Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

Think of it this way. Let's say a person believes X is good, and you succeeded in installing a new belief "X is bad" without changing the old belief. What would you create? . . . What is likely to happen if someone fervently believes in two opposing ideas? One way to deal with that situation is to become a multiple personality. One belief organizes the person in one way for a while–then the other belief takes over and reorganizes the person in a very different way. That's not what I consider a very evolutionary change.

Woman – I want to ask about the "floaty" feeling that Lou reported when you first tried changing the position of the belief

Well, that kind of response tells me two things. One is that I've discovered a submodality change that really makes a profound difference in her experience. The other thing it tells me is that she doesn't yet have a new belief to put in its place. Have you ever had an experience that shattered an old belief, but you didn't have a new belief to put in its place? Some people drift in a haze for days before they can reorganize. That often happens to a person when she gets fired from a job, or a friend or relative dies. I once talked to a man whose college philosophy professor shattered a major belief of his. He said he dropped out and went around in a fog for over six months. I want to have a new belief all "waiting in the wings" before I permanently weaken the old belief.

Now let's come back to Lou, and do a little testing. Lou, is that new belief still there?

Lou: (She looks straight ahead and defocuses her eyes.) Yes. I keep checking to make sure. I have a hard time believing that it could be so easy to do.

What happens when you think of the old belief?

Lou: (She looks up to her left, and then smiles.) It looks kind of dried up now.

It's certainly not where it used to be. This is another way of checking what I've done, and of course I pay more attention to her nonverbal cues that to her words. Now we have a five–minute follow–up. (For information about a videotaped demonstration of this Belief Change Pattern, see Appendix IV.)

I want you all to try out this pattern in groups of three. One of you will be programmer, one will be client, and one will be an observer/consultant. I'll review all the steps again for you before you begin.

Belief Change Pattern

A. Information gathering and preparation

1. Belief: "Think of a belief you have about yourself that you wish you didn't have, because it limits you in some way, or has undesirable consequences. How do you represent this belief in your internal experience?"

2. Doubt: "Now think of something that you doubt. It might be true or might not be: you're not sure. How do you represent this doubt in your internal experience?"

When you ask your partner to think of something she doubts, make sure it's something she's unsure of. If she says something like, "I doubt that's a good idea," what she may really mean is that she believes it's not a good idea. Doubt is when you waver from thinking something might be true to thinking it might not be true; you just don't know.

3. Differences: Do a contrastive analysis to find and list the submodality differences between Belief and Doubt, just as you did before with confusion and understanding.

4. Testing: Test each submodality on your list of differences one at a time to find out which ones are the most powerful in changing belief to doubt. After testing one submodality, change it back to the way it was originally before testing the next one.

5. New Belief: "What new belief would you like to have in place of the belief that you now have and don't like?" Be sure this belief is stated in positive terms, without negations. "I can learn to change in response to feedback," rather than "I won't be unable to change what I do."

Also be sure that your partner thinks of the new belief in terms of an ability or a process, rather than having already achieved a desired goal. "I believe that I can learn to change and maintain my weight" is a useful belief. "I weigh 107 pounds" is not a very useful belief, especially if she actually weighs 350 pounds! We want to mobilize new abilities, not install new delusions.

You also need to ask the person to check for ecology: "If you have this new belief, how could it cause you problems?" "How will your husband or your family respond to you differently if you have this new belief?" "How will this new belief affect your work?" etc. Modify the new belief to take into account any possible difficulties.

Your partner doesn't have to tell you what the new belief is. All you need is a word to identify this new content.

B. Belief Change Process