Neuro Linguistic Programming Using Your Brain FORA CHANGE Richard Bandler Edited by Connirae Andreas & Steve Andreas Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE by Richard Bandler edited by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas REAL PEOPLE PRESS Copyright© 1985 Real People Press BoxF Moab, Utah84532 ISBN: 0-911226-26-5 clothbound$ll. 00 ISBN: 0-911226-27-3paperbound$7.50 Cover by Rene Eisenbart Illustrations by Gustav Russ Youngreen Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bandler, Richard. Using your brain—for a change. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Neurolinguistic programming. I. Andreas, Steve. II. Andreas, Connirae. HI. Title. BF637.N46B36 1985 158'.1' 85-10826 ISBN 0-91126-26-5 ISBN 0-91126-27-3 (pbk.) Other books about Neuro-Linguistic Programming from Real People Press: FROGS INTO PRINCES, by Richard BandlerandJohnGrinder.l97pp.l979Cloth $11.00 Paper $7.50 REFRAMING: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Mean- ing, by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. 220 pp. 1981 Cloth $12,00 Paper $8.50 TRANCE-FORMATIONS: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis, by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. 250 pp. 1981 Cloth$12.00 Paper $8.50 CHANGE YOUR MIND—AND KEEP THE CHANGE, by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas. 187 pp. 1987 Cloth $12,00 Paper $8.50 The name Real People Press indicates our purpose; to publish ideas and ways that a person can use independently or with others to become more real—to further your own growth as a human being and to develop your relationships and communication with others. 3456789 10 Printing 93 92 91 90 89 Dedicated to my mother Contents Introduction 7-5 I. Who's Driving the Bus? 7-19 Most of us let our brains run wild, and spend a lot of time having experiences we don't want to have. Bandler pokes fun at many of our current ways of attempting to think about and solve human problems, as he begins to provide alternatives. II. Running Your Own Brain 21-35 Depending upon the size, brightness, closeness, etc., of our internal pictures, we respond very differently to the same thoughts. Understanding these simple principles allows us to change our experiences so that we respond the way we want. "Briefest therapy" is demonstrated. III. Points of View 37-48 Seeing a memory from your own point of view (through your own eyes) has a very different impact than watching yourself in that memory from some other point of view. Knowing how to use this difference allows you to cure a phobia or a "post-traumatic stress syndrome" in a few minutes, among other things. IV Going Wrong 51-67 We often try to correct problems after something has gone wrong, rather than doing things ahead of time to make sure they go the way we want them to. The attempted correction often makes the problem worse. V. Going for it 69-80 We all motivate ourselves to do things repeatedly throughout the day. Knowing how this works makes it possible to choose what we're motivated to do, and to use powerful positive feelings to do it. A way to change critical internal voices into friendly and useful allies is also demonstrated. VI. Understanding Confusion 83-101 The ways we each organize our experience to understand something are unique, and can be directed and modified. Much can be learned by trying out someone else's way of understanding. VII. Beyond Belief 103-115 Our brains code our internal experiences so that we know what we believe and what we don't. By directly accessing and changing this internal coding, it is possible to quickly change limiting beliefs about yourself into resourceful and empowering beliefs. VIII. Learning 117-129 Our educational system has attempted to teach students con- tent, rather than teach them how to learn. "School phobias" which prevent learning can be dealt with easily. Memory and "learning disabilities" arc also discussed. IX. The Swish 131-152 By understanding how your brain links experiences, it is possible to make any problem situation into a cue for you to become more of who you want to be. This method provides a generative solution for almost any problem behavior or response. It is demonstrated with smoking and other habitual responses. Afterword 155-159 Appendices 162-169 Selected Bibliography 170 Index 171-172 [...]... of a past experience that was very pleasant—perhaps one that you haven't thought about in a long time Pause for a moment to go back to that memory, and be sure that you see what you saw at the time that pleasant event happened You can close your eyes if that makes it easier to do As you look at that pleasant memory, I want you to change the brightness of the image, and notice how your feelings change. .. over and over again It's not enough that you had a bad day; you can 7 8 Using Your Brain ruin the whole evening, and perhaps part of next week, too Most people don't stop there How many of you think about unpleasant things that happened long ago? It's as if your brain is saying, "Let's do it again! We've got an hour before lunch, let's think about something that's really depressing Maybe we can get angry... example 11) Transparency Make the image transparent, so that you can see what's beneath the surface 12) Aspect Ratio Make a framed picture tall and narrow • and then short and wide 13) Orientation Tilt the top of that picture away from you and then toward you 14) Foreground/background Vary the difference or separation between foreground (what interests you most) and background (the context that... presupposes that you have the information and experiences presented in earlier chapters, you will have a much fuller understanding if you read them in order Another basic NLP principle is that words are only inadequate labels for experiences It is one thing to read about hammering a nail into a board It is quite a different experience to feel a hammer in your hand and hear a satisfying "thunk" as the nail sinks... has led us to create this book Our raw materials were audiotapes and transcripts of a large number of seminars and workshops that Richard has taught recently Then came a long process of sorting through and organizing this wealth of material, experimenting with it personally, and teaching it to others in order to gain a richer understanding Finally, based on what we had learned, we have put this material... with a coffee-stain on her dress! She took that coffee-stain and literally stained all her earlier memories with it Many people do that A man once said to me, "I thought I was really happy for a week But then I looked back and thought about it, and realized that I wasn't really happy; it was all a mistake." When he looked backwards, he recoded all his experience and believed he had a rotten week I... reality, so the men in white coats don't take me away Physicists also have a shared reality Other than that, there really isn't a lot of difference between being a physicist and being a schizophrenic Physicists also talk about things you can't see How many of you have seen an atom, let alone a sub-atomic particle? There is a difference: physicists are usually a little more tentative about their hallucinations,... remembered all your good experiences as dim, distant, fuzzy, black and white snapshots, but recalled all your bad experiences in vividly colorful close, panoramic, 3-D movies That's a great way to get depressed and think that life isn't worth living All of us have good and bad experiences; how we recall them is often what makes the difference I watched a woman at a party once For three hours she had a great... remember it for the rest of her life How many of you have read about Pavlov and his dogs and the bell, and all that stuff? and how many of you are salivating right now? They had to put the dog in a harness and ring the bell and give it food over and over again to teach it that response All you did was read about it, and you have the same response the dog had It's no big thing, but it is an indication... that it was really that happy Instead of having rose-colored glasses, they have gray lenses There was a marvelous lady up in Vancouver who actually had a blue hue over experiences that were unpleasant for her, but experiences that were pleasant had a pink hue They were well sorted out If she took one memory and changed the hue, it changed the memory totally I can't tell you why that works, but that is . Programming Using Your Brain FORA CHANGE Richard Bandler Edited by Connirae Andreas & Steve Andreas Using Your Brain for a CHANGE by Richard Bandler edited by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas REAL. you've had a bad day, then later your brain will show you vivid reruns, over and over again. It's not enough that you had a bad day; you can 7 8 Using Your Brain ruin the whole evening, and. best representation for the way a person does a task, and make it available in a machine. I don't care if that representation really is how people do the task. Modelers don't have to have truth. All