Friday Food-for-Thought: The Mind...MORE than a Terrible thing to waste

I think I scare ya'll with the spiritual food for thought. Ya'll want it, but you seem to tip-toe away. I tend to be a bit too deep, don't I? LOL.

Sweepstakes still in full effect. We have seven more days. I think I have some 10-15 more posts. We will see. Comment for a chance to win!

On to today's Food-for-thought...  

A few posts back, I wrote a statement about the mind, and the power of it. Specifically, I came to the following conclusion.

Seed is seed, you know. And our hearts are the most fertile of soils. That soil WILL produce...something. And the subconscious mind is millions times stronger than the conscious mind.

I am CONSTANTLY thinking about seed issues. You know people by the FRUIT they produce. And good fruit comes from good roots and good trees. And all that comes from good SEED planted. (Ya'll know how I feel about this. I dream about these isshas).

Laura commented on that post, saying "I learned something new today from your post. I learned that the subconscious mind is a million times stronger than the conscious mind. I need to be more careful what allow in my subconscious mind."

I replied "I need to do a post on that, because I came across that in a few books last year. It is a bit shocking. I never knew that until I read about it."

To which she replied "Please do this has left me pondering some things."

So Laura, I wrote a post about it. Wanna read it? Here it goes.

for Laura...

I read a slew of books last year on the mind and the heart.  The best books were books by scientists who'd  been  in their fields for 30 or more years, and they began to see the connections, the bridges, between the scientific and the spiritual. And that's RIGHT up my alley. I've always believed that the scientific is born out of the spiritual.

One book in particular that I liked was The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. It was so good that I may go back and read it again.  He gave the most fascinating explanation of the subconscious and the conscious mind, and the difference between the two.

So I will try my best to explain here. It would take pages and pages to do so, but I will give you the 5 cent explanation here.

Aww, yes. Here's a couple of blades of grass. How beautiful.

Here's a few blades of grass. 

Quite nice it is.

And those blades of grass are somewhere out on this countryside.

Somewhere out there. I don't know where.

But here's the thing. When it comes to processing information,  the "conscious mind" is like those few blades of grass, whereas the "subconscious mind" is like the whole entire countryside.

I've read that in a few books, and the first time I saw that, I thought You have GOT to be kidding me.

But it's true. And Lipton's book afforded the most thorough scientific explanation of it all (Chapter 7: "Conscious Parenting: Parenting as Genetic Engineers").

In a nutshell, the conscious mind processes information at 40 enviromental stimuli per second, whereas the subconscious mind processes information at 20 million environmental stimili per second. Our subconscious mind is our autopilot, while our conscious mind is our manual control. The subconscious mind observes the external  and internal awareness and the environment and processes that against previously learned behavior.   The conscious mind has nothing to do with that because it process information too slow. It concentrates on specific things. One thing at a time.

His best example of this phenomenon was that of a projectile coming at your eye. We blink before we have time to consciously think about blinking. And what about when driving, the person in the car ahead of us slams on the brakes. You slam on your brakes before you even consciously think about it.

The best example is one which we can all understand, especially if you know how to drive. When we first learned to drive, we were waaaay conscious of what is going on. Both hands on the wheel, make sure that blinker is on, use all your mirrors, etc. But now, after some years of driving  experience, our subconscious mind deals with much of that. I know myself that I can drink my morning smoothie while listening to the radio or talking to my passenger and  get to my destination just fine. I've been driving certain routes for so long that I can get from point A to point B and without thinking much about it. All my turns are automatic.  I even avoid the potholes that the city refuse to fix. Without seemingly "thinking" about it. You get what I mean.

What was interesting is the whole discussion of our learned behaviors being established in our early childhood years. I've heard that all over the place over the years, but I never understood that until reading about that book, among others. It is too much to discuss here.

I can use myself as an another  example. I ALWAYS wake up every morning writing or thinking about all the wonderful things I want to do that day, whether it be at work or at home. I only get a percentage of it done. Hopefully it's a high percentage. Much of that has to do with my subconcious mind (autopilot) running things versus my conscious mind (manual control/will power). My conscious mind has the "vision". However, things may not go that way. I'd rather lay my tail up in bed and watch Lifetime television for women half a day than get up and clean up, man. Period.  Even at work, I have to list out what I want to do for the day, my little itinerary, and I have to consciously do it and check off items as I go. (I do this at home, too.) I have to consciously do things. I've always wished that things were more automatic for me, like driving a car.

Now with that said, I've had the habit of making "to-do" lists. I didn't start this yesterday. I've been doing it for some 20 years, maybe longer. It is ingrained. It's my automatic. I do it without thinking about it. I feel... odd if I don't do it.


It's such an intriguing subject. This particular subject subscribes to the notion of something I have posted here before:

Thoughts produce your words
Words produce your decisions
Decisions produce your actions
Actions produce your habits
Habits produce your character
Character produces your destiny.

This author, Dr. Lipton, had a different take on it, something that had me all O_O.


Your beliefs produce and become your thoughts. 

Wow. And his book was a treatise on that.  I didn't know there was something that informed my thought life. I thought that was the start of it. No it starts with what we believe. He laid it out like a lawyer, all scientific like. And then he connected it to the spiritual. I was so giddy reading it, lol.

So if we tweak our beliefs, it produces a different destiny, some different fruit. And according to this book, much has been established in our childhood. I myself come from a dysfunctional family. I've spent YEARS untangling bad thoughts and actions. YEARS. I understand that better after my reading.

I am a very compassionate and giving person. I didn't start on that yesterday. Some 17 years ago, I came across someone very compassionate. And giving. I was in my 20s then, and I wanted to be that way, and I thought about it all the time. I am still developing in it, but I find that my compassion is automatic. And I LOVE doing things for people because I am desire to be selfless in this selfish world we live in.  My sister is the same way. One day she said, "I am so glad that I watch you, because I learned that from you, Lisa."

I spent a little time reading about all of this that last year. I even came across some books that dig super deep into how to change your belief systems.  And I'd been doing some of this all along. I thought I was being all original, lol.

For myself, I tend to look at things spiritually. There's a verse in the Bible that comes to mind. Ephesians 4:23...

Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

That new testament talks here and there about renewing your mind. But this is the only place that states be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Why?

Spirit of the mind = subconscious mind.

I've heard a couple of sermons on that. Things are not all about will power, as will power tends to fail. Whatever you are reaching to do or change, it isn't stable until it has roots. Roots in your subconscious, where those changes become your automatic.

Good good stuff. I could talk about it all day. I am STILL digging deep and reading about it all.

That's the dime store explanation, Laura, with my thoughts thrown in the mix. Hon, you're gonna have to go do some reading if you want to understand more.

I tell you one thing. I think about this when I drive my car now.

I sure do.

How can I not think about it.