Mystic Messages

It seems as if we’re always being told to examine our thoughts, our beliefs.  That’s not as easy as it sounds.

I’ve worked with people who are literally shocked to discover some of the things that they believe.  Our unconscious minds are powerful helpers in our journey of personal growth, but with that power comes an ability to derail our best efforts, the decisions we make consciously but without the agreement of our unconscious minds.

Does this sound difficult to believe?  Let’s look at how powerful that unconscious mind can be.

You can breathe without thinking about it, right?  You don’t go around telling your heart to ‘Beat Now, and Now, and Now,’ do you?  Somewhere in your system is a controller taking care of all those systems so you don’t have to make a conscious decision to get your heart to beat or your lungs to expand.  So why shouldn’t that ‘controller’ be making other decisions for you?  Like how you will respond to a stimulus that is similar to what you experienced when you were 5 or 7 years old?  What about that knee-jerk reaction you had?  Did you consciously choose that or did it come from somewhere else?

Prejudice comes from training in our youth.  In the show, ‘South Pacific,’ they say that you must be carefully taught to hate.  But once those seeds of hatred are planted, you might not even know that you believe that someone ‘should be hated.’  Or what about those family stories that plant a seed about who you are supposed to be?  ‘Our family always does…….’ [fill in the blank].  There can be some powerful beliefs ingrained in us as children that we don’t even recognize are at work.

And so, as adults, we go along thinking that we are in charge when the truth is that our unconscious minds are holding onto beliefs and thoughts about ourselves and the world that might not be valid anymore.  The bogeyman under the bed might not actually be there but the little child within might still be afraid of a strange situation.

How do we use this information in our adult lives?  The first place to start is to examine what we believe.  In every situation, the question to ask is, ‘Is what I believe about this situation true?’  When we are responding to a particular stimulus, we can ask ourselves if the response is appropriate in this moment or is our unconscious mind adding on some data from previous experiences that might not apply right now.  This ability to ask questions of ourselves is the first step to living a conscious life.

And we must question what comes at us and to us from outside sources.  If you are told something that doesn’t feel right, pause and ask yourself what it is exactly that you are feeling.  What, within yourself, is not resonating with this information?  Or what IS resonating with this information, and can you believe something new or contrary to what you believed before?

These questions only help us if we have already started to examine ourselves.  Being on a path of personal growth invites us to become aware in every moment of our own thoughts and beliefs.  For some, this might require help at first, especially in clearing away blocks held in the unconscious mind and difficult to unearth for examination.  The good news is that the more you practice examining your thoughts and beliefs the easier it is to continue.  It rapidly becomes a way of life as your understanding deepens of the intricate relationship of your conscious and unconscious minds.

Personal growth is the path to bringing more Light into your life.  Embrace the journey.  Do the work.  Examine what you believe, both consciously and unconsciously, and grow.