I had seen Iyanla Vanzant on television for many years. For those who aren’t familiar with her, she offers counseling on a show called “Iyanla Fix My Life.” When her book “Get Over It” came on the market, I had not planned on reading it mostly because I had too many other books on my list. Interestingly, the book kept coming up in conversation and I decided to move it up to the top of my list.
We have three levels of awareness: unconscious awareness, conscious awareness, and subconscious awareness. Most of our day-to-day activities are unconscious which is why we love routine. When we have a routine, we can get through our day with little thinking or planning. Conscious awareness is mindfulness. The best example I can give you of conscious awareness is going on a diet. After starting a diet, how many times to you catch yourself grabbing for food only to have to stop and look at the calorie amount of what you are getting ready to eat.? This is one of the reasons diets fail. We get impatient with being mindful about what we are eating, among other things, and regress back to what we were doing. Subconscious awareness is a mental file of all our past experiences. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to store the negative experiences. Feelings like guilt, shame, abandonment, fear, inferiority, pride, etc.
Why are these levels of awareness important to know? If we have a number of negative thoughts in our subconscious mind, these thoughts will surface when situations come up in the present. “Get Over It’ addresses the subconscious mind and gives step-by-step guidance to the reader to work through old stuff.
I traveled up to Atlanta last week to hear Iyanlya speak and am anxious to share a lot of what I have learned with my clients here in Hernando County. Please continue to follow me on Facebook and here at Hernandocountytherapy.com.
Please feel free to e-mail me with a topic for my blog next month.