When we come into this world, we are gradually shown a set of patterns that we play out. These are considered learned behaviors which collectively form norms, traditions and perhaps social expectations. As small people, we adopt these so that we receive love and acceptance within our family, social groups, community, and general environment where we are being raised. On the surface this all seems normal, or one could pose the question, ‘What other way could it be?’
Genetics play a part in this, as they did for our parents and their parents before them. Each generation has been, in its own way, a reflection of the society and culture at that point in our collective history. As we become part of the society that we are raised into, we are conditioned and encouraged to uphold these patterns that we are taught. This allows us to become part of the tribe. This tribe mentality has been our way since the stone age. At least this is what the history books tell us. But where has this gotten us?
Throughout the ages there have been groups of people who have recognized these intricate levels of conditioning for what they are and those whom have followed the traditions and norms of the contemporary society of their time. The history books have acknowledged and embellished the latter and have offered a brief mention of the former. In the former’s case, they were the ones who cultivated levels of self-awareness and in their realizations have come to diverse conclusions of what our three-dimensional reality actually is.
Being a fan of Pink Floyd, I truly appreciate their album The Dark Side of the Moon and its take on the human condition and our reality. What I got from the album is its heavy-weighted view of how our society has been conditioned to toll the line as has been done before us, keeping us in boxes and policing each other to make sure that we are all in boxes as well.
Through this tolling the line, we often are so absorbed in what is outside of us, of which we are trained to do and educate others to continue this into the next generation, that we are rarely given the time to ask, how or rather why is this important to me? Why does it matter?
When these two questions are asked in earnest, what answers come for you? Where have they come from? What is the tone? Is it your voice or someone else’s? What does your true voice sound like?
Who are we without all the layers and generations of programming and conditioning? How can we know our truth when truth has been told to us which we have been conditioned to accept in order to get what we needed to survive? Programs teaching programs. Is this any different than a computer, of which we have become so dependent upon for survival? Is it fair to say that we have become computers playing out our programs unconsciously? Have we become dependent on these programs, these levels and layers of conditioning?
Is your life truly yours, or a manifestation of interwoven patterns reacting to external prompts or symptoms of the continuity of patterns and programs that have their origin thousands of years ago? How can we be free when who we are is not clear to us?
How is a woman supposed to be if she ceases from playing out the programs that she has needed to survive since she was a girl? The same question can be posed for a man. Is it any wonder that LGBTQ movement has become more expressed recently?
We are both masculine and feminine and the masks we wear are not who we truly are. As we become accountable for these equal expressions within us we see who we are and who we interact with as expressions of vibration, frequency and energy and can ask, “Is this at a level reflective of my spiritual growth?’ nothing more. This avails us the gift of disengaging when the cords, energy vampirism and the similar low expression are not of the same value. In doing this we can sustain this ever-balancing masculine and feminine within ourselves and see the truth that is in front of us.
That is freedom, liberation from the system that no matter what our gender is and how we have been taught to express it, obscured in varying degrees by the culture and traditions, we can let this go. What the person in front of us chooses to do is their choice. It is our choice to let it impact us or not.
If we are defined by our gender than how society defines our gender will have a serious influence on our sense of self. These are the rules that we, without knowing what this all truly meant, agreed to follow when we were younger. As we begin to ask ourselves important questions about the nature of our own reality, we develop levels of self-awareness and as each new level weaves together we are able to break free from these seen and unseen prisons.
But what does it feel like to become freedom?
“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.” – Jim Morrison of The Doors.
