Thoughts on Deconditioning

Deconditioning is the process of unraveling who and what we are not. It is the journey of coming home to who we truly are and living that truth. To do this, we need to shed light on the coping mechanisms that we entangled into our beings over the years. We got enough signals from the outside world that who we were, naturally, was not acceptable. Thus, we developed mental constructs and ways of being that were not of our true nature all for the sake of others and survival.

It is important to remember that who you were born as— the form you inherited in this incarnation of life— has never left you. In many systems of thought along the lines of healing, there is this idea of “finding yourself”.

Over the years of trying to find myself, I’ve often thought, how can I find myself when I don’t know what I’m looking for? I also frequently felt discouraged. What if I never find myself?

When I got into Human Design, I saw there was a whole new perspective on this "self" journey. The focus shifted. It went from a tireless pursuit of seeking myself to one that worked to dissolve my not-self. It felt more tangible to be able to see— laid out on paper, too— the lies I was living than to search and search for “the answer” … and yet, that’s what so many of us do, right?

No matter what way we look at it, the journey of coming home to ourselves is often not an easy one— but any experience that has long lasting transformation is not meant to be easy.

We’ve been living in the technological age and with that often comes a tendency to want the results now— to want the changes now. When I first began the process of deconditioning in myself, one of my biggest battles was letting go of this habit of wanting it now.

I just wanted to be free of the struggle of unpiecing this distorted puzzle of myself. I wanted myself “whole” already. And I wanted to stop reacting to my loved ones when I was triggered. And I wanted to stop being tormented by thought patterns that didn’t matter— that took me away from being present.

I feared the unknown amount of sacred time I had in this life sifting through the capsule of my being— of it ending before I could say I really lived well, before I felt the pure child essence of being for the sake of being… again and then again.

But— “patience is the key to understanding,” I wrote one day in the dark when I was fourteen. And, certainly as a projector, it has remained true for me over the years.

At this point in my deconditioning process, I would say I’m in the middle of it. I have had some very dark days, nights, and early mornings over the years— but, I feel the subtly beautiful impact it has been making on my daily life. Like, the days I wake up and remember that it is merely the perspective I am holding on this whole process… and that perspective either makes it either more difficult or more synchronistic.

If I allow the old ways of being and seeing, which are part of my not-self— my conditioning— then I fall into obscurity in my mind. Henceforth, the course of my day is filled with the static of that obscurity and feels more difficult. There simply isn’t enough space in my mind to have clarity. And often, these are also the days when I let the old addiction of wanting to take control of situations have its way with me.

It’s funny how the more we want control of things or people, the more out of control it all gets…

Deconditioning is about letting go of that control. It is realizing that we are here for the ride— not here to control the ride. If you were at an amusement park, wouldn’t you prefer riding the rollercoaster instead of grinding away at the gears in the control box?

This theme of control is equivalent to the tension we have created around the areas of ourselves that are not defined. These areas are undefined because they were never meant to be a consistent source of energy in our lives— and yet, we’ve attempted to force them to be consistent, again and again.

Through the process of deconditioning, we can start to alchemize this tension into an awareness. And once we are aware of something about ourselves and continue to nurture the depths of that awareness, the grip that these old patterns have on us starts to weaken. Further internal alchemy takes place when we start to see the openness in our design as places of fluidity, as well as pockets for wisdom to well up in. No longer are they areas we are trying to force a constant flow into. Finally, we begin to breathe more and more breaths of relief— that is what becomes more consistent.

And of course, this whole experience is enhanced by living out our strategy and authority. Doing this allows us the opportunity to finally embrace being in the passenger seat and able to see and feel life happening around and through us.