Lifestyle

Swish your way to a new you

This month Tim Roberts teaches us a powerful versatile technique that can change unwanted behaviours and emotions

Recently I have become a You Tube convert. I’d discovered that You Tube offers many excellent
learning video steams in bite-size chunks. I often kick back for a few minutes with a coffee and learn from one of these videos.

Just this morning I was watching a clip of motivational
speaker Tony Robbins being interviewed on CNN by Larry King.

Towards the end of this interview Robbins said that just going after what we want usually doesn’t work. Instead, it’s when we start to change and become the person who would be comfortable with that which we seek that we attract it to us.

In my own experience, I think this is accurate – although I can’t rationally explain why it is like this.

Part of becoming the new you is letting go of those unhelpful behaviours and emotions that so often prevent us being fully who we can be.

One useful technique that can change these behaviours is called the Swish Pattern. Many people teach this technique in a number of ways but the common theme is that it replaces negative mindsets with positive ones.

You might like to learn it because the greater understanding it offers can help you make better decisions about how you experience your thinking – and everything in your life depends on the quality of your thought.

When you’ve read this you might like to go to You Tube and watch Derren Brown, among others, as they use their own versions of this pattern. The way people use the Swish Pattern and the results they create are different and fascinating.

Another very good reason to invest time in learning the Swish Pattern is that it can help you to help others.

Last night, one of my children was very worried about
school. Attempting to soothe her fears in the conventional way – using data, parental logic and reason – is surprising useless when someone is suffering a strong emotional reaction.

Instead, the Swish Pattern offers flexibility and power that fits with the individual’s own thinking. The result was that in a couple of minutes my daughter discarded what was upsetting her and embraced greater confidence.

The Swish Pattern is so-called because we can swish one less than useful behaviour away by replacing it with another more useful one. We find that the thinking that used to give rise to the old behaviour will now kickstart the new behaviour.

Learn to swish
The instructions that follow are for helping those people who are thinking visually, although with a little adaptation you can help people when they think in sounds or feelings. You can also adapt it to work on your own thoughts.

To begin with, identify the problem, which might be behaviour, thought pattern, an emotion or habit that we want to replace with a more resourceful, powerful state of being.

Ask the other person which specific picture triggers the unwanted behaviours. This might be, when they think about going to school they actually make a quick and unconscious image of walking through the school gate.

Ask the other person to imagine this trigger picture as if they are in their own body looking out at the image. This is called being associated with the image. So, they would see what they expect to see as they walk into the school or room. They do not see themselves walking into the school or room. This is called being disassociated.

Identify two of the most important submodalities – or
qualities – of this trigger picture. Most people find that these are brightness and size of the picture that they are recalling. Ideally, you need to help them find submodalities that they can increase in their imagination continuously.

The next step is counter-intuitive but very important. This is called breaking state. Change the thinking or the conversation to take them away from this intense concentration on the trigger image. You might ask them about something unrelated, such as shoe size.

Next, you must elicit a picture of how they would like to be, their most desirable state in this situation. You might ask:

● How would you be if you were free of this problem?
● What sort of person would not have this problem at all?
● How would things be for you if you had more choices and more skills?
● What would all of this look like?

Your role here is also to make this new picture of ideal capability motivating and to fit with their values. When they create this ideal image make it dissociated (see above). Once again, break state. Once again, return to the original problem image. Make it bigger and brighter.

Keep it associated. Now, ask the other person to keep this big, bright, associated picture and in their mind’s eye to pass onto it, in a corner, their desired self-image.

If the submodalities of the problem picture are bigger and brighter then use the opposite for the ideal state, make it small, dark and dissociated.

Now comes the swish that gives this technique its name. Speed is of the essence here. Expand the small, dark image to fill the frame and make it bright and big. Simultaneously, ask them to make the problem image smaller and darker and to shrink it to nothing.

Instruct them to do this very quickly and to imagine a sound that supports this movement, such as a loud swish! Break the state again. You may ask them to look at something else.

Help them to do this at least six times. It is crucial that you break the state between each swish. The reason for this is that you may unwittingly reinstall the problem image if you do not break state.

Finally, the proof of the pudding is in asking the person
to step into the problem state once again. Ask them what has changed and what is now different. You may notice that they may be unable to locate the initial problem image.

They may seem confused about what the problem image was. They may describe the problem image in the past tense or in vague and unemotive terms. These suggest that the hold that the past state had on them has been considerably weakened.

So, to recap, you are helping them to search for a trigger that starts the problem state. They then build an experience of how they want to be. You help them to represent this trigger in heightened terms using submodalities and to make it associated.

They create the desired image and paste it onto the original image in the opposite submodalities. They then speedily swish in the new pattern while swishing out the old pattern, swapping the submodalities.

So the problem picture fades and shrinks to nothing and the new one grows in brightness and size (or whichever submodalities are crucial). Remember that breaking state at this point is vital. Repeat so that you have done this five times, breaking state after each time.

Helping others
If you are serious about helping others, and yourself, to change their lives this one simple and profound technique can be a huge help.

Rehearse it until it is seamless, relaxed and comfortable. Try it on yourself. Experiment with others, always exercising a duty of care.

Start with inconsequential problems and when you have mastered this, move up to more significant ones. If you are in doubt, refer to an expert.

Enjoy learning and developing your abilities to help others and yourself.

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