How your subconscious beliefs create the life you have today
Cultural and family conditioning operate out of sight in your subconscious mind.
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“What is not brought to consciousness, comes to us as fate.”
― Carl Jung
Let me tell you a story from my life that shows you the power of your subconscious beliefs to direct your life.
I’d been in a mastermind for year in 2015, and I was burnt out. After that year, I’d struggled to reduce my business coaching to part-time but I couldn’t do it. I knew there was a subconscious belief sabotaging my efforts to work less.
The difficulty was in finding the belief so I could question it to find out if the belief was true for me. A belief my father believed wasn’t necessarily true for me.
For the last four years, I’ve studied how to write a memoir. I learned that each of us have a conscious desire we pursue during our lifetime.
Your primal desire is always outside yourself.
I wanted to be successful and make a lot of money so I’d feel secure. What I wanted was outside of myself - money.
Other primal desires people seek might include validation, respect, success, justice, redemption, belonging and love. These desires are universal, meaning that it’s something we can all relate to.
When I grew up, my dad told my sister and I,
“Don’t depend on anyone, you have to take care of yourself.”
Dad meant well because we all need to learn how to support ourselves, but I took it to heart and made it mean that I shouldn’t depend on anyone (it’s not safe). I have to take care of myself (stay independent).
Before we got married, John and I went to see his accountant, Skip, so that he could work on my taxes too. As he looked over my finances, he said,
“OMG John you’ve got a saver!”
I was proud because as a single mom I lived within my means and saved as much as I could.
I told the accountant I planned to leave my hospital PR director job and was thinking of starting a business after we were married. The accountant tried to talk me out of it saying,
“You better love what you do because John is in the highest tax bracket. You’re going to have to pay forty percent of your income to the government, plus you’ll have to pay social security on anything you earn.”
I didn’t listen to him because I was on a mission to create my own business.
In my fourth year of business, I grossed almost a half million dollars. The freedom and independence I felt was something I’d never experienced – it was a high point in my career life.
I love a good challenge so I was thrilled to see the accountant that year and watch his face when he saw my gross income from the business.
I did what my dad had said to do. I hadn’t depended on John or my first husband, even though it was completely out of my awareness. But my focus on work created conflicts in both of my marriages.
In writing my memoir, I looked at the downside of my father’s belief and sadly realized I’d never learned to depend fully on my partners. I tried to be equal and independent, but that’s not the way to build intimacy.
“Whenever we try to accomplish an outward goal in order to fulfill an inward desire, we have a dilemma,” said Al Watt, founder of LA Writers Lab.
Al said there are two ingredients to a dilemma:
A powerful desire
A false belief (a misperception of one’s self or the world)
On one side of my dilemma was the false belief that I didn’t need to depend on anyone.
“Don’t depend on anyone because you have to take care of yourself.”
When John and I were in the hospital in San Diego for almost six weeks during my recovery from a motor vehicle crash in Baja, I had to depend on all of my caregivers.
On the other side of that false belief (don’t depend on anyone), is the belief
I want love and connection and to trust myself.
I had to depend on John for six months after the accident.
‘You’re loving me back to health,” I’d tell him often each week. My inner life felt peaceful. There was no fear. I allowed John to be completely there for me. I learned how to receive his loving care.
I realized why we were in each other’s life.
Our two souls came together to heal each other. During difficult times in our marriage, I chose to stay in the marriage and work on it because I knew we could heal and grow together. John is a rare partner who is willing to work on himself with counseling and his men’s group.
The other side of this dilemma is that I need to trust myself and I need connection. Don’t get me wrong, John and I love each other yet I still kept myself independent and wouldn’t depend on him.
In the hospital, I learned interdependence. I took care of John emotionally because I was in a state of peace and love after a near-death experience and he was suffering from PTSD watching me go through five abdominal surgeries in fifteen days.
As an emergency physician, John was traumatized each time he imagined the worst-case scenarios as my health issues played out in real time.
Now that I’m aware of this false belief, it doesn’t have power over me.
Subconscious, deep-seated beliefs are parts of your personality that you aren’t aware of — yet they control the events of your life. Until you make them conscious, you’ll think that life is hard, the struggle is real or the world is an unfriendly place.
How to find hidden subconscious beliefs
Write down a pattern in your life you’ve been trying to change, but that seems to persist no matter what you do. Describe it in detail and write whatever comes into your head.
My pattern was I couldn’t stop working full-time. My subconscious mind was trying to keep me safe by staying independent. It took a near fatal car wreck and a long recovery to help me stop working.
2. Journal about this pattern and write down your earliest memories of the feelings that go with those patterns.
My earliest memories with my father were that I wanted him to respect me. He wasn’t harsh verbally or physically but it was as if respect and love were mixed.
My pattern was that I was stuck —literally feeling addicted to work as if it were a lifeline.
I had a subconscious belief I needed to be self-suffient and independent. To stop working felt irrationally frightening. The thought of it made my heart race and my breath shallow.
3. Look at your journal entries - find the limiting beliefs and fears. Find the negative belief that’s holding you back.
The first time I talked to my sister when I was in the hospital my sister, she said,
“I think God wanted to slow you down.”
I agreed and as we talked she said,
“Don’t you remember that dad always told us girls, ‘Don’t depend on anyone, you have to take care of yourself.”
My whole body started shaking as she talked to me. The body knows the truth - it never lies. The mind lies all the time, which is why inquiry (The Work of Byron Katie) works best to find out what is true for you.
Example:
Pattern
A participant in Smart Women Make Money joined the program because she was constantly broke in spite of having a successful business.
2. Memories of this Pattern
During coaching she remembered that her family had a saying, “People like us just can’t keep money.”
Her family bonded over this belief. Her fear was that her family would not love her anymore if she made more money than they earned. This is why her subconscious (which controls 95 percent of your habits and behavior) had her spend her money as soon as she earned it, so her family would love her and not reject her. The role of the subconscious is to keep you safe.
3. Beliefs
People like us just can’t keep money.
Your external experiences are a direct reflection of our internal subconscious and conscious beliefs. These beliefs shape our perceptions, decisions, actions and create our reality.
Your subconscious beliefs are often picked up during childhood from your parents or the world around you. It’s easy to inherit your parents’ beliefs around money, family and worth in relationships. However it can be much more than this. Limiting, subconscious beliefs often show up when you feel resistance, self-sabotage or doubt your potential to achieve success.
Reprogramming your subconscious mind by changing your subconscious beliefs is a powerful way to resolve the unwanted patterns showing up in your life. With repetition, commitment and positive reinforcement, you really can change your life. Anything is possible.
How to change your subconscious beliefs:
Journaling prompts - be honest with yourself and ask yourself:
Where am I experiencing limitations or major frustrations in my life?
Where else has this shown up in my life?
When did it start?
What are the beliefs I’ve learned/inherited that are not serving me?
What do I need to do to change these limiting beliefs?
What are new beliefs I can create now to overcome these blocks?
How will I ensure commitment to using these new beliefs in my life to keep moving forward?
You repeat this intention at the beginning and at the end of the meditation when your subconscious mind is open and receptive to new neural pathways.