[Neurons] 2020 Neurons #38 WHEN YOUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS UNHELPFUL

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall 

2020 Neurons #38

August 10, 2020

Thinking for a Living series #24

 

WHEN YOUR CONSCIOUS MIND

IS UNHELPFUL

 

Conscious minds come in all sorts of conditions.  Some are well informed,
sharp, incisive, clear and so serve the owner very well.  Others are not so
well informed, in fact, may be mis-informed, deceived, confused, dull and do
not serve the owner well at all.  What's the condition of your conscious
mind?

 

When you consider the mind of a young infant, it's obvious that we all start
out with a very weak and completely uninformed conscious mind.  Then we go
through the cognitive developmental stages.  Usually, at first our mind is
very naive and open to anything and that's where it can become really
distorted- after all, the mind of a child is not capable of critical
thinking.  So depending on the things it hears, the things it is told- it
can develop all sorts of misinformation and disinformation.

 

As a child goes through the learning process, he goes through the
ego-centric thinking stage, the magic thinking stage, the concrete thinking
stage, and so on.  It's in this period of life (0 to 12) that we experience,
learn, and sometimes solidify various Cognitive Distortions-
over-generalizing, personalizing, dichotomizing (either-or), emotionalizing,
etc.  As a result, the person who does that will inherent a very unhelpful
conscious mind.

 

Here, it's not the case that the conscious mind is the problem, it is not.
The problem is the programming that a conscious mind has received and how a
person, now a teenager is using his or her conscious mind.  What is common
is that we have learned a lot of judgments, insults, and criticisms and now
that's the way we talk to ourselves.  What is common is that we have learned
to use our conscious mind passively so that instead of directing and
focusing our mind, we tend to react to whatever grabs our attention.
Consequently, we live in the world of attentions (and not in the world of
intentions).

 

No wonder then that many people complain about their conscious minds.  I
would to.  As an instrument- the only instrument you have- for navigating
life and determining what things are, how they work, and what you should or
could do, a poorly developed conscious mind operates as a poorly equipped
tool.  No wonder there are many who then conclude, "The problem is the
conscious mind," and try to solve the problem by trusting their feelings,
intuitions, the voices of others, etc. 

 

A well-developed and equipped conscious mind enables you to look at
yourself, others, and life clearly and adequate and determine what you want.
You set goals.  You identify what you want, why you want it, and how to
achieve it.  You use your imagination to construct 'life at its best for me'
and then you set out to make it happen.  You create a strategy of feasible
actions that you can take to move you from your present state to your
desired state.  You access your internal and external resources as you
mobilize your energies to make it happen.  That's how a well-developed
conscious mind serves you in an effective and ecological way.

 

Not so with an unfocused, highly distracted, self-judging, self-contempting,
and confused conscious mind.  That kind of a mind is itself the problem.
Those who suffer such may forcibly come to an understanding of what they
want and how to get there, then their untamed conscious mind unhelpfully
intrudes.  They doubt themselves.  They fear failure, mistakes,
embarrassment, and all sorts of things.  They get defensive and say hurtful
things to others.  They are their own worst enemies.  But the situation is
even worse!  What the person has thought consciously becomes programmed into
them at unconscious levels.  Now all of this occurs automatically.  It
occurs outside of their control.  Talk about locked into a corner!

 

So, what's the solution?  Obviously, to re-educate both the conscious and
the unconscious mind.  To do that, set the realization that you are not the
problem- the thinking, framing, and programming is the problem.  If I
thought that way, I would feel and act that way.  As you free yourself from
that personalizing, now you can more clearly work on getting a cognitive
make-over.

 

What the cognitive distortions especially do is activate the lower levels of
your brain and mobilize your emotions so that you are engaged in distorted
emotional thinking.  What's needed is the emotional safety so that you can
think about things with more objectivity and clarity.  That's where the
frame, you are not the problem, the frame is the problem, can liberate you
for a cognitive make-over.  Try it out.

 

Thinking is just a tool.  It's your tool for creating mental models by which
you can then navigate life.  And the quality of your thinking is the quality
of your life.  

 

For more, get Executive Thinking (2018) and look for the next training in
Brain Camp.  That's where Neuro-Semantics offers you a cognitive make-over. 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com   

 

The stunning new history of NLP--- NLP Secrets.  

Investigative Journalism which has exposed what has been kept secrets for
decades. 

http://www.neurosemantics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NLP-Secrets-2_sml2.
png

 

 

 

 

 

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