dogmas, and perceive reality the same ways. About 95 percent of who we
are by midlife^1 is a series of subconscious programs that have become
automatic—driving a car, brushing our teeth, overeating when we’re
stressed, worrying about our future, judging our friends, complaining about
our lives, blaming our parents, not believing in ourselves, and insisting on
being chronically unhappy, just to name a few.
Often We Only Appear to Be Awake
Since the body becomes the subconscious mind, it’s easy to see that in
situations when the body becomes the mind, the conscious mind no longer
has much to do with our behavior. The instant we have a thought, feeling, or
reaction, the body runs on automatic pilot. We go unconscious.
Take, for example, a mother driving a minivan to drop her kids off at
school. How is she able to navigate traffic, break up arguments, drink her
coffee, shift gears, and help her son blow his nose ... all at once? Much like
a computer program, these actions have become automatic functions that
can run very fluidly and easily. Mom’s body is skillfully doing everything
because it has memorized how to do all these deeds through much
repetition. She no longer has any conscious thought about how she does
them; they are habitual.
Think about that: 5 percent of the mind is conscious, struggling against
the 95 percent that is running subconscious automatic programs. We’ve
memorized a set of behaviors so well that we have become an automatic,
habitual body-mind. In fact, when the body has memorized a thought,
action, or feeling to the extent that the body is the mind—when mind and
body are one—we are (in a state of) being the memory of ourselves. And if
95 percent of who we are by age 35 is a set of involuntary programs,
memorized behaviors, and habitual emotional reactions, it follows that 95
percent of our day, we are unconscious. We only appear to be awake. Yikes!
So a person may consciously want to be happy, healthy, or free, but the
experience of hosting 20 years of suffering and the repeated cycling of
those chemicals of pain and pity have subconsciously conditioned the body
to be in a habitual state. We live by habit when we’re no longer aware of
what we’re thinking, doing, or feeling; we become unconscious.