Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP and one of my teachers says, “that if we can change the way we think, we can change the way we feel”. In my experience, it is interesting just by how powerful this statement is. We can actually modify the quality of our thoughts and get out of repetitive circles of the very thoughts that are not constructive for us. Moreover, we can enhance the thoughts that are helpful.
We get our information through our five senses, which we then code and order to give meaning to our experiences, said in the most simplistic form, the submodalities are how we structure our experiences. To mention three of our senses; for example when we visualize a thought, a memory an imagination the specifics of that thought can be black and white or colour, is it near or far, is framed or panoramic, flat or 3D, clear or fuzzy, are you in it or are you watching yourself, is it a picture or a movie or is it bright or dim, just to mention a few. And with respect to our hearing, we have the auditory submodality choices: volume and direction of sounds, pitch, tempo, quality and do they come from inside or outside of you (is it internal or external). And the last example kinaesthetic (what we feel) is it internal or external, is it vibrating, moving or still, does it pressure, is it light or heavy, is it smooth, is it rough, what is its shape is it hard or is it soft? All this information gives us the power to change how we think and thus how we feel.
One day a new client came to see me, he was having a hard time learning to live with the passing away of his mother, it had been five years now* and all he could think of, when he thought of her was the pain and the suffering of her illness and not all the good and loving time they have had. So I asked my client to describe the quality of what he saw (note that what he saw is not relevant to the exercise, it is the submodalities that we are interested in) and the quality of what he heard and felt when he was thinking of his mother. It was a huge movie in bright colours, where he was watching himself, it was panoramic and flat and focused. There was no sound and it gave him a feeling in his chest that was hard and heavy shaped like a round cannonball. I asked my client to if he could change the movie to black and white, he could and then I asked him to make it smaller, he could and I asked him to make it even smaller and as he was making it smaller his shoulders began to move back and down wards, his posturer got more up right and his breathing became deeper and slower. And then asked him to freeze the movie into a picture and he could and then I asked him to make it very small, tiny as a stamp and he did. My client began to smile and got some colour in his cheeks. I asked him if he would like to make the stamp disappear, he said yes. So I asked him how and he said I would just let it fly away with the wind and he did. He then opened his eyes and looked at me. I then asked him how the cannonball in his chest was and to his surprise, it was gone. So I asked if he could think of a nice memory of his mother and he could, so we made that bigger and brighter and he was no longer watching from the out side but he was in it, we made it focused and full of his favourite colours and we adjusted the sound to his liking. He told me it gave him a feeling of inner peace. And the next time I saw him he said, I can now live with the loss of my mother, I still miss her but I can think of her without the feeling of distress.
And this was what he asked for when he came to see me.
I did a similar thing with a client* who couldn’t get past her divorce and move on. She is now living her life with a new boyfriend, a very different one than her x-husband and she is happy and hopeful about her future.
All this just to show you that if you “change the way to think you can change the way you feel” it is your mind and you have the power to change your thoughts.
* Please note that even though I do not give any names of my clients, I have asked the client’s permission to mention the example in a blog.
Post originally published on March 1 2019