We’re talking about taking charge of anxiety, and you’ll hear me talk about the subconscious mind a lot, because it plays such a massive roll in anxiety and panic. So what do I mean by the subconscious mind?

I’ll give a quick explanation of the structure of the human mind, where we’ve got the conscious mind and then the subconscious mind.

The conscious mind, where we do our thinking and make deliberate choices, is only the tip of the iceberg – around 5-10 %. Below the surface is where the real operating room is, with around 90-95% of what we do controlled by the subconscious mind.

As an example of how the mind works, think of driving a car. When you first learn to drive, you have to concentrate consciously on everything you’re doing – accelerating, braking, gears, checking mirrors. But after a while you can jump in a car and drive for an hour with barely a thought – eating breakfast, updating facebook and belting out a song all at the same time. You’re on autopilot with actually driving the car, and often you’ll get to where you’re going and not even remember a thing about the trip. The subconscious mind has taken that activity over. The neural pathways have been built and strengthened, and that activity has been consigned to habit so we don’t have to consciously learn how to drive a car every time we jump in.

At the same time we’re driving a car, the subconscious mind is also beating our heart, digesting food, killing germs…all those things we don’t have to think about.

Emotions are stored there, memories are organised and stored, and it’s also responsible for our unconscious behaviours. Just as we’re programmed in driving a car, we’re also programmed in how we respond to or deal with things in our life. We walk around being triggered and reacting to things in a programmed way, without thinking:

We get cut off in traffic and we react,

Our partner says or does something, we bite their heads off,

We get put on the spot to speak in public and our heart starts beating out of our chest, we choke up and we want to run for the nearest exit.

90 – 95% of what we do, we do unconsciously, without thinking. We’re programmed. So to make REAL change we need to make it to the programming at the subconscious level.

This quote is from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.

“Until you make the unconscious mind conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate.”

We need to become aware of these programs, and then change them so that our unconscious behaviours get us the results we want.

And anxiety is not a result we want.