In every situation, whatever you are being and doing, your feeling and stories are a product of your conditioning. You were born with a set of pre-conditionings, a combination of human instinct and genetics. From then on, every experience you’ve had has slowly moulded this into the conditioning that you are running now.
Often, this conditioning does not serve us well. It can produce a lot of negative feelings and egocentric stories. Left unchecked, this leads to a set of thoughts and actions that do anything but improve our well-being. This is the default mode. We need to become aware that most of what we think is a direct result of this conditioning loop.
This will always be the case, but we can use this awareness to our advantage, by closely observing how we feel and the narratives we intuitively craft. From there we can decide if they are supporting our efforts to optimize well-being. If not, we have an opportunity to change, editing the story, understanding that all feelings are temporary. This will create more of the experiences that promote well-being, which then feeds back to continue moulding our conditioning in a favourable light.
It takes practice. It takes attention, awareness, and acceptance. And it can change everything.
Be well.