“As you sow in your subconscious mind, so shall you reap in your body and environment.”~ Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

It’s my good fortune to work as a coach with women over 50, taking life by the horns. Giving it one heck of a shake! Re-inventing themselves and finding meaning and purpose in their lives.

Having something important to do, something that is bigger than us. This gives meaning to our lives. It is crucial for continued growth as human beings right across the lifespan.

Not to mention the pure pleasure and joy helping others can bring. 

Strong associations of a sense of purpose in your life, and good health and well-being are evident.

Encouraging older adults to use their gifts to benefit themselves and the community is a win! Finding meaning and purpose is great, but not the whole answer. Even after finding a cause that inspires, many women still have a battle with their own thoughts. Those concerned with self-worth and belief. 

Ageism is rampant! Many older women portrayed in all forms of media, as no longer useful or valued in society.

Perceptions of aging, and adaption to the changes becomes important! Often the difference between feeling fulfilled and worthy, and not! How we cope with getting older as individuals have much baring.

We are exactly what we think we are!

Genetics plays a part in this as well. Some of us hard wired for positivity. Negativity is the brain’s default! Retraining is available for all. Our internal reality becomes our external reality. Retraining our subconscious mind, our thoughts changes our lives!

I have experienced this. As a young woman I suffered from mild depression. These tools and techniques helped enormously. 

Coaches understand it’s important to retrain the subconscious mind, to achieve more. To take our lives to the next level we need to take things to an even higher realm, or we remain stuck where we currently are. Low and behold, even older people can do this!

Retraining The Subconscious Mind – You Are What You Think You Are!

Dr. Bruce Lipton is an American stem cell biologist. A renowned best-selling author and leading expert, bridging science and spirituality. He maintains, the subconscious, is where we operate from 95% of the time. We operate from our conscious mind only 5% of the time.

So what’s the problem?

The Subconscious Mind

Our subconscious mind is where our old stories and beliefs live. Many of them do not serve us well anymore. They are like a pre-recorded tape on which we have pressed play! They play the same story over and over again!

We live on autopilot much of the time, not taking notice of why we do and think certain things. Most of these old recordings, implanted by the time we were 7 or 8 years old.

Operating on autopilot is fine while performing many repetitive tasks. For example, driving a car. It’s not fine when these thoughts and behavior patterns are actually holding us back! 

The trouble is, we can’t change what we are not aware of. 

To live your best life, at your highest potential, you have to learn what you don’t know, you don’t know!

How?

Becoming aware of those limiting beliefs, and old stories running in the background. Those governing our thoughts by default and shaping our external reality. Although, not the one we want!

Once we shine a light on our blind spots, the room to grow is enormous. 

There are many cognitive therapies we can adopt that will over time change our habits. We have to create new habits and this takes time, effort and practice. 

Something so beneficial is worth waiting for, right?

Yes of course, but we humans are impatient!

Why not adopt practices that retrain the subconscious mind and offer immediate other benefits as well?.

5 Ways To Retrain Your Subconscious Mind and Change Your Life

Here are 5 ways to start retraining the programming in your subconscious mind and change your life, no matter what stage in your life you’re in.

1. Brain Entrainment (Binaural Beats) technology.

Science has proven its efficacy to elevate the mind to a peak performing state. This technology puts our brain into the same state as during meditation.

Many, can’t stay focused long enough to gain meditation benefits. Brain entrainment can provide the same health benefits. Stress reduction and less anxiety. The great news is, as we age, it offers improved psychomotor performance and mood, among others.

It requires a set of headphones and an MP3 player. (Many of us older folk have these already….our smartphones). In this Mindvalley blog post, they also talk about its benefits too!

Binaural beats provide synchronicity between both halves of the brain’s hemispheres. They are at slight odds at normal function.

They maintain this helps you think in a more holistic way. Benefit…. rather than being a predominant left or right brain thinker, you become a whole-brain thinker! 

The science behind it is fascinating and further evidence of its value as a tool for retraining. So relaxing too!

2. Meditate

There are many who have a daily meditation practice. Myself, included! It’s a peaceful, mindful way of becoming AWARE of your thoughts.

It also brings joy and moves me in a profound way. Practicing meditation is my number one strategy for getting to ‘know’ yourself.

It is well known to reduce stress and anxiety. Lesser-known! Its ability to lengthen attention span and reduce age-related memory loss. Yay, I’m in! 

Creative visualization a wonderful powerful meditation. Having the power to evoke beautiful, emotive overarching pictures in the mind’s eye. Your deepest desires and dreams brought to reality in your mind.

This is helpful when actually trying to work out what gives you meaning and purpose in life! It is an easy technique to learn and something I teach. There are many different forms of meditation to achieve different results.

Awareness of thought patterns assists to rewire the neural pathways in your brain. It becomes easier to replicate or refire the behavior. Neural pathways are the foundations of our patterns of thinking, being and acting.

Focused thoughts of feeling and thinking happy, create more pathways to happiness. Converse, if you focus on stress and negativity!

The science is complex if not a Neuroscientist but made easy here.

3. Use the New Awareness You Have of Your Thoughts.

This achieved by noticing them, to interrupt the negative ones. When I hear my little inner voice, I am triggered to say ‘Hey I’m not buying this anymore’. If it’s something I no longer believe to be true, (ask yourself this) I choose a stronger one. I then ask ‘Why am I feeling this way?’ 

I’m looking to understand the feelings behind the emotion. This way I can deal with the cause and not the effect. Journaling your thoughts helps understand them because patterns will emerge. Remember we can only change what we are aware of!

4. Use Empowering Thoughts

Once you’ve thought interrupted, replace the thought with a more empowering one. Particularly helpful when the same thoughts pop up on repeat during the day. For example, say you think, ‘I’m such a goose!’

In an instant, you can challenge the thought and think something more productive. You’ll surprise yourself the number of times we put ourselves down. Thought interrupted allows you to create a positive spin.

5. Develop Powerful Beliefs and Affirmations.

You can repeat these over and over to dispel the negative inner critic. Great to build courage when trying new things. These are more personal and powerful when you create a phrase that means something to you. A phrase that evokes emotion. One powerful word can do it too!

Mine, for example, is ‘Ferocious’. When I have that sinking feeling I only need to say the word, and I can steer my thoughts back to where I need them. It also aids neural plasticity as described above. Happier thoughts create a happier you!

It takes time to introduce new habits, but the rewards are high. To stay confident, happy and full of life at any age, it is worth introducing ourselves to new ways of thinking. 

There is much evidence to support how positive these techniques can be. So there it is, you can teach an old dog new tricks…..

Remember practice makes perfect….

Or is that an idiom too….Nah! No way! I think!

Comments