Accessing the subconscious mind

Research demonstrates that conscious thoughts and actions originate from the biases (or beliefs) of our subconscious mind. Things our subconscious mind has absorbed throughout our lives and observes within our environment influence and direct our current conscious thoughts and actions. Our subconscious mind influences our emotional state, our reactions, and our anxieties (fears); it informs our conscious mind how we should feel about nearly everything in our environment.

There is a reason our subconscious mind operates the way it does; put simply, it makes life easier. We don't have the time or mental resources to consciously think about how we should feel about everything happening in our environment; so our subconscious mind handles a majority of that process by drawing on our knowledge, past experiences, and environmental cues. An interesting example of this is that most people tend to sleep better to the sound of birds singing; this is because the subconscious mind recognizes that birds only sing when they feel safe, therefore indicating that you are in a safe environment.

The subconscious mind also handles mundane and repetitive tasks, like finding each letter on a keyboard when typing, speeding up the process and freeing up your conscious mind to think about what you want to type, not how to find each letter. 

The subconscious mind is a very powerful tool and very useful; with far more implications than what we've described here. That being said, there are drawbacks to this automation. Check out the next tab for more information.

One drawback to automating our thoughts and actions is that poor thinking habits tend to get automated over the years. A negative thought repeated time and time again can become a belief that is ingrained into your subconscious mind. In this same fashion, someone else's belief can be observed time and time again and then adapted as your own belief. This process can occur in infancy and the belief could carry into your adult life.

Your mind, specifically your subconscious mind, acts in accordance with these beliefs. So when these beliefs work against what you want to do or accomplish, so does your mind. And this happens without conscious awareness; a lot of times it simply manifests as things like anxiety, lack of motivation, lethargy, or impulse.

Remember, these are not beliefs that you chose, these are ideas that have become beliefs because they have been repeated, reinforced by your enviornment, or caused by traumatic events. See the next tab for some examples of how this happens and what it looks like.

Examples:

If you are told at a young age that you will never be good at a particular sport, and you accept this and begin repeating it to yourself; it will become a belief and that belief will ingrain into your subconscious mind. Once this happens, you don't need to think about it consciously, if the sport gets brought up, you no longer consider the why, you simply know that your not good at that sport.

• In this example, the person will likely avoid the sport, give up easily when playing, or self-sabotage when playing

An idea can also become reinforced by your environment to become a belief. If an individual is in a toxic relationship and her partner consistently expresses that she is not good enough, over time, she may come to subconsciously believe this idea without having had repeated it to herself. Remember the subconscious mind is not discriminatory, it just takes information and banks it or moves into action; so if this becomes a belief, she will likely begin subconsciously acting in a way that supports her 'not being good enough' in multiple facets of her life.  

• In this example, the individual will likely feel anxiety when trying to accomplish most tasks, and feel unmotivated to try new things (among other consequences)
• It is important to note, that once the belief is cemented, it no longer needs to be reinforced. She could leave the relationship and will still carry the belief and its consequences until taking the time to address and replace this toxic belief. But once taking action to address the belief, it can be changed through conscious effort, into something positive like, 'I can do anything,' and that is exactly what our process is about