Do you have any habits you want to change without effort and self-discipline? The NLP swish pattern can change the way you feel and behave naturally and easily.
This is a generative pattern, which involves changing identity. Who is the “you” for whom this wouldn’t be a problem? Is it the calm secure person who responds carefully to a messy room? Maybe it’s the powerful confident person who loves cold calling.
We don’t deal with reality directly but through our models of it. Our responses come from our model. When we change the model, we change our responses.
We think things cause our responses (he makes me so angry), but actually stimulus and response. Our brains receive cues for how to behave. My foot touches a firm surface and pushes against it to start the process of walking.
This particular NLP swish uses Visual System Processing, which is the easiest method. It also uses size and color as driving submodalities. Slightly different processes use different representational systems. The same principles apply – we are changing one representation for a more desirable one.
NLP Swish Video Demonstration
The following videos show how easy it can be to change emotional states
Notice also the way the trainer gets her to break state at the end of each swish.
Demonstration with Changing Feelings
NLP Swish Process
- Identify the trigger for the unwanted response or behavior. Think back to the last time you did the habit or behavior. How did you know it was time to do it? When Marnie traced back the last time she ate chocolate in front of the TV, she noticed the trigger was the time on the clock. Picture the trigger as though you are seeing it through your own eyes (associated)
- What are the critical or driving submodalities – what makes the image less compelling? Does graying out the image make it less compulsive? Maybe sending it further into the distance causes it to lose its charge.
- Develop a desired image of yourself (dissociated). What does this new you who would not have this problem look like? What does he/she sound like? What is the breathing and posture like?
- What makes this representation more compelling and exciting? Does bringing it closer, making it more colorful increase the desirability? Maybe some music, movement or a particular setting intensifies the attraction.
- Ecology check – listen carefully for any objections or concerns about changing the behavior and moving towards this desired self-image.
- Have the cue picture close and colorful and the desired image small and dark in the center or bottom of the image
- Explode the desired image, and at the same time fade and shrink the unpleasant cue image while making a swish sound – swiiiisssshhhhh. Hold this image for a few seconds, intensifying its attractive qualities
- Break state by blanking out the screen – this is important. You do not want to swish back to the undesired picture. It goes in only one direction.
- Repeat from step 4 quickly several times (at least three is usually required)
- Test it out – does thinking about the old cue picture immediately bring to mind the desired outcome picture?
Keys to powerful results
- Identifying the cues that trigger the negative state or behavior
- Speed of the change.
- Using appropriate driving submodalities. This particular pattern uses color and size to change desirability. Other common compelling drivers are distance and direction. If your compelling drivers are different, you can adapt this pattern. What you are doing is swapping the submodalities of something compelling for those of something neutral and vice versa.
In this video, Steve Andreas explains how the process works
Demonstration with Pictures
This video also has a good explanation of how the Swish pattern works