Self-Awareness – Seeing Yourself from Above

Last post we looked at the Why.  The reason you make bad decisions and choose self-destructive behavior.  I told you it was because of the mind viruses your subconscious mind is infected with.  Now let’s explore the How.  How do these mind viruses cause you to act in the ways you do?

For my money, the most insightful observation Freud ever made was that until you make the unconscious, conscious, you’ll call it fate.  (Or luck, circumstance or random happenstance.)  We all have a “command center” (subconscious mind) that governs our behavior.  Either you control the command center, or you leave it on autopilot, and it controls your behavior based on whatever mind viruses it has been programmed with.

If you have many of the subconscious memes that most people do – money is evil, rich people are corrupt, you’re born a sorry sinner requiring penance, etc. – your command center runs your life and causes you to self-sabotage your success. When you bring those subconscious mind viruses and limiting beliefs into the light – you develop self-awareness – and those mind viruses lose their power over you and then you run the command center.

When you possess self-awareness, you’re not easily manipulated because you’re always in that dual role of participant and observer.  (Running the command center.) When you hear something that creates cognitive dissonance with a core belief you have, you pause, question the premise, do some critical thinking, and reach a conclusion.  You may change your belief, you may keep your belief, but at least you have exposed that belief to subjective questioning.

• You can read a scathing political diatribe in your Facebook feed and instead of attacking the author, you can recognize the mind viruses that caused them to react that way.
• You can enjoy that Corona beer commercial of sexy people in skimpy swimsuits frolicking on the beach and still be thinking, “funny that no one has a beer belly.”
• You can watch Fox News because you desire a conservative viewpoint, or MSNBC because you desire a liberal viewpoint, yet still recognize you’re being exposed to a level of propaganda that Joseph Goebbels could only dream of.
• You can follow a Kardashian on Instagram to see what’s trending in pop culture, and also recognize that doing so makes you a product being sold to advertisers.
• You can recognize that every time you apply a label to yourself (Democrat, Muslim, Lexus owner, Libertarian, Buddhist, Gen X, home-schooling advocate, author, etc.) you incrementally lower your IQ. Because once you brand yourself with a label you have created an identity for yourself that you will instinctively defend – and thus reduce your ability for rational and critical thought.

When you make the jump to participant/observer, you’re woke.  And when you’re woke, you’re free.  You’re up at 30,000 feet, able to objectively watch the tug-of-war between your conscious and subconscious mind.  Now you are “the thinker of the thought” as opposed to “the puppet unconsciously reacting to manipulated thoughts.”

More in the next post.  Until then, please check in below with your thoughts.

Peace,

- RG