Anger to Peace through NLP
From last few months I have been attending discussions on NLP i.e. Neurological Linguistic Programme.
I recently got married and my work pressure increased. I was doing job as well as the household work. Because of the work pressure, to release the stress I developed a tendency of getting angry on small small things and yell..
I realized after a while that this practice of getting angry every now and then is really not helping me. It does re-leave me of my stress for a short while but it hurts the people around me and the reason for which I get angry hardly improves.
I discussed this problem in our NLP group. Our sir Mr. Vikas Dixit told me that usually we chose a pathway to react to certain things. We probably chose it from the things we observe in our surroundings. It may not be always right and if we feel so we can change this pathway. We have to do this on sunconscious level.
He took a exercise "Stub Toe"
He asked me if I can remember the last incident when I had got angry? I said "Yes" and the moment I remembered it I was able to feel the anger raising in my head, it was little hot in my ears, my breath speed was increased..
Sir said thats ok... close your eyes.. now we will go 10 years in future... will you still be angry about that incident... I said "no"
He further said now we will travel back to that incident, you may start feeling little bit of anger... and now we will go to past when this incident had not happened.. you were not angry that time.. I said "Yes"
He told me to open the eyes. We repeated this backward journey from future to incident to past 3 times.
Surprisingly after that when I again remembered the incident the anger that I felt was very very less.
Sir told me "We did this to erase the pathway that you had been using till now"
He asked me what will be the ideal behavior to react in this situation. I said "may be I can sit down and talk to that person nicely about the things that are bothering me, I can smile" Sir said Very good!!
Now close your eyes and see that you are reacting to that incident in the ideal way you just described. I visualised it and then opened my eyes.
Sir told me to repeat this 3 times and then in fast forward for 20 times. At the end he appreciated me by saying you are doing very good. Then distracted me with a trivial question like "what is today's date" to break my trance.
Then again he asked me to remember that incident, to my surprise I was not at all angry!! :) After going home I did this exercise for all the small small things that were bothering meand changed my pathway to react to them.
To my surprise though the situations that were bothering me were as it is, I was much more peaceful and was reacting to it in a very calm way. I talked to the concerned people very nicely and with calm attitude with a smile and now bothering situations are improving too!! :) :)
I am so happy that we are able to change our neural pathways in this way. Same exercise can be used for all the negetive emotions like Pain, Fear, depression Etc.
I took this exercise for my mother in law about pain... more about it in next blog!! :) :)