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The Power of NLP Submodalities
(continued)
One of the major tools of Neuro
Linguistic Programming is a process or technique known as
Submodalities.
Last week I introduced
submodalities as the "fine tuning knobs" on our Visual, Auditory and
Kinesthetic internal representations....
In other words if you have a
picture in your mind's eye is it in Black and white or in color? Is
it a movie or a still? Is it near or far? etc.
If it's a sound is it in your
own voice? Or someone else's? Is it playing loud or soft? Is it in
front or behind or off to the side? etc.
If it's a feeling is it some
place specific in your body? Or is it throughout your body? Does the
feeling have a texture? A shape? A size? A color? A density? A
vibration?
Here's a real life example of a
client I worked with several years ago. I've changed some of the
details to protect his identity.
He was in his early 30's and
came to me after having been in therapy since he was 12. On addition
to therapy he had tried every pharmaceutical drug that had every
been used on anxiety. He was currently holding a clerical job and
was anxious about losing it because he was having so many anxiety
attacks that he would have to go to the men's room to freak out. His
anxiety made him nauseous and was causing him to come in late and
often leave early.
His therapist was at her wit's
end. I spoke to her before I took on the case and she was
refreshingly honest. She said, "Frankly I just don't know what else
to do."
So I worked with this man for
my usual full initial day session. And we made a lot of progress as
I taught him how he was using his own mind to freak himself out. By
the end of the day, He was feeling more relief than he'd felt in
"forever."
Now, quite often my anxiety and
phobia clients are basically done after that full day session.
Sometimes they need some follow-up. I checked in with him a few days
later and he was doing fine. Better than ever.
About a week later however, I
got a panicked call from him. He was at work, but had retreated to
the men's room feeling nauseous and anxious. I was in the Grocery
Store. He needed help right then and I didn't have time to do some
of the other techniques I have at my disposal.
So I asked him these
submodality questions:
Q. Where do you feel it in your
body?
A. In my gut.
Q. Does it have a shape?
A. Yes it's round
Q. Does it have a size?
A. About the size of a grapefruit
Q. Does it have a texture?
A. It's kind of like really
rough sand paper with some sharp spikes
Q. Does it have density?
A. Yes it's very dense like a
cannon ball and it's about the size of a really big grapefruit...
Q. Does it have a color?
A. Yes its black or dark
brown...
Now these are the submodalities
of his feeling. Change the submodalities and you can change the
feeling, often rapidly and dramatically.
So I continued:
Q. "What would happen if you
lightened up the color?"
A. I can turn it into a kind of
cream color and it's much less intense
Q. If you make it smaller is it
more intense or less intense?
A. Makes it worse, more
intense.
Q. Then stop and do the
opposite, make it bigger and lighter and fluffy like a cloud. Is
that more pleasant or less pleasant?
A. More pleasant. Much better.
Q. Let's play with the texture.
Can you make it smooth and silky?
A. Yes. Now it's much better
too.
Q. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being
the most intense) where are you now?
A. About a 2 (before it was
like an 11)
So the point of my story is
that within a few minutes, this full blown anxiety attack with a
major physical reaction was totally dissipated and he was able to go
back to work.
Another point I want to make is
that this process puts the control of the experience back into
the hands of the client because they realize that they are the ones
creating the reaction. This gives them the power to take charge
of these internal processes that were
previously unconscious. It is helpful to have someone else ask the
questions but eventually we can do the process ourselves.
My contention is that if we
were all taught how to do this, (run our own minds) we could save
the drugs for a last resort. Instead what happens is we try the
drugs first and then when they don't work (because they don't
address the root cause of the problem they only mask the problem) we
turn to other "strange" "holistic" "alternative" practices like
neuro linguistic programming (a.k.a. Modern Jedi Mind Mastery)
Anyway, that's enough for this
week. As always I welcome your questions.
BTW if you are considering
taking an anti-anxiety drug on your doctor's recommendation you
should probably check out this article:
Pharmaceutical Rep Tells All
-Mark Shepard, NLPT, Modern Jedi
Guy, Songwriter, Courage Coach... |
