Aspiring Spirit

For most people, the trail to personal transformation and self-improvement is a long and winding boulevard filled with intricate barriers. Pharmaceutical companies in particular have capitalized on and created enormous fortunes because of the elusive search for the “Magic Pill” that will cure all ills. As it turns out, there is a secret formula for success, and it begins in the subconscious mind.

One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that “there is a positive intention behind all behaviors.” And based on that law, when it comes to eliminating negative behaviors, there is a formula that we must keep in mind. I’ll let you in on the secret equation in a minute. But first, I have a riddle for you to solve.

Riddle: A preacher made his son drink lye, which burned out the child’s voice box. What was the positive intent behind his action?

If you are like almost all of the clients who have visited my office since 1978, you’ll exclaim something like: “There isn’t any positive intent behind that behavior.” But you would be 100% in error. To answer this riddle, you have to disconnect the behavior from the positive intent of the deed.

The minister’s son was cursing. And the minister believes that if a child curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the minister was burning out his child’s vocal cords so that he couldn’t curse. By doing so, he was saving his child’s soul from being predestined to suffer in Hell.

The secret formula for personal change works as follows:

We should value the positive intention behind each behavior. If we have an urge to exercise a behavior that we don’t like, we can easily get rid of the compulsion to use that behavior. All we must do is to find another behavior and substitute it in its place. To be successful, the new conduct must be as accessible and effective at accomplishing the same secondary gain, but be more consciously tolerable to you. This is called a REFRAME.

When clients come into my practice, one of the first things that I do is to take a careful case history. Let’s imagine that they come in and ask me to help them suppress their appetite. Experience tells us that the two main reasons that anyone eats excessively are: (1) to tranquilize themselves; (2) because eating can be a behavior triggered by other behaviors that it has been associated with (this is also known as a conditioned response). Case in point, if a person eats while they are working on a computer, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they work on a computer they will get cravings for food.

However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible positive intention behind the eating behavior. What if they also have another behavior that is concerned in the equation? Case in point: What if being chubby is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind churning right now as you think, “Being chubby isn’t a behavior, what are you talking about?”

Sorry but you could be completely off the mark. Here is a simple classic textbook example that will clearly demonstrate the fact that being chubby can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can supply secondary gains.

Example: A woman falls deeply in love. Her partner leaves her, and breaks her heart. Her subconscious mind wants to shield her emotionally and prevent her from ever having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get chubby to keep her out of relationships. Because if she isn’t in a relationship she cannot get her heart broken again.

Everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are elements at work that cause compulsive behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.

Here is another example: A woman comes into my practice complaining of an uncontrollable urge to eat way too much at dinnertime. During my case history, the woman tells me about how she was never able to satisfy her dad.

We did an age regression, and one of her early memories was of having dinner with her family. And dad was insisting in an angry voice that she eat what was left on her plate, even though she was full. So she ate the food left on her plate because of fear, and dad commended her for finishing all of the food. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her dad telling her that she had made him happy.

Jump forward to the present. Her father has been gone for many years, but the subconscious program he programmed is still operational. She still has a powerful compulsion to clean her plate, even if she is feeling bloated, because by cleaning the plate, in her subconscious mind she is getting her dad’s approval, and eliminating her fear!

So if you are finding it difficult to make personal changes, keep in mind that there is a positive intent behind all behaviors. And the formula for success is to use another behavior that will bring about the same secondary gain, but in a manner that is more consciously satisfactory to you, as an individual. The most effective way to get your subconscious mind to assume the responsibility for making this kind of alteration for you is through an NLP 6-Step Reframe.

Alan B. Densky, CH is an NLP Practitioner. He opened his professional practice of hypnosis in 1978. He offers an interactive NLP 6-Step Reframing CD on his Neuro-VISION Hypnosis website. Also offered are his Free NLP article index, hypnosis & NLP newsletters and MP3 downloads.

- Alan B. Densky, CH