Self Confidence Secrets: How To Overcome Anxiety and Low Self Esteem with NLP (6 page)

Sometimes an upcoming event is so significant it cannot be ignored or brushed aside. In this circumstance there is a way to take on stimuli from the future. It is important to understand that your mind does not know the difference
between what actually occurs and what occurs in our mind. Think about waking up from a dream with your heart racing; your body was intensely affected by activities happening only in your mind.

One technique used by everyone from anxiety sufferers to star athletes is visualization. For centuries the most successful people on earth have used visualization techniques to help them. In actuality, ALL of us use visualization whether we know it or not, the difference is that some of us control our visualizations and use them to strengthen us while others let our visualizations run wild and create negative emotions. From now on you’re going to be in the second group.

Imagine it's Sunday night and you're feeling overwhelmed by anxiety. At the moment you're at home in comfort, free of threats yet the anxiety is still there. You're feeling anxious about an important work meeting on Monday. You've already prepared for the meeting as best you can and consciously think it will go well. Regardless you keep seeing flashes of things going horribly and cannot control the anxiety. This is a good opportunity to put visualization into practice.

First you find somewhere quiet to lie back and close your eyes. Now think about the meeting and imagine it going well. You play it through in your mind over and over and each time have it going better and better. You imagine the expressions on other people's faces as you impress them with your ideas. You imagine yourself being confident and smooth. You know just the right things to say and do. You end by visualizing yourself walking out of the meeting with a huge smile and feelings of pride.

After going through the process, how do you think you would feel about the meeting?

According to dozens of studies, great athletes and business leaders, you’ll feel fantastic about the meeting. As a bonus are much more likely to succeed as well!

“We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.”
- John Newton

In some cases when we feel consistent stress, discomfort or anxiety it is because our unconscious is sending us a message. It's trying to alert us to a problem. Maybe our life is not aligned and we're not meeting our needs. Maybe we have put important or difficult tasks on pause or ignored them all together.

I can pinpoint times in my life where this has been true, can you?

What if anxiety was simply a signal your body was giving you, telling you it is time to make a change or deal with a past issue?

Our objective here is to determine what thought or
event is causing the anxiety and then to either eliminate it using one of our tools, or to acknowledge it and schedule a time to deal with it in the future so that our unconscious will quit alerting us with anxiety.

A technique we can use involves acknowledging and labeling your emotions. When you're feeling anxiety stay present and
ask yourself "Why am I feeling anxious?" Listen, really listen, for the answer. Then write down in a journal "I am feeling anxious because __________. I want to thank my unconscious for alerting me to this. I will take action on ____________ as soon as possible. Now that I know about this I no longer have a reason for this anxiety. Thank you!"

Now it is up to you when you wish to tackle the anxiety.

The reason we're doing this is so that any lingering reasons for your anxiety are eliminated. We want to eliminate any possible causes or anchors for the anxiety before we destroy it.

I want to congratulate you on getting to this point. Did you know that over 90% of people buy books just like this and never read beyond the first chapter? It is no wonder so many people are dissatisfied with their lives! Well, we know you’re different and you’re committed to getting results! I hope you found the last few sections enlightening. I know that reading those last few sections has made you more resourceful and prepared for success.

This next part contains a tremendously powerful exercise. While going through the exercise you will feel a physical shift in your body and be left forever changed. Since development this technique has been used to treat extremely strong phobias in a matter of minutes. I’ve adapted the technique for our own purpose. I will take you through the complete process once. You will find it beneficial to return to this section on a daily, weekly and eventually just monthly basis to reinforce the changes made.

This technique utilizes dissociation. If you’re not familiar with dissociation, it is the process of seeing yourself as others do. Viewing a situation while dissociated from yourself and your emotions, as if you are a camera recording the events or another person viewing them.

As part of this technique we will use a situation that would usually cause you a lot of anxiety. Quickly think of a situation now, but do not bring it to mind. Just have a rough idea of a situation. Moving forward we will call this “the situation”.

Now sit up tall and strong. Breath slowly and powerfully. Feel confident and strong. Think back to moments where you have felt your strongest and most capable.

Now, let’s begin.

Imagine that you are sitting in a cinema. See this in dissociation – you are viewing yourself sitting in the cinema. On screen you see a black and white movie with you as a star.

In this movie, you see yourself (a second dissociation) on screen in a comfortable position.

In the movie you begin moving towards the situation and are approaching the door to enter it. Stop the movie 30 seconds before you reach the door.

Now, imagine you have a laptop with you in the cinema. On the second screen (on the laptop) you generate another movie containing the continuation of the first one. You will
decide how the movie will end. You are a director instructing your character how to act. You are now confident, calm and in control. See how naturally and spontaneously you behave now, and how easily you deal with the situation that caused you troubles in the past. Let this movie be colourful, high definition and bright! Let it have a wonderfully happy ending.

Now, leave your body and with the new movie go to the projection box at the back of the hall.

From this box you can see yourself both on the seat and on the screen. In this box you assemble these two movies together and load it into the projector.

Play the movie to the end and watch it on the big screen. Notice the expression of satisfaction on your face in the last scene. Be aware of the fact that everything is much better now.

Come back to the cinema and enter your body sitting in your seat. Watch the movie again, from beginning to end and from end to beginning. Pay attention to the differences in your
behaviour and in your feelings. You surely perceive this new situation much better.

Stand up from the chair, approach the screen and enter yourself (the actor). Watch (this time in association) the whole movie from beginning to end and from end to beginning. You can do it faster (it’s like a rewinding on the display). Pay attention to your feelings during the happy end.

Now how do you feel? Let’s test your progress. Bring your thoughts back to the initial situation and pay attention to how you feel. My bet is that you’re feeling pretty good! Remember, you can repeat this exercise to strengthen your gains. You can also reuse this same exercise for all kinds of situations and use it to implant different positive states in yourself each time. You may find that for some situations it takes more attempts than others to be effective, this is totally normal. The stronger the initial association the more times it takes to change but remember, the mind does not know the difference between what you visualize and what actually happens. If you go through this process enough times for any situation you will live the way your character plays on screen!

So you've made it this far. You are an absolute champion! You're a rare breed of person and I want to really acknowledge you for this.

In the last few chapters we've seen what's possible. We've seen that anxiety is a natural effect of causes that can be controlled. We've seen how simple changes can have dramatic effects on our emotions.

I can tell you first hand that anything is possible. If you apply these tools and commit to your evolution nothing can stop you.

Now let me ask you, what do you really want?

Are you ready to break free of anxiety?

Do you want to live a life free of panic?

Do you want to live a life free of fear?

Well? I cannot hear you!

Most people talk about what they want but are never willing to pay the freight and go through all the battling to get to where they want to be. You've shown me that you're willing to step up and go through whatever it takes to get where you want to be.

In the section on human needs we learnt that everything we do has a reason behind it. There's no flukes or abnormalities in human behavior! With that said you're probably thinking "Sooo why the hell do I feel anxious all the time without a real reason? Why am I feeling scared of things that can not really hurt me?"

Remember that first need we had, the one that's probably one of your driving needs as well?

Yup, certainty.

How would being anxious all the time meet your need for certainty? Well, if you knew that at all times you'd feel
anxious, wouldn't that give you certainty about how you'd feel? Remember, your needs aren't about being happy or sad, better or worse, your needs are only concerned with being met.

So what's a better way, a class 1 way, to meet your need for certainty and therefore eliminate the anxiety which is currently meeting your
need.

What if instead of feeling anxious all the time you always felt confident and assured you'd be able to handle any situation?

Ok ok it sounds too good to be true right, but is it really any stranger feeling confident all the time instead of feeling anxious all the time? Either way it's a consistent, irrational belief. Both beliefs are self-fulfilling and have little basis in reality. So rather than assume everything will go bad, why not assume everything will go well?

Let's look at your two options.

Option 1 is to always assume negative things are going to happen and have little faith in your ability to handle them if they do come up. This belief typically leads to avoidance of anything new or risky. If this is your belief you will usually feel bad because you're always focusing on bad things that can or will happen. If something bad does happen it sucks, but you comfort yourself in your wisdom - "I knew this was going to happen" - and reinforce the negative belief. If something good ever does happen you're quick to dismiss it as a chance event and you rarely enjoy it because you're so worried about the next bad¬ thing that's going to happen.

Option 2 is to always assume positive things will happen and you'll be able to handle whatever comes your way. If you adopt this belief, your normal state will be a much more positive one. If you run into a negative situation you aren't able to handle: It will suck, but it would have sucked anyhow!
On the other hand if you run into a positive or negative situation that you handle smoothly you will gain confidence and feel good because your "prediction" was right. This will further reinforce your confidence and as it grows you'll be able to handle more and more situations and find that overall more positive things are happening to you.

So far do you agree with me that it's better to have an absolute positive belief over an absolute negative one? Either way you're being a little delusional but with the positive belief you're inviting good events into your life and setting your mental state up to handle bad ones.

Here is the belief you want to adopt. Adopting this belief will give you the confidence and certainty to handle any situation and eliminate the anxiety you create to meet your need for consistency.

I have all the courage, strength and intelligence to handle whatever comes my way! All I need is within me now!

Feel free to adapt this and develop into your daily routine. Use this as an incantation. Say it over and over again with emotions. When you’re exercising, driving, or whenever fear or anxiety shows up. Say it with emotions, yelling it is even better!

I have all the courage, strength and intelligence to handle whatever comes my way! All I need is within me now!

So let's go back to the theatre. Are you back there yet? Can you see yourself sitting down, watching yourself on screen? Now imagine the most confident person you can think of coming on screen as well. For a moment you see yourself and this other person. Suddenly a thin blue aura surrounds this confident person. It is in fact their confidence. The aura lifts off of them and surrounds you on screen. The next thing you know this other person is gone and you are surrounded by their aura of confidence.

Suddenly you find yourself entering your body on screen. You're now in the first person with a new aura of confidence. You now feel their confidence. You feel their calm. You feel their courage.

Now, write down exactly how you feel (section 3.2).

What is now possible? What can you do with this aura of confidence?

Imagine you walk into a security room and there is camera footage of this new you. Describe what you see. How are you behaving? How are you walking? How are you talking? How do you move your body? Describe everything you see on the footage.

I do not know about you, but I see a pretty amazing person on that footage!!

I want you to give a name to the person you see. The name you give is up to you. You could add something to your own name, like "Super Dave", “Warrior Wendy” or if you prefer come up with a completely new name. Make it a strong name.

In the future whenever you want to expand your courage and confidence you can simply say the name of the new you out loud and the feelings will come to you and intensify.

Please complete each of the next sentences. Right the first thing that comes to mind.

The new me…

The new me…

The new me always…

The new me always…

The new me always…

The new me rarely…

The new me rarely…

The new
me is…

The new
me is…

The new
me is…

Wow, you sure seem to know a lot about the new you. It's almost as if this person has been hiding within you all along bursting at the seams wanting to come out.

Now for this last part I want you to be a screenwriter once more. I'm going to describe a few scenarios and after each one you are going to write a description of how the new you acts in that scene. I will simply give you a one sentence description and you're going to roll with it and develop the scene. Remember, this is screenwriting, you can write whatever you want and it will be created!

The new you is at home and hears the doorbell ring; it is three old friends who've come to visit…

The new you
is sitting at a cafe quietly reading when a beautiful stranger asks if they could share the table with you…

The new you
is invited out to a small dinner party…

The camera just shows a sign
“Dance Class In Progress” and begins to pan into the classroom…

Looks like somebody is ready to be a star!

When you think about it, human beings are pretty funny creatures. We've evolved from a time when every day was a struggle for survival and our nervous systems were wired to protect us from sabre-toothed tigers. Yet, even in the earliest of times, we've been wired around social acceptance in just as powerful of ways. You see, it wasn't until very recently that humans were able to survive alone. Originally we were part of small tribes that worked together to hunt and gather. Eventually we evolved to farming and keeping livestock. While this allowed some people to work outside the food process, it certainly wasn't a solo effort. Imagine if people tried to farm alone, especially before modern farming tools? The work would be insurmountable and even if they were to complete it they'd die of malnourishment having a perhaps 2-3 different items in their diet. There certainly wasn't a grocery store you could visit.

You see, we NEED other people and are deeply wired to seek acceptance. 5,000 years ago if the tribe cast you aside you'd likely die in a matter of weeks unless you found a new tribe. Today that means we're still wired to do HIGHLY irrational things in response to social stimuli.

Let me tell you a story. Since birth I have had a vicious peanut allergy. Cannot go near them! I've been told by the specialist that my sensitivity is off the charts and I've seen in movies scenes where people collapse within seconds of ingesting a peanut. It’s scary in the literal sense.

A few years ago I was sitting down to eat lunch alone at a local cafe. I do not recall everything I ordered, but I definitely had the soup. I dipped a piece of bread into the soup and took a small bite. Instantly the part of my tongue it touched went numb and a feeling of overwhelming dread, death literally on my doorstep, came over me.

So this is something that could literally kill me in a matter of minutes. Logic, at least without an understanding of human nature, would say I should have done one of two things:

1) Dialled 911 on my phone then instantly told a stranger what had happened while keeping my Epipen (medicine) on the ready in case I pass out.

2) Went next store to the firehouse screaming "I NEED
HELP!"

So which of the two did I do? Well you already know I chose neither. Instead I took some Benadryl, casually walked on over to the pharmacy blocks away to buy some more, and then returned to ask the owners what was in the soup. I'd like to think the reason for this was my willingness to tempt fate, my James Bond like stay cool in any situation demeanor or a deep understand of how allergies work. Perhaps one or two of these played into it a bit, but the truth is the biggest factor affecting my decisions was social acceptance. I didn't want to "trouble" people, draw attention to myself or be the hypochondriac asking for help when it wasn't really needed.

You know when there is a shootout in movies the good guy always yells "get down get down!" I think they do that because it's necessary. If shooting started, especially in an upscale
neighbourhood, people would resist jumping to cover for fear it was a prank or part of a movie and they'd look stupid if no one else jumped.

Isn't it twisted that our desire to be accepted by others and our concern for what they think about us can actually kill us? Sometimes it's slowly and more figuratively, like the lawyer who really wanted to be an artist but was afraid to tell him family, and other times it can be quite
literal.

So I think it's safe to say that people will do some messed up things to be accepted and judged well by others. But do not
worry, this is good news. Now that you're fully aware of this you are able to play with it and add it to your tool kit. You'll be able to use this desire to motivate yourself, and if you want to be a little evil you can use it to play around with others as well.

Do not worry, I'm about to explain in just a minute.

A few years ago I arrived at a point where I needed to make some changes in my life. On one hand I had huge aspirations for my business and personal life. On the other hand I was going to bars like I was an college student or former child star.

I knew something had to change and for me it wasn't going to come from an attempt at moderation. I'm not a fan of incremental improvement when I have the option to shift entirely, the option to transform.

I decided I was going to give up all alcohol for one year. I'd treat it like an experiment and see how it affected my life. Alcohol is one of the most socially accepted, and enforced, negative behaviors we have today. So how did I break this habit quickly and permanently?

I utilized our two biggest strengths and weaknesses: Our desire to be true to our identity and our concern for how others look at us.

In his book How To Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie taught us that the most powerful way to improve or influence people is to create an identity for them. He uses the example of a receptionist. If upon her screw up you berate her, or act condescending, you simply reinforce her identity as someone who screws up. On the other hand you could say "You know I always brag about you to the other executives. I tell them I've got the best receptionist in the company. This recent work really isn't like you." When you do this you create a positive identity for her to live up to. It’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever read.

Haven't you ever been complimented by someone and felt a need to live up to it in the future? I sure have.

So we all have a strong desire to live up or down to our identities. It is wired into how our brain operates. The "bad kid" becomes worse and the "funny kid" becomes funnier.