Does your BS line up with your OS? Redux

The integration of your belief systems with your operating system takes practice. Sometimes you need the help desk.

Hello friends and readers! I’ve now published nearly seventy essays in ten months writing on Substack. Those of you who have been supporting me from the early days—way back in March—have likely read this essay on Operating Systems and Belief Systems. I’ve been told by a couple of other writers recently that I should share it again. It was Essay #10 back in March. I seem to recall I had about 100 subscribers.

The timing seems appropriate to republish this one—as we head into what will likely be a very interesting year. 2024 is the year that Pluto finally makes it back into Aquarius after 248 years on the run around the solar system. Even if you’re not into astrology—the last time that happened was in 1776. Whoa…

So here it is—spellchecked and slightly edited.

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An operating system is a powerful and extensive program that controls and manages the hardware and software programs in your computer or any device like it. In human terms think of an OS as your mind and body working together in the background. Your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are two halves of a whole. This autonomic system is essentially your OS. Your OS is genetics. It’s epigenetic. Its metabolic. Its cardiovascular. It keeps your body running and functioning as it’s supposed to, without any help from your conscious mind.

Like the OS on your computer, you can keep your own internal OS running cleaner and more efficiently by removing waste, keeping it powered up, not letting it get too hot or cold, and generally try to not drop it on the pavement or set it on fire.

Think of your BS as software applications that runs on top of your OS.

Some of our own belief systems run on a voluntary basis. We call them up to the forefront like we do Facebook or Uber Eats or our banking app. Whatever particular application it is we use it actively—sometimes furiously—in the moments that we need it to support an activity in our life that—at least in theory—should support our overall health and well-being—our OS. Many belief systems run involuntarily without being consciously called up—and can catch us by surprise.

Our belief systems are learned. They may have been inherited from our parents. Perhaps learned in school. Certainly, they can be adopted based on environmental conditions in how or where you grew up. BS can be learned from your tribe—from your group of friends. Much of what is discussed ad nauseum in the modern media and in our culture revolves around these belief systems.

Religion is a belief system. Identity. Wellness. Climate change. Politics. And yes—recovery. The sheer amount of energy expended by humans to prove our own closely held BS is unmatched. It’s Science! we declare. Maybe. Our BS might occasionally line up with scientific facts. Or more likely we’ve taken some operating fact of science and built our own elaborate BS atop it. We could power the entire World for decades with that energy if there was a way to harness and direct it. Instead, we often direct that energy at one another. My BS is better than your BS! we shout. Look here’s the proof!

Ideology = Belief System.

To reiterate: Our hardware and wiring and infrastructure is our OS. The software running on top of our OS is our BS.

An operating system is tough—it is built to run for years—even decades. Even with malware. Even with buggy or poorly installed software running on top of it. Until it doesn’t.

My own personal experience is that when my BS doesn’t line up with my OS then problems arise. Physical and mental health suffers. The lack of alignment—and the discomfort it causes—is the root of many addiction issues and dis-ease. Many experts—some controversial like Gabor Mate—believe that the root of all physical and mental diseases is childhood trauma of some kind, and the inability of people to work through those deeply-set wounds and limiting beliefs about themselves.

Discussions of authenticity are all the rage these days. Everyone seems to be searching for their truth. Wait! Let me rephrase that—everyone is proclaiming their truth—there may or may not be any search or research involved. To the topic being discussed in this post, much of what floats your particular boat might not hold another person’s toy duckie. But we are asked to accept your truth as the truth.

OK fine. Do what you need to do. That’s ultimately what we all have to do for ourselves. I don’t have to understand it. I don’t have to agree with it. I don’t even have to like it. I have the right to determine and accept that your BS has nothing to do with me—and vice versa. No penalty flags. If my own operating system is at stake—that’s the priority. Your BS is gonna have to wait.

I’m all for someone rewriting their software, changing their belief systems, and trying something new in order to better align their mind, body, and spirit. The work falls to each of us in turn to do for ourselves. Some do. Many don’t. Those who don’t want to do the work to create change in themselves blame others. We call them victims.

Haven’t we all experienced someone else suddenly going off on us—and we have absolutely no idea what the fuck they’re talking about? It’s because it isn’t about you at all. It’s about them. They might claim that the rage and fear coming up for them was triggered by something you said or did. Can a word or a look or a behavior by someone trigger something to rise up in another person? Sure. But their response has very little to do with what you said—and mostly to do with what they heard—and how that pulls something old and nasty up from their past.

If a person is out of line with their own self-image, then something has to change. Either the image or the reality. Much of the discomfort we human beings feel can be traced to early childhood attachment issues, and the belief systems we build within ourselves to protect ourselves—to survive—to feel safe. When that safety is threatened, the malware flares—the software skips a beat—the operating system pays the price.

In my own life, strength, independence, and persistence were the deeply held beliefs that were both empowering and toxic. Try harder. Never give up. Work, work, work. Outcomes are based 100% on your own effort, and you’re 100% responsible for those outcomes. As I grew into adulthood, those personality traits certainly created a measure of success, but they also took a toll. I was the Lone Wolf. Hip, slick, and cool. I didn’t need your help. I got this. Get the fuck out of my way.

Sure, I was a good friend and teammate, and a capable colleague most of the time. But don’t kid yourself—I was often in it for myself. I had a hard time accepting help. God forbid I could accept love. I couldn’t even love myself. The bar had been set way too high too long ago, and in my own mind I kept falling short of unreasonable expectations. No matter what I did well, it wasn’t well enough. That misalignment of my BS and my OS took me down an addictive and toxic path. The good news is that I was forced eventually to accept recovery. One more thing I couldn’t accomplish on my own…not for lack of trying. I had to be roped into it by loving family and friends.

Because I was physically and mentally strong, the emotional misalignment between my BS and my OS didn’t really become evident until I was in recovery. It was only then that I realized that I—no one—can do what needs to be done to live a healthy life without community and without help. So for me, the operating system (my body) was crying out for love and for others. My belief systems (my mind) were stuck in a limiting cycle about how I thought I could and should operate independently in the world.

I’ve learned an enormous amount about somatic experience. I mentioned earlier in this post about the autonomous nervous system in our bodies. The practice of somatic experience therapy is the idea that the body holds wisdom and pain from the past that the mind doesn’t consciously recognize or acknowledge. Both positive and negative feelings and memories residing deep within the cells of the body will surface suddenly and can catch us unaware. They take us rapidly into a whirling vortex of past traumas or events. This can be wildly destabilizing, and if not addressed in the present, can turn on us and actually manifest in our bodies as discomfort, pain, auto-immune, disease, and mental illness.

The photo just above is of my motorcycle vest. I hardly ever wear it, because despite the work I’ve done I’m still not much of a joiner. I resist tribes, consensus, and the prevailing trends like a plague and likely always will. The patches on the back of the vest are a dichotomy. Lone Wolf stitched across the back below the Pirate visage. Pretty much self-explanatory. But notice at the top the circle and triangle logo, the international symbol of AA. This represents connection, community, and others with a commonality. See the conflict?

Even in my long-term recovery I struggle every day with the deep belief systems that were installed in my youth. Here’s the good news. I’m healthier now for the examination. My full community life of my neighbors, my special Texas town of Wimberley, my friends, my radio station peeps, my volunteering and Board roles—all bring me the community I require to be healthy and functional today. My relationship with—and now marriage to—Ann has helped me learn to accept the love I receive and give it back in an unconditional way as best I can. As for the continued self-examination? Bring it on. I’ve got the back for it.

It ain’t easy rewriting or re-installing software code, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than rebuilding an operating system.

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Thanks for reading—or re-reading. As we go into this year fraught with so much conflicting energies flying around—and so much conviction about all of it—try to remember that your responses are a choice.

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