forgiving yourself for hearing the bell
when discussing the psychological concept of “conditioning”, no synopsis of the subject is complete without mentioning ivan pavlov. even if you are not prone to having such discussions, the name pavlov is one that, no doubt, rings a bell. the very thought of pavlov’s name conjures with it the thought of bells, a built-in example of his most famous work in action.
because some may still be unfamiliar with the famous work i am discussing, and because it will serve my point shortly, i will present the same primer on the topic that most children are given: ivan pavlov (26 september 1849 – 27 february 1936) was a russian-born scientist who popularized the concept of “classical conditioning” by training dogs to associate the sound of a bell ringing with the arrival of dinner, thus causing the dogs to salivate when the bell sounded, even when no food was actually present.
the idea of studying drooling dogs is almost charming, except when you consider that the drool was being collected in tubes that were surgically implanted into their mouths, protruding from the sides of their faces to let pavlov see just how much saliva was being produced.
most discussions of pavlov’s work omit the fact that he discovered the link between anticipation and salivation after he had started his experimentations on dogs, and that the majority of that gruesome work was not focused on psychology at all. however, once he made this near-accidental connection, some of his later work did focus on the premise of conditioning alone, including his unethical experimentation on human children.
i suspect many of us experienced similarly-unethical psychological experimentation as human children, the details of which we often obit from the tellings of our own personal histories, conducted quite differently but producing a similar result. trapped in our family homes rather than a laboratory, we were nonetheless subjected to a years-long conditioning that we still feel the effects of into adulthood, consciously or not. some of us were conditioned to run when we heard a door slam or a voice raised. some of us were conditioned to placate others when we saw their anger begin to rise, or to sacrifice ourselves outright in the hope that our martyrdom might be rewarded with a fleeting moment of affection. some of us were conditioned to withhold our trust from the people we knew could not be trusted with it, to rely solely on ourselves even at the detriment of ourselves. some of us were conditioned to be as small as possible, to need less, to want less, and to feel ashamed when we could not kill the part of ourselves that wanted the humanity we were promised at birth. the paths that these experiments carved through our neural networks warped us into a state of permanent hyper-vigilance, and instilled in us both the ability to see certain patterns and the inability to break others.
as maladapted as these conditioned responses were, they were critical to our survival. they came from a place within ourselves that instinctively and desperately wanted to live. at some base level within each of us is the protector we didn’t have outside of ourselves when we were younger. this protector acts selflessly on our behalf to make sure we see tomorrow unscathed. we have the protector to thank for surviving those years of unethical experiments, because these conditioned responses shepherded us though the years when we were unable to defend ourselves.
of course, the dog still instinctively reacts when it hears the bell, and so do we.
sometimes, we hear the bell and the protector flinches at a loud car horn. sometimes, we hear the bell and the protector goes beyond what is necessary to pacify a coworker who wrote us a curt email. sometimes, we hear the bell and the protector pushes our loved ones away from the parts of ourselves that are vulnerable, and from that arm’s length, our loved ones can’t understand what they did “wrong”.
at first, none of us recognize that we are reacting to the sound of the bell. over the course of our lives, many of us begin to identify the same cycles playing out again and again. we begin to realize how extensively our instinctive reactions were honed by the conditioning of our childhoods, a fact that becomes more painful each time we witness our own actions guide us to our own misery.
inevitably, this leads to frustration. it feels like self-sabotage when we catch ourselves moving through the same detrimental motions again. it’s easy to feel angry at ourselves for what we see as the bed we’ve made for ourselves.
paradoxically, it is in these moments of exasperation that we should extend our deepest gratitude to ourselves.
in these moments, part of ourselves saw something familiar and said “i recognize this situation because i have seen ones like it before, and i will act accordingly to get you through this situation”. rephrased, this statement is essentially “i will keep you safe at all costs”, which is essentially “i love you”.
even after all these years, after every mistake we’ve made, through all the things we are still trying to accept about ourselves, the protector proves with these acts that it still loves us beyond a doubt. because the protector is a part of us, that means we love ourselves too.
it is not the fault of the dog for reacting when it hears the bell, and it is not our fault either. this never-sleeping part of ourselves does not live in the present; it lives in all the moments that preceded it. it does not take into account whether or not the current situation requires the same responses that kept us safe in the past, and despite its most earnest efforts to protect us, it doesn’t always make the most accurate assessments before acting.
in the same way that how we were treated in the past conditioned us to behave the way we do in the present, the way we treat ourselves in the present will shape how we behave in the future. reacting to these miscalculations with anger or shame is not only unfair to ourselves, it recreates the toxic environments we grew up in. if we cultivate the environment of the past, we will continue to react as we did in the past. we cannot shout at ourselves to keep from hearing the bell.
instead, we need to meet ourselves in these moments with the kindness we extend to someone we love, because we are someone we love. the words we use to talk to ourselves must match the masked love our self-protective instincts are expressing.
from experience, i can say that the journey towards expressing love to yourself is incredibly strange at first, but one that rewards persistence.
in the past, it had been so easy to scold myself for my mistakes. i would react to the bell, whatever it was in that moment, and then a second bell would sound, triggered by the realization that i had reacted to the first bell. this second bell had conditioned me to react with scorn towards myself for my shortcomings. i had learned how to treat myself by following the example others set when they treated me with this same scorn. it was a revelation when i realized this scorn i was inflicting upon myself was not actually my own.
in the beginning, the process of breaking this cycle felt mechanical, bordering on insincere. i would notice that i had reacted to the bell, feel my insides twist, and then deliberately think a generous response to myself. i would acknowledge my own reaction to the bell, thank myself for trying to keep me safe, then explain why this particular response was no longer appropriate. finally, and most importantly, i would forgive myself for hearing the bell. talking to myself like this was an unnatural experience, one that felt embarrassing even in the safety of my own mind. it felt like trying to console a child, whose sense of nuance was so underdeveloped that every word must be expressed in the least opaque way possible. in many ways, it was exactly that.
i did this again and again, forgiving myself with all the generosity i could muster, pushing past my self-consciousness and disappointment. each time i spoke to myself this way, it became a tiny bit easier. slowly, the words stopped sounding forced and flowed smoothly through my mind. eventually, i stopped having to think the words at all, instead understanding the intention subconsciously and instinctively.
as the protecting part of myself began to understand that the environment had changed, it too began to change. before, it would hear the bell and react without hesitation. now, it hears the bell and recognizes the sound for what it is: an echo from the omitted parts of my personal history.
in an ironic twist, the conditioning process that causes us so much torment is the same process that can guide us out.