The unconscious mind
Our conscious mind is essential but limited. It's responsible for temporary memory, decision making and will power. Very much in the here and now. Whereas, our unconscious holds our long term memories, beliefs, emotions and habits. It's where our imagination lives and it's incredibly powerful.
Imagine a cup filled with liquid. The cup represents our conscious mind - good at what it does but limited to particular tasks. Everything outside the cup is our unconscious, it's virtually limitless.
The unconscious mind is where we hold our beliefs about others, the world and ourselves. Information like memories, past traumas and lessons learned have been stored there from when we were very young - there is scientific opinion that this is before we were born.
It is a very powerful place but because it is unconscious, we are not always aware of why we behave in certain ways or believe the things we do - even when those things are not helpful and we want to change. Little wonder that, without techniques like hypnotherapy, it can be hard to shift unwanted habits or beliefs, get over bad experiences or relationships or even understand where it all comes from.
