Tips and Techniques

I came upon this story from Vikas an NLP Practitioner from India on the excellent Art of NLP newsgroup. I particularly enjoyed the simplicity of his approach.

About 18 months ago a young lady asked me for help for her depression. She was visiting a psychiatrist and taking some medicine for depression for preceding few months.I suggested to her to look around and mentally say… “I am sitting on this happy chair. There is this happy table. And these are happy windows with happy curtains.” I made her do this for about ten minutes. I suggested she does this every day for about ten or fifteen minutes. (A happy person lives in a happy world, a sad person lives in a sad world.)

After fifteen days she called to say that she was feeling great now. After about two months she visited the psychiatrist and he stopped her medicine. She continues to call occasionally and reports that she feels great now. The most recent one was when she was in my town about ten days ago.

I am not suggesting it will work with every patient of depression. I am not even suggesting one should use it with every patient. I am only saying I found that it worked with my patient and it is very easy to do.

Many thanks to Vikas for allowing me to share it with you.

So, are you sitting on a happy chair?

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This is a very useful (non-EFT) method for reducing anxiety recommended by Andy Austin. All you need is your anxiety and a tennis or juggling ball. Brain scan studies have demonstrated that anxiety only occurs in one hemisphere of the brain. If you force the both hemispheres of the brain to communicate with some physical actions then the anxiety state can be quickly diminished.

Here’s what you do:

1. Conjure up the state of anxiety (if you are troubled by anxiety you may not need to do much conjuring).
2. Holding your hands out in front of you, elbows bent as if you were holding a tray. Toss the ball back and forth between your hands. The ball must cross in front of you as you catch and throw. As you do this you will find your anxiety level beginning to diminish.
3. After a while stop ‘juggling’ to guage your level of anxiety. Typically it will be reduced.
4. Continue juggling and checking until the anxiety is reduced to zero.

You can use this process when the anxiety arises or imagine an anxiety provoking situation and reduce the anticipated anxiety. Here’s a video explanation and demonstration of this approach by Andy Austin on YouTube.

Nigel Hetherington and I of IntegrityNLP are hosting a two day Excellence in Therapy workshop with Andy Austin on June 21st & 22nd. We’ve both done some training work with him and we are very impressed with what he does and how he presents.

Get in touch if you would like some more information.

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Riding on the bus into Newcastle this morning, sinking into the familiar flat feeling that’s been with me since my mum passed away. It’s barely noticeable a slightly sad, low and flat feeling the Victorians would probably have called lassitude. It’s been quite constant feeling not bad enough to do something specific about but here, sitting on the bus, I’m able to tune into it fully.

It feels like a cloud of grey fog, thick and motionless, surrounding me. That gives me an idea. On our Integrity NLP Practitioner trainings we teach The Cloud Process developed by Kevin Creedon. You imagine that whatever unresourceful state you are feeling at the time is like a cloud surrounding you. The cloud is a metaphorical expression of your state having properties of size, colour and motion.

In the process you step out of the unresourceful cloud (usually dull and gloomy) and create a more resourceful cloud (usually brightly coloured) to step into. Stepping out of the unresourceful cloud and into the more resourceful cloud usually creates quite a change in the person’s state. It’s a very effective way to change your state. Sitting in my cloud I’m reminded of this process.

I’m already aware of my unresourceful state ‘cloud’ so I imagine the state I’d like as a glowing and sparkling gold cloud at the entrance to the bus. My stop is getting close, when it’s time for me leave I will step out of my grey fog, walk down the ailse of the bus leaving it behind and step into my new cloud before leaving the bus.

The bus starts to pull up, I leave my grey cloud behind on the seat, I stand in the queue of passengers waiting to get to my new cloud. Other passengers are standing in it, but I don’t mind, it’s a metaphorical cloud and there’s plenty to go round. The bus stops I move forward step into my sparkling gold cloud and step off the bus carrying it with me. I’m smiling, I feel pleasantly alive.

I stroll down the street to my first port of call (my favourite coffee shop). Standing at the counter I order my cappuccino and I am aware of a slight sense of the greyness returning. I look over to where I’m going to sit once I have my drink. While the espresso machine hisses I tune into the wispy grey cloud I’m standing in and imagine my sparkling gold cloud surrounding my table and chair. The drink arrives, I step out of the wispy cloud and into the golden cloud at my seat. I get another lift and feel inspired to write something for the first time in two weeks(this is the result).

It occurs to me that this is a very useful way to change the way you feel in day to day situations. We all spend time sitting or standing in one place then moving to another. Getting on and off buses, entering and leaving buildings, standing in queues. What would it be like if every time you moved you stepped out of any unresourceful state and into a resourceful state? What would it be like if you imagined a happy state at your front door, every time you left or arrived home you would have to step into a resourceful state? That might be kind of useful.

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Here’s another useful suggestion from Bill O’Hanlon to put the idea that ‘energy flows where attention goes’ into action.

This era has been called “The Age of Attention,” since so many things are vying for our attention (television, radio, the Internet, video games, movies, family, work, etc.). Your attention can be a powerful force and it behoves you to manage it wisely. Where you put your attention often expands that area in your awareness and in your life.

Read the rest of this entry »

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To be in harmony with the oneness of things is to be without anxiety about imperfection.

Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253)

I deeply and completely accept myself is a part of the standard EFT set up statement a little incantation with tapping that prepares the way for working on the presenting problem whatever it may be.

Many of my clients have a problem with that phrase, apart from the suspicion amongst some British people that it is excessively Californian, they feel a little uncomfortable saying it, almost as if saying I’m deeply and completely acceptable is a rather indecent.

I suspect that most of us have trouble with fully accepting ourselves just as we are. In fact, vast swathes of the economy are setup on the premise that if we buy this furniture, use this cosmetic, go on this diet, etc, that we will become OK. Preying on self-dissatisfaction seems to be a good way to make money.

Self dissatisfaction or self hate (if taken to the extreme) is quite pervasive in our culture. A few years ago the Dalai Lama met with psychologists and neuroscientists to discuss the overlap between science and Buddhist thought about our inner life.

“What do you think about self-hatred?” I asked when it was my turn to bring up an issue for discussion. I was eager to get directly to the suffering I had seen so often in my students, a suffering I was familiar with myself. The room went quiet as all of us awaited the answer of the Dalai Lama, revered leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Looking startled, he turned to his translator and asked pointedly in Tibetan again and again for an explanation. Finally, turning back to me, the Dalai Lama tilted his head, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Self-hatred?” he repeated in English. “What is that?”

Sharon Salzberg

The thought that something is wrong with me is a pervasive kind of contemporary suffering and a driving force behind many problem behaviours.The EFT setup statement is designed to work away at our self-aversion with respect to the problem whatever it might be, by bringing a level of self acceptance to the issue.

An email newsletter from Steve Wells of EFT Down Under reminded me of this issue and sent me back to his original series of articles regarding self acceptance and his 30 day self-acceptance project. This inspired me to start working on this issue in my own life. These articles will cover some of the things I’ve tried out along the way.

By way of a starting exercise you might like to try saying out loud each of these statements and getting a sense of how true they feel on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 is totally false, 10 is totally true).

• I deeply and completely accept myself.
• I can’t accept myself
• I shouldn’t accept myself.
• There’s something wrong with me.
• I am ashamed of myself

If the first one scores 10 out of 10 and the rest are score 0 then you probably don’t need to read this series of articles. When I tried the ‘I deeply and completely accept myself’ test I scored 1!

This came as more than a bit of a shock to me, after all I’ve been using this phrase consistently for the last 4 years. If it’s something similar for you I hope these articles will help change that for you.

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It’s 11:20pm on New Year’s Eve, outside it’s stopped raining, Harnham hill is swathed in a wet fog. Inside the meditation hall, under the kindly gaze of a large Buddha image we are lining up to perform our year end ritual. Every New Year’s Eve for more than a decade we’ve said farewell to the old year in the same way.

In fact there are two rituals one aimed at helping up put down the old year, the other to look forward to the possibilities of the new year. For the last 20 minutes we’ve been quietly thinking and writing on two pieces of paper.

On one piece we write a list of all the people we wish to forgive for whatever they may a have done to us, on the other a list of people we would like to ask forgiveness of for the not so clever things we have may have done during the course of the year. Rather than carry the resentments on into the new year we want to be able to let them go and start afresh.

On the other peace of paper we write a list of intentions for the new year. It’s not a list of New Year resolutions rather than short term goals it’s a list of how you would like to be for this year.

In the centre of the hall is a large urn on a table surrounded by candles. One by one we step forward, light the forgiveness list and drop the flaming paper into the urn. Old hurts going up in smoke. Then we put our folded aspiration papers in another bowl. These will be collected, incorporated into cement and used in any building work that takes place over the year. You could say that the Harnham Monastery is built on our aspirations.

It takes more than half an hour for all of us to slowly and mindfully perform this process. We return to our meditation cushions and sit quietly as the old year slips quietly away. A few minutes later the monastery bell sounds twelve times inviting 2008 to take up the reins.

Although this ceremony is quite recent I really appreciate the formal opportunity to put down the old year and take up the new.

Making an aspiration or setting an intention is a way of lining yourself up with what is important in life. Setting New Year resolutions tend to be oriented around goals, getting this, doing that … an aspiration or intention is oriented to ‘being’ and you can ‘be’ in all sorts of different circumstances.

You might like to make a list of all the people you would like to forgive for this that or the other. Mentally or on paper forgive them. Make a list of all the people you would like to ask forgiveness of, mentally or on paper ask for their forgiveness. There may be many other things you can do to develop this process.

Make a list of aspirations for 2008, a list of who and how you would like to be. Keep it in a diary or on display to remind you of what’s important as the year wears on.

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Write your Christmas tips articles well in advance of Christmas so that the festive season doesn’t overtake your plans.

Unfortunately I’ve not kept up with my schedule so although the 12 days of Christmas last up to January 6th I don’t know if I’ll get them all in before then. You may have to tune in next Christmas for the final few tips.

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