You may know the mind and gut are connected. But what are practical ways to harness the power of that connection?
The most valuable thing I’ve learned as a digestive health coach, is how to work with the subconscious mind to help get over blocks to healing, self sabotage, blind spots and resistance. These are the things that keep people stuck in a self defeating cycle.
We are often the ones that prevent ourselves from getting what we need or want. And there’s good reason for that. It has to do with protection. Our mind was built primarily to keep us alive. Its number one priority is survival, not our happiness.
Sometimes our subconscious will sabotage our happiness in the name of survival. It’ s simply the biology of evolution and survival.
These these survival programs form when we are children and continue through adulthood, even when they are no longer useful.
These strategies and beliefs formed in childhood still run our lives and dictate our thoughts, perceptions, behavior and actions. And often without us realizing it.
Understanding how to work with this subconscious programming can puts us back in control of our life and health and change behaviors, attitudes and beliefs that don’t serve us. In fact they make us suffer. But the good new is that the mind is plastic (changeable), and these programs can be reprogrammed.
What is the subconscious mind
The difference between the subconscious mind and the conscious mind is important to understand.
The conscious mind is the logical mind and the critical mind. It comes up with all the reasons why something won’t work but can also brainstorm solutions. This part of the mind analyzes information, plans and problem solves.
Our society celebrates the conscious mind. We think logic and practicality are running the show. They are not.
The subconscious mind, which is the emotional mind, is in control. It dictates our life decisions, and forms our habits. This is what makes who we are.
Everything that ever happened to us is stored in the subconscious and it is always making sense of our experiences to figure out how it can protect us best.
And if our subconscious thinks that keeping us sick is protective (keeps us from getting hurt, failing, taking risks) then it is invested in keeping us sick no matter how much the conscious mind yearns for health and normality.
The subconscious mind operates by its own unique rules that are not intuitive or logical. And by working with these rules we can rewire subconscious programming to create the outcomes we want (health, confidence, peace, etc.).
The subconscious mind dictates mood, decisions, health, phobias and personality. No amount of conscious willpower can change these things. But we can reprogram the subconscious through hypnosis.
And that is how we create profound changes in our lives that did not seem possible before.
By working with the subconscious mind, I’ve been able to have breakthroughs with clients that were not possible before.
One of the rules of the mind is that it likes what’s familiar. Making the unfamiliar familiar is how we can get comfortable with this type of powerful work. And break through the resistance that is keeping us stuck.
We harness innate suggestibility to make these changes permanent. Creative and sensitive types (which are a majority of my clients) are very open to suggestion and have better results with fewer hypnosis sessions.
My story
I used hypnosis to reverse my own health anxiety after a very stressful diagnosis that turned out to be incorrect. But that’s another story.
The diagnosis triggered my past health trauma which affected me physically.
Instead of addressing the body, I worked with my mind to calm my body. And I experienced a relief of many physical symptoms.
I was so impressed, that I studied the subconscious mind and hypnosis so I could share this work with clients.
Feeling like you are back in the drivers seat is the most powerful stress relief there is. And this work helps restore much needed confidence to get the body out of fight or flight mode.
It starts with awareness about how the mind really works.
Below are the rules of the subconscious mind.
For more in depth information, listen to this podcast where I talk more about working with the mind.
Rules of the Subconscious mind
- The subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality. If you are someone who is always imagining the worst case scenario, like me and my clients tend to do, you are sending danger signals to your subconscious mind. It responds by releasing cortisol, lowering stomach acid and increasing inflammation. Eventually the immune system gets exhausted and disease ensues as the body is weakened by its own stress response. You can use this rule in your favor by visualizing what you do want. Things like vibrant health, the ability to eat what you want, freedom to travel without worry and a life that revolves around what you love to do instead of your gut. Don’t believe it is possible for you? Subconscious work could help with that block.
- Your subconscious mind interprets the world through words and images. This is what “programs” the subconscious and what it responds to. If we give ourselves bad suggestions all day like “this food is going to cause me pain” or “I tried everything, and nothing works” or “I react to all supplements”, the subconscious mind will comply. It records everything we imagine and say and makes it a reality. You can use your conscious words to make positive suggestions instead. This will help calm things down and encourage positive reactions. Things like “my body knows how to digest anything” or “I trust in my body’s ability to heal”. It may feel really unfamiliar or untrue to say this, but it’s because it’s a new habit. Change is always hard or jarring. But remember your subconscious is listening to everything you say and responding accordinly.
- Your subconscious mind doesn’t understand negation. So you can’t say “I don’t want to feel sick” and expect to feel better. Your subconscious mind just hears the words want and sick and delivers more of it. You need to phrase your “self suggestions” in the positive. “I am feeling healthier everyday and I am thankful.”
- Your subconscious mind is conditioned by repetition. This is a powerful tool I use in hypnosis to make the new changes stick. Rewiring addiction, fears and self sabotage requires daily repetition of positive suggestion for a minimum of three weeks. Ideally, longer. I do this with a 15 minute recording that puts people into a hypnotic state and gives them positive suggestions about what they want. Repetition of positive suggestion works to reprograms the subconscious mind. This is not something my clients can do for themselves at first, but learn how to do it automatically, and it changes everything by reducing stress. It has for me.
- The subconscious mind records and remembers absolutely everything. Even if you have massive brain fog and forget people, places, names, what happened 5 minutes ago, that’s your conscious mind forgetting. Your subconscious mind forgets nothing and can recall information on request during a relaxed state. Things that you didn’t even realize your remembered come back through hypnosis. And these memories are significant root causes of current issues. The conscious mind can turns off when you sleeping, meditating or very relaxed, but the subconscious mind works 24/7 recording everything you say, think and do. And it creates meaning from it. More on that below.
- The placebo effect is a function of the subconscious mind. You can make yourself sick with a thought and you can heal yourself with a thought. Seems really simplistic and unbelievable right? Well the placebo effect is well studied. When someone believes that they are getting a medicine to heal them, they heal. This may be why some of my clients have told me that they always feel better or cured in the first month of a protocol only to backslide into old symptoms. The placebo effect is responsible for that. And then something happens to shake the confidence and remind them of the belief that they are a sick person and that healing is not available to them.
- You need to be in a relaxed flow state to access your subconscious mind. Hypnosis puts the body and mind into relaxation, which slows down the usual day to day beta brain wave state to an alpha or theta brain wave state. This puts the critical, logical brain to sleep so we can circumvent it and talk directly to the subconscious. The information that’s available in this state surprises people. They are surprised when things come up which they thought they dealt with and moved past. They understand how these events truly effected them. And how to create a different story around it. And process it. I am often surprised at the ability of the subconscious under hypnosis to serve up exactly the information that people need to heal from past experience.
- The main job of the subconscious mind is to keep you safe. Your subconscious mind is focused primarily on your survival, not your happiness. If it thinks something will threaten you or perceives danger, it will do everything it can to shut down the risk, including making your sick so you can’t put yourself in the way of danger.
- The subconscious mind takes what you say literally. If you say to yourself “my job is killing me” it will make you too sick to go to work. While you are suffering when sick, you’re also out of harms way and don’t have to go to a job that will kill you . Your conscious mind may know it’s just a figure of speech, but your subconscious takes it literally. This is why what we say matters. Your subconscious mind is always listening and responding with protective measures to keep you out of danger.
- Mental rehearsal is just as powerful as actually doing the thing. They have done studies on this. One group did not practice piano. Another group practiced daily and the third group imagined themselves practicing. Both the group that practiced and imagined themselves practicing improved their piano skills equally. This rule can be harnessed by using your imagination to heal yourself. Imagining your biome rebalancing, your gut lining repairing, your adrenals recharging etc. can have a powerful physical effect. Remember rule number 1, when you imagine something, the subconscious mind thinks it is real and complies with that reality. The body does what it perceives that the mind wants it to do.
How the rules of the mind can help your gut
The mind gut connection is undisputed by most scientists and doctors. Perhaps that’s why many physicians say IBS is in the head.
Learning to work with these rules can help disarm both physical reactions caused by worry about the body and emotional distress.
This will help calm the nervous system and end the viscous cycle of worry that leads to symptoms and vice versa.
When your doctors says it’s in your head, you finally have resources to work with your head, through hypnosis and by working with the rules of the mind.
You can do it alone or you can get support around it.
Get more info about hypnosis sessions here.