Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

Running an experience forwards and backwards are only two of the infinite number of ways that you can sequence an experience. If you divide a movie into only four parts, there are twenty–two other sequences to experience. If you divide it into more parts, the number of sequences is even greater, Each sequence will yield a different meaning, just as different sequences of letters create different words, and different sequences of words create different meanings. A lot of the NLP techniques are simply ways to change the sequence of experiences.

I'd like to install in you what I think is one of the most important steps in the evolution of your consciousness: be suspicious of success. Whenever you feel certain, and you succeed at a task several times, I want you to become suspicious of what you're not noticing. When you have something that works, that doesn't mean other things wouldn't work, or that there aren't other interesting things to do.

Years ago some people figured out that you could suck creepy gooey black liquid out of the ground and burn it in lamps. Then they figured out how to burn it in a big steel box and roll it all over the place. You can even burn it in the end of a tube and send the tube to the moon. But that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to do those things. A hundred years from now people are going to look at our "high–tech" economy and shake their heads the way we do when we think of ox–carts.

Real innovation would have been easier right at the beginning. They could have done really amazing things. What if they had said "Boy, this really works! What else will work? What else is there to do? What other ways are there to move besides burning stuff and spewing it out the end of something? What other ways are there to move other than rolling in metal boxes and flying in metal tubes?" The more success you have, the more certain you become, and the less likely you are to stop and think, "What is t that I'm not doing?" The things I'm teaching you work, but I want you to think about what else might work even better.

VII. Beyond Belief

Another way to think about behavior is that it's organized around some very durable things called "beliefs," Whenever someone says something is important or unimportant to do, it's because she has a belief about it. You can think about all behavior as being mobilized by the beliefs that we have. For example, you probably wouldn't be learning about NLP if you didn't believe that it would be interesting, or useful, or somehow valuable. Parents wouldn't spend lots of time with their infant children if they didn't believe it would make their children turn out better later on. Parents used to keep young children from getting too much stimulation because they believed it would make them hyperactive; now they give their children lots of stimulation because they believe it will aid their intellectual development.

Beliefs are really phenomenal things. Beliefs can compel perfectly nice people to go out and kill other human beings for an idea, and even feel good about it, too. As long as you can fit a behavior into someone's belief system, you can get him to do anything, or stop him from doing anything. That is what I did with the father who didn't want his daughter to be a whore. As soon as I pointed out that his abusive behavior was exactly the way pimps treat whores, he couldn't do it anymore without violating his own beliefs. I didn't compel him to stop "against his will," whatever that means. I made changing fit into his belief system so completely that he couldn't do anything else.

At the same time, beliefs can change. You're not born with them. You all believed things when you were children that you now think are silly. And there are things you believe now that you didn't even think about before . . . taking this workshop, for example.

The word "belief" is a somewhat vague concept to most people, even when they'll gladly go out and kill for one. I'd like to demonstrate what beliefs are made of, and then show you a way of changing them. I'd like someone to come up here who has a belief about yourself that you would like to be different. I want you to think of a belief that limits you in some way. Beliefs about yourself are usually more useful to change than beliefs about the world. So pick one that you think would make a real difference to you if it were different.

Lou: I have one.

As if the rest of them don't! Don't tell me what that belief is. I just want you to think of that belief that you'd rather not have. . . . Now set that experience aside for a moment, and think of something you're doubtful about. It might be true, or it might not be; you're really not sure. . . .

Next I want you to tell me how those two experiences of belief and doubt are different. I want you to do the same thing we did earlier with Bill and his understanding and confusion.

Lou: Well, my belief is a big picture. It's bright, vivid and very detailed. Doubt is a much smaller picture. It's dimmer and fuzzier, and it kind of flashes on and off.

OK. Those are pretty clear differences. I can't help noticing that belief is straight ahead of you and doubt is up to your right. Are there any other differences?

Lou: Well, belief nearly fills a big frame and there is very little room for background. Doubt has a lot of background, and there's no frame.

The next step is to take this list of differences and test one of them at a time, in order to find out which of them are most powerful in changing belief to doubt. For instance, Lou, take the picture of belief, and try making it smaller. . . .

Lou: That makes it seem a little less real, but it doesn't change it very much.

OK. Bring it back to its original size, and then try removing the frame from around the belief picture, so that you can see more of the surrounding background. . . .

Lou: When I do that, the picture automatically gets smaller, and it's less impressive.

OK. So the frame brings size along with it, and has more impact than size alone. Change it back to the way it was originally, and then change the focus of that belief picture so that it becomes fuzzy. . . ,

Lou: That doesn't change it much.

Change that belief picture back again, and then make it dimmer. . . .

Lou: When I do that it starts flashing on and off, a little bit like doubt does.

So changing the brightness also alters the flashing. Change it back again, and then take the belief picture and change its position. Move it from the center of your visual field up to your right. . . .

Lou: That's weird. I feel all kind of floaty, and I can feel my heart speed up. When I start to change the position, all the other things start changing, too. It gets smaller and dimmer and out of focus; the frame fades away and it starts to flash on and off.

OK. Move that picture back to straight ahead of you. The location of the picture changes all other elements, so that is the submodality that is most powerful for Lou in moving something from belief to doubt. But before we do that, we need to have something else to put in its place. Lou, do you know what belief you would like to have in place of the belief you now have?

Lou: Well, I never really thought about that in detail.

Start thinking about it now, and be sure you think about it in positive terms, not in terms of negations. Think of what you do want to believe, not what you don't want to believe.