How To Fix Your Negative Inner Thoughts - Dr Paul Conti

What are people talking about when they refer to the unconscious mind?

A lot of times, people are talking about a- a mystery that they kind of know is within them because it gets talked about, but they're not sure how much of an influence does that have over me. Like, is that me, but I'm not aware? Do I know who I am consciously, but then there's other things in the background? And- and I think often, it can be confusing and even scary if we don't understand, what does that mean? How does it have control over us if we think, like, us is the conscious part of us, and how can we have control over it?

Yeah. It's strange to think, what does it mean that there's a part of me I'm basically entirely unaware of that somehow influences me in ways that I can become aware of?

Right. Right. Right. And that's why the sort of height of- of understanding ourselves through the- the- the lens of understanding all aspects of the mind, including the unconscious mind, includes an awareness of some of what's going on there, but also an awareness that we're not aware of it all.

(laughs) Yeah. It's a little bit of a paradox. Why- why is it so important? Is there an analogy? Is it- is it like the surface web and the dark web? Is it 99% of ourselves are unconscious and only 1% of us is conscious?

Well, far more of us is unconscious than conscious. Far, far more of us. The- the iceberg model where the- our conscious mind is a little part of the iceberg that's above the water, but the vast majority of it is underwater. We need that in order to be able to move through time. You know, just like, say, a car engine might be, you know, rotating several thousand, uh, revolutions per minute, right? We're not aware of all those revolutions, but that needs to happen for us to seamlessly be able to maneuver the car forward. Right? So in a far more complicated way, that's going on inside of us, where there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of c- of calculations that are going on so that we can sum things and come up to the consciousness where we can then make conscious decisions. So- so even the idea of, say, walking down the street and seeing someone walking towards you, right? There's so much that then goes on. What does that person look like? Does that person... Is the person looking at you or are they looking down? If they're looking at you, do they look happy? Do they look not happy? Do you recognize them? Do you not recognize them? Are there markers of threat? Are there not markers of threat? You're- you know, we're doing all sorts of things. And let's say, that person looks like someone who had been aggressive before, but is not that person. Then we're triggered to, like, have this- an extra sense of anxiety and tension that all that happens automatically. Then we have to say, "Okay, but it's- but it's not a person who's been aggressive before." But it all goes on in us in a way of kind of bringing us up to speed with that moment so that we can make whatever conscious decision we're making. So the conscious decision could be walk to the other side of the street or say hello or look down. You say, "Oh, you're just doing one thing." You're only- you're doing one thing because it's riding atop thousands upon thousands of things that let you, i- in the conscious world, so to speak, do the one thing that there- that choice that there is to make.