Conditioned Responses
In this message, I want to discuss how the conditioning in the body will be slow to change even as you progress in your emotional and spiritual development. Let me give an example that involves a topic I recently covered – the need for approval.
Every few weeks, I get an email (that usually includes profanity) from a subscriber to this newsletter, demanding that I stop sending them the newsletter. These emails are typically very short, yet they almost always imply that the newsletter is being forced on them against their will — and that I should remove them from my mailing list immediately.
As you know, everyone who signs up for the newsletter does so voluntarily. They type in their own email address. I have nothing to do with the process. In addition, each message contains instructions on how to get off the list immediately.
Given that each person signs up voluntarily, and can leave at any time, how rational is it for people to get outraged that they are on the list? Seems quite irrational, if not downright crazy to me. Surely, nobody could take seriously the rantings of such people. And even more obviously, nobody would seek the approval of such people.
Yet I must confess that each time I get such an email, there is an emotional reaction triggered inside my body. I will wince or feel the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. I’ve been rejected. Criticized. The body contracts or tightens for a moment.
This is a conditioned response. It doesn’t matter whether I believe what the person has said, or if I think the person is a lunatic. Email is received….and the body response follows. It’s like the response when the doctor taps your knee with one of those little hammers. You move your foot automatically and you are powerless to resist it.
Even if I notice right away how irrational the subscriber’s comment is, I will have the physical sensation in my body. I can see that the person is just angry at the world. Yet I feel powerless to alter the physical responses taking place in my body.
What differs now (from my response years ago) is that I have no desire to convince this irate person to approve of me. I don’t care why they don’t like the newsletter, and I have no interest in convincing them that I’m a good person or that they should continue to read the newsletter. Mentally and emotionally, I release it and let it go. I don’t hold any ill will toward the person either. If anything, I feel compassion to see a person in so much pain.
As I mature and become less concerned with approval, I find that the physical sensations are less intense and they pass quickly. But they still arise from conditioning and may be intense at the outset. I’ve learned that’s perfectly ok…and to just let it be.
I have no doubt that most of you can identify with this principle. No matter how mature you believe yourself to be mentally and emotionally, when someone attacks you or disapproves of you, there will be a conditioned response in your body.
You may be surprised when it arises, since you think you are growing in terms of a diminished need for approval. In all likelihood, you ARE growing and releasing the need for approval. Yet you can’t eliminate the physical responses that arise.
Just ALLOW them to be there.
If you fight the conditioning, flooding yourself with thoughts and judgments that these feelings shouldn’t be there, you won’t get any benefit from that approach. In fact, the opposite will probably happen. The unpleasant sensations will remain for longer periods of time because you are resisting them.
That’s why it is always best to allow the conditioned feelings to be as they are. They will become less and less intense, and they will subside sooner.
Although I have discussed this concept of allowing conditioned responses to be as they are in the context of needing approval, the principle applies to all of our emotional responses.
For instance, when you are afraid, you get a feeling in the pit of your stomach. Therefore, right before you speak to an audience, you may feel intense sensations in your solar plexus region. Even as you gain confidence in public speaking, you may feel this sensation.
Allow it to be there. Just observe it impartially and it will move on.
Be easy on yourself when it comes to your conditioned body sensations. If someone pushes one of your buttons and you feel something, just let it be there. Remain aware without trying to push it away or judge it.
In my experience, awareness leads to clarity and right action (or inaction, if that is more appropriate).
– Jeff Keller
© 2009