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Lorraine at powerfull-living.biz tagged me with the “The good side of the limited mind” meme. This meme basically describes how the subconscious mind serves a useful purpose. I got tagged with this and realized that my portrayal of the subconscious may have been a little one-sided: I keep talking about breaking through resistance, and asserting conscious control and direction, without spending much time addressing the topic of the subconscious. So, here’s my chance to set the record straight….
Defending the defender
As I wrote on the topic of inner resistance, it is a natural defensive mechanism. It is a way to protect you from doing something before you are developed enough to handle it. As such, your inner resistance has, is, and forever will be protecting you from not only what might happen to you from the external world, it also in a sense is “saving you from yourself”. That’s not to mean that we should just cave to the resistance whenever and wherever we encounter it, but over time we find that the resistance becomes less about stopping you from doing what you want, and instead quiets down to a concerned voice of caution.
In praise of Mission Control.
Like most kids, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I still do, though I’m a bit too much of a giant these days 
However, there is a powerful analogy here, if you are familiar with NASA’s space program, or even if you’ve seen Apollo 13. You have a few astronauts in space, and you have a large team of very smart people on the ground, ever vigilant, and focusing on what they do best. The astronauts serve a vital, irreplaceable function, but they would be lost without the dedicated men and women on the ground making sure that everything goes right (or making sure that it gets fixed yesterday if it isn’t going right). The connections here are obvious: The astronauts are analogous to the conscious mind. Mission Control, who has telemetry to monitor the systems, tracking systems to monitor the spacecraft, and sensors on the astronauts to make sure that everyone is healthy would be the subconscious. Trying to run a mission without mission control would be comical if you could get past the tragedy. Everyone wants to be the astronaut, but it’s mission control that makes it possible.
A few “course corrections” caused by my subconscious.
- Protection against getting lost in online gaming. I had always liked role-playing games, and I had decided to try out the online version, then called MUDs. In later years, this would expand to MMORPGs. I would always be drawn to them out of a need. Part pure escapism, part a fantasy based fulfillment of my desire to help people (I always played support characters). My subconscious knew, however, that this was diverting me from my true destination, and would start scaling up the pressure, until I got fed up and stop playing…. for a while. I have since recognized and broken the cycle and my development and life in general is much better.
- A chance taken introduces me to my wife. I had just about given up on romance, having been burned not too long before. I had been looking around and meeting people, but nobody sparked a connection deep down. Then Summer walked into my life. As I was on the verge of giving up, I figured that there wouldn’t be a point. However, my subconscious gave me a strong urge to give it a try. History was made, and I’m quite happily married.
- A reminder of what was important. Much later, I was discussing something with Summer, and we had a disagreement of methodology. I wasn’t seeing the situation very clearly at the time and took her opinions of my proposed method to mean that not only did she disapprove of the method, that she disapproved of me. As I eventually reached my emotional limit, I beat a hasty (and yes, tearful) retreat. As I was fuming and sulking, a thought entered my mind, as clear as if someone had spoken to me verbally: “What’s more important: Your foolish pride, or the relationship? Get back in there!“. Summoning my courage I did, and after the resultant communication, we came out of it with not only a workable method for the issue at hand, but a much stronger relationship than we had before. What was the voice, you ask? That, I’ll leave to you. My own interpretation is that one of my guides was able to get through to me, but either way, the subconscious was to be credited for getting me the message.
The subconscious is a valued and trusted ally in my life. The more I explore my own life and my own Self, the greater the relationship, and the better life gets.
Ok. Time for some new thoughts on the matter. As such, I’m going to tag:
- Armannd
- Jenny and Erin
- Richard at Shards of Consciousness
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