Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Rom 12:2 (MSG)

Subconscious Pattern – Part 1

Our subconscious mind is now considered to be a million times more powerful than our conscious mind.

OK… what does that really mean?

It’s tempting to think you are in control of your life with your conscious mind. I mean if you think about being hungry you can wilfully direct your whole body, with your conscious mind, to move closer to the fridge and forage for some food that will satiate that hunger.

But if that were truly the case then you’d have to tell yourself, “To stand up, push yourself away from the table and extend your knees. Steady yourself with your hands. Now turn. Lift your right foot, now your left…”

Talking through it like that kinda makes it sound weird, doesn’t it? But that’s because we are so used to these automatic movements happening without any conscious control. It’s actually quite an ingenious design as our brain saves precious resources by delegating these and many more complex patterns to our subconscious mind. All these patterns get saved and then reinforced as our subconscious mind becomes like a tape player, playing back the various combined muscle/cognitive processes stored to respond to it’s given cue.

I remember reading a story by a guy named Tyler who explained a simple yet funny example of how this outworked in his life. One day, while at home, he noticed the toilet leaking. To not flood his house he turned off the water and emptied the tank. He knew it would take time to fix, which he didn’t have right now, so he made a mental note to use the upstairs bathroom until he had time to get it repaired.

For the rest of the day something funny happened. Instead of heading to the upstairs bathroom, he would find himself at the broken one, realiseing only after beginning to relieve himself. It happened at least four times and each time he’d have to turn the water back on, wait for the tank to fill, flush and then grab a bowl to catch the leak that caused this trouble in the first place.

He said he’d curse himself and remind himself to ‘think' next time he needed to ‘go’… but 45 minutes later, there he was again.

His subconscious mind was hitting ‘play’ on the tape every time the ‘cue’ for needing to go to the bathroom was triggered. Even his conscious decision to not use the toilet was not powerful enough to override his subconscious programming.

We all have subconscious programming that directs our lives and when we’re not aware of it, it will make decisions for us. Even decisions we don’t like.

Ever found yourself doing something you didn’t want to do? When Lizzy (wife) cook’s apple pie and leaves it lying out on the bench, it’s like that subconscious tape player plays at full volume. Haha. I don’t wanna eat that much pie… but it just happens.

And sometimes we face darker and deeper issues too. Like thoughts and feelings about ourselves… or others. And sometimes those thoughts turn into actions.

If you face stuff like this, please seek help from someone you trust and only someone who has earned the right to hear your story.

But before that tape player starts playing a thought process that says “I’m no good, I’m not worth anything” remember that there was another message sent to overwrite that one.

And when you play back that message; when you fix your attention on His voice, love is the only sound that can be heard.

Go to Part 2 – Patterns of Thinking

[vcex_image_grid columns=”3″ pagination=”false” thumbnail_link=”custom_link” link_title_tag=”true” custom_links_target=”_blank” overlay_style=”title-category-visible” columns_gap=”5″ img_hover_style=”fade-out” image_ids=”20934,20935,20937″ custom_links=”https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1239768002?pt=118656308&ct=blog%20footer&mt=8,https://www.pktfuel.com/dailyemail,https://www.pktfuel.com/support” img_height=”350″]