THE SUBCONSCIOUS.

Vancouver Hypnosis and Hypnotherapist Trainer Leslie McIntosh looks at the key to who you were, who you are, and who you will be.

The Conscious Mind

Our subconscious mind- that part of us which dictates how we feel and react- is the very part of us we don’t know very well.
Our conscious mind is the part we do know.

If I were to ask you how much of your day you spent using your conscious mind, versus how much of your day you spent using your subconscious mind, my experience is that the majority of people would give me a higher percentage on the conscious side. Especially if you are drawn toward a spiritual path and working to “live consciously”.
In fact, the conscious mind works only to protect our physical body. It is only factual, logical and while it is always present to protect our physical body, it is rarely used for making decisions. If someone asked me to add 2 plus 2, I would likely whip off the answer 4 without any feeling or thought involved. I likely did that with my logical, factual conscious mind. As an estimate, the conscious mind is less than 5% of mind in relation to the subconscious mind’s 95% of the real estate of the mind.

The subconscious- the part we don’t know

The Subconscious or Unconscious mind is aptly named because we are not aware of it- nor are we aware of why we feel or react to situations the way we do. All we know is that we do.
We juScreen Shot 2014 09 10 at 11.57.01 AM THE SUBCONSCIOUS: The key to who you were, who you are, and who you will be.st know, for instance, when our mother asks us if we are going to get a haircut- some of us will get that familiar feeling of rebellion deep inside; or defensiveness and anger that an observer might consider inappropriate. While another of us will feel loved and protected and so happy that Mom still cares about us.
Whichever of those reactions we have will depend on the information the subconscious mind has stored away from an earlier time. This earlier time could be childhood, or it could be an alternate lifetime.
However, how we feel won’t change because we don’t like the way we respond. We can work to change our behaviour if we don’t like the reaction we normally take. If we don’t want to snap at mother to stop nagging at us, or respond defensively with something like, “I’m 40 years old, and I don’t need you to tell me when to get a haircut”, we can learn to take a deep breath and respond differently. We can respond rationally and with a well thought out and planned, “Thank you Mom, I’ll keep that in mind.” But we will still feel the same. For some, that’s not a pleasant feeling.

Because the subconscious mind is the emotional mind, anytime you feel any emotion whatsoever, you are feeling it from a deep subconscious level and you don’t have a lot of choice about whether to feel it or not.
The subconscious mind cannot tell whether you are actually seeing and experiencing and living a scene or situation or if you are actually imagining it. It will accept it as fact and work with that fact to make it so. It will believe at a deeply emotional level that it is real. It is this gift that allows us to make deep changes with Hypnotherapy.
This is also why there must be an emotional component to any manifesting you are doing; why you must feel, as well as think and see and imagine all of the feelings you would have if this was real. You must behave as if it is real. Without the thinking and feeling part of your manifestation, the subconscious mind will have difficulty absorbing the information as fact.
Even more important than an emotional component, the mind must be in an “altered state” (Hypnosis or other very slow brain wave pattern) to accept new information that is not in agreement with old beliefs or patterns.

The second job of the subconscious mind is to protect us.

Back to my math experience: I would have had no trouble or qualms about answering your 2 plus 2 question- but the moment that you ask me to calculate how long it would take the train leaving station A to get to station B if the track is 5.2 miles long and the train is travelling 51 miles per hour, I am immediately engaged completely in my subconscious mind. My heart will begin to pound a bit, I am likely turning red and I am terrified. To me, you see, any math issue is reason to feel afraid; to feel like “I can’t do this”. As anyone I went to school with will confirm- math was not my strong point. Any memory or experience involving math was not a good one in my world.
The reason I have this response to math is because of my past history and because the subconscious mind is protecting me- sending out those warnings that this question is going to cause me embarrassment, that trouble is coming. Beware! Avoid!
When Mom tells us we need a haircut and we get the feeling that we want to explode, that feeling is coming from our subconscious mind protecting us from her control, or her domination, or her bad decisions on what a haircut should look like and the ensuing embarrassment.
It could also be the subconscious mind rebelling and helping us to stand up for ourselves.
Exactly what the subconscious mind is protecting us from is rarely known to us at a conscious level. When we talk about our feelings, and try to understand what is causing us to be angry with Mom, we are guessing. We are trying to rationalize with the conscious mind; asking ourselves what hold or control she could possibly have over us at our age.
The event that is stuck in our subconscious mind, the moment when our subconscious decided to step in to protect us with these warning feelings, is almost never revealed without Hypnosis, or very deep meditation. Even experienced meditators may have trouble travelling the illogical path to the root cause of these feelings.
The root cause, or original moment that eventually led to our negative symptom, is usually buried deep in the subconscious mind. This root cause may be in a past life or it may be in early days of our current lifetime.
It is the subconscious mind’s decision to protect us; that decision made in a moment in time- that controls us emotionally today.

The foregoing is an excerpt from Leslie McIntosh’s recent book entitled “Your Soul – Past, Present and Future”. To learn more about how to make permanent changes in your life with Hypnosis, you can purchase the book online at http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000014893809/Leslie-McIntosh-Your-Soul—Past%2C-Present-and-Future

Leslie is Dean of Education at Coastal Academy of Hypnotic Arts and Science, serving students from across Canada from cities like Edmonton, Vancouver and Surrey, as well as international Students from around the world. Online Hypnosis Training will soon also be available to enable interested individuals to learn more about the thought provoking world of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy.