Help with Negative Self–talk Volume I - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Steve Andreas (1. Changing Location) #2

1. Changing Location

Almost everyone can easily think of a troublesome voice, but very few people notice where it is located in their personal space. The location of a voice turns out to be a major aspect of its impact on you, and it is one of the easiest things to change.

Listen now to a troublesome voice that makes you feel bad in some way, and notice its location in your personal space. Most voices are located either somewhere inside your head or in the space immediately surrounding your head… .

Is it located somewhere inside your head or outside? …

Is it in front or behind, left side or right side, above or below? …

And which way it is pointed — toward you, away from you, or somewhere in between? …

Take some time to identify all these different aspects of your voice. It may help to first gesture with your finger to where the voice is, and the direction it is pointed, and then find a way to describe what you discovered.

When a troublesome voices is located outside your head it is almost always pointed toward your head. Now that you know the location and direction of your troublesome voice, you can experiment with some changes, and notice how they change how you respond to it.

Changing Direction

First change the way the voice is pointing, and find out how this changes your experience of the voice. For most people this is quite easy; it is just not something they ever thought of doing. If you have any difficulty, simply allow that voice to change direction. First try allowing that voice to reverse direction (usually this will make it point directly away from the head) and find out what that is like… .

Then find out what it is like to listen to the voice when it is pointing half way between toward you and away from you… .

Notice if there is any difference between when it is pointing straight up and straight down, …

Or between pointing left and right,…

Or forward and back… .

When the voice is pointing away from you, usually the volume is less, and your response to it is less intense. Most people feel better when a troubling voice is pointing away from them, and this makes it easier and more comfortable to listen to what the voice is saying. When it is pointing half way between those extremes, the intensity of your response is usually somewhere in between when it is pointing toward you and away from you.

Notice that I used the word "usually" and "most people" in the previous paragraph. I will often offer generalizations about how people respond to their internal voices, based on my experience of making these kinds of changes with a large number of people. However, you may sometimes have a different response than what I outline here.

Whenever you response is different than what I describe, that is very important information. Your response is yours, no matter what I may say is "usually true" for "most people." It isn't "wrong"; it's just that your brain works somewhat differently. I will be offering you many changes to try out, so that you can find out what works for you — even if it is different from what most other people experience. Whenever you discover a change that is useful, that adds to your choices about how a voice sounds, and how you feel in response to it.

Simply changing the direction of the voice is only one small way that you can learn how to have some control over the intensity of your response to it, and this is a choice that you can now make at any time. Now return your voice to its original direction, so that you can discover other ways that you can change your response to a voice… .

Changing location inside your body

First, listen to the voice again, and notice your response… .

Is it any different than when you began reading this chapter? …

Now experiment with changing the location of the voice in a variety of ways, to experience the impact of hearing the same voice coming from different locations in space, and how your feelings change when you do this. Again, most people find this quite easy; it is just not something they ever thought of doing. If you have any difficulty, simply allow that voice to change its location.

Now hear that voice coming from your left elbow, and notice what that is like… .

Most people find that when their critical voice comes from their elbow, it is less impactful. The voice may also change in tonality when you do this, perhaps becoming quieter and higher pitched, and your feelings probably also became less intense.

Next I want to offer you a number of other choices about where you hear that voice coming from. Some of them will probably make the voice less unpleasant, while others may make it more unpleasant. Your job is to simply to try out each suggestion that I offer you, and pause to discover how it changes your experience.

Now hear this voice coming from your stomach or belly, and notice what that is like… .

Now hear that same voice coming from your right kneecap, and notice what that is like… .

Next, hear that voice speaking from your heart, and notice what that is like… .

Now hear that voice coming from your left big toe, and notice what that is like… .

Next, experiment with hearing that voice coming from some other part of your body, and find out what that is like… .

Finally, return that voice to its original location and direction… .

Pause to notice if your response to what the voice says in its original location is the same now as before you tried these experiments, or whether it is different now? …

Typically hearing an unpleasant voice in locations more distant from your head will be the most comfortable, and locations near your head, or inside your head, will be most unpleasant. Hearing a troublesome voice from the stomach is usually unpleasant, and the feeling that results may be confused with hunger, loneliness, or nausea. Hearing a troublesome voice coming from your heart may be particularly unpleasant and confusing. Some people actually do this without realizing it, and it is not particularly useful in helping them live productive lives. I have asked you to experiment with hearing a troublesome voice from your stomach or heart only to give you an experience of the importance of location.

Next review the results of these little experiments, and ask yourself, "In which location was it most comfortable for me to listen to this troubling voice?" …

Now hear the voice coming from that location, and experiment with also changing the direction of the voice, in order to find which direction improves your feeling response the most… .

Changing location outside your body

Now hear that voice coming from outside your body. First hear it from 2 feet in front of your face… .

And then 10 feet in front of you… .

And then 30 feet in front of you… . And then 100 feet in front of you… . And then even farther away than that… .

Usually a voice that is farther away will be less impactful, and easier to listen to. Often distance also changes the volume of the voice, and may also change its tonality. Although distance alone is usually a way to reduce the impact of a voice, direction can also be important, and I'd like you to experiment with that.

Now hear the voice behind you, and again experiment with hearing it 2, 10, 30, 100 feet away and even farther… .

Now compare hearing the voice the same distance in front of you and behind you, and notice any differences… .

Usually a voice that is behind you will be less impactful because many people have their past experiences behind them and their future experiences in front of them.

Next hear the voice coming from your left side, and experiment with distance in the same way — 2, 10, 30, 100 feet away and farther… .

Next hear the voice on your right side, and experiment with distance in the same way… .

Now compare hearing the voice the same distance to the left of you and to the right of you, and notice any differences… .

Often a voice will be less impactful on the left than the right, because many people have their past on their left, and their future on their right.

Next hear the voice above you, and experiment with distance… .

Next hear the voice below you, and do the same… .

Now compare hearing the voice above you and below you, and notice any differences… .

I have asked you to experiment with hearing the voice in the six main spatial dimensions, but of course there are an infinite number of other possible directions. If you experiment with some other direction in relation to your body, you may find a way to change the impact of the voice even more… .

Why does location matter so much, and why does moving a voice farther away from your head usually make it less disturbing and easier to listen to? When something threatens us in the real world, if it is closer to us, we need to respond more quickly and intensely to protect ourselves. If a threat is farther away, we have more time to prepare a response, so it isn't as urgent. When a threat is very close to you, you had better attend to it, but if it is behind you it is much less urgent, even when the content — what the voice says — is the same.

Changing the location in space also works with internal images. Recently Lewis Walker, an NLP–trained MD in Scotland, author of a book about medical applications of NLP, (20) saw a young woman who had witnessed two of her friends killed in a motorcycle accident the day before:

When she came into my office she had already dissolved into tears before she sat down. Through the sobs she told me about the smash. One friend was decapitated, the other with a bit of leg thrown across the carriageway. As she described how "The pictures are all in front of my face," both hands were gesturing about 2 inches from her eyes.

I said something like, "Let me take these for you," as I reached over with my right hand and grabbed her pictures, while simultaneously making a "ripping" noise as I stood up and hauled them off to her left side, and then diagonally behind her. I asked her to "Look at all these pictures in my hand as they shrink way down in size and all the color drains away," cupping and closing my right hand as I did so.

At this point her body in the chair was facing ahead, while her head was looking over her left shoulder. I took the images to the corner of the room near the door and said. "Now just imagine they're fixed right here by a nail, and I hit the door post with my fist. "Now knowing that they're fixed here, in your mind's eye look straight ahead and tell me how things are different now… ."

She visibly relaxed, the tears subsided, and she felt more in control. As I sat down again in front of her I said, "Keeping them nailed over there, what happens as you take this into tomorrow, and the next day, into next week and next month (gesturing with my left hand along her future timeline out to her right) knowing that with each passing day that (pointing to her images of the accident) gets farther and farther away as it recedes into the distance."

She was much calmer now and could tell me about what happened after the accident, and how their motorcycle group was still planning to go on a tour to Germany in 3 weeks, and that she was going to go out on her motorcycle with her husband when he got home that night.

The whole consultation lasted no more than 15 minutes, and probably saved weeks — perhaps years — of the standard approach of "talking it through."

Some people may find that just reading the paragraph above has created nasty images of the crash. If so, you have an opportunity to use the same process that Lewis used, and verify how well and how quickly it works. First notice where your images of the crash are, and how you feel as you view them… .

Then simply allow those images to shift off to the left and behind you ten feet or more, and as they do, they can become small, flat, black and white photos, and then notice how your response to them is different… .

Changing Physical Location

If you ask someone to change the location and direction of a voice, as described previously, they may find it difficult, especially if they are not used to making these kinds of changes. The voice may be difficult to move, or it may immediately move back to its previous location, as if it had a "mind of its own." When this occurs, it will often be helpful to change your wording. Instead of "move the voice," try saying, "watch as it moves," or "notice what happens as you allow the voice to move" and see if that makes it easier for the voice to move away and achieve some distance between you and the voice.

If the voice still doesn't move, or immediately returns to its original location when you move it, there may be a good reason, and it is best to respect this, even when you don't know the reason. If you want to explore this further, you can imagine that the voice is another person, and ask it, "What would I lose if I moved the voice into that location?" and then listen to what the voice answers. The voice might say something like, "If you don't listen to me, you might get into trouble." If you reply to the voice, "In a farther location it would be easier for me to listen to what you say, and I would be more willing to hear you," the voice may be willing to change location.

There are other ways to create separation between you and a voice that are less direct, and that almost anyone can do, and this is easy to confirm in your own experience. Think of a self–critical voice and notice whether it says, "I am — " or "You are — " and how you feel in response… .

Now keep all the other words the same, but switch to the other possibility (from "I am — " to "You are — " or the reverse) and again notice any difference in how you feel in response… .

When a voice says, "/ am—(stupid, boring, etc.) there is usually very little separation between you and the voice; the conflict is apparently between two parts of yourself. But when the voice says "You are — " (stupid, boring, etc.) it is clear that the conflict is between you and someone else, and the voice is usually located outside your head, more distant.

When I do this, the location shifts from in the center of my head for "I am — " to a location outside my head and about a foot to the left of my left ear for "You are — " This is true even when I don't have an image of anyone saying those words. When the voice is in my head, I feel a little unsettled or wiggly, as if I don't quite know who I am. Am I the voice, or am I my feelings in response to the voice? Since they are in conflict, it is hard to identify with either one. But when the voice is out to the side, the separation between the two sides of the conflict — between the voice and my feeling in response — is much clearer. The voice is someone else, and my feelings are mine, and I feel more solid about who I am.

Now if you ask, "Who is speaking to you in this way," or "Who does that voice belong to?" that makes an even clearer separation between you and the voice that is speaking to you. This separation is not just a matter of making an intellectual distinction between self and other; it actually increases your experience of separation in space. This greater separation will usually lessen the intensity of your feeling, because a danger or challenge that is farther away from you is less immediately threatening. You can easily confirm this in your own experience. Think of a troublesome voice, and first notice what it says… .

Then notice whether it says, "I am — " or "You are — " …

If it says, "I am — " change it to "You are — " as in the previous experiment… .

Next identify who is speaking to you in this way, and notice if you have an image of this person who is speaking to you. (If you can't immediately identify whose voice this is, ask yourself, "If I did know, who would it be?) …

Many people will spontaneously get an image of the speaker as a way to identify who it is. If you already have an image of them, notice what it is like to hear the same voice with or without this image… .

Usually a voice with an image will be farther away in physical location than a voice without an image. Even when this is not the case, your sense of separation is likely to be stronger, and your sense of who you are will feel more solid.

That image of the speaker will usually be seen outside the person. If that doesn't happen spontaneously, say to yourself, "Can you remember when this person spoke to you in this way," and you will usually see the other person outside yourself as you retrieve a memory of a specific event, in a specific context.

This image of the person who is speaking may be directly in front of you, or it may be somewhat off to the side, or less often even behind you. But wherever they are located, they will usually be facing toward you. Often your image of this other person will also be somewhat higher than you are, in a position of power or authority.

When they are facing you, there is an implicit message of conflict or confrontation, rather than cooperation; if they are higher than you, you will likely feel weaker and less powerful. Changing their location, the direction that they are facing, and their height in relation to you, can be used to indirectly change the conflict or confrontation into something more equal and cooperative, joining with it, rather than confronting it.

For instance, if you think now of a troublesome voice, and who it is that is speaking to you in this way, notice where that person is located in your personal space, whether they are speaking toward you, rather than in some other direction, and if they are higher or lower than you are… .

Now change that person's location from wherever you saw them, to being beside you at the same level, facing in the same direction, as if you were sitting together discussing something that is in front of both of you, and continue your verbal interaction with this person — what do they say now, and what do you say in response? …

Notice if this change to sitting together facing in the same direction makes any change in the content of what that person says, or the tone of voice that they use, and if there is any change in your feeling response to what they say… .

In this position usually that other person will become more cooperative, and less argumentative or confrontational. Their voice may become softer or slower, or they may be more willing to listen to what you have to say in response, and you may notice parallel changes in your own response. Your unpleasant feelings will likely become less intense, and they may also change in quality. For instance you may be confused rather than angry, or interested rather than annoyed… .

When you realize the impact of this kind of change in location, you can use it to change your response to a voice. Below is a particularly graceful way to do this, described by Andrew T. Austin in his wonderful book, The Rainbow Machine. (9)

One technique I use a lot that has produced some results that are sometimes as dramatic as the Core Transformation process (2) came from something a psychotherapist told me that sounds much like something Virginia Satir (8) might have done — maybe I read it in one of her books. In doing family therapy, she had a family where the conflict was between the father and his 17–year–old son. The father was a "strong" and stoical man, for whom expressing emotion was not an easy or desirable skill.

She told the son to get up and stand behind the seated father and gently place a hand on each of his father's shoulders in order to "feel and relieve some of the tension there." Apparently this made a huge change in the relationship between father and son, so naturally it got me thinking about how this could be used for an individual, when the father or someone else is not present.

As I have mentioned previously, the internal representations of problem people are rarely, if ever, radiating beauty and light. I'll often ask what the expression on their face is, and what their posture is. Then I'll ask the client to imagine walking behind that person and gently placing a hand on each shoulder and giving just a little gentle massage to loosen them up a bit. As the client imagines touching them, this also shifts their kinesthetic feelings. Usually the representation itself changes, relaxes, or even starts crying. For instance:

Client: "I feel criticized."

Therapist: "What has to happen inside for you to feel criticized?" (Since criticism is a largely verbal activity. I could have asked, "And who criticizes you, and what do they say?")

C: "I hear a voice."

T: "And if that voice were a person, who would that be?'

C: "My father. My father was always criticizing me; he had a horrible voice like that." (The client has not seen father for over 14 years.)

T: "And if your father were in the room now, where would he be?"

C: "Standing right in front of me, really close, facing me."

T: "That's right. Now close your eyes. I want you to imagine walking around behind him, and gently place one hand on each of his shoulders and gently massage those shoulders. Whisper into one ear that is close enough to hear you, to 'Relax now… all the way.'… Tell him it's OK,… it's OK, … Give him a few moments to relax, all the way down now… ." Try this now yourself; think of someone you felt inferior to as a child, and hold that representation in mind. Then stand up, go around behind them, and gently massage their shoulders and notice the difference… .

This is a nice maneuver that achieves several things simultaneously. Primarily it completely shifts the spatial orientation of the client in relation to the representation. Instead of facing each other in opposition, they become oriented in the same direction, with implications of alliance and cooperation. In addition, massaging someone's shoulders and talking to them in this way presupposes a much more friendly relationship than criticism does, opening the door to a more understanding attitude.

One aspect of this is worth pointing out, as it isn't always obvious at first. When you elicit a representation from a sitting client and then ask them to stand up, the representation tends to stay where it is in geographical space. A representation that is a negative artifact from childhood is often bigger, or higher up than the client, and because of this it often represents something more powerful than the client. However, when you stand up and massage someone's shoulders, you are the same height, with implications of equality. And when you feel equal to someone else, you feel much less defensive and threatened. If that other person was originally sitting down, you may even find that you are higher than they are, with a corresponding feeling of power, instead of vulnerability.

In my early daze, I would try to get the client to reduce the size of the representation, or "push" it further away. Invariably they would find some kind of difficulty. Then I chanced upon the move described above, which is much more graceful and effective.

Essentially, this puts the client in control of the representation, and gets the representation to relax. The representation is exactly that — a representation of a part of himself, a bit of his own psyche that isn't feeling nice. This is a hugely powerful technique. I prefer to have the client remain sitting and do this in their imagination. However, it isn't unusual for someone to actually stand up and go through the physical motions of these activities. This is particularly likely if the client is an athlete, or someone else who attends closely to their body and its position in great detail. (9, pp. 80–81)

Once I was having lunch with a colleague at a national psychotherapy conference. She was talking about her 10–year–old son who was having some difficulties, and about her anxiety and uncertainty about him. When I asked her where she saw the image of her son, she looked and gestured straight ahead of her, and said, "About 15 feet away." I asked her to bring this image of her son next to her, so that he was by her side, facing in the same direction. When she did this, her anxiety changed to soft tears of sadness about what he was going through, and then she said calmly and confidently, "I know what to do. All I have to do is be with him and support him."

A particularly useful intervention that I learned from Robert Dilts can be used with a couple who are arguing vehemently. Ask them to sit side–by–side, with a little space between them, facing in the same direction. Then ask them to see both of themselves in front of them, and to continue to discuss their ongoing interaction in the moment, but in "third person," as if they are describing someone else. "She is sitting with her arms folded across her chest, and he is feeling very angry right now, remembering all the times that — "

These examples may suggest other changes in position that could be useful to change the location of a representation of someone who has a troubling voice. What if you were both lying down side by side on chaise lounges enjoying the springtime sun? Or sitting back to back?

For much more about how to utilize changing the position of internal images of other people, see Lukas Derks' excellent book, Social Panoramas. (13)

Changing Volume

When you changed the location of a negative voice so that it was farther away, you often found that the volume decreased, making it much less unpleasant to listen to the voice. Changing the volume was a major factor in making the voice easier to listen to, and changing the location in space was a way to change the volume. But how does this work so easily?

You have had many experiences in the real world in which a sound source moved away from you, or you moved away from a sound, and as it did, the sound became quieter. You have also had many experiences in which a sound moved closer to you, or you moved closer to a sound and it got louder.

When you imagine a sound moving away, or that you are moving away from a sound, that elicits coordinated simultaneous memories in all your senses of that happening. The memories of the sound moving away correspond to a decrease in volume. In other words, remembering this kind of event elicits the precise internal neurology that occurred when that happened in the external world. That same neurology can be used to make a corresponding change in your internal world.

This kind of experience is called a "reference" experience; an experience in the external world that has the characteristics that you need to make a change in your internal world. Whenever you want to make a change, you can search for a memory of something happening in the external world that has the properties that you need in order to make the internal change. When you re–experience it fully, that will elicit the response that you had in the external world. As Richard Bandler has said, "Since most problems are created by our imagination and are thus imaginary, all we need are imaginary solutions."

This understanding opens up a world of possibilities, which skilled hypnotists have been using for a century or more. For instance, if you want to lower the temperature in your hands, or to shrink the blood vessels in them, you can vividly imagine putting them in a bucket of ice water; if you want to raise the temperature of your hands, or dilate the blood vessels in them, you can imagine putting them into a bucket of hot water.

If your goal is to decrease the volume of a voice, you can think of many other contexts in which the volume changed as a result of some event, or something that you did. Pause now, to think of several other events in the real world (other than increasing distance) that decreased the volume of a sound or voice… .

Can you think of a time when someone was talking to you and then closed a door between you? Or drew a curtain? Or the person speaking to you turned away from you, or put their head under the covers? Or you covered your ears with your hands? If you were in a bathtub, submerging your ears would muffle the sound. You can use any experience like this to change volume, as long as it is something that you have experienced, preferably repeatedly.

There is a wonderful DVD (21) in which Michael Yapko helps a man with his life–long depression in a single session. The man's depression was caused by his memories of a childhood that was horribly abusive, both physically and verbally, and he had abusive and depressing internal voices as a result. One of Michael's interventions is as follows (verbatim from the transcript):

When I have hundreds of people in a room, and I ask, "Who among you has good self–esteem?" hands go up — not many, but some hands go up. And then I ask them, "Do you have an inner critic? Do you have a voice inside your head that criticizes you and says rotten things to you, and puts you down, and says mean and horrible things to you?" And every single one says, "Yes."

And I say to them, "If you have a voice that says rotten things to you, how can you have good self–esteem?" And the interesting reply — it's always a bit different — but the common bottom line is they don't listen to it. And when I ask them, "How do you not listen to it?" that's when I learn all sorts of different strategies.

One person said, "Well, I picture it as on a volume control knob, and I just turn the volume down.

Somebody else said, "I picture it as a barking dog, tied to a tree, and I just keep walking."

Somebody else says, "You know, I have another voice on my shoulder that says good things to me."

But the interesting thing is that every single person has that inner critic, that critical voice. It's just a question of whether they listen to it or not. (21, p. 17)

Earlier you experimented with changing the location, direction, and distance of a troublesome voice to make it much more comfortable to listen to. When you make these kinds of changes what you are actually doing is changing your relationship to the voice. This is something that you can do voluntarily any time you want, in order to have a more resourceful response to it, giving you some control over your experience. Since a change in location or direction is a pure process change, you can use it with any voice, or any sentence, phrase, or other set of words or sounds that a voice might say.

What you have been experimenting with are changes in aspects of a voice that are usually unconscious, but can become conscious if you ask the right kind of question. Once these choices are conscious, you can experiment with making changes in them. When you find a change that you are pleased with, you can then allow that change to become unconscious and automatic again, freeing your attention for other things. You are taking the first small, yet significant, steps toward having more choice about how you think about and respond to events in your life.

Two Very Important Warnings

1. Respect signals of objections or concerns

Earlier when you tried placing a negative voice in your stomach or your heart, you probably felt worse. That feeling was a clear signal that some part of you objected to that change, and that it wasn't a useful thing to do. Some call this "intuition"; others call it "listening to your wiser self," or some other such phrase. Whatever you call it, please pay attention to it and respect it. If you tried to ignore it or override it, that would be a mistake — and sometimes it would be a big mistake. You can try any experiment briefly for the purpose of learning, but when you make a change that feels worse, it is very important to respect that, and change the voice back to what it was like before the experiment, and try something else.

You may also find that one of the changes that you made was not permanent, and that a voice spontaneously moves back to its original location, direction, or volume. This is often a signal that the change you made was not as useful as you might have consciously thought.

At other times, you may find that a voice changes spontaneously, without your intention. As you were experimenting, some unconscious aspect of you discovered a useful change that you hadn't thought of or intended. Always respect this kind of spontaneous change as a signal that some other aspects of your functioning are wiser than your conscious one.

2. If the voice disappears

As you try these experiments — and the others in the chapters that follow — you may occasionally find that a voice entirely disappears, or you find a way to deliberately make it disappear — for instance, by moving the voice so far away into the distance that you can't hear it at all.

Sometimes when a voice disappears that is an indication that a voice has reorganized in some way so that it no longer needs to talk to you. Perhaps it has completely integrated into who you are in a useful way. When this happens, you will not only feel relief from what it has been saying, you will likely also feel an added wholeness, a feeling of being more than you were before.

This experience of a troublesome voice disappearing — along with a greater feeling of wholeness — happens frequently in a process called "Aligning Perceptual Positions" developed by my wife Connirae Andreas. This process uses location to sort out our different perceptions and organize them, resulting in personal integration and clarification. An article about this process can be found on my web site at: http://www.steveandreas.com/Articles/comaligning.html. A complete demonstration of this process is included in the DVD Training: "Core Transformation — the full 3–day workshop" available from RealPeoplePress.com.

However, at other times the disappearance of a voice may not be so useful. Despite its unpleasantness, often a voice has some very important information or protective function. If you lost the voice you would also lose that information or protection; you would lose a part of yourself, and possibly something that was very valuable. The voice may have been overcome, or smothered, or hidden, but not integrated, and it will likely emerge again later to cause trouble again.

In order to avoid this, I always like to bring the voice back in and find a location and direction that makes it possible to comfortably hear what it is saying. That way you can talk with it, and find out if the voice might still have some important message for you. If it does, you can continue to modify it in some way, using some of the other methods in this book. If the voice calmly tells you that it has nothing more to say to you, then you can safely allow it to disappear again. The overall goal of this book is to teach you how to transform a troublesome voice into something much more useful and supportive, not to eliminate it.

Using location in a positive way

You have experimented with how to change a troublesome voice in order to make it less impactful. That same information can be used in reverse to make a positive voice more impactful. For instance, you may have an inner knowing that says something like, "Whatever happens, I am a worthwhile person," or "I know I am capable and resourceful." If this voice is far away and quiet, and doesn't sound very convincing to you, try moving it closer and making it louder. You could try putting that voice into your heart, your chest, or your belly, and find out if that produces a stronger feeling of truth and conviction. Or you can try any other change that you find increases the impact of that voice.

However, you need to be very careful when you do this, so please be very cautious, and extra sensitive to any concerns or objections. There can be some very significant problems with the words that you use, and I want you to know how to avoid these problems before you do much with adding or changing the words that you say to yourself.

For instance, if you have a supportive voice that is in opposition to a troublesome one, making the supportive one stronger can escalate the conflict, and that often causes problems. If a troublesome voice says "You're stupid," and you add a voice that says, "I'm smart," those voices are in direct opposition.

However, if you add a voice that says, "I can learn how to be smart," that voice is not in opposition, because a stupid person can learn to be smart. In fact the implication of "I can learn to be smart," is that the person is not already smart, which is in agreement with the voice that says, "I'm stupid," so there is no conflict.

Small changes in wording like this can be very important to avoid creating conflict. There are some very important criteria for the words that a resourceful voice says to make sure that it really works well to support you. When you learn what those are, you can make changes that won't "backfire" or cause problems that could be worse than the one you wanted to solve.

Another possibility is to first transform a troublesome voice, and then strengthen a supportive one. Avoiding conflict not only makes change much more comfortable, it makes it much easier to do, and much more lasting and useful.

In later chapters we will return to using the information in this chapter positively. I will discuss many other ways to change what a voice says in great detail in later chapters, particularly chapter 10, "Asking Questions." But first I want to explore several other simple ways to change nonverbal aspects of a voice, and its emotional impact on you. The first of these is to change the tempo or tonality.