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The stuff dreams are made of, and nightmares. The subconscious mind is the part of the mind of which we aren’t fully aware, but which influences one’s actions and feelings. We’re talking about memories, beliefs, fears, and your subjective ideas of reality
Your subconscious mind is extremely powerful, and can, whether you realize it or not, change the path you choose in life. It can create a reality you didn’t think you asked for. Learning to choose our thoughts effectively, both on the conscious and subconscious level helps you create a better reality for yourself. Whether it’s personal, financial, work, or (as we concentrate on here at HIMC) happiness.
Tapping into your subconscious can play an integral part of your life.
The subconscious mind is your brain’s memory bank, with unlimited gigabytes, able to store every thought, every incident, every victory. Here’s the rub, your subconscious memory is perfect, but your conscious recall is not.
Let’s just say the subconscious is your hard drive, and its job is to store and retrieve data. Your hard drive is your master file, and you can control the files before they are stored. You can also change your perception of what you think you stored. It’s programmed to your patterns, so it obeys your conscious mind. It doesn’t have the ability to think or reason independently.
Your subconscious is commanded by your conscious and works to make the algorithm fit your emotional patterns, your hopes, and your dreams.
Subconscious is Lazy
Your brain is lazy, probably the laziest part of your body. Like your autonomic nervous system, it wants everything to run on autopilot. Once you develop habits, emotional triggers, and negative thoughts, your subconscious grabs onto them and sees them as the norm. Then it works hard to make you uncomfortable when you try new things or try to change set patterns. Even thinking about doing something different, changing a habit, or trying something you fear triggers feelings of discomfort and unease. If the discomfort keeps you from making the changes or trying something new, the subconscious wins! Yes, no need to store anything new!
Pushing Out of the Comfort Zone
Living within your comfort zone is easy, but no one ever grew by being complacent. Staying in your comfort zone is the enemy of creativity and growth. To grow, you must push past the feeling of awkwardness and discomfort.
There are many ideas on pushing past your discomfort, including counting to five. When your mind tries to talk you out of going for a run (the couch is so comfy), give it five seconds, then get off your butt and into your running shoes. Once you’ve pushed past the idea of the discomfort, you’ll be happier, and you won. Now you’re one step closer to making running a habit.
Fake it Until You Make It
You’ll hear people say this is bad, but they aren’t looking at it correctly. Don’t let your subconscious keep you from trying new things because it tells you you’re going to suck at it. You sucked at crawling, then walking, then running, right? Doing something, no matter how small, faking confidence, is better than doing nothing.
Controlling your Subconscious Mind
Your thoughts have power in your life. What you think about, dwell on, believe in, feel intensely about, all manifest to be part of your life.
When you control your subconscious, you are being intentional with your thoughts, and putting the right ideas out into the universe, and therefore training your subconscious.(By now, I’ve typed subconscious so many times, you’d think my fingers would find the keys without my help, LOL)
You need to be specific about your life and goals.
When you focus on a new habit, soon you don’t even have to think about it. Brushing your teeth, for instance. Many people brush their teeth at least twice a day. It’s automatic, you don’t even think about it. Just go into the bathroom and it’s part of your routine. You grab the toothbrush, add toothpaste, brush, and rinse. Easy peasy, no thought involved. Your subconscious knows the drill.
Now, change it up. In this case, the goal is to brush your teeth automatically with your non-dominant hand. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, from beginning to end. Say you’re right handed: open the cabinet with the opposite hand you’d usually use, grab the toothbrush with your left hand and the toothpaste with your right (or opposite of how you’d normally put paste on your brush), now brush your teeth with your left hand. Notice how much slower you are? How you must think about your movements? Because your subconscious has this task on autopilot. The whole time you’re doing this task, your brain is asking you to please stop and do it the right way.
You’ve pushed out of your comfort zone. Keep at it. And try to brush with your non-dominant hand for a week. You’ll find that each time it gets easier, and your mind tells you you’re doing it wrong less and less.
Set a goal, and be specific.
Then take the steps to get there. Baby steps are fine, so your subconscious doesn’t complain too much.
When you stop listening to the negative patterns that your prehistoric mind thinks are keeping you safe, you take control.
It’s That Simple
As with the brushing your teeth example, anything new you want to try, your subconscious is going to fight you, try to tell you the reasons it’s not smart or not possible, or how much more fun sitting in the recliner and flipping through channels will be.
How do you change this thought pattern? Train your brain! It’s as simple as ask, believe, act, receive. This is the cornerstone of the Law of Attraction, and your path to happiness. Of course, there’s more to it, but knowing how powerful your subconscious is gives you the tools to control it.
I highly suggest reading Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior