Raw Spirituality: Discover Your Concealed Personality Part 2

The ancients knew there is much more to the human mind than that which you are consciously aware. The hidden mind is the real power of your mind.

“The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer.”
Steve Martin

“It's interesting what pops out of an author's subconscious when he's not thinking about it.”
Nick Petrie

Getting in touch with your subconscious fears, defenses, and talents is the essence of spirituality and vital to getting the most out of your life. Until you do that, you’re dealing only with the superficial you, not the authentic you.

Four Examples of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

1. Subconscious beliefs at odds with conscious views generate internal strife, making your life more difficult. This is surprisingly common, particularly involving the topic of sex.

Present-day statistics regarding marriage, cheating, and divorce suggest life-long monogamy isn’t natural for a large portion of the population. If you consider this and the majority of civilization—throughout recorded history-- shunning the relatively recent (mostly Western) matrimonial requirement of strict, life-long monogamy, you’ll wonder why modern couples subscribe to such a code.

Yet it’s very common for young couples to enter life-long marriage contracts with the understanding that they will only have sex with each other for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately there can be quite a contrast with the concealed and conscious mind when it comes to sex.

Human instinct and subconscious impressions aren’t in accordance with the life-long monogamy model, at all. Although it’s noble to try to never think about sex with anyone else, it’s hopeless on an subconscious level, and that’s where the bulk of the influence of your mind resides.

While you restrict your conscious mind to pure and faithful thoughts, your subconscious mind is pursuing fantasies in the back of your mind. Eventually, if it’s strong enough, your concealed self, the real you, makes an appearance and crashes the morality construct. We applaud you for striving to be faithful to your partner, but too often the subconscious mind has other plans, which due to the stark contrast causes a tremendous amount of inner conflict.

Admitting strict life-long monogamy isn’t for everyone, and that it’s difficult to know yourself well enough at a young age to determine if life-long monogamy is for you, would be a good start to overcome this problem.

2. That sudden fear you have of accidentally leaving the oven on when you’re getting in the car to go to an important therapy session is a false fear. You run in the house and realize the oven is off and that it was your subconscious trying to get you to avoid going to the therapy session; you’re about to discover an important, long-hidden subconscious fear you possess. The subconscious mind wants to remain in control, and anything that may conflict with it is a problem, which manifests as internal strife.

3. Trying to be a better person, you admirably decide that from now on you’ll avoid getting angry or upset and instead forever project calm understanding and compassion. The problem is your subconscious mind has other plans, due to it being perfectly natural to (constructively) feel and express negative emotions. Refusing to acknowledge not so nice emotions, repressing that energy, eventually yields the beach-ball-under-water effect: since that energy eventually has to go somewhere, you’ll inappropriately blow up at someone or otherwise lose your cool.

4. The unconditional love and selflessness of a mother tending to her infant’s needs is naturally praiseworthy. The problem with the concept of selflessness occurs when someone completely denies his or her self-interest, which everyone has in varying degrees, despite some people stating otherwise.

Denying that you have at least some self-interest, such as in meeting your basic needs, causes havoc with the subconscious mind. An example is the political advocate projecting his (natural) selfishness onto innocent parties, generating unnecessary strife. So often, those who protest the loudest are guilty, often in some hidden way (even having to do with past life actions) of said offense. There is such a denial of their wrongdoing and the conflict it generates with their subconscious mind that it negatively affects their life and other people.

Your hidden mind, with all of its fears, biases, defenses, and unique skills is often irrational, just like a child. You can’t control it, but you can acknowledge your subconscious and try to work with it to more easily reach your goals. Simply becoming more aware of it is a good start to making the most of your life.

“The subconscious mind has no sense of humor and people often joke themselves into unhappy experiences.”
Florence Scovel Shinn

Copyright © Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo