How Your Mind Works
By Tim Ong

At any given moment, thousands upon thousands of information is bombarded to our brain. With so much information overload, how does our mind select what to focus on and what to discard?

What your mind chooses to pay its attention to depends on several things. Among them are our:

1. Beliefs
2. Values
3. Meta-Programs

All these are pre-existing programs in our subconscious mind, and they play a prominent role in what we unconsciously choose to focus on and allow into our mind.

Beliefs

Beliefs are merely perceptions of reality. Since we live in a relative universe limited by time and space, our perception is limited by our perspective from a given time and space. Beliefs are neither right or wrong but whatever we choose to believe in, we will attract people and circumstances that validate our beliefs. Beliefs are therefore self fulfilling prophecies.

Thus when we believe that money is hard to come by, our mind will automatically focus on or be attracted to people and circumstances that will validate our belief, or we will interpret them in ways that validate our belief.

In this way, our beliefs serve as a filter where we unconsciously turn our attention to whatever that further validates our beliefs, and leave contrary evidence out.

Values

Values are what we hold to be important in our life. It is only natural, then, for our mind to focus on what we deem to be valuable to us. Like beliefs, our values are often so deeply ingrained into our subconscious that we are not fully aware of them. Thus if we hold values that are contrary to what we want, we may be unconsciously sabotaging our own success.

Meta-Programs

Meta-programs are other sub-programs in our subconscious mind that act as filters.

For example, each of us has a different concept of success. Some people see success as the absence of debts while others see it as being in possession of material wealth like house, cars and properties. While both are about success, the outcome can be very different indeed.

When we see success in terms of having material possessions, then the mind unconsciously focuses its attention to having these things. Thus it is attracted to possibilities that could result in having these things.

On the other hand, when one equates success as the absence of debts, then the mind will unconsciously attract the very thing that it focuses on - debt, and people and circumstances that make debt a possibility.

The subconscious mind does not and cannot differentiate the negative. That is why we are often advised to focus only on what we want in life.

On Auto-Pilot

In our daily life, we pay attention to and filter information using these existing programs - beliefs, values and meta-programs - in an unconscious way. We are not aware of the process. So, when a man automatically stole a glimpse at a beautiful woman passing by, he is responding based on his beliefs, values and meta-programs. Deep inside his subconscious mind are programs that define what he believes beauty is, and how much value he placed on that belief.

Does that mean that we are slave to our subconscious mind? Are there any ways we can over-ride these auto-pilot responses?

Conscious Living and Free Will

We are only creatures of habits if we continue to live unconsciously. When we do that, we do not seem to have the free will that some religions talked about but it only seems so because we are unaware of how and why we respond in certain ways under certain circumstances.

It is important to know that these programs are not permanent. They can be removed and replaced by other more life enhancing programs.

However, to do that, we need to put it the effort and have the determination to be aware of our thoughts as often as we can. We need to reflect on our actions, and trace them back to see and recognize what unconscious beliefs and values we hold that led us to respond in such manners.

Being aware is the first step but it is not enough to change our deeply ingrained programs. That is why we need to put in the extra effort and the persistency to change them. Some beliefs and values can be changed easily but most take a fair amount of work.

Author:

Dr. Tim Ong is a medical doctor with keen interest in self improvement, mind science and spirituality. He is the author of From Fear to Love: A Spiritual Journey and the webmaster of The Self Improvement Site. You can follow his blogs at MindScience101.com.