Today I have certified myself als a ‘Self-Certified Unlearner, Foundation’. For the first time in my life I decided I do not longer need external approval for my own self-worth. This feels so good! Even so good I decided to un-learn so I can become a ‘Self-Certified Unlearner, Master’.
The biggest part of my life sofar I have spent learning things. Growing as we tend to call it. Becoming better. More intelligent. More skilled. Adding. Growing. More. More. More. Never good enough. We get indoctrinated in our (Western?) culture to add and grow, but only seldomly are we encouraged to take away what is not needed anymore. Mathematically speaking one could say we are only skilled in using the plus sign and using the minus sign we tend to ignore like hell. Our collective behavior one could summarize as masking our imperfections by adding external attributes that makes us look better or more grown or ‘owning’ or ‘having’ more. This feels like nonsense.
The last 5 years I went through a (sometimes disturbing) mental, emotional and spiritual rollercoaster. But it has given me the context to unlearn a great lot of things. It’s only in retrospect that I see now how much ‘captured’ I was in mental constructs. Constructs that have become an ingrained part of our (Western?) cultures. Constructs that have become so ‘common’ that we collectively have forgotten to re-certify .
On larger humanitairian scale it seems humanity has massively unlearned to re-certify certain culture core values. This is logical, because they became core values because we didn’t want to re-certify them. By promoting that strategy, we effectively created a cultural open-loop feedback poor learning process. Instead of a closed-loop, feedback-rich unlearning loop.
I cannot change this thinking for others. But I can change the thinking for myself. And that is exactly what I am doing. Going back to my own source. Back to my own truth. I do not longer need another person’s truth to feel worthy for myself. And that feels good!
What’s your un-learning story? Want to share your thoughts?
Learning to unlearn 
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