For most people, the road to individual transformation and self-improvement is a long and winding path filled with intricate barriers. Drug companies in particular have capitalized on and created colossal fortunes because of the elusive search for the "Magic Pill" that will fix everything. As it turns out, there is a secret formula for success, and it begins in the unconscious mind.
One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that "there is a positive intention behind all behaviors." And based on that rule, when it comes to eliminating negative behaviors, there is an equation that we must always keep in mind. I’ll let you in on the secret formula in a minute. But I have a riddle for you to solve first.
Riddle: A minister made his son drink lye, which burned out his voice box. What was the positive intent behind this action?
If you are like most of the clients who have come into my office since 1978, you’ll angrily say something like: "There isn’t any positive intent behind that behavior." But you would be completely incorrect. To answer this riddle, you must disconnect the behavior from the positive objective of the deed.
The preacher’s son was cursing. And the minister believes that if his child curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the minister was burning out his son’s voice box so that he couldn’t curse. By doing so, he was saving his son’s soul from being predestined to suffer in Hell.
The secret equation for successful change works as follows:
We must always value the positive intention that motivates each behavior. If we have an urge to use a behavior that we don’t like, we can quickly get rid of the urge to use that behavior. What we must do is to find another behavior and substitute it in its place. To be successful, the new action must be as accessible and efficient at accomplishing the same outcome, but be more consciously acceptable to you. This is called a REFRAME.
When clients come into my office, the first thing I do is to take a methodical case history. Let’s pretend that they come to my office and ask me to help them suppress their appetite. Conventional wisdom tells us that the two main reasons that anyone eats excessively are: (1) to reduce stress; (2) because eating can be a conditioned response. Case in point, if a person eats while they are talk on the phone, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they talk on the phone they will get cravings for food.
However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible positive intention behind the eating behavior. What if they also have another behavior that is involved in the equation? Case in point: What if being tubby is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind grinding right now as you think, "Being obease isn’t a behavior, what are you talking about?"
Sorry but you could be totally wrong. Here is one simple classic textbook example that will clearly demonstrate the fact that being obease can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can accomplish positive outcomes.
Example: A woman falls deeply in love. Her partner leaves her, and breaks her heart. Her unconscious wants to protect her emotionally and prevent her from having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get obease to keep her out of relationships. Because if she isn’t in a relationship she will not get her heart broken again.
The point is that everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are hidden elements at work causing uncontrollable behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.
Here is another instance: A woman comes to my office complaining of an out of control compulsion to eat too much at dinnertime. During my case history, the woman explains to me how she was never able to please her father.
During an age regression, we learned that one of her earliest memories was of eating a meal with her family. And her dad was insisting in an angry voice that she eat everything on her plate, even though she was full. So she finished the food left on her plate out of fear, and her father commended her for eating all of the food. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her dad telling her that she had made him happy.
Shoot forward to present day. Dad has been deceased for many years, but the unconscious program he installed is still working. She still has an urge to finish everything on her plate, even if she is feeling stuffed, because by cleaning the plate, in her subconscious mind she is getting dad’s approval, and eliminating her own fear!
So if you are finding it difficult to make personal changes, you should remember that there is a positive intent causing all behaviors. And the formula for successful change is to use a different behavior that will bring about the same positive intent, but in a way that is more consciously satisfactory to you, as an individual. The most efficient way to get your unconscious to accept the responsibility for making this kind of change for you is through a Neuro-Linguistic Programming 6-Step Reframe.
Alan B. Densky, CH is an NLP Practitioner. He began his professional practice of hypnosis in 1978. He offers an interactive NLP Six-Step Reframing CD on his Neuro-VISION NLP website. Also offered are his Free NLP research library, MP3 downloads, and NLP newsletters.
- Alan B. Densky, CH
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