The River of Consciousness

“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river that carries me away, but I am the river.”

– Jorge Luis Borges

Season’s greetings my dear reader.

I hope you’ve managed to find some ease over the festive period. It can be an intense time for many, and yet also a good opportunity to witness many of our unconscious processes in action – as Ram Dass once said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”

My break this year has been somewhat more contemplative, and yet I’ve certainly had much opportunity to witness my own programs. Through observing my own stuff this week, I came up with an analogy that I wanted to share with you, as a tool that might help you recognise and work with your own unconscious patterns.

We are Unconscious Beings

In his best-selling book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, suggests our brains have two modes of thinking which he refers to as System 1 and System 2.

System 1 is the faster mode, which he defines as UNCONSCIOUS, automatic, effortless, WITHOUT self-awareness or control. It assesses the situation and delivers updates, and does 98% of all our thinking.

System 2 is the slower mode. He defines it as deliberate and CONSCIOUS, effortful, controlled mental process, rational thinking, WITH self-awareness and control, logical and skeptical. It seeks new/missing information and makes decisions. System 2 accounts for 2% of all our thinking.

So system 1 is unconscious and does almost all of our thinking. It’s built on habits and is constantly trying to make sense of each new situation within the context of everything we have experienced before. It is trying to maintain the integrity of our ‘story’ – the way we currently see the world. And that’s because we like to be able to predict things – we don’t have to think so hard and it helps us find a sense of safety.

System 2 comes into play when things don’t make sense or when we’re confronted by a new scenario. When we’re truly focusing in this way, it’s slow and clunky. It uses up a lot more processing power, which is why we default to our unconscious programs 98% of the time.

When we’re building a new habit, at the beginning it’s slow and painful because we’re attempting to learn a new skill or routine. We’re in uncharted territory. Therefore, we need to choose to take deliberate action to expand our map of awareness but, as we build familiarity, things get easier and the process begins to shift from System 2 to System 1.

The River of Consciousness

I’ve been contemplating these processes in the context of what I shared previously about inhibition and compulsion being at the root of almost all of our psychological issues. What came to me is the analogy of consciousness being like a river.

Our compulsions are like the forward-directional flow of the river – our automatic, learned patterns and programs of behaviour, that we act out 98% of the time. These compulsions follow a well-worn course – they are ingrained and habitual, which is why we so often find ourselves back in situations we really wish we could avoid – whether that’s addictions, people-pleasing tendencies, over-reactions, as well as really any behaviour that we unconsciously believe will make us more desirable, worthy, or loveable.

If things in our lives are going smoothly we won’t even notice the flow of the current – yet it’s still undoubtedly there, pulling us along. It’s only when we get caught in little whirlpools or eddies of dysfunction or contradiction that we usually pause long enough to question what’s really happening and seek help.

By contrast, our inhibitions are like the river banks – they create the boundaries of where the river can flow. By that I mean, our ability to make a decision in any moment is limited to the bandwidth of what we’ve unconsciously learned is possible or acceptable for us.

E.g. if I have an inhibition around walking up to talk to a beautiful stranger, I will feel an energetic ‘block’ if I find myself in a situation where that might be possible. I liken that sense of inhibition to when you walk too close to a cliff edge – your entire body recoils in an attempt to protect you. Technically, it’s perfectly possible for us to respond however we please in any moment, yet our unconscious limiting beliefs create the energetic guard rails that decide our potential actions, and stop us from moving beyond those limitations.

In this way, our lives loosely follow a predetermined path shaped by the inhibitions and compulsions we’ve unconsciously collected, unless we are able to recognise their influence and, consciously, begin to choose differently.

Redirecting the Flow

So what can we do with this information? Step one is to start paying attention and seeing if you can witness these processes in action. It can be incredibly challenging because they are so instinctive and fast-flowing but, when they come into play, it’s really because we’re unconsciously jumping ahead to an expected, desired, or undesired, outcome. If we’re inhibited from talking to a beautiful stranger, it’s because we’re already fearing the potential rejection or have expectations of where we would like that interaction to lead. We’re caught up in our program and already processing possible future outcomes, and therefore not in the present reality.

Instead, if we can slow down enough to interrupt the flow, we can begin to expand our bandwidth into a broader range of potentiality. If we can consciously, courageously, choose action that moves beyond the boundaries of our inhibitions, we can begin to free ourselves from the river’s existing current. When we pause and treat a new situation as a problem to be solved, we move into System 2 thinking. That means it’s clunky and uncomfortable, but it’s necessary if we’re going to learn to interrupt the program and replace it with a new pattern.

At it’s simplest, all you need to do is start finding opportunities to prove your inhibitions wrong. Don’t feel able to be silly and playful? Take a risk and dance in public, or pull a funny face at your partner. Don’t feel comfortable talking to strangers? Go just beyond your comfort zone and say hello to someone on the street. It doesn’t really matter what you do, the only goal for now is to start poking holes in those limiting beliefs and start giving yourself permission to move more freely. It’s about beginning to see yourself as someone who’s ‘allowed’ to be the way you wish to be.

We didn’t choose the inhibitions and compulsions we’ve inherited, but it is up to us to change them. You really can have whatever you want if you can find ways to move beyond whatever’s stopping you from letting yourself be the person who can have it.

It can be anxiety-inducing, being in the present moment and not knowing what happens next. But all you need to do is the one obvious next step. And then reassess the new landscape in which you find yourself. Then repeat. Simple, yes. Easy… that’s up to you.

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This post was previously published on Embrace Everything.

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