In my last post I explained what hypnosis is. Today we will talk about the conscious mind versus the subconscious mind, the two parts of our mind that create thought, that create belief.
The mind is created of these two parts. The conscious mind is the part responsible for logic, for short-term memory, for willpower. It’s the part of your mind that analyzes, that criticizes, that judges things around you … basically, how we interact with the world. Roughly 10% of our mind is Conscious.
The other side of our mind is the subconscious mind. Really, up until about the age of somewhere between six and eight, our mind is pure subconscious. This is the part of us that creates rules or beliefs designed to keep us safe. 90% of our mind is subconscious.
The subconscious mind learns as much as possible as quickly as possible. It’s designed to allow us to survive. Being safe doesn’t mean being healthy or having the best version of our life, it just means being comfortable. Perhaps you’ve had an experience where you may do something that you don’t like, however, it’s something that you’re comfortable with. This is our subconscious mind acting out those internal beliefs.
To communicate from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind, you have to bypass what’s called the “critical factor.” Think of it as a filter that allows experiences and beliefs to flow from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. There are five different ways you can bypass the filter: An authority may tell you something as fact. You can have a highly emotional experience that’ll bypass the filter. A peer group’s beliefs and behaviors will bypass the filter. Repetition, something over and over and over again will bypass that filter. Finally, hypnosis is also a way to bypass the critical factor.
This is the conscious mind versus the subconscious mind, the two parts of our mind that create our reality. Next time, we’ll talk more about these five ways of creating subconscious beliefs.