Better than Life

HTB Lab Notes

Happy new year, everyone. What a time for change! A friend of mine asked me a few weeks back if I were trying to get a head start on the new year with all the changes I've made in my life. Well, maybe so. In any case, it's here. Everyone have their resolutions ready?

My number one resolution is to find a job within the next two weeks. Staying home and learning from books and the Internet was fun, but it's time to go apply what I've learned. I've got a couple interviews lined up, so I'll let you know what's going on in an issue or two.

My number two resolution is to focus and get my creative stuff done in less time. That means HTB, manifestation.com, programming, and rewriting that novel I've worked on since eighth grade.

My number three resolution is to have more fun. Get away from the computer and enjoy some time with other people. Fancy that. :)

So what about you guys (and girls, of course)? Send me a short paragraph (3-4 sentences) about your resolutions and what you'll do to follow through, and I'll publish them next issue. Sound good? It'll make this more of a community 'zine, and besides, we'll have fun.

Speaking about community, I wanted to thank Rob Schwartz for his response last issue. Rob teaches guitar, and actually uses unconscious learning techniques similar to what I described last issue to give students a feeling of competence before he teaches them the technical aspects of guitar. He also suggested (for those of you following along at home) to put your favorite song on in the background, and jam along with whatever sounds good.

Finally, one other question for the techies in the audience - can anyone tell me a public access news server (besides DejaNews) that gets alt.psychology.nlp? My ISP's server doesn't work too well, and the other accounts I have require me to telnet in to access the news servers.

That's about it for the lab notes. This issue's about a certain way NLP'ers have of looking to the future, and how it can help us lead better lives. Some of you already know about timelines, so we'll move a little beyond introduction, and into applying them. Enjoy!

Better Than Life

I had a fight with Lori earlier today. I don't like fighting. That was part of the problem. In the middle of it, I rolled my eyes at something she said and she got mad because I was rolling my eyes instead of talking to her how I felt. So I told her how I felt at that moment. It involved kicking her out of my office and slamming the door. A few minutes later, I made a feeble attempt at apologizing. She ignored me. I rolled my eyes at her and went back to my room. I don't know what she did. I sat down on my floor and fumed.

I've never stayed angry long, especially since I started learning NLP. One of the first exercises I ever did - back when I hung out with a young Texan practitioner named Dennis - was the stuck to clear pattern. You pick a bad state, get frustrated, get confused, get curious, feel good. The pattern kicked in as soon as I sat down, and in a few seconds, I wondered how I could use the argument I'd just had. My first thought was a nice opening loop for this issue. My second was that I could make a change.

Now I don't know if you've ever stopped to wonder how you can tell the difference between a memory about the past and an idea about the future. Both are thoughts, after all. But us NLP'ers have, and we've come up with something. If you stop for a moment and make in your mind an image of something that happened a year ago, and another of something six months ago, and three, and last week, and if you make an image of something that'll happen next week, three months from now, six months, and a year, and you look at all of these at once, you'll notice something. If you're like most people, you'll notice that you could draw a line to connect the images, and if you stretch the line out, it continues back to your childhood, and out into your future. This line is your timeline. (If your images aren't organized that way, you may want to try a timeline on. It's your brain after all!)

Sitting there on the floor, I set up a timeline, and zoomed in on an image of one year past. It was new year's day. Christmas break was about over, so I was back at my college, and taking a walk around the campus. I had stopped tutoring middle school kids, and was about to start work in elementary. I had a few crushes on some college girls, but no real relationship. I signed up for only eighteen hours - dance, painting, programming, creative writing, and something else I no longer remember. In a few weeks, I'd fly to Atlanta for a weekend seminar in NLP and Hypnosis with a trainer I'd met on the net.

I had no idea I'd end up a year later in Atlanta with a woman I loved, writing the fifteenth issue of a self- improvement e-zine and looking for work in the computer business. I certainly didn't plan it. I just did what felt right from day to day, and this is where I wound up.

As it happens, I like where I am. But couldn't I do better? I mean, why had Lori and I been fighting about nothing just a little while ago? Why don't I yet have a job? Why haven't I made more friends in Atlanta? How come I'm not working on my second or third novel, instead of my first? Could it be (gasp) the way I've behaved?

As I looked back over the timeline I made of the last year, I looked for events that stood out. Conversations, arguments, happy moments, and sad. I didn't get into it, I just watched them pass by in front of me. I looked for patterns. What had I done to hold myself back this year? What mistakes had I made? I noticed quite a few, like taking low paying jobs and feeling dissatisfied. I'd wanted to meet new people and not, or kept to myself when people approached me. I'd talked myself into feeling helpless a few times.

What had people told me over and over this year? They said I wasn't using the skills I had. Asked why I kept waiting for things. Why not do it now? They said I could be making a lot more money. A few people told me they couldn't talk to me without my snapping at them. Some complained I just never wanted to have fun.

None of this bothered me as I looked over the year. I was just gathering information, feeling neutral. I wanted to see how I'd acted to get these results.

I looked to the other side of my timeline. What if I don't change? I watched myself trudge through this next year: underselling myself to take another low pay job. Fighting with Lori about the cost of moving when our lease expires, finally settling for whatever she decided rather than helping find a place we both liked. My novel would spend the year collecting dust, but my website might grow enough to make me some money a few months down the line. I'd still hang around Carmine's trainings, but in the audience - never on stage. Maybe I'd put away a thousand dollars, in bits and pieces when I remembered. I wouldn't make any close friends my age, and keep my thin but out of shape physique. I'd probably not see my family all year, and the magic I feel around Lori would begin to wear away.

That don't sound too good to me. What do you think?

Have you ever seen the British sitcom, Red Dwarf? There's an episode about a virtual reality game called Better Than Life. Now, Better Than Life was outlawed just about everywhere in the galaxy. When you started the game, it tapped into your brain, and presented you with a reality that satisfied your every unconscious desire. Once people began the game, they never came out. The new world just felt too good.

Good changework is like that. It's more than just positive thinking. It's creating a new reality so great you never go back. Permanent positive change.

About that time, Lori called for me to come see her. She didn't sound upset, but I wanted to make sure we wiped out any anchors from our argument earlier. I made an image of a time we were cuddling together, turned up the colors, and stepped into the image. Naturally, I went right back into that state. When I saw her she went there too. Good stuff, huh? They should teach this in school.

So now that we've made up, why not make everything else great, too? Why not set up a Better Than Life timeline, and get sucked in? Like now!

Ever cut and paste on a computer? How about in your brain? I decided to cut all the bad junk from my future timeline, paste in some favorite activities from the past, and use that as a foundation for building this new year.

I'll tell you something else. If you ever get into animation, you'll find there's two kinds of artists. The top dogs are the keyframers. They might draw a frame with Elmer Fudd pointing his rifle at Bugs Bunny, and another with Bugs's finger in the end, and a final frame where the gun backfires on poor Elmer. That's about two seconds worth of cartoon. Three little frames aren't going to do it. Someone needs to draw another thirty something frames in between. The people that draw them are called 'tweeners.

The neat thing about timelines is you only mess with key frames. Your brain does all the tweening.

So right about now I'm looking out over my future, and I like what I see. There I am acing an interview for a great position. There I am having fun with Lori. Over there, that's me with a group of people my own age. That's me outlining a new draft of my novel, making my first investment in the stock market, cashing that first check earned from my website, getting up on stage. And look! Just next week I'm writing another issue of this e-zine! Wow!

I like that better. Don't you?