Note: This is going to be the most straight forward and valuable article you’ll read on the subject.
If you have been a student of personal development or psychology in any capacity, you’ve probably heard about the importance of the subconscious mind in achieving the life outcomes you want.
And if you haven’t – here’s a rapid refresher: 95% of your behavior is driven by what psychologists call the “subconscious” or “unconscious”. This unconscious mind houses all sorts of phenomena, ranging from mythological archetypes to childhood programming.
We care about this because the contents of your subconscious that dictate our perceptions, decisions and behavior.
Why does this matter? Because, depending on your goals, your subconscious can be an ally, or an enemy.
Is Your’s Helping You Or Keeping You In Your Place?
Take for instance someone who is trying to be a tough, high-stakes business negotiator. Yet, they have an unconscious self-image dominated by timidity and paranoid levels of risk aversion. And they also have the habitual unconscious belief that the other side “won’t go for it” anytime they make an offer. Do you think they will be successful?
Or imagine someone who is trying to move up into management. But their unconscious has been trained to “do what you’re told” and “not your place to have high status”. Despite the fact that their conscious mind wants more authority and responsibility, their subconscious is leading them toward the opposite – perpetual subservience. Do you think they will move up to management anytime soon?
Sure… They might… If uncle Johnny owns the company… But, nepotistic factors aside, it’s extremely unlikely.
Chances of promotion aside, there is even something more sinister at play when working against your own subconscious programming.
Trying to go the opposite way of your subconscious is like trying to swim up a waterfall. It not only doesn’t work, but the little bit of traction you may make, will end up with you crashing back down, and probably, with you ending up doing worse off than where you started.
So… How then can you re-engineer your subconscious mind so that you can get it working for you?
And how can you insert the beliefs you want, while removing the ones you don’t – so that your subconscious starts serving you rather than following your cultural programming?
I’ll tell you straight up – no gimmicks, nothing to sell you, no courses or products to buy, not seminars to attend. This is THE key…
Let’s Unlock Your Subconscious Mind
Your subconscious beliefs are NOT “mental”.
Of course, they are in your mind, but they are not “mental” in the way you understand the word…
Your subconscious beliefs are not logical, rational or linear sets of axioms and presuppositions that combine to create your subconscious. That’s not how it works.
The subconscious is very different…
First, it is much older. In fact, it is an ancient beast. It hearkens all the way back to the days of pre-lingual. Meaning: It’s emerged before we had words. Because of this, the only way to interface with it is through imagery, especially symbolic imagery.
Second, it sits between the abstraction capacity of the frontal cortex and the body management of the limbic system. In fact, you could think of it as a translation layer between the body and the mind (yes this is not technically accurate, but works as a metaphor). The point being: your subconscious is not “thought” but it is “embodied”.
For instance, the subconscious beliefs I mentioned above like “they won’t go for it” or “do what you’re told” do not exist in the way our other thoughts exist, and they are not expressed through an internal dialogue. They are not articulated. They are at a level that you experience right before articulation.
If you thinking was writing (a close enough analog): Rather than being the language you use to express your thoughts, the subconscious content would be the background picture on the page where the words are written, or the fonts you use when writing the words, or the color of the letters, or even the mood you’re in while you’re writing, etc. Pre-lingual. Before language. Above language. Around language…
I know. It’s a mind bender. But stick with me for a second, and the rewards will make you giddy!
Subconscious concepts are not verbal. Instead, they are represented as images and sensations that we carry in our physiology, which in turn manifest in our approach to the world, as well as our decisions and actions.
How Your Subconscious Actually Influences Your Experience
No one’s subconscious whispers “oh you’re such a loser, they will never take you seriously and promote you”. Instead, it makes you think that promotion is not possible without “putting your time in”, or makes you forget that there is a job opening that you want, or distracts you from paying attention and actually perceiving the HR announcement for that job, or when you try to apply for the promotion it makes you feel uncomfortable, shy, fearful, and even physically ill so that you fail at getting it.
Remember this: All this happens, because the subconscious is much more powerful than the ordinary conscious mind. And it has it’s own agenda (to serve your tribe).
This is why, no amount of affirmation, or vision boards, or “journaling”, or hyped up declarations are going to change your subconscious. Or at least, if they do, they will take a very, VERY long time and a lot of repetition.
And that’s not because the people who advocate for such things are cheats. Some are, but many aren’t. They are genuinely trying to help you. They just don’t know how to actually change your subconscious, and these methods are their best guesses. Plus, most people who advocate for control of subconscious mind, started with a subconscious that works for them!
Of course, not all cases. But in many cases it’s akin to a 6’6” basketball player giving you a seminar on growing taller. That’s not how it works!
And what does work?
The only fast and reliable way to change the subconscious mind is through altered states of consciousness, and imprinting the new embodied sensations you want into your neurology in those altered states.
Read that again:
The ONLY fast and reliable way to change the subconscious mind is through altered states of consciousness, and imprinting the new embodied sensations you want into your neurology in those altered states.
Cults and military establishments do this extremely well. Bootcamp is a fantastic process for breaking down and re-constructing the subconscious.
Of course, the process isn’t just about breaking things down. You also need to program the subconscious. And you can only do that using the symbolic language that the subconscious uses, which has both universal and personal elements – i.e. some symbols work for everyone, but other symbols work only for an individual or a group of people that share the same subconscious culture or tradition. (Think flags, national anthems, special uniforms, special salutes, etc… All designed to take an ordinary person and turn it into a soldier. Bootcamp breaks them down. Repetitive symbolic action changes the subconscious and self-image.)
Altered states + symbolic embodied sensation imprints. That’s the secret formula. And I’ve already given you more than I should… As it is a dangerous thing to mess with the mind…
OK. OK. So, great. You can change your subconscious into whatever you want it to be using this process. What then should you do, if you want to upgrade your subconscious programming from a low-value, obedient worker to a high-value professional?
Learn about the career imprint. Read a few of our articles about it in the light of what I just taught you, and you’ll get it.