What is a belief?

• An idea or judgement held as true or valid.
  • Learned through: direct experience, modelling others, indirect experience.
• Forms of Belief
  • Presupposition
  • Cause-Effects
  • Complex Equivalences
  • Values and Criteria
  • Content

• Beliefs are the rules we live by.
• NLP treats beliefs as presuppositions, not as truth or facts. Beliefs create our social world.
• Beliefs have to be acted on if they are to mean anything, therefore beliefs are principles of action, not empty ideals.
• Beliefs and outcomes.
• Possibility, Ability and Worthiness are the three keys to achievement. Remember them as the PAW process:
  • It is possible to achieve them.
  • You are able to achieve them.
  • You deserve to achieve them.
• Say for each goal:
  "This goal is possible. I have the ability to achieve this goal. I deserve to achieve this goal."
• Affirmations are like belief statements:
  • Phrase them as if they are occurring now.
  • Do not phrase them as if they have already happened.
  • Do not give them exact deadlines.
  • Don't just think it, ink it!

The NLP Submodality Belief Change Process

• Belief
• Break State
• Doubt or uncertainty
• Break State
• Differences
• Break State
• Unwanted Belief
• New Belief
• Break State
• Unwanted Belief into Doubt
• Change Content of Old Belief into Content of New Belief
• Doubt into Belief
• Break State
• Test
• Future Pace

Conversational Belief Change

• Identify the limiting belief and a doubt, an uncertainty.
• Contrast the belief and the doubt to discover differences in how they are represented.
• Test each of these differences to determine which are the most powerful in changing belief into doubt.
• Design a new belief with which to replace the limiting belief.
• Anchor the belief spatially and tonally.
• Elicit Doubt: As you do, use spatial anchor and tonality to shift location.
• "What will be must useful to belief?" Design new belief.
• "As you let go of old certainties, making room for new learning, notice..." Introduce new belief using hypnotic language.
• Test.

The Walking Belief Change Process

• Current Belief
• Open to Doubt
• Museum of Old Beliefs
• Preferred Belief
• Open to Belief
• The Sacred Place

The Walking Belief Change Pattern

• Create a label for six locations of change: "Current Belief," "Open to Doubt," "Museum of Old Beliefs," "Preferred Belief," "Open to Believing," "The Sacred Place."
• Place the labels on the floor in a clockwise direction around an imaginary dinner table, as though they were place settings.
• Identify a Current Belief about yourself that limits you in some way.
• Identify what you would rather believe: your Preferred Belief.
• Now, establish a location anchor for each of the six labels. Physically step into each location of change, as you think of an experience which fits its description, and associate into that experience fully. It’s often most effective to use personal experiences and beliefs rather than philosophy or beliefs about the world. Notice where in your body each experience resides, what posture you naturally take, and notice what movements your body naturally makes in each location of change. (It’s also interesting to notice the visual, auditory and kinesthetic submodalities of each experience.) Break state between each location of change by stepping to the intermediate space, and shake off the feelings of the previous location before stepping into the next one.
• Examples:
  • Current Belief: The belief that limits you in some way. "I’m dumb."
  • Open to Doubt: "Maybe I’m not repulsive." "Maybe the moon doesn’t follow the car."
  • Museum of Old Beliefs: "The tooth fairy." "Steaks grow in the meat section of the store."
  • Preferred Belief: The belief you’d rather have. "I can learn."
  • Open to Believing: "Maybe I am attractive." "Maybe the cold war really is over."
  • The Sacred Place: "Children must be protected from brutalization."
• Now, start at the beginning again. Step into the Current Belief location. This time, very slowly and gently, move the Limiting Belief directly into Open to Doubt (allowing the Belief to be transformed into Doubt) and then walk the Doubted Belief into the Museum of Old Beliefs (and allow it to be transformed). And now, physically place that former Limiting Belief near other former beliefs in the Museum of Old Beliefs.
• Now, step into the Preferred Belief location. Slowly and gently walk your Preferred Belief directly into Open to Belief (allowing it to be transformed), and then walk it into the Sacred Place (and allow it to be transformed).
• Finish by feeling the now-sacred Preferred Belief in your body and stepping directly into the Current Belief Location (letting it be transformed). Feel your Preferred Belief as something you Currently Believe. Repeatedly step between The Sacred Place and Current Belief several times.
• Now, step to one side and think of what you currently believe. How is it different than it was?

Well-formedness Conditions for a Useful New Belief

• It is stated in the positive, without negatives: "I can learn," rather than "I’m not dumb."
• It is stated as an ability or process, rather than having already achieved a desired goal. "I can reach and maintain my desired weight," rather than "I weigh 110 pounds."
• It has been checked to be sure it is ecological—that is, it is congruent with all the other outcomes the person has, in different contexts. All objections must be respected, and the new belief not created until all objections have been satisfied either by a) adjusting the new belief, or b) creating new ways for the objecting part to reach its outcome in the presence of the new belief.

Reimprinting

• Identify the specific images, sounds and/or feelings associated with the impasse. Anchor them and use them to remember the earliest experience of the feeling associate with the impasse.
• While still in the feeling, identify the generalizations or beliefs formed from that experience.
• Step out of the experience and watch it as if it were a film. Identify any other generalizations or beliefs formed as a result of the imprint experience, particularly those that might have formed after the fact.
• Determine the positive intent or secondary gain of the feeling of impasse. What did/does this feeling accomplish for you? Determine the positive intent of the significant others involved in the memory.
• Identify and anchor the resources needed by all significant parties in the event individually.
• For each significant person in the imprint experience, replay the film seeing how the experience would have changed if the necessary resources had been available to that person. Repeat for each person making sure that the added resources are sufficient to change the experience.
• What new beliefs/generalizations/conclusions would the person choose to create out of this experience.?
• Associate with each significant person in the event and relive the imprint experience from their point of view (one at a time). End by stepping into the younger self and experiencing it from that point of view. Repeat until this new experience is as strong as the original imprint.
• Revise beliefs/generalizations/conclusions from this experience.
• Maintaining the resources used throughout this process, move through time forward to the present, changing other experiences in light of this new experience. Look into the future noticing how these new resources will impact future situations, decisions, and patterns.
• Now go back and remember the impasse as you had previously. What is different now?

Reimprinting with Divine Intervention

Remember the importance of your state as you experience a pattern. Words are only a guide to eliciting experience.

• Identify and access problematic imprint experience that created the limitation (often Self perceptual position).
  

Shift to and maintain Observer perceptual position once the memory is found. “See yourself in that situation.”

• Add resources, while maintaining Observer perceptual position. Options include the following:
  • Comfort younger self. “Go to that younger you and talk to him/her. Take this child by the hand and explain that you are from his/her future, and that you know that s/he survived this experience. Do and say whatever is necessary until you can observe from his/her breathing, expression, relaxation, etc. That the younger you is responding in ways that indicate that s/he is, in fact, comforted.”
  • "Divine Intervention" with all relevant other people (assumed to be a parent for this example). Do this one at a time if more than one person is involved.
    • Have the parent observe the consequences of his/her actions in the life of the child through time. “Is this what you wanted for your child?”
    • Separate the parent’s positive intent from their behavior. “What did you want for your child by doing this behavior?”
    • Create a representation of the parent’s history that shows how the parent’s behavior is in response to events in his/her background.
      (The last two steps (ii & iii) often access forgiveness.)
  • Change personal history for parent. (Add resources.) “What resource would your parent need to be able to feel, think and act in ways that allow him/her to carry out his/her intention in more useful ways?”
• Re-experience the situation as modified by the steps above, with “new, improved parent”.
  • In parent’s shoes. (Other perceptual position)
  • As your younger self. (Self perceptual position)
• Generalize resources through time:
  • With new improved parent: “As your younger self (Self perceptual position) carry these new learnings and understandings with you as you move up through time. Experience all the ways your life is different with this transformed parent, how different, more satisfying experiences are not only empowering in themselves, but also how they result in more useful and satisfying conclusions, attitudes and beliefs. Come all the way up through time to the present and then stop and see yourself moving on into the future in these more satisfying and resourceful ways.”
  • With original parent: “Now take all your new learnings and understandings back to that original imprint experience. Relive it again with your new internal resources, noticing how different it is as you have these resources that allow you to know your parent’s positive intention and really see, hear and understand how s/he came to be the person who could do something hurtful to you, knowing that while it wasn’t OK, it was the best the parent could have done given who s/he is, and notice how you experience this in a new and more resourceful way. Continue to move through time and notice that even while your parent behaves in those old ways, that the new learnings and understanding that you are easily integrating and using for your benefit can serve you well, allowing you to see and hear and understand that this person was doing the best that s/he could,” etc.
• Future pace and check. Think of future situations in which you will experience this person, or similar interactions with others, and find out what that is like.