We make choices and decisions based on what we have been taught and what has been modeled as normal.
Yet, unlearning can also be a learned behavior...one that is mindful, healthy, and transformative. It invites us to open ourselves to new perspectives, challenge old assumptions, and view situations through a wider lens.
Growth often begins not with learning something new, but with being willing to see something differently.
AFTERTHOUGHTS:
Over the past decade plus, I’ve been questioning long-held beliefs about responsibility, self-sacrifice, work, relationships, health, and even what it means to care for yourself. This is not just learning—it’s unlearning. And sometimes that is the harder, braver work…the work that calls for inner reflection, self compassion, courage and the willingness to create change.
My reflections recognizes something many people overlook…we don’t arrive at our beliefs, reactions, and choices in a vacuum. They were shaped by family systems, culture, experiences, wounds, triumphs, and the examples we witnessed from our caregivers and others in our orbit. Understanding that can bring self compassion rather than judgment, and can be the catalyst to transformation…slowly and methodically.
At the same time, I believe my reflection carries a message of hope. If behaviors, beliefs, and ways of seeing the world were learned, then they can also be reexamined, refined, and many times…released. We are never bound by what was handed to us…we can loosen our grip, release it, and unlearn…replacing our original beliefs with what aligns with who we are, and who we are “becoming.”
I remember Steve telling me years ago to “assume nothing and question everything.” And I have repeatedly engaged in endless questioning for a deeper understanding of where my beliefs and behaviors have originated, and if and how they serve me. I have chosen mindful “unlearning” of what does not benefit my lifestyle, and of those in my life.
One of my favorite ideas is that wisdom is not always found in adding more. Sometimes wisdom is found in subtracting what no longer aligns with with who we are and who we are “becoming”…old fears, outdated narratives, inherited expectations, and limiting beliefs.
In that sense, unlearning is every bit as sacred as learning.
“Unlearning” IS a mindful, learned mindset.
Love and blessings,
Wendy
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