IN What ways can you be conditioned?

By the:

• culture (the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time according to online Cambridge Dictionary)

  • cultural norms

  • gender roles (prescribed behaviors by your culture according to your gender and in most cultures it is binary of male or female and rooted in patriarchy, an example of an invisible system of oppression)

• dominant culture (I immigrated from Vietnam to America and felt I had to disconnect from my Vietnamese culture and take on the dominant culture—American culture in order to survive and fit in)

• peers

• religion

• family

• mainstream media

• invisible systems of oppression

In short, these different and often layered ways of conditioning sets expectations of you and molds you on how to be instead of honoring who you are. You live up to society’s timeline, happiness and success, which are defined for you rather than by you. When you do not meet up to society’s expectations, you may feel like a failure, something is wrong with you, or not enough.

There was a time where the conditioning may have served you. Now, as an adult, you can choose to live for you and break out of the old way of being into a new way of being.

To read more about how I was conditioned and constantly asked “Phuong-Thao, why can’t you be more like other girls?”