Always Choose Conscious Living: The Unconscious Mind Is A Caged Mind
Imagine for a moment, you’re a young bird perched high on a branch in the mountains ready to take flight, flapping your strong wings as you rise high into the sky, stretching your wings as wide you can to glide high above the trees as you catch the wind currents – what a sensation. But you can’t, you’ve never flown as you’re a caged bird. Your natural instincts simply a gnawing feeling inside, an internal conflict that can’t be understood.
We all suffer from that internal gnawing feeling. We can’t name it, we just know that it comes and goes and it’s as if somethings missing and somethings not quite right. This is the feeling of a caged mind, a mind living in its unconscious self.
Even though the study of neuroscience dates back to ancient Egyptian mummifications, it’s only in recent decades that Researchers are truly understanding how the mind works with the assistance of improved technologies like MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). And the research indicates the average human being spends 96% of their time on auto-pilot, utilising the unconscious mind to get through their day. This means only 4% of your time is made up of conscious thought. And there is a valid reason for this as science explains. Our brain is exposed to 400 billion pieces of information per second through all our senses - sound, smell, sight, taste, and touch (Dr Joseph Dispenza D.C.). However, the brain is only aware of 2000. To assist in conserving energy and being able to manage all this information, we create habits and beliefs through repeated proven data over time from the moment we are born (neuropathways). Habits and beliefs created and influenced by our conditional upbringing and environment, the majority of which are created during and influenced by our formative years. Some serve us well and some don't.
Can you remember learning to drive a car? You were consciously thinking and recalling information throughout the entire process; when to indicate, check your mirrors, change gears, remember when to clutch, brake, accelerate. But now I’m sure there are times when you arrive home and don’t remember driving home … that’s because driving a car has become habit, your unconscious autopilot.
So what other unconscious habits has your mind created? How often to you do act or react in a particular way and later wish you had acted differently? How often are you responding and making decisions without even asking why? We make thousands of decisions every day without a second thought as we walk through life on autopilot.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate - Carl G. Jung.
Living in a caged mind, letting your unconscious mind dictate your life path, results in living a life by the rules, standards and expectations set by others. “Others” who played a role in defining those habits and beliefs throughout your life without you even realising it. So that gnawing feeling inside, that feeling of somethings not quite right – that’s you on autopilot living unconsciously by the rules set by others; it’s that caged bird never knowing what it’s like to soar. And over time it can result in loss of direction, discontent with where you are and what you’ve achieved, unhappiness, and perhaps even anxiety or depression.
However, unlike that caged bird, you have a choice. The choice of conscious living; to live a life of your choosing, one that aligns to your chosen values, based on what is of value to you. Allowing you to continually strive for your full potential, to soar.
6 steps to help begin to free your mind and consciously choose your path:
Self-awareness: stop and consciously observe your habits and behaviours; how do they define your decisions and actions? What do they say about you as a person? How do they make you feel? How might others perceive those habits and behaviours? Do this through reflection, take time to reflect on how you behave and react in different situations and name what role your unconscious plays in those situations.
Practice Mindfulness: when you are practicing mindfulness, you are practicing being fully present. When you are fully present you are consciously aware of what is happening around you; you are consciously observing others, consciously listening to what is being said; consciously choosing your own words and responses.
Growth Mindset: adopt a growth mindset, fall in love with learning. Learn about you, about others, new skills, hobbies, or interests. A love of learning results in improved fulfillment as you begin to see more opportunities to improve and increased resilience as you begin to see challenges and setbacks more positively, after all these are part of the learning journey.
Be Curious: don’t settle for the first answer or response, ask questions, dig deeper and treat every interaction as a chance to strengthen what you already know or to learn something new. Imagine how more exciting your days would be if you didn’t assume and predict the responses of yourself or others.
Experience Life: travel, try new things, do things that scare you. All these have the potential to broaden your thinking, change your perceptions, give a new perspective on things; improving your ability to live consciously.
Challenge Yourself and Others: Why do you believe the things you believe? Why do you act the way you act? Why do others believe the things they believe? Are they conscious choices or are they unconscious habits and beliefs? You can’t begin to live a consciously fulfilled life until you challenge your own behaviours and beliefs or be open to those of others.