I think I’m in heaven! I’m sitting in the garden next to the pond, the sun is blazing down but I’m in the shade of the rose trellis. I can see the fish swimming around and I feel good. What a great place and time to write my blog this week!
Living in the “now” however is something I’ll write about later!
Today I’d like to introduce to you some ideas about how to enliven past recall in a positive way. Earlier in this series I shared with you how my husband’s family would regularly relate the same old stories from the past. The stories would be funny and heart-warming. They would create a sense of bonding and laughter.
When I first joined the “Cheal” clan I was very puzzled by this behaviour. I even found myself becoming bored and thinking to myself “here we go again!” I could have stayed with that attitude and completely missed the point but luckily I started to change.
Joe and I began having stories of our own. Joe would remind me of things like when we first met and fell in love. I found it very easy to engage in these stories because I was in them. I started to be the one to say “do you remember….”
In our relationship I realised that this is one of the mechanisms that has created the amazing relationship that we have. We constantly remember good experiences we have shared as well as regularly adding new ones.
I often use this idea when working with people who want to bring the sparkle back into their lives. I recently did this in a demonstration on one of my workshops, NLP Practitioner. The delegate wanted to let go of feelings of irritation about her partner over a particular habit.
I used a technique I learnt from John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn based on using recursive loops. To give you the over view, having established what the irritating habit was I asked the woman to tell me about when she first met her partner.
She began to describe the first time she saw him. Her body language changed, her expression brightened and her skin took on a flush. I encouraged her to go over the story many times and with each repetition her feelings of love intensified. When I asked her to think about her husband’s irritating habit in the light of that love it no longer seemed important.
Deliberately re-living past experiences both on our own but particularly by sharing with others helps us stay in touch with those feelings. The mechanism is exactly the same as the one some people use to stay attached to a negative past.
I believe story telling out loud is more effective than writing down for this. The element of sharing the story is important too. This technique can be used by couples, families, friends and even in the work place to build team spirit.
My challenge to you this week is to build a positive reminiscence and share it with as many people as possible. Report back and let me know how it goes.
I predict an increase in happiness! Hooray for Positive Psychology but more importantly Hooray for you!
If you would like help developing these skills I am running an NLP Diploma next month. There are still some places available so do contact me if you would like to join me.
Details on www.gwiznlp.com
resilient brilliant 