Unlearning Your Programing

I was listening to a podcast recently about a panel of life coaches of Asian descent discussing cultural programming. Each person shared their experiences of deprogramming the thoughts and beliefs that were influenced by their cultural upbringing.

One panelist shared his experience of when he first moved to the U.S. from China and struggled greatly with fitting in. He worked very hard to eliminate his accent because to him having an accent meant he was failing at fitting in, which brought him a lot of feelings of shame. He adopted an American name of “Hunter” so that other people wouldn’t have to struggle to pronounce his given name of “Chao Sun”. Fitting in was important to him because he came from a culture of consensus. He was told all his life that if you don’t fit in then it means something is wrong with you and you have to change yourself. Over time and with a lot of personal development work he learned that what he thought was the truth was just programming and it wasn’t serving him. He now coaches immigrants to find professional success without compromising who they really are.

Another panelist shared that as the oldest in her Taiwanese family she was obligated to be the model of perfection to her two younger brothers. She followed the expected path of being a perfect student, a high achiever, and eventually becoming a doctor. This was the truth of her world, until it she decided it wasn’t anymore.

Each of us comes with a certain program influenced by expectations, values, and morality. Whether these come from culture, religion, or family traditions they can have a major impact on us and we use them to form what we think is true in the world.

Our programming drives our behavior and choices which ultimately results in how we show up and relate to one another. No matter how true they feel to us, what we are programmed to believe are optional thoughts. They are stories we choose to believe. And because we are in control of our thoughts, we can change these stories whenever we want when they no longer serve us.

I challenge you to look at some areas of your life or practice that you believe are hard truths, or areas you believe must or should be a certain way and question them. Especially the areas that cause static or leave you feeling negative emotions. This could look like questioning what you believe a successful practice should be. What a good clinician should be. What a good parent should be. How other people should behave, etc. It’s likely that you are telling yourself a story that is putting an enormous amount of pressure on you and requiring a lot of mental energy to reconcile.

Then ask yourself if there can be different story. One that creates a feeling of peace and life of relative ease. Then take that and create a new program for yourself.