Releasing Fixations
Ever had the experience of being fixated on something and not able to let it go? It can be very frustrating to have part of your mind return again and again to a problem, an idea or a memory of the past. A client asked me about this recently – he felt that he “couldn’t get his mind off something once it has become fixated to it.”
NLP has some great tools for exploring this, and here’s some information about making change using one of them - submodalities. To do this, you create a model of your own experience and then change it.
So, I’d suggest that you get curious about how your brain does “I can’t seem to get my mind off something once it has become fixated to it.” Just spend a moment to recall, with curiosity, a time when that has happened to you. What exactly is happening? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? And what do you smell and taste?
The information you are gathering here is about the “program” that your brain runs in order to be fixated on something. Is it primarily visual (pictures), auditory (sound) or kinaesthetic (feelings)? It will probably be a mixture of these – which is the most important?
Now, if your primary strategy is visual, start making changes to the picture you see. If it’s colour, make it into black and white. If it’s a moving picture, make it still, and vice versa. Move it closer to you, then move it further away. After each change, ask yourself “is this better or worse?” After each change you make, put the picture back to the way it was originally.
If your primary strategy is auditory, you are going to do the same thing, but make changes to the sound. If you hear it in your ears, move it to the back of your head, in front of you, behind you – anywhere that’s different. Change the pitch. Change the tone. Turn the volume up and down.
If your primary strategy is kinaesthetic, again, it’s the same process with making changes to the feeling. Change the location of the feeling. If it’s in your stomach, move it to your toes, your head – again, anywhere different. If it’s a fluttery feeling, make it constant. Change the pressure. If it’s tight, loosen it, and so on.
Once you have gone through this process, you’ll have more information about what to do to change the way you are thinking to make it more comfortable for you. So think of your original experience again, and then go right ahead and make the changes you want to the pictures, the sounds and the feelings. You’ll find that when you change one, changes will be made in the others, too. Just spend a moment enjoying this new way of thinking.
And because practice makes perfect, do that a few more times – think of the experience in the old way and then change it to the new way. Your brain learns very fast and you will be surprised at just how quickly you automatically think in the new way.
Now, think of a time in the future when you would previously have been fixated on something. And experience how that is different now.
Let me know how you get on!
© Jane James 2005