Do you find it hard to let your mind go quiet? Have you noticed that your mind jumps around a lot from subject to subject? Do you struggle to stay focussed on any given topic?
Can your mind start worrying about things and send you on a spiralling treadmill of stress or anxiety?
Are you sometimes looking for inspiration but it doesn’t come? Do you hope to have a great idea or answer to a problem and no matter how hard you try it eludes you? Would you like to be more intuitive, creative and imaginative?
Where do you place your attention?
It may seem strange but these issues and challenges are connected, in the sense that they are products of where you place your attention. By placing your attention predominantly on the conscious mind you therefore give energy to the conscious mind and the ways it works. These might include:
Logical thinking
Rational thoughts
Linear processing
Focus on detail
However, the skills of intuition, creativity and inspiration are products of the subconscious mind. By bringing your attention to the subconscious you direct energy towards these talents. As well as the above these might be:
Imagination
Big picture thinking
Seeing how things interconnect
Instinct
Gut feeling
Listening to your heart
Hunches
Sixth sense
Our society tends to favour training our conscious mind, choosing educational methods that promote conscious thinking.
This of course has great value. We need to be organised, keep to our diary, prioritise and think with our head sometimes rather than with the heart.
When the conscious mind is trained and used at the expense of using creative and intuitive subconscious skills, you are denied developing these skills. You are only able to use some of your mind’s full potential. Surely it would be useful to tap into more of your innate skills as well, many of which reside in the subconscious?
Icebergs
The mind is like an iceberg
The mind is like an iceberg. About 10% resides above the surface of the ocean. This is the conscious mind. By contrast, 90% resides beneath the surface of the ocean. This is the subconscious. Notice how much larger the subconscious mind is? Perhaps tapping into the subconscious would make you even more resourceful, effective, creative and productive?
Our lives are predominantly oriented towards conscious mind activity, looking outward into the world through TV, books, magazines, internet, social media and more. These are not bad things in themselves yet our use of them is so engrained we find it hard to unplug from them. We move from conscious mind activity to conscious mind activity throughout our day. The subconscious mind barely gets a look in.
Subconscious attention
What would it look like to give our subconscious mind some attention? Activities like taking a walk or more vigorous exercise are good ways to connect. Have you noticed how you find solutions to problems during your workouts? Taking almost any break from your conscious mind thinking such as time in nature, gardening, listening to music, gaming, a relaxing bath or a good night’s sleep will do the trick.
Always make sure you’ve got pen and paper or some means if recording your insights with you though. You don’t want to miss any ideas that come bubbling up from the subconscious. Make that a habit. You’re unlikely to remember those ideas when they come, so record them in some way.
You can be more proactive about it. Free- writing is another method and you make notes as you go. The idea is not to edit what you write. It doesn’t have to be any good or even make sense or be legible. It is the process of subconscious connection that is key.
Games the Conscious mind plays
I had a client that wanted to be a photographer. He had saved up and bought the camera and believed he now needed a computer. Perhaps he did to process the photos as effectively as he might. But his conscious mind had decided he couldn’t take the photos without the computer. Therefore he was holding himself back from achieving his dream. More importantly he was delaying himself from readily connecting to his subconscious through photography. The conscious mind can play clever games.
Another message the conscious mind tells you about connecting to the subconscious is that you don’t have time, it’s not important, you won’t be able to, you’re too busy, you’re not good enough and my favourite, do it tomorrow!!!!
Benefits of Subconscious thinking
As I said earlier with our Iceberg metaphor, the subconscious is approximately 90% of the mind. As well as tapping into all these innate skills you are also connecting more deeply into yourself. Rather than being aware of more surface level qualities you possess, when you connect to your subconscious you become much more aware of what makes you content and fulfilled. With that knowledge comes a consistent peace of mind and calm the conscious mind cannot sustain. Making a habit of connecting to the subconscious has got to be worth that alone.
One final perk……. if each person is an iceberg then when people connect to their subconscious, they are in fact connecting to each other through their subconscious via the ocean. In this way, you become aware of people’s moods and emotions, can feel the atmosphere in rooms, be more empathic and have intuitive knowings and insights into people. This will improve the quality of your relationships both personally and professionally as well as your quality of life.
Over to you
How do you connect to your subconscious? What regular things do you do to unplug from the monkey mind of conscious thinking and delve into the depths of your subconscious? Do you find it easy to connect? Do you find it a challenge? Perhaps you would like to connect and aren’t really sure how? If so, please get in touch and we can discuss how you might be able to do that. As ever, I’d love to hear your comments, either in the comments box below or on social media.
The development of these subconscious skills is a large part of the Mindful Movement workshops content. As well as balancing these qualities with the skills of the conscious mind so that you can access more of your potential and life with deeper purpose and greater fulfilment. You can find out more here.
Pass it on
Why not share this post? If you have found the ideas useful why not tell a friend? Perhaps you came by this blog post via social media? Then please share, like or retweet the post and spread the love. Thank you.
Emotions- how your brain’s prediction capacity may not always serve y...
What can icebergs tell you about your mind?
Do you find it hard to let your mind go quiet? Have you noticed that your mind jumps around a lot from subject to subject? Do you struggle to stay focussed on any given topic?
Can your mind start worrying about things and send you on a spiralling treadmill of stress or anxiety?
Are you sometimes looking for inspiration but it doesn’t come? Do you hope to have a great idea or answer to a problem and no matter how hard you try it eludes you? Would you like to be more intuitive, creative and imaginative?
Where do you place your attention?
It may seem strange but these issues and challenges are connected, in the sense that they are products of where you place your attention. By placing your attention predominantly on the conscious mind you therefore give energy to the conscious mind and the ways it works. These might include:
Logical thinking
Rational thoughts
Linear processing
Focus on detail
However, the skills of intuition, creativity and inspiration are products of the subconscious mind. By bringing your attention to the subconscious you direct energy towards these talents. As well as the above these might be:
Imagination
Big picture thinking
Seeing how things interconnect
Instinct
Gut feeling
Listening to your heart
Hunches
Sixth sense
Our society tends to favour training our conscious mind, choosing educational methods that promote conscious thinking.
This of course has great value. We need to be organised, keep to our diary, prioritise and think with our head sometimes rather than with the heart.
When the conscious mind is trained and used at the expense of using creative and intuitive subconscious skills, you are denied developing these skills. You are only able to use some of your mind’s full potential. Surely it would be useful to tap into more of your innate skills as well, many of which reside in the subconscious?
Icebergs
The mind is like an iceberg
The mind is like an iceberg. About 10% resides above the surface of the ocean. This is the conscious mind. By contrast, 90% resides beneath the surface of the ocean. This is the subconscious. Notice how much larger the subconscious mind is? Perhaps tapping into the subconscious would make you even more resourceful, effective, creative and productive?
Our lives are predominantly oriented towards conscious mind activity, looking outward into the world through TV, books, magazines, internet, social media and more. These are not bad things in themselves yet our use of them is so engrained we find it hard to unplug from them. We move from conscious mind activity to conscious mind activity throughout our day. The subconscious mind barely gets a look in.
Subconscious attention
What would it look like to give our subconscious mind some attention? Activities like taking a walk or more vigorous exercise are good ways to connect. Have you noticed how you find solutions to problems during your workouts? Taking almost any break from your conscious mind thinking such as time in nature, gardening, listening to music, gaming, a relaxing bath or a good night’s sleep will do the trick.
Always make sure you’ve got pen and paper or some means if recording your insights with you though. You don’t want to miss any ideas that come bubbling up from the subconscious. Make that a habit. You’re unlikely to remember those ideas when they come, so record them in some way.
You can be more proactive about it. Free- writing is another method and you make notes as you go. The idea is not to edit what you write. It doesn’t have to be any good or even make sense or be legible. It is the process of subconscious connection that is key.
Games the Conscious mind plays
I had a client that wanted to be a photographer. He had saved up and bought the camera and believed he now needed a computer. Perhaps he did to process the photos as effectively as he might. But his conscious mind had decided he couldn’t take the photos without the computer. Therefore he was holding himself back from achieving his dream. More importantly he was delaying himself from readily connecting to his subconscious through photography. The conscious mind can play clever games.
Another message the conscious mind tells you about connecting to the subconscious is that you don’t have time, it’s not important, you won’t be able to, you’re too busy, you’re not good enough and my favourite, do it tomorrow!!!!
Benefits of Subconscious thinking
As I said earlier with our Iceberg metaphor, the subconscious is approximately 90% of the mind. As well as tapping into all these innate skills you are also connecting more deeply into yourself. Rather than being aware of more surface level qualities you possess, when you connect to your subconscious you become much more aware of what makes you content and fulfilled. With that knowledge comes a consistent peace of mind and calm the conscious mind cannot sustain. Making a habit of connecting to the subconscious has got to be worth that alone.
One final perk……. if each person is an iceberg then when people connect to their subconscious, they are in fact connecting to each other through their subconscious via the ocean. In this way, you become aware of people’s moods and emotions, can feel the atmosphere in rooms, be more empathic and have intuitive knowings and insights into people. This will improve the quality of your relationships both personally and professionally as well as your quality of life.
Over to you
How do you connect to your subconscious? What regular things do you do to unplug from the monkey mind of conscious thinking and delve into the depths of your subconscious? Do you find it easy to connect? Do you find it a challenge? Perhaps you would like to connect and aren’t really sure how? If so, please get in touch and we can discuss how you might be able to do that. As ever, I’d love to hear your comments, either in the comments box below or on social media.
The development of these subconscious skills is a large part of the Mindful Movement workshops content. As well as balancing these qualities with the skills of the conscious mind so that you can access more of your potential and life with deeper purpose and greater fulfilment. You can find out more here.
Pass it on
Why not share this post? If you have found the ideas useful why not tell a friend? Perhaps you came by this blog post via social media? Then please share, like or retweet the post and spread the love. Thank you.