The relationship between the Subconscious and Conscious Mind could be described as a relationship between a captain of a ship and the crew. To keep the ship on a safe course to the desired destination, the captain and the crew must work closely together.
Most of us are familiar with the differences between the role of a captain and a crew member, but what about the subconscious and conscious mind;
Our imagination, permanent memory, emotion, habits and self-preservation impulses are held in the subconscious mind. In fact, the number of activities our subconscious mind carries out is astounding!
Without realising it, we rely upon our subconscious mind to master the complex skills we need to cope with everyday life. Walking, talking, driving a car or suddenly remembering something important, - these all depend upon subconscious activities.
Our conscious mind, on the other hand, is responsible for the rational and analytical thinking, willpower and temporary memory. So that or conscious mind would not get overwhelmed by the millions of pieces of information that it receives every day, majority of the information our brain receives is filtered, deleted and generalised based on individual criteria. - These are the rules, values, beliefs about how things should be in our schema, the model of our world, so that only any 7+- 2 pieces of information is held at any time in our conscious mind.
Both roles are important and needed to ensure we operate well. The ship, captain and the crew metaphor explains the relationship between the subconscious and conscious mind beautifully:
The relationship between the subconscious and conscious mind could be described as a relationship between a captain of a ship and the crew. The captain (conscious mind) develops charts and maps (schema) that describe the way that the world should look and uses these charts to tell the crew (subconscious) where to go.
The captain also decides what skills the crew must learn in order to operate the ship. This arrangement works reasonably well as long as the charts and maps are accurate, the crew has learned right skills and close co-operation is maintained between the captain and the crew.
It also works as long as the crew does not upset the captain by pointing out the things that the captain does not want to see, such as a new harbour or an island that are not on his map. As the ship cruses along the river of life, the many harbours, islands and icebergs are noted by the crew whether they are on the captain’s map or not. -The navigational errors or even disasters occur if the captain constantly refuses to use the crew’s skills or accept new information to change charts of reality.
In the simplest terms, the goal orientated coaching and hypnotherapy work in that it helps the captain to utilise the skills and knowledge held by the crew so that the charts and maps can be updated. This enables for the ship to stay on course so it will get to the desired destination, or for co-ordinates for the new destination to be established.
It also works as long as the crew does not upset the captain by pointing out the things that the captain does not want to see, such as a new harbour or an island that are not on his map. As the ship cruses along the river of life, the many harbours, islands and icebergs are noted by the crew whether they are on the captain’s map or not. -The navigational errors or even disasters occur if the captain constantly refuses to use the crew’s skills or accept new information to change charts of reality.
In the simplest terms, the goal orientated coaching and hypnotherapy work in that it helps the captain to utilise the skills and knowledge held by the crew so that the charts and maps can be updated. This enables for the ship to stay on course so it will get to the desired destination, or for co-ordinates for the new destination to be established.
Where is your ship sailing to?
