She asked me if she could be a demonstration subject when we did the fast phobia cure. For those who don’t know, this is a technique that takes about 10 minutes to cure anyone of a phobia. Such as that of spiders, mice, colours anything that makes someone have an irrational response to an everyday experience.
So here she is, sitting down in front of the group. Now what is really fascinating is the fact that she has this ability to fully associate right into her experience. You see, many people find this difficult and don’t experience their memories so easily.
A heightened experience
As you can imagine, experiencing fully into an experience makes for incredibly heightened and intense feelings.
We began the Phobia Cure in the normal way (by the way we have a way of doing it so that the change is pretty well on its way by the time we actually run the standard technique and this is what gets taught so that phobias are really easy to work with) with her sitting up in the Cinema Screen Booth (in her mind). Ten minutes later with some laughing, and wonder, we asked her to test her phobia.
Now you see, how do we know that she had a phobia. Before we began the process we asked her to go and experience this as if it was happening now. This is the same as ‘imagine you have a lemon in your hand and you bite into it’ Did you get that sensation in your mouth? Could you taste the lemon? Because our mind ‘you might say’ has the ability to imagine things as if they were actually real and give us the same sensations and responses as if it were actually happening.
We tested for the phobia and her reaction was certainly highly charged and intense.
Now at the time we did not know that is was terror we were dealing with. Only until after the exercise had finished when we went to test it again.
Because…
This time she associated even more fully into the experience and the technique had not cured her.
What were we to do?
The Skill
This is where the skill of a practitioner in NLP comes into play. Being able to think on your feet and use whatever you have, and this normally means using what will fit just for that person.
So a Practitioner of NLP in its truest term, is someone who uses NLP as an Art as well as a Science.
The great thing about people, is that if you can read them, their non-verbal behaviour tells you where exactly you, and they are, in the process.
I knew that she had had a change because her non-verbal behaviour in response to the actual technique was excellent throughout the whole demonstration, yet, something was missing.
Checking further and really using drill down questioning (the Meta-Model) I found that there was more to the whole experience. The bit that was missing. The Terror.
Phobia cures are easy – Terror is a little different and requires a little nudge
You see a normal phobia is straightforward, simple and easy to cure. Terror is really fear, intense, complex and difficult to unravel.
But I knew something that the terror didn’t.
It could change.
You see, she had already demonstrated to herself that part of the fear had gone, that she had already gotten a change. Now the rest of her needed the change.
Through instinct and years of experience – I let that which takes over take over. The clouds parted, the lightening stopped and the wind suspended itself in mid flight. Inspiration flew in on her wings.
10 minutes gone, 5 left. Doing the technique again on all the different areas of the fear was too complex, messy, too long.
A guiding hand
Inspiration sang her sweet melody.
You see, we integrate our entire NLP Practitioner course through the learning and communication with our unconscious. So much so that for some it is an incredible change. But when it happens, boy does it happen! And what an epiphany people get, what a change, what a life transforming experience. Wisdom flows and change becomes as natural as the drifting of boats on the morning tide.
Communicating with the unconscious requires a certain skill – directness, congruence and clean questioning. Any fluffing about and your just not going to get any results.
I asked her unconscious to now run the whole phobia cure technique on the inside and to only come back to us with a signal to let us know that it had finished and fully completed the task.
1 minute 4 left
4 minutes 1 left.
She lifts her head from her very deep trance, opens her eyes and smiles.
We test it again.
….. She’s off cycling with her boyfriend deep into the woods for the first time in years. JOY!
Job Done Cured!
Our Unconscious is a beautiful array of change through wisdom just waiting to be given the chance to help us truly get what we desire with our utmost.
It just needs a helping hand and a bit of loving now and then.
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