How to find the most efficient resource
In this article, I describe an approach to determining the core intention in order to identify an efficient resource with which feelings can be changed.
Emotions
Emotions can only be changed with emotions! Adrian Schweizer writes this in an article in Praxis Kommunikation. The standard procedure for transferring emotional states in NLP and other change disciplines is the transfer of resources. NLP practitioners call it "collapsing anchors". The client defines a problem state and a target state. To transfer the problem state to the target state, resources are needed: The client associatively recalls a positive emotional state that they have experienced before. This feeling can then be introduced into the problem state using a wide variety of anchor techniques, so that the problem feeling transforms into the target feeling. For those who like to work efficiently, the question arises as to how to identify precisely the feeling that the client is missing in the problem situation.
What the client really needs
If you ask the client, “What do you need?”, or present him with a menu of possible resources and ask him to choose some, he will usually choose the character traits that underlie his conscious belief model. The things the client has stored in his unconscious, he cannot name at this moment. This is where the coach is needed as a companion. I will illustrate this in a short story as an excerpt from a coaching session with a client named Holger…
A little story
"Holger, if you allow yourself to feel so bad, and you therefore also responsible that you have this tension in your chest, why are you actually doing that? What wins you for yourself, if you make sure that you feel so bad here? Why behave you like that?" Holger initially reacted with incomprehension. He spontaneously wasn't clear why he was doing it. To help him, I asked the nine Guiding principles according to Adrian Schweizer it. Holger realized that behind the behavior was the desire for INTEGRITY and after FREEDOM stuck. How did he know that? His body reacted most violently when counting the two values: With both values, he began to sway slightly, which was not the case with the other values. A double-check confirmed the finding. He added: "Because things have to be done and I want to bring my projects to a successful conclusion!". With John Grinder, the co-developer of NLP, during his New Code-NLP training in Vienna, I took the sentence from him: – What's the intention behind the intention?– So don't settle for the motivation that first comes to the surface, but go deeper (into the unconscious)! So I reframed Holger's statement: "If your desire to get things done and lead projects is a strategy to achieve something else, then what is that your strategy for?" I framed the statements thus obtained about motivation as a strategy and kept probing until Holger was going in circles with his statements and in the end the following two statements kept coming up:
- "I want to feel good! “
- "I would like to be successful! “
Bingo! We had arrived at the source of motivation. The resource that Holger urgently needs in this context is Success to have and this success was the good feeling which he was missing. Of course, I questioned Holger accordingly and he confirmed this point of view.
Conclusion
If one carefully works out the "right" resource – after Grinders "What is the intention behind the intention?" – in my experience, it is usually enough to provide a single resource to bring about the desired change in feeling! I now use this procedure as standard in my process models and enjoy the increase in efficiency together with my clients. I was asked by fellow coaches whether this deep dive to the source of motivation does not lead to problems and any unpleasant side effects. I have not observed or been mirrored such things in my practice, even with clients with complex entanglements. Rather, clients are amazed at how complicated they make things in life. If, for example, they consciously look for INTEGRITY strive and slavishly adhere to rules because they, for themselves, through this SECURITY hope for. But this SECURITY is only the means to the goal, life INTENSIVE to want to enjoy. However, they torpedo this goal with their integrous behavior, as subordination to a set of rules normally runs counter to the desired positive intense feelings. As a side effect, the coach also receives valuable information about the client's (formerly) unconscious life strategy with this approach. This can be the basis for further trusting development work.
