DE
Writing Your Own Story
Traveling back to the past to resolve negative experiences.
There are countless science fiction movies about time travel. In the movie “Back to the Future,” the scientist Doc Brown converts a sports car into a time machine.
In 1985, teenager Marty McFly uses the time machine to travel back to the 1950s. In doing so, he completely turns the timeline of his life upside down.
Marty McFly meets his parents when they were young and just getting to know each other. To secure his own existence, he ends up matchmaking them. During his stay, Marty realizes he would like to change many events to influence the future. However, unsure of the consequences, he decides to leave things as they are.
Who hasn’t dreamed of being able to rewrite their own story? Many people would love to jump into Doc Brown’s time machine to undo past events and simply erase parts of their life.
Others wish to create new past events to positively influence their future. The question “What would have become of me if I hadn’t experienced this or had experienced that?” plays a key role.
The Change History format from NLP focuses on working with the past. Using a timeline, the coachee is guided to revisit a past situation that triggers negative emotions.
They view themselves from a meta-position and reflect on what resources their past self would have needed to successfully manage the situation. Then, the coachee imagines those resources flowing to their younger self.
The coachee begins to feel significantly better.
APPLICATION OF THE CHANGE HISTORY FORMAT WITH A CASE EXAMPLE
Hendrik, a financial advisor, wants to progress in his career. He clearly remembers a meeting with colleagues where he lost his temper. At the time, he was very dissatisfied with his job, working too many hours and dealing with demanding clients. A stupid remark from a colleague was enough to make Hendrik lose it. Naturally, he wishes he had remained calm during the meeting, but he couldn't hold back. The meeting had to be interrupted.
Step 1: Back to the past
In a coaching session, Hendrik learns the Change History format. With this method, he is able to process the negative event and behave more appropriately in future similar situations.
First, he immerses himself in the past situation, perceiving the environment through his own eyes. In his mind, he sees the team discussing the expansion of their consulting services. One colleague resists any change initiatives.
This leads to great unrest in the room. Hendrik feels a lot of anger and nervousness, just like back then. He begins to sweat with anxiety. At that moment, the coach brings him back to the present. Hendrik exits the negative state, takes a deep breath, and gradually relaxes.
Imagination vs. Reality
The human brain doesn’t differentiate between imagination and real experience. A horror film triggers stress hormones like adrenaline, while a comedy causes the release of mood-enhancing hormones such as serotonin and oxytocin.
Watching a film can program the subconscious — this applies both to films on TV and those we create in our own imagination.
Step 2: Finding resources
In the next step, Hendrik views the situation from an outside, meta-position. He reflects on what resources he would have needed at the time to stay calm during the meeting. “Patience, focus, and confidence…” he murmurs. He then imagines these resources flowing to his past self.
He also thinks of a good friend who always calms him when he’s stressed. They often go bowling and have an after-work beer together. In his mind, Hendrik sees his friend walk up to his past self, pat him on the shoulder, and say: “Just calm down. We’ve got this – just like in the good old days!”
Becoming the Director
With this visualization exercise, Hendrik creates a film with himself in the starring role. He becomes the director of his own life movie. Even better: he doesn’t just suppress a negative experience, he relives it and changes his emotional connection to it.
Suppression usually acts as a defense mechanism to keep threatening thoughts and experiences out of consciousness. But once Hendrik realizes he has full control over his emotions, he no longer needs to fear confronting past experiences. He can allow memories to arise without fear.
Step 3: The Ecology Check
Finally, Hendrik immerses himself in the past situation once more to test whether he now feels better when recalling the meeting. This time, he sees the event with the added resources through his own eyes. “The connection to the experience suddenly feels very positive,” he says. “When I replay the event like this, I don’t even notice any unpleasant discussion among colleagues. They’re just calmly talking to each other. And I feel totally relaxed. How is that possible?”
In this case example, the application of the Change History format was a success! From now on, Hendrik will stay calm in meetings, even during heated debates.
*Back to the Future*, directed by Robert Zemeckis, 1985.