A Transcript of a therapeutic intervention utilizing an NLP belief change process.
This transcript is drawn from the DVD “Changing Beliefs” by Steve and Connirae Andreas which is available through the links on this page.
(Note: advanced; presumes NLP training experience) If you’d like to learn to use this process yourself, order your copy of the DVD from our store.
(Note: This transcript is pretty long. We have divided it into two parts. This is part 1. Click here for Part 2.)
Part 1
CONNIRAE: The video you’re about to see demonstrates an advanced submodalities belief change pattern developed by Richard Bandler. The session itself was taken from the third day of a twelve day advanced submodalities training that we did in Boulder, Colorado, fall of 1984.
All of the participants in this seminar are NLP practitioners, so Tom, the demonstration subject, was familiar with all the basic NLP patterns. However, Tom had no familiarity with the belief change pattern itself.
During the demonstration, you will hear us make lots of commentary and teaching points interspersed with the demonstration itself. Since this isn’t necessary in individual client work, usually that goes much more rapidly than this demonstration does.
After the demonstration, you’ll hear some questions and answers, and discussion of the process, as well as a description of an experiential exercise for people to do.
Prior to the demonstration itself, I introduce the topic of belief change briefly by giving the example of a woman whose belief we had recently changed with this method. This woman believed that she wasn’t pretty. Her mother had installed the belief in an interesting way by presupposition. Her mother had very frequently said, “It’s okay that my girls are not pretty because they’re smart.”
Consequently, this woman felt like she repeatedly and continually had to prove that she was smart in order to make it okay that she wasn’t pretty. So felt that she had to succeed perfectly. She had to succeed every time. She had to succeed in a driven sort of way that she wasn’t really satisfied with. So at her request, we shifted the belief to become that she was pretty, and the woman reported later that she was very pleased with the results, that now she feels motivated to succeed, but she doesn’t feel driven to succeed.
And now for the demonstration. 0:02:27.9
(Connirae continues) Okay, so do you have idea of the kind of beliefs that might be useful to pick? What I need is someone who’s got one and you want to change it.
Tom – (laughter.)
TOM: Oh, geez.
CONNIRAE: He wants it. He wants it. (Laughter.)
TOM: I’m not sure how this is—
CONNIRAE: First, I want to check to see if you’re motivated. (Laughter.) Just kidding.
Okay, what were you saying?
STEVE: Wire him up.
TOM: Okay—
CONNIRAE: Oh, we have to wire you up.
TOM: Okay, good. I’m pretty wired up already.
STEVE: If he has questions about what should be changed or could be changed—
CONNIRAE: Let’s get to that later. It’s an important issue. Actually, right now, I’ll say if he’s motivated, it gives me an indication that he’s already pretty congruent about wanting to make the shift. If the person has a lot of questions, we may need to sort out ecology and sort out what would be a useful belief there that you could really congruently want. So this will allow me to do it content free probably. Yeah?
TOM: There is some ecology concerns, so it’s a little bit fuzzy in terms of me framing it—verbalizing it.
CONNIRAE: Okay. All right, well, I’ll let you get into content then.
TOM: Okay. It has to do with money—
CONNIRAE: Indulge.
TOM:—and the belief is—maybe because it’s a belief that I believe they are ecology concerns. The belief is something associated with no money implies that you are more aesthetic or more—that’s associated with a lot of positive qualities.
CONNIRAE: Okay, so if I don’t have money, I’m a better person.
TOM: Yeah. (Laughter.)
CONNIRAE: Yes. All right, well, of course you’re right—no.
TOM: Well, goodbye. (Laughter.) 0:04:24.4
CONNIRAE: All right, if I don’t have money, I’m a bad person.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Let’s not fix that one.
TOM: Yeah, really. Jesus. (Laughter.)
CONNIRAE: We’ll help you with it.
TOM: Thank you.
CONNIRAE: Now, what kind of—rather than getting into—I’ll wait to get into the substitute belief for a little bit later. Right now, what I’d like—he responds very congruently too, that he has this belief. And you want them to state it in such a way that they go, “Yes, I believe that.” This is an absolute belief. Okay?
Now, you’ve got this belief. Now we want you to find something that you have doubt about, that you’re not sure one way or the other.
And let me give you all a for instance. When I was doing this what myself, what I picked was, I wasn’t sure if it’d be a good idea to have another kid or not. Now that’s a fairly major thing, right? At least I think so. But it wasn’t—it’s not something that I’m sure about one way or the other. So it’s something that I don’t have a strong belief about, I’m in doubt about it.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Are you saying that’s a better belief that you—
STEVE: No, no.
CONNIRAE: This is doubt. Content can be totally different; it does not matter.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Okay.
STEVE: This is page 111 on your notes if you want to follow a little bit.
CONNIRAE: And if you can’t think of something major that you’re not sure about, then go to something not quite so major.
You’re not sure if you can think of something.
TOM: Okay, yeah—(laughs)—no, I’ve got one.
CONNIRAE: Yeah—(laughs)—okay.
TOM: And it’s fairly major.
CONNIRAE: Okay, good. And you’re not sure—
TOM: I’m not sure.
CONNIRAE:—about it.
TOM: Right.
CONNIRAE: Great. Now, my next job is to get the submodality differences between belief and doubt. Very much like you did with understanding and confusion the other day.
So Tom, think for a moment about your belief. It’s better—no, if I’m poor, I’m a better person. All right?
TOM: Okay, that word doesn’t work. Don’t have money works. 0:06:46.9
CONNIRAE: Oh, if I don’t have money—good, thank you. If I don’t have money, I’m a better person.
TOM: Right.
CONNIRAE: Okay. If I don’t have money, I’m a better person. And just notice for a moment how you know that that’s true. What do you see that lets you know that that’s true?
STEVE: Another way of asking a question is what is this belief made out of? You have this belief. Inside, what experience do you have that goes with the sentence no money equals better person. And we’re not particularly interested in the content, but we are interested in the submodalities. How is it represented in there?
TOM: Okay, so—
CONNIRAE: You got it?
TOM: Yeah.
CONNIRAE: And you need to tell us—yeah, I just want you to get an experience of it for comparison.
TOM: Okay.
CONNIRAE: Now, get an experience of doubt. So what’s the content you’re in doubt about? You don’t need to tell me, but just think about doubt. And again, how do you know—what lets you know that you are in doubt about this? What lets you know this is not a strong belief; this is doubt?
TOM: Okay.
CONNIRAE: Okay. And now, what I want you to do is compare them for me, and tell me what’s different? 0:08:26.0
TOM: They’re – well, initially what I—the thing about the belief started off with kinesthetic feelings of attachment. It was like literally almost like arms coming around from behind me or something coming around behind like this that was very much like right there surrounding almost bubble like starting behind me and coming like this. And let’s see.
CONNIRAE: You also see that?
TOM: Yes.
CONNIRAE: Or do you just feel it?
TOM: I started to feel it, then I was generating of image of it. So an image would be—
CONNIRAE: (Laughs.)
TOM: Interesting—(laughs). Because whatever this is that’s coming around is split in the middle. There’s a—it’s like there’s a vertical slot like this that’s open. I can see through that slot. It’s like standing back from a doorway. And it’s kind of dark in here, then there’s this doorway that I can see through that doorway. And one of the major differences between the belief and doubt is that in doubt, there are two framed images in doubt.
CONNIRAE: Okay, in doubt there are two framed images.
TOM: Yeah.
CONNIRAE: And in belief, there’s only one.
TOM: There’s one image and it’s—
CONNIRAE: And it’s around you. Now in doubt, do you see yourself, or not? Two framed images—0:10:14.5
TOM: Yeah. I do. I see myself. I’m disassociated. I’m interacting.
CONNIRAE: Okay. And what are the two images of? You don’t need to reveal the exact content, but just—
TOM: Okay, it’s myself with other people—one other person in each picture.
CONNIRAE: Are the images opposites? Are they the same thing?
TOM: They’re real similar, and they’re very—that’s interesting. They’re minutely different, and I mean down to the point of most body postures, physical location and space are almost the same. It could almost be the same setting, the same content of them.
And what I seem to be looking for or sorting for are real—I’m looking for my responses. There’s two pictures, and I’m with a person in each one—different people, and we’re interacting. And what I’m looking for is how I respond to the person in the picture. So I’m looking for my own responses out there.
CONNIRAE: Oh, I see.
STEVE: Are these opposites in some way?
TOM: I would, you know, just immediately say yeah, they’re opposites. But as I look at them, they look really similar.
STEVE: They’re similar, but there’s something opposite.
CONNIRAE: But—
TOM: There’s something very opposite about them.
CONNIRAE: Okay, what is it? Is the Tom in them is responding opposite in the two pictures?
TOM: Yeah, responding differently and at different times. Like I would label them positive and negative, or plus and minus or whatever—
CONNIRAE: That’s what we were wondering about—
TOM: And those change and go back and forth.
CONNIRAE: —and didn’t want to make it that way if it wasn’t.
STEVE: That’s what we want to check.
TOM: Yeah. And those are—it’s not always that this one’s positive, this one’s negative. This one is sometimes positive, and that one’s sometimes—
CONNIRAE: And sometimes they flip. That’s great. So this makes sense that it would be a representation of a doubt, right? He’s not even sure which picture is positive and which one is negative. (Laughs.)
TOM: Right.
CONNIRAE: They go back and forth.
TOM: Just for a minute I am, then oh, darn.
STEVE: Is he in both of them?
TOM: Yeah. In the pictures?
STEVE: You’re in both of them. They’re both dissociated.
TOM: Right, I see myself in them.
CONNIRAE: Okay. Now—so they’re movies, right? Or wrong. 0:12:25.8
TOM: Yeah, they are. And it’s interesting, though. They’re movies, but they’re—there’s sections of each—this is interesting—each frame that’s moving. It’s as if they were a slide, and then parts of the slide, mostly me, begin to move. And that’s what I’m sorting for. Those—
CONNIRAE: Parts is like—so there’s a self–context distinction.
TOM: Yeah, right.
CONNIRAE: You move, and the context doesn’t. That’s interesting.
TOM: And it’s distinct parts of self, and that’s how I sort for yes or no.
CONNIRAE: Okay, great. Now, comparing that to belief, in belief, do you have any—do you see yourself, or is it—
TOM: No, it’s—
CONNIRAE:—an associated—
TOM: I’m associated in it, and the sense of it is this wraparound thing is it’s almost like being encased by a shell, like if you were to imagine a large clamshell, partially open.
CONNIRAE: Yeah. Now, is there anything in here that lets you know what this belief has to do with? Like how do you know what this belief is of? How do you know this belief is if I don’t have money—
TOM: That’s interesting. (Laughs.) This is sounding really flaky.
CONNIRAE: Oh, we knew it about you, Tom.
TOM: What seems to be (inaudible at 0:13:47.3) there is things that I have done in the past that I’ve liked doing that I haven’t needed money for—(laughs).
STEVE: Okay. That you have done.
CONNIRAE: Okay
STEVE: So what you see is a selected set of images and pictures.
TOM: And they’re really attractive and pleasant. And they’re limited in a sense that I only see part of them through this opening.
CONNIRAE: So you know there are more—
TOM: Yeah.
CONNIRAE: —examples.
TOM: Yeah, and it’s almost like it were a—like horse blinders, you know, just moving.
CONNIRAE: (Laughs.) Okay, now in those images—
STEVE: Horse blinders.
CONNIRAE:—of these fun things that didn’t take money, do you see yourself in those or not?
TOM: No. I don’t. I see—it’s like being in it.
CONNIRAE: Okay.
TOM: Like—
CONNIRAE: Like if you’d look at it, you were in that one.
TOM: Yeah, or like I could walk out this door or, you know, just be in it.
CONNIRAE: In that context.
TOM: In that context doing it.
CONNIRAE: Got it, got it. Okay, that’s great. Now, are those movies or slides?
TOM: Yeah, yeah. They’re movies that fully associate—
CONNIRAE: Does the context move too?
TOM: The context?
CONNIRAE: Yeah.
TOM: Does it shift?
CONNIRAE: No, does it move—
STEVE: Are the movies—is the whole picture moving?
CONNIRAE: Is there the same distinction between self and context?
STEVE: The whole pictures are moving?
TOM: Everything’s moving, yeah.
CONNIRAE: Okay.
TOM: It’s as, you know, normal—
CONNIRAE: You’re in it, okay.
TOM: – sounds and the whole shot.
CONNIRAE: Color, black and white?
TOM: Color. 0:15:00.1
CONNIRAE: Okay.
TOM: It’s – there’s sort of a horizon line. Sky up here, you know, some kind of wavy horizon line that’s indistinct hills or mountains, and then there’s a definite sort of mid ground, and then a foreground very close. So it’s—
CONNIRAE: How big are they?
TOM: Very dimensional.
CONNIRAE: Three dimensional.
TOM: Yeah.
CONNIRAE: So is it life size, or—does it seem life size?
TOM: Well, it’s interesting as I look it now. The horizon beyond this range of hills is what I’m looking at at the moment is it’s really far out there. I’m getting this sense of great distance as I look up at that. But then when I allow my gaze down here, the foreground is very close, very immediate, very large. It’s like, you know, mossy stepping-stones that are almost larger than life. And there’s something attractive about that, about the immediacy of right there, and then something also—the whole thing is also—
CONNIRAE: Very 3D.
STEVE: What a great movie you could make out of this, huh?
CONNIRAE: Yeah. And again, in terms of the important submodalities, I would guess that 3D is going to be fairly significant.
STEVE: There’s lots of 3D in this one.
CONNIRAE: Emphasis on that.
TOM: And I literally feel like I want to walk out of—between these, you know, whatever this is.
STEVE: You’re very drawn to it.
TOM: Yeah, very drawn to it. Yeah.
CONNIRAE: Okay.
TOM: Yeah, the reason I’m drawn to it is I have this other belief or whatever. I have this intuition that as I walk through these—because it’s black around here, right—that as soon as I pass through this interface it’ll be full—yeah, whole bunch more peripheral vision.
CONNIRAE: More experience.
TOM: Right.
CONNIRAE: All right. Good, so we’ve got color, very 3D—
TOM: Thank you for your sure, that really—
CONNIRAE: —big, almost bigger than life in the foreground. Now, is there anything else that seems significant when you compare this experience of your belief with the representation of doubt? 0:17:10.6
Location is different too, right, the primary location? That’s been real obvious. I haven’t asked about it.
TOM: Okay, comparing them, almost no sound over there. There is sound in this one. It’s not real crisp and clean. It’s as if you were in something and hearing sounds from outside, but there is a lot of sound in that.
STEVE: Is there an echo or something?
TOM: It was almost muffled like—yeah, a little bit of muffling, echoing.
STEVE: Like you were in a cave or something?
TOM: Yeah, and looking out through the mouth of a cave, no sound in that one. There’s a—I have a distinct—when I look at this one, I literally want to lean forward and it’s like—the sense of it is my upper body wants to begin moving towards it.
CONNIRAE: Get in it.
TOM: This one, I really—it’s disassociated posture. And I even find myself from time to time in it, and it’s just—kind of slumped down, just almost transfixed by watching whatever’s there.
CONNIRAE: Yeah, and these pictures, are they in 3D—certainly not as much, but does it seem like—
TOM: Not as much.
CONNIRAE: —a flat picture, or some 3D, or what?
TOM: If anything, the distinction is figures. Myself and this other person, and then background. Figures in front—
CONNIRAE: So there are two—
TOM: Two planes.
CONNIRAE: Two planes.
TOM: And it’s figures in the background, and then movement. But I don’t notice that as much as the movement of self in context.
CONNIRAE: Okay. All right, and are these in color? Did we go over that, color?
TOM: That’s really interesting. What – they’re if anything like a real pale pastel, but when I sort for movement over there, again, looking at myself, there’s a sense of—it’s almost as if I was watching body parts, like joints, the joint of a knee or an arm. When that moves or a hand raises – when there’s movement of myself in the picture, that part that’s moving brightens. That—
CONNIRAE: Focuses attention on—
TOM: Yeah, yeah, it’s like a—
CONNIRAE:—what is moving. Okay, so pastels, and that’s different than over here where the whole thing is—
TOM: Yeah, this is—
CONNIRAE:—living color.
TOM:—and more saturated I think than my normal awareness. And I would say that’s because everything else is so dark that I’m really picking up all the visual information I could over there.
CONNIRAE: All right. Okay, great. So we’ve got lots of differences, right? And we’ve got his experience in quite a great deal of detail. 0:19:43.1
STEVE: Just take one last check. Is there any other significant difference? We’ve got a lot already, but just take another look and see if there’s anything else that you notice.
TOM: These two are floating in space.
STEVE: Okay.
TOM: They’re really—it’s just suspended up there floating. And they’re small and they’re at a distance.
CONNIRAE: Small, farther away.
TOM: Yeah. Really difficult to distinguish any details. That’s maybe why I sought for movement. I don’t know. That’s about all I see in those. They are at a distance. This one is grounded. I mean, it’s like the foreground in my peripheral vision right here. The foreground of the picture literally comes under my feet. So there is a sense of engagement with it already. Even though I’m not aware of what’s happening down here, there’s a sense of full association with it.
CONNIRAE: Yeah. Good.
STEVE: I’m glad I asked, because that’s a nice piece.
CONNIRAE: So notice how we’ve done a back and forth between asking him about specific submodalities and asking him what differences he notices. And that’s what we usually find the most useful.
Okay, now what we’re going to do is test for the most or the perhaps two most significant submodalities that will carry his experience of belief into doubt. So we’ll find out which are the keys in his filing system that will turn a belief into doubt. What are the markers? And I want to do this before we get into a lot of questions.
Okay, so Tom, what I want you to do is take your belief, and I’m going to have you change submodalities.
TOM: Just checking it out, it’s still there.
CONNIRAE: Still there, yeah.
STEVE: It’s actually somewhat to the right, isn’t it?
CONNIRAE:To the right, and now it’s a little to the left.
And I’m going to have you change things. Do them one by one as much as possible, okay? And let me – what I want to know is which ones begin to turn your belief into doubt, and how much. Like, well, that one did a little bit, and oh, wow, that one really shifts it to doubt.
TOM: Okay.
CONNIRAE: Okay, so the first thing I want you to try is take this image of belief and instead of the 3D, make it be on two planes. So that now you’re going to have to dissociate first for that—to do that at the same time.
TOM: To do—
CONNIRAE: Let’s just make it be one plane. Make it one plane so that all of the context is on one plane. You’re here so you’re still associated, but the context is all on one plane. We’ll just do 3D. 0:22:21.0
STEVE: Try shifting your posture so that one is back.
TOM: Well, my internal experience is I put it on like a Japanese scroll, flat painted, rolled it down over the entrance, whited out everything behind it, and now I feel like I’m stuck inside Memphis – mogul with the Memphis blues. There is nothing. It’s like I feel—there’s a sense of being trapped in there. I don’t—I mean, I don’t like the kinesthetics that come out.
CONNIRAE: Does it shift your belief? Are you less sure—as you look at that, do you still have a strong belief that I’m a better person if I don’t have money?
TOM: (Laughs.) Little voice said if I had some bucks I could buy my way out of here. (Laughter.) So maybe it is beginning to—(laughter.) 0:23:51.1
CONNIRAE: Okay, now I want you to—I want to be real clear about this, because there’s a difference in saying well, I don’t feel real comfortable here and saying well, it changes my belief to doubt. It could make a shift in his response, but it might not be the shift that we’re interested in. We’re interested in one that goes to doubt.
STEVE: I’d say that’s enough on Tom.
CONNIRAE: Yeah, okay.
STEVE: Let’s try a different one. Right now, try just taking this whole picture over here, and just move it over to here.
CONNIRAE: Shifting it over to here.
STEVE: See if the location makes a significant difference. So you take all this content, shift it over there. And then report back. (Laughter.)
TOM: Yeah, that’s doing some strange things. (Laughter.) That’s really doing some strange things.
STEVE: Now, that obviously had some impact, right? His head’s going back like this. Okay.
CONNIRAE: Does that shift it to doubt?
TOM: That’s real close—
STEVE: Report back to mission control. (Laughter.)
TOM: Earth to—yeah, it’s not exactly the same. The pictures are still the pictures. What happened is as I moved it, the walls started moving apart, and the sense of blackness on both sides, I was very aware of left and right, two pieces. And then the picture that I had, I’d been looking at over there, literally it was like a super—a hair thin line down the middle split in two and began to unfold from that center point. And there were two pictures.
CONNIRAE: Okay, so this is an important carrier, right? It’s taking—
STEVE: This is a powerful one.
CONNIRAE:—some other submodalities along with it.
STEVE: Okay, come back over here. Bring it back over here. You’ve still got it. (Laughter.) Right?
TOM: All right.
STEVE: This is just testing. We don’t want to mess around with it too much until we’ve really tested a whole bunch.
TOM: Okay.
CONNIRAE: Now, let’s have you change the coloring. Make it all in pale pastels except for the portions are—have movement. Those are a little brighter when they move. 0:26:11.5
TOM: That’s effective.
STEVE: Do some other things change at the same time?
TOM: These—the side walls disappear. They drop away. Originally, I was aware of them very dark and solid. And when I make that pastel and sort for movement through almost like small pinpoints of light, you know. When it moves it gets brighter. I noticed that. When that happens, this—what used to be dark just kind of fades.
CONNIRAE: By the way, guess what one of his major meta-program sorts is? Could be location, but I know that activity is. He’s got a way of sorting for movement in his pictures, and I know from other experiences with Tom that activity is very important. 0:27:26.4
MALE PARTICIPANT: Watching movies of himself doing his favorite things—(inaudible.)
STEVE: And see the fact that movement generates color.
CONNIRAE: The movement parts are highlighted.
STEVE: Does anything else change? Do you become more dissociated? Are you falling away from the pictures?
TOM: It’s interesting. It begins to be framed. It’s a single picture. It’s not double like this one, but it begins—where this is whited out as I look more and more at what’s moving here, there’s a sense of instead of this locked in frame, there’s a sense of—
CONNIRAE: It’s got a different frame.
TOM: Yeah, a different frame that’s more square, and a sense of—yeah, there’s a sense of it floating in space. The foreground has disappeared. It fuzzes out here into a fuzzy frame here. The sense of connection is gone. 0:28:15.9
CONNIRAE: Okay. So that carried some of the movement to dissociation along with it, the framing? That’s a fairly significant one. We want you to be fairly exhaustive in your testing of this, even if you get some powerful ones to begin with. Go through the list and test the others just to make sure you haven’t missed something.
TOM: This one wiped out the dimensionality.
CONNIRAE: Okay.
TOM: When it’s pastel, I’m looking for—sorting for light—movements of light.
CONNIRAE: That carried the 3D, too.
TOM: That carried the 3D, yeah.
CONNIRAE: Okay. Now—okay, make it back the way it was. So you’ve got—(laughter.) Pretty soon you won’t want to.
STEVE: Mental push-ups.
CONNIRAE: There’s an interesting thing that happens when you do this much testing, too, in someone’s brain.
TOM: (Clucks.)
CONNIRAE: You don’t tell them—(laughter)—you don’t tell them this overtly, but they begin to gain a lot of flexibility in there with what they can do.
STEVE: Okay this time, you’ve got sound over here, right?
TOM: Yeah. 0:29:19.9
STEVE: Have the sound volume fade down and fade out until it’s silent.
TOM: That’s interesting. It stops all movement. There’s movement then in that, and then it floats it. It affects the dimensionality a little bit, but not much, but it removes the groundedness. These – this dark part then is bound top and bottom, and the frame is literally – it’s floating in space, real similar to what was floating over there. It – and it recedes a bit, it gets further away, and it floats when there’s no sound.
CONNIRAE: Okay. Get some distance along with that. Okay, now make it back. (Laughter)
Just be careful who you walk on. (Laughter.)
TOM: I have to watch out for my focus and my attention. (Laughter.)
CONNIRAE: Remember, he likes bulges. (Laughter.)
TOM: Yes, it is beginning to change. (Laughter.)
CONNIRAE: Okay, now, try just dissociating. So, you see yourself in those situations. We get the subtle accessing cues, right. 0:31:26.8
TOM: Boy that does it.
CONNIRAE: He’s moving his head this way.
TOM: (Laughs.) God, there it goes again. Steve, that’s a weird feeling. Right down the midline, when it goes into doubt, there’s a zip here, then this pulling this way.
CONNIRAE: Yeah, that’s the strongest so far.
TOM: God—
CONNIRAE: That carried location.
STEVE: Now, how much will you pay us not to leave you here? (Laughter.)
TOM: If I can make some bucks, it’s worth it.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Remember our names—(laughter.)
TOM: Yes.
CONNIRAE: Great.
TOM: Yeah, that one was—what happened was the two sides disassociated, and for some reason, I’m aware that I normally disassociate from about 30 feet behind myself and look down.
So that started here, and I saw myself in—rather than in a cave, there were two—it was like two big walls with a, you know, a passage way in between. And then that shifted and came up to this location, but I still had the disassociation of looking down and noticing that behind those walls is what just was panorama through there began to unfold into distinct—like this was a different geography than this geography. And as I began to focus on the differences, just looking back and forth, there was this split down the middle, and it began to unfold from a central line and attempt to separate. 0:33:00.4
STEVE: Okay, I missed something. You said normally, you dissociate from about 30 feet away?
TOM: Yeah.
STEVE: And this time it was—
TOM: It was the same.
STEVE:The same, okay.
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
STEVE: Okay, good.
TOM: When I do that internally.
STEVE: Okay.
CONNIRAE: Okay. Yeah.
STEVE: You said that was the biggest shift—
CONNIRAE: So far.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Would it have been—I’m wondering if there’s a sequence phenomena here. If you tried dissociation the very first—
CONNIRAE: It’s possible.
STEVE: It’s possible. You don’t care. All you care is what works.
CONNIRAE: Get one that works.
STEVE: If we’re doing a research project, then we have to double blind and randomize the structure and all the rest.
CONNIRAE: Do another belief, and do the other one first.
TOM: Research subjects make good money, don’t they?
CONNIRAE: (Laughs.) Right. Okay, let’s see there’s some more that want to try—
STEVE: Would you say—I think we got it.
CONNIRAE: I think so too.
STEVE: When you’re playing, you can play more if you want, but usually I think the major ones—
CONNIRAE: You notice —one confirmation is that this time, rather than asking him “did that take it into doubt,” he said, “Well, when it went into doubt, it— “
STEVE: And his head swooped over.
CONNIRAE: Yeah. Okay.
STEVE: Let’s save the questions. Unless he has something that really has to be asked now.
CONNIRAE: We want to run through the process.
STEVE: Go ahead.
CONNIRAE: Does it have to be—(laughs)
STEVE: It has to be –
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Are you turning his doubt into belief or his belief into doubt?
CONNIRAE: Belief into doubt.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Are you sure?
STEVE: We are going to.
CONNIRAE: Yes.
STEVE: We haven’t—all we’re doing is testing.
CONNIRAE: We haven’t made anything permanent yet, either.
STEVE: But notice the way we’ve been testing is not to take this picture and add color. We’ve always taken belief and made it change to see what would shift it toward doubt.
Now, later on we’re going to use the reverse relation to bring it back—bring something else back, but right now, we’re testing this and going in that direction. Theoretically, you could just as well test in the direction, but since the first thing we want to do anyway is go from belief to doubt, we might as well do it that way.
CONNIRAE:: Yeah, okay. Now, we’re going to start getting real interesting here. (Chuckles.)
TOM: Now?
CONNIRAE: Now—
STEVE: First, we need to identify something else.
CONNIRAE: First, we want to find out what belief you would like to have in place of the one that you did have. 0:35:25.2
STEVE: What do you think would be a more useful belief? One that would preserve all the value that’s in this belief.
CONNIRAE: So, enjoying those kind of activities and so on, so it wouldn’t be that you can’t do those things now. It would include that.
STEVE: It would only be if you could do additional things and be less limited by poverty.
TOM: And that’s about what the belief would sound like, that if I had—if it was okay with me to have, you know, money, then that would allow me the flexibility to do what I do or was going to get already plus a lot of other things. So it would increase my flexibility.
STEVE: How about it’s okay to have some money?
TOM: Okay.
CONNIRAE: Or it would—or the belief that it would be a good idea to have enough money to do the things that I really want to do. Or you may want to modify that a little.
STEVE: And these are just words.
TOM: Yeah.
STEVE: What we’re interested in is you getting some representation internally. We don’t care really what the words are as long as this new representation that you think would be ore useful to you or more enjoyable. Because you have some representation internally of what that would be.
CONNIRAE: We’re going to be leery of anything about that he has to make lots of money now or that he can’t do those activities that he could do before. So we wanted to include loss of choice.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: How about money isn’t preventing him from being a good person?
STEVE: Too many negatives in that one.
CONNIRAE: Yeah, you want—usually you want your beliefs to be phrased in the positive.
STEVE: There’s two negatives in that one.
CONNIRAE: Does not prevent—
STEVE: You know the old negative embedded commands? Don’t eat the cake in the refrigerator. 0:37:15.8
Beliefs can have those too. See this one’s got one in it to start with, right? No money equals good person.
CONNIRAE: And, any kind of esthetic qualities or humanitarian qualities that you want to preserve can also be put into that belief about the kinds of person that you are and the kinds of ways that you use that money, and for what kinds of purposes you want to use it. That kind of thing.
STEVE: You got something in there?
TOM: Yeah, it’s not a—I don’t have it down to a single sentence, but it’s composed of a lot of those things, that it’s okay for me to make money and that it’ll increase my flexibility and enhance my ability to do the kinds of things—
CONNIRAE: And notice him developing images associated with this as he’s—
STEVE: Great.
CONNIRAE: Good. Now, do you have one image associated with this or a set of images that you—
TOM: What I noticed is that as I started to generate that, I walked through this – whatever that was, and now I’m out in that scene and I’m there associated mobile. I can feel my body moving. The surroundings are—
CONNIRAE: So this is more attractive. 0:38:30.8
TOM: Yeah, the surroundings are moving as you—you know, as you normally walk. You see through your eyes that things slightly move. I’m aware of mobility. That’s a big one, ability to move through that countryside, whatever is there, a lot of sense of self-control in that I can go wherever I want to. I’m not limited by this—this looking through that.
CONNIRAE: Okay, good. Good, I’ll take it. (Laughs.)
All right, now, keep this belief image—the desired belief image and sort of set it aside for the moment. We’re going to use it a little bit later.
And now what we’re going to do is run through an installation process to make it so that automatically in his internal filing system, the new belief will just be what’s there. It’s not going to be something that he has to conjure up over again, but it’s just there in the background.
So—and the form of this is going to be taking the belief—the old belief, shifting it into doubt first, and then when it’s in doubt, switching contents and bringing it back into belief.
STEVE: In this case, it will be more adding content than shifting. Right?
TOM: Yeah, yeah.
CONNIRAE: He has gave us – given us a really easy way of—(overlapping voices.)
STEVE: – and then you’re going to add in some—
TOM: More, yeah, right.
CONNIRAE: Shifting the content.
TOM: Right.
CONNIRAE: Okay.
STEVE: See, in the example of not pretty, the whole content shifts totally.
CONNIRAE: In this one, it’s more like walking through that door.
STEVE: This one you’re going to add to. You’re going to add something, you know. Okay?
CONNIRAE: Okay, so here’s what I want you to do. Start off with belief – the old belief, and let me know when you’ve got that there fully.
TOM: It’s easy—yeah, I’m there.
CONNIRAE: Good. And now what I want you to do is dissociate, taking all the time you need to do it thoroughly. 0:40:36.2
STEVE: As you do that, the sounds will fade away.
CONNIRAE: Begin to see those two sides.
STEVE: Colors will fade away to pastel.
CONNIRAE: That’s right. Begin to see two planes instead of—
TOM: Jesus.
STEVE: Okay, so you’ve got it over there in doubt, right? Now, add in the additional content that you want to add in there, about additional flexibility.
CONNIRAE: That’s right.
STEVE: So you see yourself over there.
CONNIRAE: It’s as if you’re walking through—
TOM: This is weird because I got two pictures. I see myself in—that’s all right, I see myself in both. Good, doing different things.
CONNIRAE: Okay, yeah. But now it’s the new content.
STEVE: You got that new content added in over there?
TOM: Okay, let me—just a minute to do that.
STEVE: The additional things that will be available to you if you have some money.
CONNIRAE: Okay? Good. And when you’ve got that, we want you to re-associate.
STEVE: Step back in. The sounds will come up.
TOM: I’ve got to do something first. I’ve got to superimpose those two pictures, because there’s two of me and I can’t—
CONNIRAE: Let them gradually superimpose so that you can easily step in.
TOM: Okay. 0:42:28.2
STEVE: As you step in, the colors will become more intense. The 3D—sound volume will increase. Eventually you’ll be back over here.
TOM:(Laughs.)
CONNIRAE: Okay?
TOM: Yeah, that’s—
CONNIRAE: Good. Now, what do you believe?
TOM: Isn’t it—(inaudible at 0:43:18.0.)
CONNIRAE: I believe—amen brothers and sisters.
TOM: Yeah, the sense of it is there’s a lot of reorganization—I mean there’s puzzle pieces being moved around, like some furniture in the house being shifted very rapidly. (Laughs.)
CONNIRAE: Good and that can continue to reorganize itself in the most appropriate way.
TOM: It feels really good. I mean, the kinesthetic is really great. It’s very attractive. I mean, there’s a desire to—a real fluid mobility. A really nice sense.
CONNIRAE: And at this point, the nonverbal confirmation is going to be most important. Like as he’s talking about it, he is nonverbally looking over here, associated. He’s doing the submodalities that are associated with strong belief.
STEVE: He’s giving you all the cues that you earlier got with—(inaudible 0:44:16.5).
Okay, now pause for just a minute. Hold on to those questions. How about that—what happened to that idea of you had to be poor? (Laughter.)
Did you see what he did? He looked over here.
CONNIRAE: Did you see where he looked?
STEVE: Did you see that?
TOM: Okay, I’m blown away. I mean, it’s a very powerful piece.
STEVE: It’s over there, right? I just want to get a verbal confirmation from you.
TOM: Yeah, it—
CONNIRAE: What are you looking at now?
TOM: Well, I’m back in the belief thing. As I—
STEVE: Just think about the old belief. (Laughter.)
TOM: It’s interesting, it’s—
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Try to look that way when you think about it.
CONNIRAE: It doesn’t go there!
TOM: It doesn’t go there. It’s right there.
STEVE: So this is testing, right?
CONNIRAE: Yeah.
TOM: There’s a real distinct difference. That’s—it’s really okay that that old belief is there now. I mean, there’s something that’s actually really pleasurable about part of the process of it being in doubt, that sensation of split along the midline in those pictures unfolding like that. That’s kind of an interesting kinesthetic. It’s neat to have it out there and watch it unfold like that. I mean, the whole process of doing it was very enjoyable, and there’s some enjoyable kinesthetics associated with it. But it’s something that I might drop in on from time to time just to notice how interesting that is.
STEVE: (Inaudible 0:46:00.5)—that ever knows.
TOM: Yeah, well put. It’s like that.
CONNIRAE: Good, good. Okay, thank you.
STEVE: Everyone, questions for Tom. Only questions for Tom, and then we’ll let him go and—
CONNIRAE: Without—being respectful of him. Diane?
DIANE: Do you believe you can have money and be a good person?
TOM: Yes. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting too—now this is, I don’t know— meta-chunks. In a sense, I’ve always known that, but there’s nothing—it used to be that there was nothing I could do about it. It was just something I knew, and it was sort of a so what. I knew that—
STEVE: Intellectual.
TOM: Yeah, right, intellectual.
CONNIRAE: It’s like intellectual knowledge, but it’s—
TOM: There’s a sense of the experiential—
CONNIRAE: In terms of the way his brain is responding wasn’t a belief.
TOM: So that was—I mean, that’s a secondary benefit for me is a sense of frustration behind having that belief is gone now. Because in the past, the belief that it was okay for me to have money, you know, and it would be all right for me to have money was a very frustrating one because it seemed as if I never did. Somewhere else, it wasn’t okay. That’s not frustrating anymore. 0:47:08.0
CONNIRAE: Yeah, okay. Ken.
KEN: What was your sense of how long it took you to totally get it over to that side? My hallucination is it took you on the order of minutes to totally make that transition.
TOM: You mean back from doubt to belief?
KEN: Yeah.
TOM: Okay.
KEN: I mean, it’s like 80 percent of it happened real quick, and then there was some lingering.
TOM: The rearranging of the furniture.
CONNIRAE: Yeah, and it’s important that you bring it up because it is important to really let it settle and complete itself and the rearranging that Tom was talking about.
KEN: To tell you why I ask that, there was a certain muscular movement in your face that stopped almost—well, it’s 100 percent consistently when you were in doubt. And once you did the switch around, in fact, I get it from you every now and again, it would now—
MALE PARTICIPANT: It’s still there. 0:48:01.5
MALE PARTICIPANT: Is it?
MALE PARTICIPANT: You see it too?
MALE PARTICIPANT: Well, you see what you’re calibrating to.
KEN: Well, see that’s what I’m—that’s why I’m asking, because I don’t know.
TOM: The thing—what—it’s interesting. What’s over there now is there’s a piece—and this may be it, so you can check it out because I don’t know what’s happening here. I don’t know what’s happening out there. The thing—as I began to shift and to think, there were two pictures—images out here of self-disassociated, and when I got the instruction to associate, it was like this is going to be fun. (Laughs.)
CONNIRAE: There’s going to be two of me.
TOM: I’m going to split and far apart, right. I couldn’t do that, so I had to superimpose the pictures, make one self, and associate with that. And as I associated with that and got the instructions for the new behaviors and, you know, seeing myself in that—being in that situation, then I began to relax into that. The submodalities began to shift. Dimensionality, color, sound came up, and then I shifted over here and there was this—what is there it’s almost like the standard switch of—or the chain switch yesterday. Occasionally I’ll get a representation of being slightly disassociated from that. And when I get that, what I want to do is re-associate. I mean, I’ll see myself—
CONNIRAE: Kind of go towards it.
TOM: Yeah, and I’ll see myself out there in that looking like I’m having such a ball doing it that there is this—it makes it even more compulsive, but there is this moment of oh, I’d better get into that now.
CONNIRAE: Chris.
CHRIS: Tom, what will you do about this shift now?
TOM: Want to buy a house? (Laughter.) What will I do about it? You mean—
CONNIRAE: You usually have to get the money first, and then you buy the house. Actually, you go to the bank.
CHRIS:—in terms of activity, anything? Or just let it settle in, or—
TOM: No, I—the interesting thing, the question about that—Deanna was asking, see I cognitively, rationally knew that it was okay for me to have money. So part of me was just going ahead and acting as if it was, so I’ve got lots of plans that I’ve never been able to implement. I mean, I’ve got – I literally, I’ve got a file folder at home of moneymaking plans. Seriously, and they’ve just sat there. And I’ll add a new one in, but I won’t act on it. I’ll make them up, but I’ll put them – 0:50:17.4
CONNIRAE: So now what will you do?
TOM: Pull out that folder and get busy. I mean, there’s lots of – see, in a sense, I’ve got not only on paper but internally. I mean, I’ve rehearsed behaviors and imagined how I’d be and know what I’d do.
CONNIRAE: So you’re ready to go.
TOM: Yeah, there was just piece—that piece that was missing of being there in it.
CONNIRAE: And that’s a good question in terms of testing later on how will he know that this belief—that the new belief is in fact guiding his behavior now?
MALE PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible at 0:50:51.7)—that object to these changes?
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: What was the question?
CONNIRAE: Ecology check, would he check and see if any parts object?
TOM: They’re too busy moving furniture. (Laughter.) It’s true.
STEVE: That’s the first time I’ve seen this muscle in your cheek stop is when you went in and asked that question. I saw it start when you were moving from doubt to belief. I saw – that was the first time I noticed it, and then it just maintained that until just now. I don’t see it happening.
TOM: So maybe it that was a really valuable—because as—when I went in to access that, what I noticed was that internally a sense of celebration, images of parts sitting down at medieval banquets, and you know. (Laughter.)
So like what are you doing, and then they started moving the furniture.
CONNIRAE: If you do have any doubts about ecology, it’s a real useful—a really useful question. And also just to allow that.
STEVE: Some people have a very drab and humdrum kind of life. (Laughter.) But Tom is not one of them.
KEN: To tell you why I ask that, there was a certain muscular movement in your face that stopped almost—well, it’s 100 percent consistently when you were in doubt. And once you did the switch around, in fact, I get it from you every now and again, it would now—
MALE PARTICIPANT: It’s still there. 0:48:01.5
MALE PARTICIPANT: Is it?
MALE PARTICIPANT: You see it too?
MALE PARTICIPANT: Well, you see what you’re calibrating to.
KEN: Well, see that’s what I’m—that’s why I’m asking, because I don’t know.
TOM: The thing – what – it’s interesting. What’s over there now is there’s a piece—and this may be it, so you can check it out because I don’t know what’s happening here. I don’t know what’s happening out there. The thing – as I began to shift and to think, there were two pictures—images out here of self-disassociated, and when I got the instruction to associate, it was like this is going to be fun. (Laughs.)
CONNIRAE: There’s going to be two of me.
TOM: I’m going to split and far apart, right. I couldn’t do that, so I had to superimpose the pictures, make one self, and associate with that. And as I associated with that and got the instructions for the new behaviors and, you know, seeing myself in that—being in that situation, then I began to relax into that. The submodalities began to shift. Dimensionality, color, sound came up, and then I shifted over here and there was this—what is there it’s almost like the standard switch of— or the chain switch yesterday. Occasionally I’ll get a representation of being slightly disassociated from that. And when I get that, what I want to do is re-associate. I mean, I’ll see myself—
CONNIRAE: Kind of go towards it.
TOM: Yeah, and I’ll see myself out there in that looking like I’m having such a ball doing it that there is this—it makes it even more compulsive, but there is this moment of oh, I’d better get into that now.
CONNIRAE: Chris.
CHRIS: Tom, what will you do about this shift now?
TOM: Want to buy a house? (Laughter.) What will I do about it? You mean—
CONNIRAE: You usually have to get the money first, and then you buy the house. Actually, you go to the bank.
CHRIS: – in terms of activity, anything? Or just let it settle in, or—
TOM: No, I—the interesting thing, the question about that – Deanna was asking, see I cognitively, rationally knew that it was okay for me to have money. So part of me was just going ahead and acting as if it was, so I’ve got lots of plans that I’ve never been able to implement. I mean, I’ve got—I literally, I’ve got a file folder at home of moneymaking plans. Seriously, and they’ve just sat there. And I’ll add a new one in, but I won’t act on it. I’ll make them up, but I’ll put them—0:50:17.4
CONNIRAE: So now what will you do?
TOM: Pull out that folder and get busy. I mean, there’s lots of—see, in a sense, I’ve got not only on paper but internally. I mean, I’ve rehearsed behaviors and imagined how I’d be and know what I’d do.
CONNIRAE: So you’re ready to go.
TOM: Yeah, there was just piece—that piece that was missing of being there in it.
CONNIRAE: And that’s a good question in terms of testing later on how will he know that this belief—that the new belief is in fact guiding his behavior now?
MALE PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible at 0:50:51.7)—that object to these changes?
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: What was the question?
CONNIRAE: Ecology check, would he check and see if any parts object?
TOM: They’re too busy moving furniture. (Laughter.) It’s true.
STEVE: That’s the first time I’ve seen this muscle in your cheek stop is when you went in and asked that question. I saw it start when you were moving from doubt to belief. I saw – that was the first time I noticed it, and then it just maintained that until just now. I don’t see it happening.
TOM: So maybe it that was a really valuable—because as—when I went in to access that, what I noticed was that internally a sense of celebration, images of parts sitting down at medieval banquets, and you know. (Laughter.)
So like what are you doing, and then they started moving the furniture.
CONNIRAE: If you do have any doubts about ecology, it’s a real useful—a really useful question. And also just to allow that.
STEVE: Some people have a very drab and humdrum kind of life. (Laughter.) But Tom is not one of them.
CONNIRAE: If anyone wants more excitement on the inside, go get his. (Laughter.)
STEVE: Okay, a couple more questions for Tom, and then we’ll play theory and so on.
CONNIRAE: Jack?
JACK: I’d like to know if the you were able to take the original belief, when you say that no money is good, is having money bad? Is that part of the belief system, and—(inaudible at 0:52:12.1).
TOM: I’m having trouble understanding your question, so something must have. Could you—
JACK: Do you feel any different about Marvin Davis now than you did previously?
TOM: Marvin Davis.
JACK: The multi-millionaire oilman, he previously had so much money, he created—
TOM: Oh, I see. That’s selective. I think that there is a distinction that it isn’t a blanket oh, that means rich guys are good. People are people and I have other programs to use to, quote, “judge or evaluate human being.”
CONNIRAE: One more, Ed.
ED: You also with Tom, when the visual things were changed, did that carry the physiology along with it because I’m wondering if the other person intended to leave kinesthetically as to a theoretical thing? Would you want to go for example—
CONNIRAE: That’s not a question of Tom.
ED: Would it make reference to you Tom?
STEVE: How can he answer that?
TOM: If I can have stone kinesthetic—
CONNIRAE: If he was a different person, would he have been different? Yes.
STEVE: You’re right. You understand that’s not a question he can really answer. You can get an answer, but it won’t mean anything.
MALE PARTICIPANT: How would you feel about owning a Rolls Royce?
TOM: I would prefer a Jag, I think, with leather seats, but a Rolls would be fine. (Laughter.)
STEVE: Okay, thank you guys. (Applause.)
CONNIRAE: Before we go through this step by step and take questions on each specific step, we’d like to know if you have general questions.
Now, we’re going to exclude—
STEVE: Stand back.
CONNIRAE: —any questions on more complicated forms of this. We don’t want to tell you now how to do it autotorially (ph) and kinesthetically and how do to do it with schizophrenics.
STEVE: We’ll put you all to work real soon and you’ll find out.
CONNIRAE: (Laughs.) So with that in mind, do you have any general questions about this?
STEVE: If you can take your question and put it into one of the steps on the sheet, 111, there’s – what?
MALE PARTICIPANT: The steps themselves. 0:54:10.7
STEVE: What about them?
MALE PARTICIPANT: I wanted to know, do you have to—the way that it works, do you have to take the belief into doubt?
STEVE: Yes.
MALE PARTICIPANT: And then the doubt back into—
CONNIRAE: Yes, yes.
STEVE: Because otherwise there ain’t no room for it.
CONNIRAE: See, if you make a direct shift between one belief and another belief, if you’ve got a really strong belief, that’s going to be difficult. You’re going for opposites, and it’s a really strong belief. It’s going to be tough.
But if you take a strong belief and weaken it somehow, like move it into doubt, then it becomes easy to shift the content. And then it’s easier to move it back into strong belief.
STEVE: Let me put it this way, let’s say that I have the belief that X is good, and it gets in my way. And I’m going to install the other side of that, which X is bad. If you succeeded in installing the new belief without weakening the old one, what would you create?
MALE PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible 0:55:04.8)—good and bad.
STEVE: Good and bad.
CONNIRAE: The old multiple personality?
STEVE: What would that do to me?
See, one of the few ways to deal with that is multiple personality, Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing, someone who flips between two states. One belief organizes the personality in one way, and then something happens and it jiggles and the whole stack gets restacked. And this is not what we want, even if you were able to succeed.
MALE PARTICIPANT: So what’s required in that is to weaken the original unwanted belief?
CONNIRAE: Yes.
STEVE: Right.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Weaken that by bringing over some doubt.
CONNIRAE: By bringing it to doubt.
STEVE: Right.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Then bring it back.
CONNIRAE: Then change contents, and bring it back.
STEVE: This is the overall frame. So if you want the big picture, take belief over to doubt, change content or add – in this case, it was add content. Often, it will be a reversal of content.
CONNIRAE: And we’ll talk more about how to do that.
STEVE: And he had that already in the two pictures because they switched back and forth. But in this case, we didn’t want to leave out all the things he enjoys doing when he’s poor. We just want to add in other things. So add in content then bring it back to belief. 0:56:10.5
MALE PARTICIPANT: Delete these. Add it—
STEVE: Well, the whole ball of wax, it’s everything. Yeah.
So that’s the big frame. Any question about that one? Yeah.
CONNIRAE:: Lenny (ph).
LENNY: What if it’s a belief they want and they—(inaudible at 0:56:23.9). Is it very consistent that something is already in the category of doubt for them so it’s very easy to shift when your doubt moves that content? Does it feel almost familiar?
STEVE: It might be in doubt, or it might be in disbelief.
CONNIRAE: It’s more typical that it’s in disbelief, I would say. It’s something that they want to believe and they could act differently if they did, but in terms of their behavior, their behavior is based on this one and not on that one.
STEVE: If you want something, do you have it?
MALE PARTICIPANT: —still have it in disbelief.
STEVE: Yeah. But see if you want something, do you have it?
CONNIRAE: If you want something, the very fact that you want it means you don’t have it.
MALE PARTICIPANT: True. I’m just thinking I was trying to use a few examples of my own, and it seemed like—
CONNIRAE: Some of them were in doubt.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Whereas if they wanted it, it didn’t seem to make much sense, it would be in disbelief. If they didn’t even know if they wanted it, then I could see it would be in—
STEVE: Oh, no. Think about something that you—right now that you don’t believe is true about yourself, but you’d love it to be true. Like that you had $2 million.
CONNIRAE: You don’t believe that, right?
STEVE: But it’d still be nice. 0:57:27.4
CONNIRAE: Now, that would be an un-ecological one to give people delusions that they had $2 million, but just to get across the idea.
MALE PARTICIPANT: What about the belief that I could make it, which would seem to be a little more—(inaudible.)
STEVE: Yeah, but if you want it, do you have it?
MALE PARTICIPANT: I would doubt that I would ever get there. I don’t know if I disbelieve it.
CONNIRAE: Okay, you may have very few limiting beliefs then. That may be part of what you’re running into, that most of them are in doubt. Well, maybe I can and I’m not really sure.
STEVE: Then you don’t have a belief that you can’t that gets in your way, it’s just you’re not sure.
MALE PARTICIPANT: See, I didn’t see any disbelief—(inaudible at 0:58:01.4)—I didn’t know if that’s because you were holding it in doubt and imposing it in there?
STEVE: We just don’t bother with it.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Okay.
STEVE: I mean, you just stick the new content in and then bring it back over here. Now, it’s possible to play with disbelief, which is also a belief. It’s just a negative belief, right?
CONNIRAE: That’s important, too, to recognize the difference between doubt, which you really don’t know about, and disbelief, which is a strong conviction. If I believe I am not pretty, that’s not doubt, that’s that I believe I am not pretty.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Rather than just being able to say I can’t believe I’m pretty.
CONNIRAE: Or I’m not really sure. I’m not really sure if I am or not.
STEVE: If you say I can’t believe I’m pretty, that’s a belief.
CONNIRAE: That sounds more like belief, yeah.
STEVE: That’s pretty categorical.
CONNIRAE: Can’t is all or none.
STEVE: If somebody said, I sometimes think I’m pretty—
CONNIRAE: That sounds like doubt.
STEVE:—then that tells you doubt, or in between somewhere there. Okay?
CONNIRAE: Or I’m not sure if—that’s the kind of thing you’re going for with doubt.
STEVE: Jack?
JACK: Changing the doubt and belief, you said it doesn’t have to be the same context, but what if they are? Like I have a very strong belief, and I doubt it can be changed.
CONNIRAE: But you’re going (inaudible) there, and I wouldn’t do that.
STEVE: Let’s not do that.
CONNIRAE: It’ll confuse things.
STEVE: You’ll get into a long tunnel with no light at the end.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Is it important to get the content on the doubt from people, or—
CONNIRAE: No.
STEVE: No, it doesn’t matter. You can do this totally content free. Ecologically, you have a much better idea if what they’re doing is useful if you have a little content at least.
CONNIRAE: On the belief.
FEMALE PARTICIPANT: On the belief.
CONNIRAE: On the doubt, all you care about is the submodalities. You want to know how they code doubt internally.
STEVE: Right. Notice we didn’t ask for it up here. We don’t need that.
CONNIRAE: On belief, sometimes the way they state the new one gives you ecology triggers that you go, wait a minute that might not be ecological. And you might want to assist them in rephrasing it.
STEVE: And remember all this stuff about negative commands and negative phrasing, and as much as you can, make this positive.
CONNIRAE: Go for a positive statement of a belief.
STEVE: By positive, we don’t mean good and pleasant. We mean a yes rather than a negative—a no. So I want—
CONNIRAE: I do want this rather than I don’t want that.
STEVE: I want to believe that this is good, rather than I don’t want to believe that is bad. That is not preventing myself from not ever thinking about it ever. That kind of stuff. It gets very involved if you do that. It gets very convoluted. 1:00:41.4
CONNIRAE: Russ.
RUSS: In order to go from something strongly believed the person is, you know, not attractive, would you have to go through—I mean, the opposite then is also true in that persons—
CONNIRAE: Yes, yes.
RUSS: Can you just move them to doubt, or do you also have to move that strong disbelief to doubt before you can put that—
STEVE: They’re wired together. One is the flip side of the other. It’s like you don’t have coins with only heads on them.
CONNIRAE: If you flip over the head, the tail will go over too.
STEVE: The tail is there too.
Gary.
GARY: Tom was an excellent subject, and I’m wondering what would you guys have had to do if he was, for instance, resistant to this process or if he didn’t have a rich internal life or he couldn’t hold the images the way he could. And those are the kinds of things I think in the real world we’re going to talk about. 1:01:39.0
STEVE: Well, notice how much he demonstrated though. I mean, I agree, he was a nice subject. He’s got a rich internal life. He’s fairly easy—he can access it quite easily. He can get in there and see all that stuff and feel all that stuff. And it’s there. But you can do this whole thing, and Richard has many times done it real fast with people who didn’t say nothing.
GARY: Right, like hypnosis?
STEVE:You do it like hypnosis. And don’t think it doesn’t happen in the world by other people who are not nearly as skilled and nearly as concerned about doing it as well as Richard.
CONNIRAE: There are some portions of the way Tom responds that actually made it take longer. See because he has such a rich internal life – (laughs) – he goes in, and he really takes his time—
STEVE: It’s gone with the wind. (Laughs.)
CONNIRAE: —getting into the experience.
STEVE: Right, Cecile B. Mille. Right. (Laughs.) Cast of thousands.
CONNIRAE: There are going to be some other people who will go much faster and won’t report as much, and you won’t see as much nonverbally.
STEVE: But it’ll work just as well.
CONNIRAE: But it’ll work just as well.
GARY: But my question was in terms of you two, when you do have a person like that, are there any different things that you would do with that person versus what you did with Tom? 1:02:47.2
CONNIRAE: Not in terms of the overall structure.
STEVE: I don’t think so.
CONNIRAE: I mean, sure we’d pace differently and at that level.
(Note: This transcript is pretty long. We have divided it into two parts. This is the end of Part 1. Click here for Part 2.)