Battling with my Subconscious Mind (In which Mini considers the mind monsters that plague her…)

Consciousness. There’sbeen a lot of debate about what consciousness is. I’m with Anil Seth, that havingconsciousness is having something that it feels like to be you.  Ithink consciousness is a really useful invention for animals, and minds arepart of bodies.

But what about the Subconsciousness?

What is down therein the dark unknown zones of the Subconsciousness?

I discovered in thefantastic book Sentient by Jackie Higgins: we have way more senses thanwe’re aware of – for example, proprioception, which is the sense that tells thebody where it is in space: nerves in our muscles are sending this informationto our brains all the time, but luckily we’re blissfully unaware of all this data-sharinggoing on. But senses of space and time are all part of our subconscious, boundup with our idea of what will be coming up in the future.

The Subconscious istrying to keep us safe: it is doing its own safety calculation and summoning upthe feelings for the action it has worked out is necessary. But what it haspulled up is fear, anxiety, dread and a thousand other uncomfortable feelingsthat it is horrible to sit with.

  So the Subconsciousis trying to help but causing chaos: unease, panic attacks, a roller coaster ofadrenalin rushes, immobilizing wells of rumination. My subconsciousis a drama queen, a catastrophizer, an over-reacter.

 Thanks for that, SubconsciousMind. The upcoming event was challenging enough, but now you’ve summoned up theMonkey of Dread to sit on my chest at four in the morning. Really helpful.

It could be thatback when we were hunter gatherers before farming caught on, the threats we’dface would be short-lived and real, and needing a swift and definite responsefor survival, so this super-reactive subconscious was useful to us. But in ourworld now, so much is long term, complicated and imaginary, so the subconscious’sresponse can be way more mental anguish than must be good for us.

The writer DaisyGoodwin, on Radio 4’sSaturday Live, said: “I think all creative artists are to some extentdepressives, they write to get out of that slough of despond.”

But I wonder if theover-active imaginations that dream up worlds also fuel over-powerful anxieties.

It might be thatbook-makers, who spend so much time living in their own minds inventing stories– could be prone to the roller-coaster rides conjured up by an over-activeimagination. So it’s important to escape sometimes.

This is how Iescape, when I can.

If I can, I gorunning first thing in the morning. (If you can run or walk it is win-win-winin so many way: exercise, endorphins, sunlight, changing nature, and more.)

Then I go down thebottom of the garden, and think about my Nine Things.

I adapted my NineThings from Jon Kabat Zinn’s 9 attitudes. Thank you Jon. It's an attempt to reframe my day, and to shift from being immersed in my feelings or worries ( like a fish in water who can't see the water), to being an interested observer of what's going on in me today.

Mini’s Nine Things:

Patience How can Ibring patience to what may be happening today? It could be patience about whatneeds to be done, and where I am in getting it done; patience with my ownfeelings; patience to remake things that need to be remade.

Acceptance How can I bring acceptance: to be OK with thingstaking longer than I thought they would, to shake hands with an uncomfortablefeeling and let it sit next to me.

Trust I can have trust:I can trust myownself that’s had a lifetime of looking after me, I can trustthe skills I’ve used a million times, I can trust in my people, the world, theProtector of all Small Things, the Universe.

Letting Go/Letting Be Thingsdo not need to be resolved right now, they can hang and wait, like a pot on awheel. (Sorry about that simile.) Things can be fine just as they are. Don’tjust do something, stand there…

Everything’s an Offer Todayis the present – with all it offers. Accept the offers and do what you can withthem. And when the offer is something you don’t want – sometimes that’s theoffer you can learn most of all from.

I Change My Mind, I Follow My Skis My first ski instructor, Jeff, said this. I think itmeans: Jeff has been skiing so long that all his body understands how to skiand he can just follow his body’s well-experienced decisions.

Gratitude Thank you!!! Fortoday! For my family, my friends, for having a house, for living in this goodplace…Thank you, overactive brain, for trying to keep me safe…

Generosity What or whocan I bring generosity too? Can I pay more attention to my family? Can I bringsome generosity to myself…?

Beginner’s Mind Thisis about looking at the world as if you were seeing it for the first time.Often we see the familiar and we see what we are expecting to see. With thetruly unfamiliar, really new things, we have no expectations and what we seecan be surprising.

With beginner’smind – you can escape “the anaesthetic of familiarity” (Richard Dawkins) – and discover thateverything is interesting, nothing is ordinary, nothing is ‘obvious’. That weare sentient and alive on a living planet for a brief window of time isvanishingly rare and extraordinary.

        Mini's latest book is The Greatest Show on Earth, published by Puffin.