The skills we lose in the deconditioning process
Something I’ve been feeling deeply in the collective lately has also been resonating with my friends who are also on a path of deconditioning: we are losing certain skills.
What kinds of skills, you might ask?
My wisest self would say: the ones we no longer need.
However, for the human self, it’s not quite that simple.
So, let’s break it down…
SKILLS WE DEVELOP TO SURVIVE
I feel that we all develop certain skills as we grow up to be “well-rounded” and survive in capitalism. Most schooling, and definitely all public schooling, is designed to make us as productive as possible in a 9-5 environment. Children who fall outside of that box often struggle to “succeed” in the mainstream school system.
Here are some of the things we learn in order to survive:
If we are creative and free-thinking, we are taught to be more focused
If we are introspective, we are taught to learn to speak up
We all have to learn public speaking
We learn to sit still
We learn not to question authority
We learn to get up early in the morning and spend the majority of our day outside the home
We learn to tolerate spending huge amounts of our day engaged in things that do not interest us
We learn that logical thinking trumps intuitive perception
…and a LOT of other things.
It doesn’t stop in school. It continues throughout our young adult and adult lives, and I would say that this kind of conditioning actually intensifies as soon as money is involved and we begin trading our time for money in the form of a job.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DECONDITION
When we decondition, we lose what is not us and we blossom into what is. What they don’t always tell us is that we don’t exactly get to hang onto those survival skills we developed that are handy and make our minds feel secure, but don’t actually honor our energy.
As the layers peel away and we allow ourselves to be led by our auras, our strengths emerge. This is wonderful! It’s just that our mind doesn’t always understand. As those strengths from our natural definition begins to express itself, the conditioning falls away. Everything that isn’t actually us disappears. Along with that conditioning goes those survival skills.
SO WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?
What I’ve observed in myself and my friends is that all of a sudden, or gradually over a couple months, we can’t bring ourselves to do things we used to be proficient at. The specifics will be different for everyone, since we all have different strengths and have developed different survival skills.
It could be that all of a sudden, we can’t create things. We can’t hold ourselves to a certain schedule. We can’t teach or study in the way we used to. We can’t write or strategize.
When I say “can’t” I mean that…it doesn’t energize us. We don’t feel drawn to it. It feels like a drain. Or, we just physically can’t make ourselves think or act that way anymore.
Basically, things that we used to believe were part of being a “successful” or “functional” person that we relied on suddenly don’t feel possible for us anymore.
We have been feeling healthy, aligned, and liberated and then all of a sudden THIS. It can be very unsettling!
WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?
Despite the way it feels, losing survival skills is a gift. If you’re honest with yourself, you may find that the skill you’ve “lost” was never a source of true joy/satisfaction/energy in the first place. It was just something that you could do because you learned somewhere that it was important.
When we lose that skill, our body is saying to us, “This energy could be put toward something more potent and you don’t need it anymore.”
HOW DO WE COPE?
It can feel terrifying when we suddenly lose an ability that we once had. At the same time, if we give ourselves the chance to put a little space around it emotionally and consider what it’s trying to tell us, we may find that there is an easy solution:
Can we get help?
Can we trade with someone else who has that strength and help them with something we are energized by?
Did we really need to do that thing in the first place?
Is there another way that we could achieve the same result that feels more natural to us?
We don’t lose these things at random. There is always a reason why it’s not a good use of our energy anymore.
REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE
Over the last two years since I left my previous career, I have lost a lot of skills I worked hard to learn. Things like strategic thinking, teaching in a traditional sense, holding long-term future-based visions, adhering to schedules, giving presentations in front of people, understanding how my work will be received by others, managing people and projects, asserting myself in groups, etc.
It was terrifying at times, but I had to be honest with myself…did I ever actually enjoy any of those things? No, I really did not! Maybe I could survive in capitalism without them, after all?
What I received in turn was something incredible. My natural strengths became brighter. I spent more of my days doing things that felt good. I found friends and collaborators who I could pay or trade with to help me do things I was not interested in. And, I still survived in capitalism. Actually, in many ways, I have thrived in a way I didn’t think was possible.
IN CONCLUSION
It’s scary to lose things that we developed because we were told we would be better if we had them. We worked hard for those things. However, it’s not a reason to stay away from the deconditioning process; the relief of letting them go and allowing our natural strengths to shine is worth it.
Love,
Rachel
Make sure to keep in touch!