Twenty-six experts from around the world were asked about what most people do not know about the subconscious mind and the answers were mind-bending.
Imagine if for a moment you had your own personal worldwide network of professionals offering you the advice of a lifetime on not only what the subconscious mind is but also why many people fail to realize their true potential.
While the are many alternatives to keeping your mind and body healthy ranging from traditional wellness programs to disrupting new startups that promise to help you stay healthy and prevent medical debt, the experts below take it to a different level.
The responses here range from lessons learned to in-depth tips to how you can change your thinking to be the best person that you can possibly imagine.
The reason most people fail to become masters of their Mind Power is because they don’t know how the Subconscious Mind thinks. Since our Mind Power comes from our Subconscious, it’s essential to know the differences between it and the conscious mind.
Here are 3 of the most important elements to successfully using your Mind Power of which most people are not aware.
The Subconscious only thinks in the present. If in using affirmations to get something you say… “I WILL….(whatever)”, or… “I’m GOING TO (whatever)”, you’re thinking in the future which the Subconscious knows nothing about. The key to making Mind Power work is to trick the Subconscious into believing you already have what you want…NOW. State affirmations in the present, act and feel as if you NOW have what you want.
The Subconscious does not know the difference between what is real and what is imagined. That’s what Mind Power, or The Law of Attraction, or Hypnosis are all about. If you’re using any of those methods to attract something or change something about yourself, you’re imagining you have done so NOW. The Subconscious will never disagree with you or believe you don’t have it or haven’t made the change.
While your conscious mind is your logical, rational, analytical mind…your Subconscious is your il–logical, ir-rational, non-analytical mind. It will believe ANYTHING whether it makes logical sense or not. It never questions what you tell it. So when trying to accomplish goals know in your conscious mind it takes time to attain them. But program your Subconscious into believing you have attained them NOW.
You’ll reach goals much faster than by only trying to reach them “manually”…such as one step at a time.
www.subconsciousmindprogramming.com
Todd Wissler
✓BE MORE PRODUCTIVE, RELAXED, & SHARPER
BRITESMART | Improve memory, focus and energy with a blend of nutraceuticals
ZEN 12 | An hour of meditation benefits in just 12 minutes – meditation designed for today
NITROFOCUS | Use brainwave technology for more focus, motivation & results
Thomas Miller
-
The subconscious mind is an equally miraculous component of the human anatomy as our brain, heart, lungs or any other component of our incredible physiology. Far more capable than any macro computer, our subconscious stores every event, occurrence, emotion or circumstance from before we were born, and arguably if you so choose to believe, even from previous lifetimes. All of that data is stored and is available for recall as we navigate our life’s circumstances.
The subconscious mind is a guardian and a gate keeper, using the data stored from these events to deduct likely probabilities, and prompt us accordingly. Often, we will drift into an “automatic” mode of reaction, based purely on subconscious instincts. However, we also have conscious free-will and choice. Many people don’t deploy the term “choose” effectively enough in their lives. When we choose, stating a powerful “I AM” intention, then we can re-direct the automation of the subconscious in a conscious direction we now have full control over. As we become more aware of the role of the subconscious, and get in tune with its programming, we can actually re-program it in a new direction guided by our conscious awareness instead of the social, parental, or past programming the subconscious has no choice but to run as a default program.
Through repetition as we continue this reprogramming, we can free ourselves from the drama and trauma of our past and then change that auto programming to lead us in directions that serve us.
- The subconscious mind connects with infinity. It is that part of our soul that touches the realm of the divine. Wallace Waddles, in his early-1900s classic, “The Science of Getting Rich”, explained it as a formless substance that permeates all of creation and existence. Christians refer to it as the Holy Spirit, that persona of God that is omnipresent, omniscient and all powerful. In Vedic literature, this is the Supreme Being, using karma as the flow of connection from one life to another, one soul to another. In more modern day terminology, we refer to it as “The Universe”. The subconscious mind is in an “always on” mode with this formless substance; this divinity.The subconscious is communicating to it constantly based on our inner emotions, programmed as we described above. Based on this programming, combined with the Universal law of vibration that states we are like a tuning fork based on signals we put out, people, events and circumstances are “attracted” to our lives without our conscious awareness. This is why tragedy often comes from nowhere, and conversely some people seem to have a perpetual rabbit’s foot in their pocket.This is the connection of the subconscious to the Universe, which is also programmed to reward us with the very things we transmit out. This is why, for those who have had difficult upbringings, past lives or early childhood and pre-teen trauma, to be aware of the process and work diligently to reprogram their subconscious mind so they can attract those things they now choose to have in their lives.
http://subconsciousmindmastery.com
-
Your subconscious mind contains your whole history from every lifetime. It contains all the reasons you do what you do and believe what you believe. If you can’t seem to change your mind or make a change in life, the key will be held in the subconscious mind.
-
The subconscious mind does not contain Truth (as in the infinite possibilities that are available to us and that anything is possible). Instead it contains our version of the Truth, which, in fact, are our limitations. Everywhere we have made conclusions around an issue, we limit other possibilities, because our conclusion tells us we are right and therefore, all else does not apply. When we challenge those conclusions as not being true, we open to another possibility.
-
The subconscious mind will always gravitate to what it knows, not what is best for you. The mind likes known quantities. Unknowns are seen as scary to the subconscious mind, because it can not calculate a known outcome with an unknown variable. This is why people tend to repeat thoughts and behaviours that they know. They will stay in the same abusive relationship or always go down a familiar path because it is what they know and their mind understands the outcome.
This is why to create change, you must override the mind and take a risk. To create change you must allow for an unknown variable – something different that the mind is not yet aware of. One of my favourite sayings is “You don’t know what you don’t know.” The mind thinks it knows everything. And, in a way it does. It knows everything it knows. But it doesn’t know everything that is possible.
- You can change the subconscious mind by asking questions. Questions allow for unknown variables and opens the mind to go seeking new answers. You just need to ask the right questions to get by the subconscious mind’s walls. A question that allows for this is: “What else is possible that I have never yet considered?” With a question like this, the subconscious mind must automatically go searching for something unknown, because it has already considered every possibility it is aware of. When we keep asking questions and stay in search of more questions, we are able to create more change in our lives. When we seek answers, we come to conclusions, that limit the possibility of more.
Fay Thompson
Michael Craig
-
According to ancient Huna and other cultures – the so-called “subconscious mind” may be a separate BEING that has a different focus and agenda than the conscious mind. Imagine a being that inhabits the body with the conscious mind, and rules the five senses, involuntary muscles, emotions and intuition. This “Subconscious Being” is also responsible for communicating with the High Self to manifest everyday reality.
-
Most people are aware that the subconscious mind (or being) carries out and manifests directives given it by the conscious mind. What most do NOT know, however, is that directives based on early survival decisions or genetic influences have a much higher priority. When someone makes a new decision while trying to overcome or replace a subconscious survival directive, the result is self-sabotage and failure.
This scenarios is too often the case in addictive or self-destructive behavior. The subconscious being may be convinced, for example, self-punishment is the best way to honor or get approval from a parent, ancestor or tribe, and it will resist all attempts to change this behavior and outlook.
- You cannot “program the subconscious” if it has been given a survival directive that conflicts with a conscious goal. Most underlying survival decisions are blocked off from the conscious mind or being, so any and all attempts using hypnosis, NLP, affirmations, tapping, or any other conscious approach will usually fail.The only way to change the results is to get access to the subconscious being itself in such a way that allows him or her to cooperate and change the underlying directive – or hidden decision. Trying to fool your subconscious being into bypassing a prime directive almost never works; he or she knows all your tricks!
-
Our subconscious mind is the gateway to access our higher consciousness. Hence going within (meditating) is more effective than praying out loud and making demands of God.
-
Our subconscious mind keeps our shadows hidden. These shadows express themselves through our dreams. These shadows also get subconsciously projected on to others of what is undesirable(shameful and unattractive) within us.
- The more we work on our subconscious behavior strategies and stay connected with our higher conscious mind, the easier it is to return into flow of life, balance our health, relationships and work and life in a state of harmony: happy and healthy.
Keya Murthy Ben Austin
I’m a big fan of Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics, so I will draw my answers from his book. You Can Make You Subconscious Mind Work For You (Instead of Against You). Maltz correctly points out, that you can communicate with your subconscious mind and turn ON what he calls your ‘Automatic Success Mechanism’. This is possible, because your subconscious mind (nervous system) does not know the difference between what’s actually happening to you and what you are imagining.
Maltz, walks you through a series of visualization exercises which allow you to remove restrictive programming in your subconscious mind and alter them to suit your needs. With practice you can accomplish bigger goals, be happier and ultimately create the life you want.
When you put this into practice, the difference is noticeable and immediate. It’s like updating the operating software on your computer from Windows 95 to Windows 8.”
-
The Large Majority of your Life Experience is Brought about by your Subconscious MindMost of your results in life, the actions you take, your thought process, and even what people like to call circumstances are brought about by your subconscious programming. Thus the huge importance of making sure you understand how your subconscious mind has been programmed. If you don’t like what you’re seeing in your life, right now, look into how you’ve been raised, what type of experiences you’ve been through as a child.
-
Subconscious Programming Happens very Early. Most of our subconscious programming happens between the ages of 0 and 7 years old, but we are still programming our subconscious mind well until the age of 16. Children between 0 and 7 years old are learning more subconsciously than they do consciously. A very good example of this is our mother tongue. That’s why we never forget our mother tongue and speak it so fluently and effortlessly. It was learned subconsciously.
- The Subconscious doesn’t Work on Logic. The subconscious mind doesn’t work on logic. As a matter of fact, Doctor Bruce Lipton compared it as a tape recorder to help people understand how it works. A tape recorder doesn’t judge or analyze, it just tapes as is. The same process is true for the subconscious mind. It doesn’t judge, analyze or make any difference between right and wrong or good and bad. For example, if you were a woman who had learned, subconsciously, that men beat women, because you were beaten by your father or grew up observing your father beating your mother, this could become your subconscious programming in regards to men towards women. Consciously, you would never choose a man based on this negative quality, but because this is “normal” as per your subconscious programming, you would most likely end up with a man who mistreats you. This is a situation we find in most cases of battered women. In order to break the circle, such woman, would need to reprogram her subconscious mind.
Sylviane Nuccio
✓BE MORE PRODUCTIVE, RELAXED, & SHARPER
BRITESMART | Improve memory, focus and energy with a blend of nutraceuticals
ZEN 12 | An hour of meditation benefits in just 12 minutes – meditation designed for today
NITROFOCUS | Use brainwave technology for more focus, motivation & results
Don Barnhart
-
What many people fail to realize about the subconscious mind is it’s vast complexity and potential. It’s open for business and constantly working, absorbing information in the background even we’re not paying attention.
-
The subconscious mind can be programmed, like a computer to direct our lives thereby creating the life of our dreams. Unfortunately, most people don’t take the time to use it’s functions and just live day by day with the clutter and junk put in there by others. This is where we get our “bad habits”.
-
Parents, teachers, friends, politicians and the media are all vying for control and it’s up to us, the individual to decide what gets locked into our subconscious. This covers everything from the brand of car, beer or clothing and who we ultimately vote for to our motivation, bad & good habits, health, spirituality, love, happiness and success.
-
However, by taking control or our subconscious mind, we can reprograming ourselves to break bad habits and create new, healthier ones.
- Through techniques like hypnosis, NLP and guided meditation, we can harness, empower and literally program the subconscious mind to be our ally guiding, protecting and directing our life to obtain our unlimited potential and live the life of our dreams.
Most of what we do is managed by our subconscious mind, whether that’s low level, everyday activities like driving a car, remembering what 7 x 6 equals, and how to get from home to office, or high level beliefs like whether or not I am lovable.
-
Muscular resistance testing is an intriguing way to discover whether or not our subconscious mind is on board with our conscious wishes
-
It is important to align our subconscious beliefs with our conscious ones if we wish to achieve fulfilling work, relationships and other goals. The easiest way to achieve this is through hypnotherapy. Just a few sessions can achieve amazing results.
- Hypnotherapy is a particularly powerful at getting rid of unwanted phobias (such as heights, claustrophobia, arachnophobia etc) usually in just a few sessions using the power of the subconscious mind.
David Michie
Tony Fahkry
-
Your SM (subconscious mind) is constantly eavesdropping on every conscious thought and conversation you have with yourself or others. Therefore choose empowering thoughts.
-
Researcher Candace Pert suggests your body is your SM. She has demonstrated that cells in your body have the ability to learn many daily actions, thus taking over many functions from the mind. Consider your drive to work– it becomes a subconscious action whereby your mind drifts into a dream state while your body takes you to your destination without even a second thought.
-
Many of your thoughts, beliefs and ideas about the world were formed during age 2 -7 where most of your learning was in a subconscious state. This forms your view and opinions of the world.
-
The subconscious mind is the most important part of the mind to be working on, yet most people do not know this, nor work on it in powerful ways.
-
Many popular personal development/self help/psychological techniques do little to affect the subconscious mind.
-
The subconscious mind is where our fundamental issues reside.
-
The subconscious mind is a key ‘gateway’ to the genuine spiritual.
-
The subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is true and what is false.
-
It has been possible to ‘reprogram’ the subconscious mind for millennia, however neuroscience is only recently ‘catching on’.
- Reprogramming the subconscious mind can be described as an aspect of neuroplasticity.
-
One very interesting thing about the subconscious is that when you sleep. especially , it makes a powerful creative connection. It will basically makes connections to thoughts that you had in a conscious state so when you wake up it’ll make that reconnection.
- In addition, habit formation in control, is a major function of the subconscious part of your mind. It pretty much governs what you do, day in and day out.
-
The subconscious mind is essential for us to function. Much of our thinking is subconscious, we couldn’t focus our conscious minds on a hundred things at once like the subconscious does routinely… monitoring balance, perception, body functions, memory storage and retrieval, etc, etc. But two amazing functions of the subconscious are: intuition and inner knowing.
-
Intuition works behind the scenes, collecting our past experience and learning, spotting connexions and possibilities, and eventually emerging to provide the conscious mind with a clue or hunch that inspires new creativity.
-
Inner knowing is the mind’s connecting with our spiritual essence. The incarnated spirit is connected with its soul, it’s higher self, that is not located in time and space – a spark of God, if you like. It has access to universal knowledge and reflects our true nature which is unconditionally loving. From our inner knowing, we see things with a viewpoint of empathy, compassion and understanding (contrasting with the human animal’s mentality of survival fears, greed and competition). That shift of consciousness is what the world desperately needs now, from all of us!
Peter Shepherd
George Papadas
- It can reveal to us anything we need to know for a specific subject, at any time. Although, we have to be open, acceptable to it and have a calm mind.
- Every experience, fact, situations, actions are the result or reaction of our subconscious to our thoughts/beliefs.
- From the moment the subconscious accepts an idea, begins to set it in application. Whether bad or good ideas. That’s why we should be aware of what we think most of the time.
- It uses combination of information, knowledge we acquired until now, in order to achieve the target we set to it. It force us to do the right actions, be at the right place, at the right time, so to may meet the right persons to help us achieve something.
- It perceives with intuition and its power is on the maximum when our senses are on the minimum (e.g.: during calmness, meditation, no expectations, relaxed mental state).
- It doesn’t make logical arguments, it just accepts what we believe as truth; whether is truth or lie.
- It guides us and motivates us through intuition in order to fulfill our purpose.
- It is what connects us with the universal intelligence. Despite the mainstream science I can tell you that it can collect information from the entire universe (ether, akashik records), it can see the future, it can see behind walls, and all these because it’s not limited by the spacetime continuum, all things for it happen at the NOW.
- From the moment an action becomes a habit, the subconscious executes it automatically. For example, if you get in the bus and count how many persons there are in the bus and you keep counting and counting whenever you get in the bus, after time from the moment you get in the bus you will know instantly how many persons there are in the bus, without even counting. It’s pretty amazing.
-
95% of our behavior and decisions are controlled by the subconscious mind, according to a study by Dr. Julia Mossbridge and associates.
-
The subconscious mind absorbs millions of bits of information 24/7 whether we are awake or asleep.
- Additionally, with the subconscious mind, the contents of a book can be scanned into the brain in a few minutes, as per “Light Speed Learning”.
Dr. Robert Newton
Steve Genco
-
We activate goals unconsciously, then pursue these goals without being aware of it, and then have emotional and behavioral effects when the goals are either successfully achieved or thwarted, but the causes of those outcomes are invisible to us. See for example Moore, Sarah G., Melissa J. Ferguson, and Tanya L. Chartrand. “Affect in the aftermath: How goal pursuit influences implicit evaluations.” Cognition and Emotion 25.3 (2011): 453-465.
-
Our unconscious minds are not the enemies of our conscious minds, as many believe Freud told us. The unconscious is not Freud’s cauldron of boiling emotions and forbidden urges. Rather, modern research describes the unconscious as a “behavioral guidance system” that takes care of many mental functions that are too mundane for our conscious minds to devote time and energy to. Sometimes this gets us into trouble, but for the most part this division of labor works just fine. See Bargh, John A., and Ezequiel Morsella. “Unconscious behavioral guidance systems.” Then a miracle occurs: Focusing on behavior in social psychological theory and research (2010): 89-118.
- We very seldom use conscious thinking to make decisions. Most decisions are based on approach or avoidance reactions that occur long before (in brain time, that is, milliseconds before) conscious awareness is activated. The surprising fact is that we use conscious thinking and arguments much more to justify our decisions than to make them. See the classic study, Shafir, Eldar, Itamar Simonson, and Amos Tversky. “Reason-based choice.” Cognition 49.1 (1993): 11-36.
1. The subconscious mind seeks to fulfill the goals it perceives. These goals come from many sources, including parents, relatives, friends, teachers, and even TV ads. Many of these goals are not in a person’s best interest. Personal goals should be well thought out.
2. Many habits are programmed during childhood. Some, such as temper tantrums, impatience, and poor eating practices, are not acceptable in adulthood yet they still guide behavior.
3. Most of our behavior and decisions originate at a subconscious level—not a conscious one. People are unaware of this process because it is unconscious.
A more basic question is, “Why do people ignore that they have two minds?” Is it because it upsets them to think there is another me, and that that me is different from me? If they would just learn something about their subconscious mind, they would find it can be hugely rewarding because the subconscious, compared to the conscious:
Is more powerful (the conscious mind has the will but the subconscious mind has the power),
Processes information a million times faster,
Can do trillions of things at one time (as opposed to only one,)
Controls involuntary functions (exceptionally important to athletes,)
Has an infinite hard drive,
Is more creative (it thinks globally and uninhibited,)
Works for you 24/7 for life, and
Will be your genie provided you learn how it works and how to use it.
Harry W. Carpenter John Burr
-
The subconscious is 1,000,000 times more powerful than the conscious mind.
-
Approx. 95% of our life is directed by our subconscious mind (we do not possess the capability to direct our life from our conscious mind)
-
The subconscious can only direct our life in accordance with the way it has been programmed (it knows only the present instant)(it responds based upon inputs from our environment)
- The subconscious mind is programmed by inputs from our environment (mostly in our younger years – between 2 and 8 years of age)
The mind could be divided into three systems: the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the unconscious mind (Corsini, 2011).
The consciousness mind is you awareness at the present moment. You are aware of something on the outside as well as some specific mental functions happening on the inside. For example, you are aware of your environment, your breathing, or the chair that you are sitting on.
The subconscious mind or the preconscious mind consists of accessible information. You can become aware of this information once your direct your attention to it. Think of this as memory recall. You walk down the street to your house without consciously needing to be alert to your surroundings. You can talk on the cell phone and still arrive home safely. You can easily bring to consciousness the subconscious information about the path to your home. You can also easily remember phone numbers that you frequently use.
It is possible that some of what might be perceived to be unconscious becomes subconscious, and then conscious (e.g. a long-forgotten childhood memory suddenly emerges after decades). We can assume that some unconscious memories need a strong, specific trigger to bring them to consciousness; whereas, a subconscious memory can be brought to consciousness more easily
The unconscious mind, consisting of the primitive, instinctual wishes as well as the information that we cannot access. Although our behaviors might indicate the unconscious forces that drive them, we don’t have easy access to the information stored in the unconscious mind. During our childhood, we acquired countless memories and experiences that formed who we are today. However, we cannot recall most of those memories. They are unconscious forces (beliefs, patterns, subjective maps of reality) that drive our behaviors.
Another interesting aspect of the unconscious and conscious minds is that most of what we think we do consciously, we actually do unconsciously. Before you make any conscious decision, your unconscious has already made a decision before you. Thus, most of what we do on the daily basis inclusion your thoughts and behaviour is automatic or unconscious. This is why one of the most important goals of personal development is to gain more cosines awareness about yourself, other people, the world, and God.
Ivan Staroversky
✓BE MORE PRODUCTIVE, RELAXED, & SHARPER
BRITESMART | Improve memory, focus and energy with a blend of nutraceuticals
ZEN 12 | An hour of meditation benefits in just 12 minutes – meditation designed for today
NITROFOCUS | Use brainwave technology for more focus, motivation & results
Rachel Rofe
I think one thing about the subconscious mind is that repetition is really, really important. The more we do things over and over, the more ingrained it becomes in our subconscious.
I think this is why it’s really helpful to make gradual small changes versus huge shocks to the system.
I think it feels more “believable” to the subconscious.
-
The Subconscious is Still a Mystery. Nobody really knows what the subconscious is. The idea of the subconscious is just that, a theoretical conception. To date, the subconscious has not been localised to a specific part of the brain or brain regions. Although the unconscious part of the brain, the part that controls autonomic functions, such as breathing and heart rate, is thought to reside in the most ancient part of the brain-the brain stem-also known as the reptilian brain.
- Accessing Higher Powers. The subconscious can be linked to many strange and unusual occurrences. For example, have you ever thought about someone and then unexpectedly hear from or see them? Have you ever woken up in the morning at the precise time you needed to wake up without an alarm clock? Have you ever had a feeling that you should or shouldn’t do something and then later find out that your intuition was correct? Or what about hearing a voice that doesn’t appear to come from a human person? Winston Churchill, for example, is reported to have heard a voice saying “stop” just before he was about to enter his car. Seconds later a bomb exploded, which most likely would have killed him had he been inside his vehicle. All of these examples show just how powerful the subconscious part of our mind can be, and suggests that we are connected to some higher power or force that can guide us along our path in life-if only we are aware of it and tap into it.
Martin Haracz Farouk Radwann
-
Ever wondered why it’s very hard for people to change their beliefs? It’s because the subconscious mind can twist facts, alter perception or even let you see things that don’t exist just to support your beliefs.As a simple example people who think that others don’t like them can actually perceive people’s facial expressions in a different way that confirms their beliefs. It’s so normal for a person who doesn’t think that people like him to mistakenly interpret a look or a gesture in such a way that confirms his negative beliefs about himself.
- There is also one more interesting related fact about the subconscious mind. The objects we see are first rendered in our brains before we can see them. during that process the subconscious mind can interfere to let us see things differently. For example a person who fears snakes can think that a wooden stick is a snake even for few seconds before he realizes it’s just a wooden stick. Now in cases where checking whether the object really exists or not is not possible the person might live with incorrect perception of reality throughout his life.
There are a few very interesting facts that most of my clients are not aware of when we talk about the subconscious mind, and when I start showing them the evidence of that in their life they are absolutely shocked! Seeing their response when I prove to them what the subconscious can do; is priceless.
-
The subconscious mind cannot process negatives, like the words don’t and not. If I tell you don’t think of a pink balloon… what are you thinking about?? Exactly! A pink balloon! In everyday life you would tell yourself; “I will not gain weight” you’re subconscious only see and hear “I will gain weight”. That is the reason why we should make sure our affirmations and daily thoughts are structured in a positive way.
-
The picture you have created in your subconscious about who you are, what you look like and how you see yourself; is exactly what others think about you, and how they see you!! That is very scary! Some of us have a very poor picture in our subconscious mind about ourselves. When we change that picture back to the original blueprint (which is your deepest desires) we will hear people complimenting us more and telling us about the change they see in us.
-
Our subconscious is designed to help you get an answer or solve a problem you are struggling with using the quickest, fastest way to the solution. It works on the principle of least effort, follows the path of least resistance. And best of all it is using the programming that is stored in your subconscious mind, Not with any direction from the conscious mind.
-
You are in control of programming your subconscious! What you put in is what you get out. You can intentionally program your subconscious to get the results you desire in your life. The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is imagined. We can have a nice lunch at a coffee shop, and it will be a real event that took place. Then I can visualise for a period of 30 min or more another event (that is NOT real) maybe having lunch with someone else at a restaurant at the beach. The subconscious sees them both as REAL. When you look at the physical changes that happens inside your brain they are both using exactly the same process, creating a memory.
When we understand how the subconscious mind works, we will be able to change a lot of the things in our lives. This is an amazing, powerful tool to use to create the life we want. We need to understand how it works, when and where to use it and apply certain techniques to fully use this power to our advantage.
Karien De Bruyn Wes Bertrand & Kevin Koskella
-
Your subconscious enables you to perform all sorts of activities, both physical and mental, without consciously thinking about them. This is the nature of automatization. As you experience things and learn how to do things, these processes become integrated subconsciously, which allows you to focus on other things.
-
Significantly, your subconscious contains various beliefs and assessments about yourself that are mostly generated during childhood in the midst of many potentially traumatizing experiences, which sacrificed vital needs. As you attempted to maintain a stable connection with your caregivers, you integrated subconscious thought patterns and behaviors that served to keep you “safe.” These defense mechanisms can be consciously recognized and empathetically understood, so that various subconscious parts of yourself (fearful, anxious, confused, painful, and angry aspects) are compassionately connected with, instead of disowned and tragically expressed.
- It’s crucial to explore the facets of your subconscious mind that relate to early formation of your self-concept, so you aren’t disconnected from traumatic childhood experiences and, in turn, from your authenticity, or true-self. Such disconnection can manifest in many ways, including reliving or reenacting aspects of early traumas, subconsciously trying to normalize them or somehow resolve them. Mostly subconscious defense mechanisms such as dissociation, repression, rationalization, and denial hinder conscious practices of being honest, transparent, and vulnerable that foster intimate connection, enriching relationships, and happiness. So, as Nathaniel Branden noted, self-concept is destiny, which is why raising your awareness about developmental experiences and being attuned to your subconscious processes (e.g., “speaking the unspokens”) are so foundational to self-knowledge and integrated, healthy functioning.
There are a lot of things most people don’t know about it – and unless someone is actually trying to learn about their conscious versus their subconscious, most people don’t even know that there IS an actual “subconscious mind.”
Let me give you an example. Imagine you’re chatting with one of the women at work, or at your child’s softball game or whatever. For the sake of this example, let’s say she is someone who has never expressed any interest in self-development in general, or any types of alternative or new-age thought.
If you ask her, “Hey, Sue! Do you know the difference between your Conscious versus your Subconscious mind?” She’ll probably answer something to the effect of, “Well, Sure, Kath! When I’m conscious, I’m awake and thinking for myself. When I’m unconscious, I’m not awake or thinking.”
Then I might say, “But Sue, I asked about the SUBconscious… what about the SUBconscious?”
Sue might look a little puzzled, and as she thinks about it, she might finally say something like, “I guess it’s what’s happening UNDER my consciousness?”
In other words, thinking consciously about the relationship between our conscious and subconscious mind and how it affects our lives is not something most people even consider outside the Freudian model that the conscious mind being that part of us that thinks and makes decisions, and that the unconscious mind is the part that, for example, automatically runs our bodies and other processes without our needing to think about whether or not we will.
We don’t consciously go around all day saying, “Okay, lungs, breathe in, breathe out.” If that were the case we’d get nothing done – including sleep – because we would have to use our consciousness to keep on breathing. Of course there is far more to it than that.
However, let’s say that the quick interchange Sue and I have had over the water cooler or at the game sparked her interest. She might go home and start to search for answers about what the difference between the conscious and subconscious might be. If she is open-minded, she might dig into the teachings of teachers such as Ernest Holmes, Joseph Murphy, Judge Thomas Troward, and into some “newer” or more recent interpretations of the teachings of Jesus that most traditional religions do not necessarily teach.
One of the things she might be surprised to learn is that in the view of many teachers, the subconscious mind is the creative medium from which all results spring.
To use an analogy, we can view a garden plot – the dug up earth in your backyard – as the subconscious mind. In it you will plant a seed, and a corresponding plant will grow.
You as the gardener are acting as the “conscious mind.” You consciously decide to plant a seed, and you consciously take that seed and put it into the garden plot. You cover the seed, water it, nurture it, and somewhere under the soil, a wonderful thing begins to happen. The wonderful earth reacts with the seed, and with the continued encouragement of the gardener through watering and ensuing that the seed does not get dug up or otherwise disturbed, behold! A little seedling pops out of the soil, reaching for the sun!
Is that not a miracle? Is that not one of the most wonderful examples that we are given to illustrate how our subconscious works?
So, that’s one of the things most people don’t know – that the subconscious is where the creative action occurs.
Another, equally important thing most people don’t know is that this explanation has been around for thousands of years.
Your readers may or may not agree, but it rang true for me. It has to do with one of the “aha moments” I had with this was when I was listening to a lecture by Dr. Joseph Murphy. He talked about passages in the Bible where people continually read and take literally the idea that “man” is the head of the household and “woman” should submit to man.
This, he emphasized (more than once!), is not to be taken literally. He explained that “man” is the “conscious mind,” and “woman” (or wife) is the “subconscious mind.” When you read about “obedience,” what you are actually reading is the creation process using a human analogy.
Human beings are built so that in order to create a new human, the male (conscious) has to plant the seed (idea) somewhere, right? Well, you can’t plant it anywhere but in the creative medium which, in this case, happens to be the female body (or subconscious).
After that seed is planted, the subconscious cannot help but produce what was planted unless something interferes with the process.
Finally, this is one of the most important things I feel people don’t know about the subconscious.
You do not have to know how it will bring forth the result. And, in fact, you should not try to educate it or force it to create something in a certain way.
Using the analogy of the garden. If you plant a seed, should you try to alter the earth or tell it how to do its job? Maybe sit there for a few hours making a few suggestions on how it should react with the seed?
Of, if you are looking towards bringing a human life into this world, and the mother is now carrying this little human-in-the-making, can you talk to her body and tell it how it should form, feed, and protect the growing baby? How ridiculous that sounds! Actually, anyone who would suggest such a thing would just sound like an idiot. No one who knows anything about how babies are formed within the womb would dare to suggest that he or she has a better way. Of course not! Everyone pretty much understands that the nature of birth is a miraculous thing, and that while we may not understand all the mysteries surrounding how all this came to be, it doesn’t much matter, does it?
As Joseph Murphy (and others) says over and over throughout his books and lectures, don’t try to figure out how something will come about. When it comes to the subconscious, its ways are beyond knowing. It is not our job to figure out how.
Our job, using our conscious minds, is to figure out what we want, and to plant that seed firmly into the subconscious mind, nurture the idea, and allow the subconscious to get to work creating it.
Colin Robertson
- Just how much it controls. People usually think about the subconscious mind as “that thing that takes over while dreaming,” but it is far more than that. Thinking, moving and regulation of bodily functions are all handled by the subconscious mind. For example, when was the last time you consciously thought, “Okay, I’m going to move each one of my fingers so that they perfectly type the words that I am thinking right now.” That is all done by the subconscious and is just one of many examples of how it does things we take for granted.
- How much you can influence it with visualization. With all of the control that our subconscious has over our thoughts and actions, we do very little to consciously influence it. A great example of how people do influence it is through visualization. Athletes are the most notable group that use visualization as a tool to perform better, but any one of us can do the same. Visualization is so powerful, in fact, that according to psychoneuromuscular theory your muscles can actually get stronger just by visualizing using them. To get started with visualization, here is a simple exercise that I personally do every day.
Spiritual Bent:
The Subconscious is SO powerful that it can beat our hearts, breathe our bodies, and cause all cells to perform their various duties. If that Subconscious Mind is THAT powerful, it is evident that it is also the home of our Highest Intelligence. Turning our desires over to the Subconscious Mind, via affirmations and intentions, is synonymous to praying, for that is where the Divine resides within ourselves.
Scientific Bent:
If we can allow our left/logical brain to get out of the way, we create space for the right brains reality to come forward, creating more balance & joy in our awareness and in our life. Right brain is the home of the Subconscious, as explored by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD., author of My Stroke of Insight.
Meditation:
We engage the right brain when we meditate – the left brain moves into a state of rest and the right brain is allowed to be more engaged and brought forward. From this space, if we lay our desires and intentions, we can manifest and create intentionally in a more effective manner. It is the balance of both hemisphere’s of the brain that empower us.
Gwen Nitya Eby