What do I use submodalities for?

Generally, submodalities are used to change the way we represent or perceive information in the mind. While this [...]]]> Submodalities are like mind codes. The way it is explained is that it is a “sub” element of a modality, comprising visual, auditory and kinesthetic modalities of perception.
photo credit: h.koppdelaney

What do I use submodalities for?

Generally, submodalities are used to change the way we represent or perceive information in the mind. While this can be quite heavy to understand, think of it as a new software that you want to install into a computer.

Your mind carries a “template” of thought. This “template” is filled with your experiences based on certain codes in your mental template. This template of codes can be found in this submodality checklist.

What parts of experience are coded by submodalities?

Situations represent the context of your experience. Submodalities are the structure of our experience. Submodality Techniques are the process you use to change your experience.

I’ll give a variety of examples to illustrate this.

Do you realize that there are movies that give you a different feeling, simply based on the lighting they use in the movie? For instance, a dark movie that brings out more mystery would be “Batman: The Dark Knight”. notice the visual effects bring out a much darker, ominous feeling.

However, looking at a much more lively and vibrant scene in a show like “Sex In The City”, you’ll discover the colors are much different. The mood and rhythm of the entire movie is different, bringing out a different flavor in the movie.

How do I use submodalities?

Since we know that submodalities are like the elements that movie directors use in order to shift the way we experience the movie, then it is clear that by creating these changes in our mind, we literally become our own movie directors.

Using The Submodalities Checklist I have on this site, you can easily compare and contrast the effect within the submodalities in your mind. So I’m warning you ahead of time, until you have received proper NLP Practitioner training, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to fully grasp the way submodalities can work, even though I’m giving a detailed description here. You’ll need supervised practice most of the time in order to gain the maximum benefit out of using the submodalities.

Submodality Comparisons

First of all, submodalities are a way to understand the way we think, and how we construct our reality. For instance, taking two different emotional states, you can discover their differences through contrastive analysis.

Contrastive analysis is the process in linguistics to compare sentences and to identify the difference it makes to our mental representations.

• Statement #1: Happy young boys play enthusiastically.
• Statement #2: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Notice both statements follow the exact same sequence grammatically, but one makes sense and the other does not, thereby enabling a linguist to determine the effect of syntax (structure of the sentence) versus the semantics (meaning).

In the case of linguistics, we use contrastive analysis with sentences. In submodalities, however, you use situations and contexts. Think of the time you are working at your office and compare the time when you were stressed and the time you were energized. You will be able to detect the difference between two experiences quite easily, and therefore know how they were coded.

“So what?”

By understanding the way they are coded, you can:

• change the way you perceive and therefore experience a context.
• shift a negative experience in that context and adjust it so that it appears more positive.
• shift a positive experience in that context and adjust it to become even more positive and powerful.
• utilize processes that make change more habitual and natural

Example: Submodality shifts

I had a client once who had a build up of panic just prior to doing a presentation. In his mind, the audience was bright, loud and big. All I did was to get him to adjust the audience in his mind so that they were of the appropriate size and volume that made him comfortable to speak to them. He reported that he could not change the size of the audience, but said he could make himself turn into a giant in his mind so that the audience was in awe of him. This shifted his emotional state when speaking on a stage.

Example: Submodality utilization

A client once asked me how to be more motivated. So I asked what kind of pictures and sounds she made when she feels motivated. Generally, it seemed that she made brighter and closer pictures (compared with less motivated ones) and said “yeah!” in her mind whenever she was motivated.

The client has just accessed a resource state, which I can now utilize.

In this case, I got her to think of the context in which she was not motivated, or in a place where she had to be more motivated. She said it was her work. As a result, all she had to do was to perceive the workplace as brighter and closer in her mind, and as she was about to get things done, say to herself “yeah!”. This created a very obvious change in her physiological state: face flushing, smiling, and posture shifted to become more upright.

Example: Submodality Process

Another client had a phobia of snakes. Taking the image of a snake, she freaks out and goes into a phobic state, tearing and screaming. After the image is taken from her, she regained her composure. We first shifted the representation of snakes by thinking of a way to represent the data in a more comfortable way. She changed the snake to feel smooth to the touch (instead of slimy) and her favorite color. We even got her to imagine that the snake was like a baby she could cuddle. We brought in a real snake and she embraced it like a baby with little effort, because now the perception of snakes (domesticated pythons) was much different than before.

Conclusion

There are many other ways to utilize submodalities, and even in this post, I’ve barely scratched the surface. To be able to become masterful at submodalities, the processes and strategies you learn to shift a person’s emotional state must be learnt. In NLP, many people have invented dozens of useful and powerful strategies that can be applied in different situations. I’d advise you to learn how to model.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

Whatever the case, the perspective I’d put on this is that depression is normal. Yes, can be debilitating, but it’s normal. Millions [...]]]> I’ll bet you encounter depression once in a while. Or, you might actually be someone who has been battling depression for some time. Maybe you have someone you’d like to help.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

Whatever the case, the perspective I’d put on this is that depression is normal. Yes, can be debilitating, but it’s normal. Millions of people go through it. Some people get out of it faster than others.

In recent days, especially after the announcement of major job losses in America, I’ve seen a surge in people seeking depression treatment or depression help. Somehow, many people are in a bad spot and just don’t know how to go about helping themselves.

To get out of a spot of depression, you’ll have to acknowledge that:

• what you are going through is not your regular self;
• it’s good to get out of the feeling of depression;
• if you’re not doing something, you have too much time to think about things that are going wrong in your life.

Most of the time, depression comes about from inner thoughts and connections. You might not know where those thoughts came from. It’s often due to a response from observing (although unconsciously) the world around you, and then the propogation of lots and lots of thoughts associated with that.

If you have trouble expressing yourself, it might cause you to think “wait, let me sort out my thinking first, then speak”. But that might simply aggravate the sensation of depression, anxiety or anger. Or worse, all of them.

NLP has a model known as submodalities. By learning to shift our mental images, we get to change the experience we have in our head. For instance, making an image brighter or darker in our minds can help to reduce or increase the intensity of a feeling.

Test it out.

If you look at an image of yourself depressed, how about making that image brighter or darker? Which direction works for you? Then keep doing it!

Of course, it’s not easy for someone to do this who has never done it before (I know some children who do this very well, though). It’s about mental flexibility and the ability to see different perspectives. If you are able to shift your perspective, coming out with alternative, healing mental images is going to be easy.

This process, in NLP, is known as reframing. Putting on different lenses and seeing from someone else’s perspective can help you to put things in context.

If you need to process your thinking, though, drop me a message and I’ll see if I can help.

Some people are afraid of public speaking only because they don’t know what they [...]]]> Public speaking is one of the things I do most. Every day, I have to speak on a stage somewhere in the world. Well, most days. And even if I’m not on stage, I have to deliver some presentation on a teleseminar.

Some people are afraid of public speaking only because they don’t know what they want to get from it. Personally, public speaking is for me a way of stress release, not a stress in itself. Very often, I pour out my thoughts, ideas and suggestions to people in my audience. They learn what to do and what NOT to do. It’s therapeutic for both parties, I think.

At the same time, it’s a misnomer for anyone to think that they should build ‘confidence’ in public speaking. Confidence is one of many states you can use to speak. Don’t tell me you’d read “Little Red Riding Hood” only in a confident tone of voice! You definitely need a variety of states.

photo credit: matt4077

Think of the  of your presentation. What emotional state do you want people to be in, and craft your sequence of emotional states accordingly.

Essentially, this means we need to thinkof the process by which we generate emotional states. It’s not difficult to do, but I sure wish I learnt it a long time ago.

You can learn about state management in other posts, and do remember to pick out things related to physiology as well as internal representations.

There’s also an interesting concept known as nested loops which, in brief are simply stories chained together in a specific sequence to achieve certain states in people. I’ll have an opportunity to discuss this in a teleseminar soon, because it poses interesting implications in the area of copywriting, stage presentations and persuasive communication.

Ask me any question by commenting!

Here are some submodality differences:

You’ll probably [...]]]> In identifying emotional states, we sometimes need to have control over the way we code our minds. Coding is done at a very unconscious level and I believe strongly that if you want to increase our mental awareness of this, you will need to learn NLP in a practical setting.

Here are some submodality differences:

You’ll probably notice that there are some submodality codes that are different, and based on the profile, we can simply make the depressed image Bright, and Associated. Notice the difference in the feeling you get simply by doing this.

The initial feeling you will get is that the sense of depression will typically get lifted. This is because you cannot code depression in this particular new way and still have it mean the same thing. The coding structure would be congruent with confidence instead.

These are just some examples of submodality coding. There are quite  number of other variables in submodalities that you can explore and consider experientially.

Questions?

photo credit: DownTown Pictures

For instance, you might want to think about something you like to do and something you dislike to do, and put them side by side in your mind. What did your mind prefer [...]]]> This one will be short – I just wanted you to explore the differences in your mental image placement.

photo credit: DownTown Pictures

For instance, you might want to think about something you like to do and something you dislike to do, and put them side by side in your mind. What did your mind prefer to do? Did it put your mental image of like on the left? If so, think of something you need to do and put it in the place where you like to do.

Notice what happens.

Tell me how differently you feel as a result of doing this!

For instance, someone may have a very firm belief (maybe even paranoia) that someone is plotting against them in the office (lol — well who isn’t). In this case, [...]]]> One of the things about being effective in belief change is the way you interject and weaken undesired mental images and strengthen desired images in people’s minds.

For instance, someone may have a very firm belief (maybe even paranoia) that someone is plotting against them in the office (lol — well who isn’t). In this case, you can basically do a number of things to weaken those mental images.

One way is to use a simple pattern interrupt. If you are adept enough, you can weave this in smoothly without causing a serious break in rapport. Another way that is common is to offer counter examples within your conversation itself. The targeted undesired belief can then be diminished greatly.

Of course, don’t just stop there! You’ll want to suggest possible new beliefs to have! This is where your ability to use submodalities will come in handy. Make sure you build images in your mind and intensify them powerfully. All it takes is for you to calibrate and observe physiological cues in the client.

Once you’ve gotten the desired belief intensified, walk through a future pace so that the behaviors congruent with the belief will be reinforced.

This is just one method for changing beliefs. After all, many psychological elements can control our beliefs. Happy experimenting!

It comes a point of time when you ask yourself – who am I? What am I made of? Am I really a ____ person? It’s so common for an individual to feel that failure is a bad thing because we have gotten used to the fact that failing [...]]]> photo credit: me and the sysop

It comes a point of time when you ask yourself – who am I? What am I made of? Am I really a ____ person? It’s so common for an individual to feel that failure is a bad thing because we have gotten used to the fact that failing is bad.

In reality, failure is socially unacceptable. In organizations, people are usually not allowed to fail. There’s a double standard from top executives when they say “I can tolerate failure — as long as it doesn’t cost me anything”.

The truth is we all have failed, and we know how it feels. But dealing with failure isn’t as simple as you may think. Sure, you can attend a program and work out your “traumatic past” and stuff. But to be honest, you will definitely want to reach into yourself using the process of submodality work and alter your experience or perception of failure.

Here’s a strategy:
Step 1: Assess the feeling behind the failure.

What exactly are you feeling? Is it anger? Fear? Anxiety? Disappointment? Disgruntled? Once you know what you are feeling, it becomes easier for you to know what happened.

Step 2: Assess your values.
If you are angry at the failure, you will have to ask, what is the difference between being angry at failing compared with angry that someone was late for an appointment? Something got violated – your values. Ask yourself: what is the reason why you got angry? Be honest and let it come out. This is where you start finding out through a constant assessment of the “purpose” of your anger.

If you are angry, it could be because you knew you could do it but something happened that interrupted you, causing you to miss your target. Maybe the purpose of your anger was to show you that you were capable of achieving the target but you just lost your concentration for that moment. Now, there’s a message here, and you will need to heed your own advice. There’s always something to learn about yourself.

Step 3: Learn what you need to learn and then focus on what you need to do instead.

In order to activate your resources, remember that you can make your images of your failure more distant, smaller, darker and less focused. Send that into the distance. In place of that, bring into your mental screen a bigger, clearer image of what you want instead, and imagine that in full, vivid intensity.

Repeat this several times in quick succession.

Of course, we would like a strategy so that we won’t even need to fail. Is that possible? Well, I’ll take a look at that at a later post. In the meanwhile, your comments are appreciated.