Time to Come Home Surfaces Struggles We Face In Embracing Self-Love

Time to Come Home: Sowing the Seeds of Self-Love for Lasting Happiness deals with the struggles many of us face in embracing self-love, exploring the root causes of our reluctance, and experiencing the transformative power of self-compassion. Through personal anecdotes and professional insights, the book highlights the common misconceptions and deep-seated beliefs that hinder us from nurturing a loving relationship with ourselves.

An Excerpt From Time to Come Home

Say Hello to Your Mind

What is the mind? This question has fascinated scientists and researchers for decades. Many of them view the mind and brain as two aspects of the same phenomenon, with the mind emerging from the brain’s complex activity of the neurons and synapses. The systematic study of the mind goes back to the Ancient Greeks—Plato and Aristotle—who tried to understand and explain the nature of the human mind. As the field of Psychology gained prominence around the 19th century, several schools of Psychology emerged with their definition and understanding of the mind. It remains an intriguing topic. However, for our understanding, we will keep it simple and not turn this into a Psychology class.

To begin with, let us first understand that we have a brain, which is a physical organ, observed and studied through techniques like neuroimaging. The mind is a more complex and abstract concept that is difficult to define and measure. While there are various theories of the mind, including the infamous Iceberg Model by Dr Sigmund Freud, I will talk about one that’s a bit short and easy to understand. This theory was proposed by Dr John Kappas, a prominent psychologist, hypnotherapist, author, and educator who had made significant contributions to the field of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy.

According to his theory, the human mind is divided into two major parts—the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious mind cares for one’s logical thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving. The active and alert part of the mind makes up for 12 per cent of our entire mind. This part is aware of everything that is happening within you. On the other hand, your subconscious mind, which constitutes the remaining 88 per cent of your mind, takes care of everything happening within you, but you unaware of its working. It operates below the level of conscious awareness and is responsible for processing emotions, memories, and other information not directly accessible to the conscious thought. 

We also have the primitive mind, which is a part of the subconscious mind, which exists at the time of birth and contains our basic survival responses such as flight, fight, freeze, and inborn reflexes to loud noises or falling. Between the conscious and subconscious, rests the critical filter that is typically formed between the ages of 0–5 years and consists of rules and beliefs required to lead our lives. Thus, what we think we know about ourselves is only 12 per cent and a large chunk of information lies within the subconscious, completely hidden from our awareness. 

Even though the basic workings of the mind are the same for everyone, there are individual differences in how each one of us perceives the world. We constantly receive truckloads of information from the world through our senses, but our mind creates its understanding and interpretation around the given information. You must have heard of the ‘glass half-full, half-empty’ proverbial phrase. This means that we all view the world differently, which, in turn, impacts how we think, feel, and respond to every person or situation we come across. At times, we are aware of what’s happening, and, at others, we may be completely clueless. This understanding of our mind is essential because even on a day-to-day basis, there are several thoughts, emotions, and behaviours we engage in that we do not know about. 

When we talk about the so-called struggle between the heart and the mind, it is the struggle between the conscious (logic) and the subconscious (emotion). When our logic and emotions are aligned, we feel stable and connected with ourselves. There is a sense of direction and purpose in our actions. However, problems arise when they move in opposite directions. Through my inner work during and after my master’s degree, I understood that a major disconnection between my conscious and subconscious led to the entire master’s fiasco. It was quite simple—I made the logical choice of going to a prestigious university while subconsciously, I wanted to go somewhere else. However, my tendency to try and be perfect, do the right thing, make the right choice, and fear of disappointing people made me choose otherwise. I pushed myself to accept this decision even though my heart was not in it, and I made the wrong choice. Eventually, I created the circumstance I always wanted to avoid—trying not to disappoint anyone. Then I spent the rest of my years covering up my failures by adopting more self-destructive patterns. Eventually, I found it hard to switch off.

I came back to India and enrolled in a master’s degree. In a bid to compensate for the London debacle, I pushed myself to perform well, which extracted a huge cost, and I did not realise this until later. I kept doing similar things in other areas of my life as well. It was only when I became aware of my actions that I turned things around. Yet, there was a lot to be uncovered.

Excerpted from Time to Come Home: Sowing the Seeds of Self-Love for Lasting Happiness written by Damini Grover; published by Hay House India