it can stop us from doing what we want to do, showing up as our true self. It might cause you to play small or smaller than you would have done if you hadn't have had that experience in the past. So conditioning is just a fancy word for pulling all of this information together. Now, just because you have got conditioning or you're carrying conditioning with you doesn't mean it has to define who you are. We all have choices, right? This is why I'm so keen to talk about this because I know that there is so much information out there on the internet now about human design. It's definitely a growing. Is it a trend? I don't know. It's the knowledge being spread more, more and more people are talking about it, but it can get misinterpreted. Human design was never meant to be a conditioning influence. It was never meant to limit you. I've heard people talking about, oh, you know, I can't do this because I'm a projector. Or I can't do this because my design says this. That's bullshit. I call that out. It was never meant to be a limiting thing. What it was meant was as a tool to help you understand a little bit more where you might find some challenges or make things feel more comfortable. It was to help you to identify where you're out of alignment with who you are, so that you recognize that when you're feeling extreme frustration, or if you're feeling really bitter about something, or if you're feeling really angry about something, then maybe that thing isn't for you, so what is the right thing for you? It was a way to help you go with the flow more, to understand Where your energy is meant to go and to develop that self trust. I remember having situations in my past, whereas now on reflection, I'm like, damn it. I went against myself there and I know that that didn't work out the way that I had hoped, but I got conditioned or talked out of doing something by somebody else because I trusted that person or I didn't trust myself. So there's one particular scenario that I can remember when I was at university. I did fashion textile design. So part of my final. Year was to develop, design, and develop a final collection. But because it was textile design I had to design and come up with a collection of fabrics, design them, print them and make something with them for my final collection. It was a whole project and I really wanted to do menswear, but where I studied and in the cohort that I was in, nobody else wanted to do menswear. So for our final show, I got told by my tutor that We're not going to accommodate that. We're not going to get a male model in just for you, so you need to change your ideas. My idea around this men's wear collection, bearing in mind, this is back in the year 2000 ish, 2000, 2001. My idea for my collection was to do men's shirts, I wanted to do a collection of men's printed shirts that were florals mixed with pinstripes. So having a slightly different view on the traditional pinstripe shirt, I wanted to kind of floralize it. Massive influences for me were, at the time, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood where they were challenging those archetypes. I was really interested in, in that. And my tutor at the time told me, absolutely no way, it's not commercial, no, who's gonna buy it, nobody's gonna go for that, it's ridiculous, so you need to start again. So I was like, oh okay, and I didn't stay true to myself. I trusted that he was the authority. I allowed myself to get talked out of it. I didn't stay firm, so I worked hard to change my collection idea. It felt really exhausting at the time, really drained, my heart wasn't really in it. I was just going through the motions. I remember feeling quite resentful. I wasn't excited about it. I was just doing it because I had to do a collection and if I, if I wanted to complete my degree and I hadn't gone that far to throw it all away. So I thought, right, I'm going to have to just do what I need to do. And that's the difference, isn't it? Because when I'm in flow and when I am following the hell yes energy that I am meant to do, being a generator type, things aren't necessarily easy, but it moves with more ease. There's more of a case of swimming along with the flow, right? I now I know, that what I did for my degree, and I burnt out. I had a massive breakdown after I finished my degree because what I now recognize is that I was swimming against the tide for a whole year. I was forcing myself, I was hustling, forcing myself to do this thing that I just didn't really wanna do. I was doing it because I felt like I should. I was doing what I thought I should be doing. And that knocked my confidence. It actually is one of many examples I've got of where I basically developed this conditioning that I can't trust myself. I don't necessarily know what I should do. Because And I'll tell you why. I worked in retail all the way through college and university. I worked for brands like Dorothy Perkins, Topshop. And a year after I graduated, so I went through the motions, I did my final collection. It was what it was. I got my degree and I moved on. But, less than a year later, so I graduated in the summer of 2001. I was working in Topshop as a manager at the time. And we had Topman upstairs, we had River Island next door to us in the high street. And so less than a year after I graduated, we got the spring summer collection in just sort of January, February time. What was in the shops in the menswear department? Floral shirts. And I remember just feeling devastated. Rather than this, see I told you so. I felt this energy of frustration, like, why didn't you follow your instinct? I was just annoyed with myself and what that unconsciously taught me is that, you don't trust your instincts and there's been different scenarios since then. But that is an example of how my conditioning then impacted me 20 years later when we were looking to move, actually it wasn't quite 20 years later, but in 2018 we'd made the decision that we were going to relocate out of London where we lived and I'd been researching the area. For a long, long time, probably five or six years, if I'm honest. It took us a while to get all of the ducks in a row. And, I had massive fear that I'd found the house, I'd found the place that I wanted to go, and then all of this fear came up, it was properly crippling. That I couldn't press the go button because, what if I make the wrong decision? And I was in danger of not, I didn't have that trust. I was in danger of really screwing up something. And not going for it, possibly missing an opportunity, because I had this really, Oh my God, but what if I make the wrong decision? Because I have this whole history of not just starting with my degree, but all the way through of where I'd made all of these bad decisions that came up for me. So created this whole crippling fear. of not trusting myself and this is how our conditioning can show up. Again, your brain is trying to keep you safe so it will throw up all of the bad stuff. What I then had to do was consciously look at where I had made good decisions and this is where coaching really helped me massively. I also had some RTT as well, so Rapid Transformation Therapy for those of you who haven't heard about it. with an amazing lady, who I'm hoping will come on the podcast at some point. And that helped me shift some old bullshit baggage, emotional baggage, that I was carrying with me, that I had been carrying. in my energy, in my thoughts, in my beliefs, and it was impacting how I was showing up. By clearing that and shifting that with various different techniques, we hit go. And I can honestly tell you it's the best decision that we've ever made, which then gets added into the, Oh, this is an example of where I can trust my intuition, I can trust my gut, and my emotional authority. When I'm emotionally invested and I have that emotional clarity, I made this decision. Now, to the outside world, it seemed like we'd made a really random decision. Like, oh my god, you're moving from London to the Cotswolds? Why? We didn't know anybody in the area. It seemed really random to everybody else. But to myself and my husband. We had lots and lots of plans around it and we actually drove to the area. We spent weeks coming to and from to drive around the area and I can honestly tell you, when we drove here, there was that hell yes, oh my god, it was instant, it was just an instant knowing. I can't Describe to you, because your instant knowing will be different to mine, but it just felt like home. And even when we walked into the house, again, it was an immediate thing. And the power of that, actually, even, was overwhelming. How could it be this instant knowing? I've got nothing to base it on. Because We're conditioned to think our way out of a problem. So, our conditioning tends to be around the mind. But our body does remember it as well. And it's mainly because our brains are wired up to survive. Okay. Now, human design, what I find really interesting about this is when we're talking about decision making, there are seven different authorities, right? In the human design system. Not one of them, by the way, is your mind, your head. They're all to do with the body, even mental projectors. Okay. are meant to talk things out so they can hear what their thoughts and beliefs are. So it's not even necessarily making a decision with the mind, it's kind of taking in all of the different opinions, talking them over and then deciding from there, because what feels good and what you're hearing. I'll probably do a separate episode on authority anyway but when we're talking about our conditioning, you can listen to what your parents tell you you can listen to what your friends tell you, but ultimately only you know what feels good and what feels right to you. Now this comes up a lot, in the work that I do. Particularly through my coaching, so much of that work that we do is around self acceptance. So we process past events and past situations, decisions that have been made, so that we can excavate and look at what influenced those decisions, what influenced those situations. Because when we understand that, it helps us to move through it. Right. And there are so many different ways of deconditioning ourselves. I've used, and that's what the essence of this podcast is. What I find interesting is that even when we think we've worked on something or released something, the conditioning can still show up. So does it ever go away? I don't know if it always. Fully does but I think there's multiple layers to it. So I don't think there is ever a one size fits all Definitely still working through some of my own conditioning and I'm definitely using lots of different techniques. For those people that know me more personally, they will know that I have challenges and conditioning around being visible Now, that might be standing at the front of a room and talking to people, showing up on social media, being seen as the expert I find that really uncomfortable, if I'm honest. I don't like, even on my wedding day, right, we had a hundred guests because when I was inviting people, I wanted people that were important to us. So we had friends and we had family, it was very much like. Our network, who is really important to us as a family. We rely on them very heavily and we're very lucky to have built an amazing village of people around us. But, I remember that day. where I walked in to the room where we got married. It was in a hotel with my dad and these hundred people all turning to face me and my immediate response, my body and my gut wanted to turn around and run away because I didn't like the fact that everybody was watching me and that is a very, physical response, I feel that. Whereas everybody else said, Oh my God, you look so calm and you look, that's not how I felt. I literally wanted to curl up and die. I don't like being the center of attention, which is weird because I'm quite happy teaching and I can teach when I'm talking about something that I'm confident about and I feel secure in. I can absolutely do that. When everybody is kind of, because I think in that situation, it's the subject that's the center stage. It's not me. I'm just a vehicle for delivering the message. It's the same with this podcast, really. The podcast isn't about me. It's about the topic. The topic is the center stage. The information that I'm delivering or the message I am delivering is the center stage. It's not about me. I am. I am not important in this. scenario. And that might sound weird to other people, but it kind of makes sense to me. But in that wedding day scenario, I wanted to shrivel up and actually just turn around and run away. What kept me going seeing my husband, John, stood and just nodding and smiling at me. And I was like, okay, cool. I could just, if I can just shut out everybody else watching me, then we're all good. And I'll just focus on him. Once I got that bit out of the way, the rest of the day was much more chilled out. So I, I don't like, I don't know why I don't like it but this year I have been doing a lot of exploration into that, and I, I do have some, beliefs or conditioning around putting, elevating myself above other people, I don't see that. I don't see myself as a leader type, which is ironic because I have a line 5 in my unconscious profile. Other people see me in more of a leadership like them, but I don't necessarily identify with it. So I have been working really hard this year on kind of deconditioning those beliefs and trying to explore and unpick what those things mean for me, trying to step more into that unconscious leader, I suppose. being more of a conscious leader, but sort of being more consciously aware of how I show up and consciously choosing to show up in more of my leadership energy, which I have. And. I've done a lot of energy clearing work this year. So I've done some deep meditations, some Akashic journeying, which has been a fascinating thing, which is why I trained as a practitioner in it with the amazing Kylie Anna, who is going to be on an episode in here. And I have learned energy editing through Gemma Went, which is a, energy clearing methodology developed by Michelle Lowbridge originally. But I've realized that this visibility piece for me is a big part of my conditioning. Has held me back a lot in kind of showing up on social media, showing up in my business, being seen because I have, you know, I am my business, I'm a personal brand. So visibility, I need to be there. So I recognize this year that I have, it's something that I've had to work on. And it's something that I am continuing to work on. It's always being a work in progress. WhIch we all are, nobody's, nobody has done until the day, until my very last breath. And I met this amazing lady on a program that I did this year, she's in her 60s I think. And she said, I'm constantly learning, I've tried to retire, in fact I met another lady earlier on this week, who was the same thing, she's tried to retire three times, she's in her 70s, still running a very successful business. And she's like, I'm just going to keep going because whilst I'm really enjoying it and I feel in flow and I'm making a difference and I'm having an impact and I'm learning new things, I'm still not done yet. And I love that. That's the sort of thing that I would strive towards like continuous learning, continuous developing. Because every time I learn something new or try something different or test something out and decondition and peel back another layer, I'm just constantly evolving and up leveling myself. This is what I see it now is up leveling. Our conditioning is not necessarily a bad thing. It's an opportunity for growth, right? It's an opportunity to identify where our challenges are. to ask ourselves questions to explore. If you are ever feeling, if you're a generator type, then you might feel the frustration. If you're a manifestor type, you might feel anger, unexplainable rage. If you're a projector, you might feel, bitterness. It's like you'll feel really bitter around something if you're a reflector, you might just feel disappointment. If you notice that those things, start asking yourself questions like, where is this coming from? Why am I feeling like this? Where might I be out of alignment? Where am I taking on other people's direction or other people's emotions or other people's fears. What is mine? And then that's where the key to your development and your growth is. I remember I think it was James Wedmore that I heard it first, years ago now, probably about four or five years ago, and I still stand by this because I think it's such a good quote and I'm not sure where he got it from, so I can't credit the original person. It's just a phrase that kind of sticks in my mind, but"the quality of the answers you receive is directly impacted by the quality of the questions that you ask yourself." So if you want to truly grow and truly develop and truly move forwards and up level, don't take your conditioning as this is just the way I am and this is me and this is how I am. It doesn't have to be like that. Challenge that. Question it. Use it as an opportunity for growth and developing your knowledge. So, throughout the rest of this podcast, my intention is to talk about and share some insights on different ways that our conditioning can impact us, how we show up, and talk about some of the different ways that we can work through it and share some personal insights, other people's journeys through deconditioning and the techniques. Finding out why they do what they do in the hope that even if I help just one person then you will realize what I, what I want is that we don't live, I don't want people to believe that we live in like this Instagram social media perfect world, we don't. Because we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform in certain ways. I'm hoping that through sharing these insights and sharing these stories. You will realize that nobody is perfect, that we all carry conditioning. The conditioning that we carry is not all necessarily bad, but it is just, it can limit us, but it's also opportunity. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for listening. And I'll speak to you soon.

Sarah Atkins: 31:47

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Energetics of Being. I hope you found our exploration today, both insightful and inspiring, and if you resonated with what you heard today, I invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on your preferred platform, whatever that might be. Your feedback is really invaluable and it helps us to reach even more listeners on their own journey of self-discovery. And remember, the conversation doesn't have to end here. You can connect with me on social media. I'm on Instagram under the handle sarah m atkins. Or you can find me on Facebook just as Sarah Atkins. You could even come and join my Facebook group, The Energetics of Being where you can share your thoughts, questions, or your own personal experiences. I would really love to hear from you and continue our conversation there. I am on a personal mission to bring you thought provoking conversations and practical insights to help you break free from the conditioning that holds you back, allowing your true self to shine brilliantly. And as we close out this episode, take a moment to reflect on what you've learned today. How can you apply these insights to your own life? What steps can you take to further align with your own authentic self? Thank you again for listening. I really do appreciate you choosing to spend some time with me. And until next time, remember that you are a unique once in a lifetime expression of the universe. Embrace your individuality, trust your inner wisdom, and keep shining your light brightly. Take care, and we'll catch you in the next episode of The Energetics of being. Stay curious, stay authentic, and stay true to you.