You Were Programmed, Not Born This Way
“You’re not fucked up. You were just programmed by people who were too scared to live their own truth.”
You weren’t born insecure.
You weren’t born afraid to speak your truth.
You weren’t born addicted to approval or anxious in your own skin.
That isn’t your nature.
That’s your programming.
Installed like malware in a system that once ran free.
Line by line.
Command by command.
Not from malice - but from inheritance.
From generations that were too afraid to feel, too burdened to break the cycle, too lost to remember who they were.
They called it “good parenting.”
They called it “being realistic.”
They called it “tough love.”
But what they meant was: fit the mould or lose connection.
What they taught was: love has conditions.
And what you learned was: your truth is dangerous.
So you downloaded it.
Silently.
Desperately.
Because you were wired for connection.
Because love felt like oxygen.
Because safety was the currency of childhood - and you’d do anything to breathe.
So you shut your mouth when it trembled with truth.
You swallowed the tears.
You straightened your spine.
You twisted yourself into something palatable.
Performable.
Acceptable.
But let’s be fucking clear:
That wasn’t your flaw.
That was your genius.
You didn’t fold because you were weak -
You adapted because you were strong.
You fused to survive.
You moulded to belong.
And that false self? The one that learned to smile through the ache, people-please like a reflex, and overthink every word?
That false self saved you.
But now?
That version is suffocating you.
That mask is heavy.
That fear of being “too much” is the leash they handed you - and you’ve worn it like jewellery.
Enough.
You weren’t born insecure.
You were born raw, radiant, unapologetic.
You were born whole.
And every fear you carry is a story that was handed to you, not chosen by you.
So it’s time to uninstall.
To defrag the soul.
To rupture the loop.
Not to shame the child who adapted.
But to honour them - by remembering what they forgot:
You don’t need to earn your worth.
You don’t need to shrink to be safe.
You don’t need to contort to be loved.
You just need to come back.
To the wild, unfiltered you - beneath the programming.
The you who doesn’t apologise for taking up space.
The you who speaks before checking the temperature of the room.
The you who remembers:
Fitting in was never the goal.
Wholeness was.
And so the programming began.
You made yourself smaller.
Quieter.
Softer.
Digestible.
You trimmed your edges, muted your fire, buried the parts that roared too loud for their comfort.
Not because you wanted to -
Because you had to.
Because somewhere along the line, you realised:
Your full self was too much for this world.
Too loud.
Too wild.
Too sensitive.
Too alive.
So you adapted.
You studied their cues.
You read their faces like scripture.
You learned the art of being liked.
Of being “easy.”
Of being safe.
You built a personality like a costume -
Polished. Predictable. Praiseworthy.
Not a self.
A performance.
And here’s the most fucked up part:
They loved it.
They loved the version of you that wasn’t real.
You got applause for your obedience.
Validation for your silence.
Smiles when you stayed inside the lines.
Gold stars for disappearing.
And with every “Good job.”
Every “You’re so well-behaved.”
Every “You’re not like the others.”
You felt it -
That slow drift.
That ache.
That hollowing.
Because while they were falling in love with the mask,
You were losing the soul beneath it.
Every yes you said to be accepted was a no to your truth.
Every laugh that hid your pain was a step further from yourself.
Every time you stayed quiet when your spirit screamed to speak -
You buried a piece of your wild.
And maybe you told yourself it was worth it.
That safety mattered more than selfhood.
That connection mattered more than truth.
But now?
Now you feel the cost.
You feel it in the anxiety that won’t shut up.
In the exhaustion of pretending.
In the emptiness of being liked for who you’re not.
In the quiet grief of a life that looks fine -
but doesn’t feel fucking real.
Let this be the rupture.
The holy fracture.
The moment of fucking truth:
You were never meant to be liked by everyone.
You were meant to be you.
Fully. Unapologetically. Wildly.
So rip off the costume.
Burn the script.
Grieve the lost years - then reclaim your voice.
Because the world doesn't need another nice, neat, hollow human playing by the rules.
It needs you.
Raw. Messy. Unedited.
Remembered.
“Most of your suffering isn’t because you’re broken.
It’s because your soul is rejecting the code that was installed before you had a choice.”
Let’s call it what it is: conditioning.
And it’s deep.
Deeper than mindset.
Deeper than memory.
This isn’t just in your head.
It’s in your nervous system.
Etched into your body like ancestral graffiti.
A trauma-encoded language you didn’t ask to learn -
but now speak fluently.
It shows up in your relationships.
In the way you flinch when love gets too close.
In how you apologise for taking up space.
How you dim your joy so it doesn’t make others uncomfortable.
In that pause - before you speak - where your mind checks if your truth is safe to say.
You think it’s just overthinking.
It’s not.
It’s protection.
Wired in. Locked down. Running silently in the background.
You weren’t born like this.
You were trained.
Trained to seek permission before expression.
Trained to measure your worth by your usefulness.
Trained to perform strength instead of feel.
To hold your breath instead of ask for help.
To clench your jaw instead of cry.
To call overwork “drive.”
To call numbness “peace.”
To chase validation and suppress your soul.
This system didn’t just fuck with your head -
It colonised your body.
It made nervousness feel normal.
It made disconnection feel safe.
It taught you to abandon yourself - and call it maturity.
But here’s the truth they don’t teach in school:
You’re not broken.
You’re wired for survival.
Your patterns? They were intelligence.
Your shutdowns? They were shields.
Your freeze, your fawn, your overthinking spiral -
All of it was your body protecting you the only way it knew how.
But protection is not presence.
And now it’s time to come home.
To feel again.
To reconnect.
To stop living on high alert in a world that told you to be strong by shutting down.
Because real strength isn’t the armour.
It’s taking the fucking thing off.
Letting the system reset.
Letting your body remember what safety actually feels like.
You inherited more than DNA.
You inherited fear.
You didn’t choose it - it chose you.
Handed down in silence.
Wrapped in “that’s just how life is.”
Programmed through looks, sighs, and unsaid rules.
You inherited scarcity.
Not just in money - in love.
In rest.
In time.
In permission to fucking exist without proving something.
You inherited emotional suppression.
A lineage of silence.
A bloodline of “get on with it.”
Of “don’t talk back.”
Of “man up” and “keep the peace” and “feelings are weakness.”
And then came the belief systems -
Hand-me-downs from generations that didn’t know better,
But passed them like sacred law anyway:
“Work hard - then you’ll be worthy.”
“Don’t stop - rest is laziness in disguise.”
“If you’re not producing, you’re falling behind.”
“Be strong - don’t talk about how you feel.”
“Put everyone else first - that’s what love looks like.”
No one asked if you wanted any of this.
No one said, “Does this belief nourish your soul?”
They just installed it.
And called it love.
Called it tradition.
Called it truth.
But here you are -
Trying to live as you
With an operating system designed for obedience, not expansion.
For performance, not presence.
For fitting in, not breaking free.
And you wonder why it all feels so fucking tight.
Why your joy feels suspicious.
Why rest feels like guilt.
Why expression feels like danger.
Why being yourself feels like betrayal.
It’s not because you’re broken.
It’s because you’re awakening.
And the system doesn’t know what to do with a soul that’s no longer sedated.
So let’s be clear:
You are not your programming.
You are the breaker of it.
The interrupter.
The one who stops the inheritance of invisibility.
The one who says: It ends with me.
Let’s get raw:
- What beliefs do you carry that feel heavy, but you’ve never questioned?
- What behaviours do you shame yourself for that might actually be coping mechanisms?
- Who do you become around people you don’t feel safe to be real with?
- What parts of you were punished, so you learned to hide them?
This isn’t a self-help moment.
This is a liberation ritual.
You are not your conditioning.
You are the one who can choose to rewrite it.
Not them.
Not your parents.
Not the system.
You.
And no - it’s not always some cinematic act of rebellion.
It’s not smashing the table or burning the whole life down.
It’s quieter than that.
More sacred.
More brave.
It happens in micro-moments of truth.
Tiny ruptures in the matrix.
Little revolutions of the soul.
Like catching the old lie as it creeps in -
“I don’t have to prove my worth right now.”
and choosing not to obey it.
Like saying no
without softening it, explaining it, apologising for it.
Like letting joy live in your body
without side-eying the sky
waiting for something bad to balance it out.
Like telling the fucking truth -
even if your voice quivers like a child finally saying, “That hurt me.”
Like resting without guilt.
Not earning it. Not justifying it.
Just resting - because you’re alive, and that’s reason enough.
Like finally whispering to yourself,
“I don’t believe this anymore.”
“That story’s not mine.”
“This pain ends with me.”
This is how it happens.
Not in one big moment,
but in a thousand tiny ones.
Each one a door.
Each one a choice.
Each one a return.
Because healing isn’t becoming someone new.
Healing is remembering -
who you were
before the noise.
Before the shame.
Before the story.
Before the world told you to sit down, shut up, be polite, be nice, be small.
It’s peeling back the layers they wrapped around you
and finding that raw, radiant, unfucked with version of you
still breathing beneath the rubble.
Final prompts:
- What belief am I still living by that I never consciously chose?
- What does my programming try to protect me from?
- Who would I be without these inherited fears?
Final words:
You weren’t born to be obedient.
You weren’t born to nod, smile, and shrink to fit their comfort.
You weren’t born to perform your worth like a circus act.
You weren’t born to carry trauma that wasn’t yours,
to inherit silence,
to swallow pain with a polite face.
You weren’t born to stay small
so other people could feel big.
So they wouldn’t feel threatened by your fire.
So they could keep pretending their numbness was normal.
You were born clear.
Whole.
Wild as fuck.
Free beyond belief.
That wasn't a glitch in your system.
That was your original code.
Pure. Untamed. Unapologetic.
Before the edits.
Before the performance.
Before the “be good” and “settle down” and “don’t make it awkward.”
They taught you to trade your truth for approval.
To package your soul for social acceptance.
To suppress your roar and call it maturity.
And it worked -
until it didn’t.
Because now you feel it.
The fracture.
The ache.
The knowing that this version of life isn’t fucking it.
So let this be the moment.
The breach.
The initiation.
This is not your breakdown.
This is your rebuild.
From source.
On your own terms.
Not a return to the you they approved of -
But a resurrection of the you they never fucking met.
You were programmed.
Yes.
But now?
Now you’re remembering.
And no system, no family, no culture, no fear
can stop what happens
when you choose truth over training.
