Crazing – Destroying Images

Purpose of the Technique:

Crazing is another small submodality technique used to destroy mental images. If you have an inner image that unsettles you, bothers you, or keeps you from falling asleep, this technique allows you to easily destroy it. Crazing is what happens to tempered glass—like car windows—when it shatters. It breaks into a thousand small pieces and falls apart. As with other techniques, it’s helpful to perform an ecology check before applying it.

Procedure:

Step 1: Ecology Check
Let the image you want to destroy appear in your mind’s eye. While observing it internally, ask yourself:

• Is this image trying to draw my attention to something I should do—or avoid doing—in the future?
• Does this image carry another important message for me?
• If yes: What exactly should I do or avoid in the future? What is the message this image wants to convey? What needs to happen for me to let it go?

Step 2: Imagine the image on tempered glass
Visualize the unwanted image as if it were on a car window—or painted onto one. You could also imagine it on a mirror or any surface that can shatter into a thousand tiny fragments.

Step 3: Smash the image!
Take a hammer (mentally) and strike the image hard. Watch it shatter into countless pieces and fall apart. You may need to repeat this several times to fully and permanently destroy it.

Step 4: Clean-up
Sweep up the broken pieces and mentally dispose of them as hazardous waste.

• Light-Dark Variation: Imagine the image gradually darkening, like a television screen dimming as contrast is reduced. Let it become so dark you can’t see anything anymore. Alternatively, let the image get brighter until it’s flooded with light and disappears. Then push it to the ground and mentally move it farther away from you until it vanishes completely.
• Burning the image: Imagine holding a lit match to the image, watching it begin to smolder, darken, curl up, and finally turn to ash. Or imagine throwing the image into a fire, like a fireplace, and watching it burn away.
• Melting the image: Imagine water dripping onto the image. The colors begin to run like watercolor in the rain. Eventually, only a shapeless color blotch remains—unrecognizable and meaningless.