In the field of Humanistic Neuro-Linguistic Psychology (HNLP) it is believed that about 95% of your thoughts and behaviours are based on beliefs that have been programmed into your mind by other people.
The good news is that you can update the beliefs that have a negative effect on your health, relationships, finances and life.
Several HNLP and Authentic Self Empowerment processes entail becoming the observer of your thoughts and thereby less controlled by negative programming from others.
There is an HNLP technique called the De-Identification Pattern, which when applied to yourself can be simplified into a few self reflecting questions. These are questions worth asking yourself when you find that your thoughts cause you unwanted feelings, or as Byron Katie puts it, when your thoughts argue with your reality.
First of all, realize that it’s only the way that you think about a situation that makes it a problem, hence the situation itself or others involved (even if it happened a long time ago) are not the cause of your mental/emotional state – only your thoughts are.
So when you catch yourself thinking thoughts that put the cause of your state outside you, like:
“My parents are to blame for my…”, “You make me feel insecure”, “He makes me angry”, “She causes me to be jealous”, “I don’t have what it takes to…”, “I’ll only be happy when…”, “It’s hard to make enough money doing what I enjoy”, etc…
Stop your train of thoughts by taking a deep breath (or as many breaths as necessary to stop the steam engine). Notice the limiting perception that you’re identifying with, and then ask yourself the following questions in this sequence:
- Is that all I think I am?
- Am I not more than that?
- What am I that’s not (the identification)?
- And beyond (the identification from #3), what am I that’s not that?
- And beyond (the identification from #4), is that all that I think I am…how much more am I than that?
- How do I know that I am more than (all previous identifications)?
- Now what am I willing to think and do differently?
The more you actually take time to consider the depth of each of these questions, asked in the above sequence, the more you’ll appreciate the value of this process.
We must be willing to let go of what WAS in order to experience what IS and to willingly claim what’s TO COME.
Written by Jevon Dangeli – MSc Transpersonal Psychology, Coach & Trainer
