Law of Attraction: Should I Focus on My Conscious or Subconscious Mind?

A lot of Law of Attraction teachings have to do with the idea of a “subconscious” mind that can be in conflict with our conscious ideas and beliefs. The theory is we can’t manifest good things until both our conscious and subconscious minds are on the same page and believe what we want is possible. Some people point to things like hypnosis as tools to get the subconscious mind to adopt different, better beliefs. In your blog posts you often emphasize making conscious choices to adopt different feelings and beliefs. Do you have any thoughts on this subconscious versus conscious mind theory?

The Conscious Mind is the Gateway

Everything that is cemented in your subconscious mind first passed through your conscious mind, to some degree; there had to be some sort of input. You had certain experiences. You observed certain things in your own life and the life of others. You watched the news and read the newspapers. You learned certain things from your parents, your school, your religion,etc…

Some of these experiences, observations,etc.. may have been very ‘visceral’ and you clearly remember how they impacted you, how they made you feel, how they influenced your belief system and the like.

But on the whole, there probably wasn’t this acute awareness consciously all the time. Most of the stuff was being registered to some degree, but was largely ‘under the radar.’ Many things that would consciously seem ‘insignificant’ were anything but.

And while all this was happening, your mind was drawing a variety of conclusions, making all sorts of decisions. You started formulating a view of yourself. You started formulating all sorts of beliefs about everything–money, relationships, health, how the world works, the nature of reality in general.

And whatever is dominant emerged as the programming that runs your life. Your subconscious mind will focus in on whatever supports your view of the world, and ‘filter out’ what doesn’t. It will drive you make decisions that support your beliefs and views.

In many instances, this automated programming is very helpful. You don’t have to consciously think about what foods you like and don’t like every time you go grocery shopping or order a meal. You don’t have to consciously think about how to operate a car each time you drive it. You don’t have to consciously map out a route to your house every time you come back there from work.

But in many other instances, this programming is detrimental, and we have to ‘rewrite’ it.

The idea that you either work on your conscious mind or your subconscious mind–the ‘versus’ mentioned in the question really isn’t something you can do, at least in the way I am interpreting what is being asked. You have to engage with both as to me they seem very intertwined.

And a lot of insights I share here are meant to help you see what is happening subconsciously, but without using this sort of terminology specifically, it might not seem like I am addressing this aspect of the mind.

You can’t really ‘work’ on your subconscious without engaging your conscious mind in some way–perhaps hypnotherapy is an exception but in my experience with it, my conscious mind was still engaged to some degree–because it is your conscious mind that is doing all the ‘thinking’ about your life, what positive changes you want to make,etc…

It is your conscious mind that is taking in the blog posts, videos, podcasts, books and other mediums used to communicate all the wonderful personal development insights that assist you in making the desired changes in your life.

But if you are struggling in life in any way, have bad habits you can’t seem to break, engage in self-sabotage,etc..what is happening subconsciously is not in alignment with what you are consciously wanting. And you need to identify these energetic ‘conflicts.’

Which brings me to my next point…

Examination is Uncomfortable but Necessary

Again, you can’t engage your subconscious mind without engaging your conscious mind because the former is operating below your awareness. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ever figure out what is going on in there.

And anyone who is even remotely familiar with my work knows I am a big advocate of going within and seeing what is really going on. And this is what we need to do if we want to get a better idea of what is happening in this part of our mind.

This conscious examination is what will bring the unconscious to the surface. In order to do this successfully, there is one thing you must be willing to accept because much of what is happening in your life is based on the following premise. If not, you won’t get to the true ‘root’ of your blocks.

Your subconscious mind is doing everything with the intent of benefitting you. It is trying to protect your worldview, your view of yourself,etc… You are being served by whatever is happening in your life. Many people get very angry about a statement such as this, hence my disclaimer above.

But this doesn’t mean you ‘deserve’ the bad things that are happening or that you actually, truly want them– you don’t. No one wants to be sick, poor, in shitty relationships, lonely, etc…

But again, there is that disconnect, and don’t attract what you ‘want.’ You are attract what you ‘are,’ what is a reflection of your dominant energy, wanted or not.

You consciously want to lose weight, but those extra pounds are the perfect scapegoat for why your life is the way it is, and as long as you keep it on, you will never have to face the terrifying possibility that maybe you aren’t capable of getting what you want, that you just aren’t good enough. So your efforts to slim down are constantly thwarted by eating binges, or always being too ‘busy’ to exercise; or you are doing everything ‘right’ on that front but the weight just doesn’t seem to want to come off.

You consciously want to get married and have children, but subconsciously you worry about the impact this would have on your career, a career you love and in which you are constantly advancing. So you manifest relationships with people who aren’t exactly marriage material.

You consciously want to make a lot more money, but subconsciously you don’t because as a child your very wealthy, successful father was largely absent from your life. You have a belief that your family will inevitably suffer with greater success in your professional life. So the sales and clients are sporadic at best, or you just can’t seem to grow beyond a certain level.

You consciously want to take control of your life, and stop being the ‘victim.’ But all your ‘woes’ throughout your life have seemed to get you much desired attention, and support from others, so your subconscious mind is not on board with this new and improved empowered version of yourself. You need the drama, the heartache, the victimizers, and they never fail to show up.

You consciously want to improve your health, but your subconscious believes your illness is serving you somehow–maybe you believe it is keeping your husband from leaving you or it is the perfect ‘excuse’ for not doing the things you want to do, things that may be very uncomfortable.

Another important thing to consider is a lot of what you uncover will probably seem like ‘psychology 101’ or ‘cliche.’

A fear of success is the reason behind your stagnant business.

Your fear of intimacy explains your tendency to fall for people that don’t feel the same way.

Your distrust of men stems from your philandering father who constantly cheated on your mom.

You have trouble attracting money because you have really negative views of wealthy people.

Don’t dismiss these insights because of this.

In my opinion, this is one of our biggest problems and stumbling blocks to faster inner transformation. We dismiss these ‘obvious’ issues and think it must be something else, something ‘deeper’ or more ‘complex.’

There may be some truth to that, but on the whole, there is a good chance the crux of the issue isn’t so mysterious or complicated. It is something ‘basic’ that you either dismiss right away because it sounds so obvious, or you recognize it might be an issue for you, but you think you have already moved past it.

There is a reason cliches are cliches; there is a reason that the variety of ‘wisdom’ you encounter essentially boils down to a few core nuggets.

Avoiding This Common Freak Out

When we discover that our reality is being primarily influenced by a part of our mind that is operating on auto-pilot ,without regard to what we are consciously wanting, that can be a bit anxiety-inducing to say the least.

Our subconscious has cataloged everything we have taken in on the conscious level, and formed countless beliefs. I don’t think anyone could ever know fully the contents of this part of our mind.

And this makes us worry there must be some belief in there fucking with us at every turn, we may never find it, and then we are just screwed. This feels really badly.

Now, are there beliefs that may be affecting you now that you may not be aware of? Probably. Are they the primary culprit in your current manifesting trouble? Probably not.

If you think about what you want right now, and it feels badly, whatever specific beliefs and feelings are coming up now are likely the primary issues–perhaps those ‘basic’ beliefs I mentioned earlier.

As you clear that surface level stuff, anything else that needs to be addressed will make itself known in some shape or form. You might have an insight while reading a book, a random thought that appears during your meditation, or something a friend shares about their own experience, and you realize it applies to you too.

If you are leveling up somehow, whether purely in the realm of your inner exploration or going for something bigger and bolder in your life than you may have previously, new stuff will likely rise to the surface that would stand in the way of achieving your next ‘level’ of vibration more consistently.

I know in my own experience, I used to worry some hidden belief was the reason I was struggling and the idea of never finding it, and getting stuck where I was felt none too good. It caused me a lot of anxiety and frustration.

But when I took a closer look at what was happening, I realized what my primary issue was. A lot of those ‘common’ blocks shared by humans as a whole were still pretty strong in my energy.

If you never had money in the past, you probably can’t make a lot of money now. Your past experience indicates what will happen in the future. You have to work hard to get what you want. You only deserve something if you put in a lot of effort to get it. Your worthiness and deserving is based on your ‘contribution,’ what you ‘do.’

I had the intellectual understanding they weren’t valid down pat without a doubt. But as far as rejecting them on a deeper level, I really hadn’t done that.

On the flip side, I also realized all the ‘good’ beliefs that I knew would serve me better weren’t as strongly cemented in my energy as I was claiming. Again, intellectually I understood their validity, and did believe these things were true–the Universe is on your side,etc…–but they hadn’t really taken root on those deeper levels of my being.

So, yeah, maybe there is some stuff swimming around in your subconscious you haven’t discovered yet that could be contributing to your current situation. But there is a good chance that the real ‘problem’ is you are still struggling with shifting the more ‘obvious’ and ‘common’ beliefs, that your rejection of them is primarily in the intellectual realm and not in the energetic one.

I would also add that our inability to look beyond our current circumstances, and truly feel better in the moment in a meaningful way, is right up there as the main issue.

It is all too common to swear up and down we have shifted certain beliefs, that we are aligned,etc…But again, all these new perspectives and the like probably haven’t moved past intellectual understanding and acceptance. We ‘know’ these things but we don’t really, truly ‘know’ them.

The Best Thing You Can Do

If the plan is to plumb the depths of your subconscious and root out every belief that is working against you, you might be fighting a losing battle. The good news is, you don’t have to accomplish such a feat to align with a dramatically different reality on a more consistent basis.

The more you consciously direct your focus on thoughts that serve you, the more you consciously choose to take in the information that serves you, the more you consciously engage with your energy and make the firm decision to release what isn’t serving you, your subconscious programming will start to change.

The more you consciously choose your perspectives, feelings and reactions, the more you will break up the habitual stories, and meanings, your mind is prone to assign to the various experiences in your life. 

Because all this good ‘stuff’ you are taking in will lead you to make new decisions and draw new conclusions that will override the old ones, primarily because these energetic shifts will manifest in your reality in some way, and you will start amassing some solid evidence of the validity of these new beliefs.

You may not be consciously aware of this happening all the time, most of the time actually. These shifts may not occur as these dramatic moments of epiphany. You might not be able to pinpoint the exact moment the scales tip in favor of the ‘manifesting-friendly’ beliefs.

But change is taking place, and if you start paying more attention to how you are responding to different situations, how you are feeling overall in your day to day life, you will be able to see it.

Celebrate that because it means your reality will start following suit–it has to. The energetic shifts have to come first. When exactly reality will ‘catch up’ is not something that can be figured out with any sort of definitive formula.

Focus on the shifts, and be excited for them; start noticing the ways this energy is being mirrored back to you in your day to day life. Don’t spend all your time being on high-alert for your specific manifestations–they’ll come in some shape or form, no reason for them not to.

I know it can be hard not to do this, but it causes us a lot of agita, and it reinforces the habit of living outside in, it makes us focus even more on the ‘lack’ and we feed that energy.

Your Turn

What did you think? Anything resonate in particular? Do you have any tools or techniques that have really helped you rewrite your programming?

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I did an interview for Betsy Pake’s awesome podcast The Art of Living Big, and we had a great conversation about all things LOA naturally. Check it out here.