Constructive or destructive - what is it for you? 

Why is it so difficult to lead a good, fulfilled and happy life? Why do we humans have the tendency to boycott ourselves and our actions over and over again, making it difficult to live in harmony and peace?

To get to the bottom of this question we need to take a trip together into the functionality of our brain and look at how our subconscious plays its role in this decision.

How our subconscious mind controls our actions

The subconscious is the sum of all ideas, memories, impressions, motives, attitudes and readiness to act, which are stored in us, but are currently not actively conscious.

This database of experiences decisively controls our actions and our path in life. Without the subconscious we humans would have great problems to cope with our everyday life. It also has the important function of perceiving the things that we cannot consciously take in all. Just think about how many impressions flow into you and your body at every moment - visual and acoustic stimuli such as colors, shapes, images, sounds, noises and voices, but also sensitive stimuli such as touch, a cold or warm breeze, pain, and so on. Not to forget smells, moods and a wide variety of other perceptions and impressions. But how much of this do you actually perceive normally? A tiny fraction. It is these filters that keep us from losing our minds.

In order for us not to go crazy and perform complex actions, it is necessary that so-called behavior patterns are created in the subconscious, quasi highways in the brain. These save energy and allow us to have a bearable everyday life. Many of these behavior patterns are created in the course of our childhood and are not easily changeable. Even if we now decide to live a constructive, good life, eat healthy and exercise regularly, our subconscious, destructive behavior patterns are always in the way.

In a subtle way, they are constantly outpacing any conscious thought or decision we make, and thus pretty much single-handedly determine all of our behavior in everyday life. Anyone who has ever wanted to stop some small addiction knows what I'm talking about here.

How do we now manage to create constructive patterns?

There are several possibilities. If you have a strong will and a lot of energy, you can simply force something new on yourself. This costs a lot of strength and perseverance, but it is possible. Most people, however, due to their basic constitution and the already existing stress and tasks in everyday life, do not have so much energy available to simply undertake and do this. And then they fail at their resolutions and the changes to a more constructive life go down the drain with that failure.

There are many therapeutic ways to work with the subconscious mind, be it coaching, hypnosis, mental training, yoga and much more. With these methods the desired old behavior patterns can be recognized and changed. What doesn't help much is to talk with friends and family about why we behave destructively, how it happened, why it was and is like that and just always will be. It's like when you have a car and you run out of gas while driving. It's no use talking to someone about running out of gas, why it happened, how you didn't notice, how it made you feel, and talking shop in a group therapy session of people who also ran out of gas while driving. The only thing you really need is gasoline to get your car running again. And the gasoline in our case is to have enough energy in your system.

So it makes much more sense to recognize the patterns and beliefs and to change and dissolve them by means of an integrative method. Because then you feel better, you have more energy and you can use this energy where you really want to use it in your life and you can even choose to lead a good, honest and sincere life. If that's what you want then. Or you have more fun and rock'n'roll. As you like.