One of the most important things to understand about your mind is your subconscious. Many treat this as a magic wish granter that only needs the right direction. Or as a separate entity that can either help you or hurt you. In reality, your subconscious mind is a metaphor. There’s not a section of your mind that is the conscious part and a separate section that is the subconscious part. It’s related to the idea that we only use ten percent of our brains. That can lead us to think that if we could figure out how to use the rest, we’d be achieving a lot more.
In reality, this is only partially true. While we do use ten percent of our brains, we are always using a different ten percent. It’s very similar to your muscles. At any given time you are only using about ten percent of your muscles. Even doing something like swimming, where you use a large percentage of your muscles, most of them are just along for the ride. For our purposes, the subconscious is the part of your mind that is not part of your conscious awareness. Based on various scientific studies, it’s estimated that our five senses are being hit with about a million bits of information every second. All the sounds, smells feelings, sights, and tastes. But if we had to consciously process all of this as it was happening, we’d go nuts! So our conscious only perceives a very small fraction of what is happening outside of us, as well as inside of us. Remember what you had for dinner two weeks ago? I don’t either. But it’s in there somewhere. What was the second present you opened for your eighth birthday? Your conscious doesn’t know, but it’s in there somewhere! (Assuming you got presents on your eighth birthday).
How does our conscious and subconscious interact? Here’s a metaphor to help us understand. In many spy-type movies, they have a situation where the hero is running through the streets, with a microphone in his or her ear. And back at headquarters, using a spy satellites, local cameras, etc., they guide the hero by telling him or her to “turn left here, go up the stairs on the right,” etc. Your subconscious mind is kind of like that. However, it’s a lot more, and it’s also a lot less. It’s a lot more in that instead of just telling us what’s ahead of us and what’s behind us, it’s also calculating the likely outcome if we go left or right. It takes all that massive information that is hitting our senses and is calculating our moves like a super-advanced chess player. Not just the move in front of us, but also thousands of moves ahead.
Of course, since there are millions of variables, and millions of possible outcomes, it can only give us an approximation. And instead of telling us “go right,” or “go left,” it just gives us feelings. Intuitions. Vague notions. To the extent you can listen for and follow the advice of these vague notions and intuitions, you can achieve massive success. The mistake is expecting our subconscious to not only give us a clear and specific message but one that is guaranteed. Because there are so many variables in our day to day interactions, especially when all those variables involve other people who are also trying to get what they want, it is mathematically impossible to calculate with any degree of certainty and clarity of what to do in any given situation. However, there are two ways to dramatically improve how well you can listen to your very best friend for life, your subconscious mind.
Always Looking Out For You
One is to realize that the only reason for your brain is to get your needs met. Your subconscious is part of you. It is not a separate entity off to the side or floating out in space somewhere. It’s main and only function is to help you get your needs met. However, we all come only preprogrammed with our basic instincts. Unless we take the time to figure out what we want, it will only look for opportunities to satisfy our basic instincts in any way possible. This is why many people end up in relationships that aren’t healthy, eat food that isn’t healthy and otherwise do things that aren’t healthy physically, emotionally or spiritually. The first step in getting your subconscious on your side is to give it very clear directions of what you want.
How to Program It
How do you do this? Tell it! Be clear, be specific, and use many emotions. Pictures and especially feelings are language that the subconscious understands. It will also help if your desire is in the near term instead of far out into the future. For example, of you are single, and you would like the perfect partner, there are a lot of steps, and, therefore, a lot of variables, in between where you are and where you want to be. Your subconscious has no clear idea on whether or not the people you encounter will be perfect partners or not. On the other hand, if you realize that having an active dating life will likely precede having the ideal partner that will be much easier for your subconscious to sort for while you’re out moving through the world. For example, it’s easier for your subconscious to find attractive people without wedding rings or other evidences of commitment. It’s also important to spend a lot of time programming it. A common mistake is to think of something once or twice, and then think that’s enough. When you do that, your subconscious won’t know any difference between things you actually want, and things you’re daydreaming about. The more you focus on what you really want, the quicker your subconscious will realize that’s something that is very important, and that will take priority.
How to Trust It
Another way your subconscious won’t think you’re serious is if you don’t listen to it. Remember, the only way your subconscious can communicate to you is through feelings. Intuitions. Hunches. If you feel hunches and don’t respond, it may conclude that you aren’t serious after all. You can show your subconscious you’re serious by following through on your hunches. If you feel like going into a certain shop, for example, but can’t consciously figure out why, go in and have a look around. If you have an intuition that somebody may seem interesting, go up and ask them for the time or ask for directions. Just take some kind of action, and see what happens. Remember, though that these hunches and intuitions are based on probabilities. The manifesting of your desires is going to be the result of very long and sometimes confusing sequence of events. Your hunches are there to guide you along the way, not deliver you an instant and perfect result every single time. More will be spent on a later section on this.
Exercise
In your daily journal, write down any hunches or intuitions that you felt.
Did you follow them?
What happened?
Did you feel a hunch and not follow through?
Spend one full minute with your eyes closes visualizing something that you’d really like. Something that is likely to get within a few weeks with consistent action.
