Submodalities

You represent your thoughts using the five senses, or modalities. However, you need to more precise to determine exactly how a person represents their world. A man dealing with a problem expertly, might say that he says something to himself and then forms a picture of something in the mind. You determine more about the pictures, feelings or sounds you use to produce behaviour by discovering the submodalities. You can change submodalities. and create changes in the effect that the picture has.

We can strengthen or weaken representations by changing the subject of the representation - thinking that everything will be fine instead of thinking the worse - or by changing the way we sense the representation. We change the way we represent the mental event by changing its submodalities.

Visual Submodalities

We can explain submodalities. better by giving examples. If you picture something in your mind then you might:

• See a movie or a still shot
• See a panorama or a framed picture
• Colour or black and white
• Brightness
• Size of picture
• Exteriorised or interiorised
• Where the picture is - up or down, left or right
• Distance of picture from self
• Angle or direction of the picture
• Clear or Fuzzy

You view an image from an interiorised perspective when you view it as if it were happening to you. You view an image from an exteriorised perspective when you view it as if it were happening to someone else.

Auditory Submodalities

If you hear a sound in your mind it may be:

• Loud or quiet
• Soft or rasping
• Frequency - high or low pitch
• Source of sound
• Timbre (characteristic sound, such as a voice like Donald Duck)
• Movement of the source
• Duration
• Tempo

Kinesthetic Submodalities

These includes the feeling and the action aspects. A feeling is often a sensation or an emotion. However this representation contains physical actions which concern touch.

Feeling Submodalities

If you have a feeling it may be:

• Hot or cold
• Texture - rough or smooth
• Vibration
• Pressure
• Weight
• Location
• Rhythm
• Steady or intermittent
• Facial expression
• Body position
• Eye positions
• Gestures

Body position is not really a submodality because there are many specific options such as sitting, standing, etc. And these have other submodialities, such as hand positions, straight back, slumping, etc. However, body position and other items in this list alert you to look for more submodalities.

Action (touch) Submodalities

• Reaching and withdrawing
• Grasping
• Holding and letting go
• Grappling
• Hugging
• Feeling

Pain Submodalities

Pains which are feelings can be:

• Tingling
• Hot or cold
• Tension
• Sharp dull
• High or low pressure
• Duration
• Throbbing
• Location

Think of a pleasant experience

Remember a pleasant experience.

• Bring the picture closer.
• Make it brighter.
• Make it bigger.

How does the picture change? For many, the picture of made more enjoyable (although you can test for yourself to find out what works for you).

Imagine yourself there in that pleasant picture. See what you saw then. Hear what you heard then. Feel what you felt then.

Now move out of the picture and see yourself in that picture. Sense what you saw, said, felt, etc. For most people the picture is more intense when you are inside the picture rather than being outside. But, as usual, what is true for you is true. Experiment and find your own submodalities.

Changing an internal voice

If you are bothered by an internal voice that limits you in some way, then:

• Turn down the volume
• Make it softer
• Make it appear to come from farther away

If you wish to make a voice more motivating, make it sound sexy and seductive.

Reframing a negative experience

Find a mildly unpleasant experience. Just something slightly unpleasant.

1. View the scene as if you weren't in the picture - that is see yourself in the picture (externalised).
2. Put a frame round the picture
3. Make it a still picture, not a movie.
4. Move the picture away from you
5. Make it black and white or even a cartoon
6. Have the other person speak like Donald Duck (a funny voice, so you laugh)
7. Hang the picture on the wall.

By using these simple techniques most people find the experience funny rather than slightly upsetting (as it was before you changed the representations).

Changing the Power of Representations

The power to influence of a mental image, feeling, sound, etc, depends on the submodalities. The exact way submodalities. influence the feelings, etc engendered by mental representations depends on the individual.

However, the examples given below apply to many individuals. Usually, if they work differently for you, then you would do the opposite of what is suggested below. If an image is more influential when it is dull, then you would use this information to strengthen or weaken it.

Changing Visual Modalities

Visual submodalities. are more powerful for many people when they are brighter, bigger and nearer. They are less powerful when they are dimmer, more distant and smaller. They may change in power if they are moved from one position (location) to another.

Take a mildly unwanted image:

• make it smaller.
• De-focus it so that it is more blurry.
• And move it away from you.

Notice any changes in its emotional effect on you (feeling modality). You can also experiment with other submodalities.

By changing visual images in this way you can change the effect they have on you - unwanted ones can be made less influential and wanted ones can be more powerful.

Changing Auditory Modalities

If your self talk, for example is negative, then try turning down the volume of the voice. Make it dull and lethargic - make it boring. Change its apparent source, moving it to different places and noticing where it is best for you (in this case less effective).

To make an inner voice more motivating try turning up the volume and making it full of pep. Make it vary in a motivating way. Try different locations for the origin to see how this affects the power of the voice to influence you.

You can do the same thing to make any sounds more effective or less effective in the way they influence you.

Changing the Kinaesthetic Modality

Use the submodalities. above to change a feeling. Making a feeling more wispy often makes it less intense. If it is a hot feeling, try cooling it down to sense the effect. If it is rough try making it smooth or vice versa. If it is heavy, make it lighter.

Crossing Modalities

You can sense the effect of changing other submodalities. For example, if someone had a feeling of depression, you might check out its

• weight,
• location and
• texture.
• etc.

However, you might also check out the colour and size, etc. You could also experiment with any sounds.

Tools to change your life

The above tools can be used to make unpleasant images powerless to affect you and make slightly pleasing events extremely enjoyable. Using submodalities. you can change your mind and the minds of others.

by : Ken ward's

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Submodalities

Submodalities are the qualities of our thoughts. We have established in the eye-accessing cues section that we generally think using one of three representational systems; images, sounds and feelings. If you are a visual thinker then you will create a mental image whenever you think of something. This image will have certain characteristics and qualities, such as color, brightness, location in space and whether the image is a still or moving. For an auditory thinker submodalities include volume and pitch, and for the kinesthetic thinker, weight or density.

Submodalities change the way we think about something in remarkable ways. By learning how to use this efficiently you are able to program your mind for success.

Lets assume for a moment that you are a visual thinker. Whenever you think of a scenario you create an internal mental image. The submodalities of the image change depending on what it is you are thinking about. If you think of something that scares you, the submodalities are very different than those when you think of something that make you happy.

By using the submodalities of a positive or successful scenario on a future event you are programming your mind to achieve success in that future event. To do this you first need to elicit the submodalities that you use for success.

Think of a time when you were successful. Imagine it as clearly as you are able. Then ask yourself the following questions;

Am I associated in the memory or disassociated?
Is the mental image still or moving?
Are their any colors present? If so what kinds of colors are they? Are they bright and clear or dull?
How bright is the overall image?
Where, in my minds eye, is the image situated?
How big is the image?
Are there any sounds present, and if so what are they?
What qualities do any sounds have? (Volume, tone, pitch etc.)
What do I feel in this situation?

Once you have elicited all of the submodalities that you have used whilst remembering a positive situation you have your recipe for future success! Now take your future scenario and mentally visualize it. Notice any differences in the submodalities of your positive memory and your future image. If there are any discrepancies, alter and tweak your future image until the qualities exactly match those of your positive memory. By doing this simple exercise you are programming your mind to succeed!

The submodality diet

Because submodalities are able to change the way that we feel about things, they are very useful in dealing with 'problem' foods. We all have foods that we like a little more than we should, especially if we are carrying a few extra pounds! Using submodalities can change the way that you perceive problem foods and as a result you will no longer desire to eat them. Naturally, using similar techniques in reverse will enable you to develop a liking for foods that are healthy and nutritional. With a little effort it is possible to restructure your entire diet, making healthy eating something that you desire and enjoy, rather than something that you simply do because you feel that you have to!

Once you have completed this process once, it is easy to apply it again and again, and you will have a powerful tool that you can use successfully for the rest of your life. Developing the strategies that you require to complete this task will take just a few minutes, but the benefits that you will gain from these simple exercises will stay with you forever. If your diet is in any way not what you feel it should be in order for you to attain the level of health, fitness or weight that you desire then I strongly urge you to complete these exercises. You will save a great deal of time, effort and money.

To begin, you need to identify the way that you currently view certain foods. Think of a food that has no emotional charge for you whatsoever, choose something that tastes bland and is boring to eat. It doesn't matter what you choose, just be sure that it is something that, if removed from your diet, you wouldn't miss. Don't select something that you dislike, as this will have a different pattern, and very probably an emotional charge, just think of the most boring food that comes to mind.

You will need to make some notes here, so grab a notepad and pen and write the heading 'boring food'. Under your heading write three subheadings; visual, auditory and feelings. Here you will list all of the submodalities that you are able to elicit. Take some time doing this, and be sure to explore each of the representational systems thoroughly. Your completed list might look something like the following...

Boring food submodalities
Visual	Auditory	Feeling
Image is about 15ft away Image is off to the left a little, rather than straight ahead Image is small Image is dull and appears grainy Image is in two dimensions The food looks completely lifeless The image is motionless, like a photograph Darkness	The sound of someone giving a boring lecture in a dull monotone voice A tap dripping slowly Someone sighing heavily Clock ticking	Feelings of depression Heaviness Lack of motion Limp Dead Insignificant

Next complete the same exercise but this time imagine a food that you really dislike. You will notice many changes in your list, this shows how your mind attaches different submodalities to different stimuli. Complete your second list, with the heading 'dislike', in a similar way to the one you have just created for boring food. Once your second list is complete you need to produce a third list, this time choose a food that you do like. This one is usually the easiest! Make sure it is not a food that you feel guilty about eating! So don't select your problem foods here, but it must be something that you really enjoy. Make your mental imagery completely real so that it is mouth-wateringly tempting!

You now have your three basic lists, these are going to be used as recipes to enable you to change how you feel about certain foods. Particularly those that you should be eating less and those that you should be eating more!

To ensure your success we also have a secret weapon... list number four, the 'sick' list! Here you list all things that you would be disgusted to eat. So much so that and if your favourite food was even slightly affected by them the very thought of it would make you feel sick. Your list might include the following, but of course everybody is different...

• Maggots
• Warm blood
• Cold soggy wet bread
• Bile
• Cotton wool
• Tin foil
• Raw flesh

Now, armed with your four personal lists, it is time to decide which foods you wish to change. Make two lists, one for foods that, although you may like, you really shouldn't eat so much, such as chocolate cake! And a second for any foods that you feel you ought to have more of in your diet, such as fresh organic steamed vegetables.

Now select a food from your 'Like but shouldn't' list and rate it's desirability, on a scale of 1 to 100. Be sure to write whatever number comes to mind down. You will want to have a record of your progress! To demonstrate the power of your submodalities, first of all notice how enhancing each of the qualities that come to mind when you mentally imagine this food, affects how desirable it appears. Some submodalities will have more of an affect than others, so take some time to play with this, as you do you are beginning to really understand how your mind works!

If your mental image is far away bring it closer, if there are colours enhance them, make the image brighter, turn up the sounds, if there are no sounds consider adding some. Many people find the sound of bacon sizzling in a pan irresistible! Once you are happy with your adjustments take another desirability rating. I will bet that your desire for this food has considerably increased! This simple, quick exercise demonstrates just how easy it is to change the way that you feel about something.

By adjusting the desirability rating of different foods your diet will automatically shift to accommodate your new preferences. When you are hungry you will be attracted to foods that have a high desirability rating, the actual food itself is irrelevant, it all comes down to the way we feel about it. This is the reason that we all have different tastes, yet, as you will no doubt have noticed, there are many problem foods that we all share. This is simply because we are already being programmed by others! Advertisers know how changing our submodalities affects the sale of their products, and some foods even include additives that actually make you 'feel good' this sensation is automatically associated with the food and as a result it earns itself a few more desirability points!

Knowing how to increase a foods desirability using submodalities will enable you to include more of those 'should eat' foods in your diet. You can simply take each one of these and adjust your mental imagery until you find it irresistible. Remember to record the desirability rating before you begin so that you can see your progress. Keep making adjustments in each of the representational systems until the rating reaches its peak. The 3rd list that you made earlier will help you to decide which changes to make, and in many cases each food also has it's own qualities that enhance it's rating, for example, you will probably find that increasing the crispness of salad will increase its desirability.

Once you have completed your adjustments you will want to test them. Take a desirability reading, write it down and then break state by doing something completely unrelated for a couple of minutes. Now think about the food and rate its desirability again, you will probably notice that it has dropped slightly but is still higher than it was originally. Go back to your mental image and continue to tweak it until your rating is once again at its peak! Make your image completely irresistible. Break state again for a few minutes and then think about your food and take another reading. Continue this process until your desirability rating remains consistently high every time you imagine the food.

Repeat this process for all of the items on your 'should eat' list. It will take a while but you are programming your mind for a lifetime of change. A little effort today will naturally create the diet that you require for the changes that you desire!

Our next step is to reduce the desirability of the items on your, 'like but shouldn't' list. This is exactly the same process, but you will obviously be aiming to reduce the desirability level rather than increase it. To do this you will need to use your Boring food list first. This will reduce the emotional attachment to foods, making them less appealing and bland. Once complete and tested you are ready to move onto the second stage, here you will be using your 'dislike' list to further reduce the desirability ratings of your problem foods.

Once you have completed these two steps, tested them and made any necessary adjustments, you are ready to move on to your sick list. Take each food in turn and apply your sick list to the imagery until your desirability rating falls into minus numbers. To give you an example you may like to imagine how it would feel as you bite into a soggy wet sponge cake, or maybe notice that the meat that you are chewing is filled with live maggots! Take you time to really elaborate on this for each item on your problem list. Break state to test your ratings and go back, making adjustments to each stage as much as is necessary to keep the rating consistently below zero. You will know when you have succeeded because if someone simply says 'chocolate cake' your immediate reaction will be, 'ewwwww!'

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Modalities and Submodalities

We have five basic senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory. In NLP, these are referred to as representational systems or modalities. For each of these modalities, we can have finer distinctions. We could describe a picture as being black and white or colour, or it could also be bright or dim. Sounds could be loud or soft, or coming from a particular direction. Feelings could be in different parts of the body or have different temperatures. Smells could be pleasant or offensive, strong or light. Taste could be sweet or bitter or strong or mild. These finer distinctions are called submodalities and define the qualities of our internal representations. Generally, we work with only three modalities -- visual, auditory and kinesthetic. However, you be working with a client on an issue where the olfactory or gustatory submodalities play a major role e.g. a food issue or someone who is a chef. People have known about and worked with submodalities for centuries. For example, Aristotle referred to qualities of the senses, but did not use the term submodalities.

Some of the more common submodalities are:

Visual	Auditory	Kinesthetic
Black & White or Colour Near or Far Bright or Dim Location Size of Picture Associated / Dissociated Focused or Defocused Framed or Unbounded Movie or Still If a Movie-Fast/Normal/Slow 3 Dimensional or Flat	Loud or Soft Near or Far Internal or External Location Stereo or Mono Fast or Slow High or Low Pitch Verbal or Tonal Rhythm Clarity Pauses	Strong or Weak Large Area or Small Area Weight: Heavy or Light Location Texture: Smooth or Rough Constant or Intermittent Temperature: Hot or Cold Size Shape Pressure Vibration

The visual submodality Associated/Dissociated is a very important and refers to whether or not you can see yourself in the picture (visual internal representation). You are associated if you can not see yourself in the picture. Often we refer to this as ‘looking through your own eyes’. If you can see yourself in the picture, then we say you are dissociated.

If you are associated in a memory, then your feelings (happy, sad, fearful) about that memory will be more intense. If you are dissociated, this is more like watching a movie of your life rather than being there (on the playing field) and any feelings will be less intense or not at all.

Illustrative Exercises

The following two exercises illustrate how submodalities work. You will be asked to make a picture in your mind (an internal representation). For some of us, the pictures we make in our minds are very clear. For others (and this includes me), the picture is not clear, and yet I have a sense of it being there and if I were asked questions about its qualities (submodalities) I would be able to give an answer. To keep the exercises simple, we will only work with the visual submodalities.

Exercise 1:

Get in a comfortable position, close your eyes and get a picture in your mind of someone you really enjoy being with. When you get this picture, notice the submodalities. That is, is it a bright or dim picture, where is it located, are you associated or dissociated, etc. Once you have done this, open your eyes and clear your mind by stretching and looking around the room. In NLP, this is called a break state.

Again close your eyes and this time get a picture in your mind of someone you do not enjoy being with. Notice the submodalities of this picture and I am sure that you can identify several that are different from the picture of someone you enjoy being with. Once you have done this, break state by stretching and looking around the room.

I am sure you were able to identify several submodalities that were different in the two internal representations.

Generally, we tend to have similar submodalities for the internal representations of people we enjoy being with. The submodalities of the internal representations of people we do not enjoy being with will also be similar submodalities and in some way different from the submodalities of people we enjoy being with. This sameness and difference in submodalities allows us to code our experiences and give meaning to our past and future memories (internal representations).

Submodalities are fun and easy to play with. For example, if the internal representation of someone you do not enjoy being with is large, and up close (i.e. ‘in your face’), what do you think would happen if you made the picture smaller and pushed it away to a comfortable distance? I suspect you would not necessary end up liking this person, however you may find them not so overbearing.

Exercise 2:

For this exercise, I would like you to close your eyes and think of a time when you were very happy. Once you have this picture, make it very dark, shrink it down to a small picture and push it far away. When you did this, what did you notice about your feelings of happiness? Reduced or disappeared? You have just learned a great way to remove happiness from your life – take all your happy memories and make the pictures very dark, small and far away. Of course, I am joking. However, there are some people who tend to discount their happy memories by making them darker, smaller and further away, while making their unpleasant memories big and bright and close. And how do you think they live their lives?

These two examples illustrate that the submodalities you use to store your memories (past and future) give meaning to your memories. We can not change an event that has already happened, however by adjusting the submodalities of the memory we can change how we perceive it and respond to it. This is also true for future events.

Submodalities Key Building Blocks of NLP Techniques

Submodalities are key components to many of the NLP change techniques. Submodalities, by themselves or as part of other techniques, have been used to assist people to stop smoking, eat more of certain foods and less of others, address compulsion issues, change beliefs and values, enhance motivation, move from stress to relaxation, address phobias, etc.

And NLP is Much more than that!

By Roger Ellerton Phd, ISP, CMC, Renewal Technologies Inc. www.renewal.ca