Self Motivation With Your Other-Than-Conscious Mind
Written by Alexander Battani
I was looking for a distraction. And when I finally found one, it felt like I had been dropped into my own personal Wonderland.
Every time someone gives you advice on how to deal with stress, they're only telling you half the story. The part they're talking about is 'the conscious mind'. Mine was dull and sluggish while that of my other-than-conscious mind was sharp and hyperaware. In fact, it was in the other-than-conscious that I started to find the magic of my day. The thoughts I had for my day were different than the ones that were on my mind. And those thoughts were so real in their presence, I wondered if they weren't more important to me than any that could occupy my conscious mind.
In fact, they felt more like an important part of me. The other-than-conscious mind is your life's work just as much as your conscious mind is. It's where your life helps you stay balanced. It's where your life keeps your identity intact. One has to do with your physical existence while the other deals with everything else.
What I'm talking about is the 'autopilot' of our lives. The other-than-conscious mind is the part of us that keeps things going even if we're not paying attention. We think it's just some sort of computer program that our conscious self runs on. But it's really much more than that, and the real problem is that most of us don't even realize that there even is a 'program' to run at all.
So let's break down this idea and see how it works.
What Is The Other-Than-Conscious Mind?
If you pay attention, you'll notice that your conscious mind isn't always on. It's just as likely to be playing on autopilot as it is to be operating at full capacity. And when you pay attention, you'll notice that your other mind just keeps things going. Like clockwork, it goes about its daily business even when you're not paying attention to the world of 'doing'.
If we were to look at this in terms of a computerized operating system, whatever is running your emotional and psychological life would be your 'autopilot'. You'd have some kind of fuzzy program that could drive almost all of the non-trivial aspects of your life. And you'd have the ability to tell the program what to do, but it would be more like 'set and forget' than having direct control over every action.
But since we can't see this fuzzy program, you might say that our autopilot is 'other-than-conscious'. It's not just something out of our awareness. But it's not operating at the same level of consciousness that we have access to now.
It's also worth noting that this other-than-conscious mind is different from your subconscious mind. The subconscious mind contains your most basic beliefs and motivations. It's the part of you that has all of your habits, tastes, and unconscious preferences.
It's also the part of your mind that you're most likely to be aware of. That's because it's not hidden behind anything but rather is just 'below' the level of consciousness.
But this other-than-conscious mind I'm talking about is different from both the subconscious and conscious minds.
In the limits of your current mind, the subconscious is your first level of consciousness. The conscious is the second. And this other-than-conscious mind of mine would be third. It's not something that you can access with your conscious mind but it's something you can access with your 'other self'.
But why would you want to access something so far away from yourself?
Because your autopilot is the main way that you keep things in balance. When it runs out of steam and needs a little extra power, it looks to your other-than-conscious mind for the magic that keeps it running. This is where the real magic of your day lies, because if you've noticed, things just keep happening without you having to get out of bed or do anything at all. They just happen because your autopilot just keeps running.
Looking at this another way, your other-than-conscious mind is like your unconscious 'awareness'. It's what keeps you plugged into the world and it does its magic by keeping a balance between the conscious and subconscious. It has access to everything that you do from the subconscious and it has access to everything that you consciously think about.
So when it has a chance to shine, it looks for 'magic' by looking for ways to keep itself and your subconscious awake. From there, it looks for ways to keep the subconscious and conscious minds active. And that's how it keeps things running.
But why would you want to do this? Why would you even want anything to run without your direct input?
Because when your autopilot is working, you don't have time to think about it. It just keeps things stable for you. So for me personally, I realized that I had a lot of loose ends and loop holes in my life at work and in my personal life that really needed tightening up.
Conclusion
Like I said at the beginning of this post, if you're stressed out and looking for ways to relax, what you really need is a new way of thinking about things. Most advice that you get on stress only treats one part of the problem: your conscious mind. But what I've found is that it's not just the conscious mind that causes problems but rather an entire 'operating system' that can get in the way.
There's a reason why we call it 'automatic pilot'.