We’ve all had that bad experience that sticks with us. And when we think back to it or something triggers the memory, we get the same emotions and feelings we had when the experience was happening. That scary elevator ride when the lights went out and the elevator car lurched and slipped before coming to an abrupt halt. Or when during a minor crisis when you were a young child you tried to help your mother but weren’t able to do exactly what she wanted and she called you a worthless child and you’ve carried that thought and emotion around through out your adult life. And now you’re ready to get rid of it so you can get on with your life. But how do you do it?
Neural linguistic programming, or NLP, sounds a bit like brainwashing, but it’s not. It’s using specific language to re-structure or re-frame how we look at past events and change the effect they have on us and our behaviors. At the Northwest Hypnosis Institute we are learning how to use NLP to identify and make manageable past traumas and the effects they have on us.
I had a bad experience in an elevator one time and just thinking about it would bring back the same intense fear I had felt at that time, even though it was over a year ago. After the class was instructed on how to go about changing the impact of the event, which in my case was removing the fear so I could look at the event and not feel the intense fear, we got with a partner and got to work. My partner asked me where I felt the fear, what it looked like, and then asked if I could manipulate it in any way, or remove it from my body and set it somewhere outside my body. It wouldn’t budge. So I was asked what would move it. I said a crane, so I imagined a crane moving the fear and setting it down outside of my body. Sounds simple, but now when I think of that elevator ride that scared me I no longer feel the fear I had because my partner and I moved it out of my body.
Outside of class I used the same basic technique on a friend of mine. She’d had her mother call her a worthless child when she tried to help in a crisis and since then she has been carrying the memory around and feeling worthless. I decided to see if I could help her the way I was helped in class, but went about it the way we learned to re-frame memories since the memory was what was causing the issue. I asked her to take a picture of the memory. I then asked her some questions about the picture. Was it color or black and white? Could she make it bigger or smaller? Since she could manipulate it in some ways I asked her to change it from color to black and white and asked her about the people in the picture. I asked her if she could change them into cartoon characters. When she could do that to, I asked her if she felt better about that memory. She said she did and a couple of minutes later while we were discussing how it worked with me too she gave a little giggle. When I asked her why she laughed, she said when she thought about that memory she saw it as a cartoon and thought it was funny.
Neural linguistic programming can help take a traumatic memory and help it have a less negative impact on your life. This is yet another way we are learning to help people at the Northwest Hypnosis Institute.
If you are interested in learning more about NLP -visit our Hypnotherapy School description page.
