©2005 Institute of Neuro-Semantics
Chapter 6
The “Time” Matrix
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Time Orientation
Have you ever walked out the door of your home and stumbled on a hunk of “time”?
Time is another one of those concepts that begins as a process but we language it into a “thing” – a nominalization.
Therefore, time is not real outside the realm of thought.
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The Three Tenses of English
English has three basic tenses for “Time” – past, present and future.
From these we construct our concept of time by comparing events that have happened (past), with those that are now happening (present) and with those that will happen (future).
By being able to hold these mental constructs in mind and compare them, we construct time. Page 185
©2005 Institute of Neuro-Semantics
Where do you place your attention? It matters!
Where do you spend most of your time focusing your thinking – The past ? The present ? The future ?
Most of us have a preference.
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Time focus and emotional hurts
Most of our emotional issues are rooted in past hurts and most of them from childhood.
How to depress yourself – focus on the past but only the hurtful memories and associate into those memories.
If you only focus on the good memories, it wont work. Extra
©2005 Institute of Neuro-Semantics
Figure 6:1Past Focus
“I would give motherpresents and she
would ignore them.”
“I felt totally devalued.’”
“I felt worthless.”
“If I had value,I would be accepted.”
“I am not acceptable.”
“I wish I were dead.”
“I wish I had neverbeen born.”
“I wish I wouldn’t wakeup in the morning.
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PWS and “Time Focus” PWS tend to live inside past hurtful
memories – those that trigger blocking/ stuttering.
When the individual is in a context where speech is fluent, the person is not inside past memories.
Blocking only happens when some internal or external signal “sends the person back” to those hurtful memories.
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Dr John Burton –
“What would happen if we looked into our desired future to decide how to respond to our present?”
(As opposed to looking back to a hurtful past)
This would result in a person being outcome directed.
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Anticipatory Anxiety
It is easy to look into the future and anticipate running the problem state that we have ran so many times before.
Be careful doing that or you will get labeled or diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder - ?%X?% nominalization!
When going to the future, create hope !
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Michael Hall about Time – There’s an intelligence (or lack thereof)
to our relationship to these temporal (time) concepts.
Healthy IQ and EQ relates to time in several ways: Being able to live in the now with an eye on
the future… While using the past for learnings… We have a great strategy for “time”.
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Intentional Frames – I am not going to repeat the past. I am not going to make a fool of myself
with my speech anymore. If I block any emotion in this moment, it
will give me more control. I am afraid this will be permanent so I
will try hard not to block. Nothing has worked before – it is
hopeless.Page 188
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Unresourceful Meaning Frames:
I am afraid my problem is permanent. It has always been this way. No one
can help me. I am not making progress. It is useless. I can’t live in the now with a past like I
had. My future will be filled with the same
old pain as the past. Nothing changes.
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©2005 Institute of Neuro-Semantics
Your Time-Line Very early in NLP, the construct of
time began to take on significance. Our relationship with our mental
constructs about time has a lot to do with our personality.
Question: How do you distinguish the past from the present and the present from the future?
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Patterns for Re-Defining “Time”
Time Line “Qualities” (Submodalities) Through Time/ In Time – It matters. Meta-Stating a “New Decision” in
Time – The Decision Destroyer” Letting Go of a Past Negative
Emotion
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1) Time-Line Qualities Pair up and pick an activity they do quite
often. Coach each other to think of several
specific instances in which they did the activity.
Identify the varying qualities of each of the memories.
Debrief by sharing similarities/differences. Experiment with your personal time sorts.Page 192
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Figure 6:2
Through TimeAll pictures are within
peripheral vision. They areall in front of you.
In TimeAt least some of the pictures
are behind you -usually your past pictures
will be behind you.
Behind you
In front of you
Your leftYour right
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2) Concept of “Time” (A Meta-Program)
In Time – get “lost” in time. Primary state of losing one’s mind “Flow” experiences - Eastern Despise Calendars/Clocks.
Through Time – Intuitively know “time.” Order and sequence oneself over “time.” Cares about “time.” - Western Loves Calendars/Clocks.
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Figure 6:3
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3) The Decision Destroyer1. Identify your Time-Line.2. Float above your sense of “time” and draw a
Time-Line.3. Identify a decision, belief, experience, etc. in
your history (Position #4) in which you experience some hurtful, ugly things and made some very unuseful maps.
4. Access, anchor, and amplify some Resources.5. Float up and then back on your Time-Line to
15 minutes before the event (Position #3).6. Drop down onto your Time-Line just before the
event and be in Position 5. Fire the anchor for the resource state. Come forward re-decisioning the event with the added resources.
7. Future pace and ecology check. pp. 196-197
©2005 Institute of Neuro-Semantics
1. Think of a former hurtful memory that still bothers you.
2. Discover the root cause.3. Once you get the root cause, have your
partner float up above their Time-Line. Once above their Time-Line, float back into the past towards the root cause of the negative emotion.
4. Associate into the negative event (Position 4).
5. Float out of Position 4 and above your Time-Line. Keep any learnings from the experience knowing that you do not have to hold on to the hurt to learn from the experience.
4) Letting Go of Negative Emotions
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Letting Go of Negative Emotions
6. Float back fifteen minutes before the event to Position 3 and look forward to the present seeing yourself below and in front of you in that hurtful memory. From that position let all the hurt go.
7. Test by floating the client back to Position 2. Lead them to associate into Position 4. If you still have negative emotions, search for an earlier cause.
8. Float out of Position 4 and above you Time-Line. Come forward above the Time-Line letting all the negative emotions go from other similar memories.
9. Future pace by associating into an imaginary time in the future when you would have normally operated off of the old hurtful memory and notice how you now respond having let those old emotions go.
pp. 198-201