Chapter 3: Discovering Who’s Directing Your Life 37
Your unconscious mind – the preserver of memories
In 1957, the Penfield study indicated that all your experiences are recorded
faithfully in memory. While awake, a woman’s brain was stimulated with an
electrode and Penfield discovered that the woman was able to recall vividly
the details of a childhood party, in minute detail. The storage and organisa-
tion of these memories is the responsibility of the unconscious mind.Part of the function of the unconscious mind is to repress memories with
unresolved negative emotions.
Diane’s relationship with Tom broke up and she started having severe stom-
ach cramps for which the doctors could find no physical cause. In therapy,
Diane remembered the day her mother left the family for another man. She got
a picture of her mother driving away and Diane sobbing ‘Come back mummy,
my tummy hurts.’ Diane realised that the stomach ache she used as a child as
a ploy to get her mother to come back had been recreated by her unconscious
mind as a ploy to get Tom back. The memory had lain dormant all those years.Another function of the unconscious mind is to present repressed memories
for examination in order to release trapped emotions. Unfortunately, like
very young children embarrassing their parents in public, the unconscious
mind doesn’t always pick the most appropriate time to present a memory
that needs to be examined. So you can be at a family gathering, basking in
feelings of love and contentment, when your unconscious mind says to you,
‘deal with the memory when dad smacked you on your birthday... now!’ and
suddenly you’re blubbing into your trifle in front of your highly embarrassed
relatives.Your unconscious mind is a lean, mean learning machine
Your unconscious thrives on new experiences. It needs to be fed with new
possibilities and gets you into trouble when you don’t keep it from getting
bored.We know of a very kind, generous, extremely clever person who got very
bored at work. Instead of finding constructive ways to alleviate his boredom,
he became hooked on playing computer games. This addiction had some very
severe repercussions in his life. Luckily, a new job brought new challenges
and he’s now very successful in his chosen profession.You can find constructive ways of keeping your mind occupied, such as read-
ing, doing puzzles, or taking up a hobby. Activities like these make your brain
cells grow more physical dendrites (the branches of a brain cell) and keep
you mentally fitter. And for calming your mind, keeping stress levels at bay,
and increasing your creativity, nothing works better than meditation.