5 Ways To Communicate With Your Subconscious
We have insight. Incredible insight. About 88% of it is in your subconscious, and I want to show you how to access it!
“Patients are patients because they are out of touch with themselves.” ~Milton Erickson
The author of this quote, Milton Erickson, Psychologist and Hypnotherapist, believed that each person he saw in therapy had the answer within to what ailed them. The catch? The answer was in their often-overlooked and mysterious subconscious.
Erickson contributed hundreds of successful case studies to the field of Psychology while Freud contributed two failed cases.
The difference is that Freud had numerous theories and Milton Erickson, most known for “Brief Therapy” and “Hypnosis“, wasn’t in favor of theories. ‘People are individuals, not theories‘, he would say. It makes sense that my memories and subconscious mind is vastly different than yours.
Imagine treating patients for more than 60 years, sometimes 14 hours a day, and seeing each as an individual who simply needs help finding an answer they already have (in their subconscious).
For this reason, I’ll quote him once more: “People who are in sync with their subconscious minds are in control of their destiny.”
Do you really know yourself?
If you’re ignoring your subconscious mind and doing all your personal growth work with your conscious mind then you’ll only get so far without that 88% that resides in your subconscious.
Your conscious mind could be working on one thing while your subconscious is working on something totally different. You need to be in sync!
Did you know that YOU have all the answers, from your most troubling issues to your most wonderful potential and desires?
But there’s a lot of distractions and noise outside of us that affects our inner landscape and the relationship we have with ourselves. Ironically, we seek the majority of insight about ourselves from the input of others.
The idea behind subconscious work, hypnosis, and meditation is putting you in the driver’s seat. When you were first learning to drive, part of your motivation was freedom from having your parents drive you everywhere. Well, the same is true for accomplishing your goals and inner work- put yourself in the driver’s seat!
As children, we were programmed to listen to our adults about ourselves. In addition, we begin to value other’s input over your own. And many of us are victims of past programming when we were young.
Learn more about your subconscious mind here >>> Subconscious Mind | 9 Facts You Should Know [plus FREE WORKBOOK]
Milton Erickson thought too many therapists let their patients indulge in the past. The answers, he believed, are in the present and change progressively unfolds in the future. Although, it’s important to understand your past from the perspective of your subconscious and how those programs affect you today. But change always happens in the future.
What’s going to change from this day forward? Plant a seed.
What would you discover if you could access the database for your life? Clarity? Direction? Understanding? Change?
Fortunately, there are a few ways that can help you gain powerful insight. The beauty of this is no two experiences of these methods will be the same for everybody. This is personalized and tailored to you!
5 Ways To Communicate With Your Subconscious:
- Walking Meditation– This is no ordinary walk or meditation. The idea is based on principles of Gestalt Psychology. I dedicated an entire post to this here (Gain Powerful Access To Your Subconscious With This Walking Meditation).
Find a place in nature to take a walk. Choose something that draws in your attention right away. Now speak as if you are that something. For a simplified example of this, you could be a falling leaf. Maybe this is what the leaf says: “I’m just a leaf, one of many, flitting in the wind, at the mercy of the tree and the seasons.” You could decipher this as feeling out of control, no real direction, and at the mercy of situations and certain people in your life. Pay attention to the words you use to describe your experience as well.
You’ve just become conscious of what your inner self would like to reveal to you!
“By not talking as one self but talking as some thing, we bypass all conscious protective mechanisms. It is not “me” who is talking, it is “that thing” my attention is drawn to. All taboos are then gone (conscious mind is bypassed) because “that thing” that is talking, is just a thing. We can then explore without censor what spontaneously comes to mind, which is very often related to an emotion buried deeply in our unconscious.” Chris Gilbert MD PhD
Consider what you’ve learned about yourself on this walk.
How can you implement changes today, now that you have this insight and conscious awareness?
2. Trance-firmations (trance + affirmations)- Affirmations, as people would typically do them, involve the conscious mind which also elicits criticism, resistance, negative self-talk and doubts. The affirmations are not likely to be effective in this state. You want to involve your subconscious mind with your affirmation work!
Put yourself in a trance (feels like zoning out or daydreaming) by choosing a spot on the wall to fixate your eyes upon. The spot should be center of your gaze and up slightly. Keep staring at that spot until you feel yourself zone out or your eyes tire. Now you should have 2-4 meaningful affirmations memorized for this. Recite them as many times as you like once you feel daydreamy. Good! That’s it! Always do your affirmations in this state.
Another good time is right when you awake in the morning, when you’re still a little groggy.
3. Dreamspeak (subconscious to conscious dream analysis)– During sleep the subconscious helps sort and process everything from your entire day. This is one of the most important purposes of the subconscious.
We also have aspects of our dreams that are the conscious, or manifest content that is the content seen in a dream. We can awake and recall what we remember about a dream, what we remember seeing.
There is also the subconscious part, or the latent content that is the underlying meaning of your dreams.
Dream analysis is the practice of analyzing the deeper meanings of a person’s dreams. [Sometimes this can even be in the form of symbols]. It can be a helpful method in assisting people to get to know themselves better.
Just as we did on the walking meditation, you will give a voice to your dreams.
The next time you remember a dream, choose the top 2-4 prominent aspects of that dream. It could be a red purse, a beaded necklace, and a convertible car. Upon waking, write these down and write as if you were that item in your dream…how you felt…what you thought your role was, etc.
This will give you insight into several aspects of what your subconscious may be processing currently.
4. Inner dialogue– You’ll need two pillows or cushions. This dialogue is between you and whatever personal problem you are currently facing.
Have two pillows across from each other. One represents you and the other represents your problem as if it were another person in the room with you.
When you sit on the pillow that is “you”, speak to your problem, your concerns, what you want, etc.
Now sit on the pillow that is the “problem” and respond to what you’ve said. Speak as the problem. Go back and forth in this dialogue as much as you’d like and I bet you’ll find some insight concerning your problem.
5. Automatic writing– In this post (The Best Way To End a Year And Begin a New Year) I explain the process of automatic writing so it’s worth repeating here. Automatic Writing, is a form of writing that accesses your subconscious mind without interference from the conscious critical mind.
Ask yourself a question or two about something deeper you’d like to know or understand about yourself then write a paragraph or so in your non-dominant hand. See where it leads.
When you use your non-dominant hand, your conscious mind is focused on hand coordination rather what you’re writing. This allows your subconscious wisdom and thoughts to come forth more easily.
You can also allow yourself to sink into an altered state with “free writing” too, where you continuously write a full page without stopping- no editing along the way or thinking too much.
6 Subconscious Journaling Techniques
What are you going to do with all this insight into your inner self and subconscious?
Peace and Be Well…
Laura
Let me start by saying, you won’t find me dressed in monk-garb meditating on a mountaintop in Tibet, but you will find me practicing mindfulness and meditation effectively and successfully in my life!
I love this post!
I’ve used the trans like state method and I’ve used the automatic writing. Love both! Both work great!
One thing I’m going to try is writing with my non dominant hand. This is very interesting to me!
Thanks for sharing! ❤️
I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Amanda! Yes, the non-dominant hand was interesting to me too! It took a time or two before I caught on 🙂 My first instinct was to write nice. Ha! I just used the dreamspeak today as I had a really crazy dream last night. I find some of these things help point me in the right direction to what I should be focusing on. I know they’ll help you as well!