When Will I Be Seen?

For many years I’ve been inter­est­ed in “con­di­tion­ing,” the process by which a per­son adopts beliefs, val­ues, and pat­terns of thought. Con­di­tion­ing rep­re­sents auto­mat­ic and uncon­scious learn­ing that enables a child to fit with his or her fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty.  Con­di­tion­ing has its down­sides. We pick up views of oth­ers and espe­cial­ly of our­selves that… Con­tin­ue read­ing When Will I Be Seen?

What do I want?

What do I want? That’s almost as pow­er­ful a ques­tion as “Who am I?” For when we don’t express what we want in a true and heart-felt way — first and fore­most to our­selves — we lose a vital part of our joy in being exact­ly who we are. Iron­i­cal­ly, in a soci­ety that over-val­ues indi­vid­u­al­ism,… Con­tin­ue read­ing What do I want?