Personal change is a complex field. The NLP techniques do not sit in a vacuum.
They have to be applied in a context. The techniques require someone’s
co-operation: clients have to be willing to follow the steps suggested. You also need to make sure that you direct the client’s attention to those portions of her experience that will allow her to change. Attention and energy are the basic currency of change (whether that change is to take place in the context of education & learning, therapy, coaching, sales, leadership, business relationships or parenting).
You will see later (when we cover the Meta Pattern of ALL change) that states are everything. If you create exquisite states for people and attach them to the right things (yourself, your products, a task, a new way of being, a new behaviour) change will happen automatically! But remember that “states” are a nominalisation: they do not exist. They cannot be put inside a wheelbarrow. States are not things, they are processes. States are something that people do.
The following guidelines are designed to help you put a context around the NLP techniques. That way you can tailor your approaches to each unique situation of every individual client.
1. Clear your mind: you will need to calibrate the client exquisitely. If your head is full of other things, that will be difficult. Remember the NLP presuppositions – they are frameworks that influence what your mind will let you see. This is invaluable when it comes to creating change!
2. Maintain rapport: keep the client on your side. Use your language carefully to be respectful of the client. If you are pushing hard (like when you use the Meta Model), make sure that your tone is soft. Use softeners like “maybe… I wonder… etc” to take the edge of suggestions and challenges. Take your time, don’t rush through the processes!
3. Go First!: by now you should have learned to enter your own altered state in which you are more alert to your client (calibration), you have access to all your NLP learnings and experiences and have learned to trust your unconscious mind’s ability to find solutions. Use it! Another essential part of going first relates to states. States are everything when it comes to change. If you want someone to get excited, get excited first! If you want someone to calm down, join their excitement and then calm down yourself.
Go First! People will follow.
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4. Don’t change their mind, change their mood: decisions, beliefs and behaviours occur within states. Change the state and the decision, belief or behaviour no longer exists (for that period of time). That is one reason for using trance: it’s an altered state in which the problem does not really exist! Change their mood (state) and all else will follow!
5. Know your outcome: always communicate with an outcome in mind. If you don’t know where you are going, do not be surprised if you go nowhere very fast! How will you be able to judge if you are “on track” if there is no track you want to be on. Your unconscious gives you what you want, but you have to want something before it can give!
6. Everything counts: everything you have ever learned still counts. Use it all to get to the outcome you have in mind. Just because you think you want to do a SWISH, does not mean that you can not use reframing, language patterns, Meta Model questions, submodality adjustments and anchoring to make the effect more powerful. Use everything you have to get the change and make it last! Change the technique if you have to, just make it work!
7. Utilise everything from the client: everything the client gives you is useful. If he “resists” there is something useful within that process that can be turned to help your cause. Resistance is a sign of insufficient pacing.
Sometimes resistance is the client’s unconscious telling you how he wants to change! Listen!! Remember: what you resist will persist; what you accept you gain the power to utilise and transform.
8. Move from the least intrusive to the most intrusive: if doing something subtle and indirect can create the change, do it. One reason for using the Meta Model first, is that the challenges “loosen the concrete” paving the way for other things to work better. The same is true of the Milton Model, presuppositions etc. Whenever I work with a client I will do my best to get the change through conversational hypnosis language patterns before it looks like we have begun. It makes life so much easier for everyone!
9. Under pressure the mind reverts to base experience: when you (or a client) are under pressure, you revert to doing what you have practiced. That is one reason for having the client rehearse and condition a technique several times (including during the Future Pace). The good news is that intense visualisations are real experiences. The brain, under pressure, reverts back to what you rehearsed in your mind too. So you can practice many things through full-sensory visualisations!
Anchoring
Collapse Anchors
A collapse anchors is the basic therapeutic technique. In collapse anchors you take a problem trigger and transform it so that instead of it triggering the problem reaction, it instead triggers the solution. It is a very elegant way to do Changework. When your nervous system tries to access two conflicting states, the strongest of the two will prevail. So if your resources are stronger than your problems, your problems simply disappear – they cannot compete!
1. Anchor the problem state: the first step is to elicit and anchor the problem state. Lets call this Anchor A. You will be using this later.
2. Break state: next you need to get the client out of the problem state. You need a neutral state so that he can begin to access solution states without getting that mixed up with the problem. Typical break states might include distracting attention, thinking of a white canvass, getting the client to stand and “shake it off” etc.
3. Identify resources: now you can get the client to search for solution states.
How would he have to feel or be in order for the problem to simply not exist anymore? NB the solution states must be stronger than the problem state is.
4. Anchor resource state(s): next you elicit the resource(s) the client needs and you anchor them. Make them really juicy – they have to be stronger than the problem state is. If you want to you can stack several resources together, pump them up with a sliding anchor and adjust the submodalities to really make it a humdinger of an experience! Lets call this Anchor B.
5. Break state, Test and Break state: to make sure you have a good resource anchor, then clear the slate so you can do the real work.
6. Collapse Anchors: tell the client to go to the problem context in his mind. As he does this, fire off the problem anchor A. Watch him closely. As soon as he starts to go into the problem state physiology, fire off the resource anchor B.
Hold both together.
7. Integrate: watch the client as both states battle it out. This is the integration process. Eventually they will come to rest. When the client’s physiology settles down, you can release both anchors.
8. Test: fire the problem anchor A and watch. If he goes into the solution state physiology, you are done. If he starts to go into the problem, fire Anchor B again and allow the integration to occur again. You may need to condition this process up to 5 times.
9. Future Pace: send the client into the future to the same problem context and see if he can get the problem back. If not he’s done!
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Chaining Anchors
Chaining Anchors is a way of installing a strategy or a sequence of states in someone. This is particularly useful when the jump from the problem state to the solution state is too large to manage in one fell swoop.
Chaining Anchors has two distinct stages: chain design and chain installation.
Chain Design
1. Elicit Parameters: elicit the problem state (state 1) and an ideal solution state (state 5) as you would in a simple collapse anchors. There is no need to anchor these yet (though you can do if you wish).
2. Bridge the gap: decide on the number of steps it would take to get from the problem state to the solution state. Consider the size of the gap between the start and finish points and how much movement is in each state, i.e. do you have to move from a fast state (e.g. panic) to a slow one (e.g. calm) or from a very slow one (e.g. depression) to a fast one (e.g. excitement).
3. Elicit intermediate states:
a. Lets assume you chose to have three intermediate states (five in total, including the problem and solution states). Ask yourself: what state is halfway between the problem and the solution that would cause the client to move towards the outcome? This is state 3.
b. Repeat the question to bridge the gap between state 1 and state 3, to give you state 2.
c. Repeat again to bridge the gap between state 3 and state 5 to give you state 4.
4. Check States: now that you have all the states in the sequence, try them on for size on yourself and ask yourself: would it work for me? Would it move me to move from problem (state 1) to solution (state 5)?
State 1 State
3 State
2 State
4 State 5
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Chain Installation
Now that you have the sequence of states that your client will need, it is time to install the whole chain. The sequence in which you anchor the states is important as you want to allow the client to unconsciously rehearse running the chain before officially doing so – you want them to succeed before they even know there might be a chance to fail!
1. Anchor state 2: anchor state 2 first of all. This is will be the first step in the solution sequence. You do not want them to go into the problem until you are ready to obliterate it! Test it and Break State.
2. Anchor state 3: anchor, test it and Break State.
3. Anchor state 4: anchor, test it and Break State.
4. Anchor state 5: anchor, test it and Break State.
5. Anchor state 1: anchor the problem state last of all. You want the client to have had an experience of the chain working to some extent before you start them down the problem path. Break State.
6. Install the Chain: Fire state 1, as it starts to come up fire state 2 and allow a moment for integration. Then fire state 3, and wait for the integration. As the integration peaks, fire state 4 and wait for the integration. As the integration peaks, fire state 5 and wait for the integration to complete.
7. Condition the Chain: repeat the process once or twice to condition the chain into their neurology.
8. Break State and Test: from a neutral state, ask the client to associate to the problem context, fire the anchor for state 1 and tell him to “ run the rest of the chain on your own”. Make sure it happens automatically.
9. Future Pace: ask the client to associate to some future context in which they would have had the problem in the past, and notice what happens. To be really rigorous ask them to try and get the problem back. The harder they try, the more they fail. The change will last!
Installing a
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Change Personal History
Change personal history is a way of using anchors to free people from being haunted by the past.
1. Anchor problem state: find the problematic feeling and anchor it. This anchor will be P1.
2. Follow the feeling: let the problem feeling take the client back and remind her of other experiences in the past in which she felt the same way.
3. Anchor the past: Calibrate their physiology, when exaggerations occur, she has hit on a significant event. Stop her and ask her what age she was during that experience. Anchor this event as P2.
4. Repeat: using P1, keep the client going backwards in time (its OK if she regresses). Each time a significant event occurs, ask for the age and anchor each event as P3, P4, P5 and P6.
5. Break State: clear the air, reorient her to the present and distract her.
6. Access resources: back in the present ask the client what resources she would have needed in that earliest event (P6) to feel good about herself.
Elicit this and anchor it as R1. Then Break State.
7. Collapse the past: starting with event P6, do a collapse anchors with P6 and R1 until the client is totally resourceful and happy with that past event.
Then move on to P5 and collapse again with R1. Repeat one by one with P4, P3, P2 and P1. If there is a problem, find a more powerful resource state and start again (from where you left off).
8. Test: have client remember the past events to see how she does naturally.
9. Future Pace: If all is well, orient her into the future into contexts in which she would have had a problem in the past and see what happens.
Re-imprint Method
This is similar to change personal history, but has a much wider scope for the client’s personal development and learning.
1. Identify problem: find a recent experience with negative feelings that keep coming back in different contexts.
2. Find imprint event: Follow this feeling back to the earliest memory, like in change personal history.
3. Dissociate: ask the client to float out of the body of that younger him so he can view it all like a fly on the wall or as if he were in a cinema.
4. Find Intention: for each of the players in that scene, get the client to chunk up on their intention for behaving in the way that they did. Find the highest positive intention for each person (including the young client).
5. Identify Resources: from the dissociated position, ask the client what resources each person in that scene needed in order to properly satisfy the positive intention.
6. Anchor the child: anchor the resources the child needed. Run through the scene first dissociated and then again associated. Notice any changes.
7. Anchor other players: take one of the other players in that scene and anchor in the resources that that individual needed. Then run through the scene again dissociated followed by associated. The client should experience this from the new player’s point of view!
8. Repeat for the cast: repeat step seven for each of the other people in that scene, one by one.
9. Associate: finally run through the scene once again, with the client associated into his younger self.
10. Reorient and Break State: bring them back and distract.
11. Test: ask the client casually about the situation in step 1. Notice the natural response.
12. Future Pace: orient the client to future scenarios.
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The Circle of Excellence
This is a wonderful technique to practice feeling great at any time of day. It is particularly useful for energising yourself before an important meeting, date, competition etc. In many ways this is a stacked anchor that you can take anywhere you want to re-experience whenever you want or need to.
1. Identify state of excellence: choose any state that you find appealing and particularly resourceful. It could be a time of great energy and enthusiasm, or time when you had real insight and clarity of thought. It might be a time in your life when you felt completely happy, fulfilled, confident, loved, unstoppable…
2. Create the circle: imagine a circle out in front of you.
3. Dissociate: see yourself standing in that circle buzzing with this state you have chosen. See yourself standing, moving, breathing and behaving the way you did back then. Notice the expression on your face which tells you exactly how good it feels to be that you!
4. Associate: as soon as you step into that circle, you will step into that happy, energised, confident you. See through those eyes, hear through those ears, and feel the feeling that being this you brings.
5. Anchor: at the peak of the experience, anchor the feeling to a gesture (closed fist) or a word (“YES!”). As the feeling starts to fade step back out of the circle leaving all those feelings inside the circle.
6. Condition: repeat steps 3-5 three or four times to condition the experience.
7. Future Pace: suggest that you can take this circle anywhere you go and place it in front of you, so that anytime you wish or need to feel this good again, all you have to do is step inside the circle and let the magic begin!
This is a great way to exercise your neurology. Feeling great and resourceful is a habit just like any other. Why not make it as natural to feel great and be resourceful as it is to walk, talk or breathe? You can use this equally well on yourself, with friends or clients.
Submodalities
Swish Technique
The swish technique is another one of those NLP classics. You can use it anywhere where you want to change habits, install a new strategy or to make a map across more fun.
In essence this is a map across using Neuro-drivers and some contextual suggestion in order to replace an unwanted internal representation with something that is more desirable.
1. Identify trigger: find whatever trigger sets off the unwanted behaviour.
Often it will be a mental picture of something. But it could also be something as simple as a smoker seeing/feeling a cigarette in his hand.
Make a still picture of the trigger.
2. Break State
3. Create an outcome: find out how the client wants to be different. If you really want to make things juicy, enhance the submodalities so that it is really appealing.
4. Begin Change: ask the client to temporarily shrink the picture so it is a tiny dot in one corner of the old trigger picture.
5. SWISH!: ask the client to simultaneously shrink the trigger picture into nothingness and enlarge the outcome picture. Let the outcome picture become bigger, bolder, brighter and better. Make the final picture really attractive. As the pictures change, make swishing noises for added effect (and to amuse yourself!)
6. Break State
7. Condition: tell the client to go inside and repeat it five times to condition it. Each time will be faster and remember to put a break state in between each cycle!
8. Test and Future pace: ask the client to try and get the old picture back.
Really push them so that they know they have changed when they fail.
Then orient them into the future where this change can occur automatically.
Then orient them into the future where this change can occur automatically.