NLP and Reframing

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Use reframing

Reframing is a major technique and concept in NLP, and many authors have written volumes about it. In this tip though, we will just cover what reframing means and how you can use it in your everyday life:

Each person sees an experience, situation, or event in a different way. This unique way of viewing things is called a frame. Due to varying beliefs and values of people, any given person can have “limited” frames. Just as a picture frame has borders that limit the picture, so do we have psychological borders that limit our perception to a certain perspective.

Now, to successfully influence the behavior of others, you need to change their frame of thinking, or to reframe. Simply put, reframing is placing things and ideas in a new light. A good example of this technique can be found in Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom, punished by his veteran hoodies to whitewash the fence, influenced all his friends to help him to do the task. How did he do it? Well, he made them think that whitewashing the fence is not a chore, but a privilege and prestige! In fact, his friends paid him just so he would ALLOW THEM to whitewash.

So here’s a real world, day to day example: When your daughter tells you, “My brother always makes fun of how I look”, you can reply by saying, “Honey, it only means your brother is concerned about your appearance”. That’s reframing.

Get rid of negative auditory tape loops

Because of either nature or nurture, an individual may be exposed to certain verbal messages that are delivered on a repetitive and habitual manner. In fact, they become so habitual that they eventually become automatic. These automatic, “knee jerk” verbal messages embedded into an individual’s thought process are called auditory tape loops.

The problem with auditory tape loops is that they often translate into values and beliefs of an individual. For example, if the individual grew up in a family that frequently says, “our family is no good at mathematics”, the attitude of that individual towards that academic subject will tend to be negative. Unless he gets rid of the auditory tape loop or changes his thought process, he’ll probably struggle with math forever.

Negative auditory tape loops are very common sources of limiting beliefs. In NLP, the best way to get rid of negative auditory tape loops is to ask meta-model and precision model questions (discussed in a previous tip).

Try to identify if you have limiting beliefs that stem from negative tape loops. If you identify a limiting belief or behavior, ask yourself, “What precisely made me think this way?” (meta-model question). Once you identify the source of negative behavior, you can start replacing it with a “positive” tape loop in the form of affirmations and positive autosuggestion.

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write by Venn