I was in London today, strolling nonchalantly up Regent Street on my way to worship at the Apple store, when my unconscious mind brought to my attention one t-shirt in the window of Virgin Records. There were many tees in the window, however the one I was attentive on was interesting:
“I could give up chocolate, but i’m not a quitter”
Now quite why my unconscious brought this to my attention remains to be seen. However it did get me thinking about the giving up metaphor. It seems to me that we spend our childhoods having many messages tatooed in our minds, such as “don’t lose things”, “failure is bad” and “don’t give up”. Fundamental rules of society I hope that you would agree wouldn’t you?
So it comes as no surprise to me that most people that attempt to free themselves from an unwanted habit fail, as their very physiology is coded not to give up, to keep things. In addition to this you have the natural law that nature abhors a vacuum - this seems to be true both literally and metaphorically as the universe fills in vacuums of all kind with whatever comes to hand.
However this doesn’t mean that you can’t eliminate habits, you just need to think about them from another angle. Richard Bandler suggests that eliminating a habit is a simple case of identifying some state or situation that is incredibly attractive and compelling, one that gives you an almost magnetic attraction to that excludes that unwanted habit. For example you could enjoy really fantasising what you will look, feel and act like when you have reached your target, and indulge in this fantasy regularly, noting how in control you are in situations where previously you would have had little, and enjoying the wonderful feeling that accompanies that fantasy.
Such feelings will pull you to your goal and help recode your bodymind that in fact you are in control without bringing your attention to facets of the old habit that you are missing, and best of all no-one needs to give up anything…!
In reality, bringing yourself to a state of magnetic euphoria based on a future situation is tough to do yourself. If this seems of interest to you, seek out your local NLP practitioner, who will be able to help you.
