I swear time is speeding up and slowing down at the same time, which seems impossible but we are almost a quarter way through 2022. In my mind it feels like it should be the end of January. Having said that, my days and in turn my weeks seem to be getting longer, not sure where I’m finding all this extra time. Weirdest sensation.

Enough about what’s going on in my head, let’s switch to what’s going on in yours. I thought it would be good to go back to sub-modalities and how we can use them to aid us. Sub-modalities, if you can’t remember, are the audio, visual and or other sensory features that make up everything we experience.

One of the brilliant things about our minds, is that it can play around and alter these sub-modalities for all sorts of purposes. Think of it like the post-production stage of a movie. Once all the film’s footage has been captured, it’s time for the editing team to add special effects, sound tracks/effects, cut unneeded scenes and so on. A reason why movie’s have this stage, is that certain editing choices can completely change the meaning of a scene or maybe the whole message of the movie itself.

So, those dynamic editing changes are what we want to learn for our own personal toolkit.

Let’s take a certain emotional state that most people say that they can’t get into, but would love to be in as much as possible. A confident state of being. Now, the process is fairly simple on paper, but it requires mental effort and a degree of charity for it to work.

• First, think about a time when you were truly confident, a moment when you felt unstoppable, that everything you did just worked flawlessly.

• Next, go deep into that experience, relive it in your mind, find one sub-modality that was present. It could be that, the sun was shining from behind so that it was beaming down on your neck, then go deeper, maybe the sun’s rays felt warm on your neck. So, at this point we’ve got the sun shining from behind making your neck warm. Note that down, then repeat the process but this time, start with a different sub-modality. Maybe there were birds chirping off the distance (You don’t always need to ask what other sensations the sub-modality made you feel, but it can’t hurt).

• Repeat the above process as many times as you want, but 3 to 5 should be enough.

• Now, once we have got our list of sub-modalities, it’s time to come up with an experience where we want to feel confident but in the past haven’t been. Or maybe you’re worried about that same experience from happening again because you think you won’t be confident. A perfect example is meeting new people. Everyone has had moments in their past where they felt nervous about meeting new people. Fear of that sticks with them, which cripples them emotionally when they do finally meet new people. This in turn adds to their list of negative experiences about meeting new people.

• Let’s switch it up a notch. We need to instil the confidence from the first experience we examined into the negative one, the one that we want to affect change in. How do we do this? The sub-modalities!!! Take the list you came up with, relive the negative experience but add one of the confidence sub-modalities in. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. For instance, how can the sun be shining on your neck when you met the person at the movie theatre? It doesn’t matter, just add it in.

• You want to relive that negative experience as many times as needed to get the full list of confidence sub-modalities in. Upon reaching that point, crystallise that experience by repeatedly revisiting that negative moment in your life but with the new sub-modalities, do this as much as possible. That’s where the effort part comes in.

With a bit of elbow grease of the mind, you will be able to shift your attitude and beliefs around meeting new people. And remember, once you have that list of confidence sub-modalities, you can apply them to any other situation in which you want to feel confident. The beauty of this technique is that you can use any emotional state, confidence is a great start but what about feeling motivated or excited; you can do the same thing. In fact, this technique gets really crazy when you combine two lists of sub-modalities into a situation you want to change (ie. Using a Confidence list and an Excitement list in that meeting new people example).

One closing note, you can use this mental tool for future events too. So, if you are going on a blind date and meeting someone for the first time (Just running with that example again). You can imagine in your mind how that experience might look, but add the list of sub-modalities in to your visualisation to get that desired shift.

Shout out to my Hedites, I hope you give this technique a try. It really does make a big difference if you are willing to take the leap.

Like always, you are all wonderful people and I will be seeing you again soon