328 Part V: Integrating Your Learning
- David applied the ‘what if’ reframing process (which we explain in
Chapter 14) and asked himself, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’
David knew that he may be out of work for several months but because
he’d built a financial ‘war chest’ after the last cuts, he could survive for
six months without work. This realisation went a long way to alleviating
the feeling of dread he felt when he thought of being made redundant;
the frequency declined but the intensity was still there. David decided
to release the fear that he felt each time he thought of the changes that
were being incorporated (see point 3 below).
He decided he didn’t like his work defining his identity, as in ‘I am a
salesman.’ He asked himself what he’d do if he didn’t have to work to
pay his mortgage and remembered how much he’d loved working with
wood at school. David decided that regardless of the outcome at work,
he’d take classes in woodwork.
- He recognised he had a choice about how he dealt with the change.
Instead of letting the change get to him, he decided to treat each day as
a learning experience. At the end of each day, he listed what had been
difficult. He then reframed the difficulty by asking himself, ‘What can I
learn from this?’ and ‘How can I use it in the days ahead?’
- Most importantly, David decided to take charge of the way he reacted
to the negative conversations around him and the fear he felt.
He began employing a pattern interrupt (see the NLPjargonalert icon
that follows this list). Each time his colleagues began talking about the
problems they were experiencing. He discovered how to differentiate
between when the talk was negative, simply because his colleagues felt
good about feeling bad, and when a need arose to solve a genuine
problem. When the talk was meaningless negativity, David held his hand
up and said something along the lines of ‘Let’s stop wallowing; we know
things are tough and they’re likely to get tougher but we’ve got to stay
strong.’ After a while, just having David hold his hand up switched his
colleagues into problem-solving mode.
David found out that dread, for him, had two components. He felt the
fear as heaviness descending, sliding down from his shoulders, and
saw a solid, black cube encasing his torso. The cube was a metaphor
for the way he felt in his body (see Chapter 17 for more on metaphors).
Each time the dread returned, David changed the picture of the cube by
introducing pockets of silver into it. The cube turned into a honeycomb
of grey and then silver until it disappeared. (Check out Chapter 10 for
more on submodalities.) While he worked with the image, David also did
some breath work with an affirmation that he said out loud, if he was by
himself. He drew a breath deep into the centre of the cube and on each
exhalation he said, ‘I’m relaxed, strong, and confident, and I feel good.’
