How can you use NLP to influence your client's beliefs and behaviors?

Metaphors are a fabulous way of helping the subconscious mind to let go of emotions or limiting behaviours. We all love a story and so does our subconscious mind as it picks up on the intentional ambiguities and considers the suggestions that are worded in a way that not only allows the client to relax further but also to show the subconscious mind that releasing old patterns is healthy. This is built on other techniques such as reframes where work has already been done to find new and healthy solutions, so a metaphor for letting go of unwanted luggage that is getting in the way is taken as a signal to complete the changes by the unconscious mind.

By allowing others to communicate thier ideas and beliefs we are more likely to have them become open minded to consider other ideas and beliefs. This opens the door to reframe the concepts and beliefs they have. By offering ideas that are new or different we allow and promote growth within the person.

Collapsing submodalities is a major part of overcoming fears, phobias, and past traumas. Through changing the sensory details of a painful or frightening memory, the impact is reduced to the point where they know it happened but it no longer triggers the fight, flight or freeze response. Anchors can also be created using subs either from collapsing negative beliefs and memories or through enhancing a positive memory to boost confidence or a sense of peace and wellbeing. Overlaying positive events and images over negative ones are also used to help replace the stored memories and go to neural pathways connected to an event.

They say you become who your friends are, in many diverse cultures, so that suggests to me that there is some truth behind this. Seeing that the subconscious mind doesn’t distinguish between real and imagined, we can use this technique to “become” the best parts of those we admire by modelling that person “doing” the desired quality. Just be mindful of what/who you are choosing! We were required to actually do this as part of our NLP Master Practitioner course and it really brought other different dimensions to my character and even the speed of my conversation!

Anchoring plays an important part of overcoming old patterns of behaviour or limiting memories. However, it is crucial to create it at the right time so you do not end up anchoring to the negative state. The purpose of the anchor is to create a trigger that fires off a positive state when needed at a later time such as a boost in confidence or a feeling of happiness.