If you've ever been to the doctor for a full physical, you know that when you are sitting on the exam table, and the doctor pulls out that little metal hammer with the rubber mallet what's about to happen. The doctor taps your knee, and inevitably the knee reflexively jumps. It's called the knee jerk reflex... this is an involuntary response to a stimulus, in this case, a tap on the tendon of the knee. Now, sometimes (and as a family physician, I've seen this many times) when we go to tap the knee, the patient will jerk that knee before the hammer actually hits the knee. This is because the person knows what is supposed to happen when the hammer hits the knee and anticipates the appropriate response. This is called conditioning. When a person is exposed to a specific signal (whether it's something they see, hear or feel) that produces or requires a specific response, they will eventually be conditioned to that response. In NLP training, we called that being anchored.

You may or may not have noticed this, but we are anchored to many things in life.... The ring of a phone, the cry of our child, the light on the street turning yellow... then red... then green. Each of these things activates a very specific response in us automatically. However, what most people fail to realize is that we are not only conditioned in our physical actions, we are conditioned in our thoughts and emotions as well. You see, conditioning is a learning process. Over time we have learned (and been taught) to act and react or respond in certain ways, to certain people, and to certain circumstances. We are behaviorally indoctrinated in certain areas of our life.

Now, I know that when I use the word indoctrination, it may stimulate a specific response; and that further proves my point. Because whatever internal image you have in your head about the word indoctrination you have been taught. To indoctrinate by definition means to teach, to drill, to instruct, to educate, brainwash, to coach. It also means to implant, to propagandize, and to convince. All of these definitions are valid for what we have all experienced in our lives at some point. The question is; What are you indoctrinated into? And what are you indoctrinated into that you are UN-Aware that you are indoctrinated into. What indoctrinations are you holding that are harmful to yourself and/or others.

The truth is LIFE is indoctrination, and if we can acknowledge and accept that, we can begin to critically examine what indoctrinations work and what indoctrination is harmful. We can look at what things we are conditioned to believe, think, speak and do that no longer serve us. And this critical examination is the first step.

Comment your thoughts about this article. In Part 2, we'll discuss how we begin to UN-Learn the indoctrination, and re-train our brains so that we can make the impact we want to make for ourselves, our children, our families, our community, and in the world.

The bottom line is this. We must acknowledge and understand our conditioning if we are to ever move past the state of "victimhood" that we have embraced, and move into a place of empowered action. How we do that is by becoming open to solutions that would shine the light on these processes and commit to undoing them. For example, therapy can be an effective tool for recognizing and overcoming the limiting thinking that comes with our conditioning. Physician coaching is another service that when utilized regularly can be very effective in undoing the indoctrination and sparking empowered action toward new burnout solutions. There is an old John Wayne quote that says "Sometimes it isn't being fast that counts, or even accurate; but willing." If we are willing to step outside of the box that the conditioning has placed us in, then we have a chance at dismantling the conversation not just for ourselves but for the generations of doctors to come.  

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