#1595 The Other You - Harps

it in front of me. I'm sure that's her name, and she was a member of the very famous, slash infamous Westboro Baptist Church from the States that did all kinds of very very controversial things and continue, I think to do very controversial things, allegedly in the name of God, and then allegedly under the banner of scripture and biblical teachings that they interpret a certain way. Anyway, not about that.

It's about the fact that she now, having grown up in that church, having grown up in that echo chamber of thought and behavior and philosophy and ideology and theology, having been completely programmed and completely indoctrinated, with no access really to know external influences in the way that most of us would have she left the church. She left the church, and it's it's a much, much, much, much

bigger conversation than that. But in reading this book and or listening to this book, I should say, on audible and hearing her journey, about her journey, and not just the not just from the you know, the practical getting out of the church, which was a bit of a nightmare, and all of the sociological, emotional, practical complications and issues and challenges that came with that, but just listening to her reflect about the way that she believed certain things,

and the way that she saw the world, and the way that she understood how life worked and other people worked, and how much she was convinced that everyone in the world except the people the eighty or so people in her church, were wrong, were destined for an eternal damn nation were you know? And so on and so on. And I know too those of you who've never been to church and never been religious, this would seem like

crazy town, and I get it. But the truth is, for these people, and for people like Megan who grew up in this, they don't know any different, they don't know any better, and they truly believe, albeit misplaced albeit flawed, they truly believe what they are doing and saying. And anyway, so and I grew up not in that level of you know, kind of religious idiocracy, but you know, at times not that far away. And so for me there was a lot of familiarity and a lot of curiosity,

and a lot of kind of light bulb moments. But just listening to her talk about how she extricated herself from that environment, from that situation, from that culture, from that thinking, from that conditioning, from that pressure, the immense, the immense pressure and expectation to comply and conform in a line and be this soldier of God, in this army of God against the evil that exists outside the walls of the Westboro Baptist Church and fucking fascinating, you know.

But what interests me, you know, zooming out from the micro of Megan's story and zooming out to the macro of you and me and the rest of us who all think, who all have beliefs, Not saying she didn't think, but the rest of us, who you know, we all have thoughts, we all have ideas, we all have beliefs, we all have values, we all see the world in a certain way. We all see ourselves in the world,

a certain way. We all look at everything, every situation, every newspaper article, every story on TV, every event that unfolds in three D before our eyes. We all look at that stuff, process that stuff, understand that stuff through our own window of understanding, our own filter. But the truth is that we don't often see the filter. We don't even recognize that we're looking at a version of what is in front of us, our version. So there's

the thing that's going on. There's the event, the situation, the person, the conversation, the result, the outcome, the number, the problem, the whatever it is. And then there's the lens through which you look at that process at understand it. Then there's me over here with my lens and my understanding and my interpretation. Then there's Bob over there, and Sally over there, and then there's John over there and whatever.

And so now we've got four or five six people looking at the same thing, the same event, the same outcome, the same number, the same painting on the wall, the same whatever, and none of us are having an identical experience around that. Because we create our own experiences, and in part our experiences are a byproduct of our genetic disposition.

But we now know with some level of confidence, through neuroscience and neuropsychology and psychology in general and research, we now know that a lot of who we are and how we are, and how we experience the world, and how we think and how we frame things, and how we tell our cell story and what we agree or disagree with and why we get offended or don't get offended.

We know that a huge amount of that is about our programming, is about our experiences, is about what we've been through, what we've been taught and told and trained to believe or to think or to do. And I'm fascinated with this because when I'm talking to a person, i'm talking to you know, if I'm talking to a forty year old, I'm talking to forty years of experiences and programming and beliefs and conditioning and culture and perhaps

theology and philosophy. And I'm talking to the totality of that person's experiences, not just to the person in the middle of it all. And I'm fascinated with that bit who's in the middle of it all? If I can separate Craig Harper from Craig Harper's conditioning programming, Who's Craig Harper? And of course it and me are intertwined. But my fascination is around who I might be, or who I am, or who I could become in spite of my programming, or beyond my programming, or beyond the beliefs that I

have that I didn't choose. So this episode is just me thinking out loud about this stuff. I truly think that most of us don't think outside of our own little kind of echo chamber too often. So this is a monologue of reflection and contemplation and wondering and hopefully self awareness. So I think it was Aristotle, although there's been some debate whether it was Aristotle or Socrates. That was one of those old dudes, one of those philosophers, one of those stoics who said that to know thyself

is the beginning of wisdom? Like who or what is the self? Who or what is the self that exists beyond my programming? Who or what is the self that exists beyond my journey and my experiences and my schooling and my church and my exposure to media and social media. Where is Craig beyond all of that? Like who am

I without stuff? Without all that stuff? And if I'm more than an idea, which we all kind of agree on, I think if I'm more than an idea, if I'm more than a belief or a shape or a size, or a brand or an achievement, if I'm more than a number or a bank balance, then where am I? What am I? Who am I? Where can I be found? Beyond all that? If we take away my appearance and my brand and my podcast and all of the things that I am known for, or all of the ways

that people can recognize me, what's left? Where? Or what is my identity? Trying to figure out who we are beyond all the stuff that we're not, Like if I did, if I were, if my mind, if my emotions, if my creativity and my curiosity was a clean slate, if it was a blank canvas, Like who would I be? If I was the same person genetically and my mom and dad were the same people genetically, that is the same body, born with the same body, the same genetics,

the same nervous system, heart, lungs, the same brain. But I grew up in a Buddhist environment. I would have been a Buddhist. I would have had Buddhist beliefs, I would have more than likely been a vegan. And if Ron and Mary had have moved to I don't know. Let's say India. Let's say mum. Let's say Dad moved there and Mum went and they moved there to. But I don't I set up a business or run a charity or do something when I was one year old

and then I grew up. I was born here, but I grew up there, and I'd spent fifty nine of the last sixty years in India. There's a fair chance I might be a vegetarian Hindu. There's a fair chance that I would see the world despite the fact that I had the same brain and the same genetics, if I grew up in a totally different sociological, cultural, behavioral, religious environments, I wouldn't be me, or I'd be a different me. Like did I choose? Did I choose my worldview?

Did I choose my beliefs, my opinions, my faith, my ideology, or was it chosen for me? I think about this a lot, like I think about whether or not I simply clothed myself in the psychological, emotional, religious, sociological, and behavioral wardrobe of my parents, like, how can you not? And I'm not saying, by the way, that all of these influences and all of this programming and conditioning and education was bad. I'm not saying any of it's bad.

Maybe you grew up in a beautiful family with beautiful environ and beautiful Maybe it's all good. Maybe it's all amazing. Nonetheless, I think it's still good to think about where does that start finish? And where do I start? Where do these ideas of mine come from? Are these my ideas or are these Dad's ideas that I've just adopted because I trust Dad, I look up to Dad. I think

Dad's right. Where did my beliefs come from? Did I choose these beliefs or are these beliefs a byproduct of growing up in this particular environment, surrounded by these people who adhere to this protocol and this belief system and

who don't open any other doors of possibility. What if I was taught evolution from birth, not creation, for example, creation being the Bible story, then there's a fair chance that I would have been either agnostic or atheist, or at the very least I would have believed in evolution. I would think a certain way about certain things, And what if I had sixty years of diverse, different, totally different experiences, situations, encounters, exposure to different ideas and different

people in different environments. Who would I be? Then? I don't necessarily think better or worse. I'm just curious think about how many of us are trapped in essentially a psychological or emotional and or behavioral prison because of our self limiting thinking, because of the beliefs about ourselves that we didn't choose. And it might be that we grew up in an ideological echo chamber that we weren't allowed

to question and we couldn't escape. Or it might be that we grew up around people who told us what we couldn't do and how stupid or ugly or how much potential we lacked. Or maybe the opposite, maybe we grew up with beautiful, amazing people who encouraged and supported. Either way, you know we're a byproduct of that. Either way, it's good to think about where did their beliefs stop and where do my start mine start, and where did they come from? Did I choose them or did I

adopt them? As just an unconscious byproduct of just being in the proximity of that belief system or that ideology or that culture. What what if instead growing up in you know, a small country town, What if I grew up on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere where our neighbors were twenty kilometers away? What if that, or what if I the same dude grew up in a city skyscraper in the middle of New York, or in a cult or in a traveling circus. Who would

I be and how would I be? What is the stuff that I drag around with me that doesn't work? What is the belief that I have? What is the idea that I have? What is the fear that I have that is a prison to my potential and my possibilities? What's the thing that I believe that that really makes no sense? I think the challenge is not too not to upend our lives, but to recognize the unconsciousness of

our existence. And maybe this is not used, so discard this, but how much we do so many things on a version of autopilot, this unconscious kind of groundhog danus of doing things with you know, in relationships, with money, in business in Korea, with food, with God, with habits and behaviors that don't serve us, that don't work with outcomes that we consistently produce, which are at odds with our alleged values. What are my values? Where did they come from?

Why do I say that that these things are my values? They're important to me? But I behave in a way that demonstrates the opposite consistently While saying that health, physical health is important to me, I consistently do things to sabotage my own health. What is that about? Where does that habit, that behavior, Where does that rationalizing mindset come from? When will I change? You and I are both a byproduct of our unique journey, unique to you and me anyway,

And that's not good or bad. That's human. I think the question The question is maybe, or one of the questions is what are the what are the beliefs and ideas and habits and behaviors that are an unconscious byproduct of my journey? And which of those should I challenge or dive into or poken prod or maybe even discard? Like what if I what if I was brave enough to say that this thing that I've thought for a

long time could be wrong? You know, This is one of the one of the challenges of having and I'm not saying obviously, I'm just talking as a general concept here, but when we have ideas and beliefs that are very concrete, and I've had very concrete beliefs in the past about things that if I'm being a bit brave and a bit honest and a bit authentic and a bit vulnerable, I had concrete beliefs, unequivocal, I wouldn't be open to

anything else. You can't talk to me about it. I absolutely know I am right, when in fact I really had no evidence. So I just had belief. I just had faith. I had no proof. But I was unteachable, I was untrainable, I was arrogant, I was self righteous. I knew that I knew, but deep deep down I knew that I didn't know, deep deep down. I was fucking terrified of questioning this thing that I've thought, that I've believed, this ideology that I've inhabited, and not necessarily

a religious one. The idea might be that one of my ideologies or one of my ideas was I'm not smart enough to go to university, I'm not smart enough to do this, to do that I don't have the genetics that could create this or that outcome. And I spent so long basically trapped in a m a prison of my own making, where my potential wasn't the problem,

but my thinking about my potential. My genetics, albeit they weren't amazing, they're fine, but my thinking about my genetics, my thinking about my intellect, to my thinking about my future self, my inability or my lack of willingness perhaps to question people and to question ideas and to question beliefs that I was very comfortable with. And I was only comfortable with them because they had been so intertwined with my life. I wasn't comfortable because they were necessarily correct.

I was comfortable with them because they were very, very very familiar to me. They were very familiar to me. And it's interesting when I listened to Megan Phelps Roper talk in this book Unfollow about, you know, her journey out of this ideology, this cult, have thought, this religious cult.

But and then she she would think something, and then all of a sudden a scripture, a verse from the Bible would come to her mind to under mind that thought that she had, where she would start to question something then a scripture would come to mind, which would basically tell her that she shouldn't think, that she shouldn't trust herself, that she was nothing and that God was everything, and that she basically was worthless in all of this stuff. And it's so easy for us to self sabotage. It's

so easy for us to live in fear. It's so easy for us to not question who we could be, what we could do, Who might I become if I would try, if I would realize and recognize with courage, that maybe some of the things that I think, maybe some of my ideas, maybe some of the beliefs that have been intertwined with my identity for decades, maybe they're

not true. And that's terrifying. That's terrifying because you're your sense of self is tied into that belief, and if that belief is wrong, I don't know who I am anymore. But the truth is, if the belief is wrong anyway, you don't know who you are. You just have a story that you believe. So who would you be if you had a different life, And who would you be if you started to open that door of awareness and curiosity. As I've said before on this show. Consciousness starts when

we recognize our lack of consciousness. Real self awareness begins to unfold when we realize how unaware we've been. See Next Time.