Neuro-Linguistic Programming Models Summary (12 of 14)

NLP Logical Levels - Values and Beliefs: Why do I make these changes?

I think of values as fundamental policies for the self that define who we are. They direct our lives and yet often we are not even aware of them.

What you believe to be true is not always what I believe to be true. Values are things that are important to us - they are what make us want to get out of bed in the morning, or not.

Things become important to us when we believe they will take us in the direction of that ultimate goal in life - happiness as a state-of-being.

It is very difficult to motivate a whole group of people with the same approach.One size does not fit all when it comes to values and beliefs.

Values and beliefs drive us and influence the lower levels of capability, behavior, and environment. These are what give us internal permission to change.

Serious problems arise when our values are in conflict with each other. When addiction becomes the number one value in our life, for instance, every other thing that's important to us can be negatively affected.

It is very often the case that many people actually lose things that are extremely important to them as a consequence of their addiction...Some have lost everything including their life.

I have met many people in my work who have lost total faith in themselves as a result of their problems. Many have said to me, "I don't think I have any values anymore".

This is an easy thing to challenge in the newly recovering person. Most people believe that guilt is an indictment against their character... I believe their guilt is actually a testimony to their character.

I usually ask them to tell me five things they feel guilty about... so I can tell them five good things about themselves.

For example, when someone tells me they feel guilty about disappointing their parents I tell them that they value being good son or daughter... When someone tells me they feel guilty about hurting their wife or children I tell them they value being a good husband and father.

When I feel guilty it's an indication that I'm breaking my own rules - I am not living up my own standards of conduct... Like pain, appropriate guilt tells me when I am going in the wrong direction.

Appropriate guilt is a specific form of pain that tells me when my behavior is out of sync with my values. My behavior is what I do... my values describe what I expect of myself and how I define myself as a person...

To discover your values, learn to ask yourself these questions:

• Why did I do that? Why did they do that?
• What factors are important to me in this situation?
• What is important to the other people in my life?
• What do I believe to be right and wrong?
• What has to be true for me to get what I want?
• When do I say 'must', 'should', and 'must not', or 'should not'?
• What are my beliefs about this person or situation?
• Are these beliefs helpful?
• What beliefs might help me get better results?
• What would someone I admire believe if they were in my shoes?

Beliefs are included in this category with values because it's hard to separate the two. I believe in my values and I value my beliefs. Beliefs exist at all levels.

I have beliefs about my environment, beliefs about my behavior, beliefs about my capabilities and skills, beliefs about my values, beliefs about my beliefs, beliefs about my identity, and beliefs about my spirituality.

Robert Dilts says, "It's beliefs all the way up" meaning that beliefs have a strong impact on every logical level in the hierarchy.

He goes on to identify beliefs as "cognitions that defy logic." We may know a belief is unhealthy or irrational and limiting to us but still be unable to let it go.

This is because beliefs are not simply thoughts - They are thoughts about things, usually in the future, which cannot be verified, proven or unproven that are "burned into our neurology"... by the repetition of "my experience."

Limiting beliefs usually have existed since we were very young and have continued to strengthen over the course of our lives due self-reinforcing experiences.

NLP Logical Levels - Identity: Who am I and do I reflect that in the way I live?

If we think of values as policies for the self, then we can think of identity as my evaluation of my ability to implement those policies.

Based upon my record, I may have a very positive evaluation of my ability to live up to my own standards...or a very negative self-evaluation... or an evaluation somewhere in the middle.

If I grew up in a highly dysfunctional home I may have pre-installed filters that suggest I will never be good enough. If so, I have a network of limiting beliefs about myself that program me to fail.

My addictions, depressions and anxieties are a part of that "failure network" and provide me with a way of proving over and over again how this is "true".

With the exception of our values... all NLP logical levels below this one are about choosing our behaviors. This suggests a person is separate from their behaviors - "Who you are" is not always "what you do" - especially when addictions and compulsions are involved.

With dedication to working as hard as we can on developing a network for success we will, and must, synchronize our behavior with our values. This new program for success will replace our program to fail.

Here are some questions to help you explore your identity. (Don't worry if you not able to answer some of these questions to your liking yet... most of us have a negatively skewed or biased picture of our identity early on in recovery).

If you like to be amazed, ask these questions every six months and record your answers for review each time you do so:

• How is what you are experiencing an expression of who you are?
• What kind of person are you?
• How do you describe yourself? Do you live up to that? How often?
• What labels do you put on other people?
• How would others describe you?
• Would other people think of you as you want them to?
• What are 5 to 8 of the most important things in your life?
• What is your mission in life? Do you have one?

NLP Logical Levels - Spirituality: Whom do I serve and for what purpose?

The "beyond identity" NLP logical level connects you with the larger picture when you begin to question your own purpose, ethics, mission, or meaning in life.

It brings us to the realms of spirituality and questions of existence. Ask the following questions to get a glimpse of your purpose in life.

• For what reason are you here?
• What would you like your contribution to be to others?
• What personal strengths can you add to the bigger world out there?
• How would you like to be remembered after you die?
• What greater good do you believe in?
• Does that greater good believe in you?

Remember "Whatever is on top runs everything underneath." This is important because everything we have learned about the Iceberg points to the NLP logical level of identity as the problem.

We have an Invented-Self. a False-Self... and a True-Self buried underneath all that woundedness. This being the case, it's important to go up one NLP logical level to spirituality in order to change everything underneath.

This is the primary reason why the 12-step programs work so well. Eleven of the Twelve Steps of Recovery are spiritual in nature.

It's very important to point out here that religion and spirituality are not necessarily one-and-the-same at this NLP logical level of change.

Religion is seen as the practice of a set of beliefs about God. Spirituality is simply a daily personal relationship with a Higher Power - God as you understand God. Prayer and meditation are the skills used to experience that daily personal relationship with our Higher Power.

Remembering that each of us has our own "Map of the World" - which means there are over six billion maps of the world out there - we can understand why we go out of our way to leave this a personal issue...

The term "Higher Power" is meant to be a generic way of respecting individual perceptions and preferences.

Identifying Self Sabotage Elements

But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.

A Repeated Cycle of Self-Sabotage

Have you ever wanted something so badly, for so long, tried so hard to get it, but failed? Have you ever set goals and objectives that you didn’t reach? Or have you ever wondered why you keep repeating the same patterns of behaviour over and over again and therefore keep getting the same pitiful results? All of us at one point or another go through these phases. In fact, many of us go through these self-sabotage cycles on a weekly basis and as a consequence we live below the potential of our own abilities. We regret the things we didn’t do, yet wonder why we keep getting stuck in these limiting patterns.

What Exactly is Self-Sabotage?

Self-sabotage is any behaviour, thought, emotion or action that holds you back from getting what you want consciously. Moreover, it is the conflict that exists between conscious desires and unconscious wants that manifests in self-sabotage patterns. It not only prevents you from reaching your goal, but also becomes a safety mechanism that protects you against disappointment. In other words, your brain is protecting you from getting hurt by doing what it thinks is best, which is keeping you within your comfort zone.

Reasons for Self-Sabotage

Self-sabotage tends to linger in our lives because of a lack of self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, and self-belief. Likewise, we suffer from self-sabotage patterns because we are unable to manage our emotions effectively. We tend to react to events, circumstances and people in ways that hinder our progress and prevent us from reaching our goals and objectives. Self-sabotage is also used as a method of coping with difficult situations or high expectations of ourselves or others that we unconsciously feel we are not capable of reaching. No matter what our reasons for self-sabotage it is clear that if we don’t do something about it, that we will continue to live a life full of regrets and unfulfilled expectations.

Types of Self-Sabotage

Self-sabotage can come in many forms and manifest in our lives in many different ways. Here is a list of methods that we often use to sabotage our own success:

• Fear of failure.
• Fear of taking risks.
• Fear of making mistakes.
• Inability to listen to instructions carefully.
• Inability to plan ahead.
• Inability to SAY NO to others.
• Inability to consider the consequences of our actions.
• Inability to think carefully before making decisions.
• Inability to think critically or practically.
• Inability to think flexibly about problems.
• Inability to admit mistakes or errors.
• Worrying constantly.
• Having unrealistic expectations.
• Critically judging ourselves or others.
• Constantly comparing yourself to others.
• Always complaining about people, life, circumstances or perceived bad luck.
• The habit of procrastination.
• The habit of perfectionism.
• Accepting people’s advice without question.
• Limiting beliefs, emotions and attitudes.
• Unhelpful thoughts focused on what’s not working or on wishful daydreams.

When it comes to our limiting thoughts, we must pay close attention to the excuses we tend to make that prevent us from moving forward. Here are some examples:

This won’t work…

I can’t do this…

I’m too busy right now…

I’m just not ready yet…

I’m just not good enough…

Each of the patterns listed above has its own set of consequences that manifest in a variety of ways in our lives. Some are very obvious, while others might be a little difficult to identify. The key for us here is to list down and pinpoint the thoughts, feelings and actions that are leading us down the path of self-sabotage. Only then, through conscious self-awareness can we begin to put a stop to these patterns of behavior.

Eliminating Self-Sabotage Process

There is a simple yet very effective process that we can follow to help us eliminate self-sabotage from our lives. The process is comprised of four steps that will help you to take conscious control of the behaviors that are currently directing your decisions and actions.

Step 1: Identify the Self-Sabotage Behavior

First we must identify the behavior that is preventing us from moving forward. To do this, we must become consciously aware of our daily decisions and actions and the resulting consequences. Once identified, it’s important to pinpoint specific triggers that may be causing this behavior to come through to the surface. These triggers could include people, objects, specific times, events, locations, etc. Next, we must ask ourselves whether we can avoid these triggers altogether? By simply removing these triggers from our lives we will be better prepared to take conscious control of our thoughts, feelings and actions. However, there is yet another factor that we must take into consideration, which is the limiting beliefs we have associated with each particular self-sabotage pattern. The key is to identify these limiting beliefs, then work on transforming them into positive empowering beliefs that work for us rather than against us. One of the simplest ways to do this is the question the validity of your belief. Ask yourself:

What is it that I believe in this situation?

What is it that I believe about myself and my own abilities?

How did my belief about this trigger this self-sabotage pattern?

How is this belief ridiculous and impractical?

What would others say about this belief?

What is another more helpful perspective I could take of this situation?

These questions are a good starting point and will get you focused in the right direction.

Step 2: Recreate Your Self-Sabotage Pattern

Having completed step #1, you can now consciously recreate the self-sabotage pattern by outlining all the triggers and the associating behaviours that manifest as a result of these triggers. It’s important that you are clear how this behaviour manifests in your life before moving onto the next step.

Step 3: Identify Healthy Replacement Behaviour

In order to eliminate an old pattern of behaviour we often must replace it with a new pattern of behaviour that’s more practical and helpful. This is important because often we simply can’t avoid certain triggers such as people, objects or circumstances that cause us to react in limiting ways. As such, we must take time to identify a new, different and appropriate way of responding that will help us to achieve our goals and objectives. Ask yourself:

How could I respond in a more appropriate and proactive manner that would help me get what I want?

How is this a better way to respond?

What are some reasons for making this change?

What could be the long-term benefits of transforming how I respond in this situation?

What are the key advantages of this new behaviour?

Step 4: Practice New Behaviour Until Habit is Formed

Once you have identified your new behaviour, you must now take the time to practice implementing it as often as possible over the next four weeks until a habit is formed. First begin by running your response to the situation in your imagination, seeing every detail, and feeling the positive energy churning through your body as you overcome this self-sabotage pattern. Now that your imagination has been primed, you are now ready to put yourself in situations that will naturally trigger your old patterns of behaviour, however this time, you are primed with a new response mechanism that you will continue to practice over the next four weeks until a new habit is finally formed.

10 Ideas to Help You Eliminate Self-Sabotage

In order to eliminate self-sabotage patterns from our lives we must make an effort everyday to stay conscious and aware of our behaviours and actions, while implementing a variety of strategies that will help us to eradicate these behaviours from our lives.

1. Learn from Mistakes
   Take time at the end of the day to reflect on how you responded to events and circumstances. Learn from these mistakes and experiences by writing down how you will respond differently in the future.
2. Think Bigger and Bolder
   Sometimes we get so caught up within our self-limiting patterns of behaviour because we tend to think in very minuscule ways. We have a narrow focus and just can’t seem to see the bigger picture. We must therefore take the time to think bigger and bolder and to expand our understanding and perspective of the situation.
3. Ask Better Questions
   Questions are the keys to the “locks” that hold our problems in place. By asking better and more effective questions, we will be able to gain a different perspective about the situation we find ourselves in. This will likewise help us to become more consciously aware of the self-sabotage patterns that are ruling our lives. Ask yourself:What have I learned from this experience?What would I do differently given another chance?What could the potential benefits be?How will changing my response allow me to get what I want?
4. Treat the Process of Change as an Experiment
   Just as we didn’t master the process of walking in one day, change also doesn’t happen overnight. However, it does happen over time. When you first began to take your first steps, you must have stumbled more than once. However, you got back up and continued to struggle until you eventually mastered the process of walking. It was somewhat one of your life experiments that succeeded in the end. The process of change is exactly the same. Treat it as an experiment and as a process that will take a little time and effort. You will not be victorious overnight, and you might end up losing a few battles. However, in the end if you persist, you will end up winning the war over your self-sabotage patterns.
5. Seek Advice from Others
   It’s important to always ask for help and seek advice from people who have had practical experience dealing with what you’re going through. They know from experience the struggles you are likely to face as you try and move beyond your self-sabotage patterns. Therefore, they will most likely be able to give you great practical advice and suggestions that will help you to move beyond the shackles of self-sabotage in quick succession.
6. Make Plans in Advance
   We often struggle through life when we don’t know what to expect and have little to-no-idea how circumstances will unfold. However, when we begin to lay out solid plans for the future; solid plans for how we will respond to situations, people, and circumstances, then that’s the moment we begin taking control and start moving forward with our lives with proactive momentum. While laying out these plans, always take time to consider possible challenges and obstacles that you might face along this journey. Identify them, then consider how you will respond if they happen to cross your path. And even if you don’t deal with them effectively at the time, you will learn and adjust your approach the next time you are confronted with this particular problem or challenge.
7. Focus on Solutions
   Sometimes we get so caught up in our own inadequacies and limitations that all we see are problems and setbacks. This particular way of looking at life and ourselves only leads to further problems and setbacks. Instead, take time to consider possible solutions to the problems you are dealing with. This begins be asking more effective questions that focus you on finding ANSWERS.
8. Adjust Expectations
   Our expectations can sometimes lift us up to new heights, while at other times they can demoralise us emotionally. We must always take time to keep our expectations in-check — to make sure that we are not aiming too high too quickly, otherwise disappointment will result and as a consequence we will fail to find the motivation to change our self-sabotage patterns of behaviour. By all means set your expectations high, however at the same time make sure that they are flexible and take into account your circumstances, conditions and resources. Remember, that you didn’t master the process of walking in one day. Instead you mastered it over time, just as you will with your own behaviour.
9. Take More Risks
   More often than not, those who take more risks have less regrets than those who play it safe and can’t handle uncertainty. The same is true when it comes to transforming your behaviour. You need to take risks, you need to take a chance on yourself, and you need to finally snap out of old limiting patterns of behaviour that will haunt you for the rest of your life. There’s no better time to make changes than RIGHT NOW! And there’s no one better to start the change than YOURSELF! Don’t delay, start the process of change right away. ?
10. Take Time for Self-Reflection
    In the end, the people who get ahead in life are the ones who actually took the time to think and reflect upon their thoughts, feelings, decisions, behaviour and actions. These people learned from what worked or failed to work for them. They eventually adjusted their course by taking a different approach simply because they took the time to reflect-upon what they were doing and the consequences that were manifesting in their lives. Only through self-reflection will you gain the necessary insight, perspective and understanding to begin the process of transformation.

Final Thoughts

Self-sabotage is like a grenade that suddenly explodes in our lives — pushing us away from our deepest wants and desires. However, there are no excuses, because we are the ones who consciously control the movement of the pin. Therefore make a better decision today that you won’t fall prey to your self-sabotage patterns ever again. I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and that you took the time to download the self-sabotage mind map which is available as a printable pdf poster. I’ve designed it as a reference guide you can use to help you understand the key concepts and ideas presented within this article.

The Binary Code Of Forgetfulness

What kind of a blog title is that today? I’ll do my best to explain in simple terms today… it is ironic that subjects such as NLP aim to show how anyone can communicate elegantly with ease, yet they have subject names like ‘conversational postulates’ or ‘selectional restriction violations’ or talk about people going inside themselves and doing a ‘trans-derivational search’ – which can offer up some quizzical looks and furrowed brows when used in every day conversations…

I watched Richard Bandler talk to someone in a truly remarkable and mind-boggling way at a training of his that I attended when I was much younger… He was using double negatives and I initially found it to be incredibly confusing and also very hypnotic. Straight after I had watched this, I went and bought a recording of his called the Art of Amnesia and memorised every word of him talking in this way…

I found it so exciting and I love using it in therapy and in other areas of my life… He is entirely responsible for me learning it and as I have used it more and as I have read around the subject, when I use it, I have many people get as excited as I was. So I thought I’d share it with you today.

If you can forget, and you can cause other people to forget, you are in a very influential position. It is that seemingly simple skill that is the centre of this way of communicating: the skill of forgetting.

We usually associate forgetting with negativity and treat it as a problem. When we forget, we are often conditioned to believe that it means you didn’t care enough, didn’t pay enough attention in the first place, or that your brain is not functioning properly.

Many people that I encounter believe that for­getting something is beyond their control, or that they simply lack the brain power to have a really effective memory. While that can be true at times, it is not usually the real cause.

People can forget on cue.

What’s more, you can remember anything you want to remember, for how long you want to remember it and then forget it again when you choose to. This sounds like a big, bold set of statements which I hope today’s blog is going to support!

Forgetting is something that very few people do on purpose or have a good conscious control of and so can seem like an alien concept.

Ok, so how many times have you heard someone say, “oh, forget it…”? People have instructed you to forget something you were planning to remember. On occasions, you’d do so and move your attention elsewhere. Other times, it’d make you want to think about it and remember it even more!

In fact, you can come to a rather clever conclusion by yourself. You can remember about forgetting. That is, in order to forget anything, you have to remember the process of forgetting, don’t you?

If you can forget little things during your day-to-day existence, like when you meet someone and you forget their name, or you go into a room in your house and forgot what you went there to do, or went to dial a telephone number you use all the time and for some reason on this occasion you forgot, then one more little thing should not be too difficult to forget either, should it?

How about if you could forget the negative feelings that argument left you with yesterday evening? Would it be useful with that relationship? Would it help you focus on something more productive in your life?

What if you could forget you had a headache?

I am certain you can recall a time when you had a headache and then sud­denly you focused on something else or occupied your mind on something important and you simply forgot your headache?

What about if you forgot you smoked? I encounter loads of smokers who say they can go for an entire week while they are with certain family members and not even think about cigarettes, yet they remember their habit when they return home and have some stimulus for their memory of that habit.

Here is a key thing that Richard Bandler said that day on stage that rang in my ears for days after. There is no pain if you don’t remember to have it. I love that.

Pain happens because something is not right. The pain is the re­sponse to make sure that you are aware that something is not right with your body and you’re going to need to find some kind of remedy for it.

Once you have done all the actions needed to help your body get on the road to healing, you can plan to forget the pain. And when you do, if you can’t remember it, it is not a problem anymore, is it?

I can remember damaging my leg in a football match and it was not until the game was over that my leg hurt. There are many documented experiences of soldiers that lose a limb or are hurt by flying bullets or shrapnel and they do not feel the pain until hours lat­er, until the battle is over. That is being able to forget, whether for a few moments or longer periods of time, it is useful when used safely and appropriately.

Now you are sure to have noticed something happen before. That sometimes, when you are really trying very hard to forget something, you end up remember it even better and it gets in the forefront of your mind even more. Forget the name “Adam Eason.” Go on, forget it now.

It is incredibly difficult for people to forget consciously. If you live here in the UK for example, try to forget the telephone number 999. It is virtually impossible to forget it. it is the number we use to dial emergency services.

If you are a citizen of the UK, would it ever be useful to forget that number? No. It is not useful, and that is why people do not forget it.

If it is important enough it will stay, usually on its own. If it doesn’t stay on its own (like massive hypnotherapy text books with small print you need to read to complete your training homework on my diploma course!), you should make a point to remember it.

You can plan to forget.

You can make a point to yourself that you want to forget something. It is much easier than you may have thought.

Before we move on to the process and technique of todays blog, I wanted to mention something about all this. Any of you budding hypno­tists now thinking about doing Derren Brown-like demonstrations at parties making people forget stuff need to bear in mind that, unless the individual approves of what you are doing, you are not going to meet with a great deal of success.

By “approved” of it, I mean that they have approved the communication between the two of you. That means that you have taken on a trusted role within the communication and prepared them accordingly. Which is a lot easier to do if you are a trainer or a hypnotherapist who already holds the trust of those being worked with. So it is a lot easier for me to demonstrate this at trainings than use it in real-life…

In my hypnotherapy practice, my clients and I have sometimes felt it to be in the client’s best interest to forget the content of some of the work we have done, so that they will not sabotage it further down the line, or if it has been upsetting.

As I wrote in my hypnotic salesman book; you may want the client to ignore your competitors.

If you are a parent, you may want your child to forget a traumatic episode for a while.

There are many more useful examples, I am sure you can think of many.

So how do we do this? Let me explain.

Before I offer up a step-by-step process, I am going to repeat here in writing, what I actually often say in training or in therapy to help you understand the context of how this is used.

It works like the digital, binary code of computers with everything being reduced to 1 or 0. The only difference here being that when a 0 is used, it represents minus 1.  It is absolutely influenced by Bandler because I learned this from him and his recordings. This is typical of something I’d say when discussing an unwanted bad feeling that someone keeps having in relation to a particular circumstance. It is a Richard Bandler styled as I got all the patterns I use from his transcripts:

Think for a moment of a situation in your past that would be useful for you to forget, maybe an event that left you with uncomfortable feelings or unwanted thoughts.

There’s a neurological process that holds the key. You can use this key whenever you choose because, if you’re trying to remember something right now, or even better, if you just stop and you start to think about that specific situation (whichever that is) in which you had that feeling, then, you must know, just before that specific situations started, you didn’t even have that feeling, yet!

So how come you could remember to remember that feeling long after the event has dissolved into the past, into that place in your personal history that is almost always hidden?

Up until now, this way I am talking might initially seem very confusing. It is a lot less confusing when you consider all these terms. Forgetting, remembering and things that are not yet what you need them to be in order to remember them… Confusion, however, and this con­fusion is included obviously, is the golden root to a more deeper and long lasting understanding of how we can remember and forget.

Now, I don’t know if you are al­ready aware of it or just about to be aware of it, but if you think of where you were in that situation, and instead, if you were to forget to remember what it actually was and instead of that think, how would you do like to feel in that situation?

Maybe all of a sudden, you can now remember what is that you wanted to remember instead of what it was that you couldn’t forget! In fact, I believe it is the other way not-around.

If you want to get more con­fused and blame me for that confusion, go ahead, because we’re going to clear it all up for you. Very clean, even cleaner than what it wasn’t just before.

Think! If you do not remember what it is that you don’t want to remember, then isn’t it clear that you’re remembering to forget what it is that you shouldn’t, or on the other hand, it is very clear, that, what was left is for you to re­member what it is that you want to feel exactly when you want to feel it. Isn’t that not what I’m not saying?

Because now, with that terrible feeling that you didn’t have, well, you know, that you won’t have, but you didn’t want to have, that you used to have until you simply couldn’t remember what it was. Because if you did remember, it wouldn’t be logical. Because if you remember what it is that you want to feel, then you will!

Now, before we move on, what would you rather feel in that situa­tion?

Because if you think about it, can you remember what it is you feel about any thing, any time or any way? If you know you’d rather feel good or better, because you see, there are times when you re­member to feel bad, then you could forget to remember not to forget to remember any more about this idea. And you do need to do just that, because you have already remembered far too much, so just forget about it!

Listen, if instead of doing what it is that you weren’t doing anymore because you remembered to forget about it, you now choose to do something else, right?

And instead of what it is not, if you for example looked right at what is left, then it would not mat­ter to you, because what is right (point to his right arm) and that is my right (point towards your right arm) but my right is on your left.

You see, it means that you would have to take this entire thing and turn it upside down and inside out and you choose to do something new, so that it grows into a new pattern.

And it can sound confusing, can’t it? What’s left is for you to be able to take the right thing and put it in the right perspective, because if you already have an idea that you don’t want, then there’s no reason to not remem­ber to forget it! And in the future, when it is time to remember, then just remember to feel good!

How easier could we even make it?

This one will be hard to test, because we’d have to remind you of what you forgot. But you could put the memory in an envelope and mail it to yourself if you really want to test this! Just don’t try to bring up the memory right after the session.

I know, it all looks confusing and nonsensical at first. It is so exciting to hear it spoken though. So let me give you a step by step guide to speak this way yourself:

First up, here is the key to the digital bits and pieces:

Plus 1 – to remember

Minus 1 – to forget

Plus 1 – not to forget (= remember)

Minus 1 – not to remember (= forget)

Plus 1 – remember to remem­ber (= remember)

Minus 1 – remember to forget (= forget)

Plus 1 – forget to forget (=remember)

Minus 1 – forget not to forget (= forget)

Plus 1 – you know (= remember or the following is true)

Minus 1 – But instead (= forget or cancel the previous)

And so on.. It’s actually very easy to understand once you have run it through your mind a couple of times… If you want them to keep in mind the piece of information you’ve said or if you want them to accept the suggestion you’re giving them, you end your code with a sum of Plus 1.

If you’d like their minds to forget a behaviour, an unwanted thought or other things, you conclude your talk at Minus 1 (or more). Let me explain in more detail:

Step One: Observe how we do the maths here. First I’ll give you the text, then I’ll break it down for ease of understanding.

“You see, because it does make all the difference in the world when you discover, that even when sud­denly all kind of things that you simply could remember to remember instead of forget to remember when you wanted to remember to forget what those things were not! It’s easy to understand when you learn this digital code of forgetfulness.”

You simply could remember Plus 1

Simply to remember Plus 1

Forget to remember  Minus 1

Remember to forget Minus 1

What those things were not! Minus 1

Sum total = Minus 1

It’s very easy after you practice for a while. I sometimes keep a count of each paragraph with my fingers or thumbs, one digit up for a Plus 1 and another up thumb for the Minus 1. When one of them is up I would know that the equation is not balanced and towards which end it influences the listener.

If you just keep the sum total balanced, it is very hypnotic for anyone to listen to and attempt to keep up with consciously. It sends them off!

Step Two: Now, have a go yourself. Pick a paragraph or a passage from the example I have given earlier here in todays blog and do the plus and minus one process on it, audit it and see where it ends up.

Keep in mind this simple notion:

Plus 1, Minus 1 = 0 (balance)

Plus 1, Minus 1, Plus 1 = Plus 1 (= remember)

Minus 1, Minus 1, Minus 1 = nonsense, unless you want them to remember that you are irritating!

The main thing to keep in mind when you communicate in this fashion, is that you should have a bal­anced set of Plus 1 and Minus 1 statements, and eventually be either Plus 1 or Minus 1 in the end of it, or at least balanced.

So what I’m saying is, going for 10 consecutive Minus 1 statements will not create the effect you would like. You have to create the illusion of balance so their minds won’t be over protective and cancel everything you said. Just as I got excited, a little confused, when I first saw Richard Bandler do this, I also attempted to make sense of what was being said, I did not just switch off.

Once there are almost the same number of Plus 1 statements and Minus 1 state­ments, it would be extremely hard and complex for anyone to keep track of it. If you said ten Minus 1 statements and a single Plus 1 statement, it gets obvious what you’re trying to do and won’t seem at all conversational.

Step Three: Practice, practice, practice.

Use this with clients, colleagues and friends, and get good at keeping score. It does not need to be really complex to be effective.

Step Four: Get feedback.

When practicing, ask afterwards how much they recall and remember and check that is was all coherent. See how well it all works when people are responding to your communication.

Have some fun with this, be ethical and aim to make sense with it and do good with it. I love it and although it may seem complex, can become incredibly simple.