I recently had a friend ask me a question. The question was “Why worry about dealing with issues from the past if they don’t worry us, and besides, most of the time we have forgotten or blocked out these events, so why is going back to them important?”

I thought this was an interesting question because I learnt something about myself. That being that I often assume people know how the unconscious mind works when this is not the case.

The answer I gave was this: –
“What we know from all psychological and spiritual wisdoms is that most of our behaviours are driven by the unconscious mind (what we don’t know or don’t remember about ourselves and life), therefore we need to become more conscious (or aware) of what is going on in the unconscious mind if we want to create an extraordinary fulfilling life…… not an ordinary unhappy life.”

This picture of the iceberg gives you a visual image of how much the conscious mind knows compared with the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is the reflection in the water. The unconscious is like the hard drive of your computer where all the memories are stored. Unfortunately there are quite a few files in the unconscious that have viruses (past pain, disappointments and negative perceptions and beliefs about ourselves, others and life in general).We need to search for these files and clean them up so the computer can run smoothly. The same applies to the mind and our life if we want an extraordinary life.

Some examples of unconscious behaviours derived from the unconscious mind that affect our life:

• sabotage patterns in relationships and jobs
• fear of failure or “not being good enough” - preventing  us from fulfilling our dreams
• addictions and obsessive behaviours
• inability to give and receive love
• scarcity consciousness (lack of abundance)
• feeling the need to control and manipulate
• reactive behaviours eg. uncontrollable anger, jealousy, grief
• greed
• continual drama and havoc
• overly needy for attention and approval
• not balancing giving and receiving
• the need to constantly please others to feel liked
• constant busyness
• inability to communicate feelings and emotions effectively
• always encountering negative people and situations
• lack of self respect and self worth.
• lack of accountability for outcomes
• lack of meaning and purpose
• a lack of social confidence
• dwelling on the past (different to looking at the past)
• anxiety and depression which are largely based on negative unconscious thought patterns

So what unconscious files do you need to clean or delete? The interesting thing is that you won’t know until you do the work within.

On the subject of the unconscious mind, let’s look at the tragic death of the Australia soldier in Iraq who shot himself? They found his diary and he had recorded a dream he had about shooting himself. This leaves a question for us. Was this dream a premonition, or did his unconscious mind create his reality? I will leave that for you to ponder.

It is my opinion and the opinion of many others that this is why we are tested so much in life….the same tests will continue to be presented until we clear the unconscious ”viruses” that are causing the negativity situations to continually occur in our physical world.  

Basically it is our journey on earth to become more aware and to learn to love, because it is only when we get ourselves out of the way that we can really make a difference to our own life, our families, our relationships, our workplace, our country and the planet.

*Remember on some level unconsciously we are always the CAUSE of everything that is happening in our life whether we like it or not (even sickness and accidents!).