New Orleans Flexibility Drill

The Format

This format is used to free relationships from stress.
The New Orleans Flexibility Drill is very helpful for practicing a new reaction to someone whose behavior you previously found unpleasant.
You stack the necessary resources onto an anchor and collapse it with the trigger stimulus.

Basic Idea

You need three people to practice:

1. One person wants to change their response to a particular situation or someone else’s behavior.
2. The second person acts out the unpleasant behavior so the first can practice.
3. The third person is the coach, helping the first discover needed resources, anchor them, etc.

Standard Steps:

1. Describe the Behavior
2. Acquiring New Behaviors
3. Activate Necessary Resources
4. Activate Resourceful State
5. Test
6. Future Pace

Detailed Description

1. Describe the Behavior

Describe the other person’s behavior that causes the client to enter a negative state. The first person describes the unpleasant situation and their habitual reaction. The second person gets into the role, acting out the unpleasant behavior authentically until the first person displays their usual response.

2. Acquiring New Behaviors

The client teaches the coach how the unpleasant behavior looks, until the coach can replicate it well enough that the client reacts in their usual way. Meanwhile, the first person and coach (the third person) identify the resources needed so the first person can react in a better, more appropriate way (e.g., calm, understanding, confident, etc.).

3. Activate Necessary Resources

The client names the resource they’d like to have instead and activates it. The client recalls a situation where they already felt that resource. The third person (coach) helps “elicit” the state in detail, using VAKOG. While the client re-enters that resourceful state, the coach describes the state and anchors it (e.g., by pressing on the client’s shoulder).

4. Activate Resourceful State

The client remains in the resourceful state while the coach repeats the unpleasant trigger behavior multiple times.
You repeat step 3 with all resources identified in step 2.
After stacking all those resources on the anchor (using the TIGER criteria), the second person again performs the unpleasant behavior. As the first person responds, the third person (coach) fires the anchor, watching whether the client’s state changes. If not enough, gather more resources or intensify the existing ones. Once the change is noticeable, the exercise is finished. You can then swap roles and repeat from step 1.