We all know Sigmund Freud, but just in case, he is the one who developed psychoanalytic theory and his theory. He asserts that our mind is divided into three distinct parts, the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious, which are the basis of much activity triggered by the psychic apparatus, the id that is in the unconscious, the ego that is in the conscious, and the superego that is in the preconscious. His subconscious is the combination of our unconscious and preconscious mind and every day the two fight for a compromise.
An example of this is when you feel the need to eat while you are in an important meeting. Your ID wants you to eat because it will satisfy you, but your superego acts as a moral compass and tells your ID that he can wait until the meeting is over.
It’s an example that can be used in different situations, and sometimes it’s not always as simple as your superego asking your id to wait for a reward. Sometimes it’s much more complicated than that and leads to a disorganized mind, but here are some of the following 10 examples of what you can do to reorganize and take control of your subconscious.
1. Learn to let go of your desires.
Many of the problems in your mind begin with your unfulfilled desires, and as they begin to build up in your subconscious, you will begin to think that what you are doing to yourself is unfair and cruel.
What’s the point of holding back if everything means nothing? This is where you need to voluntarily change your mindset by letting go of those desires so that your subconscious can do the same. In the end, it will help you focus on what you need for yourself.
2. Express your wishes.
Unfulfilled desires sometimes come down to you not even expressing them. Because of that, your subconscious still has the nagging ‘what if’ thinking and it will start to eat away at your sanity. The best way to get rid of those thoughts is to simply state your wishes so you don’t regret not talking about them. It could be a request from a family member, a need for change in a relationship, or something as simple as a desire to do something different with your life.
3. Allow yourself the little joys in life.
Your subconscious can guide you on the right path, but sometimes it will act like a hard moral part of yourself that will not allow you to enjoy even the slightest of pleasures. Learn to reward yourself for keeping control over your subconscious and give it a line on what it can and cannot allow you to have.
The smallest of joys can leave a big impact on your mental health.
4. Contemplate the necessities of your life.
Although your subconscious helps filter many stimuli that you receive on a daily basis, it does not mean that it will always give you a clear path on what to do with your life. That is within you, and in order to guide your subconscious, you need to reinforce those goals by breaking down many of your subconscious’s conflicting beliefs that resist meeting those needs.
5. Being in an environment that promotes positivity.
Your subconscious takes in a lot of information from your environment and plays a big role in shaping your behavior and mental health. So for the continual improvement of your subconscious, you need to be surrounded by the kind of environment that promotes safety and comfort.
Whether it’s a good circle of friends or a place of your own that doesn’t have triggers that remind you of past trauma or mistakes. If your comfort zone is surrounded by people and things that alarm you, it is no longer your comfort zone.
6. Move before you think.
Ultimately, your subconscious is there to keep you safe and guide you on the right path, but as you already know, that is not always the right thing to do for you and you need to move against the tide that is your subconscious. What stops many people from moving the way they want to in life is because they allow their subconscious to believe that they cannot achieve a goal in their mind without even trying whether or not they will fail. It is better to fail in the attempt than to fail without even taking a step towards your goal.
7. Use your mistakes to learn instead of holding back.
If you fail, your subconscious will believe that you shouldn’t try again, as you will only get the same result. Your subconscious is only doing this to protect your self-esteem, so it will discourage you from doing the same action that will damage your self-esteem.
However, you can’t always expect to be good at something on the first try. You need your subconscious to know that so it doesn’t hold you back on your next round. That way, failure becomes a guiding lesson for you on what to do to move forward.
8. Balance your setback with your success.
As a way of reminding you of what you couldn’t accomplish, your subconscious would bring up past mistakes that set you back from your goals. He will draw out feelings of anxiety and discontent within you that will make you give up on the goal you have set for yourself and make you believe that you are instead setting yourself up for failure.
To counter that, you need to weigh your setbacks against your achievements. To keep your head up as you focus on your goals in life, you need to get your subconscious to balance thoughts of your setbacks with thoughts of your successes. If you focus only on your setbacks, you will only think of yourself as a failure and if you focus only on your successes, you will be unable to see what failures await you. You need to train your subconscious to balance these thoughts, where you use your setbacks to avoid failure and you use success to maintain your self-esteem.
9. Accept that uncertainty is part of life.
A primal fear that every person has is deeply rooted in their subconscious, much of their trauma and pain is also there like sharks in water. However, one fear they all share is the fear of the uncertain.
The simple fear of not knowing what tomorrow holds and what you can do tomorrow or in the near future. Your subconscious will constantly have that thought in the back of your head, creating questions that will bring up anxieties in you that will stop you from moving towards your goal as you feel that in the end it won’t matter if tomorrow is your last. .
To avoid that awful feeling, you need to look deep into your subconscious and instead of answering those questions, learn to accept that you don’t have all the answers to life’s uncertainties. You have to start believing that it is comfortable to move forward without a concrete plan.
10. Being satisfied with oneself.
It is within our subconscious nature as people to never be satisfied with what we have achieved. You are not different. Either thinking that you can always do better than what you have done or thinking that what you did was wrong. It all means that you are not satisfied with yourself and your subconscious would tell you that and force you to improve.
To control that, you need to set a reminder for yourself that what you are is what you want to be. If you can’t do it alone, you can surround yourself with supportive friends and family who tell you that you’re perfect just the way you are.