Mastering Blocking & Stuttering: A Cognitive Approach to Achieving Fluency

"If you can speak fluently in just one context, you can learn to speak fluently in all contexts."

Bobby G. Bodenhamer

The Hypnotic Script by Max Stringer – “WordPower Hypnotic Suggestion Script Ver. 2”

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By Max Stringer
May 2009

Wakeup word activated energized and aggressively combine bind power feeling force with words together as one become you mind link words with power and feelings.

Other person spoken to well, comforted and powerful attached words.

Aggression together with words flow binding to your mind. Smiling spoken words contact you will speak with complete power and feelings binding to you always AS with Now becoming stronger you feel. Loud and proud wake up feeling now, and YOU become confident speaker. Allow your mind to bind with these words I speak now. Becoming more confident you are completely able to speak all words spoken adding power punch again and again binding with you.

I speak the truth and you must listen to me now and add power and proud words spoken become you as always. Unlock and allow words to be spoken with energy and volume. Expect what you want to be given to you.

You are and will bind your mind now to these words I speak and allow my words to become you. Aggressively attack all words you speak, plying energy and powerful volume as you speak. I am telling you. These rules are important, and imagine them now becoming you. Speak loud proud binding together with you. Tall standing you will be.

Don’t ask questions only talk about yourself. Add value all the time to you. You are the only one who is correct. Speak first within 3 seconds to show you are in charge.

Listen now, all words owned within your mind are Large, big bold and loud. Bind these words to your reality. Ownership of the large, BIG and bold words is your control.

Imagine the huge words sitting in the sky. Becoming real as you speak them. Words in your mind becoming bigger bigger bigger. Massive and at your control. Power punch all words standing tall.

Wake up, think BIG WORDS I SPEAK. The most important think you should do is add power to the words you speak, add power to the words you think.

Allow your mind to add power to the words you think, listen and allow my words to become you. Always and forever place your words big and powerful within your mind.

Add a positive power punch to every word, adding energy and confidence standing up straight, adding power to your presence.

You are a good strong powerful speaker.
You are a good strong powerful speaker.
You are a good strong powerful speaker.
You are a good strong powerful speaker.
You ARE a brilliant speaker.

Once you start speaking, keep on running and running with your words.

Strong power words combine with other strong power words to create a super power network in your mind, words getting stronger and power fuller every time. Listen to these words and become these words now.

Note to self:       Touch heart with every “You are”
Clench fist for every “Power”

The Four Directions of the Unconscious Mind – Questions that will send your brain in four basic directions

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Questions that allow the therapist to send the client’s unconscious mind in four basic directions: up, down, back and forward to gather new perspectives in viewing the problem. (These questions are also extremely useful for you to check out your own thinking concerning a specific problem.) – PDF

Three different views of the same page by Karen Davis – PDF

How Neuro-Semantics has helped me both to gain more fluency and to live my life more richly

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A Letter to Dev

Roddy Grubbs

Hello Dev Mehta,

I’m Roddy Grubbs; I live in the USA; I’m 56 years old, work as a software engineer; and I first became aware of Bob Bodenhamer and his material on Mastering Blocking and Stuttering about 3 years ago. The material has now been condensed into a book by Bob entitled Mastering Blocking and Stuttering: A Cognitive Approach to Achieving Fluency.

I contacted Bob because I was having problems blocking and stuttering in my speech – this was especially the case at work. I had always considered myself to be a stutterer, and blocking in my speech has been more pronounced during some years while less in others. But 3 years ago I was especially bothered and concerned, as well as irritated by the experiences I was having. I wanted to change; and I wanted to experience real, substantive, and permanent change. I especially did not want to have an experience where I “found something that helped a lot” and then “lost that something”

In the past 3 years I have done some reading of Bob’s books, of some books co-authored by Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer, and of some of Michael’s books; I’ve attended Bob’s week long seminar class on Mastering Blocking and Stuttering; and I’ve read some additional books and materials by Bob and Michael – including many of the excellent articles that are available online at the Neuro-Semantics website and at the Mastering Stuttering website. I have not been a full-time student, but I have tried to keep reading regularly.

Equally important to this “reading and study time” has been the time I’ve spent “doing Neuro-Semantics”. I’ve read that “Neuro-Semantics is something that one does as opposed to something one just learns”, and I have experienced that myself – my learning of Neuro-Semantics has been through my doing these things.

When I read your posting to this e-mail list, I read the following things:

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  1. My stuttering is really having an adverse effect on my career.
  2. Companies have a hard time looking beyond one’s stammer, here in India.
  3. I often lock up when I go for an Interview and become really under confident.
  4. This has happened a few times and now I am really scared to be interviewed.
  5. In today’s world of cut throat competition, it is especially difficult for people who stutter.

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As I read that, I felt a strong identification with what you said. You asked for feedback on how Neuro-Semantics actually relates to blocking and stuttering. I know how it relates to the blocking and stuttering that I have done, so I thought that I would share some thoughts with you about that; also about how Neuro-Semantics relates to what you said, and how “your doing Neuro-Semantics” will greatly benefit you!

There are so many, many facets to Neuro-Semantics (of which I am expert in none); I have found that the following especially appeal to and work for me. I use these daily, in fact many times each day. The following is a summary of (a) thoughts from Neuro-Semantics which I have found to be helpful, and (b) my experience “doing Neuro-Semantics”.  Doing these things has brought real change into my living, and that has helped make my life more enjoyable. My hope is that you will find some of this to be useful.

(1) People everywhere and in every situation work the same; just because one stutters, one is not somehow broken and in need of being fixed. We all have the capacity to learn and to change ourselves. People who stutter “work” or “operate” in the same ways as people who do not stutter. The differences between the two groups are found in the details of the “operating” or “working”, and not in any idea that one group has something that the other group does not have or that one group is lacking some “component of being human” that the other group has.

(2) One of the fundamental ways people work is in the way they process the information that streams into their being from their senses. A human brain processes the incoming sensory-based information by “pattern matching”. A brain compares “what I sense now” against the stored memories of “what I have experienced before”. When it finds a match, it also recalls “what did I do before”, “what did I feel before”, “what did this mean before”. Various neurologists describe (in books and articles) that the human being stores (in some kind of internal database) not only the memory of past events, but also the associated feelings and learned behaviors which happened in conjunction with the remembered event. The memories of all these things are stronger and will have a greater influence and impact in the future in relation to the strength and amount of emotional energy experienced with the original event.

So, when my brain, today, finds some kind of match or “striking similarity” between what I am experiencing right now and some stored memories (when my brain says “oh, THIS is like THAT”; experiencing “THIS” triggers a memory of “THAT”), all of this information is recalled and is sent to the rest of my being. There it signals and cues my nervous system and entire physiology about “what to do” and “what to feel” and “what this means” right now – in this moment – in response to the current situation. And this activity happens within milliseconds. And all human beings work in this way.

This information is sent throughout our being via what neurologists call the “chemical nervous system”, which is comprised of the pathways throughout our body over which all kinds of peptides flow. These peptides carry other chemical substances with them. These other substances are called “messages” or “information”.  These different kinds of peptide “messages” each have their own kind of chemical “key”. When a message passes a special kind of cell which has the corresponding structure to accept the “key” (called a “receptor cell”), then the message “binds” with the “receptor” and the chemical substance being carried along transfers from the peptide to the receptor. In response to this transfer of chemical information, the surrounding area changes at the biological and chemical level.  Candace Pert in Molecules of Emotion describes this flow of informational substances and the change they induce when they bind. Bruce Lipton in The Biology of Belief emphasizes that (a) these flows of informational substances can be caused by the bodies’ reaction to external stimuli and equally by the bodies’ reaction to what a person is thinking (wow! what a powerful concept) and (b) the change at the bio-chemical level in a human being in response to information received from the “chemical nervous system” demonstrates that we are not “biologically determined”, not “biologically predestined”.

Whether a person stutters or does not stutter, all people work this way. The details of each individual’s experience vary and are never replicated from person to person, but all humans work in this same manner.

(3) OK, so my brain performs “pattern matching” on what I experience now (and on what I am also now thinking), and “finding a match” then triggers chemical flows in my body that result in bio-chemical level responses and changes within my body. The bio-chemistry within my body has changed as a result of this processing. I have different feelings and emotions within my being compared to those I had a few moments ago.

People have long recognized that an “experience of something” can put one in a “certain state of mind” or in a “different state of mind”, that it can “change their mood”, or that it can “change their frame of mind”. Neuro-Semantics calls these kinds of things “states of being”. We all go into different “states” as we experience life over the course of a day. These “states” are experienced throughout my mind-and-body-altogether as a “state of being” in response to what I experience. These “states” can range from “a mountain-top experience of pure jubilation and happiness” to “a deep sadness and sorrow” – and many more examples can be thought of. But we all experience in our mind-and-bodies-altogether what our brains and minds think that something “means to us”, and that experience affects our nervous system and physiology – our experience of “states” is at biological and chemical and physiological levels, which is not neutral nor insignificant.

As an aside, have you ever had the thought, upon experiencing a seemingly new and different experience, that “I’ve never been in this situation before”, “I don’t know what to do”, “I don’t know what I am supposed to feel or to say”? This is a good illustration of the above. In a “new situation that is somehow radically different from what we usually experience” we might not have a clue as what to do or to feel or to say. Our brain is struggling to match the new experience with something in our memory, which leaves us with precious few cues and signals about what to do or to feel right now – and we can even sense that at a conscious level within our mind.

(4) But the story does not end there! Enter our “human mind”. The story goes on from “experience, pattern matching, chemical messages, physiological reactions”…

The human mind does not stop at this point. The human mind can and does go on from “thinking about experiences” to “thinking about what it just thought about”. The mind will have thoughts-about-experiences and then thoughts-about-those-thoughts-about-experiences. It will can and will then think about those thoughts-about-thoughts, thus having thoughts-about-thoughts-about-thoughts; and on and on it can go. Neuro-Semantics did not invent this idea (which has long been described and reflected upon by philosophers); the authors or originators of Neuro-Semantics found a way to describe this clearly in a way that one can understand.

As a human mind “thinks about its thoughts” and the brain gets engaged again, the brain will look at this “set of thoughts and meaning about a set of thoughts and meanings” and the brain will match those against something in its memory which will result in more cues and signals getting sent out into one’s being. The biological, chemical, and physiological activities (described above) start all over again. The result is that now one is in a “state of mind” that has been created by processing the information in one’s being about “another state of mind”!

Although I am not a spokesperson for Neuro-Semantics, I would venture to say that Neuro-Semantics is about (among other things)

a) understanding what “states of being” or “states of mind” or “states” get induced within a person as they react to physical stimuli and to their own internal thoughts;

b) identifying “what one does” and “what one believes things mean” when one experiences a “state of being”;

c) understanding what influence and impact a “state of being” has on a person; and

d) changing the meaning that one gives to things, and the thoughts that one has about things, so as to establish a new set of signals and cues for what to do and how to feel.

Applied to blocking and stuttering, then some goals of Neuro-Semantics are to understand “how we do what we do”, “what meaning we give to that”, and then to create and install a “new interpretation of things that we encounter” so that we experience a new and different and positive “state” in place of the previous state(s) which we experienced as we dealt with both the external world and with the world of thoughts within our mind.

In this way, Neuro-Semantics is about experiencing the meaning that one gives to things. And just as the experience of meaning that one has in response to an external stimuli is not neutral nor trivial, so too experiencing the meanings of our “thoughts-about-thoughts-about-thoughts” is likewise just as full of impact and influence at biological, chemical, and physiological levels within our being. This experiencing is not trivial nor negligible for a person. Processing the information associated with these thoughts results in effects to one’s entire mind-and-body-altogether.

(5) A good deal of the processing described in (2) and (3) occurs in what we usually call our “conscious mind” or “our consciousness”; but certainly not all of it does. A good deal of the processing described in (4) occurs at some level or levels in our mind of which we are much less aware; in conversation, we usually speak of this as our “subconscious mind” or our “unconscious mind”.

(6) So, we all have various kinds of and varying amounts of information processing taking place in our beings all of the time. Cues and signals are sent to our beings via our “chemical nervous system”, and the results are that we experience different “states of being” which involve the biological, chemical, and physiological levels in ones being.

The above descriptions sound linear, serial, and sequential in nature. This is due to being expressed in language. But the activity described is non-linear. Our minds jump all over the place all of the time. And like a “good pet”, our brains go right along with our minds to “do what brains do best”. So we think about a lot of things from moment to moment, and we often think about “a thing” from many different angles. (It is an interesting observation that people usually speak 150 to 500 words a minute, but can read 2000, 3000 and more words a minute. So the mind can move along much faster than the body can produce speech.

Bruce Lipton in The Biology of Belief addresses how the vast amount of thoughts that one has on the unconscious level of one’s mind influence and impact the body at the biological, chemical, and physiological level of one’s being. In fact, his conclusion is that “Beliefs control biology” (p. 135). He discusses the need to train one’s self to become aware of “what is going on in the subconscious part of one’s mind”; this is key to changing one’s behavior and feelings.

(7) OK, so here’s how I use this information every day to “do Neuro-Semantics” for Roddy.

(a) First I had to start training myself to “become aware of thoughts in my being of which I was unaware”.

(b) That meant that when I found myself blocking in my speech, I had to learn how to react differently to it than I had always reacted to it. That means that I used to think badly of myself when I would block. I would “really get down on myself” – most everyone I’ve spoken with who blocks and stutters has said similar things about them self.

What did I teach myself to do differently? I began to “welcome into my experience” the blocking and stuttering behavior that I had so loathed. I said to it “come on in, it’s alright, everything will be OK, so come on in and tell me why you are there – tell me what this blocking that I do accomplishes or achieves for me”. I had to have some patience with myself here, had to apply some forgiveness to myself, had to give myself some permission to do some things that I was not inclined to do.

When did I do this? At first, only after the experience in which I was blocking had ended and I could “talk to myself alone”. I learned to give myself permission to block if it occurred, and then to always ask “what did that blocking help me achieve or help me avoid”.

I got amazing answers “from within”; you will too as you teach yourself how to do this. I found that I do the behavior of blocking for reasons that “make sense” given the meanings that my mind gave to things. I believe that you will find your own set of “reasons” too.

As I worked with this, I began to “welcome” the occurrence of a stutter even when I was talking with someone. That means that I would not fight back when I sensed that I might stutter. I would silently say “come on in, it’s OK”. Later I could ask “what were you trying to do for me”, or “what were you trying to protect me from”, or “what thing was ‘blocking’ better than doing when I was talking”. I did – and do – this imperfectly; I never “perfectly interdict” every situation. Sometimes I still fight & don’t relax with myself. But I gave a “block in speech” the meaning that “it does not matter, it is not important, what is important is that I am becoming more and more aware of sets of thoughts and images that I think about – and hence, perform information processing on them – and that finding out what’s going on in my mind is far more important that whether I block on a word”.

(c) As I became more aware of things for which I used to be very unaware, I began to realize that there were two or three “sets of images” or “pictures” that I thought about just before many of the times when I would block and stutter. These “pictures” raced through my mind in milliseconds. But I learned to start sensing when I “was seeing them” in “my mind’s eye”. These images or thoughts or ideas were of me being scared, feeling intimidated, feeling unsure, feeling apprehensive, and then blocking and stuttering in my speech, and more.

(d) So, here I was doing information processing on “thoughts about thoughts about a situation” just before I blocked. My “good ole brain” was pattern matching “this situation” to “old previous situations” and streaming into my being the signals and cues of what to feel and what this meant and what to do: be fearful, look out, hold back, don’t let go, etc, etc. And guess what? I did that, and I felt uncertain, insecure, apprehensive, anxious as I had felt before. I felt that I was destined to block and stutter in the new situation that was just about to unfold, just as I had done so before. And I did! Surprise! Not really…no reason to be surprised; one follows the other as surely as night follows day! What I did and felt flowed naturally from what I was thinking about (i.e., from the information processing that I was doing).

***NOTE TO PONDER:

Dev, you wrote:

“I often lock up when I go for an Interview and become really under confident.”

Suppose Roddy was going to fill-in or “to be” Dev for a day. And suppose that on that day, Roddy-as-Dev was going for an Interview. What would Roddy have to think about so that he could “be Dev” and lock up when he goes to that interview? What would Roddy have to think about to feel the same intense level of “very under confident” as Dev feels? What sort of things have to “be on Roddy’s mind” so that he gets the same cues and signals as Dev which will then enable Roddy to lock up and to feel very under confident just like Dev does?

I ask this thinking that your contemplation of this will assist you in beginning to become aware of the pictures or sounds or thoughts that go through your mind before you go for a job interview.

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(e) Now being aware of some information processing that was going on, but of which I was previously unaware, what was I to do?

I’ve learned through Bob Bodenhamer and Michael Hall in their talks and writings about Neuro-Semantics that people can use the same “tools” which were involved in the creation of some style of thinking (i.e., like “I am a stutter and always will”; or “I can’t do anything right”, etc) to change that thinking! The brain and the mind are powerful players. Un-assisted, un-trained, un-led, they can and will go off on their own un-guided way. What they wind up with, as that un-guided journey unfolds, is anybody’s guess! So, a person can use their powers of imagining and thinking to “train them”. And unless a person has a brain injury or suffers lost capacity due to an illness like dementia or Alzheimer’s, then every person has this capacity, has these tools, to “train their brain to think what they want it to think”.

So, variously and seemingly randomly, I am running images and pictures through my mind, I am “thinking”. “What I am thinking” is typically the same thing or something quite similar. Usually, this set of images starts out with “A”, then “B” happens, then I feel and think “C”, then “D” happens, then I feel and think “E”, then the pictures are over.

So this information processing that I am doing has a structure to it: A, B, C, D, E. That is not to say that “A causes B causes C, etc”. That is only to say that there is a structure of A, B, C, D, E. And that structure, when experienced again by my running those images through my mind, leads to my experiencing similar behavior again as in the past: I get tense and anxious, and I block.

I have learned from Bob and Michael that if one changes the structure of that experience, then one changes the impact which that experience has on one’s self.

When you “alter the structure of a remembered experience”, then thinking of that altered experience sends a new set of signals and cues to your body that are very different from the original set of signals and cues – these new signals are powered by the new meaning that you now give to the altered experience. So, “change or alter your memory of something” and you change what that memory tells you to feel or to do when you think about that.

The altered experience now “means” something different to you than the original experience meant. The result of “information processing” of those changed thoughts, or “images”, is a new and different state of being.

On web site you will read about the difference between “focusing on the content” of a problem versus “focusing on the structure” of a problem inside an article that Bob wrote with former PWS, Linda Rounds. A lot of talk-therapy spends a great deal of time in the “content plane” and has not too much to show for it (in my opinion). Neuro-Semantics is a way to focus on “what makes up an experience” of a problem – i.e., the “structure plane” – and to affect real and lasting change by changing that structure.

(f) So, I got a clear, full picture of two images that I learned that I “ran through my mind” just before I blocked, and I changed them by doing the following:

(1) First, Dev, you should read an article that Bob has on his web site about Perceptual Positions. This way of dealing with something has helped me a lot. (Note from the editor: You will find Perceptual Positions as Number 8 in the article that I wrote entitled “Eight Keys to Personal Change“. If you haven’t read  that article, I highly encourage you to do so as it summarizes my therapeutic discoveries over a period now of 17 years.)

(2) Also, read an article there about “Stepping In and Stepping Out”. (Note from the editor: You will find an outstanding example of the mind’s ability of stepping out of one state and stepping in to another state from the article above.  For, as one moves around the different “Perceptual Positions”, one is in effect stepping out of one state and into another state for each position represents a different state of being. We do this all the time. We go through many different states in any given day. One moment we may be sad and the next moment we are happy. One moment we are in a sleepy state and the next moment, as something grabs our attention, we find ourselves in a curious state. To access one states requires that we step out of another. The plasticity of the brain allows us “to choose” what state we desire to be in and to enter into it. To not to be in a mind-body state means that you are dead.)

(3) I took one set of images that I ran just before I blocked, and I did this:

a) I “stepped in to” a situation where I felt very confident. I was completely there, and experienced that confidence throughout my being again.

b) I “stepped out” of that, but (metaphorically speaking) kept it close by.

c) I sat down and pretended that a large projection screen was in front of me. I mentally placed the images in this one set onto that screen.

d) I mentally “stepped into” the images and was the “me” that I saw there. I ran through the images like they were a brief movie. I got plenty of cues for bad feelings!

e) I let the movie play out and end. It was over. I “stepped out of that movie”. The screen was blank. All was calm. I was in a calm place. I stepped back into the situation where I felt confidence. I felt it again.

f) I brought that confidence with me to the chair where I sat. Sitting there as a confident, adult, third-person observer (an “adult” Roddy, not a “child-like” Roddy from many years ago) looking at a blank screen. I put the last image of that movie back on the screen. Viewing this image from my position of calmness and confidence, I ran the entire movie backwards at a “fast-rewind” speed. When it got to the start of the movie, I stopped.

I’m sure that you have seen the visual effect from running a movie in reverse rapidly. One can see this with a VCR or a DVD. When you run the movie fast in reverse, the images don’t mean what they do when you play them forward at the proper speed. The entire “meaning” of the video sequence of the images is changed by doing this. The impact that the movie has on you is totally changed by viewing the movie this way! When you view a movie “in fast reverse” you don’t feel the same as you do when you view it at normal forward speed. It’s very simple, yet quite profound!

g) Mentally, I went back to the end of the movie again, and sitting there as a calm and confident adult, I ran it in reverse again. I repeated this about 20 times. Then I grew bored.

h) Then I played it forward at normal speed and my response was “so what, it means nothing”. Now before this, seeing that movie play at normal forward speed in my mind’s eye certainly did mean something; but now this way of viewing it had changed its structure, resulting in it now “meaning nothing”. That’s right. It means nothing now. It does not mean what it used to mean.

As an aside, have you ever had someone ask you if you wanted to see a certain movie, but you replied “No, I don’t feel like watching that tonight” or “No, I’m not in the mood for that tonight”? We say that because movies give us cues for how to feel when we focus our attention on them by closely watching them; sometimes we want to feel a certain way, sometimes we do not. Sometimes we say “You know, I’m in the mood to watch such-and-such”, meaning that we want to feel certain things and we know that watching a certain movie will “make us” feel that.

(Note from the editor: Roddy here has magnificently utilized the NLP Pattern “The Fast Phobia Cure” in ways that have proven most helpful to him as he works to eliminate the image that he had just before he blocked.  If a picture triggers us into a negative mind-body state, then the removal of the picture will theoretically remove the negative feelings from that state.  The trigger of the state is now eliminated so the state will not run.  I do not have this pattern on the web site. You will find it in my book Mastering Blocking & Stuttering mentioned earlier. If you search the internet,  you will find many links to this model. We have been utilizing the structure of this model for many years in assisting clients overcome fears, phobias and traumas.  If you have a picture in your mind that you would like to get rid of, try this model.  Visit website of one of the leading founders of NLP, Robert Dilts, and from his multi-volume entitle “The Encyclopedia of NLP” you will find this model at: http://nlpuniversitypress.com/html3/V23.html.)

(4) OK, I took the other set of images that I ran through my mind before I blocked, and I did this:

(a) I accessed a situation where I felt confident and strong; I “was there again” and felt it strongly.

(b) I step out of this and “place it close by”.

(c) I started to run this movie. I step into it and I am “Roddy, back there a long time ago”.

(d) At the crucial point in the movie where things go bad for me, I froze the film. The image stopped on one frozen frame.

We have some commercials on TV here in the USA that do this very thing. At an important point in the commercial, the picture freezes at a frame and the motion stops; the narrator steps out into the frozen frame and moves among the objects frozen in mid-motion; he continues his selling pitch as he walks among the objects that are frozen in motion.

(e) So, just like the commercial, I freeze the frame. I “step out” of Roddy the boy and “step into” the calm confident adult as a third-party observer.

(f) I see all of the people there; I see Roddy-the-boy.

(g) I ask a lot of questions like,

“what is Roddy feeling now?”

“what does he believe is going on here?”

“what would help him out?”

I look at the other people.

I walk around them (in my mental picture of this).

I look at the back of their heads.

I ask:

“what’s going on in their minds?”

“what do they believe is happening here?”

“what are they trying to achieve?”

“how do I – the calm, confident adult – see them?”

“what could I share with Roddy-the-boy that might help him out here?”

And more.

(5) Doing these kinds of things with these kinds of images illustrates something that Albert Einstein said about solving a problem: something like “you cannot solve a problem from within the problem, you must rise above the problem” (several articles on Bob’s web site have this quote).

That applies here in this way:

Roddy cannot solve the problem of the impact of this experience on him when he was a 13 year old boy by being in the situation again as that 13 year old. That 13 year old boy cannot ever solve that problem. Roddy can talk about and re-live that experience over and over, and in so doing Roddy is experiencing that as a 13 year old all over again each and every time. And every time Roddy experiences this as that 13 year old, it always means the same thing and always gives him the same cues about what to feel and to do. So, 13-year-old-Roddy, by himself, alone, will always view that experience the same way; hence, he cannot change it. As long as Roddy is “within the problem” in this way, he cannot solve the problem from that position.

But, 56 year old Roddy has a lot of strengths and knowledge and insight which he can bring to this situation and share with that 13 year. Those resources will enable Roddy to give different meaning to what happened; “what happened” will no longer mean what it once did, that meaning will now be altered. And when the meaning is altered, then the impact and influence which occur today when Roddy “sees those images again” in his mind will be a different impact with a different set of signals than it was before.

Roddy, to solve the problem of the impact and meaning of these experiences, must rise above that problem, and he does that “stepping out” of himself as the 13 year old and “stepping into” himself as the confident 56 year old who goes back there and assists the 13 year old with the situation. The 56 year old Roddy helps the 13 year old Roddy “see the situation differently”, “get a new perspective on what happened and on what that really means”.

The whole purpose for “stepping in” and “stepping out” is to be able to identify what is happening and then to rise above it from whence one can work to resolve or to dissolve or to attenuate the impact that the 13 year old Roddy (in this case) felt.

(6) Doing this “stepping out” and “stepping in”, doing this “getting a new perspective from a resourceful 56 year old Roddy”, changes the structure of the experience for me. The structure used to be “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, then “E”. Now its “A”, “B”, “W”, “X”, “Y”, “Z” – there are no more “C”, “D”, “E”.

Before this, the images in this little movie meant a few specific things, and when I ran that movie I got several specific cues for what to do and how to feel.  But working with the movie in this way has changed what these images mean; changing these images means that it has a different impact on me now; having a different impact on me means that I get cues now for acting and feeling that are different than the cues I got before; getting different cues now means that I act and feel differently!

(7) So, pulling this altogether:

Sometimes I am in some kind of situation and I sense that I am running or am about to run one of these movies. I let myself become aware of what is happening. I let myself start to run the movie. I do not criticize myself because this is happening. It’s OK that it happens. Everything will be alright.

I jump into whichever movie it is just as I described above. If it’s the first movie, I run it in fast reverse, viewing it as a calm confident adult. It is amazing how a movie changes when you run it in fast reverse! If it’s the second movie, I freeze it at the important frame and walk around in it as a confident adult. It’s amazing how the meaning of the movie changes when you freeze it and walk around in it as a calm and confident adult observer.

That means that neither movie “sets me up to stutter”. Experiencing these movies in this modified fashion changes their impact on me as well as the cues or signals sent to me by my brain as it processes this modified set of information.

That’s two examples of how I do Neuro-Semantics every day. I learned to do this by trying to do it. My first attempts were not as successful as I desired. They were a bit awkward; I wondered if I was on the right track. But I viewed that as a “learning experience” – not as failure. I viewed it as “starting to jog or run again” after not running for a long time. First I had to work into “running one-half mile”; then, over days, I could work into “running a mile”; then, over a week or two, I could work into “running 2 miles”…….  I kept encouraging myself and I kept looking for the positive in what I was doing.

Well, Dev, thanks for staying with me until this point. Thank you for listening to my summary.

In conclusion:

————————————–
You wrote:

  • “My stuttering is really having an adverse effect on my career.”
  • “Companies have a hard time looking beyond one’s stammer, here in India.”
  • “I often lock up when I go for an Interview and become really under confident.”
  • “This has happened a few times and now I am really scared to be interviewed.”

————————————–

Applying what I’ve said above to this:

  1. “Step into” the situation where you are going to an interview; really “be there again”.
  2. What is running through your mind? what do you think or feel or see or hear that leads you to feel very under confident?
  3. Give yourself room to start a journey of “listening to yourself”.
  4. Let whatever you find there come into your consciousness; it will not hurt anything!
  5. Ask what you find there “what cues and signals are being sent by my brain for what to feel and how to act?”
  6. When you find yourself “feeling under confident” or “feeling like you will lock up”, ask yourself “what movie have I been running from which I took these cues and signals to feel this?

One more aside here, Dev. During the course of any day I might become aware that I’m in a “state of mind” and/or that     I am behaving or acting or relating in ways that I really don’t care for nor want to do. In these cases, I’m teaching myself to use what we are talking about here in a reverse way.

Since I am feeling certain things and since I am acting in certain ways, there must be something that my mind is thinking about which is sending me these cues and signals about feeling and acting in these ways! So I ask myself:

“What is running through your mind, Roddy, that’s giving you these signals? What pictures or images or thoughts, what sounds or smells are you thinking about? What past experience are you thinking about that is similar to this experience?”

When I first started asking myself these things I got answers rather slowly – maybe not even for a day. Now, I get them much faster, sometimes within a couple of minutes.     When I get those answers, then I apply things I’ve learned from Neuro-Semantics (like what we’ve discussed) to those thoughts for the express purpose of changing whatever  structure those thoughts have – because when you change the structure of a set of thoughts, then you change the impact they have on you and you thus get different cues and signals for feeling and acting.

  1. Does that look like some kind of little movie?
  2. Perhaps try playing with a movie and altering it in one of the ways that I described.
  3. “Step out” of the above situation and “step into” a situation where Dev feels and knows that he is very confident and capable.
  4. Bring the resources from “Dev in the state of confidence” back to “Dev in the state of under confident” and apply them to each part of what you thought or did to put yourself in the “state of under confident”. This is how you change the structure and meaning of what you used to do into something different which has its new and different meaning.
  5. Now, the above goes a long way toward helping me change the impact of negative experiences that I remember. And I am really happy to have learned this. But I want more, and I bet that you do too, Dev. I don’t want to spend all of my time just “battling to overcome the negative things”. I want to be “all that I can be”.
  6. I want to experience “the positive”. Yet I know that I will not achieve that if all I ever do is just “work on negative experiences”. “Working on negative experiences” is a great place to start, but I can achieve the highest for me by moving on beyond that and starting to shape a new and positive set of thoughts to think about. This means that I also work with my imagination, using my brain & mind, to create and to instill and to install and to anchor securely a set of new and powerful images of “Roddy living and being and feeling and acting at his best in all kinds of situations”. I am learning to create these and then to run them through my mind ever day!

Neuro-Semantics is a two-sided coin: not only does one deal with changing “the negative”, but one builds off of and creates an equally wide array of “the positive”. And you use the same tools for both. That is really great stuff to me! Imagine, not only defuse the negative past, but infuse one’s future with powerful new visions of achievement that, each time we run them through our minds, cue and signal us for our greatest performance and goals!

Dev, you’ll find a whole lot of extremely useful material at Bob’s web sites. Read that material and then “do Neuro-Semantics” by applying that to you, and practice doing that until it begins to become an automatic response!

Welcome to a new adventure in living and being!

Regards,
Roddy Grubbs
RoddyGrubbs@netscape.net

Gary’s Fluency Strategy: Viewing Blocking/Stuttering from Different Perspectives

by

Viewing Blocking/Stuttering from Different Perspectives

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
 With Gary Lindenbaum

Gary and I have been conversing in recent weeks through telephone consultations.  Gary is a retired school administrator and now has his own business. For sure, Gary has not allowed blocking/stuttering to block his career. I have great admiration for a person with a blocking/stuttering problem who steps out into the public arena and builds a career. That takes internal strength. Strength by the way, that has driven him to Neuro-Semantics for assistance.

It is a real privilege to work with such a committed and determined person. We are all grateful for Gary’s willingness to share his progress and to share his fluency strategy with us in the public arena. He is doing this even though he is a “work in progress” and still has a blocking/stuttering problem but he is determined to continue working and improving his fluency.

I was so grateful a few sessions ago when Gary said, “Bob, I have been going to therapy for years with this blocking/stuttering problem and I always knew there was a missing piece. Neuro-Semantics is that missing piece.”

Through our work, Gary has developed the following strategy that is proving effective in his journey towards fluency. I was so impressed with it and its potential to assist other PWBS, that I requested his permission to post it on the web site. He has consented to do so with his name attached. Following the strategy, I will explain linguistically how Gary’s strategy works.

Gary’s Fluency Strategy

  1. I have images, hear voices and have feelings about what other people will say about me for blocking/stuttering (Looking to others for my sense of self-worth). Then I say to myself, “It is all a bunch of crap; it is all made up. I have always seen other people and mind-read what they thought of me. It is just a bunch of crap.” (Negating)
  2. I now use these images to trigger me to get me to my spiritual place.  I see a white holy light coming out of heaven and into the top of my head and down into the core of my body.  It then goes back up my body, through my throat and then out my mouth. (Meta-Stating)
  3. Next, I picture myself as an adult being present speaking to the other person.  I see myself and the other person (3rd Position).
  4. I then come back to the present moment (1st Position) as an adult looking out at the other person. (Bringing the Resource of numbers 1 – 3 to bear on this adult state.)
  5. As an adult, I “Meta-No” the internal dialogue that keeps popping up telling me that I am what I think other people think I am.
  6. After I Meta-No that negative internal dialogue, I Meta-Yes:”I am a friend to myself.”
    ”God is within me and that determines my self worth (5th Position).”
    ”I am a positive, compassionate, loving, strong and courageous person.”
  7. Then I own my stuttering as “it isn’t a big deal.” (Owning his Power-Zone and Reframing – changing the meaning)
  8. Finally, I give my self permission to have the right to take as much time as I want to take when I talk to someone. (Permission frame)

Strategy Explained:

  1. Letting “Others” run our brain – That is a bunch of “crap!”

Gary, “I have images, hear voices and have feelings about what other people will say about me for blocking/stuttering. These images lead me right into a block as I attempt “blocking” the stuttering. This of course creates a worse stutter.” (Looking to others for your sense of self-worth)

Gary summed up the thinking of many PWBS when he said, “I am what I think other people think I am.” If there is one commonality among PWBS stutter, it is the fear of what other people may think of them because of the blocking/ stuttering. I routinely ask this question of my PWBS clients, “If you absolutely did not care what other people thought of your blocking/ stuttering, what would change about your speech?” In every case, they say that it will either greatly improve or totally go away. Now, in my book, that is significant.

In NLP/NS this is known as the 2nd Perceptual Position. This basically means that we are in the other person’s body looking back at ourselves. However, with PWBS, it goes much deeper for they become the other person and “guess” what that other person is thinking about them for their stuttering.  Gary says, “When I am in 2nd Position, there is no me, no ‘I.'” I become the other person.  There is no separation between them and me. It is like I am not even present. It is not my feeling – it is their picture; their voice; it is about how they are feeling about me should I block/stutter. I am not in 1st Position (in my body). I just check out and I am not even present.” Gary concludes, “Not only do I mind-read their judging me about my blocking/stuttering, I feel like they are reading me while I am in the 2nd Position of being in their body.  It is their picture; their voice – it is how they are feeling.”  In essence, Gary, as do all PWBS that I have worked with, gives complete power and control over to what he believes the other person will think of him.

NLP recognized early on that when it comes to making evaluations, judgments, decisions, etc., that some people evaluate things based on what other people think while others base their evaluations on what they think internally.  An “other-referencing” type person will need feedback from other people to know they have made a right decision or evaluation while a “self-referencing” person will just know inside. This does not mean that a self-referencing person does not value the opinion of others. A mental healthy self-referencing person will value the opinion of others as feedback but not in making the final decision or evaluation.

We come into this world referencing others for, as children, we depended on parents or other adults to let us know if we were right or wrong, if we were OK or not OK. But, as we mature, we go “inside” to make evaluations based on our years of study, learning and experience. PWBS have a strong tendency of fearing what other people think of them. So, in the context of speech, a PWBS functions primarily by letting other people run their brain.  Just switching from the other-referencing to self-referencing can make profound differences in moving towards more fluency.

Note 1: It would appear that most PWBS, do the following in bringing the other’s judgment to bear on to themselves:

  1. They first go second position to the other person and mind-read the other person’s judgment about their blocking/stuttering.
  2. They then bring that judgment to bear on themselves and then associate “inside” the judgment which is their first position but it is a first position “inside” the “other’s” perceived judgments of them.
  3. When that happens, they are “inside” the block which is a first position but the “stuff” of that first position is the “other’s” perceived judgment.”

Note 2: To make this switch can be quite difficult due to the “in the muscle” beliefs that were built primarily during childhood.  Therapy may be required. However, by just practicing over and over a strategy like Gary’s has the potential of making dramatic changes. More than one person has had enough of letting other people run their brain and have just decided to take ownership of their own thoughts and feelings and started trusting themselves in evaluating their own sense of self-worth.

“Crappy” Thinking

Gary, “Then I say to myself, ‘It is all a bunch of crap; it is all made up. I have always seen other people and mind-read what they thought of me. It is just a bunch of crap.’” (Meta-No-ing by negating that old belief)

Now, here in the very first step, Gary begins to move away from that old “stinking thinking” of letting other people control his thoughts and feelings. Now, he has decided to begin the journey of running his own brain by negating giving other people permission to run his brain. It is as if Gary is saying that “I will no longer give other people rent free space in my brain. That is a bunch of crap. I and I alone will control my thoughts, feelings, speaking and behaving.”

So, in essence, when Gary says that letting others control his thoughts and feelings is a bunch of crap, he is bringing a great big “No” to bear on that “crappy thinking.” He is turning the crap into fertilize.

To bring one thought to bear on another thought will change/modulate the first thought and put us in a different state. We call that Meta-Stating. For example, it is normal for PWBS to have fear about blocking and stuttering. Then, they will often fear what that will mean about them as a person, etc. This layering of thoughts multiplies the negative effect and results in blocking (See Figure 1).

Michael has an introductory article entitled Introduction to the Meta-States Model that will assist you in learning about this model.

Also, I have a pattern on the web site entitled The Meta-Yes Meta-No Belief Change Pattern that further explains how this works. Later in his strategy, Gary again uses this pattern.

Figure 1

Now, the brain doesn’t care if we layer our minds with positive or negative thoughts. Unlike the stomach which vomits out garbage, the brain processes it.  Knowing this, Gary has chosen to start layering his mind with positive thoughts by first negating or saying “no” to those negative thoughts (See Figure 2).

Figure 2

All reality is a constructed reality.

Note that Gary says, “It is all ‘made up.” What does he mean by this?  Gary has learned through study and experience that all of our thoughts are created by our own brains. We create the pictures, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes and word meanings inside our head which are the “stuff” of thoughts. The great news is, because we create them, we “make them up,” we can un-make them. Because they are a constructed reality, we can de-construct them and re-construct thoughts that serve us.

Think about it. If you were just to decide to stop mind-reading what others may or not think of you because you block/stutter, what would happen?  Gary explained that when he “saw images, heard voices and had feelings about what other people would say about him for blocking/stuttering,” he would get fearful and block. That is typical, isn’t it?

Now, Gary has decided to say “no” to that thinking and to think something else that will serve him.  Since he says “no” to those thoughts, by saying they are a “bunch of crap” and they are “all made up,” those thoughts will not do anything to him for not having them any more. The more you study NLP and NS, the more you will realize that thoughts only have the meaning and the power that we give them.  For a better understanding, you may wish to read the article Simply Introducing NLP on the web site.

Suffice it to say, our thoughts are constructed by us. They are learned behaviors. They are just abstractions in the mind. There are no objective test instruments that can find a picture, a sound, a feeling or words in the mind. They are abstractions off the neural pathways of the brain.  I do not understand how the brain creates these images through abstraction and I doubt if anyone else does.  However,  I do know that you can learn to stop running old thoughts that no longer serve you  and you can learn to run new thoughts that do serve you.  An old Jewish proverb says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…” (Proverbs 23:7a KJV).

  1. Meta-Stating with a Trigger

Gary, “I now use these images to trigger me to get to my spiritual place.  I see a white holy light coming out of heaven and into the top of my head and down into the core of my body.  It then goes back up my body, through my throat and then out my mouth” (Swishing the brain, Meta-Stating).

Here Gary is in the process of totally changing his behavior from that which created blocking/ stuttering to that which will lead to more and more fluency. Typically when it came to speaking to someone or even thinking about speaking so someone, his brain would go to the fear of blocking/stuttering and all the many layers of meaning that entailed.

He is now taking that same trigger that did trigger “stinking thinking” and he is using it to swish or to send his brain to his higher resource state.  In this spiritual resource state, Gary experiences: being centered, being a friend to himself, being compassionate, being positive, being loving, being strong, being courageous and having a strong sense of self-worth from his belief in God.  When totally inside this resource state, Gary is completely fluent.

When you learn to take those old triggers that triggered the negative layering of the mind which resulted in blocking/ stuttering and instead allow those old triggers to send you to your resource state, you are well on your way to fluency. Eventually, you will not even have to think about it. Once you have this way of thinking “in your muscles,” those old negative states that speaking use to trigger will be gone. It will no longer be an issue.

Note: Hopefully you have a resource(s) state that you can access and be totally in it. A good place to start is the state of mind you are in when you do speak fluently. Analyze that state. How does it feel? Do you see any pictures?  Are there sounds?  How are you talking to yourself in that state? Imagine yourself fully in that state.

I love utilizing spiritual states. For most people, these states have the most “power” to blow out the fear and anxiety.  If you have beliefs about God, Love, the Universe, etc, go “inside” that state noting how you feel, what you are seeing, how you are talking to yourself, etc. and apply that state to the fear. Do like Gary – when the fear or anxiety of blocking starts coming up, immediately send your brain to your resource state and be there totally in your resource state. The brain learns through repetition. By constant repetition of this strategy, you may be amazed at what you can do. Practice, practice, practice.

  1. 3rd Perceptual Position

Gary, “Next, I picture myself as an adult being present speaking to the other person.  I see myself and the other person” (3rd Position).

Here Gary creates a picture of seeing himself as an adult talking to the other person.  Why is it so important for Gary to see himself as an adult?  It is very important. I believe I can answer that question by simply asking you, “How old do you feel when you are blocking?”  Most PWBS will immediately reply, “I feel like a little child.” Or, sometimes they give me the exact age. And, this age will have around it an experience(s) of being made fun of by a parent, peer or a teacher, etc.

What happens in blocking/stuttering (and most other emotional problems) is that some internal or external trigger will unconsciously send us back to a hurtful experience as a child. We cease being an adult and become a child. So, here, Gary sees himself as an adult which informs his brain that he is no longer a little boy full of fear, anxiety and embarrassment but a grown man with the resources of a grown man. He is not going into a communication as a child.

But there is more, note that Gary is seeing himself in the picture. Here Gary introduces us to the NLP 3rd Perceptual Position. What in the world is that?  It is a model that is extremely important for one who desires flexibility of behavior. Or, to put it another way, it is a model that will assist a PWBS to get “outside” a block and to find a resource state.  I have pulled from the Mastering Stuttering training manual that I am working on the following information about Perceptual Positions.  I encourage you to not only learn this intellectually but also experientially. Actually practice going through each position.

Perceptual Positions for Developing Flexibility of Consciousness
 (From the “Mastering Stuttering Training Manual”)

The realization that we humans operate from five basic ways of looking at experience offers tremendous potential in state control and in the enhancing of our communication. NLP first offered three positions. We have expanded them to five positions. We refer to these ways as being the first, second, third, fourth and fifth perceptual positions and explain them in The User’s Manual for the Brain. I have modified that material especially for PWBS (See Figure 3).

First Position

When you associate into your own body, you live in first position. This permits you to look at the world from your own viewpoint. In the first position, you do not take into account anyone else’s position. You simply think, “How does this conversation or communication affect me?”

First position is the normal and healthy position of seeing, hearing, and feeling from out of self. It is the position needed in order to speak with authenticity, to present yourself, your thoughts, feelings, and responses congruently, to disclose, listen, inquire, and be present with another.

Second Position

When you are in second position, you are “walking in the other person’s shoes.” You take into consideration how a communication or event would look, feel and sound from another person’s point of view. In the second position, you imagine yourself entering the other person’s body. In this position you imagine looking at yourself through their eyes. Second position is to understand, feel with, experience empathy for and see things from another’s point of view. Here you’ll feel in accord with the other and have a strong sense of her perceptive.

What do you look like, sound like and what feelings do you get from the other person’s viewpoint of you? In the second position you develop the ability in experiencing empathy. This position gives much flexibility when involved in conflict with someone. From the second position you can appreciate how they feel about your conversation and behavior. Build rapport before going second position. And, by going second position, notice how the rapport deepens. Second position offers an extremely valuable model in deepening rapport.

However, for the PWBS, second position often becomes the kiss of death. Remember Gary’s words, “When I am in 2nd Position, there is no me, no ‘I.'” I become the other person.  There is no separation between them and me. It is like I am not even present. It is not my feeling – it is their picture; their voice; it is about how they are feeling about me should I block/stutter. I am not in 1st Position (in my body). I just check out and I am not even present.” Gary concludes, “Not only do I mind-read their judging me about my blocking/stuttering, I feel like they are reading me while I am in the 2nd Position of being in their body.  It is their picture; their voice – it is how they are feeling.” In this description, Gary has gone into the other person’s body and mind-read or guessed at the judgments the person will bring to bear on him. Gary loses Gary and becomes totally absorbed by what he thinks the other person will think of him.

Third Position

When you distance yourself from an event, you more than likely do it by going to the third position. Third position offers a way of dissociating from the entire event or conversation. In the third position you become an independent observer. Third position allows us to operate from the position of objectivity. Ask yourself, “How would this conversation or event look to someone totally uninvolved?” Imagine yourself being out of your body and off to the side of the conversation between you and the other person. You can see both yourself and the other person. The third position allows you to step back, to gain a sense of distance, to observe, to witness, to feel neutral and to appreciate both positions fully.

This is the position that Gary put himself in in step #3. He stepped “outside” himself and saw himself as an adult watching himself speak to the other person. By “stepping outside” himself, Gary in essence is “stepping outside” the possibility of stepping back into a state of fear. Try this. The next time you sense a block coming on, imagine yourself popping out of your body and seeing yourself as an adult conversing with the other person. I highly recommend a lot of practice learning how to go to the 3rd Position of objectivity for it will serve you well.

Fourth Position

Robert Dilts (1997) first specified the Fourth Perceptual Position in his Visionary Leadership Skills manual. He defined the Fourth Position as “We” C  from the perspective of the system. In this position, we have “associated in the perspective of the whole system.” To take fourth position, step aside and adopt the perspective of the whole system so that you can there consider what would contribute to the best interest of the system. A linguistic format for this position goes: “If we consider our common goals…” The fourth position allows on to understand the contexts (cultural, linguistic, business, family, etc.) that influence all of the larger systems and contexts of our world.

In using this for myself, I have modified it somewhat.  Dilt’s model calls for associating into the system. I first associate into the system and then go to the third position to view objectively my position in relation to others in the team.  Then I go second position to each person in the team and then back to the associated systems position. I rotate back and forth through these positions as I deem necessary. I have found this most useful as have other clients that I have coached.

Fifth Position

Marilyn Atkinson (1997) in an unpublished manuscript entitled “Five Central Ideas” suggests another perceptual position C “a universal perceptual position.” This results from applying the universal quantifiers (all, always) to our perspective. Doing so “springboards us to the valuable idea of a universal perceptual position.” (p. 24). This provides the widest and largest level perspective of all.

By taking this meta-position to everything, we can then learn to take on multiple perceptual positions and even change rapidly between them. Doing so increases our flexibility of consciousness so that we don’t get stuck in any one position.

This may involve “over-viewing through time” – seeing things as they progress through and over time. None of these positions offer a superior position to the other. Each position has equal importance. The wise communicator knows how to move at will from one position to the other.

The 5th Position is extremely important in overcoming blocking/stuttering.  When Gary accessed his “spiritual place” in step #2, he was in 5th position. On the web site you have Linda’s story in the article From Stuttering to Stability how she attained fluency using The Drop Down Through pattern. Linda dropped into her spiritual resource state. It was a “bright yellow light” that to her as a Christian was Jesus. This state is Linda’s 5th Position.  You will note that in that state, Linda could not be fearful about speaking to other people. That state allowed her to quickly gain fluency.

Discover the 5th Position for yourself. It will serve you well.  Every client I work with, one of the first things I do is to assist the client in finding their 5th Position state and to be able to access it at will.

What is your 5th Position?  How would you describe it?  It is where your highest beliefs, values, understandings, etc. lie. You want to do like Gary is learning to do and Linda has already learned to do, you want to get to the point that you can “fly there” at any moment and especially in those times when you feel a block coming.

Figure 3
Perceptual Positions

  1. 1st Position with Anchored Resources

Gary, “I then come back to the present moment (1st Position) as an adult looking out at the other person.”  (Bringing the Resource of numbers 1-3 to bear on this adult state.)

Here Gary left the 3rd Position of seeing himself as an adult with the other person and he came back to the 1st Position of being in his body but, importantly, Gary brings with him the resource states and the mental frames from what he has learned and experienced in numbers 1 – 4. He now knows that the old fear of blocking is a “bunch of crap.”  He knows that it is only as real as he lets it be for it is “all made up.”  He has accessed his “spiritual place.”  This powerful resource is giving Gary the power to overcome the fear of other people which created the blocking.  He knows he is not a child and he refuses to act like one.

  1. Meta-No-ing the Negative Dialogue

Gary, “As an adult, I Meta-No the internal dialogue that keeps popping up telling me that I am what I think other people think I am.”

One thing about overcoming a life long habit of blocking and stuttering is that the old dragons of fear and anxiety will start raising their heads.  You have had this problem possibly for many years and it is well “grooved in.”  So, in your path to fluency, give yourself permission to work at defeating those habituated fear dragons.

Here Gary utilizes the Meta-No side of the Meta-Yes Meta-No Belief Change Pattern mentioned in mention in Step #1 above.  We firmly believe that the only difference between a thought and a belief is that a belief is a thought that we have affirmed by saying “yes” to it as being true for us.  I can have the thought that the sun will come up in the west tomorrow, but I don’t believe it.  However, I do believe that it will come up in the east. I have 58 years of experiential reasons to give that thought a great big “yes.”

So, if it is true that the only difference between a thought and a belief is the confirmation, then to change a former belief into just a thought, all we must do is just dis-confirm it or say no to it. Now, for those “grooved in” beliefs like being afraid of what others may think of you if you stutter, give yourself permission as Gary has done to keep on saying “no” to it every time it raises its ugly head.  Practice, practice and practice some more. If that doesn’t work after a few weeks or a few months, enlist a skilled NS practitioner to assist you.

  1. Meta-Yes-ing Resources

After I Meta-No that negative internal dialogue, I Meta-Yes:

”I am a friend to myself.”
”God is within me and that determines my self worth.”
”I am a positive, compassionate, loving, strong and courageous person.”

Isn’t this great?  Once Gary Meta-No’s the old fear of what other people may think of him, he immediately sends his brain to those beliefs that come out of his spiritual resource place and says, “yes” to them.

  1. Reframing Stuttering as “no big deal” – a Meta-Stating Process

Gary, “Then I own my stuttering as it isn’t a big deal.” (Framing)

Here Gary does two things. First, he “owns” his stuttering problem.  What?  That doesn’t make sense. Of course it is his. But, wait a minute. Before we can deal with an unwanted behavior, we have to first admit that we have a problem and then we must identify it.  Gregory Bateson in his work Steps to an Ecology of Mind points out that when we name something we do so at a higher level than that which we name. We have to think about something in order to do it. And, when we think about something we are at a higher level than that which we name.

Think about this statement that I recently read, “I don’t know who named water ‘water’ but I know it wasn’t the fish.”  In other words, when we name something we have to “step outside” of it to analyze it enough to know what to call it. We can’t solve a problem on the level of the problem. We must rise above it. I do believe that was Einstein who said that.

As a psychotherapist, I run into so many people who hate their unwanted behaviors. They fight them like hell to try to get them to go away. But, guess what, instead of going away, the get stronger.  So, think of your blocking/ stuttering problem. Note the intensity of your feelings about that ole dragon. Now, instead of fighting it, welcome it and name or own it as belonging to you. What happens?  Did the intensity reduce? For most, but not all, it will. It is all according to how you frame or how you think about it.

Now, instead of getting mad at stuttering/blocking as you own it, think about it or frame it as Gary did with the thought like “it is no big deal.” Now, what did that do?  PWBS really create one great big dragon state when they think about blocking/stuttering as determining their identity and running their lives.  Michael and I have an article on the web site entitled “How to Create a Good Dose of Stuttering” that explains this. So Gary in essence is saying, this behavior that I have is no longer going to determine who I am for I am a lot more than my speech and in that light “it is no big deal.”  Way to go Gary.

Note: Gary says, “I think fluently, which creates further distance from my stuttering. To help own my stuttering in the 1st position, I have started to ‘think in stuttering.’ It is always a shock to me that stuttering starts after a stream of articulate thought patterns have taken place in my mind.”

  1. Permission to take his time – owning his own powers – The “Power Zone”

Gary, “Finally, I give my self permission to have the right to take as much time as I want to take when I talk to someone.” (Permission frame)

Another very common belief that PWBS have is that they have to hurry up and “get it out” or they will think there is something wrong with me.  “If I pause, they will know that I have a stuttering problem and they will think I am a retard.”  “If I pause, that means I am an idiot and I don’t know what I am talking about.” These are the kind of statements I hear from PWBS. Now, instead of giving in to that kind of thinking, Gary has given himself permission to take as much time as he needs.

Your Power Zone

Michael has created an outstanding pattern in his Accessing Personal Genius training called “Meta-Stating Your Power Zone.”  Just think, one moment you are alone at home speaking fluently. The next moment you are in public blocking. What happens?  Many times it is about worrying what “they will think.”  The “Power Zone Pattern” assists you in owning your four powers of thinking, feeling, speaking and behaving.

For the “Mastering Stuttering Workshop, I have added another step to the original pattern.  After taking complete ownership of their four powers of thinking, feeling, speaking and behaving, I lead my clients to imagine pushing away what they think others may think of them about their speech. This has proven quite powerful. I recently did it with a PWBS client who flew to Charlotte to see me.  He stood up, accessed a picture of people he thought was judging him and imagined himself pushing them away as he moved his arms in a pushing forward direction. Tears came to his eyes as he did that. I spoke with him last week. He is making steady progress towards fluency. He told me that that one pattern of pushing others out of his life as judging him by his speech was most helpful.

If we choose to take total and complete ownership of our four powers and thereby refuse to let anyone else run our brains, should we not also give other people the right to own their four powers?  Yes, I believe so.  When we mind-read what others may or may not be thinking about us, we in essence are trying to take away their four powers.  Let’s allow them to have their powers. Give them permission to own their powers as we own ours. Refuse to let them control your powers via your mind-reading any judgment they may or may not bring to bear on you. In your fear of them judging you, you judge them and in the process, give your power away.

Point: As we have seen, PWBS usually have an enormous fear of other people judging them for blocking/stuttering.  They fear that they will think they are some kind of weirdo. Or, they fear that they will think that they are a retard or stupid.  As Gary pointed out, this fear  can be overwhelming. Gary says he seizes to be Gary and becomes totally absorbed into what he mind-reads the other person thinking about him.  But, please note, PWBS do not know what the other person thinks or feel. Rarely will a PWBS ask the other person what they think or feel about blocking/stuttering. The PWBS indeed mind-reads the other person judgments by guessing what they think the other person thinks of them. So, the PWBS is judging what he or she thinks the other person is thinking. So, who is judging who?

Conclusion

Based on my experience with several PWBS and with literally hundreds who have had similar problems but whose expression was other than blocking/ stuttering, I can affirm that Gary’s fluency strategy is a great one and one that deserves imitating.  Basically, what Gary is doing is:

  1. Calling his blocking/stuttering a bunch of crap and all made up.
  2. Accessing his higher spiritual resources which properly define the real Gary.
  3. Seeing himself as an adult speaking fluently to the other person.
  4. Coming back to 1st Position as an adult bringing with him the resources of numbers 1-3.
  5. Meta-No-ing the internal dialogue that keeps telling him that he is what other people think he is.
  6. Meta-Yes-ing his true identity.
  7. Owning his stuttering as “no big deal.”
  8. Giving himself permission to take as much time as he needs to speak.

Great work Gary. Thanks for giving me permission to share this with other PWBS.

References

Atkinson, Marilyn. (1997). “The grammar of God.” Vancouver, BC: Unpublished Manuscript.

Bateson, Gregory. (1972).  Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballatine.

Dilts, Robert. (1992-1997). Visionary leadership skills. Santa Cruz, CA: NLP University.

Bodenhamer and Hall. (1999). The User’s Manual for the Brain. Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House Publishers Limited.

Note: Permission to Reprint – Permission is granted to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in total including the information about the author.

Authors

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. is an international trainer in Neuro-Semantics and NLP, author of numerous books, ordained minister, and director of the First Institute of NS in Gastonia NC.

Gary Lindenbaum – Retired School Administrator and Private Businessman.  You may communicate directly with Gary at: sglind@adelphia.net.

Overcoming Blocking/Stuttering – A Testimony by Stephen

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A Case Study

Stephen Kostes from Europe (Fictitious name for anonymity)

My experience with stammering is very similar with most people that suffer from the same thing. From my very early years I tried to hide it, overcome it, cure it, and accept it. All my efforts were almost fruitless. I felt that stammering controlled every aspect of my life and especially my choices in life.

I went to therapy twice. The first therapy did not help me at all, it actually made me worse and I quit it in the very beginning. The second therapy helped a lot. It did not make me fluent, but it took away the severe blocks. My speech was interrupted by many small blocks, but at least the severe blocks with the accompanying struggle to overcome them, were gone. I have to point out here that no therapist gave me false hopes. They did not promise fluency. They promised significant improvement. This was both good and bad. On one hand I did not have false hopes. On the other hand I felt that there was no hope at all. And under this perspective I adjusted my life to my stammering.

Things were going quite smoothly, but I knew that this was somehow an artificial state. I knew that sometime I would have to confront my stammering, because I could not always avoid situations (especially in the professional field) where my stammering would be a liability. And I also knew that stammering was the source of phobias and insecurities that would certainly affect my personal life. Well, as a saying goes, it never rains, it pours. And almost simultaneously my personal and professional life crashed. And I knew that one major part of this crash was caused by stammering.

At that time a friend of mine introduced me to NLP. In the beginning I was just curious. Soon this curiosity became a strong interest. NLP cuts through the essence of things and provides solutions, the “how to do it” rather than the “why” – why is of little practical help in resolving problems. Soon I started to wonder whether NLP could help me with my stammering. I conducted my search mainly through the Internet and after visiting tens of sites dealing with NLP I came along neurosemantics.com. For the first time I saw a thorough approach to stammering. Not just an article on some obscure approach, or just theories on how it is caused and what should a stammerer do, but many articles on how to actually deal with the problem and solve it. And among the articles, was one by Linda Rounds with Bob Bodenhamer. I could totally identify with Linda Round’s experience and Bob’s approach. No miracles, no drugs, no tricks to overcome or avoid blocks, just the utilization of a person’s powerful resources and the belief in God.

I studied these articles very carefully and I started practicing. Soon I realized that I could not do it on my own. I lacked the deep knowledge in NLP and I could not be the therapist and the patient at the same time. I needed professional help. I e-mailed Bob and he responded promptly saying that he was willing to help me. Since I live in Europe, I asked him whether we could do our sessions using the teleconference facilities of instant messaging software. He agreed and after numerous efforts we set it up.

In our three sessions Bob used mainly the drop-down through technique and time line therapy to disassociate (meta-state) feelings and situations from my stammering experience.

In the drop-down through technique we established a strong reference point and we took each negative feeling to this reference point. I am a visual type of person and, like Bob and Linda, I hold strong religious beliefs. With Bob’s guidance we established a very strong reference point (resource) that combined both these characteristics and we took each negative feeling to this sacred for me place. They were all neutralized (meta-stated) in insignificant nuisances that had no impact on me anymore.

Then Bob used the time-line therapy pattern to work with a particularly strong incident from my childhood that played a major part in how I perceived my stammering. This incident had instilled three very important feelings that follow me through my life and most stammerers know too well – guilt, shame and incompetence. Just think how many times you felt these things and tried to hide them either by retreating to your personal shell, or by attacking those near you. This was a very strong experience and it was the first time I talked about it to anybody. And although I was over flooded with emotions I felt secure with Bob to guide me through this traumatic event and make me meta-state it. When this was over it, I felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders. I felt, and most importantly, I knew that my life would become better in so many ways.

After concluding the treatment I am much-much more fluent. I speak to other people and I often amaze myself with this new found fluency. And although I am not totally fluent yet, I feel that I am getting there. After all a cognitive behavior such as stammering that has developed over 30 years of practice, cannot disappear immediately. Think of any bad habit that you have and you will understand this better.

I have to point out some things however. This treatment, like every other treatment depends very much on how one approaches it. To be successful with this treatment, one must:

  • Be determined to succeed. I had always wanted very much to become fluent, but at this time of my life, due to various events, I had really decided to get rid of stammering. Until now I wished that stammering would go away by some miraculous treatment, drug, whatever. Now I was more determined than ever to get over it.
  • Have faith. For me, my religious beliefs were a reference point that I could turn and rely on. For others it may be something else.  This reference point has to be so strong that will neutralize everything bad.
  • Understand the impact of stammering in behavior. Stammering is not only a way of speaking. Unfortunately it is a way of thinking and ultimately living with fears, phobias and negative emotions regarding you and the people around you. Getting rid of it is not merely speaking fluently, but living fluently. It is about choices, freedom and realizing the full potential of life.

My stammering has lessened significantly and I often amaze myself with this new found fluency. On the other hand I realize now more than ever that stammering is not only a way of speaking, but ultimately a way of living and that there are many things that I will have to overcome. After all my map of the world has been very much influenced by my stammering.

Meta-Yes Meta-No Pattern: Say “No” to Fear/Anxiety and “Yes” to Courage and Faith

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Beliefs (#5)

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Do We Now Have a 10 Minute Belief Change Pattern?

After I learned about the Meta-States Model (Hall, 1995, 1996) and began to see and experience its power in making changes in people’s lives, I began to think that Graham Dawes’ review of Dragon Slaying (Anchor Point, June 1997) made a serious point when he described the Meta-States model as “the model that ate NLP.” I will not go so far as to say, however, that it “ate” NLP, I will go so far as to say it has advanced it further than any other addition has since the discovery of submodalities. And, I encourage the reader to take me seriously with that point.

In the last two years, having teamed up with Michael and co-authored several books with him (Time-Lining, Figuring Out People, Mind-Lining, Patterns for Renewing the Mind), I have used and tried out Meta-States Patterns as we discover them. Last year, Michael came up with the distinction that separates a “thought” or representation from a “belief.” More recently, he published that in the series on Belief Change Patterns Using Meta-States (Anchor Point, Nov., Dec. 1997, Jan, Feb. 1998).

Recently I have put this belief change pattern to the test and found that it does indeed streamline the process. In doing so I discovered that “beliefs” do indeed exist and operate at a higher logical level than do “thoughts,” and that beliefs do not always change by mere submodality shifting, but by shifting the frame of reference at a higher logical level.

When I ran these Meta-Stating Pattern of Meta Yes-ing & No-ing on a client (Jim Polizzi – name used with permission) recently, it struck me that we now have a Ten-minute Belief Change pattern along with the ten minute Phobia Cure. The closer we get to the structure of subjective experience — the more streamlined becomes our working with such structures. When I presented the following demonstration of the pattern to Dr. Hall, he wrote,

“What an incredible application of this meta-stating pattern! The simplest and briefest Belief Change Pattern by far.”

 

“Meta-NO-ing” & “Meta-YES-ing” With Jim

Jim, 39 years old and married, has struggled for years with a limiting belief that goes, “I alienate and drive away friends.” He has also held another belief, one meta to that first belief, that goes, “Nothing will ever work in helping me overcome my limiting belief.”

Recently, after seeing a particular counselor weekly for a year and a half, Jim and his wife in frustration stopped seeing their counselor. It had not helped. So I began working with Jim on reframing the belief that nothing would work on him. Also, we did some work in re-imprinting some childhood roots from which the limiting belief arose which said that he would sabotage all his relationships with friends.

One day, Jim came in and announced that the old belief of his driving away old friends “was loosening.” Ah, deframing! However, he still experienced some of it this past weekend when he met with some of his peer “computer geeks.” After leaving this business meeting, Jim experienced some old internal dialogue nagging at him that “You may have alienated them!” This triggered a negative feeling of fear. So, even though we had loosened up the limiting belief, the belief still ran although not with as much intensity as before. We both wanted it to completely disappear.

I asked Jim for permission to try out and experiment with Michael’s suggestion of “Meta-NO-ing” the old limiting belief and “Meta-YES-ing” the new desired belief about his ability to build and maintain relationships. Jim said he’d enjoy doing that.

“Jim, when have you said ‘No!’ and really meant it?”

“You mean like when I say ‘No’ to the kids when they do something they shouldn’t?”

“Yes, I believe that will work.”

“Well just recently I said no to my daughter.”

“How did you do that Jim? What did you see, hear, and feel as you express that definitive No? What tone of voice did you say that in?”

Jim experienced his Meta-NO-ing high in his chest with a feeling of tightness. His voice came across to me as very firm.

“So, Jim, as a meta-stating process, I want you to bring that ‘No!’ to bear upon the limiting belief that you alienate friends. Repeat that meta-level No! several times.”

As Jim did this his face flushed. His head move forward and down firmly as he grunted out a ‘No!’ He did so with real firmness in his tonality.

Jim replied, “This is neat, Bob. It sounds silly that you could bring a ‘No!’ that you say to your daughter to bear upon an old limiting belief like this. But, this works, this really works. How neat!”

Then, without any directions from me, Jim said, “What do you do when the kids do something good?” And continuing he said, AWhen my little girl does something good, I say, “Yes, that’s right, you have done good. You have really done good. You can do it!”

Then Jim, again without directions from me, brought to bear the “Yes!” to his daughter to the desired belief, “I can build friends and relate to them with compassion.” (The meta-stating process). He uttered a bold and definitive Yes to — “These guys really care about me. I am not alienating them, they really care about me.”

At this Jim started taking notes on a notepad and then noted, “I have two powerful resources here. The No! I say to the kids, and the Yes! I say to the kids.”

I then decided to test the old limiting belief of his sabotaging relationships through the old belief of his coming across as arrogant and rude. “Jim, what do you think about the old belief of your alienating your friends?”

Jim recalled the experience of last weekend. “These guys really love me. They really love me. They don’t believe I am a jerk and arrogant, they really love me.”

Then Jim recognized part of the process, ABob, you just did an auditory swish on me with my internal dialogue. Instead of hearing myself say ‘I am a jerk’ I hear myself saying these guys really love me.”

ATrue enough and that’s insightful. For by Meta-NO-ing the old limiting belief and then Meta-YES-ing the new desired belief, you essentially give your brain instructions about where to go, from the old limiting ideas to the new enhancing ones, an auditory swish. Great point. How neat, Jim, that you automatically moved from the Meta-NO-ing the old belief to Meta-YES-ing the new desired belief. I had planned to move you to that, but your unconscious mind beat me to it and did it automatically. You did good, real good.” (Hear me say that in my Appalachian dialect!)

Next we checked out some of the previous thoughts-and-feelings that he had about his dysfunctional family of origin.

“Bob, I now realize that I may never have a deep relationship with my family. And yet that does not mean that there is something wrong with me. However, I still have a sense of ‘aloneness’ when I think about that.”

“Okay, put that thought aside for just a moment and think of your own family — your son, daughter, and wife.”

As Jim accessed a representation of his family, his physiology, breathing, and facial expressions shifted and seemed to become more pleasant. Jim thought about his family’s nighttime ritual of story telling as the four of them gather just prior to bedtime.

“Now bring this to bear upon that representation you had of the aloneness from your family of origin.”

Jim, immediately brought this family frame-of-reference and the state that it put him in to bear upon his family of origin thoughts. As he did, he became teary eyed, his facial color reddened, his breathing deepen as he generated new neurological connections.

“It sure is hard to feel alone with a little boy and a little girl on your lap and your wife sitting beside you. This is a powerful thing to bring to bear on your aloneness. The aloneness is not congruent with the family I now have. The aloneness is no longer valid. It is not that it is no longer true. It no longer matters. My old family does not have the significance it did. I have a sense of connectedness.”

 

The Pattern

1) Get a good strong representation of saying “No!” to something. You will want to make sure that the person’s No looks, sounds, and feels congruent and that it truly fits with their beliefs and values. Anchor the resource experience of congruently, firmly, and definitively saying No! to something.

2) Get a good strong representation of saying “Yes!” to something. Once you do, reinforce it by asking about it, and amplifying it so that the person has an intense experience of his or her Yes! Anchor either with a touch, the way you say Yes!, where you gesture to, etc.

3) Invite the person to identify the limiting belief that they no longer want to run their programs. Meta-model the limiting belief to assist in deframing it, loosening it up, and preparing for the belief change. Find out how it has not served them well, how it has messed things up, etc. Notice how they represent the belief, pace its positive intentions.

4) Fully elicit from the person an enhancing belief that he or she wants in the head. What specifically will the person think and say in the new belief. Write out the language of it. Get several versions — and make sure that the person finds the expression of it compelling.

5) Meta No! the limiting belief. Ask the person to re-access the limiting belief and once they have it, have them go meta to that belief, and then about that belief have them say No! Have the person do it congruently, intensely, and repeatedly.

“And you can keep on saying No! to that limiting belief until you begin to feel that it no longer has any power to run your programs.”

6) Meta Yes! the enhancing belief. After the deframing of the old belief, now let the person’s mind swish to the content of what to believe. Have the person fully re-access the enhancing belief and then to go meta to it and validate it with a great big Yes! Have them repeat it with intensity and congruency.

 

Conclusion

Don’t take my word for this powerful process. Try it yourself. I know it works. I have seen it change lives and alter old belief systems.

A few weeks ago, I received a call from an NLP Trainer on the West Coast.  He had heard some positive statements about the Meta-State Model and desired more information. I spent about thirty minutes on the phone explaining the basic theoretical concepts supporting Meta-States.  I then E-mailed him the major articles and techniques on this web site that referred to Meta-States. I particularly pointed out the brief statements about the Yes/No pattern in Michael’s address to the ANLP about “Updating the Submodality model.

Well, the next day I received this E-mail message from that NLP Trainer:

“Thanks so much for your email message. This old Trainer has seen and done most everything in the ‘NLP’/hypnosis world. . . but this is absolutely REVOLUTIONARY! And it’s the first time ANYTHING has EVER worked on me too. AMAZING, just absolutely amazing. Working with my client this AM consisted of 1 3/4 hours of talking to her and giving her strategies for her business that will make her lots of money. She thought we were done, when I said, look let’s just take this a step further and really cement this in, shall we? She said, Great. Then Bob, I just did the pattern as written – I elicited the problem. . . I elicited a strong congruent ‘NO’. I elicited the desired state – rewording it several times till it became compelling. Had her step into the bad  state. . . then out of it and ABOUT the situation, say with much congruence – NO, repeatedely. Coupled with my exquisite hypnotic language patterns :-), I then had her do it a few times until when she spoke of the ‘problem’ she did so from a new chunked up perspective. WOW! Then I reminded her of the good state. . . got her CONGRUENT ‘yes’. Told her to ‘TRY’ and experience the bad (she couldn’t, Ha Ha) and from what ever she could get  to just imagine the new experience zooming in until she stepped into and felt it’s compelling power and then step out and ABOUT the experience, say  ‘YES’ congruently. Had her do it a few times. Future paced and was done. She literally sat there for a moment and tears started welling up and then streaming down her face. Her boyfriend was blown away. She was so thankful. Then jumped up and began pitching me on how she could help me with her  marketing (what she was previously afraid to do) with such force and conviction, I was amazed. She said she was over the problem – couldn’t get it back if she tried. Boyfriend even more amazed. They left thrilled. THANKS YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! This stuff is amazing. And I’m pretty dog gonned good at making changes in people – but this was truely amazing in scope and depth. I’m hooked beyond belief. Monday first thing, I’m ordering everything you and Michael have. Thanks again, my friend.

I really appreciate this person’s taking the time to share the response he received the first time he used the “Yes/No” pattern.   One can tell from reading his case study that he has great ability in working with clients. Though he made light of his ability to utilize hypnotic language patterns, he obviously does it well, very well.  Note however, the results he received through the utilizing the power of meta state languaging within the context of hypnosis.   Excellent job of “doing” therapy.

 

References

Bodenhamer, Bob; Hall, Michael. (1997). Time-lining: Patterns for adventuring in time. Wales, UK: Anglo-American Books.

Hall, Michael L. (1995). Meta-states: A new domain of logical levels, self-reflexiveness in human states of consciousness. Grand Junction, CO: ET Publications.

Hall, L. Michael (1996). Dragon slaying: Dragons to princes. Grand Jct. CO: ET Publications.

Hall, Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (1997). Mind-lines: Lines for changing minds. Grand Jct. CO: ET Publications.

Hall, Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (1997). Figuring out people: Design engineering using meta-programs. Wales, UK: Anglo-American Books.

The Drop Down Through & Mind-Backtracking Pattern

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The Art of Dropping-Down Through Experiences
Even Stuttering While Rising Higher.

RISING UP TO DROP-DOWN THROUGH!

How to Meta-State
the NLP Drop-Down Through Pattern

Bobby G Bodenhamer, D.Min.
L Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

We first applied Meta-States to the subject of stuttering a couple of years ago. That led to an article that we published on the Neuro-Semantics website (www.neurosemantics.com). More recently, Bob has worked with several individuals around the issue of stuttering and found that sometimes in one session, those who had stuttered for decades stopped. It was amazing. Of course, it did not always work that quickly. Sometimes in as many as four sessions (No doubt some will need more than four sessions.). And still that’s incredible especially when you consider what the professionals working in the field of stuttering think and say about it.

With that success rate, we began exploring some of the key factors in stuttering and the neuro-semantics of the relief. Some of the case studies have been dramatic, as dramatic and exciting as “curing” a phobia in a few minutes. This does not mean that every case can be resolved that quickly, although some will. Our experiences with people who stutter have led us to discover several things. Discoveries and Understandings―

    • Stuttering offers a great example of how a person can “mind-to-muscle” an idea so that an idea drops outside of awareness and becomes a muscular pattern in the throat.
    • Stuttering operates from a simple idea, “You are forbidden to speak non-fluently, so be self-conscious and self-interrupting in your verbal expressions.”
  • Amazingly, once you mind-to-muscle that idea into your neurology so that it becomes neuro-semantic, you can forget it and your body (your muscles in throat and lungs) will remember to run that program. Then you can begin to believe that it is inevitable, inescapable, and permanent. Of course, those are just beliefs, just confirmations of thoughts and limiting beliefs at that.

Questions―

    • Once we have a neuro-semantic (or mind-body-emotion) “program” like stuttering in the muscles, can we reverse it?
    • Can we un-do it?
  • Do we have any Neuro-Semantic patterns for reversing it and how long would that take?

What better evidence do we need that we can mind-to-muscle ideas than stuttering? The experience of stuttering shows that we can embody an idea to such an extent that the idea or principle becomes completely incorporated inside a person’s very neurology and physiology. The tongue, throat muscles, muscles governing breathing, etc. all learn the lessons well. And the principle? The ideas that’s embodied involves those that create panic attack, “It’s bad to speak non-fluently, always be on your guard against any speech that is not perfectly fluent, it means you’re inadequate and inferior.”

This fits with what those who have explored this field have written. (Bloodstein, 1975) has written that stuttering is―

“… an anticipatory struggle reaction that is manifested as tension in the body and that shows up as fragmentation of the stutterer’s speech.”

Similarly, Sheehan, and Sheehan (1984) said in their analysis of stuttering. “… stuttering is an approach-avoidance conflict.” Wendell Johnson (1946) using General Semantics demonstrated that stuttering is a learned phenomenon, one that is typically “taught,” and one that involves the meta-level structure of a fear or dislike of non-fluency and unwillingness to tolerate the hesitating.

A Demonstration

“Robert, I want you to recall the feeling, memory, or a state that’s behind your stuttering, something that you feel each time just before you stutter.”

“Okay, I know what it is.”

What are you feeling?

“I’m feeling intense anger.”

And what are you feeling anger at or about?

“It’s about being teased when I stuttered as a child. I hated that.”

Where in your body do you feel that intense anger?

“It is in my chest and here in my arms.”

And you say intense, how intense or how much do you feel that?

“It is very intense, it feels hot.”

And, Robert, just drop down through that … and what do you feel underneath that?

“Sadness is below that.”

Good, and just be with that sadness for a moment and what is that sadness about?

“The sadness is about being hurt by my peers at school. They really hurt me… And it’s a sadness and heaviness here…”

Good, and now … drop down through the sadness and what do you feel underneath the sadness from being laughed at?

“I have anxiety and a sense of panic … my heart is beating much faster.”

Robert, what are you feeling in that state?

“I have a kinesthetic sensation of this state in my belly… And also here in my neck and shoulders, and the same sensation is here in my jaw, throat, and chest.”

Good, and drop down through the anxiety and panic … and what do you feel underneath the that?

“Pain … I have a sensation that feels like I’m being ‘restricted.’ It’s hard to describe. It’s like I’m being held back.

Just stay with that emotion for a moment and now go ahead and drop down through that sense of being restricted and held back and what do you feel underneath that?

“Now I have frustration … Yes, lots of frustration. Just frustrated.

Good, and as you now drop down through the frustration, what do you feel underneath the frustration?

“Hmmmm … Ah … I can’t tell exactly …”

Thee was a pause here, briefly and then Robert went immediately into his resources.

“Bob, I’m feeling a feeling of lightness.”

That’s good. And drop down through the lightness and what do you feel underneath the lightness?

“Lots of things … lots of feelings. I feel joy, happiness. I feel a sense of elation.”

Great. Tell me about these feeling of joy, happiness, and elation? What’s is it like?

“In addition to the feelings, I’m also getting a visual image of myself.”

I elicited more of the meaning frames around his resource state of “joy, happiness and elation.” That resource state also included “relaxation, peacefulness, contentment, and freedom of expression.” By asking him these “meaning frames,” I was not only getting more information from him for use later in the therapy, but also, by eliciting meaning frames, these frames would anchor in these resources and make them more powerful and meaningful to Robert.

As I validated that, I gave him more time to stay in these good resourceful feelings. Later I used this image as an anchor as I had him apply his resources back to his original difficulties. All I had to do was say, “See that picture of you being …” and then mention the following frames which was part of his joy― relaxed, peaceful, content, and freedom of expression.

“Now, Robert, how does seeing yourself as relaxed, peaceful, contented and free transform and enrich the intense anger?”

I repeated this question on each of Robert’s negative frames. As we continued to empower his resource state, he saw the picture of himself growing taller and taller. It really developed into a powerful resource. I then moved to slowly and deliberately meta-stating the negative frames. As we did―

Anger and Rage became Contentment, peace, harmony and happiness.
Sadness became joy, happiness.
Pain and Restriction became supple. He often used “supple” in the sense of flexible and limber after reframing pain and restriction. limber.
Frustration became “it just went away” and he became really excited about taking this out into “real life” and working it including telling his class that he was meeting in about an hour after our session about the experience he just had.

Debriefing the Drop-Down Pattern

In Robert’s case, he went through the following series of states as he dropped-down through one after the other:

1. Intense Anger

2. Sadness

3. Anxiety / Panic

4. Pain

5. Frustration

6. Pause (where typically the “nothingness,” void, or emptiness occurs)

7. A feeling of “lightness”

8. Joy, Happiness, Elation which included relaxed, peaceful, content, and freedom of expression.

In thinking about this pattern, doesn’t it make sense that the ideas in his head about non-fluent speech and being teased about it and his higher frames of dislike about that ended up as kinesthetic sensations in his belly, neck, shoulders, jaw, throat and chest? Does it then surprise us that what we call “stuttering” then shows up as a kind of panic attack in this way?

So with the kinesthetic sensation of feeling blocked or restricted, and from the point of view of organ language, his speech has become blocked or restricted. I have found this as extremely important in working with those who stutter. Which also leads me to feel 100% convinced that stuttering is nothing but a panic attack expressing itself this particular way. The therapy I do is exactly the same as with panic disorder― right out of the same text book.

While we use the label of “stuttering” or “panic attack” ― there is a similar structure in terms of the mental frames and the physiology. In the experience of stuttering, we have a state of anxiety that’s expressing itself in breathing and in the muscles of the chest which control breathing as well as the muscles around the larynx. It’s really that simple. And once the person reframes the meta-level structures that drives the panic over speaking and what other’s think, the stuttering disappears.

The Drop-Down Through Pattern
Meta-Stating by Dropping-Down Through Painful Experiences:

1) Identify the experience and emotion you want to transform.

What emotion, feeling, memory, or experience would you like to transform so that it enhances your life?
Are there any emotions or experiences that undermine your success that you would like to eliminate?

2) Step Into that Experience.

For the purposes of transformation, recall that experience and step into it so that you see what you saw, hear what you heard, and fully feel what you felt. Be there again. …. Good.
Where do you feel this in your body?
What does it feel like?
How intense are you experiencing this emotion?
Good, just be there with it for a moment, noticing … just noticing it fully… knowing that it is just an emotion and that you are so much more than any emotion…

3) Drop Down Through the experience.

This may feel strange, but you do know what it feels like when you drop … so feeling that feeling of dropping, just drop down through that experience until you drop down underneath that feeling…
What feeling or emotion lies underneath that emotion?
And now just imagine dropping down through that feeling

[use the language and terms that the person gives you.]

And what feeling comes to you as you imagine yourself dropping down through that one?

[Keep repeating this dropping-down through process until the person comes to “nothing…” That is, to no feelings … to a void or emptiness.]

4) Confirm the Emptiness

Just experience that “nothingness” or “void” for a moment. Good.
Now let that nothingness open up and imagine yourself dropping through and out the other side of the nothingness.
What are you experiencing when you come out the other side of the nothingness? What or whom do you see?

[Repeat this several times .. to a second, third, or fourth resource state.]

5) Meta-State each problem state

Use each resource state to meta-state each problem state.
And when you feel X about Y, how does that transform things?
And when you even more fully feel X ―what other transformations occur?
Valid and solidify: just stay right here in this X resource and as you experience it fully, what happens to the first problem state (#1)?
When you feel this (fire anchor for each resource) … what else happens to those old problem states?

6) Test

Let’s see what now happens when you try, and I want you to really try to see if you can get back the problem state that we started with.
When you try to do that, what happens?
Do you like this?
Would you like to take this into your future?
Into all of your tomorrows and into all your relationships?

Caveats about the Pattern

In terms of trouble-shooting the use of this pattern, there are a few concerns as you work with people and coach them through this process.

1) About “getting to the bottom.”

Sometimes people will reach a point near or at the “void” where they say things such as, “That is it. There is nothing else.” Or, “I am at the bottom. There is nothing else below. I can’t go any further.” If this happens, then ask them if they have a visual. I invite the person to say something like, “I am on the ground. There is nothing below me.”

When this happens then we can say, “Good, just imagine opening the earth up and dropping down through that.”

In any Neuro-Semantic or NLP pattern, our basic approach is that we do what we have to do to coach a person to continue dropping down through. Use their metaphors and feed it back to the them in a way that will lead them to open up whatever is blocking them.

2) For intense trauma, use another pattern first.

If the person is experiencing a great deal of emotional pain from a memory, use some other meta-stating patterns to loosen up the frames before using this pattern. We don’t want to lead a person to associate into some extremely painful experience when there are easier ways of doing it. I (BB) have found with this pattern that it provides a great “cleaning up” pattern for finalizing your work.

3) Track the person’s states all the way down.

If you have an excellent memory, make a visual image of a ladder and state in your mind__ and to them, each state. If not, then jot down on a notepad each state the person drops-down into. Sometimes there will be as few as 5 and sometimes as many as 20 or 30.

4) When to end.

If the person still has some “negative” emotions after you have taken him or her through the process, then simply repeat the process. That is, recycle through those feelings as you did with the first negative feeling. You may have to do this two or time times. Do it until the person does not experience a negative feelings.

Understanding the Meta-Stating Structure
of this Pattern

How Do we Meta-State when we Drop Down Through Experiences?

We typically think about meta-stating as going up. That’s the metaphor. We make a meta-move above and beyond an experience and then bring a resource to the original experience. This sets a new frame for the experience or emotion. In doing this, we transcend and include the first experience and embed it inside of a broader and more extensive resource.

This comes from Bateson’s meta-connection and from the Meta-States model of the levels of the mind and so from Korzybski’s Levels of Abstraction although he had his abstract levels upside down.

Yet all of this is just a metaphor. It’s just a way of talking about things― a way of thinking, conceptualizing, and imagining. Can we turn this metaphor back upside down and still meta-state?

You bet.

In NLP, the Drop-Down Through pattern does this. Tad James was apparently the first to introduce it to NLP, we put it in our book on Time-Lining (1997). And yet it is actually a meta-stating pattern. Bob has that illustrated with Robert in the demonstration. Now we want to explain what we each see in the pattern and how it actually works as a meta-stating process.

The idea of “dropping down through” and the feeling it evokes works as a meta-frame. In the pattern we essential take this feeling, idea, and metaphor and use it as an operative frame. So we invite participants to

“… just drop down…” “Feel yourself falling through that old experience, that old emotion … and just go with this … and drop down through … there you go… and what’s beneath that feeling?”

In this languaging, we are inviting the person to go higher deeper (or deeper higher) as a trance phenomenon. This is a new distinction recently introduced in the Meta-Trance trainings. I pulled it out of some of the language patterns of Erickson not in the NLP patterning of Erickson.

I noticed that Milton would sometimes ask his clients to do two opposite things at the same time. In slow time he would have them go faster. In fast time, he would suggest that they go slower. When I tried that on, I found it very trancy. That led me to experiment in some of our closing inductions at trainings.

“And now, just for the purpose of enjoying the learnings of the day and to let them solidify within your mind, I would like to invite you to float down deeper. .. and deeper still because we have been rising up in our mind to higher levels and frames of mind … to our highest intentions and as you float down deeper now with those highest intentions, you can feel deeper higher in just the way that allows you to step into those highest and most expansive perspectives and then feel higher deeper in a way that solidifies them into your core now … as you move out into the world… “

In the same way, when we invite a person to float down and to drop down and to go through a thought, an experience, an emotion― the downward feel combined with the realization (the higher frame) that that emotion arose from yet another thought or emotion … we combine the going deeper higher trance. Framing that we can back up to the originating emotion, we backtrack the negative meta-stating the person had created in his or her history.

And what was before that?
And what was before that?

This replicates, backwards, the process that created the dragon state … and subtly starts pulling it apart. That’s why this pattern is a Dragon Slaying/ Transforming pattern and explains why Bob has gotten so much mileage from it in dealing with physiological problems such as stuttering. In this, it reverses the syntax of the problem, very similar to what happens in the Phobia Cure pattern.

The nothingness state of the void is another interesting meta-state to bring and set as a frame over our experiences. We get through by backing up to when nothing was going on … no particular thoughts or feelings. Then we can metaphor it with the sense of emptiness, a void, or whatever. This essentially helps us empty our mind and emotions and move to neutral.

Then, because we have moved down from negative to neutral, by presupposition, if we keep moving in this direction, we have to move to positive states. The continuum has been set up and so it naturally and easily follows that we will now continue to drop down into positive states that will be much more resourceful. So every time we drop down through the next experiential state, we drop into an even more or higher resource state.

All this is … is meta-states standing on its head.

We could change the metaphor and invite the float up through pattern.

“And now just feel yourself floating up … getting lighter and lighter … lighter than air. … floating … that’s right, floating right up out of those old emotions and up into something higher, something lighter, something more expansive, something that invites you into a higher state of mind― perhaps a higher state than you ever been in before … now .. because you can, can you not… that’s right… floating all the way up.”

In this, the metaphor doesn’t matter all that much. The magic isn’t in the metaphor as if there were some holy metaphor. What’s important is that once we frame with a metaphor, we can do things with it, we can experience things with it, we can make significant transformational change. Dropping down through an experience implies, suggests, and facilitates moving to a new place as does floating up to a higher state.

When we facilitate change, movement, difference and get a person to construct new experiences, we can then use those very resources as new frames of mind. If there’s any magic, that’s the magic. We trust that the person moves into (drops down through) and into the very resource states that he or she needs. So we then use those and apply those to the original problem.

“And when you fully step into and experience this resource… how does that change the problem that you started with?”

Meta-Level Magic

It’s been a number of years now since the first time I saw Bob run the Drop-Down Through pattern. It occurred when he had a whole group of people finishing their NLP Master Practitioner training. He introduced this pattern on the last day as he demonstrated it with one person, then the whole group wanted to have him coach them through it! It was powerful. After several people sat in the chair and kept dropping down through things, I almost got the impression that there was something magical about that chair.

Maybe it was a secret door to another universe!
Be careful when you set in that chair, you never know where you might end up!

Yet in watching the processes, it was clear to me that while we all thought about the metaphor as taking us down … down … down into the foundation of an experience. When we popped out the other end … and dropped on down into positive resources … it was like Dante’s trip.

Do you remember Dante’s trip? At a cave entrance at Jerusalem he saw the sign marking the gateway to Hell. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter herein.” And down, down, down… the circles of hell Dante went … deeper into the problem … past the fire, the brimstone, etc., until he came to the most unimaginable source of evil… to Satan. And Satan in that poem was frozen in ice in the center of the earth. You’ve heard about when hell freezes over? Well, that’s the picture Dante drew when he wrote his poem in 1400. Every attempt of the giant Satan to get free … as he flapped his wings … made the ice freeze even more. (What an imagine of impotent evil!)

As Dante continued his journey having reached the center, all his movements forward thereafter was actually up and out the other side of the planet … where he emerged at the foot of Mt. Purgatory and when he got to the top of that mountain and the Garden of Eden on top, Beatrice took him on a trip through space, first to the moon, the Mars, then the starts. But that’s another story.

Going down and coming up. Going up and coming down to a new core of values. Going higher deeper now … you know what that’s like, do you not?

Transforming Neurology

I know why Bob really likes this pattern and think about it as one of the most powerful ones. Why? Because he has been using it to actually transform meanings that have been installed in muscle like stuttering. This is what we mean by “neuro-semantics.” Taking the term from Korzybski who coined that and “neuro-linguistic,” we have been modeling how meanings are transferred and installed in muscle. It happens all the time and our Mind-to-Muscle pattern taps into this mechanism of our mind-body-emotion states.

It can happen with the idea of “don’t stutter,” “don’t hesitate when you notice yourself being non-fluent.” This is the structure of stuttering as general semanticist, Dr. Wendell Johnson noted a long time ago in his now classic work, People in Quandaries. Stuttering always involves becoming conscious of non-fluency. Yet since all of us are non-fluent everyday, there has to be something else that creates “stuttering.”

We have to dislike, hate, or forbid the non-fluency. We have to give it a negative and painful meaning. And when we do, either by being forbidden to be non-fluent (which some parents and teachers are highly skilled at pointing out and enforcing!), or by defining it as meaning something painful like, “being stupid,” “being inadequate,” “lacking confidence,” etc. Then we can create a meta-state structure of refusal to tolerate non-fluent speech and so become highly aware and conscious of every non-fluency and find it painful and intolerable. After that it only takes weeks, months and years of practice and those semantics will get into our physiology so that the way we breath and the way we use our tongue and mouth muscles support this negative meta-state.

Stuttering becomes neurological. It becomes a neuro-semantic state. This is great because it means that we only need to change the semantics (the meanings) and the neurology will change. During the winter and spring of 2001-2002, Bob used the Drop-Down Through pattern with 5 individuals who stuttered, mostly over the phone from all around the world, and within one to four sessions (typically 2)― they stuttered no more.

Summary: The Neuro-Semantics of Stuttering

We have used the basic NLP principle that every experience has a structure to flush out the basic structure of the experience of “stuttering.” In doing so we have refused to mindlessly accept the labels and medical model definitions of its cause or cure. In doing so, we begin by refusing to identify people as “stutterers” as if they is who they are. We also refuse to buy into the fatalistic frame, “Once a stutterer, always a stutterer.”

Similar to our work, The Structure of Personality (2001) we then de-nominalize the form and structure to look at the four meta-domains that give us a description of processes and “personality:” language (the Meta-Model), perception (Meta-Programs), states and reflexivity (Meta-States) and the cinematic features of a person’s internal Movie (Meta-Modalities or “sub-modalities”).

Just because stuttering so happens to be the end-result of the coalescing of the meta-levels and meta-frames into muscle (and so a great example of how we mind-to-muscle ideas and meanings), doesn’t make it unchangeable. That happens with every idea (belief, value, understanding, meaning, expectation, etc.) that we “install” as a motor program. That’s what happens all the time in a mind-body-emotion system.

And if we created it, we can un-create it and can create something much better! That’s the power, the magic, and the excitement in neuro-linguistics and neuro-semantics.

Success Story #1
Two Month Follow Up ? Is It Working Long-Term?

After I had completed the consultations with Bob, I knew there would be certain milestones that would determine how effective the treatment was on a long_term basis. Those milestones included being placed in the usual “high stress” situations that would normally result in stuttering. Some examples are serious one_on_one conversation concerning uncomfortable topics, Management meetings, Company meetings, and several other speaking situations that I previously thought of as “threatening.” Over the past two months I have been exposed to each of these “threatening” situations and spoke fluently through each milestone. The final milestone was met on March 21, 2002 when I was scheduled to give a presentation to the Board Members of the Company I work for. Now, prior to working with Bob, stuttering in this situation was a 100% certainty. However, even that meeting was unable to produce the stuttering again. I have tested my fluency in every situation that used to produce stuttering! And, I am happy to report that it appears to be a long-term success. The biggest difference between stuttering and fluency is that fluent individuals do not think about stuttering.

Linda Rounds
LSRounds @ aol.com
March 2002

Success Story #2

Neuro-Semantics and the NLP Drop-Down Through Pattern offer great possibilities in the treatment of stuttering. Most traditional speech therapy has centered around modifications at the behavioral level (i.e., breathing, easy onset of speech, light articulatory contacts, etc.). The perceived stigma of stuttering and overwhelming urge to “not stutter” often overpower the behavioral level strategies. Periodic relapse after treatment is common. The missing Holy Grail from traditional speech therapy has been a consistent, swift, and thorough reframing strategy for meta-states to alleviate the pre-stutter phenomenon. Success with the cognitive aspect of stuttering (i.e., fear, avoidance, limiting beliefs) is essential to lasting change. Situation and word-specific anchors form along the time-line of stuttering development. As an NLP practitioner and person with a residual, mild stutter, I was game to explore the Drop-Down personally. I have experienced a rapid and significant increase in spontaneous fluency after three telephone consultations with Bob.

Tim Mackesey, CCC-SLP
Speech Pathologist
fluency @ bellsouth.net

Success Story #3

I met Bob while taking the Meta-NLP class at Gaston College. I have had for the majority of my life an uncontrollable stuttering problem. While in class, I learned how to apply Neuro-Semantics to controlling my stuttering. How do I know it worked? After having a long conversation with several people, it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t stuttered at all and that I had talked great. I use to be horrified of calling people on the phone. Now, I can call people without the anxiety and the stuttering. In fact, I suddenly found myself calling people more frequently.

Lawrie Crawley
Bank of America
Charlotte, North Carolina
ljcrawley @ earthlink.net

Additional resources on the subject of Stuttering

For more information about using Neuro-Semantics with stuttering, go to our web site and read two articles on the subject with both based on case studies of those who stuttered who overcame their problem in just a matter of a few sessions. The articles are found at:

1. “From Stuttering to Stability: A Case Study” by Linda Rounds with Bob Bodenhamer.

2. “Meta-Stating Stuttering: An NLP Approach to Stuttering” by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. and Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

3. E-mail Discussion on Yahoo Groups. The Institute Of Neuro-Semantics, Meta-States, NLP &; General Semantics sponsors the Neuro-Semantics of Stuttering Yahoo Group. Announcement and Discussion List to provide support, information, education and training on Meta-Stating Stuttering utilizing Neuro-Linguistics, Neuro-Semantics, Meta-States and General Semantics Models –
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neurosemanticsofstuttering/

This list will serve as an information exchange and a discussion forum for overcoming stuttering utilizing each model and will provide information on upcoming trainings, additions and editions to each model and developments in each field by contributors.

Questions and comments, updates, noteworthy announcements about stuttering and the use of Neuro-Linguistics, Neuro-Semantics and the Meta-States Models are welcomed. The list manager/owner, Linda Rounds, is responsible for approval of list members and messages posted to the list as this is a moderated and private list.

References

Bloodstein, Oliver (1975). In J. Eisenson (Ed.), Stuttering: A Second Symposium. New York: Harper & Row.

Korzybski, Alfred. (1941/1994). Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics, (5th. ed.). Lakeville, CN: International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co.

Overdurf, John; Silverthorn. (1996). Beyond Words Audio Cassettes.

James, Tad. (1989). Master Time Line Therapy Training Manual.

Hall, L. Michael (1995). Meta-states: A new domain of logical levels, self-reflexiveness in human States of consciousness. Grand Junction, CO: ET Publications.

Hall, L. Michael. (1996). Dragon slaying: Dragons to princes. Grand Junction, CO: ET Publications.

Hall, L. Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer, “The Drop Down Through and Mind Back Tracking Techniques” on The Institute of Neuro-Semantics Web Site at www.neurosemantics.com

Johnson, Wendell (1964/1989) People in quandaries: The semantics of personal adjustment. San Franciso, CA: International Society for General Semantics.

Sheehan, J.G., & V.M. Sheehan (1984). Avoidance-reduction therapy: A response suppression hypothesis. In W.H. Perkins (Ed.), Stuttering disorders. New York: Thieme-Stratton

Authors:

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. is a psychologist licensed as a LPC in the state of Colorado, trained in the Cognitive-Behavioral model, developer of the Meta-States model, prolific author, entrepreneur, and international trainer.

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. is an international trainer in Neuro-Semantics and NLP, author of numerous books, ordained minister, and director of the First Institute of NS in Gastonia NC.

Multiple Patterns for Mastering Fear, Part II

by

Case Studies
“Fear of Public Speaking” and “Agoraphobia”

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
With Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min.

There are so many patterns in NLP and NS (Neuro-Semantics) for dealing with fear that we found that we could not use all of them when we put the training manual Mastering Your Fears (2000) together. So we picked the best to design the training that Bob is currently doing at Gaston College.

Along the line of working with and modeling the subjective experience that goes under the heading of “fear” we found that not only are there a wide-range of experiences that fall under this category, but that there are some experiences that are so-called “fear” that have nothing to do with fear. In such cases, an experience has been anchored to the term “fear,” but falsely so. Fear at meta-levels can differ radically from fear at primary levels and can take on some very different properties. Here are some examples.

Fear of Public Speaking

“I’m still afraid of public speaking. I don’t know what didn’t work about the ‘Phobia Cure,’ but it didn’t work. I felt better for awhile; but I was still afraid. I guess I need something more powerful than that. Do you have something specifically for public speaking?”

The gentleman, a professional in his field, had studied NLP and had become a practitioner. I also knew that he held himself to a high standard and that “walking his talk” was really important to him so that he would not have been the kind to have only run the pattern in a half-baked way or to have excused himself with stupid excuses.

Tell me, how do you know you’re afraid of public speaking.

How do I know? Because I get afraid every time I speak in public.

Really? And how do you actually know that you’re afraid?

Well, because I get nervous mainly. And my hands sweat and my heart is beating fast and my stomach feels queasy. That kind of thing.

That’s all? (I said in a credulous and doubting tonality.) I still don’t understand how you know to call that “fear;” that’s what I feel when I get “excited.”

Well, it’s really uncomfortable.

Yeah? (More incredulity and with a tone of “You’ve got to do better than that!)

Well, there’s the nervous energy. I never start out very smoothly, sometimes I even stumble for my words and I nervously move my hands…

Yeah? That still sounds like it could be excitement and possibly the lack of thorough training in gesturing. What is there about any of that which has to be labeled “fear?” That’s what I want to know.

It’s not fear? But it feels fearful.

That’s what I don’t understand yet, how do you know it’s “fearful?”: Do you freeze up and can’t talk?

Well, no. I always finish the speech.

Well, maybe you have the fearful cognitions of wanting to run away? Is that’s what’s going on? You really don’t want to do public speaking?

No. I do want to speak in public. It’s great for my career, it helps me to influence others and that kind of thing. And I’m actually pretty good at it.

Well, maybe you’re scared to death of what others’ think? Afraid of criticism, afraid of being rejected as a worthless human being? That you’ll be disgraced by your incompetence?

(Laughing) No, no. It’s not that. I do want to make a good impression. That’s why I do the extensive preparations that I do.

So you’re not wetting your pants in fear about messing up and looking like a fool?

(Laughing even harder) No. Of course not!

Well, Todd, I think we have here a case of a mistaken label. It doesn’t sound like fear to me at all. It sounds like the marvelous excitement of really wanting to knock their socks off.

But I don’t like the feelings that I…

That’s the problem! (I said interrupting)

You mean I’ve meta-stated myself with a dislike of my nervousness and have falsely mislabeled it “fear?”

Exactly.

And that would explain why the NLP Phobia Pattern didn’t work with me? It wasn’t a phobia in the first place?

Precisely. You weren’t phobic of anything. Did you ever have a traumatic public speaking experience that invited you to set the frame that “Public speaking is dangerous?”

No.

And your thoughts about public speaking?

Well, ah … that I like it; that it promotes my influence, that it’s important in my career, … and that I don’t like being nervous.

Ah, the meta-state structure! You “don’t like being nervous.” You don’t get a kick out of feeling and sensing your whole body revving up and getting ready to let them have it!

Yes, I guess that’s it. I have always thought that “nervousness” meant fear and was a bad thing.

Like the first time you had sex. If you felt nervous about it, that had to mean that you were a flop, not really excited, scared of women, that kind of …

(Interrupting me with laughter) I get it. I get it. You made your point.

Todd just had a bad relationship with “nervousness.” He didn’t like the experience of nervousness and he didn’t like the idea or concept of being nervous. For the first, I just coached him into using deep breathing and relaxation to give him the edge on turning the nervousness into managed excitement so that he “had” it rather than it having him (Instant Relaxation, 1998). With the meta-state of dislike of the idea of being nervous because of all the things it had come to mean to him, we reframed its meaning, accessed acceptance and appreciation of his nervousness so that he could “dwell more comfortably in his skin with the fact that nerves sometimes generate somatic energy.”

I then meta-stated him with several other resources. If you have eyes and ears to detect the meta-levels and meta-states, you can catch frames that I set for him:

Todd, since you’ll be speaking to a group on Thursday, I want you to use it to see if you can use your managed nervousness and come up with three gestures that you can use to transform it into “excitement.” And every time you feel the sensations that you have called “fear,” I want you to imagine a resourceful voice saying, ‘Not fear, anticipation of how I’m going to knock their socks off!’ And as you do that, just experiment with how much nervousness you can translate into excitement knowing that as you do, it is increasing your professional skills as a public speaker.

When “Fear” is Mis-Labeled

We have found that fear is most often mis-labeled, as it was with Todd, because we can so easily confuse another emotion with it– namely, the emotion of “dislike.” Todd disliked a certain set of sensations and had learned or been taught or somewhere picked it up that those sensations mean “fear.” Consider some of the things that you say you fear.

Criticism
Rejection
Insult
Public speaking
Taking a risk Elevators
Small places
Cold calling etc.

Now step back from your frames and wonder, really wonder, “Could I just dislike the sensations, or some facet of the experience, or the idea of it and only be confusing fear for my dislike?”

Not being turned on about taking on the dislikes and disapprovals of others (“criticism,’ “rejection”) strikes me as a pretty normal response. What if, instead of it being a fear, your experience really indicates that you do not particularly like it, not particular drawn to it with total excitement, “Oh, Boy!,” or even that you just lack some of the necessary skills to handle that event with grace and dignity.

I (MH) worked with a group of agoraphobics a number of years ago. They had (and have) an Agoraphobics Association. I always thought that was kind of paradoxical. They asked me to come out to the leader’s house to work with them. Usually, 5 to 7 people would show up. After establishing rapport, I asked,

If you’re agoraphobic, how are you able to drive here to Ruth’s house?

Well, we’re not as agoraphobic as Ruth. That’s why we have to have it here at her house, she can’t leave her house at all, but we can leave ours.

Right. That makes sense. So there’s a rating system in how agoraphobic a person may be.

Yeah. Some people are very agoraphobic and some are in the process of getting more afraid and others are in the process of becoming less afraid.

So tell me, what are you afraid of specifically? What’s the worse thing that will happen to you if you leave your house. Ruth, since you’re the most skilled at this ability, or “the worst,” what scares the hell out of you so much? (I said that with more of a tone of levity than seriousness.)

Well, I don’t know… not when you put it that way.

Well, I mean with all the car jackers here in Grand Junction, there’s got to be something that would be the worst possible thing that you could possibly imagine.

Well, I just get uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. My heart begins to pound, and I sweat and I begin to worry, ‘what if I freeze?’ and then I just have to pull over and get my breath and head back home.

Oh, so you do leave home?

Not really. Not anymore. Just if I have to go to the store for some food if my husband can’t leave work and do it.

Ruth, if you did not have this program inside your head that scared the hell out of you when you left the house, and you had a normal response to leaving home, what would you life be like? What would you be doing with yourself?

Well, I used to work. I was a receptionist and …

That’s what you’d like to return to do?

No, not really. I didn’t like that at all.

So what would you do?

I don’t know.

Pretend that you do know and just describe what you’d love to be doing.

Well, ah… I really don’t have anything that I’d like to be doing.

Do you like what you’re doing now… staying at home and all?

Well, yes. I get to do some of the crafts and things that I love to do. … but it’s such a hassle to not be able to go to the Mall or other stores to get supplies.

So you just do without?

Oh no. Larry picks them up for me.

You know, Ruth, it sounds like you have a wonderful life and wonderful lifestyle and that you’re not really an agoraphobic at all. You just love staying home, being waited on, and being treated as special for this so-called agoraphobia.

(Stunned silence.. . Hurt looks… ) You just don’t understand.

I left the dialogue there and turned to another. Three years later Ruth wrote a letter and said that she was never more shocked, anger, upset, and hurt than by what I had said to her in front of the group that evening. But that it was all true and she hated to admit it, and that she couldn’t admit it at the time. She said she had come to realize that she hid her anger, but would fret and stew every Wednesday and Thursday prior to the meetings. And unknown to me, she complained to the others that I didn’t know what I was doing and that we should stop having me come, that I was making her agoraphobia worse.

And that went on for several weeks until two of the other persons confronted her by using the same questions. And when they asked the questions, she couldn’t complain that they didn’t understand and because they were “getting better,” they pushed the questions until it became clear that fear was an excuse. That the real issue was a willingness to take on and accept some of the more unpleasant facets of life, to accept distressful feelings as just feelings, and to face the discomfort through building up more resourceful responses.

In her letter, Ruth said that the moment came when she decided to stop calling her experience fear and agoraphobia.

“Once I dropped those labels, everything was strange for awhile. I kept saying to myself, ‘What do I call this?’ And eventually I decided to call it, ‘being out of my Comfort Zone,’ and as I decided that was okay, then I began asking the questions that you zapped me with, ‘What do I really want?'”

Thereafter she began making plans, and re-orienting the focus of her life. She shifted it from what she didn’t want, to what she did want. She began driving again. She found a job that she really enjoyed, and she re-entered the life “of the normals” as she expressed it.

This doesn’t mean that all agoraphobics have this same experience or structure, but provides one example of how one person (actually several) mis-labeled their experience, too comfort in the label, and then began building their lives and identities around the label.

When “Fear” Goes Meta

Feeling afraid of a specific event, person, situation, or external referent in our world provides us the informational value and signal that all emotions provide. This makes them useful. They then become feedback to us about the relationship between our model of the world and our experience of the world. The emotion as such tells us that we need to adjust one or the other, or both. And the emotional also provides us the energy to make some adjustment.

However, when we react to any of our reactions of thought or emotion with fear and begin to fear ourselves, our states, our emotions, our thoughts, etc., when we begin to dread and feel apprehension about a meaning, an idea, a concept, what we may become, what we may find, etc., then the “fear” becomes something other than primary level fear. Now it becomes a taboo against ourselves, a corroding and weakening of ego strength so that we make ourselves an enemy to reality, to human experience, to our fallibilities, to ideas, etc. This can lead to repression, psychosomatic problems, unsanity, weakening of our personal power, etc.

Such “fear” puts us at odds with ourselves. In constructing such “fear of self,” this can take so many forms: fear of our sexuality, fear of our assertiveness, fear of our passions, fear of being a fallible human being, fear of being vulnerable, fear of sadness, fear of excitement, fear of the idea of getting fat, fear of the idea of being rejected, etc.

And, when we begin to bring fear against ourselves and against our ideas, feelings, awarenesses, etc., this seems to start an ongoing process that can, and often does, worsen with time. It’s a basic meta-stating process in that we create it so simply. We reflect back onto ourselves and “fear” an experience and especially some idea of what that means. Consider that, we fear what something means. Then, because “fear” makes us freeze, fight, and/or flee– we then experiences those reactions to ourselves, the feeling, the idea, etc.

Yet this kind of “fear” (if we can even call it that at this level) begins a corroding and destructive process. In Meta-States trainings, as well as the basic books, Meta-States and Dragon Slaying, we constantly emphasize that mostly if we bring negative thoughts and feelings against ourselves we create “dragon like states” so that we experience a self-created self-conflict.

This kind of “fear” does not respond well to the NLP Phobia Cure. Why? Because it is not a fear of an external referent. It is rather a “fear” (dread, dislike, upset, stress, anger etc.) of what something means, an idea, our experience, etc. For this kind of so-called “fear,” we need reframing. We need to set a new frame (i.e., meta-state ourselves) with some resource that creates a higher level structure that allows us to face, accept, appreciate, own, etc. the idea, experience, state, or whatever.

That’s why so-called “paradoxical” things work so well here.

  • “Try really hard to freak out when I say this word, mention this idea, etc.”
  • “I want you to fully embrace and welcome your fear … as you do, listen to it and notice what informational value it has for you. What does it say?”
  • “As you look with the eyes of appreciation at that idea or feeling that you’ve been afraid of, just for a moment, look beyond the immediate things it does and look for its higher values and intentions. How does it seek to serve you?”

Summary

All fear is not the same. This is the nature and wonder and marvel of meta-levels. This is the value of understanding what Korzybski called “multiordinality.” Experiencing love at the primary level differs from loving our love. We call that “infatuation.” And loving our infatuation then becomes “romanticism” or something. At each higher level, the nature, feel, and experience of the same emotion transforms into something different. So with fear. At each level it transforms itself.

Knowing that, always begin by asking the referent question:

  • What are you afraid of?
  • Is the referent of your fear out there in the world or a state, experience, idea, etc.?
  • At what level is this fear? Is it one level up, two, three, etc.?

References

Bodenhamer, Bobby; Hall, Michael. (2000). Mastering your fears. Spiral manuscript of training manual. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael (2000, second edition). Meta-States: Mastering the higher levels of mind, Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.

Hall, L. Michael; Bodenhamer, Bobby (1999). The structure of excellence: Unmasking the meta-levels of submodalities. Grand Jct. CO: E.T. Publications.

Leder, Debra; Hall, L. Michael. (1998). Instant relaxation. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.

Multiple Patterns for Mastering Fear, Part I

by

Overcoming the “Fear of Flying”
A Case Study

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

When I sat down think about all of the NLP and Meta-State patterns that address the experience of fear, I felt both surprised and delighted. My intent was to gather highly effective patterns and to present them in a Workshop format at the local college to begin my eighth year there teaching NLP. My partner, Michael Hall, and I discovered enough patterns for a ten week coarse. Over several months, we put together our newest training manual, Mastering Your Fears: An NLP/Neuro-Semantics Approach to Mastering Fear and Anxiety.

How many patterns are there for intervening with a fear response? Dozens. Of course, we begin with the “Phobia Pattern” to alter the way a person codes fear– from associated to a dissociated. There’s deframing the meanings that a person has given to some event, experience, stimulus that creates a sense of danger or threat. There’s the Reframing of the meanings, adding new resources, changing past referents, collapsing anchors, meta-stating the fear with new resources to give the fear a more appropriate texture, dropping down through emotional states, etc.

There are many patterns and mixtures of patterns that we can use and intertwine in order to coach a person into a fear mastery state. We have focused on mastering fear, not eliminating since “fear” as an emotion is just a message and may be appropriate. We may need to listen to it and take counsel from it. For inappropriate and unreasonable fears, we need to take courage to face them and to act in spite of them. It’s for irrational and demonized fears that become part of identity, character, and higher frame of mind, that we need to eliminate.

I have provided a transcript of working with a woman who had given in and taken far to much counsel of her fear of flying. In brackets [], I have noted the bits and pieces of various NLP and NS (Neuro-Semantic) patterns.

The Art of Freaking Out About Flying

Wanda’s personal coach referred her to me to assist her in dealing with her fear of flying. Since her work requires her to fly a lot, and was still flying, but feeling more and more nervous about it.

“Some of my worse fears of flying are in good weather. I don’t even have to be in a plane to feel afraid. I can panic at home just thinking about flying. First I become nervous, then my heart rate speeds up.”

“Wanda, you can even run this ‘fear of flying’ strategy in calm weather?” I asked. “And, you can even run this fear of flying at home?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Yes it sounds like you have ‘anticipatory anxiety.’ But, of course, I’m in the ‘de_labeling’ business. So I want to figure out what you’re doing inside your head to run this ‘fear of flying’ program. When we know that, we’ll deframe that old program. Sound good?

“Yes.”

“So, Wanda, you become afraid of flying even when you are home? How do you do that? It’s quite a skill to get nervous, to speed up your heart rate, and to feel afraid. What do you have to see, hear, feel to trigger this, or how do you know when to become afraid of flying?”

“When I’m in a plane and we hit turbulence, I get really nervous.”

“So turbulence is the trigger? You have to feel nervous about flying when you are in turbulence?”

“Well, yes. I get really nervous and my heart speeds up when the plane hits turbulence.”

“When you are in a plane and you hit turbulence, you get really nervous?”

“Yes.”

[All this gathers critical information about how and when the strategy works.]

“What about when you are at home? How do you get nervous about flying when you are not in a plane? I assume that you don’t always fear flying when you are not flying?”

“No. I’m not always thinking about flying and being nervous. It’s just when I think about flying that I get nervous . . . It’s when I think about we may hit turbulence that I get nervous. When I think that we may hit turbulence, that’s when I get nervous. If I hear that the weather will be bad before I leave the house for the airport, I get really, really nervous.”

[Looking for the Exception Frame, “When does it not occur?” And the Trigger Frame: “How do you do it apart from the external trigger?”]

“Ah, so, you don’t get nervous about flying until the thought of turbulence comes to mind?”

“Yes, that is right. It is about turbulence.”

“Have you always been afraid of turbulence? How long have you been afraid of turbulence?”

“No, I haven’t always been afraid. Ten years ago I was in a plane that hit an air pocket. I had forgotten about it until you asked. The plane dropped several hundred feet immediately. It horrified me!”

“And are you feeling that horror now?”

“Yes… yes I am.”

“As you experience that horror, do you have a picture in your mind?’

“Yes.”

“And what exactly you see?”

“I see the inside of the cabin (motioning her hands around as if inside an airplane cabin). I see the people and all the stuff going everywhere.”

“So, it’s like you’re seeing inside the cabin. You see the people. And you see things going all over the plane?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Do you see yourself in the picture or just the other people, the seats and the things flying?”

“I just see all the other. I do not see myself.”

[Exploring the Representational Coding Frame: “How is it coded?”]

Creating Fear– Associating and Layering

This description told me that Wanda was associating back into the plane every time she hit turbulence in a flight. Because she did not see herself in the picture, she was imagining herself back in the plane. Further, she was doing the same thing each time she even thought about flying in turbulence.

Most phobic type reactions happen this way. We unconsciously associate back into the fearful experience(s) and layer our thoughts with the same thoughts of fear and anxiety, i.e., “the plane is falling. I am going to die!” Since our brain does not know the difference between representations just imagined and those triggered by outside stimuli, associated images of past fearful experiences cue our brains to re-experienced the fear. This creates the semantic reaction.

When Wanda thought about flying in turbulence, she automatically associated into that old plane dropping memory and she re-experience similar emotions as she originally did. Usually I like to invite a person to dissociate immediately, but as Wanda followed the absurdity of her thinking so well, I decide to go another way. She said,

“I know the plane isn’t going to drop but I am thinking, ‘the plane is going to drop!'”

“Right. You know the plane isn’t going to drop. You know that isn’t happening now. It isn’t real now.”

“I know. At least one part of me knows that.”

[Separating out different meta-frames, the Reality Frame versus the Fear Feeling Frame.]

“So, in essence you’re afraid of your fear about the plane dropping?”

(Laughing, she said,) “Yes, I guess I am.”

[Flushing out the first meta-level state about a state Frame.]

At that point, I drew an illustration of how we create paranoia by fearing our fear (See Figure 1). “Wanda, as you look at this sketch. It provides a way of diagramming the structural dynamics that explains how our brain works in creating our experiences, even our fear experiences.

“First we experience the world through our five senses. So when the plane dropped, you experienced it in terms of the sights, sounds, sensations, etc. that your body registered.

“Secondly, we recall an experience using our sensory code. What we see, we recall as pictures. What we sense in our feelings, we recall as feelings. What we hear, we recall as sounds. All of this becomes an internal image. We re-present our experiences on the screen of our minds through pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes.

“Then, to that image or representation, we give it meaning with words. We say, “The plane is falling.”

“Yet we don’t stop there. We then have thoughts about thoughts. “I am going to die!” “Whew, that will make you nervous and cause your heart to palpitate, want it?”

“And as time goes on following a terrifying experience like a plane falling, we continually run these thoughts and so create a mental filter. Thereafter we experience the world through that filter. “Flying in planes is dangerous.’ It began with fear and then it evolved into fearing our fear. This creates paranoia and anxiety.

And, based on that horrifying experience and through running that thought these ten plus years, you have created a filter through which you experience flying in an airplane. That filter always looks for turbulence.

[Insight Frame about the construction, growth, and power of mental frames.]

Figure 1
Meta-Stating Into a Mental Filter

Frames of Mind Attract

“Wanda, our mental frames such as beliefs, values, convictions, decisions, understandings, ideas, etc., function as attractors. They attract things that support their existence. For instance, if I believe I am incompetent at some task, not only will I not attempt the task, but I will also constantly look for reasons to prove that I am incompetent. And though there could be many instances giving testimony that I could do the task, I won’t see them. The “incompetent frame” will filter them out. Does that make sense?

“Yes, so if I am afraid of turbulence, I will ‘create’ turbulence in my mind in order to make my fear work whether it is there or not.”

“Yes, that’s correct. And how many times has that frame of mind created ‘turbulence’ when there was no turbulence?”

(Laughing), “I am afraid too many times.”

[Eliciting a Humor Frame about the silliness of engaging the whole Fear Strategy apart from any appropriate trigger. Laughter gives us distance from our own processes.]

“You said you had a picture of the inside of the airplane?”

“Yes.”

“And, as you see the inside of that airplane as it drops, what do you feel?”

“I feel tightness (placing her hand over her stomach).”

“So, you feel tightness and it is right there in your stomach?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you feel underneath the tightness? … Feel it… and now just drop down through the tightness … and what is underneath it?”

(Going into a mild trance) “Nothing. I don’t feel anything.”

[Using the Drop Down Through Process… Framing an Emotion as having something Underneath it… Frame.]

“Great. And, what is under the ‘nothing?’ Just drop down through and out the other side.”

“Calm, I feel a calm.”

“Great. You feel calm. Now, what is under the calm? What feeling supports calm?”

“Space. I just feel a sense of space. It is extremely calm.”

“And being there in that calm space, what happens to fear of turbulence?”

“It is gone. I can’t feel it.”

[Bringing these Resourceful feelings to bear upon the Turbulence, a meta-stating process of Resource Application Frame.]

“Wonderful. I see doves out the deck (I keep bird feeders), they look so calm and peaceful.”

“Yes, doves are a symbol of peace.”

[Using a Metaphoring Frame… “What is this like”? Then bring that to bear upon the problem.]

“So anytime you should experience a little of that fear or anxiety of turbulence you can just recall sitting here and seeing the doves and know how calm you can feel whether you’re at home or in a plane. The fear that began it all happened a long time ago. It isn’t happening now, and chances are it will never happen to you again.  Just feel greater calm as you see the doves.”

[Future pacing Frames… Past Frames… Resource Frames.]

After this, I had her future pace the feelings as she imagined flying and experiencing turbulence… recalling the doves and feeling the calmness and relaxation and so enjoying her flight. About a month after this session she sent the following E-mail and has graciously given permission to share it:

“I just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, my first flight since our session. Thank you so much, again, for helping me. … As you know, my nervousness didn’t have as much to do with actual turbulence as it did with the anticipation of fear. So I didn’t need actual bad weather to make me nervous. I was so calm on this LA trip. It was just amazing. On the return flight, I had to deal with a canceled flight, missed connections, and an announcement of severe thunderstorms. Normally, that would have been enough to put me over the edge since when I’m really tired (and I was exhausted after a 16 hour day of airports), I am more susceptible to nervousness.

Anytime the flight got bumpy or they announced coming turbulence, I just went to that ‘place’ you showed me how to access. I am still amazed that it works so well. I simply said the word “peace” to myself, and I was no longer on that bumpy plane. I was back with you watching the doves… Then I went from there to this beautiful valley at the base of a mountain. At the base of the mountain, I was engulfed by that great sense of nothingness I told you about. The sound of an eagle overhead was the only sound I heard. It is the most relaxed sensation I have ever felt. I never sleep on planes, and I slept for hours both going and returning. Take offs and landings were fun! I actually enjoyed flying again. Simply amazing!

While I was in LA, I read an article in USA Today about a technique for fear of flying that used very expensive virtual reality equipment. The treatment was long and very expensive. I wanted to write the author and tell him he was looking in all the wrong places. But you are right. Why should they give up thousands of dollars when you “fixed” me in less than hour? Bob, thanks so much for your help.”

Regards,

Wanda

Though we had scheduled a two-hour session, we were finished in less than one hour. I love it when it turns out that way even though it doesn’t always work this quickly. It worked this quickly with Wanda because her fear was anchored in primary experience of a one-time event, in the sudden descent of the plane. When a fear and or anxiety is anchored in years of experiences that have numerous higher level frames (meta-levels) of references that has coalesced into a primary frame of reference, it takes more work to tease out the solidifying layers. But, no fear, they can be teased out and reframed.

Framing “Fear” so that We Live Masterfully

Ultimately, fear is just an emotion. Whether it accurately or inaccurately cues us about particular actions we should or should not take depends upon the evaluations that create the danger-threat-feelings. We master our fears as we understand the cognitions from which they arise, the evaluations, standards, values, and compare them to the sensory based information before us.

Fear can be our friend and a useful ally. Fear of fear, fear of ourselves, fear of any other emotion, fear of ideas, concepts, memories, imaginations, etc., this is the kind of fear that does us damage. With NLP and NS we have so many ways, methods, and processes for understanding fear, dealing with fear, and mastering fear.