We form
habits by linking behaviour to a certain time, place, person; we associate that
way of being, to an activity, that may originate in the conscious part of our mind but over time sinks into our subconscious
mind and becomes an automatic response that is deeply embedded and requires no
thought to activate.
We associate being in the bathroom in the morning with reaching for
the toothbrush and paste and cleaning our teeth. As a daily habit it is an
action that is done on auto- pilot, our subconscious is saving us the brain
energy, it is helping us to conserve valuable thinking time. If we are swimmers
at some point in the past our conscious minds took the steps needed to learn to
swim, as we progressed the knowledge became habitual and we can relax and enjoy
the fact that the physical requirements of swimming come back to us whenever we
are in the pool.
Perhaps as a
child you were given sweets as a reward for getting through the school day, the
pleasure of sugar became associated with relaxing and being loved, your subconscious
will have linked the feeling to the sweet food and a conditioned habit will
have formed. Or maybe someone offered you food to comfort you when you were
upset and now whenever you are sad your subconscious switches on that habit and
you eat to calm your emotions.
Link any activity
to an event and we form a habit. Our subconscious isn't aware of whether the habit is good or bad for us, it takes over to save us the trouble from having
to think so we can just get on with other things. Our subconscious mind is always working for
our own good; it’s just that sometimes we give it the wrong idea of what is
good for us. The subconscious is the auto pilot for the body operating all the
functions such as breathing, making our heart beat, blood circulation so we don’t
have to consciously keep ourselves alive. It can do lots of things at once whereas
consciously we can only manage one or two. And whilst running all the bodily functions
the subconscious is also taking in millions of pieces of information, then
passing on what it thinks is relevant to the conscious mind.
And if the subconscious
has been programmed to think that when we are upset we need a biscuit that is
what it will tell us to do. That is why making a conscious decision to not eat
that biscuit feels so hard; we are using the wrong part of the mind to change our
habits. Habits reside in the subconscious and habits need to be erased from
there. If we attempt to break free from a habitual behaviour that no longer
serves us using our conscious thought there will be a conflict between the two
parts of our brains. And the subconscious will win because it has the power of
imagination, no amount of willing will override that.
Let’s say you
have made a conscious decision to change an unhealthy habit (overeating,
smoking, drinking too much). You have tried many logical and rational ways to do
so. You may have had some success but then slipped back into the old habit. You
have had to remind yourself not to eat too much, not to buy cigarettes or to
say no to wine. All conscious thoughts that require effort, when what you want
is for the new you to be slim effortlessly or a non- smoker just because that’s
who you are. You are making the resolutions with regards to your habits on a
day-to-day basis but it is the imagination (The subconscious) that determines
whether or not you carry out those conscious decisions. You may consciously
want to change that annoying habit but you are playing a different film in your
imagination, a film which at some point in your life your life was taken on as
a habit by your subconscious to do you a favour. Your subconscious doesn’t differentiate
between good habits and bad habits; it just knows that if it doesn’t protect them
you could be in trouble. How dangerous would it be to suddenly lose the habit
of being able to swim in the middle of a large expanse of water?
That is why
when you aim to say ‘No’ to that biscuit with your tea your subconscious comes
along and reminds you that tea = biscuits. It’s what you always do. And if you
ignore the signal it ignites a more emotional response to get you to conform to
the habit because it thinks that what you want, its job is to remind you of the
habit so it activates cravings to get you to listen and react.
The human
mind works by association, and over time many links between habits and emotions
have been formed. To change these habits you have to return to where they
began, though the imagination a new positive link can be formed to replace the
old unhelpful association. Perhaps you can recall having a dream in which you
were scared and you woke up with your heart pounding, well that is how we know
that the subconscious reacts to the imagination as if it were actually happening.
The physical body responds to the dream as if we were running away when in fact
we were safe in bed. We can harness that power to easily imagine being free of
an unwanted habit, our physical self, our conscious mind, will accept it as
fact and respond accordingly.
Hypnotherapy enables
habit change successfully as it accesses the subconscious via relaxation and creates
new images (imaginings) to replace the old scripts. Your subconscious
disconnects the events or emotions (triggers) that cause the habit so your conscious
mind isn't aware of the habit ever having existed. The
old memory of the habit is replaced with a new response to the situation;
because you have already imagined that you do without that glass of wine at the
end of the day your subconscious won’t remind of that habit, it just won’t
enter your head. The link is broken and replaced with good feelings of being
fit, healthy and in control. To
reinforce the new positive habit the subconscious is reminded of its job to
protect the new pattern and so it becomes second nature for the new link to be
a permanent change. It is a simple state of mind.
