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Hello all,

I am new to the whole NLP idea and have only read a couple books about it. I just recently read Robert Dilts' book on Belief change and think that that strategy would benefit me greatly. As it stands right now I have pretty severe anxiety/panic attacks that stem from a belief that I will have spontaneous life threatening allergic reactions/asthma attacks even though I am not actually allergic to anything and only have mild asthma. This has seriously handicapped my day to day living and many techniques including hypnosis, EFT, talking myself out of it and distraction have had no lasting success with me. I really think NLP could help me out but I truly dont know how to apply it to myself properly. If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Ray,

What exactly don't you know how to apply to yourself properly?
What do you want to apply?

Well you see thats part of the problem, I don't know exactly what would be the best method of removing the negative system of thought.

But for example, when Robert walks through some of the demonstartions on people for finding and identifying their belief strategies and then uncovering their resources to change that belief, I don't know how to do that on myself in an effective way.

Please forgive me if thats a vague or incorrect way of explaining what I'd like to acheive I'm very new and inexperienced with this field.

When you are intensely anxious, how do you know?
What do you see, hear and feel?

What resourses do you have when you are not anxious that you don't have when you are? How do you know that?

I have a question here for James - are these questions designed to help Ray, and if so, how?

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for asking the question and the questions are totally designed to help Ray learn how to have some control over his issue because he is learning nlp to find strategies to benefit himself and because he wants to do it for himself since he is here asking “If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated”.

I know there are many different models in nlp and rather than attempt to suggest a model such as the discussed ‘six step reframe’, my way of thinking is to learn how an issue is being experienced because then I can suggest something that I would use for myself either descriptively or metaphorically in a way that can be understood at the appropriate level and with an explanation to fullfill any discractive needs if necessary.

The first question was to get more information about where he is at. What he is trying to do.

“What exactly don't you know how to apply to yourself properly?”
”What do you want to apply?”

His Evidence:
“I don't know exactly what would be the best method of removing the negative system of thought.”
Meaning: He has a negative system of thought because that’s his model of the world.
His Evidence:
“Robert walks through some of the demonstartions on people for finding and identifying their belief strategies and then uncovering their resources to change that belief”
Meaning: He has belief strategies. Uncovering resources will change beliefs because that’s what Robert does and that’s what he states himself.
His Evidence: “I don't know how to do that on myself in an effective way.”
Meaning: I believe it can be done this way but I don’t know how to do it effectivley because that’s precisely what he wants to do and wants to know how.

Reasonable so far?













My way of thinking for my next questions is this.

• I can suggest how he can use the model he is trying to use to resolve this issue effectively. I can’t take this route because I have not had the opportunity to train with Robert and because I have no idea of the model he uses. (might be interesting though).

• Keeping in mind what Ray is printing (since we are limited to text in a forum), what would I do if I experienced the same Intense issue?

What can I take from personal experience that might be useful?

Well, there have been times when I have been intensely anxious/panic and I have had dramatic success dealing with it myself.

What patterns did I use?
Loads!!!

What would be the most effective patterns to use in print?
Submodalities
Collapsing with resources
Chaining anchors and future pace.













How specifically?

• How intense is Intense.

a. Get into the state and what is the representational experience?
“When you are intensely anxious, how do you know?”

b. What are the conscious submodalities?
“What do you see, hear and feel?”

Working with mild anxiety or mild panic could be fairly simple to work with in many ways but an Intense response can be very difficult to work with by yourself even for someone who knows a little about nlp.

The first thing I wanted to suggest is a method that can be understood in text to reduce the intensity of the state all the way down until he can experience the state will some semblance of control because once he notices how he is experiencing the issue he will be in a good position to do something about it because intense states tend to override everything else and are much more difficult to influence in any way.

I find changing visual submodalities very useful for influencing the intensity of a state and spinning feelings incredibly powerful because that is what I have experienced and continue to do so.

By this time the goal is to have a state that is ready to develop into something better in the most flexible way.

2. What reasources is this state lacking?
Perhaps Robert knows what resources to give the people he is working with or does he ask them?

“What resourses do you have when you are not anxious that you don't have when you are?”
So now I can suggest how he could enhance His resource states and give him many new choices as well as giving him a few isomophic maps that he might find structurally useful.

“How do you know that?” was so he can better appreciate the distinctions and have access to a natural digital anchor.

3. Since I want to practice eliciting states and chaining anchors with a nested loop I might help him with an even better directive resource stream.

The questions are totally designed to help Ray in a way that he can build some truly advanced skills in nlp and by that I mean that he can make powerful transformations for himself again and again because for many people that is what nlp is all about.

They might not be the questions that you would ask (but you didn’t) and they might not be the questions anyone else would have asked and if you can appreciate the reasoning that lead to the questions and be perfectly happy with that.

You might have an objection to my line of gathering information that I concidered useful and if this is so then I am all ears and eager to learn something.

Either way, I highly appreciate your interest,
James

Thanks a lot for the replies.

When I am in the state that can lead into a full blown panic attack I find that my mind revolves completely around the idea that my throat could close up. This leads to me getting a peculiar sore throat almost instantly which makes it even harder for me to stop thinking about it. I get very uncomfortable all over with lots of fidgeting, sometimes shaking, palms get sweaty and I sometimes get a bit itchy/hot. All of these things combine to make the experience "I could have anaphylactic shock" seem like a possibility, and then the thought of thinking about making it a real possibilty just spontaneously out of the blue hits as well. And by that I mean I think of how some people can reverse there allergic response through use of NLP but a reversal of that.
Then a full blow panic attack is like all of those thoughts crammed in together, with no chance of thinking of a distraction. It seems very rushed and my body gets very exhausted after the whole experience.

The resources I have when I'm not anxious I guess would be the ability to change my direction of thought. For example I could think about apples instead of allergies, but this isn't the most effective resource because In the end I usually end up thinking about it anyhow, it seems to intrude into my mind very regularly.

Hope that makes it a little more clear.

Hi Ray,

It's great that you have found a resource in your books eventually leading you to hear.

How important it is to you for you to be clear of this problem?

My suggestion would be that 'yes' NLP could definately help you with this and make it a thing of the past. However, to me its important that you continue your research and find a skilled practitioner who can guide you to make the neccessary changes you want on a one to one (in person) basis.

Do you know anyone in your area/radius?

How far are you willing to go to be clear of this problem?

Regards

Hi Ray,

That is crystal clear to me and a response that I was not expecting.

It is very good that you have got as far as this forum in this journey to find a permanent effective solution because here you will find people from all walks of life learning about areas of nlp that they choose to pursue and it is particularly good news for you because here you can find the most highly qualified nlp practitioners with the expertise you can utilize to successfully remove that issue forever and this might be exactly what you have been looking for some time.

Your response absolutely indicates to me that you are now decisively ready to resolve this because you have come to the right place to connect to that person who has many answers to all those questions.

Regards

Hi Ray

Speaking to you as an ex panic attacker and not as an NLPer, I can give you something that helped me enormously. I was shown how to do deep breathing from my diaphragm and not from my chest. So, basically put one hand on your chest and one hand on your diaphragm area and take a deep breath noticing which hand moves most. If it is the one on your chest then you are breathing from the chest and not the diaphragm.

Take a nice deep breath in from your diaphragm and then let it out. Ideally the out breath should be longer than the in breath. Take 3 of these breaths and you will start to notice a lovely calm feeling come over you. It is important that you practise this breathing so that when you really need it, it isn't taken over by the panicky feeling.

I expect that as you learn to breath properly when the panicky feeling comes on you will be able to manage it better which in turn allows you to rationalise the thoughts rather than acting impulsively on them. Afterall, your throat hasn't actually closed up and you haven't actually had an anaphylactic shock experience so in all probablility you will continue to not have those experiences. What do you think about that?

I hope that helps xx

Well first off I have to say that I really appreciate all the responses.

Secondly, yesterday I started off in a pretty dismal state, but I did a quick round of EFT, not expecting anything to really happen, and the anxiety basically left completely. I then proceeded to try EFT on my dad who has chronic neck pain and my friend who has a fear of spiders, both were immediately successful. Im still actually astonished at the results and after a month of being absolutely terrified I'm back to normal.

I'm definetly very grateful to this forum because without it I may have never stumbled onto EFT, the persistence really does pay off.

Hey Ray

I practice NLP with Meta-Medicine which is a diagnostic technique which shows how all illness is created as an emergency program in the brain after a shocking event.

Anxiety is caused by two shocks close together - a fear of being attacked from the front and a feeling of powerlessness. I would suggest you make a timeline of the times in your life when you have expereinced events like this.

I'm also interested about the specificness of your anxiety. I would suggest the problem might stem from someone invading your territory...

To clear the problem, you need to clear what triggered both conflicts, in your mind, and in your social context and your environment.

Viv

Ray,

First of all, welcome.

A word of advice and encouragement for you: it's all about utilization. Use what works for you, and if it doesn't work, try something else. If the EFT works for you, terrific! There are varying opinions on it, but I have to say that using it has done a world of good for me in dealing with panic attacks and anxiety.

Also, I think Penny's suggestions about deep breathing are very good.

All the best to you, and know that there are people here who have had similar experiences.