A Different Life

January 10, 2024

How Understanding the Subconscious Mind Changed the Way I Work and Live

A few years ago I spent three days in Holland on a training called Ander Leven.

The name means A Different Life, and although nothing dramatic happened in those days, something important shifted. It was a quiet turning point. The kind that unfolds slowly and stays with you for years. It changed how I see myself, how I understand human behaviour, and how I support women in their marketing work today.

A Quiet Turning Point

The training created space for insight rather than intensity. Instead of promising instant transformation, it offered clarity. It encouraged a slower pace and a more honest relationship with the mind. This approach matched something in me that had always been searching for a gentler way to grow. What I learned during those three days felt like someone handing me a language for things I had sensed but never fully understood.

Meeting the Subconscious with Awareness

Most of us move through life assuming our choices are guided by logic. Yet so much of what we do and feel is shaped by the subconscious. This part of the mind carries memories, beliefs, and patterns formed long before we had the awareness to question them. It influences our behaviour with remarkable consistency. When I understood this in a clear and grounded way it felt like discovering a new room inside myself. A room that had always existed but had never been entered with intention.

Understanding Early Patterns

The subconscious mind holds the messages we absorbed in childhood. These messages create emotional templates and habitual responses. They shape our sense of what is safe, what is expected, and what is possible. Many of these beliefs do not match who we have become as adults. Yet they continue to influence how we react, what we reach for, and what we avoid. Recognising this opened a doorway for me. It allowed me to meet my reactions with curiosity rather than frustration.

The Practice of Conscious Repetition

One of the most accessible tools introduced in the training was the practice of choosing our thoughts with intention. This was not about forcing positivity. It was about understanding how the brain learns. Repetition creates familiarity. Familiarity becomes acceptance. Acceptance turns into belief. When I began practising consciously chosen thoughts I noticed subtle changes in how I responded to challenges. It was not fast. It was not flashy. It was steady and supportive. Over time this practice softened patterns that had once felt immovable.

The Role of Visualization

Another significant piece of the work was visualization. It was presented simply. When the mind receives a clear image of the future you are moving toward, it begins to collaborate with that direction. It reduces internal resistance. It highlights opportunities. It allows decisions to come with more ease. I incorporated short moments of visualisation into my days. Nothing elaborate. Just a few minutes of seeing myself as grounded, capable, and steady. These images, held consistently, began to feel less like a dream and more like a path.

Meeting Limiting Beliefs

The training also introduced a gentle way of confronting limiting beliefs. Instead of challenging them through force or self criticism, the practice was to observe them. A belief is not an identity. It is a learned pattern. This distinction made room for compassion. It helped me recognise that what I once assumed reflected my nature was often just an echo of early conditioning. As I learned to meet these beliefs with honesty rather than resistance, they gradually lost their hold.

A New Approach to Intention and Goals

Before this training I often approached goals through effort and determination. It worked, but it also drained me. The training offered a different perspective. When your subconscious believes in the direction you are taking, effort does not have to feel like strain. Intention becomes a guiding thread. Progress becomes the result of consistent, grounded steps rather than inner force. This approach has stayed with me. It created more ease in my personal life and also reshaped the way I run my business.

How This Work Shapes the Way I Support Women Today

Understanding the subconscious mind continues to shape how I support women with their marketing. Many feel overwhelmed not because they lack ability, but because their internal patterns are working against them. When you believe you must always do more, you build strategies that exhaust you. When you believe you need to perform, your voice tightens. When you believe you are behind, your creativity shuts down. When these patterns become conscious, everything softens. You begin to create from a grounded place. Your presence online becomes steadier. Your communication becomes clearer. Your decisions feel lighter. This is the quiet authority that comes from alignment rather than pressure.

The Difference Between Noise and Presence

Marketing is often taught as a loud activity. A race for attention. A performance. But sustainable marketing begins with internal clarity. When you understand the patterns that drive you, you no longer chase every trend or force yourself into strategies that drain your energy. Instead, you create a rhythm that supports both your work and your wellbeing. The women I work with often describe this as a sense of returning home to themselves. A feeling of ease that replaces the urgency that once guided their decisions.

A Continuing Practice

The training in Holland did not give me a new life. It gave me a new way of relating to the one I already had. It taught me that meaningful change is not a single event. It is a steady practice of awareness and choice. There are still days when old patterns appear. The difference is that I meet them with understanding rather than criticism. This ongoing process continues to shape every part of my life. It guides the way I work. It influences how I support clients. And it strengthens my belief that ease and clarity are not luxuries. They are essential.

An Invitation to Begin

If you are feeling the desire for change in your own life or work, consider this your invitation. You do not need to change everything. You do not need to force a new beginning. You can start with awareness. You can observe the patterns that guide your decisions. You can notice where things feel heavy and where they feel natural. This alone begins to shift your relationship with your mind. From that place, change becomes possible. It becomes softer, more intuitive, and far more sustainable.

Your subconscious is shaping you whether you engage with it or not. When you choose to meet it with intention, you open the door to a way of living and working that feels more grounded and more honest. And when your inner life aligns with your outer actions, ease becomes available in ways that might once have felt out of reach.