The Pre Induction Interview 2

For example, if that computer of ours, based on its programming, says we're fat, we're fat. If it says we're thin or a smoker, a success or a failure that is what we are. It adds up all the programming and makes a decision about us, about the type of person that we are. This programming has been placed in there from many sources and it must operate on this programming.

What is some of the operational software, if you will, that is in this internal computer? First is all our memory, since the day we were born. We think of things that have happened to us in the past as either forgotten or as retained in the form of memory.

So, what we are doing here, is we are talking about the working memory of the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is like a video camera. Everything that has ever happened to you, that you have heard, seen, smelled or tasted is locked permanently into the memory banks of your subconscious mind. We never forget anything. If there is a reason to, in hypnosis we can access that memory bank and it seems like we can actually travel back in time. For example, in regression hypnosis we can travel back and re-live your first birthday or your birth. Now, this is much more than recall, it is actually like you are there, it is happening all over again. You can see what happened, you can smell, you can taste, you can hear very clearly. We never forget anything in the subconscious, only at the conscious level.

The second programming we have in the inner mind, the subconscious mind, is habits. Now, you have three kinds of habits. Only three. You know you have some good habits, of course you do, and you know you have some bad habits. Don't we all. But really most of our habits aren't good or bad, most of our habits really are utilitarian habits. We automatically respond in a certain fashion when something else happens. When the telephone rings, for example, we don't look at it and wonder what it is, we automatically pick it up and depending on our mood, we answer it in a certain manner.

Now the next thing in our subconscious mind is emotion. Of course, we wouldn't want to be without our emotions, love and caring and all those other good emotions, but sometimes our emotions get us into trouble. The conscious mind cannot deal with emotions in any way, that is not part of its job. Any time we need emotion our conscious mind parts like the Red Sea and we deal with this particular situation from our irrational, juvenile like, but highly intelligent subconscious mind. As I said, sometimes it gets us into trouble, I know that many times in the past you've dealt with a situation and it didn't have to have a lot of emotion, just a little bit. Then after the situation was over and that analytical conscious mind took over again, you heard yourself thinking or saying something like this, "Why did I say that?" "Why did I do that, it was so stupid." And that inner subconscious mind laughed and said, "Yeah, but it was so much fun." This has happened to all of us at some time or other.

Now, the next thing in the subconscious mind, and probably the most important part of it is our protective mind. It must protect us against danger real OR imagined. You see something imagined by the subconscious mind is just as if it was actually happening, it can't tell the difference. And it must protect us against danger.

A quick example, about a year ago a woman came into see me, she was five foot one, she weighed very close, just a few pounds away from 300 pounds. She sat in the chair and told me about how she had an eating problem, but years of experience told me she didn't have an eating problem. I knew that an event in her past caused her subconscious mind to protect her by making her heavy. Briefly, what happened with this particular woman was, and she could not recall this with her conscious mind, when she was just a little six year old girl, her step-father abused her, she told her mother and her mother didn't believe her. She felt guilty, as if she was doing something wrong. But she didn't get heavy at that point.

When she was in high school in the fifties, she felt as if she was a little bit more promiscuous than she felt good to herself about. She felt the boys in high school were just trying to hurt her. That didn't cause her to become heavy either. But when she was twenty four years old and she married the "white knight", the man who could do no wrong. On their honeymoon, the second day they were married, they were having dinner in the Bahamas and he decided to cleanse his soul and show her how much he loved her. He told her that when he was just a young guy, 18, 19 years old and in the Air Force, he use to pick up women and just use them and throw them away. Well, you can imagine what the subconscious mind felt about this one man that this woman felt she could trust above every other man in the world would actually do this to a woman.

The subconscious mind then went back into its memory banks and into its computer information and said, "The step-father hurt you very badly, the boys in high school were trying to hurt you very badly and now this one man you could trust above every other man says he could do this to a woman, then he certainly has the capability of doing this to you. And instantly it made this decision, men hurt women, therefore, I must protect you against men. Now, it can't teach her karate, can't buy her a gun, so it protected her in the only way it could and this woman began gaining weight rapidly. So very soon she became very fat and certainly men no longer had an interest in her and she was protected. That is how the subconscious protects us sometimes, in a way that we would prefer it didn't, but protection is its primary job. The last part of the subconscious mind is a negative part of us. Although the subconscious is so powerful, it is also the laziest part of us. It doesn't like to do the work that is required to accept positive suggestions to give us change in areas where we would like to have change. It likes to keep things the way they are, it takes too much work to make change in a positive way. And positive suggestions are one of the most difficult things to get into our subconscious minds. On the other hand, negative suggestions go into this inner part of us like a hot knife through butter, because it doesn't take any work to accept a negative suggestion. Let me show you how this works. You take a very heavy person and they get out of the shower. They're standing in front of a mirror toweling off, what do you think they are saying to themselves as they are looking into that mirror? "Boy, am I fat." Now that idea or thought of words go right into the subconscious mind and the subconscious mind says, "Yes, that matches the programming that I have in here, that matches my perception of you." Therefore, it accepts that suggestion so the perception of that individual being fat becomes stronger and they become heavier. On the other hand, if you take that same heavy person and stand them in front of that mirror and have them say, "I'm thin, I'm trim and I'm attractive." That goes toward the subconscious mind and the subconscious mind says, "No, that does not match the programming," and it's not allowed in.

How do we get suggestions into the inner mind? Now, it is so important for you to understand this, if an idea, a thought or a concept is allowed to go into the subconscious mind, it must happen. You are changing programming and that inner mind must respond to new programming. But it is not that easy.

Let me explain how it works. You make a decision, oh, let's say to stop smoking. You make your mind up at the conscious level that nothing in the world is going to stop you from ending the smoking habit. Now, your conscious mind says, "That's wonderful and I support you one hundred percent, you are going to be healthier. You are not going to get emphysema, or heart or blood diseases." But, to have change effectively happen, you have got to get it down into your computer in order to change that programming. And so you say fine, and you start to send that idea down to the subconscious mind. But here is the problem.

There's one more part of the conscious mind that I haven't told you about yet. I want you to think of this part of your conscious mind as kind of an employee, if you will, of the subconscious. Every Friday night the subconscious gives it its pay for the week and it does exactly what it is told and it only has one job. That job is to stop, to put on hold, like a red traffic light, any suggestion of positive change that we give ourselves or receive from an outside source. It stops it.