Training NLP Helps You Understand Your Beliefs

WHAT A LOAD OF B.S.!

"I can't believe that !" said Alice.

"Can't you ?" The Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed "There's no use trying", she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

- Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll.

In other words, I'm talking B.S. (belief systems). Why ? Only because:

· they govern everything we think is true

· most of us have limiting beliefs

· most of us think that beliefs are permanent things.

In fact however, you're going to learn that you can change. If you change your beliefs, what you think you can do, you'll in turn change what you actually do. This in turn will change the results of your life. Remember the Neurological levels diagram earlier in this book.

What are Beliefs? They are generalisations, global brush stroke comments about life, people etc. built up from one or more experiences in your past. Generalizing makes it easier to learn and to put big ideas together. A belief is simply a feeling of surety that something is real or true.

If you think this page is made from paper, then you will behave as if that's true, even if it wasn't. Beliefs are also like tables with legs - the legs are the experiences that support the belief, the table top is the belief. So you've found pages of paper before, they are covered in words like other types of paper, it feels like paper and it sounds papery when you touch it. Great - you now have four table legs holding up this belief, et voila, a solid belief ! Now you will act upon this inner map of reality (even if you're mistaken !)

How do I know a belief when I hear one ? They usually start with the words "If.....then...", or "Life is....", "People are....." Or even more personally like "I can't..." Or "I am...." And yes they are mostly generalisations. For example "I can't relate to other people".

Where do they come from ? There are lots of sources for beliefs: one's upbringing, the environment that you grow up in and the people you associate with. Modelling elders or idols: your heroes as a child, rock groups and singers, movie actors, and even (god forbid) your parents ! Repetitive experiences install beliefs: reading regularly, cinema, MTV, the internet. Even books can change your beliefs…

If dad let you hammer a nail and you did it well, you started a new table leg. If you fluffed it you probably built a few limiting ones in one go! Past trauma will work too, pain being a great motivator: marital break-ups, abuse, accidents, health worries. In truth, you were a blank page waiting to be written on.

How do they work ? Once installed, they become unquestioned commands (software) to your nervous system (hardware). You act as if it were true and never question it !

So how do you change a belief ? You do exactly that - you question the belief, and reverse the process. Start sawing some legs off the table. Think about it, aren't there some beliefs that you once held dear that you'd be embarrassed to admit now ? Like your favourite pop group will never split up ? ("Make it last forever, friendship never ends"). To elicit a belief about a particular subject, ask yourself the following:

What do I believe about _____ ? "Well, it's hard to know what to say"

How do I know that ? "Because when I try I get flustered"

What causes it to be that way ? "People make me nervous"

There’s the limiting belief - “People make me nervous”. Change that and you’d change your world!

What if you changed more of your beliefs ? The world is your Oyster- change your beliefs and you change the way you perceive the world. Beliefs are what placebos are all about. Believe the sugar pill will cure the symptoms and it will. Beliefs are what Vietnam P.O.W.'s had changed to sign confessions renouncing capitalism. Question a belief often enough, even one you've had since you were a child, and it will change. Use the same technology now to change your own beliefs for the better.