“The subconscious does not do the thinking.  That is not its function.  It just carries out orders.”  John Assaraf

Could you responsibly  handle having a servant that blindly did everything that you told him/her to do, without any thinking or push-back whatsoever?

Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, “What are you doing?”  (Ecc. 8:4; NIV)

Last week, I said that I was going to do an extended series of DGs on the human brain.  If you missed that introduction, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes and go back and read that introductory material.  (Access that DG by clicking here.)

Then earlier this week, I wrote about Your Non-conscious Mind and explained about how it was programmed to be in charge of all the body functions that keep us alive.  I also said that the non-conscious or subconscious mind also stores all the memories, habits, and beliefs you’ve ever developed, most of which you can’t even remember using your conscious mind.  Today, I would like to discuss that function in more detail.

Most of your actions arise from your habits and beliefs.  Beliefs could be loosely described as mental habits.  Beliefs come from all sorts of places, the most predominate being from your childhood.  Statements made by adults, particularly before you were able to reason differently, were accepted as gospel and became lodged as truth in your mind.  Now, as I pointed out on Monday, one of your brain’s primary tasks is to ensure that your outside world matches your inside world.  So, as you can see, if the beliefs you have developed over the years are not quite true, your brain is pulling out all the stops to make sure that it filters out any information that is contrary to the untruth you believe. 

For instance, if you were told over and over again that you would never amount to anything when you grow up, you inevitably began to accept that as truth.  Or if you were told time and time again that anybody with a lot of money probably got it dishonestly, you began to see that as truth.  Now your brain is filtering out all information to the contrary.  Can you begin to see how that severely limits you as your life progresses?

You already know that trying to overcome physical habits that you don’t want is quite a chore.  Mental habits (beliefs) are just as persistent.  Therefore, as you can begin to appreciate, your subconscious mind can be your greatest strength if you have habits and beliefs that serve you, and conversely it can be your greatest enemy if you are programmed with a series of habits and beliefs that don’t serve you.

Now, catch the impact of this…say you have an untrue belief that you can’t even remember  with your conscious mind (but remember that your subconscious mind never forgets anything).  Now this forgotten memory is actually creating automatic behavior which most likely is not serving you since it was based on untruth in the first place.  What a convoluted mess this becomes.  How many times have you heard, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” 

You see, if you begin to understand all this, you can see that changing your behavior on the outside can only come from first changing the beliefs on the inside.  Otherwise, you are simply a victim to all that has happened in the past.  But armed with an understanding that this behavior is coming from the unconscious mind you can begin to implement strategies to change some of your limiting beliefs.  You don’t need to understand where the belief came from, just that it is there and that it is not true.

More to come next week.

Prayer Power
Lord, help us to discern those beliefs that lead to behaviors that are limiting us from being all that You have designed us for and are calling us to become.

Link of the Day
Focus on Your Beliefs, Not Your Behavior

Blessings on you as you begin to examine some of your unwanted behaviors more carefully.

Previous in Series-/ /-Next in Series