You’d love to understand your subconscious mind better, wouldn’t you?

I know I do.

Trigger alert: talking about panic attacks

Many years ago, I used to get really bad panic attacks. I mean, really bad. They were so bad that I went to the emergency room at the hospital multiple times because I thought I was dying.

I couldn’t breathe; my chest was heavy, and it felt like my throat was constricting. I thought I was going into anaphylactic shock, and it always happened after I ate or drank something.

Then I met Sherry Dale, a trauma therapist who deals with trauma, triggers and phobias. After two sessions with her, I have never had a severe panic attack since. She works with the subconscious mind, and after that, I became fascinated with our brains and how they work.

As an accountant, I always considered myself a fairly rational and logical person. And yet, nothing about that experience was rational or logical.

The Power of the Subconscious Mind

In my last article about NLP (neurolinguistic programming), I talked about the NLP communication model. At any given point we are taking in 2.3M bits of information subconsciously. Only 126 bits (or 0.006%) is taken in consciously which is filtered by things like our location, the time, our mood and our past experiences.

This is really important because when we have things that we desire like building a successful business, creating wealth in our bank accounts or being great leaders in our organizations, this is at a conscious level. Yet if you’re subconscious mind isn’t on board with those desires, you won’t be taking the right action to align with those desires; our internal state impacts our behaviours which then impacts our results.

Here are 9 things to know about your subconscious mind:

1. It’s #1 job is to preserve the body and to keep you safe which means it won’t do anything that you don’t want to do.
2. It runs the body and has a blueprint of both how the body is now and the body in perfect health.
3. It stores, organizes and processes our memories and emotions. This is why different energy modalities can be so effective at releasing emotions through breathwork or movement using our body. Our subconscious mind is also always looking for ways to process unresolved negative emotions which might be why you “lash out unexpectedly” or “get really triggered” when someone says something to you.
4. It takes everything personally. Even if you’re talking about someone else, it takes is personally. So when you say something like “Sally is broke and grumpy” it automatically associates it as “I am broke and grumpy”. Yet another reason why gossiping isn’t good!
5. Works on the principle of least effort and will always take the path of least resistance. It’s why it’s so important to be really specific with what you want. Otherwise when you say “I want more money” and you find a penny on the ground, the subconscious mind thinks “yup, great we did it”. Instead think about how much more money. Be as specific as possible.
6. Does not process negatives. Instead of focusing on what you don’t want, focus on what you do want. The subconscious mind here’s “I want to be broke” everytime you say “I don’t want to be broke”. Instead switch to “I want to be rich”.
7. Is a highly moral part of you that likes to keep you in integrity with the model of morality you were taught and accepted as child.
8. Requires repetition until a habit is installed. This is why positive affirmations or listening to the same subliminal audio everyday for weeks can be really effective.
9. It enjoys to serving and needs clear orders to follow. It’s waiting for you to tell it what to. find and what to do. Be specific and clear on what you want.

Changing your subconscious mind

If you’re subconscious mind isn’t onboard with your desires, than it’s really hard to be successful. You won’t see the opportunities and you won’t take the right actions. Since our subconscious mind runs the show and t’s #1 job is to protect you and keep you safe, we need to create a bridge to align both our conscious and subconscious mind to be successful. 

There are many NLP (neurolinguistic programming) techniques that can help create this bridge and reprogram our subsconscious mind to more empowering beliefs including:

• Creating achievable outcomes
• Anchoring
• Single-belief change
• Hypnosis

Are you interested in learning more about this?  Book a consulting call with me to explore the possibilities on how we might work together.