Are you listening to what your mind is telling you?
Tess Wheeler – Dec 30, 2019 (Medium.com)
Your subconscious mind is always at work processing the millions of experiences and sensations your brain receives every day. It’s an enormous bank vault containing everything that’s happened to you ever since you were a small child. It will go on receiving and collecting data until the day you die.
Not only that, it’s constantly working hard trying to make sense of all this information for you.
When you get that uneasy feeling that something’s not right, or when you do something without thinking, that gut instinct comes courtesy of your subconscious. It’s accessing stored knowledge and experience to make sense of a situation and keep you safe — natural self-preservation at its best.
I’ve read several articles recently that suggest we can put our subconscious mind to work solving problems that trouble our conscious mind. One suggestion is to write a letter to our subconscious, laying out the issue that’s bothering us and asking it to come back with a solution as soon as it has one. The idea is that our brain continues to work on the problem, sorting through its vault of knowledge, while we go about our daily business. This is a no-nonsense approach to tapping into the power of our super-computer brains. Anyone who has ever had that lightbulb moment, when the answer to a puzzle seems to pop into their mind out of nowhere, has experienced this.
Meditation is another means of connecting with our subconscious, with what lies deep inside us. Studies have shown that increased alpha waves experienced by the brain during the meditative state help stimulate creativity and can reduce depression.
And while mindfulness is all about being in the moment and being aware of what is happening around us, mindfulness meditation also allows us to stop for a moment and listen to our own thoughts. It is generally acknowledged to have both physical and psychological benefits, although more research is being done to establish its opportunities and risks.
These are all conscious, purposeful ways of harnessing our inner resources. But what about those of us who don’t practice them? I’ve never written a letter to my subconscious self asking it to work on a problem for me. And much as I like the idea of them, meditation and mindfulness are things I rarely make time to try.
I believe that those of us who are swept along by day to day life, rarely stopping for long enough to consult ‘what lies beneath’, are still in touch with our subconscious. Or rather, our subconscious is in touch with us. And from time to time, whether we like it or not, sleep and dreams are the portal to that inner self.
I strode out onto the track and sat down to switch on my feet. Everybody else had already started the race and most were zooming past me in Formula 1 cars. I fumbled around by my little toe; where was the ‘on’ button? I was certain it used to be here.
The crowd watched. My fellow competitors roared past. I was embarrassed, sure, but my overwhelming feeling was frustration. The air was thick with excitement, adrenaline surged around me. I longed to be flying along with the wind in my face and instead I was motionless in the mud. I just couldn’t seem to get started.
Fortunately, as you’ll have gathered, this was a dream. As I woke from it, the meaning slid into my head. This was a metaphor for my creative life — or rather, the lack of it. I used to be one of the drivers happily doing laps at speed and enjoying the rush. Now I sit on the sidelines unable to even get started – I’m so far out of the race, I might as well have stayed in the car park.
I’m on the cusp of starting again, of regaining that daily writing habit. During my waking hours, I read articles about how I should write every day, the need to grow an audience, and even how to make money from my efforts. My conscious mind is straining to begin. And yet. When I grab an hour to write, I find myself staring at a blank page. At the end of my precious hour, I often go downstairs to make coffee, sighing and feeling a failure, hoping it will all click into place tomorrow.
I can picture my creative mental pixie, dehydrated and restless, jumping up and down in rage and frustration at being sidelined for so long.
I know that the dream was desperate semaphore. My subconscious mind is taking action because my conscious mind is unable to break out of its morass. I can picture my creative mental pixie, dehydrated and restless, jumping up and down in rage and frustration at being sidelined for so long. She’s waving a flag and yelling now that she’s caught my attention. “Don’t go back to sleep!”
Our minds are amazing machines that have been programmed by nature to work. They need tasks and challenges, something to engage in, get their teeth into (minds with teeth – there’s a scary image). But more than that, your subconscious mind is also the essential you-ness of you, your instrument of expression and creativity. Deny yourself a creative outlet at your peril. You will grow unfulfilled and bitter. Your underused, neglected psyche will either keep you awake at night or send you strange dreams in an attempt to get through to you.
Now that I’ve recognised my subconscious is frantically messaging me, I’m going to try one or more of the purposeful methods of tuning in to it. Perhaps the next thing I write will be a letter to my subconscious, asking it to come up with a plan to release my creativity. If I ask earnestly enough and determinedly enough, maybe the signposts to the road ahead will pop into my mind when I least expect them.
Why don’t you give it a try? The Startup
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