Your Unconscious Wants To Be Your Friend
What is the Unconscious and Why is it Important in Therapy?
I want to talk to you about the unconscious. The unconscious is this wild part of your mind where things live, but they live outside of your awareness. To be unconscious of something is to be truly oblivious to it. As humans we all have things that live inside of us that are unconscious. These “things” can be anything we might normally experience in normal conscious life. So for example, a memory, sensation, taste, smell, or an emotion - these are all things that can live in your unconscious mind. Often things end up in our unconscious minds because our mind is trying to protect us from something that is taxing or emotionally difficult to process.
Have you ever received bad news but you kept it to yourself because you didn’t want to bring other people down and burden them with your troubles? That’s what your unconscious mind does for you. It knows things about you. It knows things you have experienced. It knows what hurts. And your unconscious mind loves you so it doesn't want to burden you with being aware of those difficult things. Your unconscious mind knows you have to go to work, and you have responsibilities with family. It knows you have to pay bills and find food to eat each day. It knows you have all sorts of people relying on you and it doesn't want to stress you out. It wants to keep you oblivious from things that bring you down so that you can focus on surviving.
But your unconscious is more than just a protective mechanism. It is also an emotional creature. It is a vulnerable, genuine, innocent child. And much like children, it is vulnerable to suggestion. Your unconscious has good intentions. It is looking out for you. But it is juvenile (concrete) in its thinking.
Your Unconscious is Where your Dominant Beliefs are Held.
In cards, a royal flush always beats a flush. In the mind, the unconscious always beats the conscious. Remember this if you want. What does this mean? It means that despite our strongest willpower (which lives in the conscious mind) the beliefs that the unconscious holds will always be more important than your conscious beliefs. For example, consciously you may want to lose weight. But what if your unconscious does not want to lose weight? You may look in the mirror and be certain you want to lose weight, but if you don’t lose weight then that means your unconscious didn’t want you too. Unconscious beliefs always take priority over conscious beliefs.
With this understanding, you can try and communicate with your unconscious. Even though you can not know what is in your unconscious mind - because by definition it is out of your awareness - you can get clues to what is there by way of inference. Let’s use the weight loss example I just mentioned. If you want to lose weight but you keep gaining weight, this is a clue. It means for some reason your unconscious doesn't want you to lose weight. Working with a therapist like myself, we explore clues like this and together we ask why and explore what comes up. In this example, because weight loss is not happening despite wanting to lose weight, we can only assume the unconscious mind has a more important reason to stay overweight.
Why might the unconscious want to be overweight? It may be that there is some advantage to being overweight that is more important than being skinny. For example it could be that the unconscious mind is sad and overeating is a way to soothe it. In this scenario, even though the unconscious mind knows you want to lose weight, it’s trying to stay sane so that it can help keep you from being aware of all this sadness. Since the unconscious beliefs always take priority, this can explain why you don't lose weight: preventing depression is more important than being skinny in the mind of the unconscious. In the mind of the unconscious being overweight is worth it if it protects it’s best friend (your conscious mind) from feeling pain.
Everyone has different life experiences and therefore everyone's reasons and unconscious belief systems will be different. Another example of an unconscious belief related to being overweight might be:
“When I was skinny I was desired by dangerous people and taken advantage of sexually, so I believe that if I’m overweight I’ll be less desirable and less likely to feel the danger/pain I once felt. Being safe from the pain is more important than being healthy or desirable.”
Remember the unconscious is a vulnerable, genuine, yet juvenile mind. While this belief may not be the best solution, it is effective from its eyes. It does not take into consideration the collateral damage that may come by doing this. It only has one focus: to protect your conscious mind from pain at all costs.
Your Unconscious is Where the Truth Lives
To live your best life - to achieve the things you desire consciously - you must strive to partner with your unconscious mind and work with a therapist to encourage your unconscious mind to make things conscious for you in a way that is manageable. Little by little you process things in your past that may have been difficult. As you do this you will become conscious of the dominant beliefs that used to live in your unconscious mind. Once they are conscious, you can choose to take on new beliefs that will be in line with your conscious desires. It was Carl Jung who said “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it Fate.”
Zachary Rothwell, PMHNP
