Brain Functioning and Healing Connection: The Subconscious Mind

Grief is the acute pain that accompanies loss. For days, weeks, months, or even years, after losing someone. We may wake up in the morning with a heavy sensation of sadness. In reality, this is your conscious mind receiving information from the subconscious parts of your brain that you need to heal from the traumatic experience you have endured.

However, it is important to clarify what is the conscious and the subconscious mind.

When we talk about the conscious mind, we referring to all of the thoughts, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware. But also about our mental processing, the ability to talk and think rationally.

Relatively to the subconscious mind, we are talking about a different animal. And a new whole dimension of our mental processes. Which can give us rich information on how and why we are the way we are.

Think about your subconscious mind as a huge memory bank account with unlimited capacity to store information. Let’s say that by the age of 30, you have saved in your brain more than one hundred times the content of one entire encyclopedia. With this said, the subconscious mind exists to make sure that we will act or talk always the same way, using the same programmatic, be it good or bad. That’s why hypnosis can be so effective as a treatment to heal emotional injuries or detrimental behaviors which affect our happiness and satisfaction with life.

In reality, love it or not, some subconscious parts of our brains are dangerously animalistic, leading people to make decisions that they will regret later. Did you ever love someone who said “I love you” one day, and in the very next day, broke up with you? I can tell you that the majority of times, it has nothing to do with you. But with subconscious strategies and programming that he or she use to cope with romantic relationships. We call it attachment style injury. Or in other words, at the conscious level, you are a good fit, but their’s subconscious mind signalized you as a threat to their safety.

Everything we do is physiological because our subconscious fears and desires drive our motivations and actions through emotions. (Think about it!)

Your conscience knows what you should do and can guide you. But the subconscious mind, without rewiring will sabotage your conscious efforts.

I have done hypnosis therapy in the last two decades. Yes, I did an impressive and solid work of self-knowledge because I always wanted to be as healthy (emotionally) as possible and deal with others properly. People these days end relationships because THEY DON’T KNOW THEMSELVES! They don’t know how to navigate the different stages of one relationship and don’t understand or want to accept that frustration is part of it, seeking “one notch on the bedpost of life after another.” To avoid frustration, loneliness, and emotional pain, like they are avoiding the plague.

Now, returning to grief and loss, like many other feelings we might experience in our lives, knowing and understanding that our subconscious messages can help us enhance our lives. Avoiding the mental construct imposed by the rules of society is the first step to make everything clear to your mental and emotional needs. Remember that our social environment doesn’t need our brain needs. Here is something of what you can do:

1. Allow your feelings to wash over you, and “sit” them for a while to start the healing process. 
   
   
2. Honor and replace what you have lost. Replacing loss requires awareness of your needs and willingness to reach out and enrich your life with a brand new environment.
   
    
3. Learn how to value life. When we lose someone, something very important to us, this experience will also vanish away whatever is false and not serving us anymore.
   Throughout the pain, we might become more authentic. And we will be able to honor the feeling and person we lost by living our best possible life. 
   
   
4. Avoid fast recipes and common pieces of advice. Instead, educate yourself, and remember that everyone and every brain is different. When someone says you have to move on, this should be a red flag for you because this inoffensive advice carries a lack of empathy and awareness to look at you. 

I will share in the future more material about the subconscious mind. But for now, I want you to think about this:

“Many of us may feel baffled as to why our relationships seem to start so strong but then quickly fall apart. Out of sheer frustration, we may even end up eschewing relationships altogether, thinking perhaps we are just not “lucky in love.”
What we likely don’t realize is that we may be subconsciously sabotaging our relationships through a pattern of unhealthy attractions and behaviors that we aren’t even aware of.”

References:

Pileggi Pawelski, S & Pawelski, J. (2018). Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts. New York: TarcherPerigee.