How to Feel Wonderful
1 Think of a time you felt wonderful.
2 Close your eyes and imagine that time in vivid detail. See the image clearly, hear the sounds loudly, remember the feelings like they were then.
3 Imagine yourself stepping into that experience and imagine being in that memory as if it’s happening now. See what you’d see, hear what you’d hear, feel how good you’d feel. Make the colours stronger and make it brighter if that helps. Notice how you were breathing back then and breathe that way now.
4 Pay attention to the wonderful feeling in your body and get a sense of where the feeling starts, where it goes and the direction it moves in. Imagine taking control over the feeling and spinning it faster and faster and stronger and stronger through your body as the feelings increase.
5 Think of a time in the future where you could use these good feelings. Spin these feelings throughout your body as you think about the future and the things you are doing over the next few weeks. Don’t be too surprised if you find yourself feeling really good for absolutely no reason.
Similarly too, if you find yourself in a negative or unresourceful state, you can change it by changing the qualities of the feeling.
For example, think about somebody who annoys you, intimidates you or irritates you. Make an image of them and see them look at you in whatever way they look at you when they are annoying you. Hear them say whatever it is that they say and notice the bad feeling that happens in your body.
Next, take this image and make it black and white. Move it far off into the distance. Make it much smaller, one eighth its size. Place a clown’s nose on their face. Hear them say whatever it is that they say but hear them say it in Mickey Mouse’s, Donald Duck’s, or Sylvester the Cat’s voice. This changes the feeling that you have towards them and allows you to deal with them with more confidence and effectiveness.
Changing Bad Feelings
1 Think about somebody who annoys you, intimidates you, or irritates you. Make an image of them and see them look at you in whatever way they look at you when they are annoying you. Hear them say whatever it is that they say and notice the bad feeling that happens in your body.
2 Take this image and make it black and white. Move it far off into the distance. Make it much smaller, one eighth its size. Place a clown’s nose on their face.
3 Hear them say whatever it is that they say but hear them say it in Mickey Mouse’s, Donald Duck’s, or Sylvester the Cat’s voice.
4 Notice how you feel differently. Then distract yourself for a few moments and think of them again. You will still be feeling differently about them.
When you practice using your brain in this way, you will find yourself feeling really good a lot more often. This is all about developing new mental habits and skills and making it so that you get used to mentally running your brain the way you choose to run it.
The next element that I want to cover is the process of dealing with beliefs.
BUILDING NEW BELIEFS The Structure of Certainty
One of the most important aspects of what human beings do is that they build beliefs. Beliefs are what trap most people in their problems. Unless you believe you can get over something, get through something, or get to something, there is little likelihood that you will be able to do it. Your beliefs refer to your sense of certainty on some of your thoughts.
Most people listen to their parents, teachers, and authority figures from an early age and learn lots of limitations that they supposedly have. If you were told that you were not clever enough or not good enough at a subject or at a sport, the danger is that you believed it. As soon as we believe in something, we search for ways to prove it’s true. What we are looking for here is to learn to doubt your limitations and be more certain in what is possible for you.
In order to create any change, it’s necessary to help the person change their beliefs and build new beliefs that will allow them to maintain the change into the future. In order to change beliefs, we first need to learn a way of finding out the qualities of beliefs.
Once again, this is where submodalities come in useful. Like any thought, our beliefs have a structure in terms of their qualities. If I were to ask you, Do you believe the sun is coming up tomorrow?, what would your response be? Typically people immediately answer, Yes but there is an intervening process. In order to answer the question Do you believe the sun is coming up tomorrow?, they will usually represent this belief.
It’s important to note that if I asked you the question verbally, you would know the answer without speaking aloud. When I say, Is the sun coming up tomorrow?, typically what happens is that people flash an image of the sun somewhere in their mind. They may say, Yes inside their heads in certain tone of voice and they will have a feeling of certainty somewhere in their body which lets them know that this is true.
This is a guide for our behaviour. It allows us to make plans. It allows us to buy a book and know that we’ll read it in the future. Having beliefs as a guide to our behaviour is an important part of being a human being. It’s also an important part about knowing how to change a human being, and how to change yourself in particular.
If I were to ask you verbally, Is the sun coming up tomorrow? where is the picture in your mind? Is it to the right or to the left? How far away is it? Is it life size or is it a small picture? Is it a still picture? Is it a moving picture? Does it have any sound? Is there any voice that says, Yes? Is there anything that goes on that you hear and, if so, is it on the right? Is it on the left?
Take that feeling of certainty. Look at that picture in your mind and double it in size. Typically, your feelings will get stronger. When they do, notice where the feeling is in your body and which way it’s moving. You are beginning to pay attention to the submodalities of a strong belief.
Now, for a moment, stop and look away. Clear your mind and then come back to the pages and read with me.
Next, think about something that you’re really unsure about. Not something you doubt utterly but something that ‘maybe is’ and ‘maybe isn’t.’ Think of something you’re unsure of. It could be what you are going to have for lunch? Maybe a tuna sandwich or maybe a cheese sandwich. Something that may or may not be the case. It could even be what somebody’s going to buy you for your birthday? Maybe it’ll be this or maybe it’ll be that.
Look at it in your mind. Pause for a second, look away from the book and think about it. Then, come back to the book and come back to the idea of what you believe strongly. First, look at the image of the sun coming up tomorrow. Now look at the second image, what may be and what might not be. Compare the difference between the two.
First, are the images in the same place? The answer is probably no. If the images are in a different location then, are they a different distance? Are they a different size? Is the voice inside your head coming from a different place? Is one on the right, one on the left? One going in, one going out? The only part of this that makes a difference is the part where the difference lies between the two images.
You can begin to look at this difference more closely by studying the qualities of certainty and uncertainty in more depth. What follows below is a long list of submodalities: visual, auditory, kines-thetic (feeling), olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste). What I want you to do is to go inside and access the belief of the sun coming up and the other image of what you are uncertain about and go down this list. Only check off those submodalities that are different between what you believe strongly and what you believe less strongly. Take a few moments