Fighting the Subconscious
- Mar 17
- 6 min read
I've listened to podcasts, read books, even hired coaches who taught that I need to overpower my subconscious through positive thinking and sheer willpower in order to create the change I want in my life.
My experience is that this doesn't work, and here's why:
Any subconscious programming that's currently sabotaging what we're consciously creating is doing so because it's holding an unrecognized gift.
It might show up in a distorted way from being suppressed, like a fear that's actually protecting something you care about, or a resistance trying to show you where you haven't grieved. For me, recently, I was totally unable to recognize and claim my self-worth because some of the behaviours I was taught to claim my self worth (like using sheer willpower to convince myself and others) were just plain… untruthful. More importantly, the part that was screaming to me that I wasn't worthy was trying to tell me I was significantly out of alignment with my own belief system when it came to navigating professional relationships.
Moving forward isn't about killing that part, stuffing it, silencing it, or rejecting it. Any temporary gain (even if it lasts years) is built on a foundation of suppression that will eventually crumble. The subconscious isn't an enemy, although at times I get it… I can sure feel that way.
The subconscious represents an overwhelming majority of your mind's power. Recent research from Caltech measured conscious thought at 10 bits per second, while your entire nervous system processes 1 billion bits per second. That's a massive amount of intelligence under the hood, and rejecting messages from this part of your mind is a form of psychological suicide. Your conscious mind represents roughly 0.000001% of your total capacity.
So why work against that incredible power?
Here's how it can show up when you do suppress the subconscious:
Weight gain.
Fights with your partner.
Addictions.
Self sabotage
Physical pain
Confusion & brain fog
Fatigue
Illness
Injury
It's true for me, and it's true for my clients. What if it's true for you too?
Sources & Further Reading
On the Conscious vs. Unconscious Mind
"The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why Do We Live at 10 Bits/s?" Jieyu Zheng & Markus Meister, Neuron (December 2024)
Caltech researchers quantified the speed of conscious thought at approximately 10 bits per second — while our sensory systems take in roughly 1 billion bits per second. The vast majority of what our brains do happens entirely outside conscious awareness. This is the most recent and rigorous measurement of the conscious/unconscious processing gap, and it's staggering: your conscious mind handles roughly one hundred millionth of the information your brain is actually working with.
"The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size" Tor Nørretranders (1998)
The foundational popular science book on this topic. Nørretranders synthesized decades of information theory research (originally from Zimmerman, 1989) showing that our senses send about 11 million bits per second to the brain, while consciousness processes roughly 50 bits. The book argues that what we experience as "reality" is a heavily curated simulation constructed by unconscious processes — and that our sense of being in control is largely an illusion.
On What Happens When You Suppress the Subconscious
The Physiology of Suppression
"Emotion Regulation: Affective, Cognitive, and Social Consequences" James J. Gross, Psychophysiology (2002)
The landmark review from Stanford's leading emotion regulation researcher. Gross found that expressive suppression — hiding or forcing down what you actually feel — fails to reduce the inner emotional experience, impairs memory, and increases physiological stress activation in both the suppressor and the people around them. This is the peer-reviewed backbone for why "just think positive" doesn't work when there's something underneath that needs to be felt.
"Emotion Suppression and Acute Physiological Responses to Stress in Healthy Populations" Psychophysiology (2023)
A quantitative review of experimental and correlational studies confirming that habitual suppression is associated with decreased positive emotions, increased negative emotions, poorer memory, and worse social relationships. The paper traces the lineage from early psychosomatic medicine's concept of "strangulated affect" through to modern findings on sympathetic nervous system activation.
Weight Gain
"Causes of Emotional Eating and Matched Treatment of Obesity" Tatjana van Strien, Current Diabetes Reports (2018)
A narrative review showing that emotional eating — eating in response to suppressed negative emotions — acts as a mediator between depression and weight gain. The key finding: calorie-restricted diets consistently fail for emotional eaters because the problem isn't food, it's unprocessed emotion. The author argues treatment should focus on emotion regulation skills, not restriction.
"Depression, Emotional Eating and Long-Term Weight Changes: A Population-Based Prospective Study" Konttinen et al., International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (2019)
A 7-year Finnish population study (n=5,024) showing that emotional eating mediated the relationship between depression and increases in BMI and waist circumference over time — particularly in combination with short sleep duration.
Relationship Conflict
"The Social Consequences of Expressive Suppression" Butler, Egloff, Wilhelm, Smith, Erickson & Gross, Emotion (2003)
The foundational study on how suppression damages relationships. When one partner suppresses during conversation, it increases blood pressure in both partners and disrupts interpersonal communication. Long-term, habitual suppression predicts weaker social connections, reduced intimacy, and impaired conflict resolution.
"Suppression and Expression of Emotion in Social and Interpersonal Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis" Chervonsky & Hunt, Emotion (2017)
A meta-analysis confirming across multiple studies that emotional suppression is associated with poorer social and interpersonal outcomes, while authentic emotional expression supports relational health.
Brain Fog & Cognitive Impairment
"Emotional Suppression and Memory" Richards & Gross, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2000)
The study that established the cognitive cost of suppression: when people suppress emotional expression, it consumes working memory resources, leading to measurably impaired memory for information encountered during suppression. This is the "brain fog" mechanism — your cognitive bandwidth is being eaten up by the effort of holding something down.
Chronic Illness & Pain
"When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress" Dr. Gabor Maté (2003, updated 2019)
Maté's clinical observations across decades of family medicine and palliative care found consistent patterns of emotional suppression — particularly suppression of anger and difficulty saying "no" — in patients with cancer, autoimmune conditions, ALS, MS, chronic fatigue, and other chronic illnesses. He argues that chronic emotional repression dysregulates the HPA axis and suppresses immune function.
A note on this source: Maté's work is compelling and widely cited, but it's worth knowing that some of his stronger claims about personality-disease links go further than the current peer-reviewed evidence fully supports. Large-scale studies have found inconsistent or small effects. Where Maté is on solid ground: chronic stress and emotional suppression demonstrably affect immune function and inflammatory processes. Where he's more speculative: drawing direct causal lines from specific personality patterns to specific diseases. I include him here because his clinical observations resonate with many people's lived experience — mine included — while acknowledging the science is still catching up.
"The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (2014)
Van der Kolk's research at the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute demonstrates how unprocessed trauma gets encoded in the body — manifesting as chronic pain, fatigue, immune dysfunction, and nervous system dysregulation. His work shows that trauma isn't just a psychological event; it literally reshapes the brain and body, and resolution requires approaches that engage the body, not just the mind.
On Why Affirmations Backfire (When Something Underneath Hasn't Been Heard)
"Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others" Wood, Perunovic & Lee, Psychological Science (2009)
The study that should be required reading for anyone teaching affirmations. Researchers found that people with low self-esteem who repeated "I'm a lovable person" actually felt worse than those who didn't. The mechanism: when a positive statement falls outside what someone can actually believe about themselves, it triggers contradictory thoughts that reinforce the negative self-concept. Affirmations work for people who already mostly believe them. They backfire for the people who "need" them most.
"When Positive Affirmations Do More Harm Than Good" Psychology Today (2023)
An accessible summary of the mixed research on affirmations, noting that trait-based affirmations ("I am confident") tend to backfire, while values-based affirmations ("I can learn and grow") — which don't require you to override your own experience — show more consistent benefits. The article also cites Carol Dweck's growth mindset research: people who make trait generalizations struggle more with setbacks than those who frame things in terms of capacity for change.
The Integration Argument
"Dealing With Unresolved Trauma" Dr. Lisa Firestone, Psychology Today (2018)
Firestone, drawing on attachment research and her collaboration with Dr. Daniel Siegel, argues that what matters most isn't what happened to us — it's the extent to which we haven't been able to feel the full pain and make sense of our experiences. Unresolved trauma continues to impact the present in invisible ways until a "coherent narrative" is created. This is the integration piece: not killing the subconscious message, but hearing it.
"Handbook of Emotion Regulation" Edited by James J. Gross (2nd edition, 2014)
The academic reference text on the full spectrum of emotion regulation strategies. The key distinction relevant to this article: reappraisal (changing how you relate to an experience) works. Suppression (forcing it down) doesn't. Integration — actually processing what's there — is the path that works.
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