5 Action Steps To Work on Changing Your “Programming” or Unconscious Bias

So often, there are messages all around us that we take in unconsciously. These are messages about gender roles, what life “should” be like, perhaps what people “should” be like, and even more insidious messages about people who are either different from us or who live their lives differently than we do.

The idea of understanding our unconscious biases and “programming” seems to be a hot topic and popular idea lately particularly with the rise in awareness about the divisions in our country and resulting reckoning many of us are having about race and privilege.

Interestingly for me as a psychologist, helping people work on their programming is something I have done for a long time. We learn in undergraduate psychology classes that we are influenced easily by the world around us. I remember this being discussed a lot around topics like violence in the media as well as body image.

However, in my day to day work with clients, the topic of messages and narratives we have taken in from the world, our parents, our communities, the media, etc. comes up all the time. The truth is, on a personal level, we all have some unconscious ideas of what we should or should not be doing or what we should or should not be like. The programming around being “good” or “bad” is something that I have talked about for years as I find it to be so problematic for kids and teens to feel shame around their mistakes or challenges (which is often what “bad” behavior is).

If you are someone who is interested in doing deep work about your unconscious bias or programming you might have taken in about others or yourself, good news, therapists are here for you and can definitely help. If you want to try to do this work on your own, here are some suggestions to help you get started.

1. Accept that this work is intense and challenging. You will need to exercise so much self-compassion and grace to help yourself through it that you should probably start some of those practices now before going any further.
2. Recognize that we inherently hide the parts of ourselves that are viewed as less desirable. This “shadow” part of ourselves is the part with the most bias and will be brought to the surface and to consciousness so that you can directly work on it. This is difficult but totally part of the process of integrating so that you can live your life more intentionally. Oh and by the way, this is just a part of being human and not something to be ashamed of. Repeat all self-compassion activities and practices throughout this!
3. Once you are on board with the above two, start paying a lot of attention to your reactions, thoughts, and feelings. Most of us suppress the part of us that is hard for the world to love and it bubbles up in strange ways. Sometimes it is through a reaction that seems to not match the situation. Sometimes it is through what we hide from the people we trust the most. Often, a rule for me in therapy is that when my clients start to tear up or shy away from a topic, that is the most important topic for us at that moment. It is the things that scare us and that we hide that are most important to explore.
4. It could also help while you are trying to increase your attention and awareness of yourself to try not to numb or at least reduce numbing activities like TV, emotional eating, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, etc. Even if you continue to do these things (which is totally understandable of course particularly during an ever lingering pandemic), make sure to just notice why you are doing them and the feelings and thoughts and reactions you have about them. Most of us have shame about our less healthy coping strategies.
5. After you are getting used to paying attention to your reactions, it is helpful to figure out how to put them into words and try to connect them to things you learned in your family, society, or within your relationships. Connecting the dots can help you understand how you got where you are. Articulating exactly what you think, feel, and are reacting to is helpful in learning to intentionally choose a different narrative either for yourself or others or the world. This part is sometimes best done in thinking about the narrative you have around who or what you think you should be like. For example, with parents, myself included, it can be hard to recognize that despite our best efforts, we are going to screw up sometimes. We are going to say the wrong thing or miss something we later feel we should have understood. That’s honestly part of the parenting journey but I think most of us have an unconscious expectation of ourselves that we need to be perfect at parenting. Especially in whatever way we feel our parents failed us.

For example, my parents were not always great at managing my willful spirit as a kid. I mean, the book “raising a difficult child” was often on my mom’s nightstand and we had numerous power struggles a day. So, here I am years and many hours of therapy later plus experience working with parents and kids in therapy… you might think I would have this figured out and know just exactly how to approach my son, who is also quite willful. And here it is… I don’t. I think sometimes I do a great job at understanding him and sometimes, it is harder than I like to admit. I realized when he was a baby that I had this unrealistic expectation of myself that because I am who I am (therapist, fellow sensitive human, parent “expert”), I would never screw up particularly around managing his behaviors and emotions, or even just my reactions. And the truth is, nope. I screw up too. The important thing is that I know this is okay and have recognized that the shame I feel is just because I have programming around both being willful and sensitive as a child, but also around who I should be as a mom.

All of these concepts are a lot to put in one blog but I wanted to try! I think it is so important that people not familiar with therapy can understand a lot of what those of us practicing deep work with our clients are working on week after week. Building self-awareness is honestly really intense and challenging work but so rewarding. I have seen so much growth and change not just in my clients, but in myself by challenging myself to become as integrated of a person as possible. If you would like help doing the same, please feel free to call us at Thrive!