4 Steps to Healthier Emotions

Our subconscious mind runs the show in our daily lives. The subconscious is like a databank of all our memories and life experiences, and it uses our past to create our current beliefs, emotional programs, and habitual reactions. We might think we’re in conscious control of our lives, but our subconscious actually dictates so many of our choices — our emotional reactions, our habitual patterns, even our purchasing decisions. In fact, 95% of our behaviors are driven by the subconscious mind.

This is helpful for things like tying our shoes, but not always when it comes to our emotional patterns. For instance, if you felt emotionally neglected by a parent when you were young, your subconscious may cause you to perceive your relationship partners today as uncaring or unavailable. You might fear abandonment and feel insecure in your relationships, regardless of whether a threat is really there.

With so much of our behavior being unconscious, we often become stuck in unhealthy patterns that hurt us and those around us. Side note: this is not about blaming ourselves or enabling other people’s bad behavior. It’s actually so empowering to recognize our part in our situations so that we can learn to feel better in ourselves and in our relationships.

So how do we change our patterns?

We reprogram our emotional habits by addressing them at the root. This means:

1) Noticing when you are triggered. Is this a pattern you’ve experienced before?

2) Understanding the underlying belief you feel when triggered (e.g. “I’m not enough”)

3) Asking yourself when you first started feeling that belief or feeling. What age were you when you first started feeling these emotions? What memories come up?

4) Releasing the pain of your past. Giving love and forgiveness to those that hurt you, and to your younger self.

Usually the last step isn’t possible in our waking lives. We have to dive into our subconscious, where our stress response is no longer triggered, and access our memories at their source. From this malleable place, we can reframe our relationship with our past and change the belief systems we’ve felt stuck with. This is real healing work.

Eventually, we become mindful of when we’re projecting past experiences onto a present situation, and we begin to choose differently. 

With lots of self-compassion, we can work with our subconscious mind to retrain our emotional state. Yoga Nidra is one of the most powerful ways to work with our memories and reprogram the way we feel at our core. 

by Marina Harmon