The Power of Your 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, which each play a different part in our lives.

Your conscious mind is your daily operating system, the rational, reasoning level. Your conscious 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. First of all, it is the control centre of all your involuntary body functions (heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, etc.).
It is also 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 generally 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 by the thoughts that flow through us, and directing the ship to its destination. Your subconscious mind is the crew of the ship. It acts upon the thoughts, without question. It follows the captain’s orders. Apart from that, though, the crew has also to a very large degree the deciding vote on the orders the captain is going to give. Although the captain doesn’t really know this is happening, he bases his orders on the knowledge the crew holds about destinations and routings that the ship has gone before.

You might appreciate, in view of the above, that your subconscious mind is very powerful, docile and maybe even stupid. It will always follow the thoughts given by the conscious mind. It is “worth-less”, does not judge, therefore does not question the validity of any thought. Whether “good” or “bad”, the subconscious mind will do whatever it is being told by the conscious mind. To put it differently, what you believe is what you create.
It also works the other way around, because: what really happens when we “experience” something? We see, hear, feel, smell or taste something. Our senses provide the first input. We then “filter” these pictures, sounds and feelings (the 3 most important ones) through our beliefs, values, memory, our internal language, decisions made earlier and our ancestry. So basically we filter all the information through our subconscious mind. That means that much of the sensory input gets deleted, distorted or generalised in our frame work of reference. We end up with an internal representation of what has happened. This in turn affects our physiology, and makes us “feel” a certain way about that event. The way we feel about stuff, finally, will determine how we react or respond to that event.

If you repeatedly say to yourself “I cannot afford it”, you create a nasty internal representation. Your subconscious mind then filters this statement through your existing beliefs and values, takes you at your word and will make sure you will feel lousy, and will not be in a position to buy what you want. Which will reinforce the belief, of course, and you will create more of it. On the other hand, if you really want something, and put repetition, faith and expectancy in you getting the desired outcome (and feel good about it), you will generally get it.

Running your external experiences through your internal filtering system called “the subconscious mind” makes many of your behaviours and reactions habitual. You’ve created a map of the world (which is not the world itself!), all the new info coming in is set off against your map of the world, and you subsequently base your decisions on that map, even though it’s a distorted, deleted and generalised one. The truth is: as long as you don’t know a better map, you’ll use the old one!

Dealing with changing beliefs and feelings, and creating specific focus to create a new map of your world forms a big part of the coaching work I do, but there is much you can do yourself, once you “get the picture”, and realise that you are the creator of it all, and can undo and redo any map that you use to navigate with in your life.

First of all, be aware of the repeating patterns in your life. If you often use “never” and “always” in your language, 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 or filter in force, causing you to experience the same event over and over (and feeling lousy about it). Try to find out what the emotion is you would like to feel, and work towards creating that feeling by constantly focussing on it.

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!”), and thus a new roadmap.

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 and 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. Feeeeeeeeeeel the way you want to feel. Pass the picture over to your subconscious mind, and trust and believe that the outcome will be as you wish.
• 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 and feelings. 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 and give you a good feeling. For instance: “I am willing to change. I release the need for resistance. Everything in my life works smoothly and with ease”. Repeat your affirmations as often as needed, especially when you are challenged and see evidence to the contrary.
• Hire a life coach who can help you achieve your goals by giving your brain a proper washing. Brainwashing is the way to go!

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. Feel good about the changing you. You will be amazed at the speed with which 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 with our frame of reference called “the subconscious mind”. 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.
“Excuse me, your life is waiting”, by Lynn Grabhorn

Marc de Bruin
Landmarc Coaching & Health Solutions
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