Understanding the Conscious and Subconscious Mind

If you don't understand the power of the subconscious, which is driving 95 plus percentage of your decisions and your emotions, chances are you may be having one foot on the, on the gas and another foot on the brake. We're going to go through the chapter in here called Meet the Gorilla. Okay, Meet the Gorilla. How your two brains are keeping you stuck. Now, how many of you think that you only have one brain? Well, you know, you have a brain within a brain, right? Or many, many different brains within a brain. I've got a format that I wanted to take you through. And everybody has heard about the conscious and the subconscious mind, right? Let me ask you a question. You know about the conscious and subconscious mind, right? Here's my question. How much time do you invest on programming the subconscious mind or conditioning it, training it, whatever you want to call it. So what is the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind? Maybe we could do, you know, a little, I don't know, just interaction right now instead of me just being, you know, the sage on the stage and talking. What are we dealing with when we're talking about the conscious mind? What's the conscious brain responsible for? What's the subconscious brain responsible for? So we have the conscious brain and I have this little graph right in here. It's hard for me to see backwards. There we go, right there. Conscious brain compared to subconscious brain is super slow. It is conceptual where imagination resides. It's where thoughts and feelings emanate, but it's not where emotions are. Just so we're clear, the conscious brain is something that we call is explicit versus subconscious, being implicit. I'll explain what that means in just a moment. When we're dealing with your two brains, there's also the left prefrontal cortex and the right prefrontal cortex, which I'll talk about in just a moment because they're really, really, really important for you to understand how they work and why they keep you either motivated in moving forward or stuck and keep you moving backwards. And if you enjoy this type of conversation, hit the like or the love button and share this if you'd like. So when we're talking about our conscious, volitional, decision making brain that could imagine and have some fun hoping that our lives change and maybe even helping us set some goals. The processing speeds by which the conscious mind works is very, very, very slow compared to what's happening at the subconscious level. For example, see if you can get your head around this number. 37 billion. 37 billion billion. Now what is that? That is the number of chemical reactions happening at the subconscious level due to your genetic predisposition or your epigenetics and response to the environment. 37 billion billion chemical reactions happening per second at the subconscious level. Part of the autonomic nervous system and being. So we have this very slow methodical processor and then we have this very, very, very lightning fast part of our brain, right? And part of our entire body. So the question is, how is your conscious brain or what do you need to do at the conscious level in order to get the subconscious aligned? Let me give you a couple of examples to model your ways. I read a couple of your responses, right? So let me give you a couple of things to think about. So when you make a decision to, let's say, lose weight, when you make a decision to leave a relationship that you're not happy, and when you make a decision, leave a job, that you're not happy, when you make a decision to write a book, when you make a decision to do anything, you're obviously using your decision making. But when you're making a decision, you're using your conscious brain. So let's say you make a decision, you know, I want to write a book. I'd like to share my life story. I want to share my passion, my interests, my lessons, what's worked, what hasn't worked. There's something within me that wants to share, right? And the reason I write my books, I want to share. I want to share what's worked, what hasn't worked, and why. So what happens if you make a conscious decision, but at the subconscious level you have a disempowering belief, for example. So let's say your conscious decision is, I want to write a book, I want to share my knowledge and skills with the world, but underneath the surface, you have this belief, this implicit belief that, well, who am I to write a book? What do you think is going to happen if you have this conscious decision, but a subconscious belief that maybe you're not smart enough or worthy enough to write a book? Who are you? Right? What do you think happens when that goes on in your brain? Let me just look at the comments. So give me a comment. What do you think happens? The goal that excites you to write a book or to do anything is going to release dopamine in your brain, make you feel good. You might even share it with your, your best friend, your family, your husband, your wife, your children. I want to write a book. But what do you think is going to happen if in the back of your mind, in the recesses of your brain, you've got a party that says, but who are you to write a book? All right, so that's one example. Let's go to another example. You're in a relationship that is not a great relationship. Either you're married or you're in a relationship and after however amount of time, you're just not happy, you're just not fulfilled, you're just not. There isn't that connection anymore. And you think about, maybe I should leave. And you maybe get excited about it initially, but then in your subconscious mind, what if there's that little voice that says, what if you don't find somebody else? What if you end up back in the same situation again? What if you leave and you're alone? So how our brains work together is really, really critical. Or how it doesn't work together. What if you want to start a business and let me just help you assume that, let's say you have a job right now and maybe you're happy, fulfilled, maybe you're not. And you say, you know, I'd really like to start my own business. I want to be my own boss, I want to have my own hours and I want to work 80 hours to make less than I do in a full time job because I want to work for myself. Well, what if, you know in the back. So subconscious part of your brain, there's a little voice that says, oh, what if you fail? What if you don't earn enough income to take care of yourself, your family, the things that you want to do. What if it takes longer than you anticipate? So can you see how these conscious decisions, part of what our brain is wired to do is make decisions, are backed in many instances with a subconscious mind that is going to hold us back unless we understand how to get our brain to work in coherence. So in addition to your conscious decision making, wanting brain, if you don't understand the power of the subconscious, which is driving 95 plus percentage of your decisions and your emotions, chances are you may be having one foot on the, on the gas and another foot on the brake. So the conscious and subconscious divide is really, really, really important. When you have a conscious goal, but you have subconscious patterns like disempowering beliefs. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. I'm too young, I'm too old. You're going to have something that we know as neural chaos. There's a part of the brain that wants the goal and the dream, but another part of the brain that is going to fight you. That's neural chaos. And a brain in chaos will almost always divert back to its current comfort zone. So if you have limiting beliefs, then you have to learn how to get rid of your limiting beliefs. So here's a little technique for you on a limiting belief. If you have any limiting beliefs, I want you to write one down, okay? Do you mind doing this so we can interact with each other? It doesn't make sense for me to just talk. The more you interact, by the way, the more you activate your neural plasticity switch. If you listen in a state of curiosity, you activate your neuroplasticity switch. Repetition is also one of the ways to activate the neuroplasticity switch. Having fun is a way to activate your neural plasticity switch, which means you're creating new neural connections, which means your brain is growing and you're strengthening it. So let's talk about what is one limiting belief that you have. I'm going to see which one I could find first, and then I'm going to show you a way to disempower that limiting belief. All right? So not being good enough. So let's say you decide you want to achieve a goal, but there's a feeling that you have a belief that you have that you're not good enough. And regardless of where you developed that belief that you're not good enough, that is part of your subconscious mind. So when you repeat the thought, when you repeat the emotion, and when you don't follow through with the behaviors necessary to achieve a goal that you want to achieve, you reinforce that neural pattern in the brain. Right? And a belief is nothing more than cells that have connected, that have been reinforced. A belief is nothing more than neurons, cells that have created through something called dendrite spiny protuberances. The little pieces on the end that come together and connect, those are dendrite spiny protuberances. DSPs, they're called. And when they form and reinforce the beliefs, then drive perception, behaviors, emotions, etc. So when you have a belief that you know is a disempowering one at the subconscious level, here is a really easy first step trick. Okay, Take that belief. Write it down. Except I want you to do this in a slightly different way. And I want you to do this because here's what we know about the subconscious mind. Your brain doesn't know the difference between something real or imagined. And so what I want you to do, and for every one of you that wrote down a belief that you have that's disempowering you is putting in the past. I used to believe that I wasn't good enough in the past. I used to believe that I wasn't smart enough in the past. I used to believe, fill in whatever the belief was. And now I'm learning how to feel and be more than smart enough to achieve my goals. So all you're doing, a lot of people will teach, you know, if you have a belief that says, you know, I'm, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough because I'm too young, because I'm too old, because I'm too Asian or Caucasian or too tall or too short, I can't. But if you take that same belief, because when you use language patterns that are certainty based language patterns, which means I'm certain about this, this is the truth, right? And then you say, okay, in the past I used to believe this is true, and now I'm learning how. And, and you write the opposite of that. What you're doing in the brain is instead of saying, I am smart. And your brain says, no, you're not. I am good enough. And your brain says, no, I'm not, you give yourself a bridge between the two and this little inner size using self talk is in the past. I used to believe this and now I'm learning how to. Now I'm discovering, now I'm moving towards being smart enough, being good enough, being worthy enough, et cetera. Then your brain goes, oh, okay, let me help you find ways to do that. It's a freaking simple language pattern technique, okay? And I teach tons of them in my book Inner Size. And you can pick it up on Amazon or go to ignitemybrain.com I am talking about just the chapter call Meet the Gorilla. And the gorilla is basically your subconscious mind. I also want to share with you something else. When I talk about the two brains, let me share with you something about how this part of your brain works. These are your frontal lobes. You have your parietal lobes, occipital lobe over here. But this is part of your neocortex, the top of the brain that started to develop about 35 to 50,000 years ago. That is the genius thinking part of the brain. Below that is the mammalian or the emotional brain. Below that is the reptilian or instinctual brain. But leave those alone for now. I talk more about those in the book and how to use them to your advantage. But the left prefrontal cortex I call is Einstein. The right prefrontal cortex I call is Frankenstein. Now, let me explain. Why Einstein? Why Frankenstein? Every one of us has a part of us called Einstein. And this is the part that uses imagination. Oh, I can imagine my life being better. I can see traveling the world. I can see donating my time and money to the charities or causes that give my life more purpose and meaning. I can see helping my parents retire, my children grow up, and paying for college. I can see doing wonderful things in the world. So I can imagine. And then I can also use Einstein over there. Einstein qualities go. Okay, well, what are the ways that I can make that happen? What books do I need to read? What videos do I need to watch? What webinars should I attend? What courses should I take? And you can deduct, use deductive reasoning to say, well, I could do this and do this and do this and do this and do this. Okay, so we use our left prefrontal cortex, Albert Einstein, the CEO, the executive director of our lives, the orchestra leader, to navigate and choose, however, pay close attention to what I'm about to share with you. Frankenstein over here is going to be a counterbalance to Einstein. Einstein is all about hopes and dreams and imagination and possibilities and some resolutions. But Frankenstein is going to be the pessimist. Frankenstein in your brain is going to go, hey, hey, hey, hey, hold on. Last time you tried that, you failed. Frankenstein ties directly into your memory bank. And I want you to imagine this, right? I'm 50. I'll be 58 in a few months. So 58 years times 365 days, times, let's say 16 hours a day, I'm awake times 24 hours in a day, times 60 minutes per hour, times 60 seconds per minute. That's a lot of neural networks that have been reinforced. Trillions of connections that are all part of your memory. Everything you've read, everything you've done, everything you've heard, everything you've experienced, everything you felt, all the associations, okay, of good, bad, strong, weak, able, empowering, disempowering, positive. Everything that you've experienced is in your memory bank. So when you set a goal to leave a relationship you're not happy in to start a business, you don't know how to achieve the results in to double or triple your income, to lose weight and keep it off. Frankenstein over here is going to access your memory bank and he or she is going to remind you of all the reasons why that's not a good idea. It's going to show up in the form of a little inner critic that says, well, you're not good enough to achieve that. You're not smart enough to achieve that. You don't have the knowledge to achieve that. You don't have the skill to achieve that. The last time you tried this, you failed. And you caused your family and yourself a lot of pain and discomfort. Does this make sense? Does this make sense? You see where these two brains, okay, are going to keep you stuck? So what if I shared with you that both of these are necessary to fulfill the hierarchy of how your brain works? And here's how your brain works. Are you ready? Safety first, above all else. Let me write that down. Safety first, above all else. What kind of safety? Well, safety for my life. First, that's like, right up there with oxygen. Second is emotional safety. Will I get hurt? Will I be embarrassed? Will I be judged? Will I be ridiculed? Emotional safety is right up there as well. Mental safety. Will this cause any mental anguish or pain for me? So physical body life first. Mental, emotional, Obviously spiritual. If there's something, you know, against your. And I'm going to separate religion from spirituality, but if there's something against your religion, you're, like, walking the other way. Because of how we associate religion in our brain. It's right there with, like, you know, God, right? If I do something to piss off God or that sacrilegious, I'm running the other way. If you're religious, if you happen to have spiritual beliefs as well, that it contradicts your spiritual beliefs and you're not going to do it, regardless of how much you'd like it. No, it violates my spiritual beliefs, so safety first, okay? So anything that contradicts what is going on in the subconscious memory bank, okay? Or it violates the laws of safety, meaning there's harm that could come to you or your immediate family or friends, you're going to put on the brakes. Now, when I wrote the book Inner Size, right? The new science to unlock your brain's hidden power. The thing I want to share with you about this is you already possess the tool, but what you may not possess is knowing how to use it really, really well. So you have at your disposal the most powerful organism. Your brain's not an organ. It's a growing organism. But you don't have the user's manual. And so what I did in the book, Inner Size, is give you the idea of, here's what it is and here's how to use it. So what if I told you, for example, every time you have an idea, a goal, a dream that you didn't achieve yet, or don't know how to achieve. Frankenstein is going to first before it shows you how you're going to achieve it. Frankenstein is going to go, here's all the reasons why you can't or shouldn't or must not do that. What if I just told you that's just a natural normal counterbalance that our creator put in place to help us. So instead of listening to Frankenstein, putting you down, telling you why you can't, why you shouldn't, why not elevate your state of awareness? And the question is, how do you do that? I'm going to show you two inner sizes from the book. Inner size number one is whenever you have a potential negative or disempowering consequence of the actions that you need to take. A potential emotional negative or disempowering consequence, a potential financial disempowering consequence, a potential harm to your body potential. The emotional part of your brain, the subconscious part of your brain gets activated in the form of fear or stress. And when the fear or stress center activates and anxiety levels goes up because of self doubt, because of disempowering belief, because of self image issues, or because of lack of knowledge or skills, Frankenstein lights up like a Christmas tree and Einstein basically goes to sleep. The blood flow from the thinking part of your brain actually moves away from your left prefrontal cortex. More blood flow goes here and to the fight or flight response mechanism in the brain. That means the chances are motivational center has just turned off. Your motor cortex is on high alert to run and hide and move out of real or imagined harm's way. And so inner size number one is really simple. Both of the first two are really simple. What you have to do is counterbalance the sympathetic nervous system which has just kicked on and raised your blood pressure, maybe started you sweating, increased your heartbeat to flee or fight or freeze in some cases. The other one is faint, by the way. It's fight, freeze, flee or faint. And what you've got to do is deregulate the default mode network which has just kicked on. All right? The subconscious trigger for stress, fear, anxiety. And the way you do that is really simple. You ready? Many of my students who are watching know this. The first thing you do when you hear the negative self talk. The first thing you do when you feel uncomfortable. The first thing you do when you feel the stress, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the doubt. The first thing you do, stop, take six deep breaths in through your nose, then out through your mouth. But you want to breathe out through your mouth, like you're breathing out through a straw. Before you allow your automatic reactions to stop your motivation and your behavior that are going to prevent you from achieving your goals and dreams. You want to deactivate the stress center in your brain first so that blood flow comes back to that left prefrontal cortex. You want to deactivate the sympathetic nervous system. You want to reactivate the para, calm and respond circuit in your brain. And so instead of reacting consistently based on old conditioning, old programming that are in the subconscious mind, you are in a state of awareness. And in that state of awareness and calmness, you have the ability to respond instead of react automatically, repeating the same cycles over and over again and reinforcing those same patterns over and over and over again. So first inner size, right? Inner size exercise for your body, inner size for your brain, for your mindset and your emotions. The first exercise, take six, calm the circuits. You deactivate that sympathetic stress response center in 60 to 90 seconds. But if you don't know how to do that or you don't practice it, you're going to be in a reactive state instead of a responsive state. That's inner size number one. Inner size number two is called aya. Somebody type in a I, A, A, I, A. Why is the, you know, all of a sudden meditation so big and mindfulness so big? Like why? Well, because we're able to see more in the human brain through our spect scans and FMRI scans and through the electrodes that allow us to see what's happening in our brain. With the different brain wave frequencies, theta, delta, gamma, alpha, sub delta, and all of the interrelated brainwave, we're able to see in a calm state what's happening in a stressed state, what's happening in a certain state, what's happening in a doubtful state, fearful state. We're able to see more in our brain, so we have better tools now. So aya, after you do intersect, number one, AYAH stands for awareness. That's the A. The I stands for intention. And the second A is action. So, awareness of what? So in a calm state, and what I want you to start doing is, and by the way, when you do this, second inner size, no blaming yourself, no shaming yourself, no guilt, no justification, just pure awareness. Awareness is what gives you choice. Choice is what gives you freedom. A horse or a pig has the same bodily components as you do. But because you have choice and awareness, you're not just self aware, you're aware that you're aware. That's a Higher level of awareness of any other creature on earth that we're aware of. So when you put yourself in the state of awareness, I want you to become aware of what are my thoughts right now? What are my feelings right now? What are my sensations right now? What are the behaviors that I want to take that I'm not? So it's the awareness of thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and behaviors. Thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, behaviors without judgment, blame, shame or guilt. Just pure observation and awareness. And then the way you start to reprogram and recondition the neural networks and patterns of your brain is you ask yourself, okay, maybe I have a lack of confidence, maybe I have some self doubt, maybe I don't have some knowledge or some skills and that's why I'm afraid to take action and go after my goal and dream. You know, maybe, you know, I don't feel I deserve it, or I'm not smart enough or not good enough. You know, maybe one of those things are holding me back. So in a state of awareness, you ask yourself this question and this is where your higher cortical functions come in. Your Einstein is back online. And you say, well, what's my intention? Well, my intention is to be happy. My intention is to succeed more. My intention is to achieve more of my goals. I want to earn more money, I want to have a better life, I want to be happy in my relationship, I want to be a wonderful parent, I want to build a business, I want to write a book, I want to travel more. That's my intention. And then here's the trick. Ready? Pay close attention. I don't want you to write down 20 different things you need to do. Awareness first, intention second, and then action is third. However, all I want to do is activate the motor cortex, right stuff that caused me to take action. And I just say, what's one little easy thing I can do to move towards the health goal? I want the wealth goal, I want the relationship goal, I want the fun, I want the business goal. What's one little action step I take now? Why one little action step? Because when you lower the resistance in the brain to one little thing, you also deactivate or do not activate the stress response center, the fear center, the subconscious programming that wants to keep you stuck. And when you do this, you know, every day a little bit, you start to say, okay, I can be a different person, I can override, you know, who I have been being for so long. And when you do that, you change the neural networks, you start to rewire a little bit of your identity, your beliefs, your habits, your emotions, etc. And as you do that, you start to develop more confidence, more certainty, a different self image, new beliefs, new behaviors that are responsible for all the new goals and dreams that you have. Hey, this is John and if you like that video, watch the next video because it is packed with things that you can do right now to achieve success way faster than ever before.