Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

Dedicated to my mother

Introduction

How often have you heard the phrase, "She has a bright future" or, "He has a colorful past"? Expressions like these are more than metaphors. They are precise descriptions of the speaker's internal thinking, and these descriptions are the key to learning how to change your own experience in useful ways. For instance, right now notice how you picture a pleasant future event in your own life . . . and then brighten that picture and notice how your feelings change. When you brighten that picture, do you "look forward" to it more? Most people respond more strongly to a brighter picture; a few respond more to a dimmer picture.

Now take a pleasant memory from your past and literally make the colors stronger and more intense. . . . How does having a "colorful past" change the intensity of your response to that memory? If you don't notice a difference in your feelings when you make your memory more colorful, try seeing that memory in black and white. As the image loses its color, typically your response will be weaker.

Another common expression is, "Add a little sparkle to your life." Think of another pleasant experience, and literally sprinkle your image of it with little shining points of sparkling light, and notice how that affects your feeling response. (Television advertisers and designers of sequined clothing know about this one!)

"Put your past behind you," is common advice for unpleasant events. Think of a memory that still makes you feel bad, and then notice where you see it now, and how far away the picture is. Probably it's fairly close in front of you. Now take that picture and physically move it far behind you. How does that change how you experience that memory?

These are a few very basic examples of the simplicity and power of the new NLP "Submodalities" patterns developed by Richard Bandler in the last few years. One of the earliest NLP patterns was the idea of "Modalities" or "Representational Systems." We think about any experience using sensory system representations—visual pictures, auditory sounds and kinesthetic feelings. Most NLP Training during the last ten years has taught a wide variety of rapid and practical ways to use this knowledge of modalities to change feelings and behavior. Submodalities are the smaller elements within each modality. For example, a few of the visual submodalities are brightness, color, size, distance, location, and focus. Knowledge of Submodalities opens up a whole new realm of change patterns that are even faster, easier, and more specific.

When we were first introduced to NLP in the fall of 1977, we set aside most of what we were doing in order to study these exciting and rapid new ways of changing behavior. At that time Richard Bandler and John Grinder were collaborating on the development of this new field, which promised a great deal. NLP taught how to follow a person's internal process by paying attention to unconscious eye movements, how to change old unpleasant feeling responses in minutes, and much more.

Now, seven years later, all those promises and many more have been kept. All the basic ideas and techniques of NLP have withstood the test of time, as well as the tougher test of teaching others how to make practical use of them. NLP has often been described as the field on the cutting edge of communication and change.

NLP offers a conceptual understanding that is solidly based on information science and computer programming, yet rooted even more thoroughly in the observation of living human experience. Everything in NLP can be directly verified in your own experience, or by observing others.

The new submodality patterns described and taught in this book are even faster and more powerful ways of creating personal change than the earlier NLP methods. There are only three major modalities, but there are many submodalities within each modality. Submodalities are literally the ways that our brains sort and code our experience. The submodality change patterns can be used to directly change the human software — the ways we think about and respond to our experiences.

Some critics have contended that NLP is too "cold" and "technical," and that while it may be successful with simple habits and phobias, it doesn't deal with "core existential issues." We will be interested in these critics' responses to the methods for changing understandings and beliefs demonstrated in chapters 6 and 7.

This book opens a doorway to a practical new way of understanding how your mind works. More important, this book teaches specific simple principles that you can use to "run your own brain." It teaches you how to change your own experience when you're not pleased with it, and to further enhance your enjoyment when your life is going well.