What is the Subconscious Mind?

Have you ever watched a really speedy typist in action? Her hands move on the keyboard with fluidity. Each time she hits a key on the keyboard that key represents a letter but she's not consciously thinking about where the key for "a" is and where the key for "k" is. The first few times she tried to type she had to consciously select the keys but, as she practiced typing, little by little her subconscious mind took over the task. Now she's able to answer the phone and talk to you with her conscious mind and continue to type with her subconscious mind.

The Subconscious Mind Versus The Conscious Mind

The image of an iceberg is a common way to describe the structure of your mind. The conscious mind is above the water. It's the part of your mind you use to make the rational choices you encounter every day. The subconscious or unconscious mind is more mysterious. The subconscious stores memories and controls all our bodily processes. Most of the time, if you stand up and walk across the room to open the door, your conscious mind is thinking of something else. It's not concentrating on getting up out of the chair, putting one foot in front of the other, and opening up the door. Your subconscious mind takes your body through these motions while your conscious mind is thinking about dinner or how to get your essay finished.

The Subconscious Mind and Emotions

The subconscious mind also has a lot to do with controlling our emotions. Perhaps when you turned off your alarm clock this morning the song that was playing was one of your ex-girlfriend's favorite songs. You didn't consciously think about the song, but it registers in your subconscious and you spend the day down in the dumps because you still have feelings for her. When you want to go back into your memories to think about the very first date you had with her, you have to bring those memories back from the catalog of your subconscious before you can bring it into your conscious awareness to analyze why that relationship ended.

In addition to these types of powerful memories, the subconscious mind also contains our most cherished core beliefs. These beliefs, whether they are positive or negative, are anchored there until we reprogram them. If a child is always told she's ugly by her parents or her siblings, she may accept what they say even if it isn't true. She grows up believing she's unattractive. As an adult, even if it's clear that she's blossomed from a lovely child to a beautiful woman, when she looks into the mirror she sees herself as unattractive. Her subconscious mind continues to control her perception of herself. Negative messages told to us by those closest to us have the power to do psychological damage. Once that damage has been done, it takes a reprogramming of the subconscious mind to change our feelings, beliefs, or values.

Leveraging the Subconscious

Studies have shown that over 70% of our day-to-day activities are controlled by the subconscious mind. Now that we consciously realize the power of the subconscious, how can we leverage this power for personal and professional development? The answer is simpler than you may expect. We can reprogram the core beliefs and values of our subconscious mind. By doing this we can create permanent and profound change. We can feed our minds the positive, life-affirming messages that we need to change our poor habits and negative psychological patterns.

Habits are very hard to break. Even when we try to consciously make changes, without reprogramming the subconscious to cooperate with our plans, we sometimes slip back into our old, destructive patterns. The over-eater, the smoker, the alcoholic, and the cocaine addict all fall into this category. They want to change their lives but the desire and conscious will to change isn't enough.

Think about the child whose mother eases every psychological hurt with a big piece of chocolate cake or a bowl of macaroni and cheese. The child associates those rich, high-calorie foods with comfort and eats even when he isn't hungry. As an adult, this young man doesn't understand why he can't stick to the healthy habits he wants to cultivate for his life. As soon as he's stressed, which is often, he goes to the refrigerator for an ice cream bar. He needs to find a way to experience comfort another way that's less destructive to his health.

Many of our subconscious behaviors cause obstacles for our personal and professional growth. We may have some idea why these behavioral patterns occur or we may have repressed memories of traumatic events that are sealed deep within our subconscious.

Reprogramming the Subconscious

The subconscious mind is mysterious, however it can be controlled and reprogrammed. Hypnosis and self-hypnosis are two ways that can be used to alter the subconscious mind. Think of your subconscious mind as a powerful computer that only understands positive messages. It may have a vast storehouse of memories and data, but it can still be controlled by the efforts of the conscious mind. You can use your conscious mind to reprogram the habits, beliefs, and values that you want to change.

You can use repetitive positive affirmations or audio suggestions to alter the inner workings of your subconscious. Sometimes it helps if your conscious mind isn't fighting you along the way. You can give yourself these messages when you're about to drift off to sleep or in a meditative state. For example, let's say you want to become more comfortable in social situations. As you're trying to give yourself the chance to absorb a new vision of yourself as a much more outgoing person, your conscious mind objects by feeding you the message: I'm really shy and don't like parties. When you bypass your conscious mind, by listening to an audio with subliminal messages, you don't have to fight the self-perception you want to correct.

This website will offer many tools to help you make exciting positive changes in yourself.