Sometimes we photographers find interest in things that don’t seem worthy of being noticed. Like abandoned places, ruins of things or trivial aspects of our everyday surroundings. From my experience and observation I find that this can turn into a way, an alibi, to escape reality, to hide our self from seeing our self. It can be the opposite too, it’s an actual matter of choice and conscience. But it’s also about this thing with photographers that we can find beauty everywhere.
But I don’t want to talk in this article about photography. I’m using this idea and a series of photos that I took in Dublin in October and November 2014, while attending the NLP Master Practitioner course at the Irish Institute of NLP with Brian Colbert and Owen Fitzpatrick, to share a few insights about changes. And a practical way, small, easy but can be very help when you are about to bring changes in your life.
It’s been said a lot that the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. Indeed it is a universal force. It happens natural. Then what happens when people seek a personal change but are finding it difficult to achieve? There are a lot of things out there (techniques, disciplines, organizations, sciences) that offer ways to change the way we live, our diet, the way we treat our bodies, our emotions, everything. Plus, the personal will power that one fires off when working towards changes. I’m sure all of them are good, even though not every time and not with all the people and situations. I believe that when change doesn’t work out, it’s because there hasn’t been examination and intervention in a very fundamental and deep level of our being. The one of beliefs.
As grown-up, logical individuals we consciously know what we want to have in life. At the same time, in a core level (the hidden part of the iceberg) most of our basic beliefs have been planted in us at a time where we didn’t have much choice. Many of these beliefs have been outdated but we still run them unconsciously and as we grow in experience and grow new beliefs, we often experience conflicts between new and old. To give a few crude examples, think of the man who wants to be economically abundant and runs at the same time the belief that only the poor will enter heaven. The one who finds his job is overwhelming him with stress and he tries (!) to relax (how can you try to relax?) while deeply rooted there’s a “No pain no gain”. Or why, after decades of input from the advertisement and movie industry that cigarette will relax and make someone look cool, two of the main difficulties for quitting smoke are stated by people to be the stress that supposedly will affect and the factor of appearing confident and at ease when socializing. Actual research shows that this is not true. But that won’t necessarily stop those beliefs from running deep inside.
So, if you are at a time when you want to make changes in your life, whatever way you’re using to make these changes, it’s useful to first examine your beliefs about the matter of change.
Start by examining your limiting beliefs, the ones that try to pull you back to “normality” and prevent change. It won’t be so hard to find. They’re all over the place. They come out when we speak and communicate. They penetrate our stream of thoughts. They even reflect on our body, our posture and movement. All we have to do is pay attention. Meditation is a very beautiful way to bring awareness to these things. But it doesn’t even take to meditate in order for someone to be more mindful and caring about oneself. This is the first step. It’s great but it’s not enough yet. Because knowing what you don’t want means nothing if you don’t know where you’re heading.
“But I already know what I want” you might say. Sure, the thing is that now I’m asking you to examine why you want what you want. Why do you want to be smoke free, why do you want to be successful? I know, it sounds a little silly. “What do you mean why do I want this? Because it’s good for me!!!” Yes, we all know this but the problem with changes that doesn’t work is because they’re based on beliefs from a logical, intellectual level, which is pretty skin deep compared to our whole being. So by examining these things, we’re tapping in deep places, enhancing our positive beliefs, finding new ones and very importantly, we can energize these beliefs, implant them in our stream of thoughts, in our language, in our body too, and start mirroring them with our movement and posture.
Once you do this, the third step is a small and very easy technique that deals with our beliefs about how easy or difficult is for a change to take place. You see, a lot of people believe that for a change to be of any worth, it has to come through struggle and pain. Or that change is blocked by a feeling of not being good enough for this. Probably all of us have thought of things like those. So, now I invite you (and I assume you’ve all have made at least one change once in your life) to picture with your mind’s eye, your timeline. This technique requires that you think and imagine about your past and future, placed on an imaginary line. So basically it uses our own natural way of animating the past and future in our daily discussions. Most of the people tend to place their future in front of them and the past behind. While you’re sitting comfortably in the present moment, contemplating about this change you’re on to, I want you to think about a change in your life that you have achieved in the past. Now, imagine yourself floating back to the past on your timeline until the point before that change that you finally made. Find yourself there and ask him “do you believe that this change can happen?” If the answer is no, come back to your present and wiser self and ask him, what are the beliefs and qualities that made this change possible? If the answer is yes, ask what qualities and beliefs will make this possible. Bring them back to the present moment. Fill your presents with these beliefs and qualities. Really feel them in your body. Then move along your timeline to the future, to find yourself in the state after you have achieved this change that you’re on to. Ask future yourself what it took to make this change. You want to find out what other beliefs and qualities it took for this change to be achieved. And more than this, you want to step inside your changed self and see, hear and feel what he/she sees, hears and feels from this changed position. And then, bring this back to the present moment.
It’s an easy technic to do and very effective, especially if you combine it with other things that you do in your process for change. One important thing to remember is that it’s not an intellectual practice. It uses your intellectual to access and to induce states in you, things that you can feel. An example would be, if the issue is economic, you want to feel in your whole system how does it feel to feel abundant. So, you’re using your intellectual, your ability to visualize yourself how you look when abundant, to listen to how you will sound to feel how you will feel. It’s very easy to practice it and you can do it anyplace and anytime. It shouldn’t require more than 5-10’ and the good thing is that once you’ve done it a few times then you can just think about it and your unconscious will run it automatically. Try it and you’ll be positively surprised. Welcome to the new frontier…our brain! And if you have any questions or comments, I’ll be glad to listen to.
