As a chapter about the mind could encompass all of psychology, most of psychiatry, significant parts of neurology, and knowledge from other sciences, we will open only the window serving this book’s purpose. That includes the primary division of the mind according to levels of consciousness and the roles of the mind in daily life, trauma, and healing.
The mind is the psychological dimension through which we perceive, interpret, structure, and react to our reality, being the primary tool for navigating our lives. Since the mind prefers the integrity of its reality framework, if needed, it fills the gaps with whatever is available, fabrications included. That means it may first have an unfinished framework and then choose what needs to be perceived, interpreting it in alignment with its purpose, regardless of a reality check. Once gaps are filled, the mind prefers to leave them untouched, to protect the stability of the heavily built subjective reality, with little regard for truthfulness. This is important to be aware of throughout life, as this principle is one of the major obstacles in mental maturation: the recognition that “I may be wrong.”
The mind operates in complementary modes of information-processing. It may be proactive, when space allows for creativity: generating ideas, exploring possibilities, or reflecting on experiences. Functionally, this engages in a top-down signal flow. Or it may be reactive: responding to external or internal stimuli and reacting accordingly. This corresponds to a bottom-up signal flow. Both processes usually overlap; hence, even when our mind wanders in its own realm, its reactivity persists. Yet, the degree of reactivity depends on the engagement in its wandering and the intensity of the intrusion.
The structure of the mind can be divided into conscious and subconscious levels. The conscious mind is the one that is observable and available to work with. It is the voice that thinks, plans, makes deliberate choices, and right now, it is reading and interpreting these words. Nevertheless, it often remains unobserved and neglected. Based on the degree of awareness, I would like to distinguish three states of the conscious mind that I encountered along my journey.
Conscious Mind
The first state to mention is the autonomous conscious mind. This is the state we are in when cooking a familiar meal or doing routine shopping. We are conscious, aware of our actions and thoughts, but our attention is shallow and disengaged, for our mind relies on well-known scenarios. We are awake, yet not truly present. Unfortunately, we spend, I am afraid, most of our time in this state, leaving our mind unobserved, in autonomic mode, mainly reactive and reliant on external circumstances. Then we are full of excuses that we could not have done anything else. Well... we are often choosing to be unable to do anything else.
In the second state, we observe our thoughts but have little to no power to direct them. This is widely experienced before sleep, when the mind begins racing, intrusively disrupting our rest. We do not want to think anymore, while the mind just enjoys its daily highlight. It can also occur after a traumatic event, tied to intense emotional overwhelm, grief, where thoughts are generated, loop, and race, torturing us beyond our control. We are trapped with them, witnessing the intense turmoil of our own minds. This can subsequently slip further into rumination, a process in which an intense emotional load stirs repetitive thoughts.
Finally, there is the relieving mindful presence, a state of proactive, deliberate, regulated awareness. In this neurologically identifiable state, attention is gently modulated with intention and stability. Thoughts are settled, awareness provides stable ground, and we thoughtfully choose where to direct our focus. It is an unwinding state of being: centered presence, observing, rooted in stillness, as thoughts drift through the mind. This state is available to all of us. (Numerous chapters will be devoted to this theme.)
Subconscious Mind, Subconsciousness
While discussing the subconscious mind, I will broaden the terminology, shifting from the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind to the dimensions of consciousness and subconsciousness, a framing more suitable for this purpose.
The subconscious mind, or the dimension of subconsciousness, operates beneath conscious awareness. Approaching it requires effort, and even then, we may not succeed. On the other hand, it often approaches us (especially during sleep) while processing unresolved material. When overloaded, it may generate intense unrest – disturbing, yet indicative of ongoing internal transformation.
It is a vast and powerful realm, more diverse than consciousness, keeping track of an enormous amount of information, experiences, and patterns. Its reaction time is also much faster, predicting outcomes based on its extensive data, while consciousness is still clueless about the situation. As a result, its reactions may precede conscious processes, which makes it, especially in dangerous situations, a life-saving force.
We often use the term in the context of repressed memories or emotions – usually from early life or trauma – which are stored in the brain’s library and may surface in dreams, flashbacks, or fears. Subconscious reactions are then triggered automatically when the subconscious detects cues in the environment resembling past experiences.
Altogether, subconsciousness manifests itself in our daily life as impulses, gut feelings, ingrained habits; it shapes our emotions, mood, reactions, and behavior while staying away from the spotlight. It is important to mention that subconsciousness is accessible. We can unlock its gates, peek, observe, understand, learn, or even retrieve some unprocessed memories, traumas, and attend to them. I would emphasize approaching subconsciousness only through conscious processes to prevent opening a Pandora’s box. Consciousness is well equipped to discern what should and what should not be released.
Lastly, we have to distinguish subconsciousness from the automatic, procedural mind, which manages repetitive activities like walking or cycling. It is controlled primarily by the cerebellum, the brain’s center for motor coordination, responsible for encoding and executing countless overlearned sequences. Once a task is consciously learned to the point of automaticity, the cerebellum takes over, operating almost entirely without our attention. As a matter of fact, consciously recalling procedural memories would be tricky, for they encode muscular patterns and skills, not narrative memories, thoughts, or stories.
Trauma
To define trauma, we can generally say that it is one’s response to a distressing event or series of events that overwhelm the ability to cope. I must make clear that each person has different coping abilities, and even within a single life, these abilities can vary. You can imagine it as a buffer, like your computer’s operational memory; once it is full, we cannot cope right down to spilled coffee. It can be full from an overwhelming daily routine, lack of sleep, or illness. Anything that drains our energy (remember ATP) is distressing, fills our buffer zone, and decreases our coping abilities.
Similarly, as different models of operational memory vary in allocation, capacity, or speed, each of us has learned our own coping mechanisms for various situations, with variable impact. Never ever compare yourself with others, nor yourself – it is a highway to perdition. Do not compare to feel worse (to doom yourself), do not compare to feel better (to doom yourself later), and do not compare one person to another (general dooming).
Once the buffer capacity is low, we are vulnerable, and ordinary daily tasks easily exceed our limits, forcing us to operate on mental debt. Hence, an example of a distressing series of events leading to trauma may be our demanding daily life. Maybe we stop laughing, find meeting people exhausting, or develop an aversion towards the job we once liked. We think we should drive ourselves, pushing full throttle with a seized engine.
What was at first mainly an issue of conscious decisions (probably under autonomous conscious activity) slowly diffuses into the subconscious, reinforcing traumatic pathways, with emotions compliantly following the pattern, creating uncontrolled autonomous schemas. Neuromuscular, hormonal, immunological, and other bodily changes unfold subsequently, altogether creating a new state of being. Possibly a psychiatric disorder. This is just an edge case; conceivably, a good talk with a friend, an evening in the theatre, holidays, or regular exercise may change the direction – again, depending on our coping mechanisms.
A bit more straightforward is trauma caused by a distressing event, as the change is abrupt – easily connected to the situation. However, the situation itself does not need to be obviously traumatic; it may simply be a matter of wrong timing, when the system is already depleted. Or the aftermath may manifest only after some other event or series of events – paradoxically, even positive ones (since positive stress is still stressful).
Healing
Once trauma is well settled in our system, we may acknowledge our unease as we feel obviously miserable. It usually takes quite some time to mobilize ourselves for the healing journey itself.
Having firmly decided to heal (and regularly visiting a psychotherapist – always recommended), our first and most powerful ally would be our mindful presence, initiated as a curious, conscious observer. Presumably, we first need to learn how to observe our thoughts (not only when they intrude), and we will work through this later. For now, it suffices to understand that we are able to deliberately observe our thoughts and their consequences; through this practice we gradually cultivate self-awareness – the capacity to notice rising thoughts and also choose their future destiny. In the course of healing, this enables us to refrain from adding or further perpetuating malignant thoughts, thereby easing our emotional burden.
Further, the mind, attuned by the conscious observer, is ready to deepen awareness of integrated mind-body processes by identifying thoughts as triggers for bodily sensations, and consciously choosing an action: whether within the mind – top-down methods – sending calming signals to the deeper, more reactive parts of the brain (e.g., relaxing thoughts), or engaging the body – bottom-up methods – calming the system through guided bodily mechanisms and exercises (e.g., deep breathing).
The next layer to address is subconsciousness, for this is the system that holds the core of the trauma. Here, traumatic memories are imprinted with strong emotional associations. Memories themselves may remain inaccessible – due to such an extreme event, emotional burden, or their burial under a pile of other memories. If emotional association is active, the amygdala – essential in emotional processing – may flood the body with emotions and sensations based on the specific affective relation, even without us having access to explicit memory. The hippocampus – supporting emotional memory – may struggle to place the traumatic experience in its proper context, further impairing the recognition that the distressing event belongs to the past. This is why our emotional responses may sometimes feel disproportionate to the current situation, and why subtle cues in the environment may trigger a wave of sensations without any conscious thought.
For healing, then, we must involve communicating with subconsciousness on all three levels – directly trying to access subconsciousness through a conscious approach (consciousness – subconsciousness), calming top-down methods (consciousness – emotions – subconsciousness), and bottom-up methods (body – emotions – subconsciousness). Through these comforting experiences, besides reducing emotional overwhelm, we may enter a safe state where deeply held emotional patterns can be gradually restructured.
The automatic mind also plays its role, as trauma easily becomes deeply embedded in its procedural system. Protective postures, chronic muscle tension, a held breath, or a reflexive flinch are automatic, cerebellum-based responses that can persist long after the conscious mind has processed the event. These responses can be addressed both through the mind and the body. By calming the mind and consciously feeling safe, the procedural patterns also change to match the overall setting. Through the body – gentle movement, conscious breathing, or mindful relaxation – we can engage this system directly, allowing it to gradually unlearn old patterns of tension and defensiveness, and encode new ones of ease and regulation.
Integration
To conclude, the traumatic response of the subconscious system instantly flags a potential threat based on past implicit memories. Before conscious analysis occurs, the subconscious has already done all the processing, and as a result, the automatic system executes a protective response – our muscles tighten, heart rate increases, or we hold our breath. Only then does our conscious mind catch up, trying to make sense of what is happening.
To approach this sequence, we need multi-level re-patterning. We need to strengthen the conscious mind’s ability to observe our reactions without judgment (e.g., mindfulness). We need to offer the subconscious mind new data, allowing it to gradually recalibrate its threat-detection system (e.g., an experience of safety). And we can retrain the automatic mind, teaching the body that it is safe to release its protective armor (e.g., somatic practices).
This whole trauma-centered example is merely a model case due to its distinctiveness. What I wanted to propose is that healing does not mean forcefully fixing what is broken. All we want, regardless of trauma, is to gently, in baby steps, learn in our everyday life to observe the layers of our mind, allowing them, in their own time, to unfold, express, and settle in tranquility. Then genuine attunement may emerge, once all layers begin to naturally harmonize – when our conscious awareness, our subconscious realm, and our bodily experience are aligned – finding a shared sense of safety and presence.
Awakening
In my early childhood, my mind responded to traumatic overload with dissociation – one of the mind’s protective mechanisms ensuring survival. When the mind cannot process or integrate the experience, its memory and emotional imprint are compartmentalized, providing distancing from anything that could cause harm. This way, I felt less involved; over time, that distancing nevertheless spread from external traumatic events to all happenings, both negative and positive – to all people, love, and eventually myself.
For decades, my mind operated this way, feeling untouchable whatever the dangerous situations, gradually pushing the limits of my survival. It felt as if I was a distant observer, a part of the self that watches from a distance, far behind the eyes, somewhere in the back of the brain, strangely disconnected from the immediacy of happenings. While this state felt safe, like being in the calm eye of a storm, the ultimate cost of this convenience was too high – a mental universe of unresolved pain within profound abandonment.
The perceived safety of this state became a form of quiet entrapment, where my life was sacrificed for an illusion of control. My mind was generally running on autopilot, performing with excellence even in complex situations, providing remarkable outcomes, a world where being praised had become the norm. Until the final collapse uncovered that beneath were actually only shattered remnants, somehow magically holding up this high-performing facade, while my system had, in fact, completely failed to navigate a proper way of being.
The journey since has been a slow process of discoveries, where the greatest achievement was that the very mysterious calm center, a mindful presence, was a real thing. It naturally started with pure observation (well, literally nailed to the bed, there was little else to do), recognizing the difference between consciousness and subconsciousness, naming conscious choices, and discerning automatic reactions from mindful responses. From the beginning, it was a complex blending of faith, psychology, psychiatry, and neurology – and I am thankful for everything I have learned throughout my life, now fitting together into a beautiful puzzle.
By observing, naming, accepting... yes, the most generous outcome was the acceptance of each and every part of myself: each thought, emotion, each cell and impulse of my body – as I slowly observed and understood that everything was an integral, justified part of me. Everything was me. Thus, I could finally stop fighting the unwanted, accept myself in sacred wholeness, and begin cultivating the internal conditions for freedom through being present in God.
The central process of the entire healing journey has been a movement from resistance to acceptance. Achieving peace was no longer pursued; it became a natural outcome of mindful presence. I must admit – I have no clue how much of it was an optional conscious process, and how much was sheer exhaustion so profound that any effort to resist was impossible and eventually abandoned. As a reminder – even after the final collapse, totally knocked out, I was still trying to be performative for the whole following month. Thanks to the collapse, giving up marked the end of a lifetime of performative endurance and the humble recognition that this mode of operation both existed as, and brought me to, a total mess.
It took me a few months to realize the profound difference between being tired and exhausted. I could not get enough sleep and rest because the issue was not merely a sleep deficit. After decades of strain, my body carried a global, systemic nervous system depletion that persisted despite rest. Furthermore, an immense effort was required to restore everything. Only then did my unrelentingly-hyped mind’s impatience finally meet my body’s desperate reality – both body and mind were performing enormous unseen work, and stillness was the best I could offer – a valid and deeply productive state of integration.
This led, thanks to my psychiatrist’s advice, to another key distinction in the concept of rest – not doing anything is not enough. I was meant instead to “do nothing.” By acknowledging that my need for extensive rest in an external-stimulus void was a biological necessity for repair, my rest finally became a deliberate, conscious self-regulation strategy, one I could fully take responsibility for. My nervous system could finally exhale, a stillness of presence, free of any agenda. A single task remained: to breathe.
The acute crisis brought me from observation to a “why-not-try” meditation, or rather a spiritual practice combining meditation and prayer. Unable to engage in any other activity, I was practically meditating for entire days. However, this began to bring forth a massive and overwhelming influx of new knowledge and insights, assembling a new puzzle in shockwaves of revelation. After several months of this literal brain-storm, I gradually became able to hold that complexity with a sense of steadiness, when my mind emerged crystal clear, perceiving and handling thoughts like pearl beads.
Peace arose at times, usually during my spiritual practices, and I learned that having this crystal clear, calm mind may paradoxically coexist with distressing emotions and bodily symptoms. There will be a whole chapter on meditation; for now, the key is that an open awareness can naturally transform one’s relationship with thoughts and emotions by simply observing them as they arise and pass, without judgment, in acceptance.
The entire healing journey has been dynamic, but from the perspective of the early stages, it has been disappointingly slow. Even significant changes appear so imperceptibly and seem so subtle that they are often going unrecognized for months. Now, after one year, I see tremendous benefits, and therefore I have dedicated another year to writing this book.
Finally, I have to add that after several months of trying to name each error and lie observed during my spiritual practices, I realized that decades of running on the autonomous conscious mind had effectively turned it into an unrepairable wreck. Rather than patching together the old me, I have, therefore, decided to start from the beginning – by observing and naturally stripping away old identities, especially those connected to conditional existential purpose – and to build, from the foundation, an unconditional existence.