Most of us wake up each day with the best intentions: feel calmer, respond rather than react, stop repeating old patterns, create new habits… and yet we often find ourselves stuck. Not because we’re flawed but because up to 95% of our behavior is driven by the subconscious mind.
Understanding this deeper part of our operating system is the key to lasting change. Not quick fixes. Not willpower. Not trying harder. Real transformation begins beneath the surface.
In this article, we’ll explore what the subconscious mind actually is (beyond the mystical buzzwords), how it shapes our reality, and, most importantly, how to begin unblocking it.
What the Subconscious Mind Really Is
Your subconscious mind isn’t a mysterious vault of hidden memories. It’s a highly intelligent, highly efficient network of systems running quietly behind the scenes. It includes:
1. The Reward System (Dopamine Drives Behavior)
The anticipation of a reward is often more powerful than the reward itself. This is why we chase quick fixes, crave instant relief, or mentally “future trip.”
2. The Limbic System (Emotions + Memory)
This is your emotional headquarters, where past experiences shape present reactions.
3. The Default Mode Network (Your Inner Narrator)
The voice that appears when your mind wanders. Depending on your wiring, it can be insightful… or relentless.
4. The Heart-Brain Connection
Your heart sends information to your brain before your brain creates a conscious thought. That “gut feeling”? It’s real physiology, not poetry.
5. The Gut-Brain Axis
Most dopamine and serotonin are produced in the gut. Your microbiome affects mood, energy, and emotional resilience.
6. The Reticular Activating System (RAS)
Your brain can’t process everything—so it decides what to notice. Buy a purple car, and suddenly purple cars appear everywhere. That’s your RAS filtering reality.
7. The Peripheral Nervous System (The Body’s Memory Bank)
The body keeps a record. Not just the brain. Tension patterns, posture, pain, and reactivity are part of your subconscious story.
Why Change Feels Hard (Even When You Want It)
If you’ve ever felt frustrated with yourself and thought “I know better, so why don’t I do better?” you’re not alone.Here’s why:
- The subconscious is extremely powerful.
- It loves familiarity, not growth.
- It prioritizes safety over success.
- It runs old programs until we intentionally update them.
Without working with the subconscious, we end up becoming the “best version of our limited self”—tidying symptoms without transforming the deeper patterns.
How the Brain Creates (and Protects) Your Patterns
On our 5, 10 and 21-day Rēset programs we teach participants about the three main parts of the brain. Understanding their roles helps explain why certain habits, reactions, or emotional loops feel automatic:
1. Reptilian Brain
Your survival system: fight, flight, freeze. It’s always scanning for threats.
2. Limbic Brain
Your emotional processor: fear, joy, grief, love. It also stores emotional memory.
3. Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)
Your executive center: planning, reasoning, clarity, perspective.This is the part you're strengthening whenever you slow down, breathe, focus.
When these three areas are aligned, you feel grounded, clear, and capable. When they're not, you feel reactive, overwhelmed, or stuck.
Why Sequencing Matters More Than “More Tools”
We’ve seen many participants return from a retreat excited to apply everything they’ve learned but then feel confused about why they become overwhelmed. This is because tools work best when used in the right order.
Just like building a house, you can’t start with curtains and artwork. You need a solid foundation first! The three foundations of regulation are:
1. Interoception
Your ability to feel what’s happening inside your body. This is the skill behind emotional awareness and instinctive decision-making. A simple practice is to pause, feel your breath low in your abdomen, then your ribcage, then your back. This builds the mind-body connection your subconscious listens to most.
2. Vestibular Regulation
Your sense of balance and orientation in space. This affects calmness, safety, and coordination.
3. Proprioception
Your awareness of where your body is in space. This reduces dissociation, zoning out, and overwhelm.
Without these foundations, advanced tools can feel like too much, too fast.
Why Your Environment Matters
While it's easier to reset in a retreat setting, the real challenge is learning to create change in the very environment where your stress and old programming were built. This is why this simple first step can be powerful: Declutter your space.
Organize, change the layout of your bedroom, remove what no longer fits the future you’re building. By doing this you are creating space for something new.
When your environment shifts, your subconscious receives a clear message: “We’re doing things differently now.”
How Stress Shows Up in the Body
The subconscious isn’t just neural, it’s physical. Let’s take the kidneys and adrenals as an example:
- Your kidneys filter the blood.
- Your adrenal glands sit on top—driving the stress response.
- Both are linked to hip flexors and trunk muscles (psoas, iliacus, quadratus lumborum).
- When stress is chronic, these muscles tighten.
- In Chinese medicine, this constellation relates to fear, dread, and feeling “stuck.”
So the emotional pattern of freeze, shutdown, or paralysis isn’t “in your head”—it’s in your physiology.
And the good news is: You can work with it.
Gentle movement, breathwork, neuro-emotional exercises, and interoceptive awareness help re-pattern these systems.
Becoming the Observer: The Path to Reprogramming
When you access the subconscious intentionally, you shift from reacting to life… to creating it. This looks like:
- Noticing emotional waves instead of being swept by them
- Catching old narratives before they run your day
- Feeling your body’s cues early instead of hitting overwhelm
- Choosing responses based on your values, not your triggers
This is the essence of nervous system regulation: making the subconscious more conscious.
Where to Begin
You don’t need to absorb everything at once.
Choose one practice that resonates with you and start from there:
- Build interoception through breath
- Declutter your space
- Focus your attention for 2–5 minutes daily
- Notice your default internal dialogue
- Feel your body’s cues with curiosity instead of judgment
- Slow down before reacting
Small shifts at the subconscious level lead to profound change over time.
Final Thoughts
Your subconscious mind isn’t the enemy, it’s the foundation.It holds your survival patterns, your emotional history, your automatic habits, and your deepest intelligence.
When you understand it, work with it, and give it the right sequence of support, you unlock the patterns that keep you stuck and access the possibility of creating an entirely new reality.
