The subconscious mind

Think of the subconscious mind as the storage room of everything that is currently not in your conscious mind; it stores all your previous life experiences, your belief system, your memories, you skills, all situations you've been through, and all images you've ever seen. The best way to understand the subconscious mind is through the example of someone who's just started to learn how to drive. At the beginning, he wouldn't be able to hold a conversation with anyone while driving as he would be focusing on the different moves involved; that's because he's still using his conscious mind to drive.

The subconscious mind; your Autopilot!

A few weeks later, the driving process comes to him automatically, without having to do any thinking; he'd even start using his cell phone or talk to his friends as he drives. This on account of the fact that the driving information or process has been transferred to his subconscious mind and so the conscious mind is free to function on something else, like talking or using his cell phone.

The subconscious mind is responsible for the automatically triggered feelings and emotions that you suddenly experience upon facing a new situation. Let's consider the example of you giving apresentation all fear and anxiety feelings are then launched and controlled by the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is, on the other hand, responsible for logic, thought and calculations (all actions that are performed under your complete control); the subconscious mind also controls other functions in your body like breathing and heart beats.

Another good example that can help you better understand the subconscious mind is the process of breathing. Before you started reading the previous line, your breathing was controlled by your subconscious. I want you now to try and control your breathing for one minute. You will, of course, be able to do so. This time, it was the conscious mind controlling your breathing, but when you let go of your focus, you are said to be handing the task over to your subconscious mind.

How you can program your subconscious mind:

When the information about driving is stored into your subconscious, it's stored as a program. Think of your mind as a computer and the driving information as software that can be run automatically whenever needed. The same goes for lots of other activities and emotions. Think of the case of someone shouting at you, the installed program of anger is launched and the result is a behavior you may end up regretting later. Through programming the subconscious mind with new programs, you can fix many problems in your personality. Just make sure that your autopilot is capable of running your system without ruining your life or causing you any problems.

Programming your subconscious can be done through hypnosis. The subconscious mind learns by repetition and not by logic, that is why you can convince someone to believe in something by repeating your argument again and again rather than using logic. For more information on this topic see the guide to the psychology of convincing

Rules of the subconscious mind:

In order to best use the power of your subconscious mind, you must first know how the subconscious mind works. The subconscious mind is governed by many rules; learning about those rules will allow you to make the best use out of your subconscious mind with the least effort. Below is a link that contains all the information you need to know about the rules of the subconscious mind.

Ego defense mechanisms:

Just like your body has got its defenses against physical wounds and injuries, your subconscious mind has got its defenses against emotional shocks and wounds. These are called ego defense mechanisms or unconscious defense mechanisms. The ego defense mechanisms' main function is to protect your well-being and to help you overcome emotional shocks.

The subconscious mind and forgetting about someone

The main reason people stay broken after breakups is that they have false ideas stored in their subconscious minds about relationships. In my book, how to get over anyone in few days, i described how can getting rid of beliefs like "the one" or "the soul mate" help you forget about anybody in few days.

As soon as someone gets rid of these beliefs he starts to realize that he can one day find another person who replaces the one who left him, and so recovery happens.

Using your conscious and subconscious mind together:

As you can see, the conscious and the subconscious parts of the mind form a team. The first handles some tasks then assigns them to the second, the second after that sends feedback and messages about the task done in the form of emotions to the first. . Emotions are no more than messages sent by your subconscious mind in order to alert you of something. By learning how to make the best use of the cooperation between your conscious and subconscious mind, your life skills will improve and you will have much more control over your emotions.