So here it is - what it takes to change your life, and why.
Your Subconscious Mind Lives in the Past
We’re formed by the experiences of our lives. They create the environment of our subconscious mind and what we believe - until we know better - to be our identity.
As adult we want to believe we’re in control of what we do: we need to believe we’re choosing our lives - because to not be in control takes life out of our hands; life is just happening to us, without our permission. Chaos, fate, what’s it all for? But if you’ve ever continued in patterns that hurt you, keep making similar mistakes, at some point you’ll have noticed. And once you notice, you can’t go back.
What you might struggle with is how to change them - particularly when you know the theories and read all the books.
Here’s how it goes…
In our first 7 years, our unconscious identity is shaped by experiences of safety. In our childhood it’s trust - in our care-takers and then ourselves - whether we have it and feel safe, or not. When we become aware, thinking, analytical, questioning beings - from the age of around 7 - our patterns are set.
The bad news is, we carry on with those patterns subconsciously. We’re unaware, can’t identify them, assume we’re in charge.
In our early adolescence its in our ability to express ourselves - and this is based on how much trust features in our lives. If we feel safe enough to trust ourselves to make choices, or to allow others to help us learn, being able to express ourselves results in a confident and brave child; not being able to results in one who sits quietly, hiding, scared of the consequences of being ourselves.
In young adulthood we should develop self-awareness, but for many of us, enough harm has been done to the point that we have already been in survival mode for a while. Becoming an adult in society requires a huge amount of mental work - simply the change from the only life we’ve known (school) to one that must be much more self-directed. So we continue trying to make sense of this new world armed only with the information form the old. We are the same person in a foreign land filled with new rules we don’t understand - and self-awareness can not happen when we are in fear and uncertainty. Survival is primary and everything else is secondary to that. That’s why memories of childhood are few and far between when childhood has been chaotic, painful or unstable.
In later years we search for meaning and purpose. And this is why age, when accompanied by new learning, unlearning, wisdom and the realisation that you can choose , brings many of us to the point where we seek change.
Are you ready to explore the map of your past, pinpoint what needs to change, and now decide which paths to take?