Learn Why Your Addictions Are Controlled by Your Subconscious Mind

Has your addiction ever made you do something and you looked back and said, “I don’t understand why I did that. I’ve always said I would never do something like that, and then I did it. Why?”A lot of times it was the very thing you disliked in your parents’ lives. Your momma was taken advantage of by her drug addicted boyfriend, and then you get involved with someone on drugs who took advantage of you. Or your daddy was never there for you and your siblings because he was out drinking, then you decide to get extra work done on Saturday instead of watch your own kid’s basketball game. How did you make these poor choices? The key is understanding the relationship between your conscious and your subconscious mind.Your Two MindsEveryone of us has a divided mind. The two parts-the conscious and the subconscious-war with each other for prominence. Though they both want control, they are not equally qualified to lead. Your conscious mind is the most qualified leader because it can perform the following four functions:1. Recognize: Find out what is happening in your environment and what God is doing in your life.2. Identify: Determine whether information is true or false, good or bad.3. Organize: Group information for easy identification.4. File: Remember experiences in order to make future decisions.You can see that the conscious mind is active in processing information and making choices.In contrast, your subconscious mind makes a poor leader. From the day you were born, it has passively reacted to sensory input. When you were an infant, the subconscious mind worked effectively to ensure your survival. When you were hungry, it told you to holler until you were fed. Your subconscious mind made sure your needs were met.As you grew older, your parents appealed to have your conscious mind override your subconscious desire. This is called becoming mature. For example, when you train children to share and to give, you appeal to the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is not interested in sharing and giving. Its only interest is your bodily pleasure and comfort. Sharing has to be taught. When you hear adults talking “me, my, I” selfishly, they are often talking from the subconscious, which is self-centered.Your subconscious mind is capable of taking in information and does not discriminate whether the information is true or false, good or bad. It will process information based on the programmer’s belief. When the subconscious mind hears, “You’re lazy,” it defines the meaning of lazy by matching lazy to similar subconscious files. It then files that information according to these pre-programmed beliefs. For example, “Uncle Bob was so rich he didn’t have to work. He was lazy. Lazy is good.” Or “Bill is on drugs and will not work and is lazy. He is an outcast of the family. Lazy is bad.”As you can see, addictions are pre-programmed responses that reside in your subconscious mind. They will trigger actions from you without the need to think. That’s what habits are. Actions without thought.In order to start on the road to successful conscious living the next time your mind prompts you to engage in your addiction stop for just a few moments and consciously ponder which of your minds is truly in control.Copyright 2011 Danielle Wise All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in part or full provided you include the author bio and a live website link.