NLP Exercise - The NLP Belief Disintegrator

 

The purpose of this NLP exercise is to enable you to take a negative belief you hold about yourself such as a belief that limits you, and to destroy it, thus giving you more flexibility and more options in your life.

It is important to understand the steps so that you can perform this NLP exercise without any doubt as to what you are doing and why.

A belief change doesn't need any doubt associated with it, so as well as reading the exercise several times, it is a good idea to try the NLP exercise out a few times with a minor belief before attempting with anything life changing.

It is also a good idea to read the NLP Submodalities and NLP Memory Manipulation lessons before attempting this NLP exercise.

Step 1:

Think of something that you do not believe.

This does not need to be something important, in fact something trivial such as the belief that the sky is green, or some other minor nonsensical belief is best.

Now think of that belief and notice that when you think of the belief you visualize something related to it.

Notice where in space that image is positioned.

Is it to the right? to the left?

And how far away?

Do you say anything in your head, or hear any sounds in your head that tell you that this is a belief.

If so make a note of them.

Now think about something completely different for a moment, maybe the weather, your last bank statement.

Anything really.

Step 2:

Now think of something that you are not sure whether it's true or not.

In fact pick something that you don't really care about either way.

For instance, I don't know if gold is denser than silver, and it certainly doesn't have a particularly major effect on my life either way.

Now think of this idea and as before notice that when you think of it you visualize something related to that idea.

Notice where in space that image is positioned.

Is it to the right? to the left? And how far away.

Step 3:

So now that you have two positions, think of the original belief you wish to destroy, and notice where that image is.

Now you need to move the image firstly into the same position as the 'don't care' position, and then into the 'don't believe' position. If there were any internal sounds connected to the belief, repeat them in your head when you position the image into the 'don't believe' position.

There are a couple of things that may make this difficult and these are as follows:

1) The image will not move from the left to the right or visa versa.

This seems to be a general problem.

The way around this is to move the image into the center, way off in the distance and then pull it forward into the second position from that point.

2) The image moves back to it's original position. There are a number of ways to solve this.

  • When you move the image make a sound in your head to swish the image into the new position.
  • Imagine a sucker on the back of the image and stick it in place.
  • Nail it in place.
  • Imagine a series of locks to hold it in place.
  • Think of any way you could hold the image in place in the real world and imagine it.

Once you have the image in the correct place, make sure that it is the same size as the original.

Test it:

Think of something completely different, and then think of the new belief.

How do you feel about it now?

Does it have the correct position and size?

Did you hear the internal dialogue that tells you that you don't belief it?

If not, go back over the steps again.

This is one of the more complex NLP exercises on PlanetNLP, so once you've got the hang of this one then the others should be simple!

 
Comments

Previous comments

Going Mad

Is there any danger in this NLP exercise? What if I use it for something I really should believe in? Can the exercise be undone?

I can imagine some people trying to remove all their beliefs - surely madness lays in using this exercise too much?

DaveG, London

Posted May 14, 2010 at 08:29

Why would you want to?

Really, its up to you what you use this NLP exercise for. Most people find that if they try to do something really stupid (or someone tries to hypnotize them to do something stupid), a part of their mind rejects the idea.

So really I don't think you have anything to worry about, but why would you try?

Chris Harrison, UK

Posted May 28, 2010 at 04:18

Hypnotherapist

What is the difference between the Belief Creator & the Disintegrator? Is is just that you start with something you don't believe to create and something you do believe to disintegrate? The disintegrator instructions say to think of something you don't believe, like 'I can breathe' Is that a mistake? Which would you use for a smoker? Thanks.

Janet, USA - PA

Posted September 5, 2011 at 14:4

Good Question ...

and yes, that is a mistake - thanks for pointing it out.

Are the NLP exercises really the same structurally? Yes, they are. I just kept them separate to avoid confusion.

As to which to use, it depends on whether you need to install a belief or remove one.

Often it's worth using the NLP exercises as a pair so for a smoker you may want to replace the belief that quitting is hard with the belief that quitting is easy. Simply removing the first belief really just leaves a void and either belief is equally likely to manifest, so I would often use them one after the other.

Chris Harrison, UK

Posted September 5, 2011 at 22:50

I realized that something is missing or wrong because in Step 3 the instructions mention creating a believe whilst I though I was going to dismantle one...

Carmen, Spain

Posted January 4, 2012 at 03:21

Carmen

Yes, you're correct. I've fixed the problem. Thanks.

Chris Harrison, UK

Posted September 5, 2011 at 22:50

Interesting

I noted three distinct locations. As I considered Don't believe, Don't care and Do believe. This by itself was a surprise that the images associated with these beliefs has a predictable location in space relative to myself.

Left: Don't believe
Right: Don't care
Center: Believe

I took the example of the sky being green and moved it to my center position (Believe) I felt and immediate urge to examine the sky. In other words my first thought and impulse was to confirm as true something that I knew was false simply because I moved it's position. Even as I type this I have this urge to look out side to see if the sky has changed to green.

This is remarkable and totally unexpected.

I then move the "green sky belief" to don't care (the right) and the impulse to look outside evaporates. Then back to don't believe (the left).

What is startling me is how easily my impulse to act can be manipulated by simply moving a picture associated with a belief in space.

In response to a earlier post that was concerned that this could be a path to madness my limited experience here would suggest it is precisely the opposite as you can shift your impulse by simply shift the position of the image. Therefore you can choose the position of the image.

On further examination I took some beliefs that I thought I had and noticed them not popping up in the center, but rather they appeared in the don't believe area. On closer examination I had to admit that I had serious doubts about these beliefs.

This is really cool. Sorry for the long post, but this is very unexpected and very exciting. I can easily manipulate my impulse to act by manually shift the position of an image associated with a belief. I happen to think that is a very powerful ability to have, and one that I am going to enthusiastically develop further.

Brian

Posted February 2, 2012 at 15:00