The Incredible Power of the Subconscious Mind

There’s a secret to success: the power of the subconscious mind.

The subconscious doesn’t get a ton of attention… but it should because it’s the most powerful aspect of yourself.

What is the Subconscious Mind?

Your subconscious mind is the hard drive of your life. It’s present and aware of every moment of your life - just hanging out in the background taking everything in. It’s constantly receiving information, creating meaning from what you encounter and experience, and storing every second of your existence in a vast database.

Where your conscious mind is only capable of processing 40-50 bits of information per second, the subconscious mind has the power to process millions of bits of information every second.

That’s a significant difference in capabilities.

Your conscious mind is what you do your thinking with. It’s the part of the mind that you can control; you’re able to focus it and control what it’s paying attention to. It’s analytical and logical; it likes to make sense out of things. It’s good at planning and problem-solving.

But, it’s limited in capacity and it’s directly influenced by your much larger subconscious mind.

How Does the Subconscious Mind Work?

Your subconscious mind starts out empty and then, without any resistance, it begins to fill, expand, and accommodate everything that comes its way throughout your life.

The subconscious dutifully acts as your “trusty” database. It’s creating meaning out of everything you experience. From these meanings, it’s creating your beliefs (limiting/empowering, accurate/inaccurate, chosen/imprinted upon you). From these beliefs, your habits, behaviors, preferences, and patterns are born.

In your formative years (from birth to around 8 years old), you’re experiencing life as a brand new human with a mind that is a blank slate. During this time, you think in absolutes: Yes/No, Loved/Unloved, Safe/Unsafe. You think in absolutes because your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain that allows you to think, plan, problem-solve, and see things from multiple perspectives) isn’t fully developed yet (and won’t be until you’re 25).  

Throughout these formative years, your subconscious is highly impressionable and it stores everything from its environment. Whether these things are positive or negative, the subconscious has no choice but to receive it all.

How powerful!

…and scary.

Every moment of your life is stored in your subconscious. The beliefs you’ve held since early childhood about yourself, the world, the person who has a differing political view than you, money, safety, love, your worth, your capabilities, your lovability; ALL OF IT is stored in your subconscious.  

Your subconscious mind is largely responsible for the life you’ve created for yourself. It is what supports or stands in the way of manifesting the life you want to be living.

We become more aware of the subconscious when we try to break bad habits or make a change in our life. We may begin to change, adopt new habits, believe we can do something, but then self-sabotage ourselves right out of accomplishing those things.

Our subconscious has been wired through experience to protect us - so self-sabotage is actually our subconscious programming trying to keep us safe.

As we experienced life, our subconscious was making meaning out of everything we experienced and it set up programs, beliefs, and habits that protected us and kept us “safe” during those formative years.

In the same way we outgrow too-small clothes, we also outgrow some of our programs. We no longer need to be protected in the way our subconscious has wired our brains to protect us. The beliefs become limiting, not protecting.

Your subconscious mind is your superpower, or your supervillain, or both.

Your subconscious is holding all of your potential, and the empowering beliefs that support your highest good, but it’s also holding the beliefs that keep you small, limited, and stuck in the rut of your least favorite parts about yourself and life.  

The power of the subconscious mind is that it’s in control. Your conscious mind can’t do much outside of the influence of your subconscious programming. That’s why when you try to make a change it doesn’t stick. It’s why you keep experiencing life the same way year after year, relationship after relationship, bad habit after bad habit. It’s all wired into your subconscious.

When you access the subconscious, you access the programming. It grants you the ability to make the changes you want in order to become your favorite version of yourself, living out a life that’s in alignment with that truer version of you. The rub is that you can’t access the power of the subconscious mind from the conscious mind.

Where Is the Subconscious Located?

Your subconscious mind exists in between your conscious mind and your unconscious mind.  

Let me break it down:

You’re using your conscious mind when you’re awake, aware of your surroundings, and able to choose your points of focus (simply put - it’s when you’re awake).

Your subconscious mind is always present when you’re awake/conscious (in the background), but comes to the forefront just before you fall asleep. When you’re moving from consciousness to unconsciousness (sleep) you pass right through your subconscious.

Once you pass by the subconscious, you go into the unconscious mind where you sleep. 

[Learn more about the Conscious, Unconscious, and Subconscious Mind here.]

How Do I Access the Power of the Subconscious Mind?

Your subconscious is a state of being, not a place. To access it, you have to allow your conscious mind to take a backseat and bring your subconscious mind forward. This can be tough to do without help because the conscious mind wants to stay in control.

Accessing the power of the subconscious mind is possible through hypnosis, which is just a heightened state of awareness. Using hypnosis allows you to sink into the space between awake and asleep, the sweet spot of the subconscious where you have access to all of the wiring that makes you… you.

When we intentionally access the power of our subconscious mind, we tap into our behind-the-scenes programming. We have the ability to disassemble old limiting beliefs and create new beliefs. We have access to our potential when we’re in our subconscious. We can program in the things we want to believe about ourselves and the world that will support us in creating a life we love.

If we want to make changes in ourselves or our lives, the most powerful method is from the inside out, from the subconscious to the conscious.