In my last two posts, I introduced you to the power of the subconscious, as well as the language of the subconscious (emotions and story).
We learned that the vast majority of the things driving our reactions and responses are coming from the stories and emotions of the subconscious. And that there’s not a ton we can do to change that.
So you’re probably wondering… if the subconscious mind is driven by emotions and story, and it’s next to impossible to overpower it with willpower (at least long-term), what’s a person to do? How do we rewrite the DNA, so to say? How do we tell a new story and feel something different than before?
Our ability to change our story and impact our subconscious in lasting ways hinges on one question: do you know what you’re looking for?
To impact the subconscious, we have to teach it what we want filtered through the reticular activating system (RAS). (Here’s a great little video on how to lead with intention and “ignite your RAS for good.”)
To put it really simply, the RAS is the part of your brain that decides which pieces of information — of the billions of pieces of information your subconscious receives — are the most important. The RAS is the gatekeeper between your subconscious and conscious mind. It’s always on the lookout for the thing you tell it to look for (consciously or subconsciously).
Whatever the story is that you keep telling yourself about what is and isn’t possible, what you can and can’t do — and whatever emotion that holds for you — we keep repeating that story to ourselves. Whether it’s about eating vegetables, electric cars, politics, ideas about race or gender, or a million other things, our brains keep finding things to support that story. And it affirms our emotions about the story: that’s stupid, that’s brilliant, that’s funny, that’s terrifying… We keep finding exactly the same thing.
Because we find what we’re looking for.
The problem with most of us is that we’re not conscious of what we’re looking for.
Therefore, in order to affect the subconscious, we need to become conscious of what we’re looking for.
If I really want to exercise, I have to stop telling myself I hate exercise. Why? Because if I don’t, every time I attempt to exercise, the first thing my brain will feed me is, “I hate this.”
Here’s a wild concept: your subconscious can’t distinguish between a physical reality and an emotional reality.
(If you don’t believe me, I’ll let history do the proving.)
Case in point: Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman, whose story was told in the film The Pianist. Miraculously, and with the help of countless good people, he survived WWII as a Jew by living in hiding in Warsaw.
As reported by Music and the Holocaust:
“Towards the end of World War II, in a burnt-out villa in the destroyed city of Warsaw, the Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman faced a German officer before an out-of-tune piano. Szpilman had not bathed in months, and had been living off scraps for more than a year. Szpilman prepared himself for a blow or a shot. Instead, the officer asked about his profession. Although the question seemed meaningless given the context, Szpilman replied: ‘pianist’. The German took him to the battered piano and told him to play, no simple task for a starved man who had not touched a piano for three years. Despite his weakness, Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, the same piece that he had played on the radio the day the Germans invaded Warsaw. After a moment of silence, the officer asked him if he was Jewish, then gave him food and clothing with which to survive the next weeks.”
Szpilman likely didn’t touch the keys of a piano for many years. Yet when called upon to play — possibly for his life — it was as if he’d never stopped playing. Szpilman’s emotional reality of imagining the piano and practicing it in his mind was as real to his subconscious as actually playing a nine-foot Steinway.
If Szpilman can do all that, surely our brains are capable of amazing things, as long as we know what we’re looking for — and feed that information to our RAS.
At the end of the day, what we want is to become conscious of what we’re feeling and thinking and the stories that we tell — and to be able to rewrite those stories.
We want to give your intellectual brain permission to go idle without having to prove whether or not the story you want to tell is true or not true, possible or not possible. (Because, again, the subconscious doesn’t care about that; all it’s doing is looking for clues about which bits of information it can feed you from the veritable shitload of information it takes in.)
Until we can become more conscious of that, until we recognize that the stories we tell ourselves matter, we will always fall victim.
You can set a new course and begin rewriting your story today. For some practical guidance on using your RAS to help you impact your subconscious, set goals, and more, check out this resource.
And for one-on-one help or team coaching, I’m here to help. Get in touch today to learn more.
Stay tuned for the next installment of this series on the stories we tell ourselves — and why they matter so much.
Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash
