Reflections on Conditioning
In this journal, humhum Founder Alexandra Ballensweig reflects on how people who were conditioned to engage in society as women and girls are taught to move through the world and interact with themselves, each other, and others.
In the spirit of Women’s History Month, some reflection questions arose for me as I considered my experience as a human who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) and was trained since birth about gender.
I was reflecting on how growing up, I knew things; how I felt about the experiences I was having, my truth, my heart, what I wanted and what I didn’t. A lot of that knowing got snuffed out of me along the way. I was trained to doubt, while being simultaneously conditioned to believe that I needed to know in order to count or be taken seriously.
Western society values certainty and confidence about our opinions, our choices, and ourselves. We are taught that to know requires proof, empirical evidence, to be scientifically backed, or being visible with the eye. This felt especially impactful on me, as I, like many of us, tend to have more subtle and intuitive ways of knowing. And for these intuitive and subtle matters, specifically for women, we are taught that it was unsafe to know–historically we’d be condemned and harmed, or diminished, and dismissed, labeled as witchy, woo-woo, ungrounded, hysterical, delusional, out there. This impossible paradox created an internal experience of inauthenticity that drove me further away from myself, my power, and the intimate human connection I longed for. I longed to be known, but what I didn’t realize was only I could give myself that in the way it would satisfy the core of it.
Separating what we know about ourselves from what we have been taught about ourselves is hard work, but integral in relearning what we want and what we don’t. Over the last 10 years of my life, I have been finding my way back to authenticity by reclaiming my knowing, and exercising the courage to listen to it. This is rebuilding self trust, and personal integrity, and is setting the foundation for deep, rich, intimate relationships of all kinds.
This article by Miki Kashtan Why Patriarchy is Not About Men has supported my reflection, and within it she references several other resources to deepen your investigation and learning.
“Examine everything that you’ve been given, so you can see what truly serves the needs of life – yours, those around you, and as far as you can see beyond; most emphatically not only yours; most emphatically not without yours being part of the picture.”
- Miki Kashtan
Oppressive sexist conditioning is systemic and there’s no escaping the internalization of it on a personal level, but that doesn’t mean we have to carry it with us forever. I pose the below reflection prompts and practices to support your own inquiry about the ways in which the conditioning impacts you, and where we have agency to choose a more liberated path.
For your reflection:
What have I been taught/told about my gender? How was I taught this? How does this influence the way I hold myself or carry myself in the world?
How does this conditioning or training reinforce separation rather than togetherness with others of all genders?
In what ways do I know something, and then doubt my knowing? How does this show up? In what contexts is it amplified and abated?
For your practice:
Sitting quietly, or laying on the ground, pose the question to your heart: what wants to be known or felt? Allowing the soma, and emotional body to bring forth its intelligence, there’s nothing more to think or do here. Just feel and let the wave of experience move through.
Repeating this inquiry with the body, posing now the question, what wants to be grieved
Taking a note from Miki Kashtan’s practices in cultivating soft qualities as an antidote to patriarchal conditioning, I encourage each of us to mourn the places within ourselves that are still deeply impacted by this conditioning and to hold ourselves tenderly as we grieve.