A Guide to Mastering Your Subconscious Mind
The conscious mind is just the tip of the iceberg, the subconscious is the rest.
We have something so powerful it's almost a superpower. The best part is tapping into it is effortless.
Most people aren’t aware of it, but some of the most successful people use it whether they’re aware of it or not.
I’m talking about our Subconscious Mind and studies show:
the human body sends 11 million bits per second to the brain for processing, yet the conscious mind seems to be able to process only 50 bits per second.
Mind blown? Well, I was, so I wanted to learn more about it.
Join me as I explore how to use the subconscious mind.
I’ve not mastered the subconscious mind, but I’m curious to learn how to. (I’ve read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy, and Think Less and Learn More by Dr Srini Pillay, along with some stuff from the internet for this article. )
I’ll be honest ‘The Power of Your Subconscious Mind’ by Joseph Murphy is NOT very convincing. It mentions being able to read sealed envelopes, the power of the universe, energy waves and woo-woo things like that.
The subconscious mind is powerful, but I’m not sure if it's powerful enough to give you X-ray abilities, so I’ll try to stick to stuff that makes sense and is backed by research.
Your Subconscious Mind
Your beliefs, perspectives, expectations and fear all lie buried beneath, your subconscious mind. They’re controlling the way you behave and your life.
The Powers of Your Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind is always working, even when you’re asleep. It's responsible for breathing and heartbeat.
This is why when you sleep on a problem and then wake up to do it you seem to figure it out, because your subconscious worked on it.
Our subconscious mind also plays a part in decision-making along with the conscious mind that's why the way the subconscious mind is programmed can matter.
Some things our subconscious mind is responsible for:
- Long-term memory
- Habit and behaviour patterns
- Creativity
- Intuition
- Beliefs
- The autonomic nervous system
It also has a huge role in decision making and I was shocked!
Scientists found that the subconscious mind makes your decisions 10 seconds before you’re conscious mind is aware of them.
When subjects were asked to decide between pressing two buttons, scientists could with fair accuracy predict which button the subject would press, just by looking at their subconscious brain activity!
The subconscious mind is a lot like habits, it's automatic and it governs our life.
It can mean a good thing if you have good habits and a bad thing if you have bad habits.
So let’s explore how to use the power of our subconscious minds.
Some analogies to Understand the Subconscious Mind
Think of your conscious mind as the tip of the iceberg — the only part you are aware of — and the subconscious mind as the lower and larger part of the iceberg.
Your subconscious mind is the user giving in the inputs and the subconscious mind is the computer which does all the processing in the background.
Or your conscious mind is the gardener which is planting thoughts while your subconscious is the garden which nurtures those seeds(thoughts).
There are multiple ways of thinking about it, I hope you got the point.
Harnessing The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
“Never go to bed without a request to your subconscious.- Thomas Edison
When Thomas Edison got stuck on a problem, he would sit in a chair while holding a metal ball, and then fall asleep. When he fell asleep, his muscles would relax dropping the metal ball which would fall making a loud noise and waking him up.
Why did he do this?
To get into the alpha state. The alpha state is this daydreaming, creative, relaxed, alert but closed-eye state. The conscious mind is less dominant, and the subconscious mind is at the forefront.
Some of the greatest ideas come up in this state. It’s an effortless way to just let your subconscious solve your problems.
Hypnotic suggestions are also made in the alpha state as the conscious mind may not differentiate between imaginary and physical reality.
Right before bed can be one of the best times to visualise as your subconscious mind will work on whatever you visualise as you go to sleep.
Subconscious Beliefs
“You manifest what you subconsciously believe you are worthy of receiving” — Roxie Nafousi
(I know this line is from a manifesting book, even though I am not exactly open to the idea of manifesting, I felt this quote is just so true)
Some depressed people don’t think they are worthy of friends, love success or anything good. When they get something good they feel horrible because they don’t feel they deserve it; it creates a perpetual cycle of misery and stops them from getting better.
Many people(me included) have limiting beliefs on things which are holding us back, it's important to identify and challenge those thoughts.
What are your limiting thoughts or fears?
Consciously or Subconsciously we have beliefs of what we’re worth, observe them.
As cringe as it sounds, journalling is great for this.
People who believe they can do something, are more likely to achieve that thing. This is why it is important to watch out for what your most deep-rooted beliefs are.
When we emotionally focus on a goal, our subconscious mind works to find a path to achieve that goal. The more specific the better.
This is why writing down goals can help achieve them because it keeps reminding your mind to work on them.
Also if you have a few questions kept in mind your subconscious mind will look everywhere for that answer. It's similar to the confirmation bias, just like when you get a new shoe or car, you begin to notice everyone has that shoe or car.
There are times when we have an automatic response to situations where we don’t consciously think. Visualising can help change whatever this automatic response is.
Steven Covey gives an example of his son who played as a high school quarterback. Subconsciously he would get uptight whenever he was in a pressure situation. This is why Covey taught him to visualize a big pressure circumstance while being relaxed. This taught the subconscious mind to relax in pressure situations without thinking.
Default Mode Network(DMN)
The default mode network or ‘Do Mostly Nothing’ as some people like to call is a brain network which gets activated when we’re relaxed and not putting in hard effort.
It's what’s responsible for connecting different ideas and associations, which basically means it's responsible for great ideas and creativity.
I’ve given these examples in previous articles and I’m going to give them again:
- Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates wash dishes, it lets their mind wander and come up with ideas.
- Elon Musk gets some of his best ideas when he’s just chilling in the shower.
- Tim Denning, who’s like the number one writer on Medium has a warm shower before he writes.
- Steve Jobs, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Henry David Thoreau, Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and Darwin all went on walks and let their mind wander.
Intuition
Intuition is one power of the subconscious mind. I’ll give you some stories to show why.
Intuition is important for certain decisions we need to make in a split second, or it just comes with realizations we just come up with.
The tennis coach Vic Braden had this ability to predict whenever a player was going to double-fault before the racket even hit the ball. The annoying part was that he couldn’t explain why, his intuition just began to notice patterns after seeing so many serves.
There's a story in Blink about a group of firefighters who entered a house to put off a kitchen fire, or that's what they thought it was. They were hosing the kitchen but the fire wasn’t going out.
This is when the captain said “Let’s get out of here!” without realizing why. Just after firefighters got out, the house floor collapsed. This is how the captain's intuition saved him and his team.
In retrospect it makes sense. The captain had his earflaps open and felt it was hotter than usual. The kitchen fire was not being put out even after being hosed. The fire was more silent than usual.
While the captain’s conscious mind didn’t put these things together, his intuition(subconscious) did.
His subconscious deduced that it wasn’t a kitchen fire, but the fire was in the basement. That’s why it was more silent(because the sound of the muffled as it was in the basement) and hotter than usual(as the hotter air had risen from the basement).
Intuition is great at noticing patterns. Intuition, though, has to be trained; It needs data and experience, and it might just save your life.
Thanks for reading :)
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