International Mastermind Association Interview
If the Subconscious Mind is supposed to be so darn powerful, why do we even NEED a Conscious Mind at all?
- What is HYPNOSIS?
- Why are CHILDREN highly suggestible?
- Why is it harder for OLD DOGS to learn new tricks?
- What is the function of your CONSCIOUS Mind vs the SUBCONSCIOUS Mind?
Subconscious Mind Power
Danelle: So welcome back to the show or welcome forward to the show. You are listening to the International Mastermind Association, the official organization of Masterminders worldwide. We are the Planned with Intention Mastermind Group. I am Danelle McNeill. With us today also is our very special, very interesting and engaging guest, Erick Kand.
Vaughn: I was going to say that we need to rename this segment, The Erick Känd Show, because he is on fire. I can’t even ask the question because he’s answering them. Does he read brains too? He’s reading my mind!
Erick: I’m doing a preemptive strike on all of your questions!
Danelle: I know. I’m with that. This is the Erick Känd Show. Go on ahead with your questions before I jump in with more of mine. I do want to get into auto-suggestion, and how the brain works, which you’ve already touched on.
Can You Hypnotize Yourself?
Vaughn: Well, my question is can you actually hypnotize yourself or get your mind to do things that you wouldn’t normally do?
At one point in my life I got to the point where I needed a job really bad, and I didn’t want to be a salesman. I had to go ahead and take that job.
My whole life I was told that I was shy. I felt that I was a shy person- you don’t speak much, you don’t say a lot. So you normally wouldn’t become a salesman, because as a salesman you have to be out there, talk to people, and be engaging and all of those things.
So through this hard time I tried it out, and I actually ended up being pretty good at it. I had to tell myself that, there’s already things in my life that I do that are along those lines.
Like when I’m talking with my friends, I have no problem engaging myself with them, talking to them, having a good time, trying to convince them on certain issues and things like that. So why can’t I do that to a complete stranger?
And over that time, I realized that I not only had these skills already, but I was actually good at doing these things and I was already capable of it.
What I want to know is whether overcoming that mental block, is that a part of you hypnotizing yourself or getting yourself to transform your mind?
Beliefs Are Personal Filters
Erick: Yeah, good points. So you’re taking a new position, and you had a lot of early programming that was giving you internal resistance. You had been led to believe that you weren’t good at this particular thing, or you’re shy, or you’re introverted.
These are not “truths,” but they’re true for YOU as long as they’re part of your personal belief system.
Emotional Beliefs Begin at a Very Young Age
We all have beliefs. We all have emotional issues and/or baggage or whatever you want to call it. The original seeds for almost all of these things are planted at a very young age.
Sooner or later here somebody is going to ask me about regression therapy. There are TWO types of regression therapy. One is called past life regression, which we probably have no business even talking about in this particular segment.
However, in REGULAR regression therapy, we trace an emotional issue all the way back to where it originally came about. It’s almost always at a very young age, usually even before the age of seven. Why is that? Why do we get these strong, subconscious IMPRINTS from such a young age?
What is Hypnosis?
We can define HYPNOSIS as being the ABSENCE of the critical factor. The critical factor is the “filter” that exists because of the beliefs you’ve formed based on your life experiences.
As we go through life as adults, anything we hear, anything we’re exposed to, is immediately filtered through all of our previous life experiences, and we generally have some kind of an OPINION or judgment on it.
Example: If you have a Democrat, and you’ve got a Republican, they’re going to possibly have two totally different reactions to the same exact piece of information based on their BELIEF SYSTEMS. So it’s not a universal truth, it’s just what THEY believe.
We have this critical factor of the mind. Everything we’re exposed to is being analyzed and filtered instantly and automatically.
Children Have NO Critical Factor
The critical factor has not yet been developed in a child. It’s as if they are always in a state of hypnotic suggestibility. This is the byproduct of being in a super learning mode with direct access to the subconscious mind, the source of all PERMANENT memories.
A child comes into the world with a clean slate. They are prepared and equipped to massively ABSORB huge amounts of information. They can easily learn three languages at a time without straining. They’re adept at filling up their “empty” brain with BRAND NEW information.
There’s NO censor. There’s no critical factor to analyze or “judge” the incoming information. It goes right in and becomes a building block for the child’s personal belief systems.
Example: How easy it is to tell your young child there’s a big fat man that is going to come down the chimney delivering toys, right? Do they argue with you? Do they say,”that’s not possible?” No, they are so excited! It’s REALITY!
I can STILL remember the day when it occurred to me that perhaps Santa Claus might not be true. I mean, this is emotional stuff. I’m happy to let it go now, but the BELIEF was in there rock solid. It was like a betrayal of some sort.
It’s not easy to get rid of faulty beliefs. Once a belief is lodged in the subconscious mind, it likes to stay there for the long haul.
The EGO is Reluctant to Change
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen two angry family members that haven’t talked to each other for 10 years or more because of some stupid incident that they don’t even remember exactly what happened, but they’re not going to be the one to FORGIVE the other person because, “I’m right, and they’re wrong!”
Your ego would much rather be “RIGHT” than to be HAPPY. In this world, we’ve had people running governments that allow millions of people to die before they will admit they were wrong about something. That’s the power of the EGO. It’s not there to make you happy, it’s more interested in being “right.”
That’s sort of a famous thing. I can’t remember who said it, “Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? Would you rather be right, or would you rather be in love?”
Parents Are the Critical Factor FOR Their Kids
Kids are rapidly absorbing information without a filter. They don’t yet have this critical factor. In many ways, a kid is in a a mental state similar to hypnosis at all times. They’re hyper suggestible.
They’re openly accepting suggestions and information coming from YOU. You’re the AUTHORITY FIGURE as the parent.
Kids accept things as FACTS, because they don’t have anything to relate it to, or analyze it against. That capacity eventually develops as a result of more life experiences.
Adult Belief Systems are Reactionary
As an adult, your “cup is full.” With all your hard-wired, preexisting beliefs, you’re no longer in the “super learning” mode of a child.
In fact, you’re often just REACTING to things subconsciously. You have a critical factor which only accepts information that is CONGRUENT to your personal belief systems, and the rest gets filtered out.
This is an automatic filter that is the product of all your previous life experiences.
Changing Belief Systems
If you have a belief system that says, “I’m no good at talking to people in this situation,” that BELIEF is going to powerfully influence your EMOTIONS.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be changed, but your subconscious mind is also very lazy. It’s not going to just start making changes on the fly. That belief system may already have been in place for DECADES.
It’s much easier just to let it slide and stick with existing behaviors, because God knows you’re probably going to change your mind about yourself, or what you want to do by next week.
Power of Persistence
The only way to impress and impart the seriousness of your intentions into your subconscious mind is to be CONSISTENT about what you want, and be very direct about what you want.
98% of People DON’T Know What They Want
Earlier we talked about the 98% of people who don’t really know what they want to get out of life. They’re just not CLEAR. They don’t have specific goals.
Because the subconscious mind is “lazy,” it’s perfectly happy to keep doing the same old thing.
The Cruise Ship Model of the Mind
A large cruise ship has approximately 1,200-1,500 crew members, not even including the passengers. Over one thousand crew members, but there is only ONE captain on board.
The captain, that one person, is like your CONSCIOUS MIND.
The 1,300 crew members additional, that’s your SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. All the resources, all the labor, all the power, all the energy is in the subconscious part of your mind.
Your conscious mind has very little to do, other than make decisions. It’s the director, but it has very little in the way of resources.
SHORT TERM Memory = Conscious Mind
Think about your short-term memory. Somebody gives you a phone number. You’re trying hard to remember just SEVEN digits. You’re repeating it over and over. Why is it so difficult?
Because that’s your CONSCIOUS mind. It’s not meant to do the heavy work. The short term memory of the conscious mind has a limited capacity to hold maybe up to seven digits for a short period of time. It takes a lot of effort!
LONG TERM Memory = Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind holds your permanent memory.
Example: You can think back to a family picnic, and you might remember, “It was a sunny day. We were eating fried chicken. We had all these great fruit salads, and potato salad, and all these things. And we were talking about this and the family was there…”
You can remember this very vividly, maybe even with mental pictures and auditory memories. It’s all there from a fleeting instant when you were not even attempting to make a memory.
The subconscious mind holds millions of bits of information for any specific instant. It does it “behind the scenes” with no conscious effort on your part.
Make the “Captain” Do It’s Job!
So your “captain,” the conscious mind, is the decision maker of the cruise ship. Since most people DON’T know what they want, they’re not actively utilizing their conscious mind to be the DIRECTOR of things.
It’s like the captain sits there in a chair and watches, but he’s not leading and directing the action.
So, the “crew,” all the resources of the subconscious mind, are used to a particular type of itinerary which they’ve been doing over and over and over again. These are your EXISTING habits and behaviors.
Unless the captain shows up authoratatively with a NEW directive, the whole crew is just going do the same old things they’ve been doing before. The same old itinerary. The same old habits and routines.
It’s up to you to decisively engage your conscious mind to do it’s job and BE the captain. Literally command the troops, your subconscious mind, and tell it what you expect and where you’re going to go. Keep showing up with the same marching orders with persistence and consistency.
This is where people stagnate when it comes to personal achievement. They’re “dead in the water,” because there’s NO:
- Clear Goals,
- Definiteness of Purpose, and
- Written plans.
Or, it’s like you said, they’ll have SOME idea about what they want, but it’s phrased in the negative. They’re focused on what they “DON’T want,” which yields more of it, because we tend to GET what we FOCUS ON.
I personally used to have a terrible fear of public speaking. That’s what initially motivated me to explore self-improvement and hypnosis. My FOCUS was to become a more dynamic and confident communicator.
That’s the funny thing. Pain is often a great motivator. Your biggest WEAKNESS can become your biggest STRENGTH if you apply the right energy and intention behind it.
Next Article: Is Hypnosis Real?
Nice
That all makes complete sense to me and has made things”click into place” for me. Thank you.
Thanks for checking out the article, Mike!