I have tried to use the belief change exercise on one of my clients. She is a 22 year old girl who suffers from Diabetes. She believes strongly that Diabetes has ruined her life. The consequences of that belief are multifaceted and affect all areas of her life. I went through the exercise hoping that I would not harm the girl. She went through most of the submodalities (visual, audio, kinesthetic) with comparative ease. The we did the same for a belief that was positive for her. She found it extremely difficult to exchange the image of one belief to another. She needed time and I allowed her to have it. The most difficult part was to change the colour of the two beliefs and the texture (she saw diabetes as a prickly cactus!). It seems to have worked. A week later she went to the clinic on her own for the first time. Until then, she was always escorted by one of her parents.

 

The belief was that I may not be able to achieve the specialist registration, which includes lots of hard work. I did the belief change exercise by replacing my picture of not being able to get my specialist registration with one of me getting my previous degree (which at the time I feared I might not get, i.e. that belief is no longer true). I then replaced that with a picture of the sun coming up. I carried out a contrastive analysis and replaced the limiting belief with the image of the sun coming up. I changed my belief that I will not get my registration with the belief that the sun will come up in the morning, i.e. I definitely will get it. When I replaced the two pictures I got the feeling of the warmth and brightness of the sun, lifted my mood and made me feel that I could be like the sun.

 

Changing limited beliefs…. I decided to work with a person who has a self limiting belief about driving. She is a very competent, careful driver but she felt nervous to drive on busy roads like motorways, although knowing she is more than capable of doing so in reality (she has driven me, so I know it to be true!).  I went through the process with her from discussing her limiting belief and how this affects her life. As her husband has always driven on the main roads she hasn’t really had to confront this limiting belief before and has just avoided it. Sadly, he has a serious illness and now she knows she may need to be able to drive much further, her limiting belief has become much more of an issue. After asking her if she really wanted to remove this self limiting belief, which she definitely did, we moved to how she feels, pictures herself etc with her limited belief – her words were quite strong- “pathetic” was one word she used and she saw herself as a weak person in her mind (which she isn’t at all). We then went to a limited belief which no longer is one. What she chose was she once didn’t believe she could ever learn to drive. I thought that was an excellent one to choose as that certainly isn’t true anymore and it illustrated the ability of changing self limiting beliefs well. We talked about the submodalities of this event – when she passed her test, her kinesthetic representational state as at the fore, with feelings of euphoria. Then we discussed the desired belief in as much detail as possible. I asked her to think of something that is an absolute…the tides changing was her answer, so we worked on picturing the tides and their absolute certainty and then put her desired belief, the fact that she could drive on busier roads,  together with that place of certainty…The outcome is that she now feels much more confident and much better about herself. A trip is planned to a place which she has always wanted to drive to comfortably … and I’m going with her!.

 

I wanted to change my limiting belief that I can’t remember people’s name (negation) to I can remember people’s name. I check the ecology, I used I believe in Father Christmas as a no longer belief and it is good to breath as an absolute belief.

My limiting belief “I can’t remember people’s name” was a black picture in the far back, small associated, defocus steady framed and still.

My no longer belief “I believe in father Christmas” was in the middle back coloured bright medium size dissociated defocus and framed.

When I moved my limited belief to my no longer belief I could feel myself smiling!

My belief that is absolutely true “It is good to breathe” was in the top right really bright near big associated and defocus panoramic movie.

Then I applied the sub modalities of my belief that is absolutely true to my desire belief “I can remember people’s name”.

It now feels bright and more positive, clearer. I sounded the statement “I can remember people’s name” as I was moving it and locked it in. It felt that I “recorded” the new belief in a place of “opportunities”. I know have the feeling that I can remember people’s name and it gives me a certain confidence.

 

The limiting belief that I have is in relation to my motivation to complete this NLP Practitioner course…”I will never pass this course as I never seem to have the time to do the work”.

When I started to think about the belief I wanted instead, my desired belief, which was to get motivated, make time to do the work and “pass the NLP Practitioner course”. By contrastive analysis and changing the submodalities to a belief that was true, it has given me the motivation to make time for the assignments and studying in order to pass this course.  I now feel more motivated, more positive and have more belief in myself that I can and will pass this course.

The limiting belief I picked was that I need affirmation from other people to get motivated, or to feel valid. Often, I know intellectually that I have done a good job (ie based on evidence), or that my validation is not dependent on other people. People often describe me as self-confident, which I am when I know what I am doing or am motivated to do it. However, I have learnt that when I am stuck, or find something difficult, my motivation goes and I find I need someone to say ‘you’re ok’ to get me going.The belief I want to have is that I don’t need anybody’s approval. I carried out the submodalities checklist writing the answers in column one, and then I did the ecology check on myself – I would gain a more confident inner core, I would be happy to give up inactivity because I didn’t feel validated, and I would have to let go of years of learnt behaviour (which I would be very happy to do).I then thought of a belief which was no longer true (that I am ten years old), and completed the submodalities checklist writing the answers in column two. I then did a contrastive analysis on the two beliefs, changing the submodalities of the undesired belief into those of the old belief.

I then thought of a belief which is absolutely true (that the sun will rise tomorrow) and pictured it in my mind. I then elicited the submodalities writing the answers in column three.

I then thought of the positive belief I wanted to have, ie that I am valid as a human being without anyone else’s approval, and created a picture for this. I carried out the last contrastive analysis and wrote this in column four.

Finally, I changed the submodalities of the desired belief into the belief which is absolutely true.

I felt better about the desired belief having gone through the exercise, though I don’t know yet if the belief has changed. I think I need more practice with this technique.