Introduction
1 Joining with a Voice
2 Retrieving and Clarifying Information
3 Asking for the Positive Intent
4 Transforming a Troublesome Voice (content-free example)
5 Utilizing a Voice’s Unique Skills and Abilities
6 The Voice of a Trusted Friend
7 Transforming a Troublesome Voice (exercise outline)
8 Work at Altering, Rather than Negating, Your Client’s Symptom
9 Protection from External Voices: Personal Boundaries
10 Talking Back
11 Silencing Internal Voices
Closing
About the Author
References
Index

Excerpt from Chapter 2, Retrieving and Clarifying Information

One of the most interesting and useful aspects of a troublesome internal voice is that you can communicate with it in exactly the same way you would with someone else in the real world around you. You can tell it or ask it literally anything, and receive an answer. Most people just passively listen to an internal voice, or they try to argue or fight with it. If you argue or fight with it, that will have the same kind of results that it has in the real world; contention and conflict, but seldom any resolution. In fact, that will usually make the internal voice even stronger and more oppositional. Even if you are successful in shouting it down and overcoming it, that won’t really eliminate it permanently—it will come back to haunt you.

In the previous chapter we showed how listening to a voice, and joining with it can be quite useful. Now I want to use this as a starting point and foundation for doing something even more important and useful.

Rather than thinking about a troublesome voice as an enemy, you can think of it as if it were a friend who isn’t very good at communicating. Instead of trying to struggle with it, fight it, or to run away from it, you can learn to join with it, listen more carefully to what it is saying, and find out more about it. When you really listen to a voice, and speak back to it respectfully, it will gradually become more reasonable, and you can begin to learn more about it.

Of course, just as in the real world, you may not initially receive an answer, particularly if your relationship with your voice has not been very good. If you have fought with it for years, or tried to eliminate it, it may initially be very antagonistic and not want to talk to you at all.

For instance, when one man first tried to communicate with a troublesome internal voice, the answer he received was a very loud, “Screw you!!!” When he continued to speak to the voice in a friendly way, gently requesting an explanation, the voice replied, “You have completely ignored me for twenty-five years—and now you want to talk to me? Screw you!!!”

In a situation like this it can be very useful to apologize sincerely. You can explain that you have only just learned that it is possible to communicate directly with it, and ask it to please forgive your stupidity. If you continue to speak to it respectfully, eventually it will answer you, and you can begin to have a more friendly dialogue.

When an internal voice criticizes you, reminds you of past mistakes, predicts future failures or other unpleasant events, that voice is stating a conclusion based on some event or set of events. What the voice says is not a set of facts, it is an opinion, a generalization, or a judgment about a set of facts. Usually the event or events that the opinion is based on is completely omitted from the statement itself.

For instance, when a voice says, “You’re stupid,” or “I’m stupid,” that is not a fact, it is an opinion about some event that is not mentioned at all. It is easy to conclude that the word “stupid” applies to everything you do, everywhere, throughout all time, extending inexorably into your future. If you think about it in that way it is natural to feel very bad—or even depressed or suicidal!

The actual event that the opinion is based on might be a single event, like having done poorly on a single test in a single class. Furthermore, it might be that you didn’t have time to prepare, you were sick, or you forgot that there was a test, or you had some other reason for having done poorly. If that was the case, not only was it a single isolated event, it had nothing to do with being stupid; it had to do with being too busy, or forgetful, or even something else that was completely out of your control.

Even when a voice mentions a specific event, such as, “I can’t believe you said that to her; you’re really insensitive,” that still brings up only a very small part of what actually happened, namely one sentence that you said to someone else. That omits all the other information about that event—all the other things you said and did, who else was there, what was happening, how you felt at the time, and the larger context—all of which contributes to your understanding.

Often a voice will take a past event and cast it into the future as a prediction. Not only did you fail in the past, you will fail in the same way in the future. This kind of prediction may sometimes be your own conclusion about some event, but very often it is word for word what someone else said to you.

When you hear only a voice and its conclusion, that omits all the information about the speaker, what happened at that time, how that person was feeling, and the larger context in which those words were said. All those elements contribute to the meaning of what was said. Recovering this additional information often spontaneously changes the meaning of the event, so that you can come to a different conclusion, and a different response to it.

For instance, one man’s internal voice originated from his father, who often criticized and “put him down” for what he did. When he saw his father’s face, he could see the worry lines that indicated that his father was really concerned about him, and wanted the best for him. That completely changed his response to the words that his father said.

Retrieving Information

Missing information can be divided into several major categories, and we can recover it by asking the familiar five questions that we use to gather information about any event: Who? What? Where? When? and How?

You will notice that “Why?” is not included in this list. “Why?” is much less useful, because it doesn’t elicit information about the event itself, but about someone’s understanding or conclusion about the event. Asking “Why?” would only take us to the conclusion that we have already made, based on limited information, so that wouldn’t change the meaning of what the voice says. Our goal is to gather more information in order to be able to reach a more useful conclusion.

As you ask yourself the questions below, it is important to notice what your internal experience is. It is not necessary to answer the questions verbally. In fact, if you answer them verbally, that will tend to divert your attention from your experience, and it is this experience that can enrich and change the meaning of an internal voice. The question is only useful as a way to direct your attention.

Although each question directs our attention to a somewhat different aspect of our experience, you will find that they often overlap. When you ask “Who?” you may recover information about “What?” “Where? “When?” or “How?” as well—and that will be true of each of the questions. The only reason for asking each question in turn is to make sure that you examine all the different aspects of an event thoroughly, in order to recover as much information as possible.


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Excerpt from Chapter 5, Utilizing a Voice’s Unique Skills and Abilities

I’d like to begin this chapter with an email that I received from a woman who read volume 1 of this book, and made good use of it.

I have used some of the techniques you gave us. I followed your instructions to find out whose voice this critical voice was. It was my mother’s voice. She was always very critical of everything I did, and just about everything I said. I tried putting her voice out in front of me about three feet, then to the side three feet, and so on. I liked her over to my left about 15 feet. Her voice is easier to ignore over there. Then I just imagined her sitting on this wooden fence that we used to have in our back yard, sitting in an uncomfortable position, in a straight skirt, just as she used to really do. She would wear straight skirts all the time, even when gardening and raking, or even working in the garage.

I pictured her balancing herself on that wooden fence, holding a clipboard, trying to be involved in all that I do, but not really being able to from over there. To tell you the truth, it was hard to do that, because I always wanted to please her, and I know she would rather be inside me, deciding everything for herself. I used to let her be in there. Of course, I didn’t know I had the choice to easily move her out like this.

I can remember her inside me in high school. I would see everything through her eyes, and wonder if she would approve. I thought it was pretty crazy, so I didn’t talk about it. I assumed that she didn’t approve of my actions, and felt uncomfortable most all the time in those days. When I was older, once she told me she was very proud of me, and I didn’t know what to do with that piece of information; it made me feel as uncomfortable as when she would disapprove. I think in the days she was raising me, they didn’t think much of complimenting kids. I know she told me you were never supposed to tell a little girl that she was pretty, because that would spoil them.

At first after I put her over there on the fence, she still made comments I didn’t need to hear. Then one day I was in the car and needed to remember some things and couldn’t find a pen or anything to write on fast enough. I turned to her in my mind and said, “Mom, will you write this down for me?” She seemed to be delighted to be needed, and kept the notes for me! Soon after that, she just drifted away as a judge. She appears from time to time as a companion and a good friend, though. She’s been dead for years, of course.

—Carol Henderson
http://www.newdayhypno.com

Once you have gained some distance from a troubling voice, so that you don’t feel overwhelmed and overpowered by it, the communication that had been one-way can become two-way. You can talk with the voice, and begin to influence both how it speaks to you, and what it does.

In this chapter I want to focus on what Carol discovered in the last paragraph of her report—without any help from me. The voices and people that we remember inside us like to be useful, and appreciated for their skills and abilities. “She seemed to be delighted to be needed, and kept the notes for me!”

In this example, the context of driving made it hard for Carol to take notes—a simple and easy task—but easy for her “mother” to do, because she wasn’t driving. Someone reading this might think that it is an interesting and perhaps humorous way to make use of an internal voice, but not realize that the principle underlying this simple example is potentially much broader and more useful. You can ask an internal voice to help you with any situation that you find difficult, but is easy for the voice to do, and this can go far beyond writing some notes for you while you are occupied by driving.

When the voice has a positive intent for you, it already wants to help you. Offering it another way to help you serves this positive intent, making it even more useful and valuable, so the voice nearly always answers “Yes.” If occasionally the answer is “No,” that doesn’t have to be the end of the conversation. It can be the beginning of a discussion about how you would really value and appreciate its help, and explore the voice’s objections to helping you, etc.


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Excerpt from Chapter 6, The Voice of a Trusted Friend

When you have retrieved information and clarified it, and discovered one or more positive intents for a troublesome internal voice, you know what the voice wants to achieve by talking to you. Since the intent is something that you think is positive, that means that you agree with it, so you and the voice are now allies. You may still not like the way that the voice talks to you, but you are in agreement with what it wants to accomplish. Since you are in agreement with the intent, it becomes much easier to adjust how the voice carries out its positive intent—by changing the words, location, volume, tempo, or any other tonal qualities of the voice that you find unpleasant to listen to. That might seem to be a difficult thing to accomplish, but it is actually quite easy, because the voice’s positive intent actually has three parts.

Different aspects of positive intent
Whenever someone has a positive intent, there are always three different aspects or dimensions to that intent, and two of them may not be immediately obvious. (These two are also at a different logical level than the intent itself, because they are about the positive intent.)

1. There is the positive intent for someone—you, the speaker or someone else—or any combination of these, as discussed in chapter 3.

2. There is also the intent to communicate the positive intent to someone else. This intent to communicate is a very useful aspect that can be used as leverage to alter what the voice says, and how it says it. If it communicates in a way that you are more willing to listen to, that will satisfy its intent to communicate with you.

For instance, if the voice is screaming loudly, or has a mean and sarcastic tonality that makes you feel bad, you can talk directly to the voice as if it were another person. “Look, I’d be much more willing to listen to you if you would speak more softly, or with a more friendly tonality,” etc. Since this alternative way of talking supports the voice’s intent to communicate with you, the voice is motivated to at least consider your request. And when the voice actually tries out a different tonality, and finds that you do indeed listen to it better, that is convincing evidence that the change will better serve the voice’s positive intent—a win-win change that benefits you both.

3. The voice also has an implicit intent to be acknowledged and appreciated for its positive intent. Just as a parent or friend wants to be recognized for his or her positive efforts, any voice wants to be appreciated for its communication. When you sincerely thank a voice for communicating, that satisfies its need for appreciation. That makes it even more willing to change how it communicates, because if it communicates more effectively, it will get more appreciation.

When you ask a voice if it would consider using a different way of speaking, sometimes it may be concerned that it will be restricted to the new way of communicating, so it’s very important to reassure it. “I am not proposing taking away any old choices, I’m only asking you to consider adding a new one. If I don’t listen well when you use a different tonality, you can always go back to yelling at me.”

One possible way to proceed would be to identify each aspect of the troublesome voice that makes it unpleasant to listen to, and ask the voice to alter each of those aspects in turn. This might only require changing one or two elements, such as the volume or the tempo, which would be fairly easy to do, as described in volume 1. However, this could require identifying many different aspects of the voice that makes it difficult for you to listen to it, and choosing an alternative that would be more comfortable for you. If there were a lot of these, it could take some time to identify and change each one.

Luckily, there is a way to change all the troublesome aspects of a voice at once, in a way that is perfectly tailored to you. Almost everyone has at least one trusted friend, someone whom you would be willing to listen to—no matter what they had to say—because you know that they have your best interests at heart, and want your life to go well. If that voice that was originally troublesome were to use the voice of your trusted friend, you would be happy to listen to it and hear what it has to say to you.

This tone of voice will carry a “package” of very useful presuppositions, many of which may be unconscious. It might take days to consciously identify all of them, but luckily that isn’t necessary. If the voice that was troublesome uses that tone of voice, that will automatically elicit more useful and positive responses in you.

Usually it will be better to choose a trusted friend of the same sex as the original voice, because some people might find it strange to hear their father speaking in a woman’s voice, or their mother using a man’s voice. If you can’t find a trusted friend of the same sex, you can try using the voice of a friend of the opposite sex as the original voice, and find out if that is OK with you. Some people find this a bit weird and don’t like it, while others find it acceptable, even if it is a bit strange at first.

Some therapists might be inclined to offer a voice that would be good for them, but which might not fit well at all for their client. It is fine to offer a few examples to be clear about what you mean when you ask someone to think of a trusted friend, as long as you are very clear that you are only offering examples that would work for you, and that you want them to choose a voice that would work for them.

“One of my friends is very matter-of-fact, so he can say, ‘You sure messed that up’ in a neutral tone that isn’t condescending. Another friend is more positive, gently suggesting what I might have done instead. ‘Next time, it might work better if you—’ and I am happy to listen to either one of them. Now if you think through several of your friends, which one has a voice that you feel most comfortable listening to when they offer you suggestions or feedback?”

The voice that you choose might be one that someone else would find annoying or unpleasant, but as long as you are happy to listen to it, it will work for you. I have often used the voice of an old college buddy, who was more than a little sarcastic. When I goofed, he would say “Nice work!” However, whenever he said this, he was always smiling, and I knew that he was a still a good buddy who knew that he often screwed up too, not a superior critic putting me down. Someone else might find that voice abusive and annoying, but for me it works perfectly. That is the beauty of asking you to find a voice that works well for you.

If you can’t easily think of a trusted friend, you can use the “as if” frame to elicit what such a trusted friend would sound like if you did have one.

“If you did have a trusted friend, of the same sex as the voice, someone who you knew wanted the best for you, someone whom you would listen to, no matter what they had to say, what would that person’s voice sound like? Would it be soft or loud, would it be slow or fast, would there be a special tonality that was like a smile or a chuckle in their voice? What would it sound like?”

It is possible that even the voice of your trusted friend has some elements that could be improved to make it even more comfortable to listen to. Perhaps they speak very slowly, so that it is a bit irritating to wait for them to finish speaking, or they have a regional accent that you would prefer not to listen to. Then you can ask this voice to please speed up a bit, or soften the regional accent so that it is more pleasant to listen to.


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About the Author

Steve Andreas was introduced to NLP in 1977, and was one of the first small group of people to be certified as NLP practitioner, master practitioner, and trainer in 1979, along with his partner, Connirae. He and Connirae co-edited four of the early classic Bandler/Grinder books, Frogs into Princes, Trance-formations, Reframing, and Using Your Brain—for a CHANGE. Steve and Connirae together wrote Heart of the Mind, and Change Your Mind—and Keep the Change. Steve has also written Virginia Satir: the patterns of her magic, modeling how Satir used NLP principles in her work with families, and Transforming Your Self: becoming who you want to be, modeling the structure of self-concept and how to change it quickly and easily.

His most recent two-volume book, Six Blind Elephants: understanding ourselves and each other, again demonstrates that he continues to be one of the foremost thinkers advancing the development of the field. This book presents a “unified field theory” of NLP and personal change, based on the well-researched field of cognitive linguistics. This book shows how all the different methods of change work—whether described as NLP or not—can be understood as resulting from changing one or more of three fundamental process variables:

1. The scope of sensory-based experience that we attend to,
2. The way we categorize that scope of experience, and
3. The logical level of the categorization.

In addition to his books, Steve has published numerous articles on NLP-related topics in various publications including the Psychotherapy Networker, (formerly the Family Therapy Networker) and the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter. He has also produced over 50 DVD and CD demonstrations of NLP patterns. He continues to model and write about new NLP patterns and understandings at his home in the foothills of the rocky mountains near Boulder, Colorado.

Steve earned a BS in Chemistry from Caltech in 1957, and an MA in psychology from Brandeis University in 1961. He taught psychology and social science at a junior college in California from 1962-1970, and did Gestalt Therapy from 1967-1977. He edited Fritz Perls’ Gestalt Therapy Verbatim and In and Out the Garbage Pail, and wrote Awareness: exploring, experimenting, experiencing—all under his previous name, John O. Stevens, which he changed in 1981 when he married Connirae Andreas, and took her last name.

Steve maintains a blog at: http://realpeoplepress.com/blog/ and a web site with many free articles at http://www.steveandreas.com/

Many of Steve’s NLP products can be found at Real People Press:
http://www.realpeoplepress.com/

Many other NLP products can be found at NLP Comprehensive:
http://www.nlpco.com/


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