Why subconscious mind is considered so powerful?
Sanjay Goel
Soft Skills, Behavioural and Leadership trainer, Outbound training, DiSC trainer, Coach, Author, NLP and Hypnosis Practitioner, Customised Content Design and Delivery, Learning Consultancy
In our newsletter 6, published on 29.3.23 we understood How our Subconscious Mind Works?
In newsletter 32, Published on 24.4.23, How Does Our Mind Process the Information? we discussed how our conscious and subconscious work together to help us process and store the information for future reference. Let us now discuss why subconscious mind (also known as unconscious mind) is considered so powerful.
We know our conscious mind receives information from our senses, processes it and stores it in our unconscious mind for future reference. For example, mother gives her child mango to eat for the first time. She tells him ‘This is mango’. The trust level of child and mother is extremely high. He takes the information as it is. Conscious mind takes this information i.e. the image of the mango along with the taste, feel and texture of the mango and is stored in his subconscious mind for future reference. This entire process is a conscious process. In this situation, conscious mind is powerful. It has processed and stored the information in subconscious mind.
However, every time child comes across a mango, he will recognize it and will remember the tase and feel of mango. It is impossible to see a mango and think about the taste and texture of an apple. Once the information goes in our unconscious mind, it rules and cannot be changed consciously. Here unconscious mind rules.
In other words, the information that rules our lives have been processed by us and stored it in our unconscious mind. But once stored we cannot change it consciously. Imagine a computer with a processor (conscious mind) and a storage device (unconscious mind). You make a document and store it. Once the document is stored it cannot be changed or modified.
For example, child sees his mother spotting a house lizard. Mother is scared and starts shouting and screaming asking his dad to get rid of the lizard. She says she will not enter the kitchen unless the lizard is removed. Child collects all this information through his senses, his conscious mind processes it (image of lizard with fear) and store it in unconscious mind. This child has now grown into a young man. He now knows that these house lizards are harmless. But whenever he sees a lizard, he automatically experiences the fear. ?
To conclude, the information stored in the past may not be true or relevant in the present but it still rules. Think about all those belief systems you have acquired from your parents, environment and your experiences.
Mr. X tried his hands in several businesses but failed miserably. This is despite all his efforts and hard work. The ideas just didn’t seem to take off. He starts believing he doesn’t have it in him to be an entrepreneur. It is better he takes up a job. He does not try any new business idea again.
Parents tell child to focus more on maths as it is a difficult subject. The child starts believing maths is difficult. Numbers and fear associated with it are stored in his unconscious mind. Whenever he sits to solve problems, he starts with the mindset that maths is difficult. He finds maths difficult and eventually get poor grades in maths.
Our subconscious mind carries so much of information that it is impossible to know which past information is holding us back from utilizing our potential to fullest.
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We, humans survived the hostile environment (jungles) because of our negative thinking and because we stayed in the group. We also had immense ability to learn from our own experiences and also learn from others.
There was an experiment done on monkeys. Monkeys naturally don’t fear snakes. But a snake was introduced in the monkey’s environment with scary sounds in the background. Monkey learnt to fear snakes. This monkey was put in a group of monkeys who did not fear snake. The snake was introduced and the monkey who had learnt to fear showed signs of fear. What about the other monkeys? They also started fearing the snakes looking at the other monkeys.
Humans are born with only two natural fears ‘fear of failing and fear of loud noise’. Rest all the fears are acquired. Think about all the limiting beliefs and fears that we would have acquired that stop us from utilizing our potential to fullest.
In 90’s we watched many movies where poor were exploited by rich. (Most of the Amitabh Bachchan movies were around the same theme). Rich was wicked and poor were victim. Today we are not living in industrial age but has the mindset of the employees and the owners (promoters) have changed? The opportunities are unlimited today, but do we have ability to see those opportunities? Or our vision is clogged with our old mindset.
Unconscious does not allow to change the information because all the information in it is real time (no timeline exists in unconscious mind). This information is guarded for your own safety. Not all the information in redundant. Neither an apple has changed or a mango). We need to change or reprogram only that information which is stopping us to use our potential.
Hypnosis is a process that bypasses conscious mind and connects with unconscious to bring about the change. Different NLP techniques can be used depending upon what needs to be changed.
Other reason why unconscious mind is so powerful is, because it controls more than 95% of our daily activities. In other words, we do less than 5% of activities consciously or think and do every day. All automatic responses, movements, habits are controlled by our unconscious mind.
Thank you.