You really didn't know what you were missing, did you? You had no idea how you were stuck back there, and you weren't motivated to change it. You were certain that your understanding was an accurate representation of the world. That's when you're really stuck. What are you missing now? . . .

Certainty probably impedes human progress more than any other state of mind. However, certainty, like anything else, is a subjective experience that you can change. Pick a fairly detailed memory in which you were absolutely certain that you understood something. You were in a learning experience; perhaps you were being taught. Maybe it was hard, maybe it was easy, but at a certain time you got that "Oooh, yes! I understand!" feeling. Remember it in as much detail as you need. . . ,

Now I want you to remember all that backwards, just like running a movie backwards. . . .

When you're done, think about whatever it is that you learned or understood. Is it the same as it was a few minutes ago?

Marty: When I played the picture forwards, I went from a state of confusion to "Aha! I understand!" And then when I ran it backwards, I ended up at the place where I was confused.

Yes, that's running it backwards. What is your experience now, when you think about whatever it is that you were certain you understood a few minutes ago?

Marty: Well, I'm back at the confusion state, and yet part of me knows that I still have the understanding that came later. I can't create the same total feeling of confusion that I had the first time. But I'm not as certain, either.

How about the rest of you. Is it the same?

Ben: Well, I learned something new that I don't know that I was aware of at the time, about what happened with me in the experience.

Well, that's interesting, but it's not what I asked about. I want to know if your experience of what you learned is different.

Ben: No, there's no difference.

There's no difference whatsoever? You have to actually stop and think about it. You can't just say, "Oh, it's the same." That's like saying, "I tried to learn to fly, but I couldn't get out to the plane, so it doesn't work." . . .

Ben: Well, it's funny you mentioned flying, because what I remembered was learning the feel of landing on water — the feel of that contact with the water. When I ran it backwards, I moved out of the feeling of it, and to get the airplane to move backwards I had to view it from a distance. And that added a new dimension to the learning of the touching on the water.

It gave you another perspective. Now do you know anything more about landing a plane than you did before? Ben: Yeah.

What else don't you know? Yet? That's quite a lot to get from just running a movie backwards. A lot of people rerun movies forward as a way of learning from experience, but not many run them backward. How about the rest of you. Is your experience the same?

Sally: No. The details changed. What I pay attention to changed. There's a sequence of things ordered differently.

The sequence is ordered differently. Now, is what you learned different?

Sally: Yes.

How is it different? Do you know something that you didn't know before? Or could you do something different now?

Sally: The body of knowledge is not different. What I learned isn't different, but how I feel about it, and how I look at it, is different.

Would that influence your behavior?

Sally: Yes.

Several of you got quite a lot out of just taking a minute to run an experience backwards. How much would you learn if you ran all your experiences backwards? You see, Sally is absolutely right. Running a movie backwards changes the sequence of experience. Think of two experiences: 1) being able to do something, and 2) being unable to do the same thing, First sequence them 1–2, first, you can, and then can't, do something. . . . Now sequence them 2–1, first you can't, and then can, do something. . . . Those are pretty different, aren't they?

The experiences in your life happened to you in a certain order. Most of that sequence wasn't planned; it just happened. A lot of your understanding is based on that somewhat random sequence, Since you have only one sequence, you have only one set of understandings, and that will limit you. If the same events had happened to you in a different order, your understandings would be very different, and you would respond very differently.

You have a whole personal history that's the wealth that you're going to use to go into the future. How you use it will determine what it will produce. If you only have one way of using it, you'll be very limited. There will be a lot of things you won't notice, a lot of places you never go, and a lot of ideas you simply won't have.

Running an experience forwards and backwards are only two of the infinite number of ways that you can sequence an experience. If you divide a movie into only four parts, there are twenty–two other sequences to experience. If you divide it into more parts, the number of sequences is even greater, Each sequence will yield a different meaning, just as different sequences of letters create different words, and different sequences of words create different meanings. A lot of the NLP techniques are simply ways to change the sequence of experiences.

I'd like to install in you what I think is one of the most important steps in the evolution of your consciousness: be suspicious of success. Whenever you feel certain, and you succeed at a task several times, I want you to become suspicious of what you're not noticing. When you have something that works, that doesn't mean other things wouldn't work, or that there aren't other interesting things to do.

Years ago some people figured out that you could suck creepy gooey black liquid out of the ground and burn it in lamps. Then they figured out how to burn it in a big steel box and roll it all over the place. You can even burn it in the end of a tube and send the tube to the moon. But that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to do those things. A hundred years from now people are going to look at our "high–tech" economy and shake their heads the way we do when we think of ox–carts.

Real innovation would have been easier right at the beginning. They could have done really amazing things. What if they had said "Boy, this really works! What else will work? What else is there to do? What other ways are there to move besides burning stuff and spewing it out the end of something? What other ways are there to move other than rolling in metal boxes and flying in metal tubes?" The more success you have, the more certain you become, and the less likely you are to stop and think, "What is t that I'm not doing?" The things I'm teaching you work, but I want you to think about what else might work even better.

VII.Beyond Belief

Another way to think about behavior is that it's organized around some very durable things called "beliefs," Whenever someone says something is important or unimportant to do, it's because she has a belief about it. You can think about all behavior as being mobilized by the beliefs that we have. For example, you probably wouldn't be learning about NLP if you didn't believe that it would be interesting, or useful, or somehow valuable. Parents wouldn't spend lots of time with their infant children if they didn't believe it would make their children turn out better later on. Parents used to keep young children from getting too much stimulation because they believed it would make them hyperactive; now they give their children lots of stimulation because they believe it will aid their intellectual development.

Beliefs are really phenomenal things. Beliefs can compel perfectly nice people to go out and kill other human beings for an idea, and even feel good about it, too. As long as you can fit a behavior into someone's belief system, you can get him to do anything, or stop him from doing anything. That is what I did with the father who didn't want his daughter to be a whore. As soon as I pointed out that his abusive behavior was exactly the way pimps treat whores, he couldn't do it anymore without violating his own beliefs. I didn't compel him to stop "against his will," whatever that means. I made changing fit into his belief system so completely that he couldn't do anything else.

At the same time, beliefs can change. You're not born with them. You all believed things when you were children that you now think are silly. And there are things you believe now that you didn't even think about before . . . taking this workshop, for example.

The word "belief" is a somewhat vague concept to most people, even when they'll gladly go out and kill for one. I'd like to demonstrate what beliefs are made of, and then show you a way of changing them. I'd like someone to come up here who has a belief about yourself that you would like to be different. I want you to think of a belief that limits you in some way. Beliefs about yourself are usually more useful to change than beliefs about the world. So pick one that you think would make a real difference to you if it were different.

Lou: I have one.

As if the rest of them don't! Don't tell me what that belief is. I just want you to think of that belief that you'd rather not have. . . . Now set that experience aside for a moment, and think of something you're doubtful about. It might be true, or it might not be; you're really not sure. . . .

Next I want you to tell me how those two experiences of belief and doubt are different. I want you to do the same thing we did earlier with Bill and his understanding and confusion.

Lou: Well, my belief is a big picture. It's bright, vivid and very detailed. Doubt is a much smaller picture. It's dimmer and fuzzier, and it kind of flashes on and off.

OK. Those are pretty clear differences. I can't help noticing that belief is straight ahead of you and doubt is up to your right. Are there any other differences?

Lou: Well, belief nearly fills a big frame and there is very little room for background. Doubt has a lot of background, and there's no frame.

The next step is to take this list of differences and test one of them at a time, in order to find out which of them are most powerful in changing belief to doubt. For instance, Lou, take the picture of belief, and try making it smaller. . . .

Lou: That makes it seem a little less real, but it doesn't change it very much.

OK. Bring it back to its original size, and then try removing the frame from around the belief picture, so that you can see more of the surrounding background. . . .

Lou: When I do that, the picture automatically gets smaller, and it's less impressive.

OK. So the frame brings size along with it, and has more impact than size alone. Change it back to the way it was originally, and then change the focus of that belief picture so that it becomes fuzzy. . . ,

Lou: That doesn't change it much.

Change that belief picture back again, and then make it dimmer. . . .

Lou: When I do that it starts flashing on and off, a little bit like doubt does.

So changing the brightness also alters the flashing. Change it back again, and then take the belief picture and change its position. Move it from the center of your visual field up to your right. . . .

Lou: That's weird. I feel all kind of floaty, and I can feel my heart speed up. When I start to change the position, all the other things start changing, too. It gets smaller and dimmer and out of focus; the frame fades away and it starts to flash on and off.

OK. Move that picture back to straight ahead of you. The location of the picture changes all other elements, so that is the submodality that is most powerful for Lou in moving something from belief to doubt. But before we do that, we need to have something else to put in its place. Lou, do you know what belief you would like to have in place of the belief you now have?

Lou: Well, I never really thought about that in detail.

Start thinking about it now, and be sure you think about it in positive terms, not in terms of negations. Think of what you do want to believe, not what you don't want to believe.

I also want you to frame that belief not in terms of an end or goal, but in terms of a process or ability that would result in your getting that goal. For instance, if you'd like to believe that you know NLP, change it so that you believe you can pay attention, and learn and respond to feedback in order to learn NLP.

Lou: OK. I know what I'd like to believe.

This new belief is stated in positive terms, without negations, and it has to do with a process leading to a goal rather than the goal itself, right? . . .

Lou: Yes.

Good. Now I want you to do what we call an ecology check. I want you to take a little time to imagine how you would act differently if you already had this new belief, and think of any ways in which this change could be a problem for you, or the people who are close to you, or the people you work with. . . .

Lou: I can't think of any way that it could be a problem.

Good. We'll call that the "new belief." Set it aside for a moment.

Now I want you to take that big picture of the belief you don't like and move it all the way over to where your doubt is. As you do that, the picture will lose its frame and get dimmer, smaller, fuzzier, and start flashing. . . .

Lou: OK. It's over here now, and it looks just like that other doubt picture.

Good. When it flashes off, have that picture of the old belief disappear, and then have the picture of the new belief flash back on. ...

Lou: OK. The new belief is flashing there now.

Now take that picture of the new belief and move it back to the center of your visual field. As it does this, notice how it develops a frame and gets bigger, brighter, sharper, and more vivid. . . .

Lou: This is incredible! It's right there where the old belief was. I feel like my whole body just got out of prison, and I can feel my cheeks are flushed.

Right There are a lot of other nice changes going on, too. You can take a minute or two to let those changes settle in, while I respond to a question or two.

Man: Why can't you just take the picture of the desired belief and change it to make it into a belief – the way we made confusion into understanding?

When you made confusion into understanding, there wasn' t any other understanding already there to get in the way. You can even have several understandings of the same content without their necessarily conflicting with each other. A belief tends to be much more universal and categorical than an understanding. When you already have a belief, there's no room for a new one unless you weaken the old belief first. Typically the new belief is the opposite of the old belief, or at least very different in some way. Have you ever tried to convince someone of something that is the opposite of what he already believes? Usually the existing belief will prevent him from even considering the new belief. The stronger the belief, the more that will be true

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