Your subconscious mind has immense power in controlling the experiences you have in life: from the variety of food you eat, to the actions you take each day, to the level of income you earn, and even how you react to stressful situations.

Every part of your being is guided by your unconscious beliefs and interpretations. In short, your subconscious mind has the same functionality as an autopilot on a plane. It has been pre-programmed to follow a specific route and you cannot deviate from that route unless you change the original program first.

Do you know what the subconscious is? or should I say the subconscious mind…

The subconscious mind is the part of your mind that functions below the normal level of awareness.
Now, you are primarily using your conscious mind to read these words and understand their meaning, but underneath this mental focus, your subconscious mind is actively working behind the scenes to accept or reject the information you are reading based on an existing perception you have of the world around you.

These existing perceptions began to form when you were a child. Your subconscious mind absorbs information like a sponge with every experience.

The subconscious mind did not have the ability to reject information when you were young, because your conscious mind was untrained, and you had no pre-existing beliefs to contradict what it perceived. It simply accepted all the information you received in your early childhood as true.

You can probably see why this becomes a problem later in life! Every time someone calls you stupid, useless, slow, lazy, or worse, your subconscious has stored this information and referenced it.

You may also have received messages about your potential in life where you will face limitations based on your physical abilities, skin color, gender, or economic status.

By the time you were 7 or 8 years old, you already had a solid foundation of beliefs based on everything you were programmed to believe by the people in your life, the shows you watched on TV, and other environmental influences.

How does this “old” programming affect you directly?

Now that you’re an adult, you may think you can simply reject the hurtful or untruthful messages you absorbed as a child, but it’s not quite as simple as that.

Remember that all this information is stored below the normal level of awareness. The only time you become aware of this is when you are limited in your progress in creating a balanced, successful and productive life.

Have you ever tried to achieve a goal and every time you did, you sabotaged yourself?

Scary, isn’t it? It’s important to know that you are not imperfect or doomed to fail, no matter what you do. It is more likely that you have old, programmed messages that conflict with the new conditions you want to create. This is great news because it means you can achieve just about anything you want if you first take the time to reprogram your subconscious!

The program is still running:

Before we discover how to reprogram your subconscious mind, it is important to know that the programming continues to this day. With every experience you have, you draw certain conclusions and store messages that will guide your future actions. For example, what kind of message do you think would be stored in your subconscious if you were rejected by someone you loved? Your subconscious (that clever detective) would have immediately gone hunting through your memories and looked for other examples of rejection (like the time your best friend underestimated you to go hang out with the popular kids) and you drew a conclusion that you are somehow unworthy or incapable of being loved and deserve to be rejected.

Now, here’s something interesting: If you have an experience that conflicts with an already established belief, your subconscious mind must decide to either reject or re-evaluate that belief so that it can go along with your perception of reality.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you have an underlying idea that you’re unattractive, and an attractive person expresses an interest in getting to know you better; probably, the first thing you’ll think is that this must be a joke or a cruel trick. You can’t believe that this person might find you interesting because you think you are unattractive.

Below the surface of the level of your awareness, your subconscious mind screams, “No way! This person is far too attractive to be interested in me, something is wrong here… “ Then you will have either rejected that person before they reject you or done something to sabotage what could have been a great relationship. The same thing happens when you struggle to achieve your goals. Eventually, you begin to believe that you are not capable of being successful, so you expect failure and that is exactly what happens over and over again!

You can think of several other situations where your subconscious limits you, but you know what, reprogramming is a very simple matter if you know how to do it.

How do you reprogram your subconscious to succeed?

There are many ways to replace the messages of limitations or negativity that are stored in your subconscious mind. You can work with all of these strategies simultaneously, but it will be much more effective if you choose only one or two methods to begin with. You want to give them your full attention rather than jumping around and diluting your efforts. Remember, you can always incorporate additional techniques over time.

The influences of your environment:

Have you ever considered the effect of your environment on your subconscious mind? Remember that your subconscious mind is constantly absorbing information and drawing conclusions by forming beliefs based on that information. If your daily environment is filled with negativity and conflict, imagine what kind of messages are being absorbed by your mind! Your first action is to strictly limit the negativity you are exposed to from now on. Avoid watching the news on television unless you absolutely have to, and avoid spending too much time with “negative” people.

Instead, look for positive information to read and watch, and spend most of your time with positive, successful people. Over time, you will find that many of the messages of encouragement have been absorbed into your subconscious mind, and this will change the way you look at yourself and your potential.

Visualization:

Your subconscious mind responds well to images. Visualization is a great way to program your positive mind with motivating images. Try to spend 10-15 minutes a day visualizing positive scenes from your life experiences.

Here are some scenes you might like to see:

• An abundance of money.
• A beautiful house.
• Enriching relationships.
• A luxurious car.
• An exciting job.
• Exotic holidays.
• A slim and trim body.
• Anything else you wish to attract into your life.

By practicing regularly, you will eventually redraw the negative images stored from your past experiences, fears, worries and doubts. To increase the power of visualization even further, be sure to emit strong, positive emotions when you picture these wonderful things in your mind.

Allow the feelings of love, joy, gratitude, and peace to flow through you as if you had actually had these experiences. Your subconscious mind will absorb the messages as if they were real! That is the true beauty of visualization – the power to bypass the limitation of messages and focus on pleasing images, which are absorbed directly into your subconscious in order to be called upon to witness later.

Affirmations:

Affirmations are another effective way to install positive messages in your subconscious. They work best if you follow a few simple rules:

1. Write them in the present tense. Say “I am confident and successful” rather than “I will be confident and successful” because by focusing on a future condition, your subconscious mind does not take it into consideration – it only recognizes the present moment. Also use positive statements. Saying: “I am not a failure” is not taken into account in the same way as when you say: “I am a failure” because the subconscious mind does not take negations into account.
2. Feel the corresponding emotions. Saying “I am rich” while feeling poor only sends contradictory messages to your subconscious! It doesn’t matter what words you say as long as you strive to feel the corresponding emotions because your subconscious will be more likely to believe it.
3. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Affirmations don’t work if you say them just once or twice. Reciting them several times during the day gives better results. The good thing about this is that you can tell yourself affirmations, so they can become part of your routine.

Binaural beat brain training:

Another popular method is the use of sound recordings that deliberately change the frequency of your brain waves. It may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but the report on people who have tried these audio programs is overwhelmingly positive.

Your ideas fall into a specific frequency depending on what you are doing at any given time:

• Gamma: when you are engaged in certain motor functions.
• Beta: when you are fully aware and actively focusing.
• Alpha: when you are relaxed.
• Theta: when you are drowsy or not very sleepy.
• Delta: when you are in a deep sleep.

“Binaural Beat” is the result when two sounds are played at different frequencies, causing your ideas to follow a different pattern. For example, if you want to go from a stressful state to a relaxed state, you will listen to an audio that triggers the alpha state. These audio programs can help you reprogram your subconscious mind by creating a forum that is more receptive to the installation of positive messages. Research has shown that your subconscious mind is more receptive to latest information when you are very relaxed, such as in the alpha and theta states.

Using audio brain training programs with affirmations or visualization can be a powerful combination, as your subconscious mind drops its defenses so that it can easily absorb any message you wish to program. Simply relax and focus on positive images.

Hypnosis:

Hypnosis can be effective in much the same way as brain training programs, except that we do not use frequency-altering brain waves. Instead, the hypnotist gradually brings you into a more relaxed environment and receptive state and delivers powerful positive messages to your subconscious mind.

Self-hypnosis is another popular option; you simply use pre-recorded audio programs instead of a live hypnosis session. You can even record your own self-hypnosis CDs, so you will hear your own voice reciting positive affirmations while you are in a relaxed state.

How do you know if your reprogramming efforts are effective?

One of the most difficult aspects of reprogramming your subconscious mind is that you can’t look inside and see what conditioning that is still there might need to be changed!

Instead, you will need to develop a powerful sense of self-awareness, so that you can recognize the self-sabotaging behavior before it gets out of hand. Even so, there are still some obvious signs of progress that you can recognize:

• You start to feel stronger, more confident and happier.
• You find yourself more willing to take risks and challenges.
• Your dreams and goals no longer seem hopeless – just exciting.
• You feel a deep sense of inner peace, as if inner conflicts are being resolved.
• You are attracting more and more opportunities to develop in all areas of your life.

In short, you will know when changes are taking place in your subconscious mind, as you will notice a change both within and without your being. The evidence is usually undeniable!

Consistency, Perseverance and Reinforcement:

It is important to give the reprogramming process time to work. Don’t expect to see immediate changes (which may happen from time to time, but more often it takes time).

Be very consistent and persistent with the methods you choose in order to reprogram more positive messages into your subconscious mind. As soon as these transformations begin to manifest themselves, you will feel motivated to keep moving forward, but until then, remain consistent and persistent. I know that these changes are permanent, powerful, and worth waiting for!