Unconscious Patterns, Our Words, and Other Mental Processes

We determine what we have, what happens, and for sure, how we respond. This is the tenet of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the essence of Logotherapy, and the essence of many other evidence-based interventions practiced throughout the world, in both psychotherapy, coaching, and in the business world.

We also determine what we do not have and what does not happen. And one of the ways we do so is by how we talk about things, which is often connected to how we feel, how we think, and to our belief system. All of this represents the unconscious patterns of the mind, and they are often shown through our words, behaviors, habits, and results.

Shakespeare[1], the greatest writer of the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist, knew a thing or two about words. He understood there was nothing good or bad except as determined by our thinking.

We love labels[2], we love labeling, we love passing judgment, and we love judging others. We love judging ourselves too. We label ourselves. We call ourselves stupid, and inadequate; and, we do it in such a way that we feel it with all our being. We shoot ourselves in the foot. [3]

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, there is a cognitive distortion known as “All or Nothing Thinking.[4]” In other words, it is either this or that. A Cognitive Behavioral therapist tries to help individuals with this by asking them a series of questions to help them to see the gray area. But for many people, this rarely works because part of us knows that everything influences everything else; and that, we may know, at a conscious or an unconscious level. In other words, part of us knows that we choose the words ourselves, often based on how we feel and how we think. All of this is based on the meaning we assign to things. This meaning, in turn, is based on our perceptions, attitude, and beliefs, hence our Blueprint.

But as Shakespeare says, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.[5]” If only we could start understanding this on an experiential level, rather than an intellectual one, our lives would never be the same.

Here’s an illustration of how nothing in and of itself is either good or bad: Two people are out to lunch, both healthy and fit.  One chooses dessert for lunch and is completely enjoying the delicacy of the desserts they ordered.  The other is abstaining from dessert entirely and dieting to maintain their weight. Have you ever been in this situation? Now, given that they are both fit, it would be hard to blame dessert, alone, as being the “bad thing.” In fact, for dessert alone to be the cause of weight gain, there has to be something more going on, and at least a combination of genetics, experience, and beliefs. But, the dessert, in and of itself, is hardly what makes anyone gain weight.

The unconscious patterns of our mind are outside of our awareness. We can have a sense of them if we start to pay closer attention to our mental processes, that is, our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, habits, and results. Further, direct access to the unconscious mind for an experiential discovery of these patterns is what it takes to undo them in the most efficient and sustainable way possible.

One great practice that can help with that is paying closer attention to the words we’re using and how we are using them.

[1] Ackroyd, Peter (2006). Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Vintage. ISBN978-0-7493-8655-9.

[2] Mehta, V. (2011, November 20). The Neurobiology of ‘labeling’. HuffPost. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/problems-with-assigning-labels_b_970326

[3] Giffin, C., Wilkenfeld, D., & Lombrozo, T. (2017, August 8). The explanatory effect of a label: Explanations with named categories are more satisfying. Cognition. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010027717302147?via%3Dihub

[4] Oshio, Atsushi. “An all‐or‐nothing thinking turns into darkness: Relations between dichotomous thinking and personality disorders 1.” Japanese Psychological Research 54.4 (2012): 424-429.

[5] Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. George Richard Hibbard. Oxford University Press, 2008. Google Books.