How well trained is your autopilot? We all have had the experience of doing something on autopilot; you know….the kind of stuff you could do in your sleep. But the real question is just how that autopilot works. For the more simple things that answer is pretty easy to figure out. After driving a car for twenty years you just get in, start the engine and go. You can even do many other things while driving, such as having a conversation or figuring out what to prepare for dinner tonight. Only after you get to your destination do you realize that you did not consciously pay attention to your driving and the road. But that somebody did, your autopilot, otherwise known as the subconscious mind. Our subconscious minds tend to not only our driving, but to practically everything we do. Even when we are consciously aware of what we are doing, the subconscious mind has an unrecognized participation, simply by being the primary resource for the thoughts and actions we take each step of our daily lives. If someone presents to you a new thought or idea, your subconscious has a response with lightning speed so you do not even have to think much to decide if the new thoughts or ideas are worthy or not. It’s a great time-savor, although fraught with some potential downsides. The price we pay for such convenience is missing out on some really beneficial understandings and experiences. Worse yet is the scenario where our conscious and subconscious minds are not in agreement. This could be something like saying out loud that we like to do “xyz” but then we actually never engage in “xyz.” Why? It could be that in the deep recesses of our subconscious there is this message or understanding that we do not like xyz. It can be pretty subtle and insidious.
Where do all these subconscious messages come from? A During our earliest years our subconscious mind is simply a recorder. Just like a computer hard drive, all that data that pours in gets stored just waiting for the time the subconscious needs to activate those bits of data as needed. It turns out that we are not really made with a “save” button to replace and update old beliefs and scripts. This means that much of the time we are operating on old beliefs and patterns that may have been appropriate at one time but now are not appropriate now, and can even create undesirable results.
The good news is, there are ways to update those old beliefs and ideas. This does require some attentive efforts. Old ideas and beliefs must be removed and new ones put in place. This is not always an easy process, but it is doable. In this effort, hypnosis turns out to be a useful tool. The reason for this is that we have a “keeper of the subconscious” factor working to preserve the old and prevent the new if that new does not fit old beliefs. In our normal conscious state this factor is in full effect. In hypnosis that “guardian” factor is suppressed making it easier to get those new ideas into your subconscious processes.
How does one know if their autopilots are not up to date? Do you find yourself saying something that immediately after you wonder why you just said what you said? Perhaps you find yourself behaving in a way that is inconsistent with what your higher mind calls you to. Do you find that you keep losing friends or relationships? Those patterns you learned in childhood may be dysfunctional in your adult circles.
In summary, if you find that you are experiencing too much turbulence in your daily life, think about checking your autopilot, meaning, your beliefs that are hidden in the subconscious. It could lead to having a fresh outlook on life. As a hypnotherapist I am trained to help people in this process of shifting to a better you.
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