The subconscious mind is like a dark room. You open the door but you can’t see anything. What if you could turn on a light?
Let’s find out how to do that. But first, why do it?
Why would you want to know what’s going on in there?
Mostly? Unfinished business. What’s bugging you that you don’t know is bugging you? What are the indicators?
Here are some barometers and warning lights:
inexplicable emotions get triggered by minor events
certain people either intimidate you or piss you off for no apparent reason
addictions and other compulsive behavior
recurring thoughts and memories that come out of the blue
excessive moodiness
Now, here’s a simple (very simple) spiritual exercise that works:
close your eyes and see yourself walking up to your inner door
feel your hand on the doorknob
hear the sound of the door opening
step inside the room and close the door behind you
take a moment to relax in the darkness, then
feel the wall for the light switch and turn it on
This is where it gets interesting:
what’s the first thing you notice?
don’t judge it, just observe
don’t interpret, just take note of the details
turn off the light and leave the room
write down what you saw
The subconscious mind communicates in pictures, not words. The pictures are symbolic—they mean something to you. Sometimes, they can be archetypal but usually, they will remind you of an event. If you see a snake, for example, it could be one that you saw when you were camping with your dad. When you reacted to it, he reacted to your reaction, either positively or negatively.
This is the unfinished business.
Your dad’s reaction made you feel a certain way, and that same feeling shows up every time a snake appears in your life. A snake can be any threat that surprises you. It could be something as simple as an email from your boss, a leaky trap under the sink, a flashing red light in your rearview mirror—anything scary that pops up unexpectedly.
What happened back then is what you expect to happen again. And expectations telegraph themselves to the world. What you expect, you tend to get.
But in order for this psychic mechanism to work, it has to operate in the dark. The more conscious of it you are, the less power it has, which is why turning on the light works.
Going within and turning on the light doesn’t magically make your reactions disappear. It just makes them less powerful. When you’re conscious of a psychic mechanism, it’s much easier to deal with it if you know what it is. But it will atrophy over time.
As you do this spiritual exercise, keep a journal. Write down what you see every time you step into your darkened room. And I hope you do it often because the more you do it, the more conscious you will become. The more conscious you are, the less reactive. And the less reactive, the more easily you can control what happens to you.
Fate is what happens when you fall asleep behind the wheel of your life. Wake up and start steering in the direction you want to go. It’s an easier and more effective way to live.