The Swish Pattern – change your reactions

I learnt that your mind is quick at picking up patterns, retaining them and reshaping your conscious thinking processes. It doesn’t take years to change. It can be done in minutes. Like the majority of the population you may have certain traits of compulsive behavior or a pattern which you wish you could change. This might be a fear of public speaking, a sinking feeling you may get from an unpleasant thought etc…

Here is a technique I use to re-associate negative thoughts and connect with positive ones.

Goal: Break an old automatic pattern / habit / thought and replace it with one that is more resourceful.

Steps:

#1. Recognise the automatic reaction.

• In 3rd person, observe the feelings, images, sounds and thoughts you have during this reaction.
• Feel the anger / fear, recall the negative thoughts or fear of other people’s reaction to you e.g. people laughing at you.

#2. Determine the trigger of the negative image.

• In 1st person, ask yourself “what occurs before this negative state begins”.
• Understand your physiology so that you know your trigger point better.

#3. Create & Place the replacement.

• Create a positive “replacement” image which will get you out of this negative state. This is typically the opposite to your negative image.
• Put the replacement image into the corner of the negative image. Like a small picture (replacement image) within a large picture (negative image).

#4. Swish the two images.

• Visualise the replacement image zooming in and engulfing the shrinking negative image. The negative image will disappear.
• Make a sound or imagine a whoosh sound as the images switch places.

#5. Repeat.

• Clear your mind by thinking of your favourite color or place.
• Repeat steps 3 to 5 seven (x7) times.
• You know you are on the right track when the negative image has a problem maintaining state in your mind. ie. the positive image automatically pops into your mind when the trigger is activated.

#6. Test.

• Trigger the negative image & engage it to see what automatic image pops into your mind.
• If it’s the positive replacement image then you are on the right track.

Source: Richard Bandler (father of NLP), John Grinder and The Big Book Of NLP Techniques: 200+ Patterns & Strategies of Neuro Linguistic Programming

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