Ever notice that you have the same thoughts as yesterday, last month, maybe even last year?
The same feelings?
The same conflicts with the same people?
Still struggling with the same difficulties, frustrations, problems and issues in your life day after day?
Wondering why your life never seems to change very much from year to year and you always seem to be dealing with the same old, same old?
In my last article, I talked about your subconscious mind and how it determines your thoughts, feelings and actions. I said that I would tell you how you can recognize your subconscious voices and what to do about them.
Here are two ways that your subconscious shows up in your life:
1) You feel that you have been struggling to achieve or create something but you’re just not successful.
Struggling to lose weight, quit smoking, eat healthier, be on time, overcome an addiction, exercise regularly or create a new habit? Finding that you just don’t seem to be able to stick with it?
Have a goal that means a lot to you but you just don’t seem to be able to make it happen?
At one time or another, most of us have felt as though we are trying to push a very big boulder uphill again and again and again. And as in Albert Camus’ story, The Myth of Sisyphus, we feel like the hero of the story who keeps pushing a very large boulder up a mountain every day only to see the boulder roll back down the mountain when he reaches the top.
(Camus, an Existentialist, was demonstrating a very different principle but it’s a great metaphor to illustrate how frustrating it feels to struggle with something over and over again when it just doesn’t work out.)
Often when you’re struggling with something it’s because your subconscious is driving the bus – but not in the direction that you want to go. Whether you’re aware of what it is saying to you or not, your subconscious is always in the background, running your life.
Your subconscious derails you by telling you things such as:
- You’re not good enough.
- You’ll never be successful.
- Who do you think you are?
- Only other people can have/do that.
- Give up. This is too hard.
- He/she is better than you.
- You’ll never make a living doing that.
- You’re fragile.
- You’re deficient.
- There’s something wrong with you.
- You’re crazy.
- Why can’t you be normal like other people?
And on and on.
One way to stop struggling and get unstuck is to ask yourself what you’re thinking and feeling about being successful at losing weight, quitting smoking, eating healthier or achieving the goal that’s important to you.
Until you become aware of what your subconscious is telling you, it will keep driving the bus in the wrong direction. And you’ll feel that you’re struggling to make things happen but getting nowhere.
2) The second way that your subconscious ahows up in your life is that you sabotage yourself.
I worked with a client, Jonathan (not his real name), who was very excited to be studying to be a veterinarian, his passion. He was doing really well when he decided a few months before graduation that he was bored with the program, so he withdrew.
As soon as Jonathan told me that he left the program so close to graduation, I smelled self-sabotage, one of the smoking guns of the subconscious.
However Jonathan is a smart person. He looked at me after telling his story and said, “That was self-sabotage, wasn’t it?” I nodded and told him that we would take a look at what was going on in his subconscious that had threatened to thwart his life’s dream of working with animals when he was so close to completing his goal.
Like most of us, Jonathan was carrying around some unconscious vows about who he is and how he is allowed to be in the world. Because he was the first person in his family to get a university education, he felt that he was betraying his family. That he was leaving them behind.
None of this was conscious of course. Consciously Jonathan knows that his family are thrilled that he’s going to university and support him and his dream.
It was all happening at a subconscious level out of his awareness. Because Jonathan and I have done some intense work together and I know his family history, I was able to help him see the beliefs and feelings that had pushed him to abandon his dream just short of fulfilling it. (Fortunately Jonathan was able to finish the program and he is now living his mission as a veterinarian.)
So how can you deal with your subconscious?
Step 1: Pay attention. Be aware. When it feels like you’re banging your head against the wall or stopping short of the finish line anywhere in your life, ask yourself what the little voice is whispering in your ear?
It might take a little practice, but after a while you will recognize your subconscious voice. It is actually clamoring for your attention. Most of us, however, are expert at running away from it. (How do I know? Personal experience…)
Awareness is always the first step in change. You can’t change what you’re not aware of.
Once you have outed those subconscious voices into the clear light of day, you can then decide what you want to do about them.
Step 2: Take my Life Cleanse Program. No, you won’t be drinking only cabbage soup or juicing or starving yourself. That’s a body cleanse.
Curious? Details – next newsletter. Maximum 10 people so you can get personal attention from me.
Spoiler alert: When we take away our comfortable habits, stuff starts to come up. Like our subconscious voices.
With warmest regards,
