#LUPA Day Five: Deprogramming

Do you ever just ask yourself “why” at the most arbitrary moments? 

Why do we clean ourselves the way way we do, for example? It’s been passed down to us that we should always be “clean” (whatever we have decided that looks like) that we get dirty every day, and so that in order to be clean, we must remove away our scent and natural oils with a chemical that could probably cut through grease stains from animal fat just to get through a little bit of sweat and dirt. And we must do this on a daily basis. 

The whole process of shampooing too, when and how did we decide that the process of putting these chemicals are actually doing something that we should do? What parts of it are backed up medically, what part parts are backed up by the Big Gun$? What parts of it are backed up by us because we are creatures of comfort? 

The point isn’t to suddenly do the opposite with no reasoning either, or to stop bathing, or to stop using actual cleansing soaps (that are gentle on our skin and hair) but to do our research. 

If we apply this to our much bigger way of thinking, we will discover that it is not as scary to question ourselves, our own beliefs. Things like why we believe vaccinations are or aren’t good, or why we believe there is or isn’t a God. Why we think women shouldn’t or should be allowed birth control or abortions, or smaller things why we salt the water (and does it really make the water boil faster), why do some things go in the fridge and why don’t others, why have I decided that this is something to be proud of, and something else isn’t? Question everything!

Then questioning the logic that got us there! Always going deeper. There is never a reason to blindly believe someone else without doing the research ourselves, whatever that may look like. 

Society’s every day is based on a norm that the authorities give us and we do not question. That may be necessary in order to live in comfort, but when you stop questioning, you stop growing. You stop moving forward. 

Make sure that the operating system you’re running in your mind is one that you want to be running because it fulfills you in your quest to happiness, not because it’s what your mom/god/belief system told you so. 

For today’s LUPA, take a picture of something that you have never questioned before, it can be something super tiny like “why do I do this routine this way” or a tradition, or something much more meaningful like questioning why you’re against something. Pose the question, and if you’d like, provide your personal question. 

Today, question everything. stop letting others program you. Today, think intentionally. 

-xo!mj