Mental Tools for Greater Living
I’m sure this one doesn’t need explaining…
Okay, okay. I know you understand but for everyone else reading, here’s the deal. This simple habit is probably the most fun, productive, healthy and satisfying way to tap into unconscious material.
You already know this one, though I doubt you’ve ever thought of it quite like this.
This habit transforms your life, brings you in contact with opportunities and establishes your value.
It even influences your weight, confidence, optimism and income.
Is this the most important thing you can do to change your relationship with your unconscious mind? Maybe. It’s certainly up there.
After all, there are few things more precious than your friends and family.
Something interesting happens when you spend time with other people. For one thing, a part of your unconscious lights up. Studies show that every group as an unconscious leader – someone to whom the others defer. And not just a leader. The entire pack hierarchy clicks into place.
But it never stays there. You’re constantly assessing, reassessing and waiting for opportunities.
This happens whether the group is a family, ruthless CEOs or the most egalitarian hippies. We are pack animals right down to our core.
Your unconscious does more than monitor the social hierarchy, though. It needs to figure out whether you can trust the people around you. This is why sleazy salespeople are so easy to spot – their neediness triggers alarms in your mind.
And it takes a skilled liar to put people at ease while they fleece them.
But if you trust the people you’re with…
Why, you open up, of course.
In ancestral times, it paid to listen to trustworthy people. Their stories showed the best ways to hunt and the best places to forage. They taught new ways of thinking, speaking and acting, simply with their presence.
And not much has changed since then. That’s why you listen to recommendations from friends while ignore advice from strangers. This is also why it’s so easy to open up to your friends. You tell them things you’d never tell a stranger. And you ask them questions you’d never ask a stranger.
It’d be creepy if you didn’t trust each other to respect the information. The more open you become with each other, the more you learn from each other.
It’s the social calculus of the prehistorical savannah, still working strong.
With time, your unconscious models their way of seeing things. Given enough time, your perspective shifts. And given even more time, you adopt views even from people you don’t like.
This is one of the reasons we humans are such contradictions. We absorb worldviews like sponges, ignoring contradictions and carrying on. We are all collectives, which is why socialising enriches us:
Talking makes our collectives even broader.
You might not think of yourself as part of a hivemind. After all, you are you and other people are separate. But I invite you to suspend judgement for a moment. Not because it’s true, but because of one useful idea.
If you are part of a hivemind, you’ll be darn careful about who you invite to join. Do you really want losers, predators and psychopaths inside your mind?
If not, then keep them out of your life. Leave room for people you value. You may not be a literal hivemind, but they add their thoughts to yours all the same.
The principle applies to social media, too. Contact might seem more distant over email, but it makes up for it with quantity.
You want to be selective with who you hang out with online, too.
So why not select a group of people dedicated to using hypnosis and meditation to improve our lives, learn and practice? Out of all the hiveminds kicking around, you could do a lot worse.
If you want to check us out, wander on over and say hi:
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
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