In this article I will share one of the playful HNLP techniques to help loosen the concrete that holds problems in place.
Language is one of the fundamental building blocks for creating material reality. As Deepak Chopra says, language is how we create something from nothing. If consciousness is the creator of reality, then language… is the creating of reality. Language points to the limitations we impose on ourselves in order to make meaning of the world and to communicate that meaning to others.
Prior to language (when we are babies and just before we fully awaken each morning, as well as in meditation or hypnosis) our thoughts are free and limitless. Before thoughts take form, they are merely waves of potential in the quantum field. Physicists say that what turns the quantum field into matter is measurement. Our observation is a measurement. In fact the words “matter” and “measurement” come from the same Greek root metra which means uterus. Thought gives birth to matter through measurement. Our thoughts behave as wave forms until we identify with them.
Before we have thoughts, pure potentiality exists. Once we have a thought and we put it into language (symbols, sounds and words), we begin to make something out of nothing. Language is how we do it. Our language then becomes, in large part, our map of reality and it dictates how we perceive our reality.
Any problem is only a problem because of the way in which we think about it. Therefore if we are able to explore the problem from new and less defined frames of reference, then accessing creative solutions becomes achievable.
The following “Problem Dissolver” is one of many HNLP language patterns that is designed to help people dissolve the boundaries that define the problem, back into the space from which it evolved originally.
This is useful when your thoughts about a situation are causing you unwanted feelings:
1. Identify a problem.
2. Ask yourself: “What will I be thinking immediately after the problem is gone?” And as you bring that to mind, what colour and/or sound can you associate with it?
3. Ask yourself: “What was I thinking before I did the problem?” And as you bring that to mind, what colour and/or sound can you associate with it?
4. Now begin to think about that problem, and then immediately bring to mind the colour and/or sound from # 2. And a moment later bring to mind the colour and/or sound from # 3.
5. Give yourself a few seconds to integrate your perceptual change, and then notice how you’re thinking and feeling differently about that problem which you had.
If you think that you still have a problem, then as you consider that, ask yourself:
“What is it about that problem that I haven’t yet realised and that I’m NOT thinking of … right now!”
And as that peculiar question scrambles your mindset, consider your problem again, and allow a new order of resourceful thoughts to infiltrate your mind.
You never know how far a change will go, so keep it, and choose to enjoy life!
Written by Jevon Dangeli – MSc Transpersonal Psychology, Coach & Trainer