“I know you talk about it all the time, but what is the unconscious mind again?”

The unconscious mind is your power center that’s controlling things in the background. You don’t go around reminding yourself to breathe. The unconscious mind handles that for you. It’s also keeping straight which is the brake and gas pedal, how to ride a bike, what your phone number is, your children’s birthdays, all your memories...and so, so much more! 

The unconscious mind processes boatloads of information every single second so that the conscious part of the mind can focus on just the (relatively) few things that are filtered in by your focus. Otherwise, we would live in overwhelm and overload.

So, in the end, whatever comes into your consciousness originates in the unconscious mind and is then filtered out into your awareness.

This is why it’s so important that you manage what goes in.

Some important things to remember:

• The unconscious mind loves repetition. The things you focus on frequently are what the unconscious mind will latch onto.
• The unconscious mind doesn’t process negatives directly. This is why positive, toward language is so important. If you “don’t want to get sick,” you’re unconscious mind hears  “get sick”. Focusing on the positive, on “being healthy.” is way more useful.
• The unconscious mind takes everything personally. If you’re thinking or talking about someone else, the unconscious mind thinks it’s you. So watch what you think and say. If you bad mouth your neighbor, your colleagues, your spouse, from your unconscious mind’s perspective, you’re essentially beating up on yourself. Keep it constructive and positive.
• Emotion always wins with the unconscious mind. This is why it’s important to recognize and combat negative and limiting beliefs. 

In NLP, we say that what you see, hear, speak, and feel is what you’ll get. This is why it’s so important that you guard what comes in and what you focus on. 

• One place to especially watch out is social media. Carefully choose what media to consume. Make sure it’s positive and that it leaves you feeling good. 
• Similarly, engage in conversations that are positive and that feel good. Sure, tough conversations need to happen from time to time, but as a general rule, avoid conversations that leave you feeling disempowered. 
• Don’t talk about your problems. This just serves to reinforce neurology around the problems. Solutions will be found by getting out of the problem and to  broader perspective.

The truth is that we’re unconsciously programming our unconscious minds every day with what we expose ourselves to. So make a conscious decision to create an environment that is positive and resourceful and that will serve you as you move forward.

 

Thanks for listening!

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Links from today’s episode:

• Episode 1 — We learned about the reticular activating system
• Episode 2 — The Power of Perception
• Episode 3 — We learned about perception is projection
• Episode 38  — Taming the perfectionist self

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