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In the previous posts, we talked about why change is so hard. By now, you may have heard of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and wondered what it’s all about and how it can help you in successfully achieving your goals and making lasting change.

If you’ve done some research, you probably have come across some very complicated explanations like these which I’ve pulled from the internet:

A psychological approach that involves analyzing strategies used by successful individuals and applying them to reach a personal goal. It relates thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior learned through experience to specific outcomes.

Psychology Today: NLP, a set of language-and sensory-based interventions and behavior-modification techniques intended to help improve the client’s self-awareness, confidence, communication skills, and social actions.

That all sounds a bit complex doesn’t it? I like to keep things as simple and tangible as possible, so let’s take a simple scenario.

Have you ever gone to a reputable mechanic because there’s a problem with your car (reputable being key)?

You don’t know the cause of the problem or exactly what’s wrong, you just know something is not working. Sometimes you may even think you know what the problem is, but do you really know?

What does the mechanic do?

They listen to you and they look under the hood to assess the problem. Based on info you’ve provided, what they see or hear under the hood, their mechanical knowledge, and the car’s user manual, they then design a solution to address and fix the root cause of the problem, with their mechanical expertise and set of tools. The output is an improved car.

Well, simply put, NLP is a set to tools used by an experienced NLP practitioner to help you resolve a problem and make the improvements you want in your life & in yourself.

An experienced NLP practitioner will listen to you and based on their expertise they will assess your situation and needs and then design a program using various NLP tools specific to your needs, which enables you to address the root cause of the problem you're experiencing and help you achieve your desired outcome, successfully. This is what we refer to as a Personal Breakthrough Experience.

More and more we are in a constant flux of change. Change is no longer the exception, it's the rule, it's the norm, it's constant and occurs much more rapidly than ever before.

So why do we feel change is the exception and why do we struggle with change?

Let’s start by thinking about your mind as a piece of technology or an application.

Now, think about some applications programs you use on a regular basis like Instagram or our online banking system.

You the user, use Instagram or online banking as it was 'designed'. You can only use it within the constraints and limitations of how it was designed.

For example, on Instagram (IGTV), the length of a video you can post is restricted to a maximum of 15 minutes, may be limited or the information that you can view or change within your online banking program maybe restricted, for instance accessing a transaction from 10 years ago.

How the software is programmed controls all that the user can do and it also stores and organizes all data which you’ve input.

So, what occurs if you try posting a video on Instagram that's longer than 15 minutes, or if you try to view transactions from 10 years ago, when your online banking only allows transaction up to 7 years?

That’s right, no matter how many times you try to post that long video, or view that 10-year-old transaction, you’re going to get error messages!

You are at the mercy of the software until it’s reprogrammed. Once this happens, the user and software will be in alignment.

Now, your mind, also consists of a user and software, which is your conscious and subconscious.

The user is the one thinking and consciously setting a goal, for instance you want to be at a certain weight or want to be earning a specific income.

The software, or subconscious, is driving the behavior based on its programming. For instance, following a good exercise regime and portion control.

So, what do you think happens when your user & software, or your conscious goal and subconscious behavior are not aligned? That’s right! you get error messages ! For instance:

- You want to lose that 10 pounds, but your behavior doesn’t align with a healthy exercise regime or portion control, which the user consciously knows is needed to lose weight.

- You want to increase your business, but you’re not taking the actions you consciously know are required to grow your sales.

- You want a healthy, long-term relationship, but you continue end up in relationships with the same unhealthy patterns that are not aligned with what you consciously say you want

Again, this is because the user (conscious) and the software (subconscious) and are not aligned.

Your conscious is saying it wants one thing, but your subconscious was programmed to behave a different way and you struggle to make lasting improvements or change.

So….if you want to make successful and lasting change, you must update your software program.

In the previous video ‘Why Change is So Hard, Part 1’, you learned how our mind consists of a user (your conscious) and software, (your subconscious), and change is hard when our conscious and subconscious are not aligned or in rapport with each other.

For example, you may consciously say you want to lose 10 pounds, but your behavior (driven subconsciously) doesn’t align with a healthy exercise regime or portion control, which you consciously know is needed to be at a healthy weight.

When our conscious and subconscious are misaligned, our software program/operating system needs updating.

There are approximately 8 billion humans on earth and each one of us has our very own, unique software. So, let’s talk about how our software/subconscious is programmed.

There is a Jesuit saying ‘give me the child until 7 and I’ll give you the man’. Do you wonder what this really means?

Our subconscious begins its programming from the time we’re born.

Of course, depending on your belief system, our programming can begin before birth or during our time in the womb, BUT, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll just focus on the subconscious programming from the time of our birth.

There are four primary periods in life in which our values and beliefs are formed.

The first is the imprint period, which is from the time of birth until approximately seven years old. During this time, the mind absorbs everything like a sponge, it has no filters and we have not yet developed critical thinking.

During these years, the brain waves are in states called theta and alpha which are similar to being in meditative, hypnotic or trance-like states. This is where your subconscious begins its programming and where we’re open to suggestions and have great imaginations. I’m sure you’ve heard it said that the ideal time to learn a language is during these years and that’s because the alpha state is ideal for learning.

The imprint period is when your subconscious is being heavily programmed and when many of our foundational beliefs and values are formed, especially from those close to us, like our parents.

What are some things that can have life-long impacts due to our subconscious programs?

If a sibling tells you that you’re chubby or you hear your sister is smarter than you, or you’re a small boy, or you’re told you’re always misbehaving; he’s the slow one; you have ADHD

You hear sayings such as, boys don’t cry; kids are to be seen not heard; that’s not appropriate behavior for a girl; It takes money to get money; nothing comes easy; there are kids starving in other countries, so eat your food; or money is the root of all evil.

If you’re neglected or not getting the attention from one or more parents

If you’re exposed to abusive behavior

The value & belief systems we’re exposed to, particularly from our parents

These are just a few examples.

More often than not, these programs lead to life-long limiting beliefs, such as, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m not worthy, or I’ not deserving, which impact our behaviors throughout our entire lives.

So, when our actual behavior contradicts what we consciously say we want, it’s because our subconscious is driving our behavior, based off programs developed in childhood.

Many years before I started doing this work, on two separate occasions, I observed the actions of two high-level executives in meetings. At the time, I thought to myself, I can see how this person must have thrown temper tantrums as a 5-year-old! You could visibly see the child in them right in front of you, and now I understand why.

I mentioned there were four periods, in which are beliefs and values are formed, so I’ll briefly touch on the others so you know what they are:

The ages 8-13 years is considered the Modelling period. Critical and analytical thinking develops, you begin to be influenced by others such as public figures and super heroes.

During the Socialization period (13-21), you’re largely influenced by peers and may rebel earlier programming. If you have teenagers, you’ll understand this.

The last period is called the Business Persona which usually is up to the approximately age of 35 and when we develop our work values.

You can see how important the imprint period is in programming the subconscious and how the Jesuit saying ‘give me the child until 7 and I’ll give you the man’, makes a lot more sense knowing how we are shaped in the first seven years.

If we don’t update our subconscious programs, we become like our mobile phones or computer when the operating system is not updated: slow, outdated and unable to function effectively.

You can read more about my first personal breakthrough experience here:

www.liveyouryellowbrickroad.com/post/time-for-a-breakthrough

You can read about my experience as I was training for NLP:

www.liveyouryellowbrickroad.com/post/and-the-breakthroughs-continue

A personal breakthrough experience can help you in area of your life such as career, financial, relationships, health, personal development. It can help you if you're feeling stuck or want to rediscover your life's purpose.

Each Personal Breakthrough Experience is unique to the individual and you can expect to change and transform your life! Here is an amazing story of how a Breakthrough session changed Rachel's life:

www.liveyouryellowbrickroad.com/post/rachels-transformation-story

The process will include an initial discovery consultation to allow your Master Practitioner to understand what it is you'd like to focus on, provide you with information of what to expect, and answer any questions you may have.

This consultation will also allow us to ensure a Personal Breakthrough Experience session is right for you before you enroll.

Your Personal Breakthrough sessions will probably be different from what you might have expected.

In total, we will not spend a lot of time talking about the problem, just gathering information about it. In fact, most of the session/s are about other things.

It is very important for us to discover the internal thought process of HOW you create the problem. That means that we are looking for your strategy, or how you structure the problem. Because our focus is on structure, once we discover it, we can move on and focus on having the problem disappear very quickly.

Because of this, your Time Line Therapy™ | T.I.M.E.™ & NLP Master Practitioner may cut short your answers or even talk about your problem in ways that you have never considered.

S/he may even ask you questions that you do not totally understand consciously in order for your Unconscious Mind to make the changes you want at the unconscious level.

It is important to do this so that we can reduce the time taken for the therapeutic process.

If you have been in coaching, or other kinds of sessions before, expect that this one will be very different, and quite a bit shorter and of great value.

Four Clouds = Limiting Decisions

1 - Negative Emotions

2 - Negative Thinking

3 - Limiting Beliefs

4 - Value Conflicts

1 - Positive Learnings

2 - Positive Thinking

3 - New Empowering Beliefs

4 - Values Realignment

In the previous posts, you learned how our mind consists of a user (your conscious) and software, (your subconscious), and change is hard when our conscious and subconscious are not aligned or in rapport with each other.

One of the ways to align your conscious and subconscious, so you can make changes easily and successfully reach your goals, is to update its operating system or reprogram your values, beliefs, and so on stored in your subconscious.

You already know your subconscious plays a critical role and much of the programming occurs from the time we’re born until age seven.

The subconscious stores emotions, values and beliefs. It also stores and organizes our memories. It protects us by repressing traumatic memories and unresolved negative emotions until we’re ready to address them.

It runs the body; think about it, we don’t consciously do anything to make our heart pump do we? We don't consciously tell ourselves to breathe every second of the day or pump blood throughout our body.

The subconscious does a lot more, but you can see just by this, what an important role it plays.

Every emotion, every belief, every value we have has a starting point. Overtime, these get bigger and bigger, and has a snowball effect. They grow deeper and deeper, embedding themselves into our psyche.

So, if you’re storing an inappropriate negative emotion or belief which was created in childhood, it continues to snowball and impacts the decisions we make and impacts our behaviors in adulthood.

Think of your mind like a piece of land full of brush, if you want to build you have to clear the brush first, right?

Or an empty closet in your new home. Overtime you fill it up, and if you don’t sort through it and clear it out, overtime, you have no space and it no longer functions.

If you want to stop weeds from growing in your garden, does it do any good to cut them with the weed whacker or strimmer? No, because they’ll just grow back.

So, when was the last time you had a good clear out of the negative emotions and limiting beliefs you’ve stored up since your were born?

Think about some of your beliefs? Where did they come from? Are they still valid? How are they limiting you today?

Our outdated beliefs, values, and emotions may not be in alignment with what we consciously want now, so a good clear-out is necessary and NLP tools allow us to do this.

Your limiting decisions are a combination of negative emotions, limiting beliefs, negative thinking, and a conflict of values. Most of which we’re not aware of because they’re stored subconsciously.

In a Personal Breakthrough Experience, your NLP practitioner will use their skills and tools to help turn these the negative emotions and negative thinking to positive ones, turn limiting beliefs into new empowering beliefs, and help you resolve any value conflicts, which enable you to make new empowering decisions, and have successful outcomes.

Now there are three important components for long term change.

The first is to update your software’s programming /operating system (subconscious) by removing the root cause of negative emotions & thinking, limiting beliefs, and resolving conflicts in values. This is what we do in a Personal Breakthrough Experience.

The second is taking action, this could be changing your behavior (embracing an exercise regime), it could be removing yourself from situations or circumstances (from an abusive relationship) or establishing new boundaries.

The third is focusing on what you want and not what you don’t want. I’ll touch more on this in a future post.

1. Update your operating system (subconscious)

2. Take action

3. Focus on what you want

In the previous post, we talked about three important components for successful change.

The first is to update your software’s programming /operating system (subconscious) by removing the root cause of negative emotions & thinking, limiting beliefs, and resolving conflicts in values. This is what we do in a Personal Breakthrough Experience.

The second is taking action, this could be changing your behavior (embracing an exercise regime), it could be removing yourself from situations or circumstances (from an abusive relationship) or establishing new boundaries.

The third is focusing on what you want and not what you don’t want. Let's discover why.

You’ve also learned that like a dam, the conscious part of your mind can only take in and process so much information at one time, and as a result it filters information by deleting, distorting and generalizing information based on our values, beliefs, memories, experiences, and so on.

At the base of your brain is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) that acts as a filter and only let’s things through that it thinks is important and what’s important, is what we focus on most.

Think of it like camera lens focusing in on a target and blurring everything else out or like an executive assistant that filters your messages by giving you only those they know are important to you.

Remember the last time you decided to buy a specific car and all of a sudden you saw them everywhere? The cars were always there, however when you put your focus on it, you began to notice them more.

So, when you focus on and say things to yourself like….

I’m not confident…. I can’t lose weight….I’m bad at math…I’m a clutz…

I never have enough money…or….enough hours in a day……

Your reticular activating system will show you things to prove this is true, and then what happens?

The more proof you see, the stronger your belief is that it is in fact true, and the more you believe it’s true, the more you tell yourself it is….it’s a vicious cycle!

So, when you focus on the positives like I AM confident, I AM good with money, and focus on your specific goal and WHAT YOU WANT, your RAS will start to show you things to prove that your new belief is true for you.

This is why focusing on what you want, and not what you don't want, is so important.

When it comes to your doctor or healer, have you found yourself wondering, ‘what is this person going to do to me, to make me better?', or 'what are they going to give me, to make me feel better?', or 'I wish I can find someone or something to fix me'.

With a Personal Breakthrough Experience, our approach is different.

Let me read an excerpt that is said to be a Sioux Legend from a book ‘Somebody Should Have Told Us’ by Jack Pransky:

The Creator gathered all of creation and said, ‘I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.’

The eagle said, ‘Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.’ | The Creator said, ‘No, One day they will go there and find it.’

The salmon said, ‘I will hide it on the bottom of the ocean.’ | ‘No, They will go there too.’

The buffalo said, ‘I will bury it on the great plains.’ | The Creator said, ‘They will cut the skin of the earth and find it even there.’

The Grandmother Mole…who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, ‘Put it inside them, for that is the last place they will look.’

The Creator said, ‘It is done.’

So, there is nothing externally tthat can ‘fix’ you, and in a Personal Breakthrough Experience, we don’t believe you need to be fixed. You have all the resources within you, and the perfect solutions for your problem or situation.

As your NLP Coach, we utilize our skills and expertise to help you tap it these. This means that YOU are a part of the experience and solution and you’ll play an active role throughout the process.

Over the past few posts, we've talked about change and why it can be so hard. We've talked about the role that the subconscious plays in change, now let's talk about the role you play.

To begin, let’s take a look at a few different scenarios and tell me if they are empowering or disempowering:

I’m not happy where I work because my boss is an idiot or they don’t see the value I bring.

vs.

I’m not happy where I work, what can I do to demonstrate the value I bring…..or….what do I need to do differently?

or

I can’t run errands today because it’s raining.

vs.

It’s raining, but I’m not going to let that stop me from running errands.

or

I’m so messed up as an adult because my father wasn’t around to show me how to be a man.

vs.

Although my father wasn’t around for me growing up, it’s made me a better man and I’m going to be the best father I can be to my children.

That's right in every scenario above, the first instance is a disempowered position.

When you are making EMPOWERED decisions, you are what we call at cause. You influence and take Response-Ability for what happens in your life and how you respond to events.

When we have problems we can easily slip and become disempowered, with events that occur, like a bad breakup, bad childhood, problem with our employer, and allow these events to control us.

When we're disempowered, we are not in control, we’re at the effect of an event and all we have are reasons why we have the problem.

We use the events as an excuse or reason for our current situation and don’t realize that...

WE are the common factor in every problem we experience.

We don’t see the relationship between the problem, issue or pattern to ourselves.

A few years back, I found myself in a very bad personal relationship; I felt crippled and beat down.

There is absolutely no question the behaviors of my ex-partner were inexcusable, however I allowed it to go on and accepted the behavior for years, until I finally said enough is enough, this is not how I want to live my life.

I also found myself knowing that regardless of what had occurred, regardless of how I got there, I needed to change something about me. This was taking responsibility, this was being empowered, and this was being at cause!

In a Personal Breakthrough Experience, we help you see the relationship between yourself and the problem, issue or pattern you’re experiencing. We help you gain learnings and new perspectives, so you are empowered, and you are in control of your results.

You may hire a personal trainer to help you improve your health and weight, however you still must do the work if you want to achieve results. This is the same with a Personal Breakthrough Experience, and it is not for you if:

- you're not committed to making this change for yourself

- you're not willing to fully and actively participant in your success

- you'd rather blame someone or something else for your current situaton

- you're not ready to invest in yourself and your success

- you want to stay where exactly where you are, unhappy, unfulfilled

In the previous posts, you learned about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and why change is so hard.

Before we move on to how we can reprogram our own subconscious patterns and operating system, I want to touch on Internal Representations and the NLP Model of Communication.

Have you ever found yourself wondering about these scenarios:

- Why we can see an event and have a completely different view, interpretation or reaction than the person sitting next to us?

- How, you and a colleague can read the same document and both had an entirely different idea about what it actually said/meant?

- How siblings can grow up together, in the same household, with the same parents, go to the same schools, and have a completely different view of their upbringing?

- How when you hear a news story one friend reacts in anger and another is indifferent?

- How some adults can live a happy, healthy, and productive life after experiencing child abuse and others let the experience impact their life in a negative way, blaming the event for everything that goes wrong in their life.

- How some people easily move on from a relationship that ended badly and others hold on to the anger and allow the experience to impact future relationships?

Each one of us has their own Internal Representation, which is impacted by many factors such as our values, beliefs, memories, experiences, and so on.

Your subconscious sees and hears everything around us and stores all of our memories, but like a dam that can only hold so much water, our conscious can only take in and process so much information at once.

For example, when you walk into a room, your subconscious retains and stores everything it sees, but when asked to describe every detail of the room, consciously, we can only remember a few details.

When there is more water than a dam can handle, it overflows, right?

As our conscious can only handle a limited amount of information at once, so it does three things; it deletes, distorts and generalizes information based on factors such as values, memories, and so on.

Think about the volumes of emails you receive in a day. Reviewing and responding to them could be a full time job in itself, right?

So, what do you do?

You typically view them at a glance, see who they’re from, determine what’s important to review now, you categorize some and put them in folders, (which you may/not review later), and you also delete what appears to be junk without even opening. And think about it, even the ones you do read, you may interpret the message differently from its sender’s intent, based on your time restrictions, stress, and so on.

You’re filtering your emails, based on your experience, the importance you place on the sender, time factors, and so on.

Your conscious also has filters which goes through the process of deleting, distorting and generalizing information based on various factors such as our values, beliefs, memories, and experiences. This is a reason the interpretation of an event can drastically vary from one person to another.

Based on our filters, our internal representation of an event can impact our mental state and our mental state can impact our physical state, and in turn can impact our behaviors.

You can change anyone of those and impact another state the other (e.g, change physical state & impact mental).

Let’s take an event of losing a job.

We can choose to interpret losing a job as a devastating event based on past limiting beliefs such as ‘you must not have been good enough if you lost your job’, or ‘your job is your identity’, or 'if they valued your work, they would not have let you go', and so on.

In turn, you feel down, feel exhausted of energy, you decide to become inactive and stay in bed and loaf around, complain about what happened, and not take any action to look for another opportunity.

Now, you can always change your internal representation or state, for example:

You can change your physical state by immediately jumping out of bed in the morning, exercising or doing incantations. This in turn will help change your mental state and in turn change your behavior/actions.

You can change how you are looking at the event. Instead of seeing it as the worst thing that has happened to you, see it as an opportunity to move toward something you’ve always wanted to do but never made time for, spending time with your children, you can focus on your personal development, learning a new skill, or transitioning to a new career.

You can also update or reprogram your values and beliefs.

The bottom line here, because there are 8 billion subconscious programs walking this earth, and an infinite number of ways to interpret an event, all based how we delete, distort and generalize information based on various factors such as our values, beliefs, memories, and individual experiences, we have at least 8 billion different views or internal pictures of any one event or situation.

The good news is that we all have the ability to update our subconscious programs!

Once you commit to your Breakthrough Experience, you will have the full support of your Master Pactictioner for the duration of your Personal Breakthrough Experience. This even includes follow up calls.

Your Personal Breakthrough Experience is fully guaranteed. If we don't meet the goals, in the specific area of life that we mutually defined during your session, we will continue to work with you for free until we get that result.