Neuro Linguistic Programming

Chapter 3: Discovering Who’s Directing Your Life 49

Values with away from tendencies are indicative of negative emotions, negative

decisions, or emotional traumas that may be exerting an influence on your life.

These tendencies can be released using techniques such as time-line therapy

(which we discuss in detail in Chapter 13. The main purpose of any such tech-

nique is to learn the lessons that may be of value from negative events in order

for the unconscious mind to release the trapped emotions. Essentially, time-

line therapy works on the principle that your memories are arranged along a

time line, and by changing a memory along this time line you can release the

hold of some memories, which in turn helps you to gain more control over

your reactions to events and create more options in your life.

Creating values

Your values are essentially formed over three periods in your life:

✓ The imprint period occurs from the time of your birth to when you’re
approximately seven years old. During this time you learn largely uncon-
sciously from your parents.

✓ The modelling period occurs between the ages of 8 and 13 when you
learn by consciously and unconsciously copying friends. Some of your
most important values – core values – are formed when you’re around
10 years old.

✓ The socialisation period occurs between the ages of 14 and 21 years.
During this time you acquire values that affect your relationships.

Eliciting your values

If you recognise areas in your life that you think can be improved, you can

then examine your values to get a clue to help make positive change. By fol-

lowing the suggestions in the following steps, you can discover what’s hold-

ing you back from getting what you want:

1. Pick an area (or context) in your life that you’re not happy with or
   want to improve.
   For instance, are you living or working in an environment that you don’t
   like and want to make more enriching?


2. Make a list of what’s important to you in this context.
   Notice that the first few values come to mind very quickly. Stay with it
   and another batch of values are sure to surface.


3. Put these values in order of importance to you, with the most impor-
   tant appearing at the top.
   If you have trouble rearranging the list, just ask yourself, ‘If I could have
   A but not B, would this be okay?’ If the answer is yes, A is of greater