What is Conditioning? Meaning, Explanation & Examples

What is conditioning ? How useful is it and when is it not useful? In this article you will find a meaning, explanation and examples of conditioning. Read further…

What is Conditioning?

Conditioning is a collective term for the different ways in which people – and animals – learn through past events, stimuli and information. 

That information from the past ensures that you now display certain behavior  based on that information from the past. The past is thus associated with new events in the present. This is how we learn .

Examples of conditioning

Let’s look at two simple examples of conditioning:

• In the past, someone kept putting on their shoes and coat when going out. If someone puts on his shoes and coat again, he will probably go outside. Dogs may “conclude” that they are going to be walked.
• In the past, the dog commented that it is cooler in the shade on a hot day. If the dog now sees a spot with shade again, while the dog is hot, he will probably go to the shade.

Conditioning has everything to do with information, past and thoughts

From the explanation of the paragraph above, it becomes clear that conditioning is based on information, the past, and thoughts. These are great tools for the brain to function in life.

However, these are not our most powerful tools. If you are in the here-and-now and are not making use of the information you have collected in the past, you can react much more alertly in life.

Read more about this in the following articles:

• Consciousness without conditioning: meaning and explanation [19 tips]
• Live in the here and now? 26 ways, tips & insights (being in the moment)
• Stop Worrying & Compulsive Thoughts Stop? (38 Tips!)

How did your conditioning come about?

Your conditioning has been created from the moment you were born. These are concepts acquired in the past from, for example, …

• Your upbringing.
• Culture.
• Education.
• What you have read.
• Your fears.
• What you have received from teachers, friends and TV programs.

Growing up three houses away, your conditioning would be very different …

If you had lived three houses away in your childhood, your thoughts – conditioning – would have been completely different.  You would have had to deal with other friends, parents, books, cultures, fears and upbringing.

After reading this article, do you still value your own opinion so far? How you see the world? Conditioning is your version of reality, and it is always different from others.

So is your conditioning so essential? Are you attached to your ‘knowledge’?

If three such houses make big difference, how would it be to believe that your thoughts and inner comments  are ? It’s an insidious identification.

Of all the words that pour out of our mouths every day, how big is the portion that is really ours? How often do you say something that is really original? Do we actually have our  own  words and thoughts? Or have all our words and thoughts ever been taken from other people?

Is what we ‘know’ really important?

The mind is  an accumulation of what we have experienced, seen on TV, heard from others …  If you look back to ten years ago, you will notice: ‘Then I thought I knew a lot, but now I really know there. right about. ‘ Then your mind knew much less. Ten years from now you will look back on now and say that what you know now is nothing.

There are many people who rely only on  what they have learned in the past . For example what they  heard three or four generations ago  or what  someone else’s opinion  is what they have ever heard. By relying solely on this conditioning, these people are continuously in a state of “intellectual block.” These people  forget to trust their own experience and only trust what they hear or what others say. 

These people rely only on the physical plane, which is what they once heard, and forget to recognize that there are other planes, such as the heart, body, fantasy and creativity.

We are much bigger and deeper than the mind. So don’t believe your mind. We may love our mind, but trusting the mind (instead of the heart) is a mistake. 

Let go of your personal frame of reference – your conditioning

You may discover gigantic new powers if you dare to let go of your personal frame of reference – your conditioning.

Don’t believe anything because I said it.

Or because you read it somewhere.

Or because you heard it somewhere.

Don’t believe in your own beliefs.

Or beliefs that have come to you through many generations.

Observe clearly and examine everything.

– Buddha

Letting go of what you already know – with meditation

Let go of what you already knew. This is possible with meditation, for example. Have a look at this article with meditative texts.

On your luck!