How To Use NLP To React Differently

The first thing to think about is whether you are actually aware of your reactions and whether they are useful reactions or not useful?

Sometimes people just keep doing the same thing – it’s a bit like Einstein’s definition of insanity – if you keep doing the same things and expect different results it’s insane.

However, if you are aware of your reactions then you can change them.

Watch the video and have a think about your reactions and whether it would be helpful for you to change them using one of the NLP strategies I’ve highlighted in the video.

When you consider your reactions, think about whether it’s a pattern of behaviour and when you started doing it? Quite often people in relationships will have some negative things that have happened to them in the past and they react accordingly. A good analogy is being like a bungee cord – as something happens, you get pulled straight back to the past incident and then you react in a certain way. And knowing that helps the whole process of stopping the reaction.

Maybe it is something that you either see, hear or say to yourself that triggers it? For example you may see someone, you may hear someone, or you may just get something enter your thoughts where you say something negative to yourself and it triggers a whole reaction.

It is about noticing when it happens and then thinking what could you do differently at that time.

NLP tips for changing your reaction.

Put your shield on!

I find that a useful technique to reduce negative thoughts in specific situations is to put a shield on (mine’s white) its just something that bounces off so words come in or you see things and it just bounces straight off -this is really useful.

You can make the shield whatever you want it to look like, from black and white to rainbows with decorations on it, just to amuse yourself when you’re wearing the shield.

Dissociation

You can actually dissociate yourself.  Put yourself as a fly on the wall and look at yourself and what’s actually going on – by doing this then you won’t do the negative emotions and everything becomes really interesting. This is because you are not “in” the emotions.

Reframing

Another useful NLP technique is reframing.  Consider the situation and think “maybe it’s not about me”, “maybe they’re just having a bad day”, “maybe they’ve got different what we call the “model of the world”.  So their reality is different to ours because we’ve had different experiences, memories, they’ve got different values, different beliefs, made different decisions and have some other internal filters that are different.

I think since I’ve been using NLP for myself and teaching it with clients then I find it all quite interesting – in fact I get really irritated with myself because all I can do is say “oh that’s really interesting.” It’s fascinating that I don’t have those instant reactions to things because my unconscious mind’s been reprogrammed to think positively or just to be really interested in what’s going on around me.

Then….

When you’ve become aware of the reaction, assessed it, known where it’s come from, and done a bit of reframing then, if you want to get rid of the reaction, maybe you need to do some Timeline therapy. Timeline Therapy gets rid of the negative emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, hurt and guilt and helps you react totally differently. It takes about 3 hours to do this.

You can use NLP to challenge beliefs, change beliefs, and change perspectives. The reality that you’ve got, which is like a picture in your head, can be changed that by changing the components of the picture (submodalities) and that gives a totally different meaning to your reality.

So if you’re struggling with any challenges and your reactions to them and you can’t sort them out by using your shield or taking a different perspective, then speak to me.

I do a free half hour to discuss the patterns that you are running. We can discuss where things have come from and what we need to do to change them and do that really quickly.

I also train people to do what I do while at the same time, we actually work on your issues.

I also work with people 1:1 very intensively to get rid of reactions and behaviours. So contact me for a free half-hour chat and let’s sort out how you react because life just gets so much easier then.

Until next time

Dr Bridget – Keeping things interesting