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In today’s episode, we talk about NLP and how powerful your mind can be in creating a reality that you need to accomplish new things.
I walk you through an exercise to help anchor feelings of joy, confidence, and ease in your life.
This episode is great for anyone who has an interest in learning more about how their mind works or has an interest in changing something about how they think. This is also great for anyone who has heard about NLP but wanted clarity on what it is and how it could help them.
Thank for listening and sharing with your friends.
Transcript:
Welcome to the art of living day.
I’m your host, Betsy Pake,
and this podcast is designed to share interviews and new ideas to help you redefine what could be possible for your life. Now, let’s go live big. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. All right, I have had a terrible cold ever since I got back from the beach. So I feel like my throat is clear. We’re gonna hope for the best here. Welcome to today’s episode, I want to talk with you today about NLP about neuro linguistic programming. So you may have heard me talk about that. Or you may have heard if you follow along on Instagram, that I chat about NLP. And that’s what I’m trained in. So I just completed my master certification for NLP. And as I was sort of talking about that, people were asking me like, what is it? And so I wanted to get into that a little bit today. And I also want to give you a tool to help you increase your confidence. Hmm. But first, just a little background here. So what is NLP? Here’s the problem, as I see it with NLP is that it’s a little bit abstract. It’s not like, like Emotional Freedom Technique, like tapping, where it’s something that you physically do. And you can see people do it. And OPI is really like a lot of things. And also, if you want to learn more about EFT, you know, I do have an episode on that episode 17, if you want to learn more about that, but NLP is really about the process of your thought. So there are processes that you do, like tapping is, there are processes that you do. And at the end, I’m going to take you through one of those processes. But really NLP at its basis at its core, is just the processes of your thoughts. So it’s the study of what’s going on, every single time you think it’s not the chemical breakdown of what’s going on. But it’s more about the step by step process of what’s happening. So here’s how I think about ourselves. We have bodies, and we have brains. But what about our mind? So if I cut open your head right now and looked inside, would I find your mind? Like during an autopsy, they can look and see what was the last thing I ate. But they couldn’t really see the last time I felt love, or the last time I suffered. That’s in your mind. And the study of NLP is really about the study of how that works. So NLP has a variety of what NLP calls presuppositions, but really, they’re just basic guiding principles. So I want to share those, the two main ones with you. So one is that there is no such thing as an inner enemy. So you’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. And when you do things that aren’t good for you like like smoking or getting back together with that same crappy boyfriend over and over and over again, there is a part of you that thinks that this action is important for your well being. Now, the second presupposition is that behind every behavior, there’s a positive intention.
So let’s say,
let’s say you have Oh, okay, I have a, I have one here. So I had an issue with my neighbor about a year ago. And they misunderstood something that I said, and they got really, really angry with me and yelled at me, I was so shocked and horrified. It really caused a lot of emotion. And now every time I see them, I get like flips in my stomach or this really uneasy feeling like I want to wave because I don’t want to be rude, but I am afraid of them. So I’m not broken, there’s nothing wrong. The reason I’m having this reaction is because I believe that not having an interaction with them is essential to my well being right, it will keep me from being hurt again, being cautious is what’s keeping me safe. Now, they have since come over and apologized. But it doesn’t matter. The emotion was so strong in Intel I go in and I try to change that that has been hardwired in me, which this can
help you
in certain situations. But what about if it’s about somebody you love or your boss, and then maybe you really have a desire to change it? That’s when understanding some of what I’m going to talk about with NLP can be really useful. Okay, so every time we have a thought, it occurs in either pictures, sounds, feelings, smell, or sometimes taste. So try it like right now. even thinking about me doing this podcast right now, you probably have some kind of picture in your head of what I’m saying. Maybe you had a picture in your head when I was talking About the interaction I had with my neighbor, or maybe you’re thinking about something that happened to you, that is really uncomfortable or that made you upset. So when you think about that, is it a picture? Is it a sound, maybe like somebody’s yelling, a feeling you have when you’re with them, here’s what I’ve grown to believe and understand is that all feelings are optional. It can feel like it’s not an option, but it is. And now, here’s why. So here’s a quick chemistry breakdown. We’ve talked about this on the show before. But what happens when we have a thought, we get a thought in our head, it’s a picture of feeling, a sound, a smell. And we have a belief about that we interpret that we make meaning of that when we have an emotion, then we react based on that emotion. And that gives us other emotions. So what if you had the same picture the same thought so like, you’re imagining this negative thing that happened to you or my situation with my neighbor? I had the same exact feeling when I saw them the same smell the same sounds. But what if I changed the meaning behind it? Well, then I would create a totally different emotion, a different chemical reaction would happen in my body. And that changes how you experience the world that actually changes your reality. Ooh. So now we see how we can actually alter our reality. So now we’re getting clear on how other people may see something different than we do. And now we can understand why maybe something bothered us when we were younger. But it doesn’t bother us when we’re older. So when I was younger, people would tell me I was chatty all the time. Like you’re so chatty. And I remember teacher saying that I think teachers have even written that like on my report card to my mother, and it would make me so upset. Well, now if somebody said I was chatty, I would be like, okay, whatever, I don’t care, because the meaning is totally different to me than when I was seven than when I’m 47. Right. So here’s the Another important thing to understand about what’s going on. Anytime we’re experiencing anything, our mind is doing something else, besides just assigning the meaning. It’s doing three things automatically. It’s generalizing, it’s deleting, and it’s distorting. So I’m going to go over all three of these things, just so you know what I mean. But I also I want you to notice that all this is happening without you doing anything. So just like breathing, your mind is taking over, you don’t have to think about it. So I’m not going, Oh, God, I gotta breathe. Oh, God, I gotta breathe. Like I don’t have to think about it. And this generalizing, deleting and distorting is also happening, and I don’t have to think about it. So remember, you are being flooded with billions, billions of bits of information every single second. But you can only process about 2000 of those bits. So what sabrine to do, delete, generalize and distort. So yesterday, I went to Target and when I pulled up and parked there was a car like in the next line over that I had to walk by to get to the door. And it was this pretty light blue car. Like I’d never seen a car that was that color before. And I thought to myself, I’m not even really sure this is the factory color. Although I can’t imagine someone going in aftermarket and painting their whole car that color. But it was just so pretty and odd for a car color. But I knew it was a car. So even though I’d never seen a car like that, I knew that it was a car. And when I went into target, even though the door was different than the door of my house when I left, and it was different than the car door I just slammed I knew that it was a door. This is generalizing so you can see how this can really work in your favor, right? Here’s the pitfall of generalization. There was a car that was parked next to me, it was like oh, wonky, so it was like taken up kind of two spots. And I wasn’t totally sure I was in the spot or if my door was going to get dinged, right. So I was sort of watching. And I realized that what I thought was some woman driver, right? Some short lady who lunches because it was this big SUV and like she can’t even park it right or some soccer mom distracted she can’t park.
Like what
do you see how that can be tricky. So here’s what happens these generalizations start to lead to limiting beliefs. Now beliefs are just a thing that you think over and over again until it becomes your reality. So if it’s limiting, it’s holding me back from my full potential. So now when I have a thought come into my head, that’s a picture of sound a smell a feeling. It also has to go through this filter of my limiting beliefs. So I didn’t just go Oh, there’s a car parked wonky I went, I jumped. It went through my filter, right? Which is probably loads of experiences and things. And other times I’ve generalized and made decisions about things right?
Maybe not reality.
So let me ask you this. Do you want to make a million dollars this year? Ooh, what pictures came into your head just now when I said that? I bet it was all sorts of images, ideas, filters from your past? Did you convince yourself in just like a split instant that that could never happen? Right? Maybe that’s based on your reality, your reality with all of your filters and generalizations of the past, you might have thought like I can’t because my job doesn’t pay that much. We all know jobs can change and you don’t need a job. I mean, you could win a million dollars you win the lottery. Oh, now did you feel that generalization? It’s so hard to win the lottery. Right? Nobody really wins those. That’s a poor man’s ticket or whatever people say there’s something about that. So generalizations although they serve you, man, they can be a real humdinger. All right. So let’s move on to deletion. When I got to target, there were so many people there. Have you ever been in target? When it’s like, you’re like, What? Is there a bus in the parking lot? It is so loud. And when I walked in with my daughter, I was like, I looked at her like we both gave each other this I like holy crap, Is there like a crazy sale? I must have hit it just like right at the right time. But as my daughter and I started to look at things in chat, do you know what happened? The background noise died down. I could totally zone in on our conversation. And I wasn’t struck by confusion of listening to everybody else’s conversation. I didn’t hear someone else talk about a pair of earrings when I was at the purses, and go oh, God was that all of like, I was zoned in on her. And I, you might have had this happen at a bar. If you’re talking to a friend and the bar is really or the restaurant is really really busy. It’s pretty useful, right? You’re using it right now. So maybe you’re listening while you’re working out or you’re driving? Do you notice your left elbow? Not until I said it right? deletion, you don’t need to know if fades into the background. Can you see how important your belief systems could alter this to I’m not deleting something that I think is really important. So if I think my daughter’s voice is really important, I’m not deleting that. And finally, distortion. All these things the brain does are totally natural, by the way and super helpful. It’s just important to know, I also want to say something, there has been some construction on a drain in my neighborhood. And so the weird thing is, is that they have not done it all week. So now they’re doing it. And I’m my brain is not letting me delete it, I can hear it. And I hope you can’t hear it. But if you do hear it, see if after a while it starts to go away. Or if you keep focusing on it, right, maybe you’ll focus focus on it because I said that and it raised its importance. But I just want to point that out. Alright, so distortion. So I think that these things, these three things are really important to just become aware of so that you actually realize how much control you actually have on how you experience the world. I used
to work with a guy who had a list. And I remember when I met him like everything he said, I kind of had to stare at his mouth to catch it. Like it was a really bad Lisp. So he was such a nice guy. And after I’d grown to know him, like smart as a whip. And I always felt bad because when I first met him, and he started to talk to now I’m going to Lisp. See, that’s the power of suggestion. But I was really in the mo I could totally picture him. Isn’t that weird? So when I first met him, and he started talking, I thought, Oh no, I’m going to get stuck talking to this guy in the break room. That’s maybe not that bright. Isn’t that awful. But I took that list. And I turned it into something that was about his whole self. So we do this all the time with experiences where we focus on one thing, and change the whole experience to match that memory. So I took that one thing and I decided that that was going to distort everything else about him until I backed off and I really learned more about him and then I realized I was wrong, but my brain was doing that naturally. So all of these things work together, not necessarily independently. So you know, generalization and deleting and distortion. We’re all working together. So when I was talking to that guy and meeting that guy, it was a lot of things generalization that was coming in, you know, not just distortion and and probably deleting some stuff, all these things working together and overlapping. Alright, so now you have this breakdown of some of the ways that your mind works. So can you see how you think can profoundly affect what You think the problem I believe is that in school, we aren’t given any of these tools or insight into how our mind is actually working, we learn things and we ignore that every single one of us is processing information in a unique way and that processes change. So let’s just say if you recalled something that happened to you when you were five, right now, think about something when you were five, how old are you? I don’t know. 30 4050. So that recollection would be different. If you remembered and retold it, when you were eight, it would be different if you retold it when you were 15. It would be different if you retold it when you’re 20. Because all your experiences add to the filter of what you remember about the event and how you experience the memory of the event. So this can really benefit us if we have a memory that holds us back, or something we really want to change about how we see the world and we know a particular experience is making us see situations in a way that no longer benefit us. Remember what I said in the beginning the to NLP presuppositions, we aren’t broken and behind every behavior is a positive intention. So if we identify something that’s holding us back, we can go Wait a second. It’s okay, my brain was trying to protect me. I’m not broken, and there was some sort of positive intent behind this. So how can I change this? So when we understand that, that’s when we can help us shift our whole lives? Because when we change one thing, many other limiting beliefs start to collapse, too. One of the amazing things about NLP is that it gives us a lot more options on how to think. Okay, so I’m going to give you an example that might cause a little buck clench for some of you, but just just hear me out. Okay. So allow yourself to hear what I’m saying, because I think you’ll understand my point when I’m done. Some of us voted, and like Donald Trump, some of us didn’t vote for Donald Trump and don’t like him. Well, why? Why could some of us feel so strongly, and it’s been a year since he’s been elected and in office, but some of us feel so strongly still one way and some of us feel so strongly the other way. But it’s all about what your mind raises up as important. Not what you think, Oh, yes, that is important. But it’s what triggers the level of emotional importance. So I’m going to give you an example. I don’t like Trump, I didn’t vote for him. I think just hang with me here. Because there’s a point. I think he’s a bully. And I don’t think of bullies as a leader. Now. My experience with bullying is so deep, so profound, my daughter was bullied.
She was bullied for years in school,
in the bathroom, there were tons of tears, I mean, therapy, it cost me a lot of money. She couldn’t go to regular school, I had to change my career in some aspects. I mean, this is profound, right? So my mind goes to high alert with bullying. And I generalize, I say bullying is I see that bullying behavior, and it means that you’re bad, right? So I’m not even my reality may not even be clear on it, because I raised the importance for that, it clouds my thinking, and it makes that my reality. That’s what’s real to me. Now, you, you might love Trump, you may have a totally different experience in life. And the bullying thing, it doesn’t mean you like bullying, it just means it ranks so low, you’ve never had really a real, like, profound experience like that with bullying. And and it’s just you think it’s bad, but it doesn’t rank as high as other things. So maybe you see the attitude he has like that he doesn’t really care what other people think. And I think that’s good, right? But maybe you love that. Maybe that is something that ranks so high, you have an emotional experience with it. And so you respect that so to you, you don’t get what the big deal is because he’s doing what he thinks is right, regardless of other input, and you really love that same president, different filters, different experience, different reality. So understanding how this works, can help you better understand other people and find peace in situations that might have gotten you really upset.
Neither of us is wrong or bad people,
we just have totally different filters. And remember, the two main presuppositions is that we’re doing things always that we think are for our better good. Okay, so I want to share with you an example of how powerful you actually are. And then we’re going to get into creating some confidence for you so that you can experience NLP for yourself. I want you to understand that you have the power to create in your mind experiences. You have never had before. Now remember, when I asked if you’re gonna make a million dollars this year, you can create experiences in your mind that you’ve never had before. And you can make them real. And I’m going to show you. And this is really important. When you want to have new experiences in your life, you have to spend time envisioning something new. And I don’t want to go off on a tangent on that, but I’m going to teach you how to do it and why it’s so important. So I’m going to ask you to think about something that maybe you’ve never ever thought of before, I want you to think about being in the woods, and looking down at your feet at the dirt floor of the forest. Now, if you’re right handed, I want you to think about doing this with your left elbow. And if you’re left handed, I want you to think about doing it with your right elbow, I want you to imagine taking your elbow and writing a letter B in the dirt by the ground by your feet. Can you imagine doing that? So I bet you’ve never done that before. But here’s what’s interesting. To do that you had to see the letter B, you had to see it in your mind. So how did you see it? Was it a capital B, A cursive, maybe a lowercase b, you also had to decide on the font, right? I mean, you’ve seen lots of bees, there’s like big signs with bees on it. And you’ve probably gotten emails that have the letter B in it all sorts of things, then you had to imagine how you’d hold your body to do that. So were you sitting and leaning back? Or were you folding forward to write it? You had a picture in your mind, right? And then I bet you even got the feeling of the ground and the dirt and what that would feel like on your elbow. Do you see how amazing you are? So let me ask you this. Were you in it? Like were you doing it through your own eyes? Or were you watching it like a movie. So this is called being associated or disassociated in NLP. And this can be really powerful. Being in it, seeing it through your own eyes, makes it much more intense, and emotional. So this is great when you want to fully experience something, or retain it. But do you want to distance yourself from an emotion? What about if you remember that emotion? As if you were watching it like a movie? Just that simple shift can help you gain better control over it. All right. So this is a lot a lot of powerful stuff, though. Right? Do you see how powerful you are powerful like beyond measure, you can create anything that you want in your life, you have the power to change it all. So let’s get into an exercise to help you get in a state of total confidence. So in NLP, we call this an anchor. Have you ever been driving in the car and then you hear a song and you go, oh my god, this brings me right back to high school. I cannot hear a Bryan Adams song like just Bryan Adams voice and not think about being young and think about my mother. Oh my god. Like I’m getting teared up just thinking about it. It’s such a powerful anchor, like just the thought of his voice brought me right back. So I love it. Like I love that anchor. I go to Bryan Adams concerts. And my husband’s like, Oh my god, you’re like, oh, I’ve never seen you like this, like I, it’s, I’m so happy. It makes me so happy. All right. I actually worked with a guy about a year ago who wanted to stop smoking. And um, it was it was crazy, because he was good to go like, didn’t want to smoke like four months in less, he went to a one particular job site. So he like worked around, went to different job sites. When he went to that job site, he had to smoke, it was an anchor. So anchors can give you good memories like that you act on by like feeling a good emotion and tearing up right? or bad ones that cause you to do something harmful for yourself. So anchors can be a feeling. I can be like kinesthetic, like somebody touching your arm, for example, or auditory or visual, or hearing or smelling. So in fact, the touch one is really powerful for lots of people. You know, it’s funny, because I was watching and I am not a big TV watcher, but I like to watch some time. Kelly riphah you know, whatever that show is Kelly and whatever, you know, I’m talking about but they were talking about the bachelor, Ryan and Ryan was talking about this past season where Ari would touch the woman’s face before he kissed them. And they all swooned, right? They all and he talked about that about how he like grabbed their face, like sort of by their ear. You know what I mean? It was a total anchor for them when I was watching them talk about it. I was fascinated, because and I haven’t done the research on this. But I wondered when I watched if there was a movie like all those women were around the same age, right? So was there a movie when they were teenagers or young teenagers where that action happened where they were really involved. You know, when you watch a movie, you’re really in it you have all the emotion and you feel it. You kind of forget that you’re in a movie theater, you can get lost in it. So I wondered because that was such an anchor for them if there was some movie that came out when they were young that caused this anchor because they all swooned when he did that, and if somebody touched my face like that, I don’t know, I might, well, if my husband did it, I’d be like What’s gotten into you, but you know, like it that wouldn’t, I don’t believe that would have the same effect on me. Okay, so let’s try it, you want to create a new anchor. So if you’re driving and listening, you can still listen. But just like, learn the steps, and then try this again later, or listen to this part. Again, whatever works for you. But it’s not like we’re gonna go into a hypnotic state or anything. So you can be driving and listen. But we’re going to form a kinesthetic anchor. So a touch anchor. And all this is going to do is tell your body and your unconscious, oh, this is good. I can do this anytime I want to feel good. Okay. So there are two things that have to happen for this to work together. And to come together. So one is that you have to really use your imagination. So remember, when I was talking about it, being from your own eyes, and not watching it, like it’s a movie, right? So I want you in it, I want you associated. The second thing is, it’s got to be really specific. When you’re imagining, when you are imagining what you’re going to imagine, it has to be something that has actually really happened. So not something that you wish would happen, okay. So make sure you’re watching it through your own eyes. So you’re actually experiencing it, and it has to be a memory. So something that’s really happened. So we’re going to anchor joy, happiness, confidence, ease. And the great thing about this anchor, and it’s one I use a lot with my clients is that you can use it at any time during the day when you need a little pep in your step. And I’ve actually done this with kids too. So if you learn this, try it on yourself, once you get really good at it yourself. You can teach it to your kids, or your nieces
or nephews or just kids. You know,
I’ve done it with kids that were having anxiety to anchor
really happy thoughts.
So I did it with one little girl. And it was amazing. She was such a good visualizer and kids generally are. But she would imagine coming off the school bus and having her dad meet her with their dog. And she couldn’t even talk about it without laughing and joking and we could anchor that. And then anytime she got anxious at school, she could bring up the anchor so that she immediately felt that happy feeling. Okay, so here’s how we’re going to do it, I want you to use your non dominant hands for this. So with the tip of your thumb, find the spot on your middle finger, that is your second knuckle. So like the part that’s the knuckle that’s closest to your finger now, okay, so all I want you to do is just practice just touch that just press and release. So it’s not some big deal. It’s just a simple press and release right on like the inside. So I do it just on like the inside of my finger on that knuckle. Okay, so touch on release, no big thing. It’s just a simple press. Now, I want you to go back in time. And I want you to find a memory of when you were really happy. So I’m remembering a few weeks ago at the beach, I can see myself there watching the sunrise, I can feel the air around me I had a towel wrapped around me to kind of keep me warm. And I can feel the towel kind of brushing against my skin, my skin as the wind blows, and I sit and I watch the waves, I can hear the sound of the ocean, I can hear some birds. And actually, I can hear some people chatting as they walk along the beach, I can see the sunrise and I have tears in my eyes because I’m so full of gratitude and love. Alright, so I’m like totally in it. So go back in time and find your specific memory like that. So you’re going to be finding the thoughts, the feeling, the touch, the sound, anything that you can to bring you totally in it.
So
once you have it, just enjoy it, like spend some time there, experience it, get fully in the mood, feel all the feelings that you had at that time. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about that. And that’s how I know I’m fully in the experience. Now you might want to take like 20 or 30 seconds to just really get in it.
And when you’re at the peak
of feeling good, touch your thumb to that middle knuckle. Just press and release, not much to do. Now what I’d like you to do is find another memory where you felt that good. Again, get really into it. How did you feel? What were the smells? Were there any touch or sounds for you. And when you have it, make sure you’re associated. Make sure you’re in it go right inside. And when you’re there, maybe spend 20 or 30 seconds it’s the peak of that experience. Touch your thumb and your knuckle again. Now what would it feel like if this feeling were doubled? What if the positive feelings were twice as strong? How would that feel?
When you get that touch your thumb to your middle finger.
Now, what if you doubled that feeling? What if the doubled feeling or stubble? Can you imagine? What would you feel like? How would you act? What would you be experiencing in your body? When you have that touch your finger to your knuckle again? Okay, so let’s pause for just a minute. I’m not done yet. But let me ask you, did you like this episode? Can you do me a favor and share it with your friends? Now think about your phone number.
And now say it backwards.
Okay, so now touch your thumb to your knuckle again. Do you feel those good feelings coming back? It’s amazing, isn’t it? You just created an anchor. And you can reinforce this throughout the day, every time you feel really good. Just press on that spot and it will reinforce the anchor. There’s so much to learn here. There’s so much to learn. And if you liked this, let me know. And I’ll be sharing more and LP strategies that can help you to live a big life. Have a great week. Thanks so much for listening. Remember, you can find me all over social media at Betsy Pake. And, as always, here’s a little message from my husband.
That’s it.
