Sorry, I didn't make it clear that this is not just a 'sitting' or mental exercise, it is of course but there is physicality involved.duszek wrote:The advice is easy to give but difficult to execute:
If I am bullied I want to make a poker face, like Clint Eastwood, James Bond, and some other cool Brits whose names I don´t remember.
I would like to be a cold fish.
So, when I say imagine the situation I really mean that you should stand, if the situation you wish to change involves standing, or sitting if it involves that but you should actually try to recreate as much as possible the situation you wish to change. Lets say its a standing one; so find a space in your room and stand as though you were in the situation, imagine strongly the other in the the place they would be in this situation, see, hear, feel them and see, hear and feel yourself in the situation and do this until you're strongly associated and 'in' or have recreated the situation and(this is the tricky part) once you're there then go to step 1. Think just about yourself in this situation, how are you standing? Whats your body posture? How do you sound? What are you feeling about the situation? Then stop and shake yourself about, jump up and down to get out of this state and go to step 2. Literally walk to where they are and stand or sit in their position, what are they feeling looking at you in first position? How are they standing whilst seeing you? How do they sound when looking at you over in first position? What are they feeling when seeing and hearing you over there? Shake yourself off again and go to step 3, basically break the state you are in and literally walk to stand or sit at the side and between the two positions you've just been in and notice both those positions, what do you notice about their postures? How they are sounding? What do they appear to be feeling? Then think about what advice you could give to the one in first postion given what you can notice. Then try step 4, repeat until you think you've found a solution.
Hope this makes the technique more understandable.
There is a simpler one;
Find somewhere to stand in your room and imagine a circle on the floor in front of you, it can be anything you like just make it well-defined. Step into the circle and imagine the situation you wish to change. See what you see in the situation, hear the sounds, feel the feelings that arise, feel your posture, etc, strongly recreate the situation in both mind and body. Once you've fully associated with the situation step out of the circle and break that state, jump up and down, shake your body, whatever it takes to break-out of the state. Then standing outside of the circle think about what resources you'd actually like to have in that situation, if possible try and draw upon a resourceful states from your past to use but if you have none then use exemplars that you admire, so you say clint eastwood, so what would clint eastwood do in this situation, how would he stand? Sound? React? Try him on, take what you think he has and apply it to yourself, your posture, your voice, your feelings, etc, same with James Bond, try on being cool, show a poker face, and keep doing this until you can feel yourself with their resources, is your stance correct? Your manner correct? Do you sound like you think they would in this situation? Once you've done all this, and you can pick as many people as you like to give you the resources you think you need for the situation then shake-off again. The return to the circle and imagine the situation again but this time once you're back in it try it on with all the resources you had on the outside? Bring that outside state into the circle. What difference does this make to the situation? Keep repeating until you get the result you require.
Of course this is all so much easier if you have an NLP partner to help with the coaching and keeping the sequences in order but it is possible to do by oneself. You just may need to practice it a few times.
