I know this sounds like quite a heavy topic for this article but it is an important one. The parts of our mind that are beneath conscious awareness exert an enormous influence over our thoughts, feelings and behaviours and are responsible for many of our relationship difficulties. Psychologists are often telling us that we only use a small proportion of our brains but this is a bit misleading. I think we use all of our brains, all of time, but are not aware of doing this because many of its workings are hidden from us. Many of our unconscious processes are destructive and left to their own devices will sabotage our relationships and give us a very poor emotional quality of life. Luckily our unconscious mind also contains all our gifts of love, connection and relationship. Later in the article I will discuss how we can bring these more into our conscious awareness so that we can improve our relationships.

Dr. Chuck Spezzano, founder of ThePsychology of Vision and creator of the relationship model that I base my writings on, describes both the subconscious and unconscious mind. There is no distinct split in the mind but it is a useful way of subdividing the contents. He defines subconscious thoughts, feelings and images as those that relate to things that have happened to us since birth and unconscious thoughts, feelings and images as those that derive from our collective pool of experience as human beings. Some of these may be inherited ancestrally (or if you believe in such things, from past lives), others primordial patterns that are shared by all of us. These may include fundamental fears such as about mortality, who we are, sanity and spirituality.

The problem with our non-conscious mind is that whatever is stored there may be hidden from view but it still affects our daily lives. It’s a bit like being controlled by an autopilot that is driven by an invisible computer programme. We may react to situations and people (especially our partners) with seemingly automatic, knee-jerk reactions, but in reality we are responding to fears and beliefs that are sitting within the un- and subconscious parts of our mind. Those negative aspects of our psyche are formed in the heartbreaks and trauma of life where we come face-to-face with our most fundamental fears. Instead of healing these fears we store them away and take on all sorts of negative self-beliefs in the process. When somebody behaves in a certain way, this may trigger these deeply held insecurities and such things as guilt, inadequacy and lack of self-love, causing us to either become very needy or to compensate in negative ways to deny our fear and insecurity.

In order to stop these seemingly automatic responses there is no point in trying to subdue or modify our behaviour – this can only work in the short term because the non-conscious triggers are still present. The only way forward is to change our deep unconscious and subconscious thought patterns. The techniques I describe in these articles and in my website are designed to do just that. They help change our negative self-beliefs into positive ones. They rely on the fact that underneath all our negative patterns are positive ones. In fact at the core of our being we are just love and connection. All of us have this knowledge within us but it can become obscured by all the negativity and pain that is stored within us. As we let this negativity and pain go we reveal our true selves. There is nothing new to learn, but to bring this beautiful side of us to the surface, we must find the courage to go within into the sometimes dark and frightening parts of our mind. Although there is no reason why this process cannot happen instantly, most of us have to work at it and typically it will be a lifetime quest. Nevertheless we can start the process right now and become curious about what lies within the non-conscious parts of our mind. Our positive unconscious mind, sometimes called our higher mind will direct our journey if we trust it and ask for help along the way.

If you have found this article useful, you will find
much more information in my books.

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