No matter what walk of life you hail from or who you are, chances are that the way you have grown up into adulthood has involved subconscious conditioning that may not be good for you in the long run. You’ve probably heard of things like abundance blocks, faulty programming, limiting beliefs, etc. These are all labels for subtle nuances of the same thing: the conditioning that happens within the human mind when something is said or done repeatedly. These patterns then become so ingrained that they turn into beliefs, which is how your belief systems are created. And yes, you can change them if they don’t serve you… for example, the belief that divorce is wrong no matter what creates a conflict for anyone who is married to an abusive spouse. Are you supposed to stay and suffer or even be murdered because your beliefs (that you were conditioned to accept as truth over time) state that divorce is wrong? Or are you supposed to adjust your beliefs according to your new knowledge (in this case, realizing that you are being abused, which is sometimes not obvious if the abuse is emotional, manipulative, and subtle) and grow from there? No matter your circumstance, it is your perception, your conditioning, and your subconscious mind that hold all of the power you need to make positive changes. In this article, you will learn how to uncover your subconsciously conditioned programming and beliefs, begin un-conditioning yourself, and re-write the story that you tell yourself very deliberately and on purpose so that you can thrive in life rather than constantly being stuck on survive.
This subconscious conditioning that we all experience is one of the most fascinating but troublesome aspects of the human vessel’s operating system: the mind. While repetition and conditioning can be extremely beneficial to us as we learn new things, it can be absolutely detrimental to your progress as a human being if you are continuously conditioned to believe that you’re a failure, for example. This is typically done without the person doing it even fully realizing it, telling you things throughout childhood such as, “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister?” or, “Make sure you have a backup plan.” The first statement sends us the message subconsciously that we will never be able to live up to our sibling’s accomplishments or be loved as much as our siblings, while the second statement sends us the message that our dreams can’t possibly come true and we have to have a whole separate plan in place to make money, because you can’t be worth anything without money.
Couple this with societal, media, and religious conditioning, and you’ve got today’s western society, broken down and quantified into countless different personality disorders and psychological illnesses that all stem from the same thing: subconscious conditioning. Yes, I realize that this is a bold statement, but it is truer than we have been able to prove scientifically so far because scientific advances are still being discovered and understood when it comes to the way the brain and body systems work in tandem with our emotions and spiritual wellbeing. No matter what the disease or illness or disorder, chances are that it is caused by a lifetime of subconscious conditioning, piled on top of generations of conditioning before that. We all mean well as human beings, but unfortunately we are all running on brainwashed autopilot and operating from the false assumption that physical reality, as we perceive it with our very, very limited sensory systems, is the only reality in existence. It isn’t. This physical world is a co-creation of everything we have going on behind the scenes from an energetic or vibrational standpoint. The physical world is an echo of everything that has been thought and felt already, so in order to change this physical manifestation in what we perceive as the future, we have to make changes within ourselves now.
So, how do you begin going about uncovering your subconscious programming and changing how you perceive yourself and your place in the world as a whole? Here are a few ideas to think about and consider as you learn more about your unique perspective of reality and how it relates and is connected to everything else in existence. This will allow you to begin seeing how your conditioning happened, and from there you can visualize a different story to replace the old one. Of course there are other techniques you can also research, but I will focus on what I have learned from personal inner experience in conjunction with my studies.
1. What many of us don’t consciously realize is that our perception is literally our reality. Whatever we think is real, is real. We think repetitive thoughts and may have things told to us repeatedly, then maybe we have those things backed up by experiences so we consider this evidence (even though it is merely the law of attraction at work), and then, once we have evidence, it becomes a belief system or very close to “fact” as we continue on our journey. What we must remember is that, just because we have had this one particular type of experience, it isn’t fact or truth, period. It is a version or angle or perspective of truth and a version of what we perceive as real, but it isn’t the experience of everyone across the board, and being able to redirect your focus to attract more positive experiences despite what your past tells you can only help you on your journey.
2. Remember that your experiences, while unique to you and your journey, are not apart from anyone else’s experiences. Rather, they are part of the same collective whole, so each soul (evolving and molded based on experience and life journey) is like a piece to the puzzle of true reality, and only when all of the pieces come together can we truly know and understand all that is from all perspectives throughout all eternity and existence. Breaking that down into a more manageable chunk of information, think of it as though each of us can only see from one specific perspective and the perspectives are infinite in number, beginning with tiny organisms and ending with interdimensional and interstellar beings we have no proof don’t exist (including planets, stars, black holes, and galaxies – how do we know these aren’t sentient and/or conscious beings?). There is so much that we don’t know, so many different points of view, each with its very own purpose, direction, and lifetime. None of these are good or bad in and of themselves; they are just different, but all lifetimes are created to serve the greatest good of all. This can be difficult to accept when we think of people in history who did terrible and cruel things, but when it comes to the infinite expanse of eternity (one dimension, time) and the universe (another dimension, space as we perceive it from our physical perspective), is it really worth getting stuck and dwelling on the horrible things one person did? Or is it better to learn from it and move on toward joy, that way we can utilize the law of attraction properly and manifest better things that come from love rather than beginning a self-fulfilling prophecy of negative thought loops?
3. By comparing our lives with the lives of others but not judging ourselves or them for the lives we have lived, we can examine how they grew up very differently than we did, or what kinds of things were experienced that may have caused similar or even completely different conditioning. If you can find someone spiritual to discuss this with on a semi-regular basis so that you can share your breakthroughs and understand when they share theirs with you, then you can thoroughly take advantage of this process and truly dig deep. If you don’t have a friend available to help you do this, preferably someone who practices mindfulness as well, then you may want to consider hiring a mindfulness or inner work coach to help you pick up and maintain momentum toward more and more breakthroughs. Spiritual awakening de-mystified: it is a series of epiphanies and revelations being peeled back and old emotional energy being brought to surface so that you can be who you truly are, not who others or the world tells you to be. Of course this comes with its own challenges, but essentially, that is what a spiritual awakening is, and embracing it means you are accepting of your path and willing to work with the energies and surrender to life and the amazing journey it has laid out for you.
4. Practice visualization as much as you can so that you can heal your pain and release it, then replace your old memories that may have created conditioning with new stories of those memories that you can then program into your subconscious mind by using meditation, self-hypnosis, and alpha wave binaural tones. Once you get to the point of being able to clear your thoughts, it is time to learn to direct them deliberately by placing new ideas that serve you well into your subconscious belief system repeatedly, that way you re-condition yourself to be much more of who you truly are and less of who you were conditioned to be.
5. Take on an attitude of curiosity and constant learning. Let life be your teacher, because experience is a better teacher than anything else could possibly be. The only exception being maybe if we were able to transfer knowledge of everything via telepathy or touch (remember the movie Paul?), but we have not evolved to that point yet. Because we have imagined it, it is on its way, though. Just like Star Trek and cell phones, not to mention touch screen technology. It is now only a matter of time, isn’t it? Whether you agree or not, this is one of those “wait and see” situations where time will tell what does develop, and evolution will help it happen over time.
6. Allow others to be themselves 100%, and you will find that you are able to be yourself 100% more often, too, because your judgment isn’t being reflected back to you in your physical experience. In doing this, you also practice focusing on not being bitter over circumstances and experiences from your past that were painful. Your outer world will reflect your inner world, and everything is energy first, so it makes sense for us to focus on feeling our best and taking care of ourselves to that end while also treating other people the way we would want to be treated. It all comes back to us, and all of those platitudes and sayings we dismiss as cheesy are really true but on a much deeper level than we may initially understand.
7. Enjoy the fact that every human has layers and is a dynamic, multifaceted being, even if you don’t necessarily “get along” or like each other. Each and every one of us has many aspects to ourselves, our lives, our opinions, our personalities, our experiences, and so on. People also typically have a lot of different talents to tap into, whether we know what those talents are right away or not. We are all different but all pieces of the same whole, intertwined and interconnected, crossing paths with those whom we are meant to cross paths with, learning what we need to learn (and repeating patterns if we don’t learn fast or have trouble recognizing our patterns), and being in exactly the right place at the right time at all times even if we don’t feel like we are. It’s all part of the process, the journey, so we might as well let go and enjoy the ride, roll with the punches, and recover quickly.
I hope that some of these ideas and revelations resonate with you and allow you to step fully into your power, and into who you truly are as a soul. This is the first step toward manifesting the life of your dreams in every way, so congratulations for stepping up and taking responsibility for yourself through mindfulness practice!
It feels scary sometimes, doesn’t it? However, the better you get at being yourself and learning from life quickly, the more you will enjoy the journey and be able to glean insights and wisdom from it. This is not to say that you have to have happy, positive, spiritual days 100% of the time. What it does mean is that you don’t beat up on yourself when you get depressed or discouraged, release those feelings or refocus, and move on.
Go for a walk, meditate, or do something different for a little while. This will help you to lift your mood if you’re down and remember that one aspect of your life is only one aspect of your life, and while it may affect your life as a whole, it isn’t the only thing you could focus on. Sometimes our energies and emotions go to frustration for a reason, like maybe we need a break from that task so we can come back to it later to get it done in a faster, more inspired, and more effective way. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if you come back and end up being way more productive and get things done much faster, right?
I hope that you’re having a beautiful week so far and join us next month for more inner work insights on the Mindful Leader Blog.
For more information about the Mindfulness Movement or the International Mindfulness Federation, please visit:
http://executivecoachinguniversity.com/mindfulness-movement
