In my last blog post, I talked to you about The Growth Mindset, and what the differences are between growth mindsets and closed mindsets. I felt I needed to expand more on what I spoke about last time, to help set you up for success in 2022.
Our beliefs are formed in childhood. Very often those beliefs come out to help us move from pain to comfort to pleasure and safety. Those beliefs, then trigger thoughts, those thoughts then trigger feelings, and those feelings then drive us to action or inaction.
Let’s talk about our subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind is like a filing cabinet. It stores everything, from every experience, every thought we have ever had, without filter, with no judgement our subconscious just stores it. We draw from our subconscious mind later in life to help us respond to situations that present themselves to us in our daily journey.
For instance, let’s take three different people who happened upon a snake. You will get three different reactions. One of them may run and scream. One of them might be just completely indifferent and not really respond at all or walk right by the snake. The third person might be like, “Oh, look at that snake”.
All these different reactions are coming from their subconscious minds. If we were to investigate their subconscious mind, their own filing cabinet, we would better understand each one’s individual reactions to that snake.
You might see these questions: “Oh, have I been here before?” “Have I experienced a snake before?” “How do I respond?”
The child that grew up on a farm and had snakes around them all the time and absolutely loves and adores animals is the one that wants to help the snake get to safety. The one that’s completely indifferent. Well, their experience with snakes before was the snake was safe, or perhaps they’ve never encountered a snake before and their subconscious doesn’t yet have a file telling them how to respond this first time. It didn’t cause any fear didn’t cause any harm. It’s like you know, whatever, keep going with my life, right? The one who screamed is the one who’s had a bad experience before with a snake, or been taught that snakes are dangerous, run away. It’s interesting to understand this because our subconscious mind is responsible for 90% of what’s going on in our brain. It’s all the things that we do on autopilot.
Our subconscious mind is truly “our boss”. Whereas our conscious mind is responsible for only 10% of what we go through. It’s responsible for our willpower, our analysis, and our decision making. Our Alpha Theta brainwaves are what divides our conscious and subconscious minds.
Time to Reset Our Set Point Theory
So, how do we overcome trauma in our lives? How do we overwrite those subconscious thoughts, and feelings? We need to reset our set point theory. What is set point theory? These are the scripts, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that are running on autopilot in your subconscious mind that were preprogrammed into you as a child.
If we don’t learn how to reprogram those belief systems and thought processes that were programmed into us as children, how are we going to move forward in life? Yes, many of those beliefs, thoughts, feelings served us well as children because they were there to protect us from harm. However, as we grow older those same beliefs and thoughts can do more damage then good. If those beliefs are no longer serving you its time to change those into thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that will serve you as an adult.
What is the Sympathy Cycle?
Your present possibly unhappy ‘state of being’ or health may be garnering you attention or sympathy, family or friends may be checking up on you. What happens if you change the sympathy cycle? You may not get the attention or the sympathy that you seek. So, getting well may cause you to believe that you’ll lose relationships. Overcoming this will hinge upon creating new relationships, healthier relationships with others. All of this is happening in the subconscious until you create awareness around the thoughts that you have and the way that you talk to yourself.
Do You Have the Victim Mentality?
In this mentality, you believe you are a certain way because of your environment, your upbringing, or your genetics, you’ve accepted your fate, that this is the bad hand that you have been dealt by life. You’ve given over your power of control to others, or the world. You believe the world or others are at fault, and you accept no responsibility. Therefore, you have no control to change things. You probably know someone in your life that falls into this category.
To overcome the victim mentality, you must first take personal responsibility for your feelings and beliefs, and with that a sense of taking control over your life. Forgiveness is not something that we do for other people, we do it for ourselves so we can get well and move on. That’s a big part of this process of overcoming victim mentality. We need to stop laying the blame on others, stop giving up our power, and stop having no responsibility for where we’re at today. We can choose to take responsibility for where we’re at today, while forgiving whomever we need to forgive to allow us to move forward.
Why You Can’t Move Forward in Your Life?
Do you have the fear of failure? Or do you have the fear of success? You choose the one that works for you. Should you forget everything and run, or face everything and rise? A lot of people are afraid of ‘what if I fail again’, and ‘this is my last hope’. People hold on to a hope or a belief when they don’t yet believe in themselves. Or there’s the ‘what if I succeed’, and I don’t like my new life, friends, or job? What if people view me differently, and don’t accept me anymore? Overcoming these concerns happen with less judgement of yourself, and accepting who you are, and what you really want out of life. It comes with knowing you’ll be fine either way.
Are you judging yourself? Why?
It’s time you get curious about what you need to learn!
Say this to yourself, “Instead of judging myself I need to become curious of where life will take me.” That’s exciting! Think of all the new opportunities, the new things you can learn, instead of sitting in a box that you have been in your whole life, afraid to open it up and look outside.
Who is Dr. Maxwell Maltz, and What Can He Teach Me about Happiness?
Dr. Maxwell Maltz is a plastic surgeon. He saw in many of his patients the deep unhappiness they held. Even after the person got the exact look they asked for, they still were unhappy. They still went chasing the perfect body, perfect health, highest spirituality, perfect relationships, and the perfect career. However, they found out that nothing will make you happier if those items are covering up the real desire you seek, which could be love, acceptance, safety and security.
Overcoming this “deep unhappiness”, comes from working on the real you and rewiring the programs that are playing in your subconsciousness, causing you to feel inadequate or live in fear. Dr. Maslow has created a triangle of beliefs that we focus on (see image below the blog):
- Bottom of the triangle: Here sits our basic physiological needs, which is accessed to shelter, clothes, food, toilet, sex, and sleep.
- Next level up: Feeling safe and secure, which comes from having physical safety as well as secure income.
- Third level up: Love and Belonging. Our relationships and connections with others, humans, and our animal friends.
- Fourth level up: Self-Esteem. Getting the job or the degree that you want achieving your goals satisfying the ego.
- At the very top of the triangle and the smallest part is Self Actualization: Service to others and giving back.
Choose to do one thing every day that helps you move forward and get out of your slump. You won’t be able to change your problems overnight. But start with understanding that you can change your beliefs and then change your actions so that you can do this. If you need the help of someone else, reach out to practitioners that can help you.
10 Ways to Transform Your Life and The Life of Others
- Get back up when life throws you a curveball.
- Face unfortunate circumstances: Express gratitude for what you do have, and enjoy the time when things are going well.
- Ask for more: You are made for more! Don’t be afraid to ask!
- Ask the right questions: Instead of giving up simply ask, “What am I missing in order to achieve my dream?” “What are other people doing in order to achieve their dreams?” “What do I need to be, do, or get in order to achieve my dream?” You’re asking for your great big dream.
- Take the bull by the horns: Train your mind and nervous system to be a winner. Talk to yourself as if you are talking to someone you love. By doing this you are training your mind to be a winner.
- You can do anything! Lifestyle, and your environment account for 95% of all good or bad health. You have complete control over your lifestyle, and health. It’s not all about genes. Stop with the belief you are not good enough!
- You are the sum of all your choices: Don’t wish for what you don’t want, wish for what you do want. How do you do this? First make a list of 10 things you don’t want. Why do I say this, because for most people, its easier to write down what you don’t want to happen in your life. Then start building a list of things you do want. When you put these thoughts on paper, you start to speak about what you WANT, and things start to happen in your world. There is no overnight success, so do not get discouraged, just keep writing things down as they come to you. Remember, your thoughts become feelings, which lead to actions and then results.
- Create a Goal: Start out with small actions that you can accomplish on a day-to-day basis. Once you start with smaller actions they build into more and more until lo and behold, you’ve reached the goal you set. Stop procrastinating. Grow to your potential. The best time to get started was always yesterday. However, the second-best time is today. Look at what you wrote in your journal, put those items into action. Sure, you may fail in the beginning, but these are learning experiences of what NOT to do next time.
- Find Your Purpose and Path: Get excited about life! What excites you? Is it a new career? A hobby? Your purpose and passion lie in that intersection of what you are good at, or what comes easily to you, and what you enjoy! Watch how time flies when you are doing something that brings you JOY!
- Life can be short, make the most of it! Don’t waste a day in your life. The easiest way not to waste life is to be grateful and start each day out with gratitude. By doing this you are putting things into perspective that life could be 10 times worse. So be thankful for everything you do have, be thankful for how well everything else is going in your life. Remember, I said before, do one thing every day that helps you move forward and get out of your slump.
It’s so true about putting things in perspective. When I remind myself that I’m always exactly where I’m supposed to be, that I’m not given more than I can handle, that helps me put things in perspective. I work to figure it out, even if I must break it down into smaller sized pieces to get started.
Till next time!
Remember to move one step further forward than you were yesterday, while enjoying the process as it unfolds around you. Do one thing every day that helps you move forward to get out of your slump!
Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs:
