... the Subconscious Mind

The hidden powers of our subconscious mind

... Article by by © marc de bruin

Compiled by ... the editor of Use Nature, Dieter Luske N.D.-D.C.H.-D.M.H.-D.H

Holistic Therapy Consultant - Gold Coast - Canungra

Powers of our subconscious mind

We are all split personalities. Did you know that? It is true. We have one "mind", but this mind has two distinct aspects, that each play a different part in our lives.

Illustration by Giselle

Your conscious mind is your daily operating system, the rational, reasoning level. Your thoughts and all the chatter that goes on day in, day out, form part of your conscious mind.

Your subconscious mind, on the other hand, is the irrational level. It is the control centre of all your involuntary body functions (heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, etc.) and the collection of memories of everything that you have ever experienced in your life. Moreover, it is the collection of thoughts, beliefs and convictions you have ever formed, based upon these experiences. Apart from being "just" a collection, your subconscious mind is also the frame of reference for making decisions in the future. You base your actions on the beliefs you hold, and on all that which you have experienced before.

You can liken yourself to a ship. Your conscious mind is the captain of the ship, giving orders, and directing the ship to its destination. Your subconscious mind is the crew of the ship. It follows the orders, without question. And it will carry out any order over and over, until it is withdrawn, or a new order is given.

You might appreciate that your subconscious mind is not only very powerful, but also very docile and maybe even stupid. It will always follow the orders given by the conscious mind. It is "worth-less", does not judge, therefore does not question the validity of any order.

Whether "good" or "bad", the subconscious mind will do whatever it is being told by the conscious mind.

If you repeatedly say to yourself "I cannot afford it", your subconscious mind takes you at your word and will make sure you will not be in a position to buy what you want. On the other hand, if you really want something, and put repetition, faith and expectancy in you getting the desired outcome, you will get it -unless stronger negative (subconscious) ideas are at work, of course.

Every thought is a cause, every condition is an effect. Thought always comes first, and not everyone is aware of that. It is a universal truth that your outside world is a reflection of what goes on inside of you. We all have our universes within this huge multiverse, and no-one sees your world the same as you do.

You see the things you do because of your beliefs (i.e. what you hold as true in and about your world), and your beliefs are nothing more than thoughts about things.

Your beliefs are formed through 5 filters:

Your education, your environment, past outcomes in your life, events in your life now, and your creative thinking.

Moreover, beliefs are instilled by people suggesting you things and you accepting them 'heterosuggestion', and by you coming up with a suggestion and accepting it 'autosuggestion'.

Everything that goes on in your world on each of the 5 fields, whether through auto- or heterosuggestion, creates your view on life, and at one stage all these views (i.e. beliefs) percolate down into your subconscious mind, after which you do not "think" about them anymore, but do act and react on them. Your behaviour and reactions have become habitual .

Liken it to learning to drive. At first it takes a lot of conscious effort by you and your instructor to steer your way to traffic, but after years of experience you just do it. Or take the funnelweb spider: because you have once suggested (or somebody told you) that they are dangerous (which trickled down into your subconscious mind), you'll get a fright every time you see one.

Your subconscious mind is also the seat of most of your emotional reactions. Your beliefs about "things" create your response to that "thing" happening. It either gives you a pleasurable feeling, or a painful feeling. So as far as the chicken and the egg go, your emotional reactions to happenings in your life are dictated by the value labels you have put (by your thoughts) on these happenings. It is also the other way around. Your beliefs create many of the experiences you have in life, because you focus on these experiences happening, and do not focus on other possibilities.

Thought comes first, so much is clear. It is said that we are born with only two base emotions: the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. All the other emotional reactions are acquired.

The solution to all sorts of problems and negative experiences starts with realising that we have two very distinct aspects to our mind and the realisation that our experiences and reactions are based upon the beliefs and convictions we have stored in our subconscious mind.

We have to acknowledge that we, with our conscious mind, are captain of the ship, and we have to acknowledge that we have an enormous crew at our disposal which we can use at our will.

Also to be realised is, that most of our behaviour is habitual, or on auto-pilot. At one stage the captain has given orders (the conscious mind has), and the crew is carrying these orders out (the subconscious mind is). The tricky part in this is usually, that the captain has long forgotten that he has given several orders in the past, but doesn't hand out any new ones either. So the ship is sailing, and the captain is wondering why he does not reach the next port, and why the ship is constantly running into sandbanks.

Again, once our subconscious mind is given an idea, it begins to execute it. Whether good or bad, the new idea becomes your focus, and what you focus on is what you get (the good old laws of "attraction" and "cause and effect"; a whole different topic!). If you keep stating that your life is miserable, and nothing ever goes right, be sure that you will generally get more of the same. On the other hand, if you are grateful for everything that happens in your life, and keep focusing on all the good things that come to you, you can be sure to get more of that down the line. I have put it very much simplified, here, but it does work that way.

Dealing with changing your beliefs and creating specific focus forms a big part of the coaching work I do, but there is much you can do yourself, once you "get the picture".

First of all, be aware of the heterosuggestions that are influential in you and of the repeating patterns in your life. If you use "never" and "always" often in your sentences, be sure you're running an old show. For instance: "why is this always happening to me?", or "why does this never go right?". Become very attuned to these sort of expressions and thoughts, and to when they happen, and decide firmly to change them.

Further, be aware of the feelings certain repeating events evoke in you. Do you like them? Good; keep them. If not, there might be an underlying negative subconscious belief in force, causing you to experience the same event over and over. Try to find out what the emotion is you would like to feel, and work towards creating that feeling.

Next, be aware of the fact that you have once been able to create certain beliefs in your mind that now get you unwanted results, which means that you are also able to un-create and re-create beliefs to get you desired results. Remind yourself of the infinite power of your subconscious mind, and of the fact that it never sleeps. It's working for you day and night.

Furthermore, be aware of the fact that although you might not feel you have "chosen" all events in your life, you can definitely choose how you respond to them. By changing your response, you change your outlook on life, and will create a new belief in your subconscious mind ("it is not so bad after all!").

So what specifically are ways to create new subconscious beliefs (and thus a different life experience)? I will name just a few.

• The passing-over technique : drench your subconscious mind with the desired outcome; create a dream like picture of you doing, being or having what you want to, and focus only on that. Pass the picture over to your subconscious mind, and trust and believe that the outcome will be as you wish.

• The visualisation technique : visualise strongly what you would like to be, do or have. If you, for instance, have to do some public speaking, visualise a snapshot of the audience applauding for you because they loved your speech, and see yourself being happy with the wonderful response to your talk. Go fully into the emotions attached to it.

• The mental movie technique : basically similar to the visualisation technique, but now completely in "movie-form".

• The meditation technique : get yourself in a drowsy state akin to sleep, and then impress your subconscious mind with the desired outcome. You'll find that you are more receptive because your resistance is lowered when you get into a meditative state. This is why all the techniques work very well just before falling asleep or just after waking up.

• The affirmation technique : create written affirmations that claim the state you want to be in. For instance: "I am willing to change. I release the need for resistance. Everything in my life goes smoothly and with ease". Repeat your affirmations as often as needed, especially when you are challenged and see evidence to the contrary.

• Hire a coach who can help you achieve your goals!

Important things to remember: don't get stressed, and try to push things. Stay focused (very important!), aware and believe, trust and expect that the desired result will come about. You will be amazed about how your life changes.

On a final note: generally we use techniques to change habits or experiences that we do not like. But why not use the same techniques to amplify and boost habits and create experiences that we do like? If you have positive beliefs about certain things, and these things come to pass in your life, you are easily able to create even more of these, by working on the strength of the underlying beliefs. If you acknowledge that you have all the tools needed, you can use them for any specific purpose: renovate a dilapidated and worn-out house, or extend the beautiful mansion you're living in already.

Realise that we have the ability to create our life's experience, and that we have been doing that from the day we were born. Make the choice to start using this ability consciously NOW, in order for you to create new subconscious beliefs that honour you and are more effective than ones you might have using up till now, or to create even more of the experiences you were having already. Your life becomes a very interesting journey when you do. It is never too late!

Highly recommended reading:

"The power of your subconscious mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy.

Article provided by :

Marc De Bruin

landmarc coaching & health solutions

Read also our articles on Brain Plasticity

Compiled by ... the editor of Use Nature, Dieter Luske

* Disclaimer - Any general advice given in any article should not be relied upon and should not be taken as a substitute for visiting a qualified medical Doctor.