You know how it goes: you read something, you think you understand it, you intellectually grasp it, like, for example, that childhood traumas can affect us throughout our lives, you see how it works, but it doesn’t quite sink in completely, it doesn’t become part of your foundational knowledge, your understanding of life. And since it’s not a part of you, I can’t really apply that knowledge properly, you can spin around it, this way and that, but ultimately, it won’t work…
And then suddenly, boom: a token drops – and that’s it, it becomes a part of you and not only can you work with it, but I also instantly know how, as if by magic, and you also understand how now everything will be easy, and how it harmoniously integrates with what was already a part of you. But, the most pleasant thing is – suddenly you see how much you were missing that exact understanding-awareness to be able to achieve what you’ve been failing at before. The puzzle is complete.
And it all started with an article titled: “What successful people know about the brain that you don’t.” Very succinctly and simplified, the article talks about the Consciousness (Will) and the Subconscious. The Subconscious not only deals with everything that governs processes in our bodies, which don’t require conscious effort, but it’s also the carrier of all “automatic” thoughts about various events in our lives (including thoughts and beliefs about ourselves), since, for the most part, it’s responsible for the processes of so-called “survival” in the global sense.
Just as the Subconscious is highly physiological and ensures that the body functions, it also creates automatic mental reactions and a system of relating to reality that helps our brain survive. And, although it helps us survive, very often this system hinders flourishing because flourishing is inherently tied to moving forward, which in itself implies stepping out of the comfort zone, thus, some level of danger (for survival). Well, and the Subconscious, of course, doesn’t understand degrees, for it’s all black and white, “good for survival” or “bad for survival.” And whatever is “bad for survival,” the Subconscious fights tooth and nail against it.
So what new did the article tell me? Well, nothing new! As if I didn’t know this before! That’s why for the past twenty or twenty-five years, I’ve been dabbling in studying mindfulness. Because I’ve always known that Consciousness can direct the Subconscious.
But, apparently, until last week, this token never dropped for me because only after reading this article did I suddenly feel incredible liberation! I am – is the Consciousness. And the Subconscious – it’s not some mysterious part of my “Consciousness,” but merely a part of my body —the same flesh that acts without wisdom! I suddenly realized how simple it can actually be to control the Subconscious and that Mindfulness helps us notice where the Subconscious kicks in, with its (albeit convoluted but highly primitive) survival process, kicks in, so that the Consciousness (Will) analyzes the proposed survival paths, leaves those that serve prosperity without harming it, and dismisses those that contradict flourishing. And dismissed gently, lovingly, without a struggle.
This is very important because a huge number of personal development processes are based on the struggle of Will over the Subconscious. For example, the same weight loss process: people suppress survival-based processes within themselves, suffer, achieve certain results in the weight loss journey, then “relax,” the suppressed Subconscious jumps out again and with reckless abandon imposes old survival methods: “Darling,” it says, “eat anything you want and move as little as possible“. And on top of that, pour some alcohol to compromise everything that interferes with survival – work, relationships, and so on, and so forth…
While you can achieve a lot with just Will – sometimes, if you don’t understand how the Subconscious works and how important its role is in our existence, sooner or later, the Subconscious will win because it’s ingrained in our physiology, and the Will is a free artist—brilliant, but not all-powerful.
Having gained such a deep understanding of the described interconnections, I suddenly understood why it was so difficult for me to lose weight: I never worked with the Subconscious and its survival methods.
But that’s not the only thing that was voiced in the article. One of the very important thoughts that stemmed from the postulates that the Subconscious is an automatic process that guarantees our survival on autopilot and that the Consciousness has absolutely all the possibilities to control the Subconscious, is the thought that the most important thing we can do in our lives using the power of the Consciousness (Will) is to rewrite everything that the Subconscious on autopilot came up with about us.
Because a large part of what we think about ourselves, if we haven’t made an effort to make those thoughts (about ourselves) conducive to our prosperity, is often just debris the Subconscious threw together automatically to help our beings survive, not for us to be happy. And the best thing we can rewrite about ourselves anew is Belief in ourselves!
The task of our subconscious is to protect us from any pain, any difficulties, anything that creates even the slightest stress for us! If this didn’t contradict the process of human survival, our subconscious would kill us at birth so that we never experienced any stress at all. If we didn’t need to feed, water, and clothe ourselves in life, the Subconscious would wrap us in a warm little coffin and keep us there forever.
For the Subconscious, the process of our personal flourishing, and especially the process of achieving this flourishing, is akin to death, so the Subconscious will fiercely hinder this process in every way. And the more difficult our childhood was, the more often there were situations of cognitive dissonance (when a person believes in one thing, but life shows them another – for example, when a child is frequently betrayed, especially by their own parents), the more the Subconscious made up about us to keep us as far away from reality and achieving anything, and as close to the warm little coffin as possible.
But we are not like that! It’s too early for us to die! We want to be happy. Lose weight. Get married. Get a degree. Earn a million. And move to the Canary Islands. Or maybe just get a bicycle and start riding again.
So it’s important for us to understand the role of the Subconscious in our lives and how we can use the Subconscious to achieve what we want to achieve on the path to flourishing.
