Understanding our conscious and unconscious minds and how they work is fundamentally important to human existence. Just one inspirational thought can motivate us for the rest of our lives and an invention can save lifetimes of hard work for millions of people. Awake or asleep, your unconscious mind is running your body.
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory of personality; the conscious mind includes everything that is inside of our awareness. This is the aspect of our mental processing that allows us to think and talk in rational ways, and the unconscious mind is the aspect of the mind which we are not directly aware of. The unconscious mind stores our past learning experiences and memories, runs our bodies, represses unresolved negative emotions, etc.
We navigate our lives, take action, and make decisions based on our thoughts; however, we unconsciously think and do things throughout most of the day. For example, I'm sure you have found yourself driving and so deep in your thoughts that you don't remember driving from point A to point B, as if you were on "auto-pilot". The fact is; your unconscious mind tends to the driving while you're consciously thinking about something else.
Most people allow thoughts connected with worries, fear, anger or unhappiness occupy their minds often. They engage their mind with inner conversation about negative situations, not realizing that this inner conversation affects not only the situations that they are in, but ultimately their happiness and their health. It's a well known fact that stress affects our bodies - and stress usually comes from thoughts.
So what does this mean? 95% of our behaviour is automated and running on programs we've learned and adopted since childhood. This database of perceptions and beliefs programmed in our minds is a primary factor in shaping our lives. The good news is that we have power over the contents of that database.
Becoming aware of our unconscious beliefs and programming is the gateway to happiness and success. When you are experiencing anger, sadness, depression or hopelessness, these negative feelings will prevent you from attaining your dreams and desires, leaving you with internal conflict. Your emotions seldom lie. This is feedback from your unconscious mind, telling you it's time to switch gears, think more uplifting thoughts, change your focus, change your channel, topic of discussion, and do something different to shift your energy to create a better feeling.
Make a conscious effort to restructure the way you think and speak, by giving positive energy to the things you desire. Whenever possible, surround yourself, your thoughts and your emotions with positive people and influences, and your life will start to change. You will begin creating new situations and circumstances for yourself. You will be using the power of positive thinking! Pay attention and catch yourself giving in to that negative thought, then dismiss it by saying "Cancel that thought", and focus on what you really want.
