if your told something long enough do you start to believe it?

Question

are you what you live with?

how long before you start to forget who you are?

Answer 1

Yes, I think so. It's called "conditioning". There is cultural conditioning, there is conditioning from your parents and family, there is all sorts of it.

Of course, we are unaware of a lot of our conditioning. That's when meditation and other spiritual practices come in as useful.

Meditation is excellent. It is all about disidentifying with your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. You of course allow these things to happen, but you let them flow through you and you do not cling to them.

Another excellent thing to do is go live in a country quite different from yours. Be determined to stay somewhere for at least a year, hopefully much longer. You will quickly see first of all how different the people around you are, but then you will also quickly see just how conditioned you yourself are. What was so natural and "obvious" to you is now not at all. How can this be? Well, it IS.

I think, to answer your last question, that the majority of people have forgotten who they are. They are totally identified with a variety of aspects: gender, nationality, occupation, and much much more.

You are definitely not limited to what you live with. You are everything and nothing. What you see in your world is a reflection of your mind. The world just exists, but we see it via our own minds. Scientists have proven that the material world is basically nothing. When you look at anything it is made up of atoms. Those atoms are made of smaller particles, but mostly an atom is empty space. Therefore everything is mostly empty space. Through our own perceptions we turn this world of almost nothingness into something.

I would say that almost from birth we start to forget who we are. Possibly even before that if there is such thing as reincarnation.

Answer 2

Prisoners of War have gone through this sort of brainwashing for centuries. Tell someone something long enough and they will believe it. But these men and women were also isolated from the truth.

In daily life, when someone says something about you your choice is to believe what they say or ignore it. The best way to do this is to assess what it is the person has said, how this person feels about you and whether or not they have your best interest at heart, and whether or not you want to believe it is true.

Abused women are often told by their partners that they are ugly and that nobody would ever want to be in a relationship with them. These women get to where they believe it especially because they are being told this by someone who will say that they love them. Not coincidentally, abusive partners often isolate these women from their friends and family making it easier to abuse the women. (And there abused men but for the sake of not writing man/woman each and every time, I took the easy path.)

I have a friend who was told her father died before she was born. She believed this to be true, that she was fatherless. But the truth was, her father was alive. When she learned the new truth she replaced the lie with the truth.

You only forget who you are if you listen and agree with what is said. You can choose to say no, refuse to believe, and even repeat to yourself the opposite of what is said seeral times throughout the day, replacing the other person's lie with your own truth. If someone says you are boring you can say to yourself that you are scintillating, fabulous, exciting. Repeatedly. Over and over again. Day after day. Eventually, you won't have to say it because you will know it. It will be who you are because you believe it.

So yes, if you hear something often enough you will believe it, especially if you are completely cut off from any truth. But if you have the truth and the wherewithal to consider the source and choose not to believe, then yes, you can believe something you have heard often enough because you will be saying something different a hundredfold more often than anyone else can!

Answer 3

I find this a very good question!
I do not believe what anybody sais if I do not feel it to be true in my heart. Words are spoken so easily, and often people say something they not honestly mean. This is not so that I judge that, as I do that indeed sometimes too.
But I also know from all this that words can be irritating, "a cloud" and only if these words truly resonate with what my intuition tells me, I do believe them.
If people say to you always the same thing, indeed also myself then start to doubt my own intuition from time to time and then I indeed "forget myself" and usually then do something "wrong" until I realize I just had needed in the first place to simply trust my intuition, which speaks a clearer language then all the chatter all the words around me.

Answer 4

#1. It depends on the source. If my mother told me I was smart, I'd think she may just be saying so because she loves me. However, if a professor said so...it would hold more weight.

It also depends on the receiver, if an abusive boyfriend told me I was a loser, but I felt good about myself and had many other people in my life who told me otherwise...it would be hard to convince me of such. On the other hand, if I had low self-esteem and not much positive support else where...then I'd be more influenced.

#2. You are what you believe...

#3. Depends on how quickly you remember who you're not. Same as #1, but reversed.

Answer 5

Sometimes if you tell others a lie so much, you start to believe it yourself. This can happen with other things too. Many books by Jodi Picoult have to do with the theme of lying to one's self and believing it. However, if the truths get out, there can be a various array pf consequences.

Answer 6

while it can have a influence, at the same time,, the opposite can happen, if you are told something long enough, and if you dont agree,,,,,, you can become determined to not agree,,,,
so projection can play a role,,, many ways
i think it really depends on the individual,, some are more easily influenced then others,,, some accept more easily what they are told,,,,, others question everything
i dont think you forget who you really are, though you may bury it for awhile, most usually come to get in touch with their true selfs,,,,, one way or another

Answer 7

some human beings say Islam is the Whore of Babylon. Does it relatively count quantity? we are commanded to love. Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as your self. in case you're able to do those 2 issues, then each little thing else falls into place. we are able to get so wrapped up in the baubles of religion, and to allow them, even the Holy Bible, to take the area of God in our adoration is frankly idolatory. The fundies get so self-righteous on the subject of the purity of the Bible, yet to take it too actually is falling into the seize of worshipping the words in a e book and forgetting the affection of God, after which you do circulate to hell. i'm a Catholic, being baptised and shown in midsection age. i admire the incence and the candles and the Hail Marys, and all the little rituals and fairs. yet they're purely aids to our worship, in an identical way a lame individual desires a crutch. they're kit, yet they are no longer God. The Bible is a workshop instruction manual, whether it relatively isn't any longer the only one. there is not any element in criticising somebody for utilising a spanner, whilst others could use a screwdriver. Horses for classes, and with prayer, you will study the thank you to p.c.. up the suited gadget for the present job in hand. Likewise, forget on the subject of the rantings of your evangelist pal, and focus your recommendations fairly on loving God and loving your neighbours, even the loopy ones, and you would be high quality.

Answer 8

This is a well known phenomenon, one variation of which is the "Stockholm Syndrome".

Knowledge of this tendency predates modern psychoanalysis, and was part of a sub-sub-plot in Shakespeare's "Taming of The Shrew" (Where the drunken Sly awakens to being told he is a wealthy Lord who has been in a coma fifteen years, and readily believes it).

Answer 9

yes. if someone tells you something for years you will believe that it is true and will not remember what you where or how you where before this happened. if you listen long enough your thoughts and emotions will get the best of you eventually.

Answer 10

Only if YOU are the one telling yourself that thing.

And of course, if you are told something from a very young age, then yes, you will likely believe it.

But if you are old enough to question something, you are old enough to choose what you will believe about yourself.