Since there aren't any coincidences…I'd like to share today's experience.
It's Sunday and raining in Arlington, Virginia right now. Normally, not a day I would venture out to the grocery store. But I had. I wanted to have a strawberry bash …myself, strawberries and some Cool Whip…so bad.
Asking for the location of the Cool Whip, I met Doug—a store member. How we got into the conversation about why people spend too much money in a grocery store I can't remember for the life of me right now. But we did.
Trying to sum up what I explained – why people do this -- Doug responded, "So, I need to get out of my own way, right?"
I know you've heard this expression before. And I know I've heard it for years.
Generally, I would nod with agreement. However, an enlightened moment hit. He isn't getting in his own way. Nor are any of us. What's really going on was conditioning.
Let me explain as short and sweet as possible. Stay with me. I'm also not planting blame on anyone.
Doug, like myself, and everyone in the world are conditioned in many ways. And this conditioning causes fear. Not 100%, just what I'm going to focus on for right now. Our conditioning emerges from all the experiences we've had since birth or what we don't want to experience.
Why does anyone buy, stock up, on more than they need? Because they like it? No. Because they are conditioned to do so…and the conditioning is based on fear.
Where does the fear stem from? Many places. Too many to explain in this post. Thus, I'm going to focus on what I was talking to Doug about.
Many times in the past, our ancestors didn't have enough to eat. Even today, this could be people we know, or even you. There are surveys that prove that after people write a check to charity they go to the grocery store and over purchase.
For those of us in Northern Virginia, this also holds true when a snowstorm is predicted. Everyone runs to the grocery store to buy milk and other things. It's fun to watch too, there hasn't been a stay-in-side snowstorm lasting more than a half a day for years now.
From early childhood, we hear stories about how the pilgrims came to America and how if it wasn't for the Indians they won't have made it through the winter. We learn about how Washington's army starved through the cold winter.
And there were many other instances in our history no matter what country we grew up in where we haven't heard these stories.
They condition us and they continue to do so.
Even when our ancestors lived in caves, we've learned how hard it was to scrimmage for food.
What we learned conditioned how we spend today in the grocery store. Thus, we over stock our shelves to balance the fear of "possible" starvation.
Even today in many countries there is starvation. Even in America.
There isn't a day that doesn't go buy when our triggering isn't pulled on this.
Until we answer the question, "What is enough?" As well as to understand what conditions us and to rewrite it, we live in a trance when it comes to buying food.
One wake up moment is when our bodies tell us we must change it.
If you pulled everything out of your cupboards, you'd be amazed as to what is in there and how long you could go without buying anything at the grocery store except the perishable basics like milk and eggs.
Years ago, Thomas Leonard, my coach at that time, gave me insights to this. And after a lot of research, and working on my own life, I became familiar with the muck I'm talking about here.
It all begins with a new way to see things. A new way to see what we really need. To answer the question, "What is enough?"
Because you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time. You can only eat so much before you get sick to your stomach. So how many purses do you really need? How many pairs of shoes do you really need? How much?
As my Mom always said, "You can't take it with you!"
What are you buying in the grocery store that's based on fear?
So for Doug and the rest of us, it isn't about getting out of our own way. It's about opening our minds, seeing how we've been conditioned, challenging the fears that have stemed from this, rewriting them, and making new choices afterwards.
