Are you finding yourself trapped in repetitive behaviors and habits that seem hard to break? By the end of this blog you’ll have a sense of the different levels of conscious and how to begin to break free from living on auto-pilot.
Life on Auto-Pilot
If I were to ask about your daily routine, you would likely find that your behaviors repeat every single day, week, and year. This repetition is a function of the brain's evolutionary design. Our brains seek consistency for a straightforward reason, consistency leads to predictable outcomes. Predictability is less work for the brain as it requires less mental effort to manage the familiar. The unknown, filled with unknown variables, can trigger unexpected responses within the mind and body. Thus, the brain wants to keep us on a steady path. To understand how the brain accomplishes this, we must first explore the different levels of consciousness.
The Conscious Mind
Picture an iceberg. The part of the iceberg that is clearly visible and easy to access represents the conscious mind. It sits above the water and is influenced by its surrounding environment. The conscious mind encompasses the elements of your thinking that you are fully aware of and capable of influencing. This includes decisions such as what you had for dinner, who you are in a relationship with, whether you will attend therapy, or if you plan to go to the gym. This level of consciousness is entirely within your realm of awareness.
The Subconscious Mind
The subconscious is like the part of the iceberg just below the water's surface but still visible. It's accessible enough to see and reach, although it's somewhat obscured. The subconscious controls your automatic behaviors and thoughts. These are actions and reactions you perform with little to no conscious thought, such as driving to work without actively paying attention to the route, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, or engaging in habitual behaviors as if on autopilot. Our daily lives are largely governed by the subconscious. More than half of our subconscious behaviors were formed before the age of seven, stemming from long-forgotten experiences that remain ever-present in the deeper level of cognition, called the unconscious mind.
The Unconscious Mind
The unconscious is like the part of the iceberg that lies so deep beneath the water that it is no longer visible. It encompasses all experiences that the brain has concealed and made inaccessible. The brain hides this information for various reasons, including trauma, but mainly because it is uncertain how you might react to it.
Our lives are influenced by unconscious experiences that generate subconscious behaviors, which we act out habitually. When we try to make deliberate changes in our lives, we often find it challenging because we may not know how to modify these subconscious behaviors. This difficulty may arise because we're not addressing the root cause: the unconscious material that initially shaped these subconscious actions.
The Subconscious Feedback Loop
The subconscious feedback loop consists of four parts, experiences, chemical reactions, physical reactions, and thoughts. Each part reinforces the whole and the parts of the loop. When we experience something, we use all of our senses to take in the information. The brain receives this information and then it creates a chemical reactions to tell the body how to respond. The chemical reaction sends a message to the body about how to respond to the experience which created a physical reaction. Blood and oxygen are pumped to the appropriate parts of the body to help the body navigate the experience. A signal is then sent back to the mind in the form of a thought, informing the mind how it should think about the experience and how it should be categorized. This way the next time you experience this stimuli you can replay the subconscious loop and streamline the process.
Consider the example of procrastination linked to low self-esteem. The underlying subconscious belief might be, "I’m not capable of succeeding." This belief manifests in behavior such as delaying important tasks, steering clear of challenges, and not fully committing to efforts. The resulting procrastination often leads to subpar performance or missed chances, which then produces negative results. These adverse outcomes, in turn, strengthen the original belief of inadequacy, reinforcing the cycle of procrastination and avoidance.
Ways to Break Habits
Learning to disrupt the feedback loop at any of its four stages: experience, chemical reactions, physical responses, and thoughts can break it down and provide opportunity for a new loop to form. For instance, if we help someone with low self-esteem recognize that life's challenges are neutral events, this understanding might reduce the release of stress-related chemicals, resulting in minimal physical reaction and fewer troubling thoughts. Alternatively, if we intervene at the thought stage after the person has experienced the initial loop phase, we could have them practice affirmations like "Regardless of the outcome, I have worth and value. I am at peace." Repeating such affirmations could shift their experience to a more relaxed state, signaling the body to calm down and feel at ease. This process could reinforce the revised thought and potentially establish a new, feedback loop.
The challenge is that effectively interrupting this loop is difficult without understanding its root cause, which resides in the unconscious mind.
How to get in touch with your unconscious
Achieving mind-body coherence is important for aligning your entire energetic system and tapping into your unconscious. The most effective way to attain this alignment is through regular meditation practice.
Meditation Practice for Habit Change
I invite you to try this meditation exercise.
Begin by lying down or sitting in a comfortable position. For this exercise, focus on being present without concentrating on anything specific. Allow any thoughts that arise to enter your mind and gently let them drift away. Start with two to five minutes and gradually extend the duration as you become more accustomed. This practice will help you cultivate mind body coherence and with practice make it easier for you to access the unconscious mind more effectively.
If you encounter resistance, that's perfectly normal! The limiting beliefs that arise during this exercise are protective mechanisms of the brain, designed to prevent you from accessing the unconscious mind. Avoid trying to force these beliefs out, and don't be critical of yourself when they emerge. Simply continue with the exercise, as this is an important step toward rewiring your mind and body.
If you find it challenging to simply be, you might consider incorporating gentle meditation music into your practice. However, this should be a temporary aid and gradually phased out as you become more comfortable with meditation. Slowly lower the volume and eventually remove the music entirely. This is important because the music can distract from the subconscious and unconscious thoughts that need to surface.
Conclusion
Breaking free from habits and shifting out of auto-pilot living involves understanding and disrupting the feedback loops that govern our behavior. By exploring the different levels of consciousness—from the conscious to the unconscious mind—you can begin to address the root causes of your automatic responses. As you practice your daily meditation practice, you’ll pave the way for a more intentional life.
If you are interested in learning about therapy or would like to setup an appointment with Person to Person Psychotherapy, serving New Jersey & New York residents, call 908-224-0007.
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