How Much Can You Rely on Your Subconscious

We all have conversations with ourselves. Often these conversations happen on a daily basis and they have the potential to create an internal struggle between the different “voices” we often hear when these conversations occur. These conversations are known as self-talk, and they are as the name suggests. Our subconscious “talking” to us and often answering itself at the same time. How much can we rely on our subconscious and our self-talk? The voices we hear and the decisions that arise from our self-talk can potentially help us make important decisions, so the answer to the question of it is reliability is an important one for most of us.

 

Self-talk is usually activated by an event that happens to us. It may be something we see, hear or experience and as we think about the situation at a conscious level; our subconscious also begins to respond. As it processes the event it tries to make sense of it. Many external and internal influences can affect what happens next. We may for example, remind ourselves we have an important exam the next day and our subconscious reminds us that we need to study for it. This may be considered positive self-talk and for many decisions, this type of subconscious activity can be life-saving. 

 

However, on many occasions, situations and events that may have been considered positive may produce negative reactions in our subconscious discussions with ourselves. Thoughts of that exam, instead of driving us to action and preparation may leave us feeling a sense of despair, thinking we will never pass this exam. We may make a decision based on our “instincts” which are subconscious decisions that cause us to “trust” our instincts and act on them. 

 

Perception can be altered by how we are feeling, or what stresses we are under at the time and therefore the more stressed we are the less reliable our self-talk is. On these occasions, self-talk can create negative thoughts in our mind as we dwell not on the facts, but on our perception of those facts and these can be influenced by many factors acting as filters and giving us false perceptions. 

 

Identifying which self-talk is based on facts and which on our perception of facts will help us know whether to trust our subconscious “gut feelings” on things that can happen to us.