Why We Do Those Things We Do

Earlier today, the news broadcast a story about a firestorm surrounding Spanish matador, Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, who was photographed holding his infant daughter while fighting a bull. He defended his demonstration explaining how it was a family tradition for a matador to hold his child while fighting a bull. He even showed a picture of his father, also a matador, holding him in a very similar position when Ordóñez was a very young boy. Apparently, that tradition extended back several generations and he had no intention of doing anything differently. He had been previously photographed holding his older daughter this exact same way.

Is this (and other) behaviors passed down between generations an example of a cultural family tradition or, more simply, sharing subconscious “knowns”?

Consider the following examples. It is a popular romantic (albeit dated) tradition for a man to get down on bended knee to propose marriage to his sweetheart. While less common in the 21^st Century, there was a time when this was considered the only legitimate and acceptable way to ask someone to marry you. Or, when looking at family photographs you notice that you are holding your brand-new baby the exact same way your parents held you and grandparents held your mother or father. In some families, members of subsequent generations enter the same vocation that a parent, grandparent and great-grandparent chose, such as fire-fighting, joining the police force or armed services, becoming a physician, etc. At some point this career choice seems to be less of an option and more of a predetermined destiny. And even that observation is too simplistic.

As I explained in a previous blog titled Traditions: It’s All in the Family, the subconscious part of the mind likes and wants to do what is familiar (known), because this sense of familiarity represents “safety” and comfort. Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D. proposed that human behavior is based on the subconscious mental scripts that we create during early childhood, at which time the subconscious mind is accumulating and storing various message units that will ultimately comprise the subconscious life script. Each message is ultimately categorized as a positive (pleasure) or negative (pain) experience, and anything that the subconscious mind does not recognize falls under the category of “pain.” Even if the conscious mind questions the behavior, its logic/reasoning/will-power/decision-making faculties will be no match for the unspoken acceptance of that action, in the subconscious mind.

Furthermore, the subconscious mind typically resists doing anything new or different (e.g., not hold a child during a bull-fight) even when the logic, reason, will-power/free-will and reasoning faculties of the conscious mind says that it’s okay (safe) to do so. These behaviors are the basis of Dr. Kappas’s Theory of Mind. The more times these behaviors are (and have been) repeated, the “safer” and more comfortable they feel. Consequently, people tend to repeat certain behaviors and/or continue to hold particular beliefs that they already know or recognize, simply because these actions are familiar, comfortable, convenient and even expected of them to perpetuate.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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