Everyday NLP Diary

Timeline in the future

I spoke a few days ago about timelines. Possibly one of the richest experiences I have encountered with NLP dating back to my very first NLP Practitioner Course in July 2004. And this is why…

I still remember my Prac course and 15 of us bumbling our way through a whole bunch of techniques. I remember that some people seemed better than others and I remember feeling very uncomfortable on the day of my introduction to Timeline Therapy.

Very briefly, we were to go through the Anger, Sadness, Fear and Guilt routine. I sat down with my partner and chose a nice fluffy problem to deal with about work. (I have since learned that NLP techniques don’t work like that and they somehow get down to more of a root cause, as did my fluffy little problem.) My issue ended up with the realization that I was worrying about death and how my dad had died young and I was next in line, so to speak, which affected the way I was living my life at the time (something I still haven’t quite conquered if I’m honest).

It may sound a bit harrowing, but after a bit of an intervention on ‘fear’, where my partner was so engrossed in the next part of the process, he didn’t noticed that I had ‘dropped’ (a scary, but interesting occurrence, which has kept me on guard as to the importance of the ‘way, way up above your timeline’ part of the process) it was very, very empowering and opened me up a hell of a lot emotionally.

Timeline in the future

Later that day we did Timeline in the Future and it stays with me to this day. The idea is, you set a SMART goal, mix it around a bit with some cartesian logic (I feel another Blog post coming on to explain this one but see below for now) and then create a vivid, sensory experience about your goals. You then rise above your timeline, drift over to a specified time in the future (mine was five years) and then place those ideas into your timeline in the future, imagining all of the things that will happen between then and now as you come back to the now.

Now four years later, I am amazed at the power of that one experience and how much my life has changed.

Put it this way. At the time life was okay, everything was just okay. I was single and my sensory experience involved me, at a villa (my own), surrounded by family (and there were some small children there) with a woman. Life was good, I was earning a large amount of money (summed up as a specific six figure salary) and I was happy, fit and healthy.

Well, with a year to go it’s uncanny, considering the predicament I was in at the time. I met a woman that I love (more as time goes on if I am honest) that year, got married and we are expecting a baby in two months time (doubly bizarre as at the time I had been ‘cut-off’ for over six years having had a vasectomy in 1998). A business deal came off in 2005 that afforded me the chance to buy a villa in Cyprus with my business partner. I’m happy and work is going well and that six figure salary is a possibility at the moment (but funnily enough, not so important anymore).

Now make of timeline what you will and believe me, I’m still no nearer to being fit and healthy (yet) but what an amazingly powerful experience. My introduction to NLP through my practitioner course was incredibly empowering and just seems to keep growing.

I have since seen someone perform Timeline slightly differently and despite the fact that I did Master Practitioner again last year, I am off to do it again with another trainer this year too learning some new code stuff.

I would finish off by saying though (the map not being the territory and all) that this is my experience, yours may well be different.

Cartesian Logic

In this instance it was the “simple” four questions that are effective for drilling into a question:

1. What will happen if it happened?
2. What will happen if it didn’t happen?
3. What will not happen if it happens?
4. What will not happen if it doesn’t happen?

Tags: timeline

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