An NLP Exercise for Ending Hesitation

I learned this exercise from one of my NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) teachers, and initially had a little hesitation in trying it.

The exercise is simply this:

Every day for the next week or so, simply go into a store or restaurant and seriously ask for an item they do not carry. Ask the grocery store cashier for a vacuum cleaner when she asks if you found everything that you were looking for. Or, ask for a pizza at Burger King.

The first time I did the exercise, I was pretty nervous. The “what if” machine in my head was working overtime. “What if they yell at me? What if I get embarrassed? What if people think I'm weird?...” And, then I asked for a gallon of olive oil at a Latin restaurant.

My server looked confused for a moment, and then smiled. She then politely informed me that they did not offer olive oil on the menu.

Most servers are pretty bored with their routine. They have been doing the same things over and over again all day. A break in the routine brightens their day. And, there's a good chance they'll think you are joking, and laugh. The world will be a slightly happier place for your odd request.

So, how does this exercise work to eliminate hesitation? The simplest explanation is that it causes us to break out of the normal ways of relating to a server or clerk. As we make a conscious effort to interrupt our own deeply ingrained social patterns in a safe and playful way, hesitation itself gets interrupted. What is left is a “go for it” attitude.

Why not try this NLP exercise? All you have to lose is your hesitation.

Bypassing the Past with Hypnosis and NLP – Making a New True Story

Let's all blame Freud for some bad hypnosis.

People have been influenced by Freud's ideas to think that their past controls their current life. In Conversations with Richard Bandler, Bandler tells the story of a client who was making himself miserable by dwelling on past hurts to the point that it was interfering with his life.

Richard had a few questions.

“If you don't like your past, why not change it?” The man's response was that it is not possible to change the past.

The next question was, “If you dislike your past so much, why are you living there?”

One of my clients had a bad childhood experience with a horse. Taking a page from the NLP playbook, I had her go back and relive the experience in her imagination with the understandings and resources of an adult. Of course, she had a much different experience the second time around. With a little rehearsal she developed a new and much more satisfactory memory.

Then I asked her which memory was real. She replied, “The new one.”

Obviously, from her answer, she knew what had actually happened. What she meant was that the new memory had become the one that was emotionally real.

So, with only a little bit of help from hypnosis and a little touch of NLP, my client changed her past. And, that is the story of how she lost her fear of horses.

Brain Scans Show That Hypnosis is Real

The BBC has reported research from Hull University that used brain scans to detect the effects of hypnosis on the brain.

The study of hypnotized people showed decreased activity in the parts of the brain associated with a wandering mind or daydreaming. So, we now know that daydreaming is a different experience than being in hypnosis.

The brain patterns of people who were not in hypnosis (the control group) were different were than those who were hypnotized.

One of the psychologists associated with the study thought that the study backed the theory that hypnosis "primes" the brain to be open to suggestion. "This (study's findings) shows that the changes were due to hypnosis and not just simple relaxation."

Dr. William McGeown, study leader thinks that the design of the study established that the changes in the brain patterns were due to hypnosis and not just a result of the tasks the the study participants were asked to perform.

Dr. William McGeown, study leader thinks that the design of the study established that the changes in the brain patterns were due to hypnosis and not just a result of the tasks the the study participants were asked to perform. The brain patterns of the hypnotized subjects were measured in the rest periods between tasks to exclude the possibility that the changes in brain patterns were simply a result of doing the experimental tasks. An example of one of the experimental tasks would be listening to non-existent music. The brain patterns of the hypnotized were different than the brain patterns of the control group who were not hypnotized and who were just asked to relax.

Results of the study were published in The Journal Consciousness and Cognition.

One suggestion of how hypnosis works, supported by the results, is that shutting off the activity of the areas of the brain associated with daydreaming leaves the brain free to concentrate on other tasks.

Dr. McGeown, said the results of the study were unequivocal because the changes in brain patterns only occurred in the hypnotized subjects and not the study group. "This shows that the changes were due to hypnosis and not just simple relaxation. "Our study shows hypnosis is real." (This will certainly be of little surprise to regular readers of this blog.)

A clinical forensic psychologist based in Sheffield, England, Dr. Michael Heap, said the experiment was unique in showing brain patterns supporting the theory that hypnosis works by "priming" the subject to respond more effectively to suggestions. "Importantly the data confirm that relaxation is not a critical factor."

This blog post is based on an article published on the BBC News website.

How to Hypnotize Someone Who “Can't Let Go of Control”

I recently met someone who thought that he could not be hypnotized because he could not let go of control.

I told him that one of my clients, we'll call him Fred, had said exactly the same thing. So I told Fred to remain completely in control as he went into hypnosis. As a matter of fact, I pointed out, if he were actually “in control” he would be able to let go of control at will. So, if he were unable to let go, it actually meant that he was definably not in control.

I pointed out to Fred that it is ironic that my clients come to me because they have been unable to consciously control themselves out of their problems. So, they turn to hypnosis in the hope of gaining control of them selves. They find it impossible to use will power to stop a phobia, stop smoking or let go of emotional eating.

Apparently Fred shared the common notion, based on the portrayal of hypnosis in movies (I asked Fred, “If you wanted to learn about astronomy would you watch Aliens?”) or hypnosis stage shows, that a hypnotist “controls” the minds of the hypnotized. The truth is more complex.

I went on to explain that one way of thinking about how hypnosis works is to consider that the conscious mind operates on a set of assumptions and beliefs about what is and what is not possible. Hypnosis allows a person to step outside of those assumptions and beliefs temporarily so that he or she can do what is possible, unrestricted by her or his unnecessarily limiting beliefs.

For example, one of my clients was told by her doctors that it would take her four to six weeks before she could go back to work after her abdominal surgery. While in hypnosis, she was given suggestions for rapid healing. The result was that went back to work in nine days with her doctor's blessings.

What I did with with that client was more than simply guide her into hypnosis and just command her to heal quickly. I offered her direct and indirect suggestions as well as metaphors and stories about healing, and pain control. The suggestions for pain control worked beautifully. She never needed any pain medications either immediately after her surgery or afterward at home.

So, there was a question for Fred to consider. Was that client “out of control” when she accepted those suggestions?

Fred's reactions to all that information were interesting.

He easily “controlled” himself into hypnosis. Then he “controlled” himself out of his issues and into some new choices and productive behaviors during his session.

Everything that I said was designed to help Fred to go into hypnosis in ways that suited his personality. In the very beginning, I accepted Fred's statement that he was reluctant to let go of control, by asking him to stay in control. That began creating rapport and agreement. Then I offered Fred some ideas about what it means to be in “control” that he had to agree with. Someone in control of his hand can let go of or hold onto an object. If he were unable open his hand to let go of the object he would certainly not be in control.

That created the possibility for Fred to accept the idea that letting go was part of being in control. And, being in control was so important to Fred that he found a way to be more in control by letting go into hypnosis.

Hypnosis at a Party, Or How Jane Was Able Get Close to a Cat Again

I met “Jane” at a party thrown by a mutual friend. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned that she had an allergy to cats. When I suggested that hypnosis can frequently be helpful for allergy relief, Jane became interested, and asked if I could help her out that night at the party.

After a few questions about what was going on with Jane around the time the allergies started, she remembered just when the allergy began. She had a cat that she loved dearly, and she had seen him killed by two dogs. And, she said to herself at that time, “I'll never get close to a cat again.”

This a dramatic example of unintentional self hypnosis. The trauma had put Jane into an altered state of consciousness much like what we commonly think of as hypnosis, and her unconscious mind had taken her suggestion to herself both literally and figuratively.

There is a simple technique from NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) to eliminate a phobia, that works very well for releasing the responses to traumatic memories as well. It involves the person watching the memories of the traumatic event rapidly running backwards repeatedly. Running memories backwards tend to scramble the brain's associations to the original fears or other traumatic emotions. The result is that the memories become emotionally neutral. Jane naturally slipped into a light state of hypnosis as she ran her memories backwards, and that allowed her to something extraordinary.

Once she ran those memories backwards, Jane was able to hold her host's cat in her arms. It was the first time that she had been able to get close to a cat in years.

Of course, not all allergies start with a trauma, which is the reason that multiple hypnosis techniques and approaches have been developed for allergy relief as well as other issues. A hypnotherapist who is skilled in NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis will be able to create a unique approach for a client when the need arises.

How NLP and Hypnosis Worked to Defeat Fred's Procrastination

“Fred” made an morning appointment for a hypnosis session because he was procrastinating going into work so well that he was not showing up at all.

Fred called me at the time of his appointment to tell me that he had not yet gotten ready to leave his house. We made another appointment for the next day, and the same thing happened. Fred was very elegantly demonstrating his procrastination skills for me.

When Fred called the third time when he was due in my office to let me know that he had not gotten out of his house yet, I told him that I would wait for him until he arrived.

That is how Fred finally made it to my office.

Fred's story was that he was a lowest level supervisor in a government warehouse. Fred did not like his work. There were some bad or even illegal things happening there. He never told me just what they were. Fred was so unhappy about the situation that he was just staying home most days.

Eventually, because of his absenteeism, Fred was going to get fired. According to Fred, he was penalized more for arriving late than not going to work at all. The government works in mysterious ways.

We discussed the options. Fred did not want to move to another organization. He did not want to move inside his current organization. He did not want to be a whistle blower and confront the problems at his current workplace. And, he did not want to get fired. Apparently, just letting an employee collect a paycheck without ever showing up was unworkable, even for the government.

So, I did a hypnosis session with Fred, and suggested that he needed to make a choice. It was either go to work, move on, or be forced to move on. He started going back to work...for a while.

It turns out that the final solution was to find a compelling reason for Fred to get back to work. Just earning a living was not enough incentive, so I used questions from NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) meta model to determine Fred's highest values in life and work. And, that provided the key to his getting back to his job every day.

Fred was dedicated to his crew at work.

Fred thought that his crew was not being treated fairly by the other supervisors when he was not there. So, Fred went back to work to take care of his men. While Fred was in hypnosis, I used the imagery of a hero protecting his crew. Fred needed and wanted to be that hero. And, that is the story of how Fred defeated his procrastination.

How to Become Immune to Criticism, The NLP Way, Part 2

In my last post, How to Become Immune to Criticism, The NLP Way, I told the story of “Sophie”, a young lady in her late teens who was complaining about being criticized a lot. This post will make more sense if you read that post first.

I taught Sophie an NLP strategy from The Heart of the Mind by Connierae and Steve Andreas for transforming criticism into simple, useful information.

The first step was to have Sophie imagine seeing her future self (we called her Sophie 2) sitting in a chair in front of her. When Sophie saw “herself” she was experiencing a hypnotic phenomenon called dissociation.

One indirect, informal way to get someone into hypnosis is to have them produce a hypnotic phenomenon, like dissociation. The idea being that the has to go into hypnosis, however slightly, to do a hypnotic phenomenon like dissociation, or time distortion (over or underestimating the amount of time that has passed). Of course, Sophie's little hypnotic state opened her unconscious to learning new emotional reactions to criticism.

Another reason for having Sophie dissociate is that it allows her to observe herself dealing with criticism without reacting to the criticism emotionally. Of course, that is an indirect suggestion to Sophie that she is able to handle any criticism in a calm and resourceful way.

Sophie 2's first job was to imagine two TV screens popping up every time she was criticized. The left hand screen portrayed the criticism as simple information. This is another level of dissociation, making Sophie even more emotionally removed from the critical remarks that were made to Sophie 2.

The other screen held Sophie 2's “understandings”, which is a way of acknowledging that Sophie's opinions are of equal value as those of the person who is criticizing her. That is a nice way of indirectly enhancing Sophie's sense of self worth.

The next steps were for Sophie 2 to learn a new method of handling the information from the criticism screen. That method has Sophie 2 responding to criticism in an reasonable and rational way. A strategy that many of us adults could use as well, of course.

The key to making the NLP criticism strategy Sophie 2's automatic new response to criticism was a mental rehearsal of her new responses in similar situations. A critical point is that Sophie 2 did not just imagine her future self responding well to criticism, she practiced going through all the steps from turning the criticism into information, learning from that information, and then mentally practicing acting on the new information in the future.

The last step was to have Sophie imagine Sophie 2 melting back inside of her, which then automatically integrated all the new habits and responses into Sophie. And because of that integration, Sophie then responded to criticism just the same way Sophie 2 had learned to do.

Even a simple step by step NLP technique can include quite a bit of informal, indirect hypnosis and sophisticated unconscious learnings.