Chapter 10: Sliding the Controls of Your Experience 175
- Check with yourself that going ahead with the change is okay.
Simply ask yourself: ‘Is it okay for me to change in this context?’
- Identify the trigger that initiates the unwanted behaviour and make
an associated picture (check out the ‘Associating or dissociating’ sec-
tion earlier in this chapter). This image is the cue picture.
You may see yourself running your finger along a nail or in a situation
that makes you nervous or angry.
- Play with the image to discover a critical submodality.
As you become more experienced, you’ll be able to change one or two
critical submodalities, but for now start off with one. You change the
submodalities of the image to make the cue picture more compelling.
- Break state.
Break state means to change the state or frame of mind that you’re in.
You can stand up and give your body a good shake or move around the
room when going from one phase of an exercise to another, allowing
a natural break from the pictures and emotions of the first stage of
the exercise.- Think of the desired image. Create a dissociated image of you doing a
preferred behaviour or looking a certain way. - Break state.
- Recall the cue picture. Make sure that you’re associated into it and
place a frame around it. - Create an image of the desired outcome.
- Squash the desired image into a very small, dark dot and place it in
the bottom left corner of the cue picture. - With a swishhhh sound, propel the small, dark dot into the big pic-
ture so that it explodes, covering the cue picture. - Break state.
- Repeat the process several times speedily.
If you display more kinaesthetic tendencies than visual or auditory, you may
find the swish more effective when you keep your hands far apart at the start
of this exercise. Then, as you swishhhh, bring your hands together quickly.