A very important part of improving our spiritual life is reducing the weight of our psychological baggage so it does not interfere in the process of actualising the self.

The first step in this process is to recognise that we have these unconscious issues in the first place.

Often simply becoming aware of some specific facet will lead to its withering away on its own. An important conscious step that can help this happen is to remember it and act thorugh it - to confront your fears, so to speak. This will break down the pattern as it is recorded in your unconscious, while simultaneously recording positive data over it.

This can be something we do for ourselves, in the course of "normal" life. Unfortunately sometimes these tricks of the mind are very well concealed and may require the assistance of a professional guide to identify and root out. This guide may be an analyst, a therapist, a really good friend (rarely), a religious leader (pastor, priest, rabbi, etc.). While anyone trained in the methods of counseling may be able to help, the choice of assistance is very personal. We must trust the guide implicitly to help us explore the parts of our mind of which we are least aware, and this can be a scary process.

Once the general process of reducing past programming is commenced and under way, the next step is to try to avoid adding new information to our unconscious soup of rules. I think, this probably means trying to deal with everyhting that happens to us in as conscious a fashion as possible - not allowing ourselves to ignore issues and crises until later, but resolving them as fully as possible while they are fresh. It is difficult for the unconscious to grab something you are actually thinking about and do weird things with it at the same time.