There are many ways to neutralise limiting beliefs quickly and easily with EFT or other techniques.

Unfortunately our limiting beliefs are often unconscious and unquestioned, a part of the fabric of our perceptions, which makes them hard to find.

Other people’s limiting beliefs can be easy to spot because we are on the outside looking in, but our own remain hidden. That’s why there will always be work for good therapists and coaches.

But what are we going to do if there isn’t a therapist or coach available?

Are we doomed to wander ignorant of our own limiting beliefs because we can’t see them?

Fortunately, there is a simple way to bring lots of limiting beliefs into consciousness using just one word.

It’s a simple word, readily available and deeply familiar …

Because

Because is a special word because when it appears in a sentence it is usually followed by a reason.

• I can’t go out tonight because I am washing my hair
• I can’t start a new business now because the economy is on its knees.
• I can’t change jobs because I am too old.

Each time you hear “because” you are going to hear a reason for the statement that comes just before it.

We can use the power of because to bring our “reasons” out into the open.

Before describing how to use because for this, it is worth acknowledging that there are two kinds of reasons that could be uncovered:

Facts are descriptions of reality

I am cold because it is snowing

It is snowing is a description of the environment, people are often cold if it snowing. That’s not a limiting belief that’s a result of our external reality.

Beliefs are descriptions of our ideas about external reality (often confused with facts)

I am alone because nobody wants me

“Nobody wants me” is not a description of reality (even though it may be confused with one). It is a belief, an idea about reality.

The word nobody is a give away. There are more than 6,000,000,000 people on the planet (that’s a lot). It is impossible to know whether one of those six billion people would be interested in them. In a whole lifetime it would not be possible to meet even a tiny fraction of those people to find out. Nevertheless, for this person it may be a convincing idea about reality.

Is a reason a fact or a belief?

Sometimes, it can be difficult to decide if a reason is a fact or a belief. Fortunately there is a simple test: treat it as a belief and work with it. If it is a fact it probably won’t change, if it is a belief it probably will.

So how can we use because to expose our limiting beliefs?

1. Choose a problem

If you are going to uncover limiting beliefs you need a predicament to work with. If limiting beliefs cause difficulties for us which difficulty are we going to investigate.

• I can’t start a new business
• I am alone
• I can’t make enough money
• Our relationship is struggling
• …

So what is going on in your world that you suspect may be a result of limiting beliefs?

2. Harvest all the possible reasons

Write down a sentence that briefly describes the problem followed by the word because

• I can’t start a new business because …
• I am alone because …
• I can’t make enough money because …
• My relationship is struggling because …
• [problem ] because …

Now say your “because” sentence out loud, then write down whatever comes into your head that completes the sentence. Write as fast as you can and without judgement.

Say the “because” sentence again and write down whatever comes into your head this time as fast as you can and without judgements.

Repeat this process as many times as you can, until you run out of sentences, either because you have the feeling that the well has run dry, or you find you are repeating yourself.

Important: It is essential that you put your judging mind to one side for this process. The aim here is to get as many reasons as possible, so don’t evaluate your reasons at this point. Go as quickly as you can – this allows the information to float up from your unconscious without being blocked by the analytical mind.

3. Pick the wheat from the chaff

Now we have a list of reasons we can sort through at our leisure and identify which of the reasons are limiting beliefs and which are just the random chatter of the mind.

Work through your list of because sentences, saying each out loud.

Give the reason a truth score from 0-10 where 0 is false and 10 is true (this is how true it feels, not how true it is logically).

Repeat this process for each of the reasons until you have a list of reasons that have some emotional charge.

Now you have a list of reasons (limiting beliefs) that can be worked on with EFT or whatever belief change method you would like to choose.

How many beliefs can I expect to find?
You could find just one or two beliefs, or you could find 10 or more.

If you do find a lot of limiting beliefs don’t despair, things might not be as bad as they seem.

• At least you know what to work on: This is big a step forward from having a problem and not knowing what to do with it.
• The beliefs you uncover are probably related: This is good news, if you make a dent in a big limiting belief there is a strong chance that the other beliefs will be softened automatically. You might only have to work through a few of them systematically to get big reductions in the others.

However many beliefs you find, all you need to do now is change them!

P.S. Two quick and easy EFT based belief change mechanisms are The Belief Flip and Exception Tapping

“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.”
- Charles C. Noble

It’s that time of year when New Year Resolution articles abound on websites, telling you how to choose and achieve your resolutions.

I spent some time racking my brains to find a way of talking about them that is different and useful, without success.

So I gave up and started to think about what I do to make changes in my life.

Rather than making and keeping New Years Resolutions I have what I think of as “Habits Of Change”, a collection of attitudes and actions that I apply to my daily life.

1. Use problems to grow: I assume that a problem is a disguised growth opportunity. I realise that some problems have lots more “growth opportunity” than others and can be real challenges, but I have found this a useful starting position.

For many people a problem is something that blocks them and holds them fast, I try to get myself to think of a challenging situation as an invitation to grow.

2. Try to be clear about what is going on: If you are going to respond to a situation you need to know what is happening now. I try to investigate the current situation and my part in it. Here are five questions I find helpful:

1. What is going on in my outer world?
2. What is going on in my inner world?
3. What can I change in my outside world?
4. What can I change in my inner world?
5. How do I want to be in this situation?

Notice that while what I can change in my outer world might be quite limited I have room to manoeuvre in my responses and how I want to be in that situation.

3. Change my responses: Most of my problems are in my responses to what happens, not to what is happening. While the world may be difficult to change I can change the way I respond to the world (see Stop Trying To Change The World). Daily life gives me a ready supply of experiences and challenges that I can respond to.

If I choose to respond in the same way that I have always done then I can expect similar results. If I change my response then I change what happens, for this event and for all future events. Each small change propagates out into the future in ways I cannot foretell, but they do add up. (See The Compound Interest Of Suffering And Freedom).

4. Use what I know: I’m lucky enough to know lots of NLP, EFT and other techniques that can change my experience. But knowing them is not enough, I have to use them to get the benefit.

I suspect many people learn techniques like these and are full of good intentions to use them, but don’t. If you are one of those people who think it is better to suffer than use what you know to change for the better, I have a question: What on earth are you waiting for?

5. Making a change however small: Some problems are big and difficult and like a rabbit caught in the headlights we can be paralysed, unable to do anything. Even in situations like that I try to change something, even a tiny change can make some difference, give a bit more leeway to work on the next part. By going step by step I can usually make progress.

6. Work out where my limitations are and dissolve them if I can: I am a human being, I have inherited tendencies, an upbringing and lots of experiences. All these combine to create a unique collection of beliefs, values and responses that determine the way I am in the world.

Lots of these beliefs and responses that I live from may now be out of date and worth updating. The challenge is finding out what those beliefs and limitations are, then resolving them. The second part, thanks to NLP and EFT is quite straightforward. The first part – finding them is much more difficult because they are rarely visible to us.

I developed the Getting Out Of Your Own Way process as a way of being able to reliably find my own limits so I could dissolve them.

7. Let go of understanding: I think it is much more important to change something for the better than understand why things are broken. I am amazed by the number of people who will spend hours working out what is wrong with them, whose fault it is, what theory explains their difficulties and so on, rather than spend a few minutes starting to resolve the problem. In my opinion it is much more useful to do something about a problem than to just think about it.

These are some of the “Habits Of Change” I have adopted over the years. I really don’t know how I developed them, I don’t think any of them were conscious choices, I’ve just picked them up along the way.

If you could adopt a “Habit Of Change” which would you choose?

If you have a “Habit of Change” of your own which I have not mentioned let me know in the comments.

Getting Out Of Your Own Way, is a straightforward and thorough guide to uncovering and dissolving many of your hidden limiting beliefs and blocks – the ‘Resistance’ – the unconscious saboteurs that stand in the way of your progress.

Who is this book for?

How do you know if you suffer from ‘Resistance’? Here are some common symptoms:

• Difficulty in making a start on a piece of work: Do you find yourself constantly putting back your starting time and never actually getting going? Are you often waiting for the “right moment” to start or for inspiration to strike you?
• Craving diversion: Does the need to tidy your room, do the shopping, surf the internet and so on become irresistible whenever you contemplate getting down to work? Are you easily distracted from your work by friends and social opportunities?
• Ineffective working: Do you spend a lot of time at work but end up with little to show for it?
• Last minute rushing: Is all your work finally done at a breakneck speed the night before the final deadline? Do you often think you have not left yourself time to do things properly?
• Missed deadlines: Do you feel you are always asking for more time and making excuses? Are you losing opportunities and respect because you are always late?
• Nagging guilt:  Is your time off relaxing spoilt by the continual feeling that you ought to be working? Do you often feel you have achieved less than you should have?
• Disappointment and self-reproach:  Do you feel you are letting yourself down by putting things off? Do you think of yourself as lazy? Do you compare yourself unfavourably with others because of your procrastinating?

In this book you can learn simple processes to bring limiting beliefs and blocks into awareness, then use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) based processes to neutralise those blocks so that you get on with what you want to do without procrastinating, dragging your feet, avoiding the work, all the ways in which we get in our own way

The techniques in this book combine EFT and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) approaches that I have developed in my own personal exploration of what gets in my way when I set out to achieve something.

The techniques are simple and practical. You don’t need any advanced EFT or NLP training to make use of them, but you do need to know how to do EFT (if you have no experience of EFT you will find a brief introduction at the end of this book which will give you an understanding of the basics).

This book is for people who want to discover and change their limiting beliefs. It is suitable as a guidebook for therapists and coaches to help their clients explore what is stopping them, it is also useful for people who want a self-help guide to spotting and eliminating the blocks in their own progress.

Why Did I Write This Book?

I am a recovering procrastinator. I used to be a top class foot dragger. If there were ways for me to avoid doing things I would find them. I was a master at starting projects and then finding a way to have them fizzle out or limp along in a half-hearted manner. When I started my own business this “skill” because a disadvantage. I’ve been experimenting with ways to get out of own way ever since.

This has been a long, slow process. I’ve read many books, listened to a lot of recordings, attended seminars, workshops, NLP and EFT trainings. Out of this stew of influences I started to develop ways of identifying and working with my blocks.

After each success I got a little more room to manuever and things got easier. As a result of several years of experimentation and progress I came up with the Getting Out Of Your Own Way method.

I use this approach for myself on every new project, because I am much more likely to finish what I start, doing the work without excessive stress or any of my old foot-dragging.

Click here: Getting Out Of Your Own Way - Preview - Chapters 1-6 to read the first six chapters free of charge.

To find out more about the book and the various packages available visit  Getting Out Of Your Own Way

I hope you find it useful.

Now that I have completed it I think I will have a long lie down in a darkened room!

Presentations

As usual there is a great line up of presentations and presenters on all areas of the psychology of change. Mini workshops on Mindfulness, EFT, Metaphors, The Vision Quest to name just a few.

Here’s the full list:

• Introduction to EFT – Andy Hunt
• Let’s Make A Metaphor – Joanne Thompson
• An Introduction To Solution Focussed Brief Therapy – Andrew Callcott
• Counselling And You – Iain Mackenzie
• Enabling Change with Metaphors and Submodalities – Harry Knox
• Awareness, Compassion and Personal Growth – Iain Mackenzie
• State Choice – Jay Arnott
• Compassionate Self Acceptance – Andy Hunt
• Is It Really What You Want? – Abi Smith
• Change For Healthy Eating – Jackie Wilkinson
• Communicating For Life – Lyn White and Chris Blain
• Decisions, Decisions, Decisions! – Claire Boyles
• Mindfulness – Mona Cochorane
• The Vision Quest – Jay Arnott
• Laughter Workshop – Keith Adams

A lot to enjoy and a lot to learn from.

Specialist Book Stall

Not only that, the Anglo American Book Company formed in 1992 in order to meet the specific needs of those interested in psychology, psychotherapy, counselling and personal growth will have a book stall at the event.

All this for just £15, just click here to sign up (or you can pay at the door)

Continuing Professional Development

If you are a therapist and need Continuing Professional Development then we are offering Attendance Certificates for your portfolio. ChangeCamp is opportunity to broaden your mind and add to your portfolio

Community

As well as the presentations there is also a chance to spend time getting to know people who are interested in personal and professional development. There is a special pleasure in being in the company of like minded individuals. The breaks and shared lunch are an excellent opportunity to make new friends.

All this for just £15

Join us this Saturday for the Autumn ChangeCamp by clicking this button (or you can pay at the door)

Are you stuck?

Do you have projects, goals or outcomes that are taking you forever to get started or completed?

Do you get in your own way by procrastinating, avoiding what you need to do or fighting with yourself to do it?

Welcome to the ‘resistance’ – the unconscious blocks, fears and limiting beliefs that keep us from getting where we want to go.

There are two ways to deal with the resistance.

1. Tough it out

This is the traditional approach. Force yourself to do the work that needs to be done. Struggle through each task to get to your goal. You can do it this way (a lot of people do achieve great things this way) but it is a lot of effort and struggle.

Not only do you have to do the work required to reach your goal, you also have to do the hard work required to get yourself to do the work required to get you to your goal.

It’s a tiring and stressful way to achieve stuff.

2. Make it easier for yourself

This is a new way of doing things made possible by techniques such as EFT that let you easily change entrenched patterns of thought and feelings. In this approach you identify your blocks and limiting beliefs around a goal, dissolve them, then all you have to do is the work of the project.

This way you spend a little time at the beginning to clear your own resistance to your goal, when that is cleared you can do whatever needs to be done with yourself as an ally instead of an opponent.

If you want to know how to get out of your own way, there is a one day workshop “Getting Out Of Your Own Way” in Newcastle upon Tyne on Saturday 19th November that will show you how to do it.

All you need to do is bring an unrealised goal, outcome or project to this workshop where you will learn

1. How to make sure that this is the right goal for you.
2. How to uncover and  unpack the limiting beliefs and blocks that get in the way of achieving that goal
3. How to dissolve the blocks you have found using specific EFT strategies developed for working with these kinds of issues.
4. How to create a path to achieving that goal without being overwhelmed or confused

At the end of the day you will have a plan for achieving your goal and much less resistance than you started with. You will also have a technique that you can use with any other project or goal you want to undertake.

This workshop is for you if you get stuck in your own projects, or you work with people who do.

There are only two requirements.

1. You need a goal or project that is proving difficult to achieve.
2. Some prior experience of EFT, preferably EFT Level 1 or above

The workshop costs just £49.50 for the first four people to sign up, and £69.50 after that.

There are only 12 spaces available on this workshop so book early.

To find out more click here.

Click on Getting Out Of Your Own Way to book your place online.

Important: This workshop is about the “Law of Action” NOT the “Law of Attraction”. It is not about metaphysical manifestation of outcomes, it is about getting out of your own way so you are able to do the work that you need to do to get what you want.

When people say "I can" or "I can't" they are telling us the limits of what they think is possible for them in their world.

• I can't speak in public
• I can't fall in love
• I can't say that to my mother
• I can't leave this job
• I can't get out of this relationship

Each can't is a line in the sand which they can't cross.

In the NLP Meta Model "I can't …" belongs to a linguistic class given the very fancy title "modal operators of possibility", which are all about the way we talk about what is possible or impossible for us. The Meta Model gives us a way of challenging the statements beginning with "I can't …" This tapping technique is a combination of EFT and the NLP challenge to an "I can't …".

Let's go back to the line in the sand which the person thinks they can't cross. This line in the sand was probably formed long ago as a rule based on experience, it is probably held at an unconscious level, hidden from view. As far as the person is concerned now, the "I can't …" is self-evident and convincing. This technique is designed to unpack the underlying reasons for the rule so that they can be tapped on. To do this we use part of the NLP Meta Model which is a set of questions designed to uncover the hidden basis for a lot of our unconscious limitations and assumptions.

Like a line in the sand there are two sides to this internal line.

On one side there may be something stopping you from crossing over that line into a desired outcome. At some level you are being held back. Asking the question: "What stops you?" helps bring into awareness whatever it is that is stopping you from moving forward.

On the other side of the line there may be an undesired consequence of stepping over that line. At some level you don't want or fear the consequence of stepping over the line. Asking the question: "What would happen if you did?" helps you bring that undesired consequence into awareness.

This routine consists of a setup statement and tapping through while asking three questions.

Asking these questions allows the thoughts, feelings and memories provoked by the questions to be tapped on once they arise. Sometimes they do not need to be articulated, at other times the answers may include memories and feelings that have to be followed up and tapped out to get a full resolution. Because EFT can work speedily it is not often necessary to go into the details of what is stopping you or what the consequences of doing it would be, just bringing them into awareness allows them to be softened and undone by the tapping.

There is one further question (not part of the Meta Model) that is tapped on: "What if I could …? " This is an invitation to the tapper to take an imaginative leap into a future without this limitation which allows the tapping to work on any "negative" consequences of releasing this limitation.

Example

One of my clients needed to make an important phone call that he had been putting off for quite sometime. He needed to make the call but couldn't.

I asked him to say "I can't make this phone call" out loud and give it a SUDs score from zero to ten. He said it was an eight.

We tapped on the setup statement "Even though I can't make this phone call, I accept myself and how I feel" – three times.

For the first round of tapping I asked him to tap on each of the points using "What stops me from making this phone call?" as the reminder phrase. He did this obviously accessing some thoughts and feelings as he went through the round.

For the second round of tapping I asked him to tap on the points using "What would happen if I did make this phone call?" as the reminder phrase. He did this more easily.

For the third round of tapping I asked him to tap on "What if I could make this phone call?" as the reminder phrase. He did this easily.

I asked him to score the belief "I can't make this phone call" from zero to ten, he said it was now a two.

I asked him about the "What stops me making this phone call?" round of tapping and he told me that he had a kaleidoscope of thoughts, feelings and memories in response to that question. I asked him to do one more round of tapping on "What stops me making this call?" He did so and reported that the "I can't make this phone call" no longer made sense to him.

Advantages of the questioning approach

You will notice that there are no clever verbal reframes or suggestions in this process just tapping + three questions. There are several advantages to using questions in this way.

• It is easier – All you have to do is remember the three questions and tap. You don't need to think of any reframes or other verbal tricks to get the result.
• It is exploratory – Because the questions are inviting you to notice what is going on in yourself it allows the tapping to be guided by your experience, leading to whatever feelings or memories played a part in the formation of these limitations.
• It is respectful – Since this follows your way of thinking about things there is no feeling that the solution is being imposed on you. Since the resolution to the limiting belief comes from your experience and resources it is more likely to be appropriate and last in the long run. The resolution can't be biased by anyone else’s limitations or ideas about what is happening or needed.
• It includes its own mental rehearsal. The addition of the "What if I could …?" question takes the resolution into the future and tries it on for size. Any problems with the solution can be explored and addressed within the process.

Instructions

1. Say out loud the "I can't … " and assess how true it feels on a scale of 0 to 10
2. Tap out setup statement three times – "Even though I can't …, I accept myself and how I feel"
3. Tap out one round of EFT using the reminder phrase "What stops me … ?" *
4. Tap out one round of EFT using the reminder phrase "What would happen if I did … ?" *
5. Tap out one round of EFT using the reminder phrase "What if I could …?"

* It is possible while tapping this round that you may get an idea about specific events or other things that stop you. Bear those in mind while you continue to tap. You can either continue tapping round after round on the question you are working on until these feelings settle or you might break off from the process entirely to deal with a troublesome memory and return to it later.

If memories or feelings that need tapping come up during the tapping round. Take care of those memories and feelings while they are still fresh.

Go back to the original phrase "I can't … ", saying it out loud again to assess its truth.

If there is still a charge. Repeat the four steps again, then check. Repeat this process as many times as necessary to neutralise the charge on that belief.

I have been working with Leslie (not her real name) for a little while on issues to do with her lack of self acceptance and powerful inner critics. As part of our ongoing discussions she told me that a lot of her time was spent comparing herself to other women and finding herself wanting. At one point she said: "I feel second best", because she said this with such intensity I asked her to say it out loud to have a sense of how true that statement was and then I asked her to say "I am second best" out loud.

There is a big difference between feeling something and being something, our feelings can pass but who we think we are forms the bedrock of our attitudes and behaviours.

She told me that "I am second best" had a 10 out of 10 score for her. If you have the fixed idea about yourself that you are second best it is not surprising that you spend a lot of time comparing yourself to others.

When someone has a strong and unhelpful identity belief (sense of I am …) like this, I use the Identity Relief process to update this collection of ideas, thoughts and feelings about ourselves to something more realistic. The Identity Relief process identifies the time when this idea about ourselves was formed, often in early childhood, and uses a visualisation of that younger self and EFT to neutralise the strong negative feelings associated with that time, finally, that younger self is immersed in the compassionate acceptance that was probably missing at the time that these ideas were formed and is invited to update that understanding in the light of new experience.

When I asked her to say "I am second best" she told me that it scored a 10 out of 10 as truth.

Then I asked her: "How old is the 'I' in I am second best".

She immediately answered: "Tiny … pre-talk"

I asked her to imagine that "tiny" self outside herself on the other side of the room.

When she nodded that she had done so, I asked her: "What is going on for that tiny self?"

"There's a feeling of awfulness …"

So we started with just the first thing that Leslie said, using a set-up statement to acknowledge acceptance of that younger self. At all times I only use straightforward 'vanilla' EFT, using the clients words as part of the tapping statement, no clever reframing, choices or other techniques. The purpose of this part of the process is to release the negative emotions.

"Even though there is this feeling of awfulness, I accept her and how she feels."

Notice that the acceptance statement is "I accept her and how she feels", rather than the "I accept myself of standard EFT", so we can accept this younger self.

After a round of tapping using "feeling of awfulness" as a reminder phrase, I asked what was going on for that younger self now. Leslie said that the feeling was worse. She said she could see her younger self turning her head away from being fed. So we continued using this for a new round of tapping. In each case I just used the words that Leslie gave.

"Even though she is turning away, I accept her and how she feels."

After a few rounds of tapping on "she is turning away". Leslie said: "It's as if there is something really wrong or as if she could do better."

"Even though there is something really wrong, I accept her and how she feels"

After two rounds of tapping on "there is something really wrong" and "she could do better". She told me that her younger self looked "collapsed".

"Even though she is collapsed, I accept her and how she feels"

Then more rounds of tapping

"Even though there is huge upset in her and her mother, I accept them both and how they feel"

"Even though she feels like a failure, I accept her and how she feels"

"Even though she is in the wrong place and the wrong family, I accept her and how she feels".

After a few rounds of "she is in the wrong place and the wrong family" she said her younger self had a strong, profound sadness at a level of 8 out of 10

"Even though she has this strong sadness I accept her and how she feels."

"Even though she has tears, I accept her and how she feels"

"Even though she is not pleasing her mother and her mother is crying, I accept her and how she feels"

"Even though she has this sadness I accept her and how she feels."

"Even though she's failed, I accept her and how she feels"

"Even though she's failed and she can't do anything about it, I accept her and how she feels"

We tapped a few rounds on "she knows she's failed and she can't do anything about it" then Leslie said that the awful feeling that we had started with returned.

"Even though she feels awful, I accept her and how she feels."

Tapping away the awfulness feeling in her younger self took several rounds of tapping. When we had finished Leslie said that her younger self looked calm even though the circumstances hadn't changed.

I like to be very thorough at this stage to make sure there are no lingering unhelpful feelings or thoughts so I asked Leslie if there was anything else that we could tap on for her younger self. She thought for a moment and said that "she's been wanting to please" which was at a 7.

"Even though she's been wanting to please I accept her and how she feels."

Just one round of "she's been wanting" to please brought this to zero.

I suggested to Leslie that it was time to use the Compassion Bubble which is a simple visualisation to send compassionate acceptance to that younger self.

I invited her to go back to a memory where she felt compassionate acceptance for another being, she closed her eyes and nodded when she found one, settling into the memory I asked her to connect with the feeling of compassionate acceptance.

When she had done that I asked her to allow that feeling of compassionate acceptance to grow and develop, then flow down one of her arms into an upturned palm of her choice. After a few seconds she turned up her right hand.

I asked her to imagine the compassionate acceptance pooling in the palm of her hand. I asked: "If it had a colour what would it be?"

"Pink", she replied

I said "Allow that 'pink' compassionate acceptance to grow and develop into a bubble of pink compassionate acceptance on the palm of your hand.

She paused for a moment then nodded. I asked her to allow that bubble of pink compassionate acceptance to float off her hand and travel over to her younger self completely surrounding that younger self.

I suggested that the compassionate acceptance could seep into that younger self and do its work, and that, although she might not know what changes were occurring, she would know when the process had finished .

After a little while she nodded to let me know that the compassion bubble had done it's job then I asked her to bring that younger self back into herself in whatever way seemed appropriate to her. Since we 'put' that younger self on the outside to help her, we now need to 'bring her back in' to complete the process.

When she had done that I asked her to invite that younger self to grow up and take advantage of all the wisdom and experience that she had had since. It is as if these inner parts have stopped growing at the age at which they were formed, isolated from all other experience that has happened since. "Growing up" the part, allows that younger identity to add to its understandings and resources and finally to merge with the adult self.

When Leslie had done this I asked her to repeat the original statement "I am second best", she did, thought about it for a moment and told me that it was no longer true.

A few days later I contacted Leslie to find out what the result of this process had been.

She wrote back:

"[Identity] Relief is a very apt word to describe this process. Now ‘I am second best‘ holds nil emotional charge. I feel completely equal and adequate and the making of comparisons has ceased. It feels very different to how I used to feel and I am still getting used to it.

My lack of self acceptance was extreme and causing anger towards myself due to my perceive failure(s). The feeling of anger and failure have now dissipated.

This has made an enormous difference to my life and I am fully accepting myself and my life as it is today. This work went right to the core, the source , of the issues.

I feel much calmer now. I no longer make negative comparisons and there is a noticeable reduction in my desire to please others.

I now love my young self; she was perfect in every way. What happened in the past is something that merely happened !

The ‘ can’t do anything about it’ phase is pivotal concerning self acceptance. It still holds some sadness for me and a little frustration but now if another person puts me down, treats me unfairly, treats me as an inferior or blames me something I haven’t done (and I can’t do anything about) – I no longer react with the same level of emotional intensity. I know the truth. I know the reality.

I believe nothing could have fixed this issue except EFT. I was stuck in it and with it. Now I am no longer second best."

Many thanks to Leslie for allowing me to share this.

There may be times in our lives when we could really use some more strength, awareness, joy or some trait that we don't seem to have enough of.

In the first process of this month's NLP Café you will learn the Trait Square, a simple way of accessing more of the qualities you need.

You can adopt more confidence, enthusiasm, determination – whatever quality you would like to have more of in your everyday experience.

In the second section using Time Lines you will have a chance to test drive this new trait into the future, a thorough mental rehearsal, so that it will be available to you whenever you need it.

You don't need much experience of NLP to attend this workshop, all you need is an idea of what attitudes and aptitudes you would like to have more of and a willingness to join in.

The NLP Café is on Wednesday 20th July at 7pm in St Oswald's Hospice, Teaching Centre, Gosforth.

Phone Andy on 0754 700 9116 or email andy@practicalwellbeing.co.uk for more information.

The NLP Café meeting costs just £10 and includes refreshments.

Note: The NLP Cafe is a low cost NLP practice group in Newcastle upon Tyne it is run by myself and Nigel Hetherington of Communicating Excellence. It is open to all regardless of experience or training.

Image courtesy of loop_oh

“We all know who our Inner Critic is—the internal voice that is our own worst enemy, judge, and jury that paralyzes our ability to go after what we want. Our Inner Critic is powerful. It is so powerful that we tragically think we cant manifest our goals; we become convinced that the best outcome couldn’t possibly transpire. When faced with our Inner Critic, how do we keep our motivation going? How do we successfully fight something that lives within us?

Here are five basic steps on how to confront and control your Inner Critic:

…

Your Inner Critic is toxic. Allow yourself the gift of dis-empowering and controlling it. When you feel yourself succumbing to your Inner Critic, stop the battle raging within you and start the five basic steps above. Regain control. Defeat your Inner Critic.”

There is no doubt that our inner critics can be a pain and very destructive. They can get in the way and give us a hard time. But are they really toxic and do we have to fight them, confront them and regain control

It is an appealing argument. Why wouldn’t we want to beat our inner critics down after they have given us such a hard time?

I think there are better ways to deal with our inner critics.

How To Acquire An Inner Critic

Let’s dig a little deeper. Everyone learns their inner critic. Nobody is born with a critical voice in their heads telling them that they are worthless or should pull themselves together.

As we go through life we get all sorts of messages from our parents and caregivers about what we should and how we should behave.

If we are lucky this guidance is given with love and acceptance (even if that includes fierce guidance). We can take this guidance on board and use it to create our own inner guidance system, internalising the information we get from others.

If we are not so lucky this guidance is given with anger, hate and rejection. We too take this guidance on board and use it to create our inner guidance system. Unfortunately along with the information we get the emotional charge that went with the original ‘training’.

We can’t help ourselves in this. It’s not our choice. We are evolved to model the behaviour and attitudes of our parents as the quickest way to absorb the necessary information to grow up and cope with a complex and dangerous world. If we get the training with love, we get the training and keep the love. If we get the training with hate, we get the training and keep the hate.

In my opinion it’s the hate and judgement that is toxic, the training may have something useful for us.

What Good Is An Inner Critic?

If we were to take out the poison from our inner critics I think we would see that the criticism we took on board had three broad categories of intention.

1. It was intended in some way to keep us safe
2. It was intended to motivate us to do better
3. It was intended to beat us down

Two out of three of those intentions are positive and the messages given might have been useful to us if they had been delivered in a better way. What we got was a good intention wrapped in poison and barbed wire. Now we are only aware of the wrapping because we are being scratched and poisoned and can’t see the positive intention behind it. (Our parents or caregivers were responding to their own inner critics when delivering these messages)

The third broad category has no value for us at all and it is worth disposing of.

The Feeling Of Criticism

All these inner critics have one thing in common – a strong emotional charge that keeps them fixed in place. This charge is apparent in the tone of inner critics voice and the sensations we get in our body when they are at work.

We can be so conditioned by the emotional tone of this criticism that we can be paralysed into believing what is being said is true. If you could take out the emotional charge then it would be easier to evaluate what we are being told and accept or reject the messages.

With the emotional energy dissipated it would be possible to retrain the critics with worthwhile intentions to do a better job of helping us and retire the inner critics who have no value for us.

Inner Peacemaking

As a therapist working with people who give themselves a hard time I have a process that I use based on Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) that follows these six steps.

1. Externalise the inner critic (much as Olga describes in her article)
2. Use EFT to dissipate the emotional charge of the inner critic – this can be very intense.
3. Explore the intention of that critical part.
4. If there is value in what the inner critic is attempting to do. Invite it to develop new and better ways of achieving those intentions. This is retraining the inner critic.
5. If there is no value in what the inner critic is trying to do. It’s time to retire this bully – using EFT to dismantle that construct and send it on its way.
6. Re-integrate the useful parts of whatever is left back into the system.

At the end of this process you either have peace and quiet or an inner coach or mentor. Taking out the strong emotion allows many inner critics to transform themselves in to much gentler, supportive inner coaches.

If you are a therapist / counsellor with EFT experience working in the North East of England I am running an Inner Peacemaking training on July 9th.

This is not the only ‘non-violent’ approach to inner critics. There are several NLP processes that would be useful, also the work of Hal and Sidra Stone Embracing Your Inner Critic: Turning Self-Criticism into a Creative Asset.

For a Zen based mindfulness approach check out the work of Cheri Huber, especially There is Nothing Wrong with You: Going Beyond Self-Hate, A Compassionate Process for Learning to Accept Yourself Exactly as You Are.

These process all have an integrative rather than a combative approach to working with your inner critic. If it is true, as Carl Jung said, that what we resist persists, which would you prefer for your inner critic: retraining and retirement, or eternal combat?

One way of thinking of these cards is as though they are an emotional snap shot album of all your best moments. As you know, you will start to feel good if you look through a favourite snap shot album.

On each blank card write a few words that describe a happy or (positive) powerful life experience. You don’t need to write an essay, just a few words that bring the experience to mind.

Read what you’ve written for a moment and step back into that experience to really enjoy it. Relive that moment in delicious detail, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling what you felt. Make the recall of it as full and vital as you can.

Continue adding to your collection of ‘happy cards’. You will need at least 20 cards, the more the better. You can add extra cards to the collection at any time.

You will probably find the process of creating the happy cards very enjoyable in itself.

When you need a pick-me-up, or are bothered by something, or you are in a mood that’s difficult to shake off.

• Make a mental note of how you are feeling.
• Randomly select on of your happy cards.
• Read the description on the card and once more step back into that experience.
• After a short while, if you are still feeling out of sorts, pick another card, read the description and step into that happy experience.
• Keep reading and ‘stepping into’ the experiences on the cards until your mood lifts.
• How are you feeling now? How does that compare to how you were when you began?

When you think of other positive experiences, or have some new ones, make a note of them on a blank card and add them to your collection.

Please note: If the unhappy experience you are having at the moment is very severe this process may not be as helpful as some of the other EFT and NLP techniques that are available.