Master the art of change by learning to clear a space for a new state. You can do this by breaking or interrupting the current state. As you’ll recall, state in NLP refers to your state of mind and body at any given time. States may be functional or dysfunctional. NLP makes extensive use of breaking state, and it has many ways to do it. Confusion is a guaranteed state breaker. You can guide a person to the state of your choosing much more easily from a state of confusion than any other.
Step #1. Identify the state you experience.
Recognize what state you are in, and name it. It may not be a clear-cut as depression, boredom, or anger, but you can come up with a name that captures the essence of the state. To help you find a name, notice the feeling of the state or the direction it carries your thoughts.
Step #2. Initiate an interruption by exaggerating a driving submodality.
Notice how this state is represented in your sense modalities. Identify a submodality feature that is important to this state. Change that feature to make it absurd.
For example, if you hear a voice that says, “I am not worthy of love,” change that tone of voice into that of a cartoon character.
Or if you feel a throb of depression when you have a certain thought, take a break to do a rational procedure such as serial sevens (7, 14, 21, 28 …)
Step #3. Test.
Notice whether your state has changed significantly. If not, the problem may be in your choice of submodality feature. You may not have found an impactful one. Experiment with how you change the submodality to make it absurd.