Post your articles online and promote your website for free! Boost your sites ranking by linking it from the ArticleZap database! Free Article directory and instant translation publishing!
For many folks, the highway to individual change and self-improvement is a long and winding boulevard filled with intricate barriers. Drug companies in particular have capitalized on and created immense fortunes because of the elusive search for the "Magic Pill" that will answer all of your prayers. As it turns out, there is a secret formula for success, and it begins in the human mind.
One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that "there is a positive intention behind all behaviors." And based on that rule, when it comes to getting rid of negative behaviors, there is an equation that we should always keep in mind. I'll let you in on the secret formula in a minute. But I have a riddle for you to solve first.
Riddle: A preacher made his child drink lye, which burned out his voice box. What was the positive intent behind his action?
If you are like almost all of the clients who have come into my office since 1978, you'll exclaim something like: "There isn't any." But you would be completely mistaken. To answer this riddle, you must detach the behavior from the positive goal of the deed.
The preacher's child was cursing. And the preacher believes that if his child curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the preacher was burning out his child's vocal cords so that he couldn't curse. By doing so, he was saving his child's soul from being predestined to Hell.
The secret equation for successful personal change works as follows:
We must always respect the positive intent that motivates every behavior. If we have an impulse to make use of a behavior that we don't like, we can easily get rid of the urge to use that behavior. All we need to do is to find another behavior to substitute in its place. To be successful, the new conduct must be
However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible positive intention behind the behavior of eating. What if they also have another behavior that is concerned in the equation? For instance: What if being tubby is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind grinding right now as you think, "Being fat isn't a behavior, what are you talking about?"
Sorry but you could be absolutelas accessible and effective at accomplishing the same outcome, but be more consciously tolerable. We call this a REFRAME.
When clients come into my office, one of the first things that I do is to take a careful case history. In this example, let's pretend that they come to me and ask me to help them overcome their appetite. Conventional wisdom tells us that the two main reasons that people eat excessively are: (1) to reduce stress; (2) because eating can be a behavior triggered by other behaviors that it has been associated with (this is also known as a conditioned response).
Case in point, if a person eats while they are talk on the phone, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they talk on the phone they will get an urge to eat. y wrong. Here is a classic textbook example that will clearly illustrate the fact that being fat can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can supply secondary gains.
Example: A woman falls deeply in love. Her partner breaks up with her, and breaks her heart. Her subconscious mind wants to protect her emotionally and keep her from ever having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get fat to keep her out of relationships. By doing that she won't get her heart broken again.
Everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are elements at work causing compulsive behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.
Here's another example: A woman comes to my office complaining of an uncontrollable compulsion to eat way too much at mealtime. During the case history, the woman tells me about how she was never able to satisfy her dad.
During an age regression, we learned that one of her early memories was of eating a meal with the family. And her dad was insisting in a very loud voice that she finish all of the food on her plate, even though she was stuffed. So she finished the food on her plate out of fear, and dad commended her for eating everything. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her father telling her that she had made him happy.
Shoot forward to the present. Dad has been deceased for many years, but the subconscious program he created is still at work. She still has an urge to clean her plate, even if she is feeling full, because by cleaning the plate, in her subconscious she is getting dad's approval, and eliminating her fear!
So if you have a problem making personal changes, please remember that there is a positive intent behind all behaviors. And the secret formula for successful change is to substitute a different behavior that will accomplish the same secondary gain, but in a mode that is more consciously satisfactory to you, as an individual. The most effective way to get your subconscious mind to accept the responsibility for making this kind of alteration for you is through an NLP Six-Step Reframe.
