Ignite Your Mind: Unleashing the Power of NLP for Positive Memory Mastery 🔥

Photo by Milad Fakurian

How would you feel if I said that you could learn to play with your thoughts and memories, minimising or even eliminating unpleasant ones and maximising the ones that give you pleasure?  Well, the good news is you can, using a technique in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP).    

NLP is a controversial area, it has its detractors, but there is no denying its popularity and the impact it can have.    

Briefly, NLP is about: Neuro – what’s going on in your mind, Linguistic – words and body language you use in communication, and Programming – your learned and repeated patterns of behaviour.    

The Preliminary Exercise  

Before you read further, close your eyes for 10 - 15 seconds and think of a really pleasant memory.    

How did you just experience that memory?  Did you get an image?  Did you hear a sound?  Did you get a feeling?  Maybe you got one, or right through to all three.  Maybe you need to close your eyes again to check.  

Now, close your eyes for a minute or so, and intensify that experience.  

What did you do to intensify it?  Did you bring the picture closer?  Intensify the colours?  Did you turn up the sound?  Relax into the warm feeling?  

What you have just completed puts you on the path to mastering this technique.  

The Extra Bit of Background for Context  

You experience the external world through your five senses of sight, sound, feeling, smell, and taste.  In NLP these are called modalities and they are Visual (V), Auditory (A), Kinaesthetic (K), Olfactory (O) and Gustatory (G), respectively.  The O and G usually play more minor roles, so you can concentrate on the VAK modalities for this exercise.    

Now, when you intensified your experience in the exercise above, you drilled down a level from modalities to submodalities, and it is knowing about these that gives you power with this technique.   

What do I mean? If considering submodalities for Vision, you would be thinking about the visual aspects of the image you get in your head such as:  Is it in colour or black and white? Is it still or like a movie?  Is it bright or dim?  Is the image close to you or far away.  You can drill down like this for the other modalities, also.  

The Exercise  

[Important Note: It is advisable, if inexperienced, to not choose an image or memory that is traumatic for you, and to observe any negative image, without you being in it.  Before changing an image in your mind, it’s useful to note down as much detail as you can, in case you get anxious with the changes and want to revert back.  To facilitate this, there is a worksheet provided, just before the Wrap Up section below, for you to fill in detail.]  

Now that you have filled in the worksheet and have your picture in mind, it’s time to experiment with it and start changing the VAK submodalities.  As you do so, note how you feel.   

An example 

Suppose I have an unpleasant memory of an argument with someone at work, who was being unfair and unreasonable and who upset me.  When I close my eyes, I see the image of the person as a movie reel (V), the image is right in front of my face (V).  It is in colour and the colours are intense (V).  The image is also bright (V).  

I can hear words (A) and they are inside my head (A)

When I see this image, I feel a pressure in my gut (K) and it feels heavy, dark and hard (K).  I see it shaped as a ball (K).  

I have many options here for changing the VAK submodalities  

Visual  

I can dim the brightness of the image and change the colours to black and white.  I can push the image away from me, into the distance.  I can make the image spin.  I can slow down the movie reel or even have it play backwards. What options can you think of? 

Auditory  

I can change the direction from where I’m hearing the sounds.  I can mute the sound so that it is a silent movie.  What if I add carnival music in addition to having the movie play backwards?  

Kinaesthetic  

I may visualise the pressure in my gut getting lighter in colour and softening.  I can even imagine the ball deflating to a circle that I can gently pull out of me. 

This exercise can also be applied to an image or memory that lifts you up or gives you pleasure.  So you can consider being in the image, as it is positive, brightening it, intensifying the colours, bringing the picture closer, turning up the volume, letting the good feelings intensify and spread through you.  

Submodalities Worksheet for Your Chosen Image 

The Wrap Up  

NLP is controversial, with passionate detractors and proponents.  Does it work for you, with the caveats mentioned above?  Let me know in the comments, or by DM, your thoughts or experiences.  

If you want to dig deeper into the area of NLP, then an accessible book is Neuro-linguistic programming for Dummies by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton which provides much of the background material for this newsletter. Reference below. 

Disclaimer: Please note that I cannot assume responsibility for the outcomes of your actions, nor for any harm or damage that may arise from the use or non-use of the information provided in this newsletter. Prior to taking any action or adopting suggested practices, exercise judgment and perform due diligence. Your discretion is advised.  

Delve Deeper  

Ready, R., & Burton, K. (2011). Neuro-linguistic Programming for Dummies. Wiley. 

James O'Boyle MBA MSc

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