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The Swish technique
enables us to quickly dissolve the feelings attached to unwanted thoughts
and to deal with unuseful behaviours.
In the Swish we replace
the unwanted thought or behaviour with a more useful and appropriate one
because the Swish re-directionalises thinking. It is an instruction
to the brain No, not that - THIS!!
Use it for yourself - and others
This is a valuable
technique for managing your own thinking, states, and behaviours.
Each time you use the Swish you are training yourself to instantly
re-direct your thinking from unuseful topics to more resourceful ones.
By using the Swish in
your own life you develop your ability to maintain resourceful states,
manage your responses to stressful situations, and engage in the
behaviours you want.
How to use the Swish
1 Select a replacement image
First select your
replacement image - ask yourself How do I want to be instead.
Having selected the
replacement image see and hear yourself `over there' in a dissociated
image. It is important that this image is dissociated. Enhance the detail
and the quality (submodalities) of this until it the image is quite
compelling.
2 Find the trigger for the unwanted
activity
Discover how you know
when to have the unwanted image or behaviour.
Ask yourself What
occurs just before this negative or un-wanted state begins?
This time, you want an associated image of what is going on immediately before
you engage in the unwanted activity.
3 Put the replacement in the corner of
unwanted image
Imagine a small
postage-stamp sized version of your replacement picture in the bottom
corner of the unwanted picture.
4 Swish the two images
Now you want t make both
images change simultaneously and with increasing speed. (Experienced
NLPers will select two critical submodalities to use here. However simply
making the images change size and distance from you will work most of the
time.)
Have the 'negative' image
become smaller and shoot off into the distance. At the same time have the
'positive' replacement image become larger and closer until it replaces
the negative image completely. Imagine a "swish" sound as you do
this - hence the name. That's one Swish sound.
(Do this fairly
slowly at first taking, say, 5-10 seconds to do it. Then continue, doing
it a little faster each time, until you are swishing almost
instantaneously - in less than a second!)
5 Clear your mind
After each Swish round
blank your mind, fully! Think of something else or visualise your
favourite colour. Breathing easily as you do this since some people tend
to hold their breath while concentrating on doing the Swish. It is crucial
to the success of the Swish to clear your mind or turn your attention
outside before you do each next round.
6 Practice 5-7 times
Repeat steps 3 to 5 up to
about seven times until you have difficulty in maintaining the unwanted
image.
‘I don’t visualise’
This is a common belief.
You can do an Auditory or a Kinaesthetic Swish, too. So if you (or the
person , if you are assisting someone else) believe that you have
difficulty in visualising you could accept this belief and use a
kinaesthetic or auditory swish.
However the Swish will
generally be more effective in the Visual system since this appears to be
the only system in which we can simultaneously change two sets of
representations.
So I would suggest that
you act 'as if' you are visualising - do it 'pretending' that you are able
to follow the steps and can visualise clearly. Curiously, this will work
just as effectively!
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