How to influence your subconscious mind to change your negative behavioral patterns?

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

─ Aristotle

Before getting started, let's take a look at the definition of the subconscious mind. What is subconscious mind? Subconscious mind is a part of your brain which is controlling or at least influencing all of your actions, behaviors and feelings on an unaware (or partially-aware) state. Subconscious mind composes the main part of your brain which is bigger and much stronger than your conscious mind. That's why studies have shown that even the great thinkers of our history such as Albert Einstein has only used a small fraction of their brain's potential during their lifetime (which is mostly the conscious part of the brain). Our subconscious mind is like a huge and powerful computer which takes all the information from our daily experiences, and tells us how to react to them based on our history. But, what is the history of our subconscious mind? And, how is it formed? Our subconscious mind is formed mainly during our childhood. During the childhood, our mind is intact and ready to be shaped by our life experiences. For example, we hear something, see something, feel something as an experience which produces strong emotions deep down in our brain such as an accident, crime scene, being abused as a child, etc. These experiences will change something deep inside us which is our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind takes a mental picture of the experience, interpret it based on our observation (seeing, hearing or feeling something) of the experience and save it as a history in our mind and delete the rest of the details. In that way our internal representations to the life experiences are shaped solidly. For instance, by having a car accident you get a phobia of driving a car, airplanes or something like that. Or if someone has been abused as a child in the past, that person might be turned on by kids in the future to do the same thing (which is the worst reaction to do and the person has to immediately get some help by visiting a psychologist!) .That person could also have a completely different reaction to that tragic history , for example, based on his life environment and observations he could interpret that situation as a painful experience and try to guide and protect all of the kids from facing this kind of tragic life lessons. These experiences as you see can shape your subconscious mind, rule over your actions and behaviors and even build a strong passion and motivation inside you to do something meaningful in your life.

The life experiences during our childhood which strongly shape our subconscious mind could also be positive such as being encouraged, awarded and admired by our parents or teachers when we did something nice or helped someone. In that way, our subconscious mind will make a mental picture of doing something nice or helping someone, link it with pleasure, and then save it. Now, whenever we do something nice or help someone we subconsciously feel good about it (pleasure). The rewarded or punished actions don't necessarily have to be something you did on your own. For instance, your father could repeat doing something again and again that could have a big influence on you as a kid. If you see your father is smoking or drinking alcohol and you see that he’s getting rewarded somehow by the others or he’s enjoying doing that, the chances are high that you will interpret the situation wrong and link pleasure to doing the same thing later on in your life. I guess by now you've realized what the subconscious mind is, and how it affects your actions and behaviors.

Now let's take a look at the subject that how we can change our subconscious mind, if it is causing us a negative behavioral pattern or pain. You should always remember that your subconscious mind doesn't understand NO or NOT, since it just gives commands and releases signals based on the already saved mental pictures in your mind (not to mention that there are strong feelings of pain and pleasure attached to all of those mental pictures). If you say that I won't eat chocolates anymore, the first thing that comes to your mind is the chocolate itself not the act of not eating it! Your subconscious mind will remember and think about chocolates and all your experiences with it (probably linked with pleasure!). So, you should be focusing on the things you want to achieve and give your statements in a positive way (not in negative ways such as not, no, don’t, etc.). For example, you could think about the alternatives of eating chocolates such as eating fruits. When you say "today I will eat an orange, a peach and some strawberries", that's where your mind is headed not to the opposite undesired directions. Furthermore, the subconscious mind doesn't understand the difference between present and future. That's why it can't distinguish between reality and imagination. Therefore, you can trick your subconscious mind and make it believe in a visualization of your desired life goals. 

Now let's take a look at the method that we can practice on it to change our subconscious mind:

• Brainstorm and think deeply about your life goals, values and dreams. What do you really want in your life?

• Do not generalize your life goals and values. Be specific and clear about them. Provide enough details about your life dreams.

• Visualize that you have already achieved your goals and dreams like you are watching yourself in a movie. You could finish this visualization step with some affirmations for a few minutes. Try to include emotions related to those specific affirmations that you're practicing. For example, when you say I am confident or I am successful, imagine yourself in a present situation that you are acting and talking in a situation confidently or see yourself succeeding in a specific area. 

• You should boycott the stuff which are not along the visualization of your desired life because they would again influence your subconscious mind in an opposite direction. These could be watching TV programs, movies, news or spending time with some of your friends (who could have a negative and destructive effect on your subconscious mind).

• You can also record a version of your visualization & affirmations and play it each night when you’re going to sleep. Your subconscious mind is active while you're asleep and it can hear everything to be affected by.

• Act and treat your friends and family in the same way that you've been practicing and visualizing. Behave in a way that it's like that you have already achieved your goals and dreams.

• Remember that like every other skill, your subconscious mind needs consistent practice and patience to be improved. So, be patient, positive and consistent to get the results you want. 

Master your subconscious mind. Take full control of your mind and enjoy the difference.