Cleaning Out Your Subconscious Mind is Challenging
Who knew the subconscious held on to so much?
Over the years, I’ve been in and out of therapy. I have been fortunate enough to have had some truly amazing therapists. Each has been unique, bringing a variety of ideas and approaches to help me work with the issues that impact my mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
It’s too easy to look to physical health, wellness, and wellbeing. Hell, our society is veritably obsessed with the physical – looks, body types, chosen genders, and so on. But the body, the physical, is just 1 quarter of any given person.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, has 4 elements to their health, wellness, and wellbeing:
- Physical
- Mental
- Emotional
- Spiritual
An imbalance of any one can and will impact the rest. You can’t ignore the mental, emotional, and spiritual and be healthy.
The physical is, in many respects, the easiest to deal with. That’s because your body is tangible. The other 3 elements? Not so much. But not tending to the intangible parts of yourself will cause you distress, sadness, depression, and, in time, physical illness.
To address any part of your health, wellness, and wellbeing, you need to be consciously aware. That means working, here and now, from and with your conscious mind.
When you don’t practice this and allow rote, routine, and habit to drive you, you live subconsciously. And that can cause all kinds of problems.
The 3-mind problem
Everyone is of 3 minds:
- Unconscious
- Conscious
- Subconscious
For the most part, you have no control over your unconscious mind. And that’s okay, because it handles the infrastructure. The unconscious is why your heart beats, lungs breathe, blood circulates, neurons fire, and so on. With some practice, of course, you can use the conscious mind to impact your breathing and even your heart rate.
Your conscious mind is the mind of the now. This is where you recognize, in the present, who, what, where, how, and why you are. It’s via the conscious mind that you can know and work with your mindset/headspace/psyche self. The conscious mind is the mind that you use to actively do, have, and be things. But it only works in the now, and it’s via mindfulness that you can use it.
The subconscious mind is where your memories, beliefs, values, and habits live. The subconscious stores everything, wanted or unwanted, that it comes in contact with. Ideas and thoughts are stored just like on a computer hard drive, but so are things you get from other people and outside influences. Your subconscious is like a sponge absorbing all that it touches.
And, like a sponge, when you don’t wring it out, it gets really gross. What’s more, it will hold things you don’t even know are there because the subconscious is in the background. Subconsciously, you can hold beliefs and values that might have served you in the past – or even not at all.
Too many of the forces of the world want us living by rote, routine, and habit, unthinking. Subconscious at best, letting the subconscious drive us, even with outdated information. How do you change that? Active conscious awareness via mindfulness.
Conscious awareness to examine the subconscious mind
Because the subconscious mind holds onto anything and everything it comes in contact with, it can get inundated with things that serve you for a limited time, or even not at all. It’s possible, deep down, below the surface of your consciousness, you believe something you don’t, in fact, believe.
What does that look like? For me, I recently discovered that I hold onto some really unexpected beliefs about resentment. While I strive not to resent and hold grudges, I do. Why? Because examples all across my life have told me that grudges and resentment can drive your life. And yes, I agree that this is NOT healthy in any way, shape, or form. But there it is, buried so deep in my subconscious that it’s taken me 40 years to recognize and acknowledge.
Now what? Now I get to seek it out. Time to dive into my subconscious mind actively, consciously aware. To start, I will begin with recognizing and acknowledging, here and now:
- What I’m thinking
- What and how I’m feeling
- My intentions
- The positivity or negativity of my approach
- My actions
When I know my present mindset/headspace/psyche self, my conscious awareness, I have equipped myself to dive into the murky depths of my subconscious mind. Looking inside my ancient beliefs and values and their connections to memory, I can begin to clean it all out.
Now comes the most challenging part.
Cleaning out your subconscious mind requires action
I could just sit on this new information. And, as such, I can continue to let it be a major force for blocking me on every level of my life. It’s the author of much of my self-sabotage, and if I would like to stop doing that, I need to address it.
Step 1 was to recognize it. Step 2 was to acknowledge it. Having done those, now I need to address it.
Good thing I brought along a pick and shovel. Digging into the subconscious and finding the root of this unhelpful belief means learning more about it. Where did it come from? How did it get in there? What can I do to remove it, change it, alter it, or otherwise do something about it?
Not doing anything is an option, but that means I choose to stay stuck. No thank you. Okay, so I need to meditate on this, journal about it, and explore it with my therapist. But only via active, conscious awareness – and practicing mindfulness – can I do anything about this to positively impact my health, wellness, and wellbeing.
Cleaning out the subconscious mind means digging into the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the self. Because they’re intangible, there are many variables to navigate. And, since I alone occupy my mind, body, and spirit (head, heart, and soul), I alone can clean out my subconscious mind and remove or change what doesn’t suit me.
Why bother? Because I like to do the driving. And navigating this life, in this body, means my health, wellness, and wellbeing on the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical level are of equal importance. Cleaning out my subconscious and the detritus therein balances and heals me.
I’m worth it. You’re worth it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Have you ever found a need to clean your subconscious to balance your health, wellness, and wellbeing on every level?
This is the seventh-hundred-fifty-eighth (758) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share my philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to share and/or repost where it might do good for you and others.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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