Switch

We have been looking at ways to help support your positive mindset and today I want to teach you an NLP technique called Switch. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a set of language and sensory-based interventions, which uses behaviour modification techniques intended to help improve your self-awareness, confidence, communication skills, and social actions. The goals of NLP are to help you understand that the way you view the world affects how you operate in the world, and that it is necessary to change the thoughts and behaviour patterns that have not proven beneficial in the past. NLP uses a variety of techniques such as visualisation, desensitising, also the approach we are using today which is the switching technique, which also includes forming of a mental image of something you want to be experiencing. The process will help you to correct the mental language that leads to negative thinking and faulty communication skills. NLP can be in these types of short-term changes and is a great technique for you to use at home, helping you in making these positive changes into how you responding to things.

NLP is intended to help you understand your mind and show you how you can change the ways you are thinking and behaving by changing those inner views you carry with you. By changing the internal language of how you view things this will in turn help you to learn to manage how you feel, your mood and emotional responses. This type of reprogramming is something that you can easily use at home in many different situations, helping the way your mind processes information, so that it leads to more acceptable and successful behaviour patterns. At the same time, NLP is designed to help you see these new ways of thinking, by showing you that the old ways were unsuccessful and ineffective in the past and allowing you to see how with new images you can more easily and efficiently change how you are responding in many areas of your life. NLP has some of the characteristics of hypnotherapy and there share the same belief that you have the answers to your problems within yourselves; it is simply a matter of helping you draw out those answers you need to change.

When we have a negative mindset, we can often hold an image of this in our mind’s eye and today we are going to use this switching technique to help you change those negative images and replace them with positive ones. What you need to do first of all is work on two different images, the first image is the negative one you have and the second one is the positive way you want to be feeling. You can take a bit of time to think about this negative mindset you are wanting to change and think about how it makes you feel when you’re thinking this way. Say if it is a fear of not coping well with things, take the time to feel what it is like not to cope well and also how you would look not coping well. Make that mental image, maybe you see yourself looking anxious, head down, nervous, tense, you could have a black cloud over your head and the image may also feel dark, fearful and scary. Remember this needs to be how you think and feel about the issue you want to change, so it is important to connect to how this feels for you and create your own image of this. Once you have this in your mind, now see yourself moving this image to the left side of your mind, now you can start to imagine the next image. The next image is how you will be feeling when you do cope well with things, maybe you see yourself holding your head high, looking strong and secure, you can feel that inner confidence, your feeling safe and secure, you can look brighter, lighter, happier. Try and use much brighter colours for this image and even dress yourself in a bright item of clothing that you have, it will help with this technique. Once this image is clear and strong push this image over to the right side of your mind, now go and get the negative image again, put this back into the centre of your mind and refocus on how it makes you feel. After doing this you can then get the bright positive image and shrink it down into a bright coloured postage stamp and put it in the bottom right-hand corner of the negative image. Just like you have stuck a stamp onto the corner of a picture, this is where the bright colour you have chosen will help you as the positive image is small at the moment so focus on the bright colour you have chosen and know that the positive image is there it just needs expanding out to see it clearly. The next step is to count three…..two …..one …… then click your fingers and at that moment you can expand out the positive image to swamp the negative one now hiding beneath it. Take some time to think about how good it feels to be dealing and coping with things in this positive way and enhance the feelings, colours and the image to the maximum you can. Then you can just let this image go, then again go in search of the negative image and set it up as before with the postage stamp image in the right-hand corner. Follow the switching techniques I just talked you through, do it just as you did it the first time and again refocus on that positive bright image, the colours and feelings.

Then you can do this as many times as you need to, what you will find is that the negative image becomes darker, harder to find, maybe even smaller or out of focus the more you do this. Also, you will find that the positive image becomes stronger, clearer and easy to find when you think about this situation. Continue until the positive image is very dominate and the negative one is gone or hard to find, you can then when you think about getting into situations that you used to not cope well in bringing this positive image into your mind. Focus on it and bring those colours and feelings to the forefront of your mind. If you want to use this for another situation you can be try, but do find another outfit to wear with a different bright colour this will help your mind separate from this first change in your mindset to your next change.

The more you do the better you will feel, thanks for dropping by Sara x