Awareness

Each of us has a conscious mind and a subconscious mind.  I read somewhere that, according to some researchers, our conscious mind processes 2,000 bits of information per second while the subconscious mind processes 400 billion bits per second.  That’s a pretty drastic difference!  The conscious mind is dependent on the five senses to prove our conscious thoughts, while the subconscious mind cannot necessarily distinguish between what is real or synthetic, or what is true or false.  It basically accepts whatever the conscious mind feeds it.  Our conscious mind serves to inform our subconscious mind based on the experiences and thoughts it is having.

            What our parents or teachers or trusted people tell us in relationship to our experiences often goes a long way to form our perceptions of who we are and what we believe to be true about us, whether its actually true or not.  For example, after failing a test or two in math as a ninth grader, my teacher said to me, “Well, maybe math isn’t your thing.  You just are not good at math.”  That was enough for me to believe it, even though up until that moment I had scored in the 95^th percentile on all my standardized math tests.  The conscious mind’s experience of failing a math test, coupled with the words of a trusted adult and the feelings that followed, informed my subconscious to perceive I was a bad math student, even though there was much evidence to the contrary.

Negative Experience + Inaccurate Trusted Input + Negative Emotional Response

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Negative Perception and Practice

            By the same token, one’s subconscious mind can also be introduced to a different way of thinking about something.  This way of thinking could run contrary to what a person has believed consciously up to that moment, but the possibility of a different way of thinking “awakens” the person’s subconscious mind to a new possibility.  With the change in the person’s level of awareness, coupled with experiences, and the feelings that follow, the possibility of a radically different way of behaving and seeing the world manifests.  For example, after trying improvisational comedy in a class and being told by the director that I had a natural talent for comedy and improvisation, I went on to join an improvisation group and perform regularly.  This led to doing stand up comedy for a time, which was a great experience.  I would not have done any of those things or believed myself capable of those things if not for the experience of improvisational comedy and the words of an expert introducing me to the idea that I had a knack for that type of performance.

Positive Experience + Accurate Trusted Input + Positive Emotional Response

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Positive Perception and Practice

            Awareness is a crucial step to overcoming the obstacles to living your Dream.  If you are ever to live your Dream, you will probably have to change your mind.  That truth may be different than you thought is one of the steps to living your Dream.