How Your Mind Is Structured - Day 2

How To Maximize The Power Of Your Mind - Day 2

 

Day 2:  'How Your Mind Is Structured'

 

Last time, we got to understand just how powerful the mind

really is so in order to fully maximize its power, it's prudent that we

understand the structure behind it. 

 

Generally speaking, the mind is made up of two parts: 

the conscious and the subconscious. 

 

The conscious mind is the one that holds your daily thoughts

("It's boring.", "It's cold in here."  "It's such a crummy day.", etc.). 

You know that you are thinking these thoughts, hence you are conscious

of them. 

 

What about the subconscious mind?  Your subconscious mind is an extraordinary

piece of technology. It is constantly working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,

regulating your heartbeat, pumping blood throughout your body, controlling

your breathing when you're sleeping, etc.,  It's doing everything in the

background without you even knowing it. 

 

It's also the world's best information sponge.  It's constantly taking in

information via your 5 senses that far surpass anything you experience

consciously.  For example, if you walk into a bookstore, your conscious

mind takes note of all the things you experience but your subconscious

mind is actually storing all the data you don't experience consciously: 

the person to the left of you, the book in the lower corner of the shelf,

the magazines to the right of you, etc.  It's all in your subconscious: 

you just don't remember it consciously.  All that data can be brought back

through various methods so we know for a fact that your subconscious mind

is storing all that data. 

 

What is the relationship between the two parts of the mind if any? 

 

1.  The conscious mind is the gatekeeper of the subconscious mind.
2.  The subconscious mind obeys the conscious mind.

 

Let's use a simple example to illustrate this relationship. I want you to

look at your hand and imagine holding a yellow lemon that's sliced open.  

 

What just happened? 

 

Your mouth started to salivate didn't it? 

 

Let me ask you this.  Was there a lemon in your hand?  Well, there

wasn't actually one physically in your hand, but there was one in your mind,

more specifically your conscious mind.  Since your conscious mind is the

gatekeeper of the subconscious, that image got passed to the subconscious

mind which then triggered the release of saliva in your mouth. 

 

We discover another important point in this example and that is simply

that your subconscious mind believes what is in your conscious mind. 

That's very important so I'll repeat that again.  Your subconscious mind believes

what is in your conscious mind.  There was no actual lemon in your hand,

but there was in your mind and that's all that matters when it comes

to your subconscious.  This is a powerful concept so keep that in mind

as we'll be coming back to it later.

 

Your subconscious mind can trigger immediate action like we just saw

and it can also trigger habitual action.  Take for example driving.  When you

first started out driving, you were conscious of everything. The cars next to you,

behind you, in front of you, the gear shifting, the radio, the rear view mirror, etc. 

However, as you kept on driving, all that became second nature to you. 

You constantly practiced driving and that activity got drilled into your

subconscious to the point where when you drive, you don't drive like you

did in the beginning.  You go into a zone.  That's your subconscious mind

taking over for you right there.

 

From that we learn that the subconscious mind is responsible for our

habitual unconscious behavior.  Note that the subconscious mind can only

do this once an activity has been repeated enough times. 

(That's another very important concept to remember by the way).

 

Now in order to fully maximize your mind, it seems logical that we should

focus on your subconscious mind because it yields the greatest influence

in our actions but remember, your subconscious mind is a slave to your

conscious mind.  The conscious mind is the gatekeeper of the subconscious. 

Whatever is held in the conscious mind gets passed down to the subconscious

so let's focus on the conscious mind. 

 

Here's the kicker though. The majority of people don't have control over

the thoughts in their conscious mind. They let them go rampant and as a

result, fear, doubt, negative thinking easily fill the conscious mind which gets

passed on to the subconscious and the subconscious mind obeys that and

brings those things into your reality.

 

Here's a simple example.  Hold in your conscious mind, thoughts of negativity

and your subconscious mind will go and filter your reality to show you just how

negative the world is.  Remember, the conscious mind is the General. 

The General says "Go to negative territory", the soldier (your subconscious mind)

just follows the directions.  Your subconscious mind keeps track of all the data

that you process in your environment so it can easily go fetch you evidence of

negative circumstances should you choose to think of them.  "I don't have much

in my bank account.  My job sucks because I have a stupid boss.  My friends

don't like me." 

 

Your subconscious is an expert data miner.  It will look at those thoughts

and provide evidence of them in its massive data warehouse to come up

with reasons to back those statements up.  It will keep on doing this because

that's essentially what you told it to do.  It presents that evidence to you,

which in turn, makes you think of even more negative thoughts. 

 

For example, you tell yourself - "Nobody likes me".  Your subconscious mind

gets fed that statement and provides you evidence of why nobody likes you. 

"You have no confidence.  You're boring.  You can't hold a good conversation." 

You think these thoughts again and your subconscious mind again, being the

good solider that it is, comes up with reasons to back up these new statements. 

You start engaging in a vicious cycle that easily leads to a downward spiral.   

 

Our conscious minds hold the thoughts we think and if we repeat them enough,

they get drilled into the subcsonisous where it results in the habitual influence

of our future thoughts and actions.    The key is to realize we have the power

to choose what thoughts we hold in our conscious minds.  Repeat the thoughts

that we want enough and they will slowly get drilled into our subconscious mind

and manifest themselves in our future thoughts and actions.  I can't stress enough

that this takes time (remember the example of driving). 

 

That's the key behind people who are so optimistic.  They are aware of what

thoughts they put in their head so they constantly put positive ones in and once

they habituate that enough, the subconscious mind takes over and does it automatically

for them.  They don't have to force it anymore. 

 

Most people don't exert any control over their thoughts so it's really easy for

negative thinking to creep in and set roots because negative thinking doesn't take

any work at all.  It's like weeds. They grow anywhere, anytime, without

any nutrition whatsoever. 

 

What you have to start doing is taking control of your thoughts.  However, it

takes time because most people never really took control of them from the start. 

In the beginning, you may only catch 5-10%.   A few weeks later, maybe 20%. 

Then you'll get to the point where you're conscious of the thoughts you're thinking

that you can change them on the spot.
 
I'm not saying you have to control every thought that enters your mind. That

would be very difficult to do.  Just a majority of your thoughts.  Remember,

the conscious mind is the gateway to your subconscious so take back control

of your conscious mind. 

 

The conscious mind is the key to your subconscious so get to work on

controlling that first.  The next issue will go more in-depth on how to utilize

your conscious mind to unlock the power of your subconscious mind.

 

To the inevitable achievement of all your hopes and dreams,

 

Brian Kim

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