Subconscious versus Conscious Mind
everything starts in the mind
The battle of the mind
Like most of us, and without realising it, you probably carry emotional baggage from your past. We constantly observe and mimic authority figures throughout early childhood. Like a sponge, we indiscriminately absorb experiences which shape our perceptions and become our truth, our individual reality of how we believe the world to be. This 'truth,' however, often arises out of distortions, erroneous links and associations we made during those formative years. In time, they become entrenched beliefs and a major driving force in our adult years.
This negative programming becomes an endless inner dialogue in our heads, leading to destructive behaviour, self-sabotage, physical illness and mental anguish. Current theories propose that we only use approximately 5% of our thinking and reasoning in a conscious way, versus 95% done subconsciously in an endless loop that runs both night and day.
Sigmund Freud thought of conscious versus subconscious using an analogy of an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg is one's conscious thinking (only about 5%) but the bulk of the iceberg (about 95%), one's subconscious mind, lies beneath the water. By the sheer proportional imbalance one easily realises that the subconscious mind is far more powerful in driving our behaviour than the conscious mind. When the 95% runs a negative dialogue, it is not surprising that one may subconsciously feel overwhelmed and powerless. This constant demotivation, reduced productivity and a sense of sadness at not enjoying life to the fullest, may lead one to self-sabotage. Relief lies in therapy helping restore balance to these delicate systems.