Mindset: The Battle Between the Conscious and Unconscious Mind
Program Yourself Into a Growth Mindset
- Why is it that when it comes to trusting the universe we immediately put parameters on what is possible?
- Why is it that accepting yourself as an infinite being of light is so hard for us to believe?
- Why is it that we feel we must consciously understand the magnificence of the unknown in order for it to work in our favor?
Why is it so hard for us to let go and trust without a need to understand or figure it all out?
Unconsciously we are moving and performing tasks all the time with zero thought behind them. Our motor skills are busy working away so our conscious mind can think about a hundred different things. Even though we work between the conscious and unconscious daily, it seems there is a part of us that believes we have to understand everything in order for it to be possible for us.
Our conscious mind likes to make sense of our environment. It likes to see the line between step A and step B. It likes to know right from wrong, and it likes problem-solving. The unconscious mind isn’t concerned with any of that; its only concern is supporting the beliefs and narratives programmed into it.
When you are looking to grow your mindset it is important to take a close look at the relationship between your conscious and unconscious mind. Both play a role in how you see your life and both have insight into where your work will be.
Seeing Isn’t Always Believing
There’s a scene in the second Matrix movie, Matrix Reloaded, where Neo and Councilor Hamann are talking. The councilor is describing the machines that keep them alive in Zion that he knows nothing about. He understands he doesn’t need to know how they work in order for them to work. He then says, “I have absolutely no idea how you are able to do some of the things you do, but I believe there’s a reason for that as well.” I have always loved this scene because it reminds me that I don’t need to know how everything works, I just need to know that it works. Like plumbing or electricity. I trust these things to work in my life and I don’t put energy into trying to figure them out. It’s a knowing.
Your conscious mind needs to learn to let go of trying to figure it all out. It needs to connect with your inner knowing so you can find happiness and begin to reprogram the negative unconscious patterns into healthy ones so you can get where you want to be.
This feels impossible at first, but others have done it, and you can too.
Conscious Thought vs. Unconscious Thought
We are always taking in and processing our environment. We use our lens on reality to determine what is necessary information and what we can discard. Your conscious thoughts narrate to you what your unconscious mind is programmed to feel. Or rather, your unconscious mind is using a lifetime of experiences based on early developmental programming to make decisions.
This is why change and growth can be so hard.
You can want to change and have every intention to change, but until you are aware of the unconscious programming behind your decision-making, you won’t change.
Think of a friend you know really well. You know all their patterns and you can easily see how they get in their own way. Now let’s suppose you know their mom, and she’s the same as your friend. You can see how or why they adapted certain unhealthy or healthy programming. It was unconsciously passed down to them. So when someone says “you’re just like your mom” you can begin to see how or why that happens.
If you have been conditioned to some negative or destructive patterns in your unconscious mind and you are ready to explore the root cause, you better be ready to do some work.
Your thoughts and feelings are going to lie to you to keep you safe based on old programming. And if you want to move beyond that programming you have to be ready to step outside your normal decision-making skills and start to create new pathways in your brain that support this new way of thinking.
This is how you move into a growth mindset. It is the difference between saying, “That’s just who I am” and “I can do better.”
Once you begin this process your unconscious will, over time, start to adapt to this new conscious way of thinking and you will no longer be trapped in your old narrative.
The Conscious Dreamer
If I were to ask you…
- What do you want out of life?
- What do you want to see and experience?
- What kind of job do you want?
- What kind of relationships do you desire?
- Where do you want to live?
Your conscious mind would start dreaming up all kinds of things and you would start to feel the joy and gratitude of having those things. It feels good! Dreaming is fun. But then If I asked, why aren’t you doing those things? Your conscious mind would move from dreamland to the analytical mind. It would start to tell you all the reasons why it wasn’t possible for you and you would be pulled back into those limiting patterns programmed into you from your childhood.
- What if you decided to allow yourself to not know how or why, but stay in the dream state? Remember it’s that conscious need to know everything that slows you down and gets in your way.
- What if you just decided that what you wanted was the truth for you and started acting from it?
- What if you started to accept your needs as worthy and true without your inner critic judging you or trying to dictate how it will happen?
Unconscious Servant
All of your unconscious thoughts are programs that run on the information you feed them. You become a slave to these programs until you start consciously taking your power back. You get to create your reality and your unconscious mind will become a servant to the new programs you feed it.
Trying to create a new narrative takes work because you can’t plan everything out. All you can do is learn to sidestep the old programming by paying attention to the feelings and triggers associated with it.
Every time you have a great idea that is silenced by the unconscious telling you it’s stupid, you are present at this crossroad. You can continue to belittle yourself and the things you want or you can stop yourself and start inputting a new narrative.
You don’t need to know how it all works, the universe is way too big for us to understand. The moment you start to play out the same stories in your head about why or why not something is possible for you, you leave the field of the infinite.
A Record of The Past Does Not Need to Determine Your Future
Up until now, you have made decisions based on your past experiences. Some of these experiences were so traumatic that you relive them constantly and your unconscious mind keeps them handy in order to protect you and keep you alive.
For example, when you are meeting new people you probably have some fear of rejection coming from your unconscious mind. This fear might not make any sense, and everyone else is probably feeling it on some level too, but fear is stronger than logic, and your unconscious mind is there to protect you from the rejection you felt as a child.
A simple (not easy) way to look at consciously reprogramming this fear would be to allow yourself to imagine the desired result and use those emotions to feel something different than fear. The unconscious will slowly begin to view the scenario of meeting new people as safe or fun.
Feel Your Emotions
We are emotional beings. It is important to put emotion behind what we want to feel. Like attracts like. So if you are always thinking the worst then that is what the unconscious is programming you to believe and experience.
As you decide to grow your mindset you will inevitably be faced with old programs that must be transformed for you to make new decisions. You must learn to stay focused on the end result and use emotions you want to relate to.
Your unconscious mind is going to fight for its survival, so this may feel like a tug-of-war. Like you’re lying to yourself, but that’s where trust comes in. Just keep focusing on where you want to be and know that it is true for you. Like a baby throwing a tantrum, it will calm down and see you are no longer interested in going along with and rewarding bad behavior.
Take Action
You’ve probably already noticed some of your limiting belief patterns and have asked yourself, “why do I always do that?” It’s your unconscious mind running the show, and it is outdated, and time for change.
The best tool I have to help me through the hard times when the inner child in me is acting out and resisting change is to breathe. Consciously staying focused on what results I want, I calm my body and mind with some slow mindful breaths. Inhaling for 4 seconds and exhaling for 4 seconds.
The longer I work on my own programming the fewer tantrums I see. I have developed an entire 4-week course to help others do the same so you can move from a fixed to a growth mindset with Breath Mindset.
Come join me and together we can identify and reprogram your unconscious mind into the conscious reality you seek.
Originally published at http://heart-lightstudios.com on September 20, 2022.
