L
esson
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NEURO-LINGUISTIC-PROGRAMMING
Our experience of the world is created by gathering information through the use of our five senses. However,
each of us tends to develop a favorite mode of focus, or a modality, as it is often called. Some people are more
impacted, for example, by what they see; their visual system tends to be more dominant. For others, sounds are
the trigger for the greatest of life’s experiences, while for others, feelings are the foundation.
Even within each of these modes of experience, though, there are special elements of pictures, sounds, or other
sensations that can be changed in order to increase or decrease the intensity of our experience. These
foundational ingredients are called sub modalities. For example, you can make a picture in our mind and then
take any aspect of that image (a sub modality), and change it to change your feelings about it. You can brighten
the picture, immediately changing the amount of intensity you feel about the experience. This is known as a
changing sub modality. Probably the greatest expert in sub modalities is Richard Bandler, co – founder of
Neuro- Linguistic Programming. The lineage of experts on this dates back to the foundational work on he five
senses done by Aristotle, which categorizes perception models.
You can radically raise or lower your intensity the feeling about anything by manipulating sub modalities. They
affect how you feel about virtually anything, whether you feel joy, frustration, wonder, or despair.
Understanding them enables you to not only change how you feel about any experience in your life, but to
change what it means to you and thus what you can do about it.
One image I’ve found very useful is to think of sub modalities as the grocery store UPC bar codes, those
clusters of little black lines that have replaced price tags in just about every supermarket you patronize today.
The codes look insignificant, yet when pulled across the checkout scanner, they tell the computer what the item
is, how much it costs, how its sale affects the inventory, and so on. Sub modalities work the same way. When
pulled across the scanner of the computer we call the brain, they tell the brain what this thing is, how to feel
about it, and what to do. You have your own bar codes, and there is a list of them coming up alone with
question to ask to determine which of them you use.
For example, if you tend to focus upon you visual modalities, the amount of enjoyment you can get from a
particular memory is probably a direct consequence of the sub modalities of size, color, brightness, distance,
and amount of movement in the visual image you’ve made of it. If you represent it to yourself with auditory
sub modalities, then how you feel depends on the volume, tempo, pitch, tonality, and other such factors you
attach to it. For example, in order for some people to feel motivated, they have to tune in a certain channel first
if their favorite channel is visual, then focusing on the visual elements of the situation gives them more
emotional intensity about it. For other people it’s auditory or kinesthetic channels. And for some, the best
strategy works like a combination lock. First the visual lock has to be aligned, then the auditory, then the
kinesthetic. All three dials have to be lined up in the right place and the right order for the vault to open.
Once your aware f this, you’ll realize that people are constantly using words in their day–to–day language to tell
you which system and which sub modalities they are tuning in. Listen to the ways they describe their
experience, and take it literally. (For example, in the last two sentences I used the terms ‘tuning in’ and ‘listen’ –
clearly these are auditory examples.)
How many times have you heard someone say,’ I can’t picture doing that’? They’re telling you what the
problem is: If they did picture doing it, they’d go into state where they’d feel like they could make it happen.
Someone may have once said to you,’ your blowing things out of proportion.’ If you’re really upset, they may
be right. You may be taking images in your mind and making them much bigger, which tends to intensify the
experience. If someone says,’ this is weighing heavily upon me.’ You can assist them by helping them feel
lighter about the situation and thereby get them in a better state to deal with it. If someone says, ‘I’m just
tuning you guys out.’ You’ve got to tune them back in so the can change states. Our ability to change the
way we feel depends upon our ability to change our sub modalities. We must learn to take control of the
various elements with which we represent experiences and change them in ways that support our outcomes.
For example, have you ever found yourself saying you need to ‘get distance’ from a problem? I’d like you try
something, if you would. Think of a situation that is challenging you currently. Make a picture of it in your
mind, and then imagine pushing that picture farther and farther away from yourself. Stand above it and look
down upon the problem with a new perspective. What happens to your emotional intensity? For most people,
it drops. What if the image becomes dimmer or smaller? Now take picture of the problem and make it bigger,
brighter, and closer. For most people, this intensifies it. Push it back out and watch the sun melt it. A simple
docsity.com
