The subconscious mind is responsible for 95% of your life, shaping your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors without you even realizing it. Between the ages of 0-7, your brain is in full absorption mode, soaking up experiences that form the foundation of your subconscious beliefs, many of which are outdated but still running the show. These limiting beliefs shape how you see yourself, what you believe is possible, and the patterns you repeat.
The good news? Your subconscious isn’t fixed, it can be reprogrammed. If you’ve ever felt stuck in the same cycles no matter how much effort you put in, it’s likely because your subconscious programming is running the show. Learning how to reprogram your subconscious mind is the key to shifting your beliefs, rewriting your patterns, and creating real transformation. Let’s explore how to work with this powerful part of your mind to unlock change.
What Is the Subconscious?
Think of your subconscious as the autopilot of your brain. It drives automatic behaviors, from habits to beliefs to physical movements. It’s why you don’t have to think about brushing your teeth or how to get to work without GPS. It frees up space for you to learn, adapt, and evolve.
Your subconscious is also a master of pattern recognition. It picks up on tiny details such as facial expressions, energetic shifts, and body language far before your conscious mind even registers them. This makes it deeply tied to intuition.
Research by John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin found that decisions could be traced in brain activity up to 10 seconds before people became consciously aware of them. This suggests the subconscious isn’t just running in the background, it’s leading the way in decision-making.
Simply put, your subconscious is shaping your reality, whether you realize it or not.
The Limiting Beliefs of Your Subconscious
None of us are immune to limiting beliefs. If you’ve ever felt undeserving, unworthy, or not good enough despite logically knowing otherwise, you’ve been impacted by subconscious programming.
As previously mentioned, between ages 0-7, your subconscious acts as a sponge, absorbing experiences that shape your sense of self. A parent who yells at you out of stress? Your young mind doesn’t rationalize that they had a bad day. Instead, it assumes: I must be bad. And this belief embeds itself into the subconscious mind, influencing behaviors and choices for years.
The subconscious isn’t trying to torture you, it’s trying to keep you safe. If a belief protected you as a child, your subconscious holds onto it, even if it now causes harm. The good news? You can reprogram these outdated beliefs.
Why Focusing on the Subconscious Is Crucial for Change
If only 5% of your daily life happens through conscious awareness, it makes sense to focus on the other 95%. Many people struggle to change because they’re working only at the conscious level. They set goals, repeat affirmations, and push through, but if the subconscious isn’t on board, they stay stuck in old patterns. This is a big reason why positive affirmations aren’t enough and often don’t work.
For example, if your subconscious believes “I’m not good enough,” no amount of saying “I am abundant” will override that. Instead, you’ll unconsciously seek evidence to confirm your limiting belief. This is why real transformation happens at the subconscious level first.
Reprogramming your subconscious mind requires accessing deeper layers through methods like:
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
- IFS (Internal Family Systems)
- Deep visualization
- High-dose psychedelic journeys
- Microdosing psychedelics (one of the most accessible ways to work with subconscious patterns in real time)
Let’s explore how these methods facilitate change.
How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind
EMDR: Reprocessing Trauma
EMDR is a therapeutic modality that helps people reprocess traumatic memories by stimulating bilateral eye movement. This creates an access point into the subconscious, allowing new outcomes and beliefs to be formed. It’s especially effective for trauma survivors but can also help anyone who feels blocked in life.
In my own experience with EMDR I worked with a therapist on a deeply traumatic memory I had from when I was 15. This was a time in my life where addiction was impacting me indirectly and my adolescent brain interpreted a lot of it as my fault and my responsibility to fix. Because of this, I deeply believed I always had to be hyper-vigilante about my surroundings and hyper attentive to the people I care I about, an exhausting aspect of my life that prevented me from attuning to my own needs. Through EMDR I reporcessed the memory to take care of my own needs, allowing someone to comfort and care for me as I was feeling increasingly more vulnerable. Post-reprocessing I no longer felt triggered or activated by this memory, it held a completely different story for me that even though other people around me were struggling and needed extra support, that I was also okay and safe to have needs and could rely on others and myself to meet them. This is a powerful therapeutic tool, needless to say.
IFS: Parts Work for Inner Harmony
Internal Family Systems (IFS) sees the psyche as made up of parts, each with its own belief system. Some parts hold onto wounds (exiles), others try to control everything (managers), and some react impulsively (firefighters). The goal of IFS is to unburden these parts so they can operate in harmony, guided by the Self—a state of compassion, curiosity, and confidence.
By working with your parts, you can reprogram subconscious beliefs that have dictated your behaviors for years.
IFS pairs well with psychedelic work because of the focus on inner-exploration, compassion and integration. Both models foster a sense of understanding to apply into daily behaviors and lifestyle and are meant to address the root cause of inner conflict as a way to evolve through the processing and healing of these root causes. When you seek for your answers within yourself and allow the answers to be self-led, you’re bound to find an authentic expression that works just for you.
Deep Visualization: Creating New Neural Pathways
Visualization allows you to rewrite old memories and create new subconscious patterns. In a relaxed state, you revisit a memory where you formed a limiting belief. Then, you reimagine the scenario with a new belief, one that aligns with who you want to be.
The more you repeat this, the more your subconscious accepts the new belief as truth.
Some people connect with this modality more than others based on how well they can visualize and feel into future states of being. Some great resources for this work that have impacted me greatly include Joe Dispenza’s books and workshops and To Be Magnetic.
High-Dose Psychedelic Journeys: Breaking Open the Mind and Feeling Into the Body
Macrodoses of psilocybin, LSD, or DMT temporarily shut down the Default Mode Network (DMN), the part of the brain responsible for your sense of self. This allows for radical shifts in perspective, deep emotional release, and access to buried subconscious material. More than that, they also help you access deep emotions associated with these subconscious memories and new perspective shifts. When you can fully process an emotion that has been repressed or embody an emotion you may have never fully felt before, radical changes can happen.
In The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explores how trauma isn’t just something we think about, it lives in the body, down to a cellular level, shaping our nervous system, emotions, and the way we move through the world. Trauma isn’t just a story in our minds; it’s woven into our physiology, influencing how we feel, react, and relate to ourselves and others. Healing requires accessing these stored memories not just through talking, but through the body. High-dose psychedelic experiences can facilitate this movement whether through somatic experiencing, dancing, and intuitive breathing while also enhancing the brain’s ability to create new neural pathways and thoughts that support a more aligned way of living beyond these old survival methods.
However, integration is key. Without post-journey work, old patterns re-emerge. This is where coaching and structured integration come in, to ensure your insights translate into lasting change. The emotions and repressed memories we hold have the power to be transmuted into purposeful action and reframed as part our larger healing journey.
Microdosing Psychedelics: Daily Integration of Subconscious Awareness
Microdosing (taking small, sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics) creates gentle shifts in awareness without overwhelming the system. Unlike a high-dose journey, microdosing integrates seamlessly into daily life, allowing you to observe patterns in real time and work through subconscious blocks as they arise.
Clients I work with often notice:
- Greater emotional awareness and emotional resilience
- Increased intuition
- More ease in shifting limiting beliefs
- A deepened connection to self
The beauty of microdosing is that it happens in real-time as you move through your day, old habits and emotions arise, giving you the opportunity to interrupt the pattern and reprogram it in the moment.
Microdosing became my most powerful ally in transforming my anxiety from a constant source of frustration into a guide, showing me how to create the life I truly desired. What moves me most about microdosing is the subtle yet profound way it helps us see into our psyche and tune into how our body is responding. I deeply believe that when we can locate where an emotion lives in our body, trace it back to its root, understand how it’s shaping our daily experience, and have the right tools to transmute it into wisdom and aligned action, we unlock powerful momentum toward the lives we are meant for. This is especially potent during times of painful transition or deep resistance, microdosing creates an opening, revealing the patterns that keep you stuck and inviting new ways of being. It fosters sustainable shifts, not by forcing change, but by expanding your capacity to move with life rather than against it. The wisdom of the medicine, in collaboration with your own deep knowing, cultivates a new kind of freedom, one where you are no longer just surviving, but actively creating a life that feels aligned and alive.
Curious but not sure, explore if microdosing is right for you.
Small Steps Lead to Big Change
The subconscious resists sudden, drastic change. If you try to overhaul your beliefs overnight, your nervous system will push back. Instead, incremental shifts create lasting transformation.
Working just outside your comfort zone builds capacity over time. The more you stretch yourself while maintaining safety, the easier it becomes to adopt new beliefs and behaviors. This requires patience and consistent effort. The more committed to the goal of living with more freedom and in aligned purpose, the more rewarding connecting to these tiny shifts will feel. Don’t try and be a hero, there’s nothing shameful about taking your time creating the life you so deeply desire.
Final Thoughts: The Work Is Worth It
Your subconscious isn’t your enemy, it’s your greatest asset once you learn how to work with it. Rewriting outdated programming isn’t about “fixing” yourself; it’s about becoming the version of you that’s already there, buried under conditioning.
This process takes patience, but every shift creates a ripple effect in your life. If you’re ready to dive in, I offer 1:1 coaching and microdosing support to help you navigate this journey. Book a complimentary sample session with me to start reprogramming your subconscious and tap into the wisdom that exists within your emotions that block you from accessing your subconscious beliefs.
If we haven’t met yet, hi! I’m Lex Joyal — Microdosing coach who is passionate about helping highly sensitive humans connect with their emotions, stop people pleasing and live a life they love with the help of psychedelics If you like my content and want more of it in your life, here are a few ways you can connect with me:
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