“Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.”
―
You have most likely at some point in your life driven down the street while lost in thought. You will have arrived at your destination only to wonder how did I get here?
Luckily you were on autopilot.
Autopilot helps you out far more often then you probably realise and while it’s a fantastic feature of the human species it’s not always to our benefit especially when living in a modern world.
When you first started driving, you will have found that everything you did you had to be fully aware, you would have had a sequence of tasks in your head and done them one at a time using a fully present, fully conscious mind.
So what changed?
Over time once you had mastered a skill, it was transferred from the present mind to the unconscious mind so that you could focus your efforts on building the next lot of skills.
This process will have happened over and over again from walking and talking to playing sport or music, you will have learnt and then stopped learning, and this is when the information would have been transferred to the sub-conscious.
The issue is that what we learn might have suited us then, but it doesn’t help us in the future.
For instance, I was always good at sport but rubbish at maths, I had learnt both of these states of being.
With sport, I was keen to get out there and play because it seemed to come easy to me, ( it didn’t its just that I had plenty of practice from when I was younger and was better than some of the other kids).
On the other hand, there were maths where I was asked to stand up and recite times tables, something that I hadn’t been taught from a young age and something that made me feel stupid and useless as I would get it wrong.
This was only due the time I had invested, but I believed at the time skills were fixed traits, meaning I was a failure at math without ever really trying.
Later on in life, these same autopilots would kick into gear again.
For me when it came to doing physical work, I was ready and saw an exciting challenge, but when it came to using my brain, my autopilot had been set to find ways to escape doing it and make up excuses to avoid situations where I might be asked uncomfortable questions in front of groups leading to a fear of public speaking.
It’s a learned response
Take the famous experiment of ‘Little Albert’, a small child who was presented a rabbit that he naturally found cute and cuddly.
At the same time, a loud bang went off behind little Albert scaring the life out of the little guy (and the poor rabbit too no doubt).
After a while even when there was no loud bang just seeing the rabbit Albert, he would get scared, this became his autopilot response.
We have all been little Alberts at some point. For me, it was my mum panicking on aeroplanes that meant I learnt to fear flying as I had modelled the person I looked up too.
No amount of looking at car vs plane safety statistics could change my sub-conscious mind.
The same with public speaking, those math classes where I had to stand up and made to feel stupid because I didn’t know the answer haunted me for years.
I’m sure you too have many examples also of autopilot getting in the way of achieving many of the things that you wish you could achieve.
So how can you reprogram the mind to have new and limitless beliefs?
How can you create an autopilot that will take you where you want to go in life?
Heres is 7 techniques that will help change your unconscious world
Hypnosis-
Hypnosis doesn’t mean running around like a chicken. Real hypnosis is happening when your relaxed and in a state that allows in new thought patterns such as ideas that would typically be rejected by the cognitive bias we usually use to filter out information that doesn’t support our way of thinking.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)-
CBT is a way of learning to spot the signs of negative thought patterns beginning to emerge that are detrimental to your mental health. Then replacing these patterns with new patterns that lead to a more desirable outcome
Visualisations-
As well as being relaxing using visualisation helps you by giving you control of the scenarios that you face and actually can trick the mind into believing that the experience you visualised is real.
Your brain can’t tell the difference, so when it comes to the thing that you trained your self to run away from you now run towards and enjoy.
Your subconscious then believes it’s not such an unusual experience and your fears start to become distant memories.
.
Binary beats-
Have been shown to reduce anxiety by opening up and stimulating different parts of the brain using different waves, Theta waves that can help induce REM sleep, Delta waves that help with Deep sleep, Alpha waves encourage relaxation and Beta waves have been said to be useful to stimulate the brain.
Mindfulness-
Mindfulness is the practice of letting go, letting go of that which isn’t useful. When your practising mindfulness it’s about observing the thoughts that arise in your mind.
By using your conscious mind to watch the unconscious part of your mind, and observe the thoughts that pass through.
If you can observe the thoughts without getting attached to any of the ideas,( far easier said than done).
I find myself getting lost in those thoughts but every now and again realise this, and for me, that’s the breakthrough moment, the part where growth can happen!
Change your environment-
It’s so easy to get dragged into the ideas and stories of those around us, that without even realising it we adapt to the cultures around us.
Consider a time when you might have gone abroad. You find your self changing the way you dress and eat, and maybe you buy a shirt that looks great only to realise when you get home, you could never wear that with your friends in your home town it just doesn’t fit in.
This is the power of the peer group.
If you hang around with people who have different standards or goals you will end up adopting your views to match theirs, this is why it’s crucial to find a group of people to spend your time with who embody the goals that you have in life.
The same also applies to the media you consume, follow positive examples of what you want to be in life and turn off the negative news channels.
Push Your Limits-
With all these options there are no excuses.
If you want to change the world around, set your destination and start to override your autopilot, take control of your decisions and your thoughts. By exploring some of these techniques, you will find what works for you. Then do it over and over again.
Remember when you were a child you would fall over and fall over, again and again, but you would never quit, it just wasn’t an option. That is the way you need to start viewing your life as if you were a child who is re-learning taking it, step by step without the negative pressure that us as adults put on ourselves to get stuff right all the time.
Please share this article if you found it useful, and don’t forget to download your Free copy of Empa7hy – The Success Magazine for a Heart-Centered life.
“The mind is just like a muscle – the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand.”
―
