What's Programming You?

We're all being programmed, all the time.

From the time we're born, to the time we die, we're being programmed to the world around us. Our brains and bodies are designed for it; to intake information around us through our eyes, ears, noses, mouths and skin, and then fine-tune our regulation to that information. We hear a song with a really good beat and maybe our body responds with the program to dance a little bit. Or we hear a police siren and our body responds to the program of that sound and maybe our heart rate increases a little - we look around us, trying to take in more information to further respond. As a young child, when we first tasted sugar, our brain began the programming to enjoy and over time, for many, crave this substance. The more we program our body to the enjoyment of sugar, or caffeine, or alcohol, or tobacco - the harder the programming is to break. Most people define this type of intense programming as "addiction," and that's because once something is hardwire programmed into us, it's hard to de-program.

Maybe we see a car driving poorly around us, and our body goes into an anger or fear program - we display some "road rage" because we've programmed this response to be how we react every time the display of bad driving is around us. Or we watch our favorite sports team getting their ass kicked in a game, and our body feels the programming of disappointment, anger, sadness, or again, fear. Perhaps we hear a child screaming or crying and we feel a certain way about it: for some, repulsed, and for others, maternal. And what happens when we feel these strong emotions? Our body physically reacts too. Our blood pressure rises, our breathing can become quicker and more shallow, we sometimes begin to feel hot. We may get goosebumps, or nervous giggles. For some, if the response is big enough, we may begin to feel nauseous or have an onset bowel movement. I mean, it's pretty wild how physical our responses to certain stimuli (aka programming) can be.

Today, I'm particularly inspired to deep-dive into the mainstream television and radio programming that we have in the United States. Of course, every country has their own mainstream programming, but I know most about ours, and I have some thoughts about it.

Many, many people in this country watch and listen to "mainstream media" every day. Myself included. Maybe that's ESPN, NBC, HGTV, CNN, A&E, Bravo, E!, National Geographic, etc, etc, etc. Basically all television and movie programming comes from five main corporations: Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, News Corp/Fox Corporation, and Paramount Global (previously CBS & Viacom before merging). These five conglomerate corporations control essentially every piece of video programming we intake in this country, and that video programming has big effects on how we respond and live our lives.

Advertisements are especially intriguing to me when it comes to the discussion of programming because they are designed to "stick." Watching a one off basketball or football game isn't going to really program you. The game changes too much; it's too long. Same with a reality television show: one or two episodes isn't going to program you into moving to Beverly Hills and becoming a housewife. But the commercials during each break of that game or show are purposefully programming us. It doesn't matter what channel you watch, the commercial layout is about the same: typically a little bit louder in volume than the actual "program" you're watching, they're short, with eye and ear catching lines and visuals, and they're played over and fucking over. If you watch one, three-hour, lifetime movie, or one, three-hour, football game, you may see the same set of five or six commercials, four or five times over. They want to get stuck in your head. So the next day when your at work about to go on your lunch break, the jingle, "BK Have It Your Way," rings in your head and you run out to Burger King for a quick burger. It's quite literally what advertisements are meant to do.

The main issue I have with this, is that it seems like most commercials are for one of the following: Food & Alcohol (usually fast or unhealthy food and beer), Cars (which are large purchase items that most buyers have to finance, therefore trapping them into a debt that does nothing but depreciate over time, and create hazardous waste on the environment), Prescription Drugs (more on this later), and Fragrance/Cleaning Items (i.e old spice, tide, downy, mr. clean, women's perfumes, etc: ALL of which are horrible, endocrine system disrupters). None of the shit they're selling us, is good shit.

Let's expand on the fact that we are one of the only countries in the world that allows prescription drugs to be advertised to the public, so that we may go to our doctor and ask them for drugs, rather than them suggesting what drug we may need. Why? It's programming us to believe that it's normal to need all kinds of medication. That it's normal to be sick. That it's normal and necessary to take a pill or ten instead of changing our lifestyle or the products we consume that are making us sick in the first place (aka all the shit in the other advertisements). And we wonder why we have the worlds largest prescription drug addiction and overdose epidemic, or why we have the most obese people.

Maybe you're thinking, "Okay, well I don't watch a lot of TV," or, "I only stream services without commercials." That's all well and good, I didn't use to watch any of it either. But none of us are immune to this programming. For example, another main source of sticky programming comes from music. The radio, streaming services, and from our phones and social media. It's the TikTok and IG Reel sounds and viral "trends" that we can't get out of our heads.

For example, "Can we skip to the good part," is programming us to always be looking forward, waiting for the future instead of enjoying the present or noticing the now.

"Mommy don't know daddy's getting hot," is programming us to bop along to the idea of infidelity being sexy.

"It's me. Hi! I'm the problem it's me," is programming us to perpetuate negative self-talk and assess internal blame (something many people do enough of already).

"Nobody move there's blood on the floor. And I can't find my heart," is programming us to pause breathing and tense up for a moment while we wait for the transition of harsh camera angles and a shein outfit change. Cringe.

ALL of which is programming us to keep scrolling. To keep us locked into the screen longer.

I can already feel how someone might be reading this and think, "Okay I think she's being a little dramatic, it's not that serious." And truthfully I wish I agreed with that, because it SHOULDN'T be that serious. We should be able to watch (and make, if you choose) content (aka media, aka programming) without thinking too harshly about what deep pyschological effect it may be having on us. But I don't think we can. I think the programming DOES have very large effects on us and how we feel, how we act, and how society progresses.

So I ask you to ponder this, as I continue to ponder myself: What's programming you? What do you intake, or allow into your mental space? How do you regulate your emotions when external stimuli triggers your already hardwired programs? Are you able to tap out of the programming when you feel that it's becoming "too much?"

I for one am confident that we can change our programming. There is actually SO much scientific research in the neurology field that's now showing we can rewrite our brains previously hardwired programming. Dr. Joe Dispenza is one of many in the field demonstrating this. I highly recommend reading, "Becoming Supernatural," by him if you're interested in learning more. All of that to say: we can unlearn trigger responses that no longer serve us. We can set boundaries about what we allow into our sphere. We can speak up, and act, when we notice that programming has overtaken us or ones we love. We can unwind the programming of our childhood or past. It's not easy. It takes a lot of dedicated rewiring. It takes time. It takes diligence in imposing new habits and new programs in place of the old ones.

You can do it, I believe in you. And if you're ever looking for a little push from a coach who's done it herself, you know who to call.

~Namaste~