Free Yourself from Fears (16 page)

Skill for freedom

Changing your physiology

J If you think “choking,” breathe, relax your throat, and keep your head up.

J If you feel you freeze, then relax and imagine a warm glow inside you.

Imagine you are standing next to a warm fire. Keep your hands warm.

J If you feel you are collapsing, stand up straight; be aware of your body.

J If you think of losing, then imagine searching through a treasure trove and finding all the resources you need.

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THE PRESSURE TO ACHIEVE

Fear of failure and performance anxiety are unreal fears, but they can be strong enough to stop you succeeding and so become self-fulfilling prophecies. This sets up a vicious circle: the more you fear, the more likely you are to fail and so the more you fear. With these NLP patterns you can break this cycle.

People have been afraid of failure in every country and in every culture. Here is a Chinese story from Confucius, from the sixth cen-tury BC.

A good swimmer has acquired his ability through repeated practice—that
means he has forgotten the water. If a man can swim under water, he
may never have seen a boat before, and still he will know how to handle
it—that is because he sees the water as so much dry land, and regards the
capsizing of the boat as he would overturning a cart. The ten thousand
things may all be capsizing and turning over at the same time right in
front of him and it cannot disturb him and affect what is on the inside—

so where could he go and not be at ease?

When you are betting for tiles in an archery contest, you shoot
with skill. When you are betting for fancy belt buckles, you worry about
your aim. When you are betting for real gold, you are a nervous wreck.

Your skill is the same in all three cases—but because one prize means
more to you than another, you let outside considerations weigh on your
mind. He who looks too hard on the outside gets clumsy on the inside.

Pay attention on the inside—don’t be clumsy on the inside and you won’t be clumsy on the outside. Succeed on the inside and you will succeed on the outside.

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Dealing with Change:

The Uncertain Future

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by
fearing to attempt.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT CHANGE and how to deal with it. Everything changes, but when the change is gradual we do not notice it. Our face does not seem to change from hour to hour, or day to day, sometimes not even from week to week. But compare a contemporary photograph of yourself with one taken a year ago, and you will see a change. We usually accept inevitable and predictable change (although plastic surgery is an alternative to growing old gracefully). More difficult to handle are the changes that are forced on us and out of our control, changes we do not want, or more change than we can handle at one time. The anticipation of such changes can make us afraid. Whatever the change, it takes time.

You are on a journey between the present and the future.

We do not notice small natural changes. We notice when they are significant and important enough to disturb our routine and habits of life, or if we gain or lose something important. These significant changes occur in two ways:

J They are forced on us and are outside our control.

J We decide to make the change.

Both types of change are much easier to handle if we can keep important things about the present situation and take those into the future with us. However, sometimes we cannot.

DEALING WITH CHANGE

Change with no choice

Change may be forced on us and be out of our control. Such changes can be very good—a promotion at work or a lottery win, for example.

These are not usually a problem, although sometimes they can be stressful. We are conservative when it comes to the good things of life.

If these change, we want them to change for the better. Changes we did not choose and perceive as bad are usually very stressful, for example being made redundant, losing money, or having to move house. These changes are disturbing and we fear for the future. Will everything turn out well? Can we cope? Will we be able to have the same good life as we had before?

When you lose your job, there is more than a job at stake—your financial security, your lifestyle, your ability to provide for those you love, even your self-image as a creative, productive person may be under threat. If you enjoyed your work you will lose the daily satisfaction and pleasure you got from it. This change might ultimately lead to something good; for example you might start your own business, be more successful, and have more security and job satisfaction than you had before. Then you would look back on that change and see it as a good one, a challenge that became an opportunity.

However, none of this is real at the time when you lose your job. You have only hopes, and they coexist with the fears that you will not find another job, or one that pays much less than the one you lost. The change could lead to depression, illness, and poverty. The challenge would be a nightmare, not an opportunity.

We judge changes as good or bad in the moment they happen, but we can never really know the truth until afterward, sometimes long afterward. The first reaction to unwelcome external change is normally fear and anxiety. We have lost something of value and we are not sure if we can replace it.

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The changes we choose

Secondly, we may choose to make the change. We want something better and we then have more control over the change and how quickly it proceeds. Even though there is no guarantee that everything will turn out the way we want, we usually judge these changes as good at the time.

For example, I had a comfortable, secure, well-paid job with excellent career prospects after I graduated from university. I resigned this job after two years to pursue a career in music. I spent two months unemployed before I was able to earn any money. Those two months were frightening, but I never doubted that the change would work well eventually. I never regretted that change, it was right for me.

External and internal change

Change can come from two directions:

J In external change, the initiating factor comes from the outside world.

J In internal change, the change comes from you.

Changes you choose are always internally driven. No one can force you to make internal changes. Internal changes can be about self-development. For example, you decide to be a more loving person or a more creative person. Internal and external changes go together.

Where the change starts is what is important—from an outside event, or from an internal decision? Big external changes will probably develop in you the qualities you need in order to cope. And when you decide to make an internal change, you will seek out helpful people and circumstances, and make a difference to your situation.

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Tolerance of change

Some people are more comfortable with change than others. NLP

proposes three major metaprogram patterns about how people react to and provoke change. These are preferences, probably built in childhood, and are not fixed for life.

The first pattern is called
sameness
. People with this pattern do not like change and may refuse to adapt to change. These are the people who adopt a new technology or working practice after everyone else (late adopters). They only want a major change every ten years, and they do not usually provoke change. “Don’t rock the boat” is a mantra for this pattern.

The second pattern is called
sameness with exception
. People with this pattern like situations to evolve over time rather than change abruptly. They prefer gradual change. They like a major change every five years or so.

The third pattern is called
difference
. People with this pattern like change; they provoke change and resist anything that is too stable or static. They are revolutionary rather than evolutionary. They want major change every one to two years. These people are the early adopters of any new technology. However, they will still resist external unwanted change, although they may deal with it better than people who have a sameness pattern.

You can get an idea about your pattern from the next exercise.

Discovering your metaprogram for change
1 What is the relationship between your work this year and your work last year? (If you are not working, then what is the relationship between how you are living this year and how you were living last year?) 2 Think of your main holiday every year in the last five years.

J Did you go to a different place each year?

J Did you go to the same place each year?

J Did you go to the same place until you tired of it and then changed?

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3 How many major changes have there been in your life in the last ten years?

4 How many different jobs have you had in the last ten years?

It is easy to see your preference in the answers to these questions.

The
sameness
pattern sees similarities, and your answers will be a variation of “It’s the same.” You will tend to go to the same place on holiday, have very few if any major changes in the last ten years, and one or two jobs.

Sameness with exception
will answer the first question in terms of more of some things and less of others, otherwise basically the same.

You will tend to change holiday resorts regularly, have two or three major changes in the last ten years and have done two or three different jobs.

Difference
will answer the first question in terms of what is different about work or life (some things will be the same, but this is not what they perceive). Difference people will tend to change holiday resorts every year, have several major changes in their life, and perhaps several jobs in a short period.

This is a rough-and-ready test, it is just meant to give you an idea of your pattern. No pattern is better than another. What is important is to know what you prefer and what you pay attention to. Keep the important things stable. If you have a stable and loving relationship, then you can deal with many other changes.

Major changes

Everyone experiences major changes in their life. These are the most interesting, the most complex, and where we can learn the most. I have a good example from my own experience.

In 2000, I was living in London. I was not very happy with my life, although I was comfortable and successful, I knew it could be better, I knew I could be better, but I did not know how, nor exactly what to 128

DEALING WITH CHANGE

do about it. I enjoyed my work—consultancy, training, and writing—but it felt empty. I would sit in my study and stare out the window at the street and let my mind spin on nothing in particular. The leaves on the trees outside the house changed their colors with the seasons, but nothing seemed to change inside me.

I felt as if I were trying to compose a song from only three chords, three chords that came from different keys and didn’t even fit together very well. The resulting song varied between flashes of aleatoric brilliance, mere competence, and downright boredom. I wanted a rock song with at least six chords, drums, bass, a mean electric lead, and maybe a soaring saxophone shimmying its way between the silences. I knew that life was not boring; I was bored. I believed I had more than these three chords within me, I believed I could be more, but I did not know how.

Then on a business trip to Rio de Janeiro, I met Andrea and we fell in love. It is easy for me to write that short sentence now, but it cru-elly compresses an experience that changed my life profoundly and would take a book longer than this one to do it justice.

I had my life in England and Andrea had her life in Brazil. What to do?

I moved to Brazil.

That’s an even shorter sentence that compresses a long and difficult process full of joy, fear, long journeys, late-night telephone conversations, separations, and heartfelt reunions. The decision was easy, but there is a big difference between deciding to do something and actually doing it. Some months had to pass. During that time, I had to make many practical arrangements and deal with an unknown future. My fears were many and varied and mostly to do with losing what I knew, without fully knowing what would take its place.

I had lived all my life in England. I knew English culture; I knew how to behave in England. I knew how to speak English—I took the language for granted and it was my strongest anchor to England, my former life, and English culture. My friends were in England and so were my children. All my habits tied me to England. I valued many things about living in England and the English way of life.

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When you are facing change, small things take on an unusual significance. The smell of autumn in England, for example, the chill in the September air, when the leaves are thinking whether to change into brilliant gold, the sun half-heartedly trying to convince you to take an ice cream. The familiar road, the easy walk to the shops, milk delivered every morning, and the high-street shops I knew all gave me the message that life was understandable and thus predictable. My work desk was precisely the way I wanted it with the computer, scan-ner, and printer all placed exactly where I had placed them. I knew what food I liked and I knew just where to buy it. The magazines that interpreted the world in the way I had become used to were delivered to my doorstep. The newspaper shop was only a block away. I had no idea that I had accumulated so many books and papers, and all of them seemed essential. I was like many people who decide they must throw away some papers to simplify their life or make room for more—I began full of hope and energy, then slowly realized as I went through that
everything
seemed essential. Where to start?