Holly would love to leave her job; she’d lost her passion for the work and was afraid that would become apparent to her supervisors, resulting in reprimand or worse, firing. Her self-esteem was fragile enough at age 37 that she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever replace her income, let alone the benefits her “great career” provided.
We worked together for a few months, using hypnosis, coaching, and intuitive consulting: what I call “Life-In-Perspective” sessions. In this type of work we address LoSE (low self-esteem) as the source of the trapped feeling.
When Holly first came to see me she couldn’t even envision an alternative career; she simply saw no way out. As an expert in LoSE, I could tell her imagination paralysis was a result of over-using her rational, thinking mind. When she first admitted to her hopelessness I pushed her a little: There must be some other way she could see herself spending 40 hours a week!
But whenever Holly started to think about what work she could do instead, her conscious mind immediately offered all the reasons why she couldn’t pursue a different career track. She told me one of her dreams was to spend a few years in Greece so her children could live her husband’s language and culture. Holly also felt her husband might find more fulfilling work in his home country.
I asked her to imagine how a life in Greece might feel. Faced with this two open-ended question, Holly said:
- I could never get leave from my job, I probably don’t qualify
- Anyway, everyone looks at someone on leave and thinks, “What’s wrong with her? Why does she get paid for not working?”
- Even if they let me, what if we couldn’t find jobs? I’d have to come back here and then I’d feel like a failure
- Even if I got a leave of absence, the rules are that I’d have to come back to work here for two more years. Those are their rules.
Our coaching began with a seemingly simple homework task: Holly was to spend 15 minutes daydreaming every day. A RISEr might find that easy, but to the LoSEr who sees her value tied into her perfect goal-achievement, open-ended mental playtime is unsettling.
The LoSEr likes to spend a lot of time in the conscious, rational mind. Things make sense there. 1+1=2. Or, “I work hard + I don’t waste time* = I’m effective and therefore I’m earning my right to be alive.” LoSErs are very black and white when it comes to perception because they’re so used to being judged by their output.
Holly wasn’t sure what I was asking (no surprise coming from a LoSEr), so we practiced in my office. At my suggestion closed her eyes.
“How would you like to feel?” I asked her.
“What, right now?”
“Sure. If you could feel any way you wanted on a Tuesday afternoon like today, how would that be?”
“Well, I’d make sure Stefan had the kids first, so...” Holly said, before I interrupted her.
“Stop thinking about how it would happen, just focus on how you would like to feel,” I reiterated.
“I guess I’d feel relaxed, but I don’t get to do that until the boys have had their bath...”
We went on like that for quite a while. When asked to dip into her imaginative (subconscious) state of mind, Holly’s conscious mind immediately interrupted in order to figure out the details. “How am I going to do that? How am I going to arrange to get to that feeling?” I suggested she gently say to herself, “I’ll figure that out later” whenever she started to rationalize or define her limitations.
In my work with self-esteem, I’ve seen my fair share of this over-active conscious interference. The conscious mind’s job, in part, is to analyze and solve problems, to look for patterns, and to reject what is unfamiliar to the believing (subconscious) mind. So a person with LoSE, who doesn’t believe she deserves an abundant, enjoyable work role, will experience a thinking mind that regularly finds reasons abundant, enjoyable work couldn’t possibly happen.
In a case like Holly’s, she can get to know her feeling side by asking, “How would I like to feel on a Monday morning? How would I like to feel at a job? Challenged? Serene? Fulfilled?” Daydreaming among those big-picture feelings and not paying attention to the details of how those feelings might be achieved, is an important first step for the LoSEr.
Imagine that there is an artery between the conscious and subconscious minds. We already know that these two parts of the mind don’t communicate with each other very well, and that we tend to be in one more than the other at any given time of the day. But it’s also true that we process with our rational minds, information and ideas that come from the subconscious mind. When we allow ourselves to indulge in the imagination by daydreaming and by bringing up feelings or emotions we desire, we’re relaxing or stretching the artery between these two minds. When the subconscious mind, which is so much wiser than the conscious mind, can inform the conscious mind with additional information, the conscious mind won’t be so quick to say “No, this plan will never work.”
The analytical conscious mind -- especially that of a LoSEr -- likes to strategize action and reaction far enough into the future to determine perfect success. For those with low self-esteem, knowing exactly how everything is going to turn out is often the only way they can take action. Strategizing and anticipating obstacles is an important part of planning of course, but when such consideration continually leads to non-action, it’s time to make purposeful inroads to the subconscious.
Because a problem well-defined is half-solved, even if the answer from the subconscious mind is “No, that won’t work,” it almost always offers something else instead: “Not that, but this.” There is no full stop in the subconscious mind -- one creative idea often leads to another, just as one memory naturally and organically leads to another. Even subconscious feedback that seems negative helps to define direction or suggest solutions. Unlike the conscious mind whose nature it is to reject unfamiliar information and tidy up a budding idea with a crisp “Nope, won’t work,” the subconscious mind tends be far less linear, more omni-directional.
When we invite subconscious input on our plans, suddenly we find our minds to be more nimble and less focused on finding (and stopping dead in front of) perceived, as-yet-undeveloped obstacles.
Holly was stuck in this rigid conscious mind thinking, thanks to LoSE. “What if I move to Greece and the whole thing falls apart and what about my sons, their whole lives would be ruined!” LoSErs often catastrophize, reaching for the worst-case scenario and defending it by “wanting to be prepared for reality.”
Daydreaming is the antidote to catastrophic thinking and also allows for magic and adaptability. Holly herself said, “I need some magic in my life,” and that magic is in the subconscious mind. You can call that your Higher Mind, God, intuition, gut feelings, ESP, your own sixth sense, tapping into the collective unconscious and downloading ideas that are all there but haven’t been expressed... but no matter what you call it, you have it, too.
Accessing your own subconscious mind through daydreaming introduces possibilities that the conscious mind never seems to entertain. Those possibilities can come from your memories, which are also archived in the subconscious mind. You may not realize that you’ve solved a similar problem in the past, but if you allow your subconscious mind to expand or blossom a little bit, just in play, without any agenda, sometimes those solutions will come to the surface.
This weekend I was cleaning out my attic and picked up one of my old journals, opening a page at random. I read an entry that was so incredibly relevant to my life right now -- I knew it couldn’t possibly be coincidence.
Here in this journal I’d written “Human Relations Lesson #1: Always, always, always take your mate’s side, especially in front of other people. If you disagree, say so after you’ve spoken your support, and say it in a way that is kind.” The funny thing is, before reading that I was struggling in a relationship with a feeling of unease that I couldn’t quite identify. Reading this one random sentence defined that unease for me. While the situations are not exactly the same, I felt immediate relief and discovered how to take action and plan a change.
You never know where you subconscious mind is going to point you. The conscious mind is going to want to plan out your life, but its important to daydream without an agenda. Because when you’re in the habit of consulting your subconscious mind, you’ll pick the right book out of the box and open to that perfect, relevant page. And there will be your answer.
A problem cannot exist if there is not also a solution. That’s the dual nature of the world we live in: two sides of the same coin. And if the problem comes out of the subconscious mind -- like Holly’s -- feeling trapped, feeling hopeless, then the solution is also going to come from the subconscious mind as well.
After weeks of practicing daydreaming and other exercises, Holly concluded her sessions with me. She and her husband had begun drafting a (flexible) plan to consciously save money so within two years they could move to Greece. Now that she had hope that her life was changeable, Holly felt more optimistic and empowered -- she was RISE-ing. On our last meeting she came into my office practically effervescent with enthusiasm. Much of her resentment towards her husband had diminished and for the first time in a long time they were working as a team, building a dream together for their family. Even knowing she had to spend two more years in her job didn’t depress Holly: she could clearly see a light at the end of the tunnel.
So why not try it yourself, if you’re feeling trapped by your job, lifestyle, or relationship? Take a few minutes every day to get a sense of how you would like to feel. Don’t be surprised if your thinking mind wants to argue. Practice widening that artery between your daydreaming mind and your thinking mind. You’ll be amazed at how light-on-your-feet you feel at work, emotionally, and when relating to others. You’ll be more forgiving with yourself and others and will have a tangible sense of recovering your inherent self-esteem.
I would love to hear stories of how you RISE!
---------
* (or make noise, or ask for too much, or complain, or cause conflict, or have a bad mood)
