Beyond the Power of Your Subconscious Mind (8 page)

Let me just make one comment about
bad
habits. Bad habits are simply “bad habits,” those habits one may have developed over time that seem difficult to break even though one wishes to break them. Professionals may label them “addictions.” But to rid ourselves of a “bad” habit, we use the same tools and techniques taught in this book to bring about
any
change in your life that you desire (See Chapter 8, “Affirmations and Affirmation Techniques”). The bottom line is, you no longer need to be a “prisoner” of antiquated beliefs, attitudes, or old habits that may be blocking your realization of all that you truly are, not the illusion(s) or delusion of what you have been conditioned to
believe
you are. You will soon learn that liberating yourself from all the junk (also known as “baggage”) you have collected along the way does not have to be an arduous task nor require years of contemplation in the presence of a monk on the high plains of Tibet.

Now about negative habit patterns.

We stated earlier that all negative habit patterns contain the element of fear. And, in most cases our negative habit patterns are imbedded into us before the age of six. Our memory of how we got a negative habit pattern is repressed. And, although we have no conscious memory of how we obtained this “feeling,” it does affect our future decisions and behavior. After the age of six, we may develop a fear of something, but the event(s) or data that caused it is still remembered vividly. Thus by our definition, it would not be a “negative habit pattern.”

There are two types of negative habit patterns—inhibitive and compulsive.

Inhibitive Negative Habit Patterns

An inhibitive negative habit pattern contains the notion,
“I
can’t
do (fill in the blank)
or something bad is going to happen to me.”

Often times phobias experienced as adults are the result of early childhood traumas in which the memory of such traumas are suppressed. For example, a small child may have a traumatic experience of falling into a swimming pool before learning how to swim. Thinking one might be drowning, at any age, would be incredibly frightening. But, after the age of six one would retain the memory of such an event and not necessarily be traumatized by it or develop a phobia of getting in the water. This small child, however, develops an innate fear of being in the water from one life-threatening event.

As an adult this same person may have a dreadful fear of water, but they don’t know why as they have amnesia of this early childhood trauma. They simply have an inhibitive negative habit which creates an internal alarm when they are near water.

“I can’t go in the water or something bad is gong to happen to me.”

An adult who is claustrophobic may have been accidentally (or intentionally) locked in their bedroom, or a closet, or perhaps stuck in a mal-functioning elevator. To a small child this can be very traumatic. Again, as an adult the memory of the childhood event is suppressed; the adult simply feels great discomfort and perhaps even fear when confined in small places.

“I don’t want to go into that small, dark room or something bad is going to happen to me.”

These are examples of inhibitive negative habit patterns, both of which contain the element of fear and happened before the age of six.

Dr. Murphy provides tools for overcoming these kinds of fears in Chapter 21 of this book.

Compulsive Negative Habit Patterns

A compulsive negative habit pattern suggests, “I
have
to do something, or something bad is going to happen to me.”

There are many different compulsive negative habit patterns, but the three most common are:

1. The compulsive punctual

2. The compulsive orderly

3. The compulsive active

Remember, most of these habit patterns were ingrained in us before the age of six. So, let’s examine how one might become a compulsive punctual, or, “I
have to
be on time or else
(you fill in the blank)
.” It makes sense that since these behavioral patterns are developed by age six, in most instances they are handed down to us by mom and/or dad (or whoever served in that parental role). It is also important to point out that the parent who “helped” us develop our compulsive negative habit pattern most likely had the
same
habit pattern themselves.

Now let’s see how young Jimmy became a compulsive punctual before the age of six. As implied above, dad is a raging punctuality freak. He storms around the house (and the office and the Little League teams, etcl.) preaching the mantra, “If you can’t be on time, be
early
!” Poor little Jimmy hasn’t got a chance. He is playing at his friend’s house next door at age four and shows up at home 15 minutes late for dinner. The first time he gets the lecture. The second time he gets the threats, i.e., like being sent to his room, or whatever good, loving, compulsive punctual fathers do. And, the third time dad totally loses it! It doesn’t take Jimmy very long to “get it.” He develops the compulsive negative pattern that says, “I have to be on time or else
__________
_
” (and filling in the blank is not a very
pleasant picture for a four year old.)

So here is a clear and realistic example how one develops a negative habit pattern before the age of six and it contains the element of fear. And, you might ask, “So what? How does that affect me as an adult?” Answer: the same way it affected Jimmy’s daddy. He did not act rationally, or
sane
, when it came to the possibility of being late.

Omega founder John Boyle did a lot of work with the San Diego police department. He learned that 80% of the auto accidents in San Diego County were caused by people driving too fast because they were “in a hurry” or “running late for an appointment.” Imagine a compulsive punctual on his way to meet his number one customer and thinking that he is going to be late. He will be gripped with
illusionary
fears that he may lose the customer, and if so, his boss will fire him and his wife will divorce him, etc. He becomes temporarily insane, drives much faster than the speed limit, risks running a red light, and having a terrible accident.

The affirmation for breaking the compulsive grip on being punctual is, “It is good to be on time, but I don’t
have
to be on time.”

We mentioned the other two most common compulsive habit patterns: the compulsive orderly and the compulsive active person. Four year old Mary’s mother is a compulsive “neat-nik.” She is constantly wandering the house looking for anything that looks out of place or undone. God forbid little Mary may forget to make her bed one day or leave her nightie on the floor. (Dad was probably screaming at all the kids to hurry up and get in the car or they were going to be late for school.) Mom fumes all day waiting for Mary to get home from school because this is the third time she didn’t make her bed. You’ve got the picture.

And, the compulsively active negative habit pattern is created by the parent(s) who just has to be busy doing something
all
the time. They never just relax or take time out. That household script goes, “Are you just going to sit around the house and watch cartoons all day? Why aren’t you reading those books I bought you? (Dad probably doesn’t know that little four year old Jimmy or Mary haven’t learned to read yet), or practicing your free throws?” And it goes on and on.

The importance and value of identifying your own negative habit patterns is twofold:

1. To eliminate the compulsive hold they have had on you and develop a sense of sane behavior about whatever it is that you
use to
be compulsive about; and,

2. To break the family chain so you don’t pass on the same compulsive
behavioral patterns to your own children, if or when you should have them.

We have now learned a little bit about how our self concept influences our performance, how our self concept is developed, the benefit and value of positive habits, and the obstacles associated with negative habit patterns.

We are now going to transition into better understanding the conscious and subconscious areas of the mind and how they interact together in determining our choice(s) of action in everything we do. As part of this transition, I would like to share with you an excerpt from an article I read written by Charles T. Tart, Ph.D. In a subsection headed, Who am I—the Beliefs Experience,” Dr. Tart writes:

The many theories or belief systems we have about who we are, such as, “I am a Christian,” or “I am a Buddhist,” or “I am a sinner,” provide yet another perspective. If we hold these theories purely as
theories
—if we say, “I have a certain set of beliefs, and I don’t know if they’re really true, but I act on them sometimes”— life wouldn’t be so bad. The problem is that these theories are thoroughly conditioned into us when we are children, literally automatizing the way we perceive ourselves and the world. We don’t act on them “sometimes” or choose to act on them. And the process of enculturation transmits not only the culture’s knowledge but also its restrictions.

Our unexamined belief systems control how we live. Jumping ahead to the question of what we can do to live a better life
. . .
, one thing is to find out what theories have been conditioned into us, acquire some perspective on them, and make some adult decisions about whether to continue to automatically believe them. “Do I want to believe that
that
is who I am?” Let’s not confuse the theories we have about ourselves, even though they may run a lot of our life, with who we actually are and what we can find out by direct observation. As I said, from the perspective of cultivated experience, I am
nothing
: I am not a thing but a process that is open to change.*

Thank you, Dr. Tart.

7

Understanding the Relationship Between the Conscious and Subconscious Mind

In Chapter 5, Dr. Murphy wrote:

The reason there is so much chaos and misery in the world is because people do not understand the interaction of their conscious and subconscious minds. When these two principles work in accord, in concord, in peace, and synchronously together, you will have health, happiness, peace and joy. There is no sickness or discord when the conscious and subconscious work together harmoniously and peacefully.

Now let’s look more closely at the interaction between the conscious and subconscious that Dr. Murphy speaks of and how the data stored in our subconscious largely determines the decisions we make and how we behave.

We have three areas of the mind that are the foundation for how we think, how we create, and how we make decisions both consciously and subconsciously. The three areas of the mind are: the conscious, the subconscious, and the supraconscious. These are not three separate minds, but three spheres of our one mind.

When I first attended the Executive Dynamics (later named Omega) seminar in 1969 as referenced in the Introduction to this book, I remember the founder, John Boyle, going up to the blackboard and writing the following three circles on the following page.

This is what I learned from his description of how these areas of the mind interact.

We will begin with the subconscious. One of the primary functions of the subconscious is to store data. It is the area of our mind that records and stores memory. In computer terms we could think of it as our hard drive. And, what is fascinating is everything we have seen, heard, experienced, and how we felt about those experiences, since birth, is all stored in our subconscious or memory bank—everything. And that which we have “forgotten” can be retrieved through the use of chemicals or age regression hypnosis. Many psychotherapists use hypnosis as a technique of rediscovering early childhood traumas that may still have a negative or detrimental impact on a person’s behavior as an adult. Powerful phobias and deep rooted fears are often formulated as young children, and when we become adults, we have amnesia as to where these fears came from; but we know that certain circumstances or situations trigger what often is very irrational behavior.

Additionally, our negative habit patterns are stored in our subconscious. So, mentally imagine the subconscious as looking like this.