This can give you more options in responding to what you feel – once you start to use it

Choose the meaning of what you feel

We have touched on the topic of reframing many times in the past, and from my own experience, I know that it certainly works.

However, recently I came across an article that discusses a study carried out at Harvard University where it was found that interpreting sensations differently from the way we do normally, an action also known as reframing, does bring about improvements in performance for people.

In the article Performance Anxiety by Tori Rodriguez, published in American Scientist magazine, she writes:

“Anxiety or excitement? New studies at Harvard university found that by interpreting these sensations as excitement instead of anxiety, people performed better in three types of stressful situations: singing in front of strangers, speaking in public and solving difficult math problems”.

Interestingly, in the article, there is no evidence of how you can do this. However, for those who have had proper NLP training, this can be almost second nature. We know from previous studies in psychology that the physiological components of anxiety and excitement are exactly similar. Therefore, the perception of anxiety or excitement is open to interpretation as either, depending on the context and the personal meaning and preferences of the experiencer.

The first couple of ways in which we can change our perceptions are altering the sub-modality structure of each sensation or using a using a pattern called perceptual positions, and there are other options as well. I’ll go into a bit more detail further down.

What is even more interesting is that there are more results of studies published in the same article, also carried out at Harvard University, that link effective performance in social situations to the ability to reframe.

In her article, Tori goes on to elaborate on another Harvard study published in August 2014 that also found performance-boosting effects for people with social anxiety who thought of their stress as helpful during a public performance.

Learn to choose

Reframing can be done in many ways by those who have been properly trained in NLP.

You can use your physiology, language, time line (the way you experience time), values, sub-modalities (the structure of how you experience sensations, images, and sounds inside yourself), to mention but a few.

Reframing is about creating flexibility of behaviour and adapting your internal experience so it matches your higher intentions. It is a tool used by all the exceptionally effective people I know.

As I like to always say, “Life is what you make out of it”. So do yourself a favour and do exactly that.

Now it is your turn to start paying attention to the meaning you give to things and how you can change that meaning to suit your intentions and context.

Edited by Jules Collingwood, NLP trainer at INSPIRITIVE.

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