Q: Can you distinguish between the conscious and subconscious mind and what each is designed to do?
A: The conscious and subconscious minds have significant importance throughout our lives. They involve the decisions we make. According to cell biologist and author Bruce Lipton, we only use our conscious minds or “self-consciousness” 5% of the time by using the left logical side of our brain. The conscious mind has the ability to create plans for the future and think in the past. We analyze, rationalize, and problem solves through our conscious mind. Our wishes and desires involve our conscious mind ad it can use its resources to focus on a specific situation such as getting up and going to work.
Meanwhile, the subconscious mind is on autopilot. It operates 95% of the time. It’s at the helm and lives in the present. Lipton also suggests our subconscious is quite powerful. I like to use the example of driving. We go from point A to point B. When we reach our destination, we think, how did I get here? You don’t remember that stoplight and turn left onto Elm Street to get home. If you were not consciously driving from point A to point B then who was? Remember, your subconscious mind was at the helm! While you didn’t realize that your subconscious mind was at the helm, it obviously knew what it was doing as you consciously focused on someone or something else. Our subconscious mind takes over when our conscious mind does not pay attention. Our subconscious mind has been programmed by others, especially the first seven years of life. We have held onto these self-conscious beliefs and they never went away.
If our subconscious was programmed with negative messages and we absorbed that information, chances are likely that we continue to have those same programs in our subconscious minds and we can often self-sabotage things our conscious mind wants to succeed with. Your subconscious mind makes those gut-level intuitive decisions while your conscious mind has to gather and weigh information before decision making.
While both the conscious and subconscious mind is important, if you want to reprogram subconscious thoughts and actions, a good hypnotherapist can assist with this.