How to "de-power" a memory

As a follow up from my last article about NLP and how more time to reflect can have a positive impact, I wanted to address the other side of the coin of having more time to think.

With more time to ourselves and less distractions, our minds have been having a field day processing, digesting and remembering past experiences.

And although some of it has been positive and maybe even nostalgic, many studies have shown that we tend to remember negative experience better than the positive. Negative experiences tend to stick better and those are the ones we are inclined to dwell on.

Some negative experiences might even impact how we live our lives today. Perhaps you where chased by dogs as a kid and now are afraid of dogs? Maybe you messed up a presentation and now get anxious every time you need to deliver one? Or maybe you accidentally put your zoom camera on while naked and now shy away from video calls? (The last one wasn’t me; I promise)

Or maybe you just have a situation when you said something or did something that makes you cringe every time it plays in your memory? With a mouth that moves faster than my mind, I got plenty of those to go around!

What if I told you that in NLP they have a technique that helps you re-code that memory? That with a few simple steps you can take the power away and ease that anxiety? Or remove that fear your memory has indoctrinated in you?

This is how you do it:

1.     First thing you need to do is fully associate with your memory. What do I mean with that? You step into your mind and use all your senses to get fully integrated with your memory. What do you SEE? The colour on the walls? The features of the people? The shape of the table? What do you HEAR? The sound of people talking in the background? The sound of birds? The hum from the air condition? What do you FEEL? The shirt against your skin? The anxious feeling in your stomach? The wind in your hair? What do you TASTE or SMELL? The smell of flowers? The taste of coffee lingering in your mouth? – Once you are fully associated to your memory, that’s when we can start changing it.

2.     Now step out of your memory and see it as it is played in front of you like a TV screen – this is called disassociate with your memory. You're no longer in the memory but you see yourself as a character in the play. Also while you're at it, make your memory black and white and then let it play again - now in a TV screen in black and white.

3.     Next, we will add a tune to your memory, something disarming. I tend to go for this song from the Lion king, by Timon and Pumbaa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvsQ9hYKq7c Then play the memory again with this additional add on.

4.     Now we can continue disarming it by change the characters in your memory – you can use film-stars, sport-stars or maybe Disney characters. You can also add funny voices to the characters. I tend to use the mice from Cinderella. Play the memory again with this add on.

5.     If your memory is about an object of fear, replace it by something funny or add a ridiculous color to it. For example. If it’s a dog – make it pink and replace the teeth with gummy bears.

6.     Now replay the full memory with all your additional features. How do you feel about this memory now? Has the power it held over you deceased? Which “add on” worked best for you? You might want to do this several time across a few weeks to properly engrave it.

If you want to change a memory with a very strong emotional attachment to it, it might be worth engaging an NLP practitioner and use a Swish Pattern to make it more effective. PM me if you want to know more about that.

The reason this works: The source of fear/emotion is our mental image of it, not the actual fear/emotion itself. Our unconscious don’t know the difference between the real or imagined memory.

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