Talking to Yourself Positively

Excerpt from chapter 4, Talking to Yourself Positively

A Happy World

The interesting instruction that follows was posted about a year ago on an email newsgroup by Vikas Dikshit, an NLP-trained educator and trainer in Pune, India:

About 18 months ago a young woman asked me for help for her depression. She was visiting a psychiatrist and had been taking some medicine for depression for the preceding few months.

I suggested to her that she look around and mentally say to herself, “I am sitting on this happy chair. There is this happy table. And these are happy windows with happy curtains.” I made her do this for about ten minutes. I suggested she do this every day for about ten or fifteen minutes.

After fifteen days she called to say that she was feeling great now. After about two months she visited the psychiatrist and he stopped her medicine. She continues to call occasionally, and reports that she still feels great. The most recent one was when she was in my town about ten days ago.

About a year after this email, Vikas writes that his client still feels great, and that he has used the same method—or variations of it—successfully with a number of other clients. Although this method sounds far too simple to have any effect, it employs some very subtle aspects of language.

Since all the sentences are about the world, not the person, there is no conflict between saying that something in the world is happy when the person is not feeling happy. An unhappy person can still talk about happy curtains. This is very different from the “I am happy” affirmation, which will contradict someone’s present state if they are unhappy.

This process directs your attention to things around you in the present moment, just as any useful meditation does. Since you have limited attention, this will simultaneously withdraw your attention from whatever, you have been attending to that was making you unhappy, including any negative self-talk that has been going on in your mind.

The word “happy” is a trigger for that state, so using it tends to elicit happy feelings, no matter what it describes, even a chair or a table. When I describe the curtains as “happy,” that connects happiness with the curtains—and with everything else around me that I describe with the word “happy.” After that, each time I look at the curtains—and the other things around me—I will think of the word “happy,” and that will tend to elicit that happy feeling. If everything around me is labeled in this way, I will soon be surrounded by things that are now associated with the word “happy,” and elicit that feeling state.

There is usually a correspondence or equivalence between someone’s internal state and what they perceive around them. A happy person lives in a happy world, and a sad person lives in a sad world. A sad person tends to notice sad events around them, while a happy person tends to notice the happy things. Vikas’ method uses this equivalence in the reverse direction to bring about a change in mood. Noticing happy things implies feeling happy.

You need to be very cautious if you include other people in your happy observations, and notice what kind of response it elicits in you, because that may create a contrast that is not helpful. If I notice a happy child, that may make me feel happy, because I am not a child—just as I am not a chair or curtain. But if I notice other adults being happy, that contrast with my present state may deepen my unhappiness. If others around me are happy, when I am unhappy, that can make my unhappiness even worse. So it is much safer to not include other people at all—or even children or animals—and just use inanimate objects.

Another way of thinking about this method is that it is an example of the hypnotic language pattern called “Selectional restriction.” Since a window can’t be happy, your mind will unconsciously attempt to make meaning out of the word “happy” by applying it to something else. If you are alone, you are the only other available possibility, and even if you are with others, you are still a possibility. All this processing will occur completely unconsciously, so it can’t be countered by your conscious thinking.

Of course despite all this wonderful understanding, this process can be completely nullified if someone uses a voice tone that is sarcastic, scornful, or dismissive, as we explored in chapter 2. But if you use a tone that is ordinary, simply reporting your experience “objectively,” or one that includes even a little bit of pleasure, it will work. Whether you do this with yourself, or with someone else, you can notice the tonality, and change it if it does not support the method.

You can also use this method with any other useful adjective, such as “calm” or “peaceful” for someone who is too easily agitated, “loving” for someone who feels angry, or “balanced” or “centered” for someone who feels scattered or chaotic. Simply identify the problem mood, think of its opposite, and then select an adjective that expresses this opposite mood to put in the place of “happy.”

For instance, if someone is often fearful or anxious, the opposite of that is safe, and they can use this word to describe the world around them. “I see the safe chair,” “Those are safe curtains,” “This is a safe computer,” etc.

Be sure that you choose an opposite experience, not something in the mid-range of a continuum. For instance, if you are often critical and rejecting, the opposite of that would be being welcoming or loving, not accepting, which is too neutral.

Try this now. Think of an unpleasant state that you sometimes slip into . . .

Then think of its opposite, a positive state that you would like to have in its place . . .

Then use this word to describe the things around you, either internally, or out loud. Continue to do this for several minutes, and notice how it changes your response . . .

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