Imagine walking down a bustling street. Cars honk, people chat, and a vendor wafts the aroma of fresh bread. You're bombarded with sensory information, but how do you understand it? The answer lies in the fascinating world of your subconscious mind, which acts as a powerful filter, shaping your perception of reality and, ultimately, your experiences.
Our journey with information begins with our five senses. We see sights, hear sounds, smell aromas, taste flavors, and feel textures. This raw data then enters the subconscious mind, undergoing a series of filters before reaching our conscious awareness.
The first filtering layer involves deleting, distorting, or generalizing the information. Imagine a colleague excitedly describing a new movie. You might need some details if you're exhausted (Time/Location filter). Feeling stressed (Mood filter)? You might distort the movie's plot to sound less appealing. This initial filtering ensures we aren't overwhelmed by the constant sensory overload.
After initial filtering, information is processed through a deeper layer of personal filters. These filters are unique to each individual and are shaped by our experiences, beliefs, and values.
Let's delve into some of these critical filters:
- Time/Location: The context in which we receive information plays a crucial role. We process information differently in bed at 3 am compared to a work meeting at 3 pm.
- Mood: Our current emotional state can significantly influence how we perceive information. Feeling optimistic? You might see a challenge as an opportunity. Feeling down? The same challenge might seem impossible.
- Meta Programs: These are internal scripts that shape our personalities and responses. For example, someone with an "avoidance" meta-program might filter out information about potential risks, while someone with an "approach" meta-program might focus on opportunities.
- Language: The way we talk to ourselves about things affects how we process them. Do you see things as problems, challenges, or opportunities? Shifting your self-talk from negative to positive can significantly impact how you perceive the world.
- Memories: Our past experiences color how we interpret new information. A bad experience at a restaurant with a similar cuisine might make you hesitant to try another.
- Decisions: The choices we've made in the past and the lessons learned from them can influence how we perceive new situations.
- Beliefs: These are core generalizations about the world that guide our actions. Beliefs can be empowering ("I am capable") or limiting ("I am not good enough").
- Values: Our values define what we consider reasonable, bad, correct, or wrong. These values influence our decisions and, ultimately, our behavior.
- Identity: This is the most profound and most powerful filter. Our sense of self shapes how we see the world. If you see yourself as a confident person, you're more likely to perceive challenges as opportunities for growth.
Once information has been processed through these filters, it reaches our conscious mind as our internal representation of the world. This internal representation, combined with our physical state (physiology), determines our emotional state. Feeling anxious? Feeling joyful? Our emotional state then triggers specific behaviors, which ultimately lead to results.
Understanding the power of the subconscious mind can be transformative. By becoming aware of these filters, we can begin to take control of how we process information. We can challenge limiting beliefs, reframe negative self-talk, and consciously choose how we respond to situations. This empowers us to create a more positive and fulfilling reality.
Here are some ways to gain greater control over your subconscious filters:
- Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness meditation helps you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings without judgment. By observing your thoughts, you can identify limiting beliefs and negative self-talk patterns.
- Positive affirmations: Regularly repeating positive affirmations about yourself and your capabilities can help reprogram your subconscious mind with empowering beliefs.
- Visualization: Visualizing yourself achieving your goals can prime your subconscious mind for success.
By understanding and influencing the subconscious filters, you can become the director of your reality, shaping your experiences and achieving your full potential.
- We receive information from the outside world through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.
- We then take this information and make meaning of it by processing it through a series of filters in the unconscious mind. The first set of filters is for deleting, distorting, or generalizing.
- Once our subconscious mind decides how to filter the information, it is initially filtered through multiple or all of the personal or individual lower filters of our subconscious mind. These are:
- Time/Location- Info would be processed differently in bed at three a.m. vs. at work at 3 pm.
- Mood- Current feeling or state of mind.
- Meta programs- internal auto programs that determine personalities and ways to respond
- Language- Self-talk, ways you describe things. Do you see things as a problem, a challenge or an opportunity? How you change your language about things affects how you process.
- Memories- Everyone's memories are their own and different from others.
- Decisions- Past decisions made, what was learned, often at a young age.
- Beliefs- Empowering or disabling generalizations of the world that cause us to do what we do.
- Values- How we decide if actions are “good/bad” or “right/wrong” and dictate how we feel about ourselves and others.
- Identity- the deepest level of the Subconscious mind and the most powerful filter. “I am…”. If this changes, your whole world changes. The most powerful level for change/results to occur.
4) Once our minds have processed the information through these filters, the outcome is transferred to our conscious minds and becomes our internal representation and focus of the data processed.
5) This mental processing and our current PHYSIOLOGY will determine our STATE.
6) Our STATE produces the BEHAVIOR that follows.
7) The BEHAVIOR will determine the change, outcome, or RESULTS (effective or non-effective).
