Bruce Lipton – Changing your mind
“…ecology, but there are two parts to the mind that are completely different than one another, yet they work together, we confuse them, we tie them together and yet they represent two entities working in two different fashions. There’s the conscious mind and what is called the subconscious mind. Now here’s what the very important people have to know this, okay, and here’s what it is:
The conscious mind is our creative mind that is connected to our personal identity and our spiritual selves, that makes us all unique. Each of us has our own personal conscious mind. But what becomes very significant is this; the subconscious mind is equivalent to a tape player, that’s exactly what it is. It records experiences and then plays them back.
And so now, let’s take a look and say, well wait, there’s a thinking mind and then there’s a tape player mind. And what’s different about them is very profound. So let’s talk about two fundamental differences first:
-The tape player, the subconscious mind, as an information processor, as the equivalent of a computer is a million times more powerful an information processor than is a conscious mind. So when you look at the power between the conscious and subconscious, subconscious is a million times more powerful.
-Number two, on a day-by-day bases the subconscious mind runs our biology about 95 to 99 percent of the time. So while you’re having all these wonderful thoughts, that’s not the conscious, the conscious mind is not running the show, it’s the subconscious mind. Then it comes an issue, well, the subconscious mind got programs in it, yes. The subconscious mind is not evil or good, the subconscious mind is a tape player as much as you can say; okay here’s a tape player, it’s good or bad. The tape player is not good or bad. The programs can be good and the programs can be bad. So blaming the subconscious mind as a negative thing, is the first mistake, it’s a tape player. The programs that we got, that’s the source of the problem that most of us face. These programs could limit our abilities and take away our powers, which essentially they do.
Now the relevance about positive thinking is this; positive thinking is a creative thought that comes from the conscious mind. Okay, so I sit here and I’m gonna have all these wonderful thoughts, I’m gonna close my eyes and visualize all these wonderful things. Stop and go back to the mechanical character of it:
(A) I’m having these thoughts with a little tiny processor called the conscious mind and (B) I’m competing with the programs that are in the subconscious mind.
So if I have a thought for being healthy or being in a good relationship and I’m doing positive thinking. And at the same time I’ve acquired programs in my development that said ‘you’re not as healthy as you think you are’ and ‘you’re not that good a person to have those kind of relationships’. Then look, I’m now pitting my positive thoughts against my programs and and their opposite. But this one works on a little tiny processor and this processor is a million times more powerful. So right away, who’s gonna win in that challenge? And the answer, of course the subconscious is gonna win.
But here comes the other part; while I can try to maintain positive thoughts in my life using my conscious mind, this conscious mind only operates less than 5 percent of the day. That says 95 percent or more of the day, I’m operating from the other belief system. The point is, do the math. How powerful are positive thoughts? And the answer is; unless the subconscious has the same programs and agreement as the conscious mind, power of positive thinking will not work. It will not work, because you’re competing against a much more powerful processor, okay.
And this is the problem, here comes, let’s add one more piece to the problem then it really manifests the big problem that people in this world are facing today, and that is; the conscious mind, the subconscious mind work together in tandem. Meaning, my conscious mind is, smaller processor as it is, can run any aspect of my biology. I can run anything. I can run my heartbeat right now for you. I can speed up and slow down my heartbeat. I can change my body temperature with my conscious mind. We used to think those were involuntary, that the body had a part of the brain that ran all the things and your conscious mind only ran things like your muscles. That’s not true. We now know that people who are very conscious can control every function in their body.
But here’s the problem; the conscious mind is a very small processor, the subconscious mind is a million times more powerful. You have to take care of your breathing, your heartbeat, your digestion, all your functions, your immune system, your respiration, your digestion, excretion, your conscious mind can’t focus on all that.
So the nature of it is, the function of the subconscious to carry out all the details and can carry out every one of the details, we could be essentially unconscious, which most people are, and our lives look exactly the same. Why? Because once you learn how to get dressed, you know how to get dressed. Once you know how to drive a car, you don’t have to be conscious how to drive a car, you already got the program. So everything that we learned our subconscious mind becomes automatic behavior. Meaning, it frees up the consciousness, so the consciousness doesn’t have to be dealing with all the tasks. Well when you free up the consciousness then you have time for creative thinking.
But here’s the issue, and this is the catch; when the consciousness is not focusing on some job or some task and let’s say it’s on a daydream mode, it’s thinking about your vacation next week. You’re going on vacation and you’re thinking about the plans of your vacation in your conscious mind. Well if your conscious mind is thinking about the vacation, who’s running the day to day, moment to moment life? The answer is, the subconscious.
But now here’s the catch; does the conscious mind observe the behavior as it automatically plays from the subconscious mind? And I go back to here, well where was your mind? It was thinking about the future. Well if it was thinking about the future, then it wasn’t paying attention, right? And the answer is, aha: the nature of the trade-off is, the subconscious mind can run everything when the conscious mind is busy. If the conscious mind is busy, it’s not paying attention and so when it’s not paying attention it does not see the programs that are playing the subconscious mind.
So to give you, like an amusing anecdote about it, is you know somebody, and you know their parent and you realize that this person and parent pretty much have the same behavior. And so in enthusiasm you burst on the scene and you say ‘You know Mary, you’re just like your mom!’ As soon as you say that to Mary, back away from Mary. Why? Because she’s not gonna take this in welcoming news for her. She’s gonna say like ‘How can you say that?’ To her, she’s not like her mom at all.
And the issue is interesting, it’s like, the joke is that everybody else can see that Mary is like her mom, but Mary can’t. Why not? The answer is; because when she’s playing the programs which she got from her mother, which are in her subconscious, she’s playing them because she’s not paying attention and so when they play, she doesn’t see them, so she’s surprised when people say that she behaves like her mom, even though that’s what her life is all about.
Now the conclusion of why all this dialogue and why was it all important, the answer is this; that we do not see the subconscious when it plays. The subconscious has programs in it that we primarily got from other people in our development. And the significance about that is that if we are operating from the subconscious mind and not seeing it, then we’re also not seeing that we’re playing programs that may not be in any way supporting who we are and what we want. The programs those are in the conscious mind.
So the idea is; when life doesn’t work, when you don’t find that relationship that your positive thinking was looking for, when you don’t get that health that you were looking for because your positive thinking was asking for it. We have a tendency therefor to blame the outside world, because as far as I know my intention was for all these wonderful things. And when I don’t get it, it can’t be me because I have all these wonderful positive intentions. What we didn’t see was, while we were having these positive intentions, using our conscious mind for those positive intentions, the subconscious was running the show. And we didn’t see that we generally sabotage and destroy or limit our own lives with behaviors that are not supporting us.
And why this is important is because then we all generally cop the attitude that there are forces outside of me that control my life and I am a victim of this world and I can’t do anything about it as a victim. And as soon as you buy that, you are a victim.
The only problem was, it was your own subconscious programming that led to the life that you have. And that if you can understand that and then try to work with it, then you can change your subconscious programming and change your life.
Now comes a problem. The problem is; we also bought this, and it’s not true, that there’s somebody in the subconscious. Meaning, if my conscious finds my subconscious engaging in some behavior it’s not supporting it and my conscious is talking to myself and my conscious is saying ‘Bruce .. that was stupid, you can do better than that’ and you’re having this inner dialogue and you’re talking to yourself and being very upset about the fact that your behavior seems to be out of control.
Who are you talking to? And I love this because the realities we’re thinking we’re talking to ourselves and that’s going to fix something and what’s it gonna fix? Well the programs in their subconscious and here’s where the problem lies: Subconscious is a tape player, there’s nobody in there.
The same exact truth holds in this case; get us a tape player, put a cassette tape in it, push play, the program’s running and you don’t like the programming, so here’s what I want you to do:
Go up and talk to the tape player. Go up and talk to it. Suggest that it changes the program, even tell it what you want it to play.
Do all this and then you realize the program still plays, it doesn’t change and then you get more upset, with yourself. Why? Because you’ve asked the program to change and it’s not changing yet. Then you get mad at yourself, you start yelling at yourself and now you’re berating yourself because you can’t control the tape. Then that doesn’t work and then of course the last step you had to bring God in because obviously -you- tried to change your life and it didn’t work, so only God has to come in here now and change the tape. And the joke is, how much talking to a tape player does it take before the tape changes? And the answer is, you can talk till you’re blue in the face and it will not change. It’s not that you can’t change the tape but you have to learn how to push the record button and -then- you can record new programs in the subconscious.
But our old belief system, like conventional psychology, let’s go over and find out why my life is this way ‘oh yeah, my mom did this to me and my dad did this and my friends did this’ and now I make a whole list of all the reasons why my life is this way, I’m very clear, my conscious mind got ‘Oh God I could play that movie, I can see it’.
The question is now that you’re aware, did it change the tape player? And the answer is ‘no’. And that’s why people get so upset. They go through all of the psychology, counseling and stuff. They know all the reasons, they still have the same life. So the issue is: you want to make change? Then you have to learn how to engage the tape player in a record mode and not just talk to it.”
transcript by Evelyne Beyer
