"Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andreas Steve)
Changing location outside your body
Now hear that voice coming from outside your body. First hear it from 2 feet in front of your face… .
And then 10 feet in front of you… .
And then 30 feet in front of you… . And then 100 feet in front of you… . And then even farther away than that… .
Usually a voice that is farther away will be less impactful, and easier to listen to. Often distance also changes the volume of the voice, and may also change its tonality. Although distance alone is usually a way to reduce the impact of a voice, direction can also be important, and I'd like you to experiment with that.
Now hear the voice behind you, and again experiment with hearing it 2, 10, 30, 100 feet away and even farther… .
Now compare hearing the voice the same distance in front of you and behind you, and notice any differences… .
Usually a voice that is behind you will be less impactful because many people have their past experiences behind them and their future experiences in front of them.
Next hear the voice coming from your left side, and experiment with distance in the same way — 2, 10, 30, 100 feet away and farther… .
Next hear the voice on your right side, and experiment with distance in the same way… .
Now compare hearing the voice the same distance to the left of you and to the right of you, and notice any differences… .
Often a voice will be less impactful on the left than the right, because many people have their past on their left, and their future on their right.
Next hear the voice above you, and experiment with distance… .
Next hear the voice below you, and do the same… .
Now compare hearing the voice above you and below you, and notice any differences… .
I have asked you to experiment with hearing the voice in the six main spatial dimensions, but of course there are an infinite number of other possible directions. If you experiment with some other direction in relation to your body, you may find a way to change the impact of the voice even more… .
Why does location matter so much, and why does moving a voice farther away from your head usually make it less disturbing and easier to listen to? When something threatens us in the real world, if it is closer to us, we need to respond more quickly and intensely to protect ourselves. If a threat is farther away, we have more time to prepare a response, so it isn't as urgent. When a threat is very close to you, you had better attend to it, but if it is behind you it is much less urgent, even when the content — what the voice says — is the same.
Changing the location in space also works with internal images. Recently Lewis Walker, an NLP–trained MD in Scotland, author of a book about medical applications of NLP, (20) saw a young woman who had witnessed two of her friends killed in a motorcycle accident the day before:
When she came into my office she had already dissolved into tears before she sat down. Through the sobs she told me about the smash. One friend was decapitated, the other with a bit of leg thrown across the carriageway. As she described how "The pictures are all in front of my face," both hands were gesturing about 2 inches from her eyes.
I said something like, "Let me take these for you," as I reached over with my right hand and grabbed her pictures, while simultaneously making a "ripping" noise as I stood up and hauled them off to her left side, and then diagonally behind her. I asked her to "Look at all these pictures in my hand as they shrink way down in size and all the color drains away," cupping and closing my right hand as I did so.
At this point her body in the chair was facing ahead, while her head was looking over her left shoulder. I took the images to the corner of the room near the door and said. "Now just imagine they're fixed right here by a nail, and I hit the door post with my fist. "Now knowing that they're fixed here, in your mind's eye look straight ahead and tell me how things are different now… ."
She visibly relaxed, the tears subsided, and she felt more in control. As I sat down again in front of her I said, "Keeping them nailed over there, what happens as you take this into tomorrow, and the next day, into next week and next month (gesturing with my left hand along her future timeline out to her right) knowing that with each passing day that (pointing to her images of the accident) gets farther and farther away as it recedes into the distance."
She was much calmer now and could tell me about what happened after the accident, and how their motorcycle group was still planning to go on a tour to Germany in 3 weeks, and that she was going to go out on her motorcycle with her husband when he got home that night.
The whole consultation lasted no more than 15 minutes, and probably saved weeks — perhaps years — of the standard approach of "talking it through."
Some people may find that just reading the paragraph above has created nasty images of the crash. If so, you have an opportunity to use the same process that Lewis used, and verify how well and how quickly it works. First notice where your images of the crash are, and how you feel as you view them… .
Then simply allow those images to shift off to the left and behind you ten feet or more, and as they do, they can become small, flat, black and white photos, and then notice how your response to them is different… .