& The Magic Of The Expected Outcome
An NLP Story by Dr Silvia Hartmann 2003
The other day, I made myself a CD of my favourite songs downstairs on the desktop computer. I got so far as listening back to the tracks with three left to go when my son piled in and interrupted the process; as a result, the CD did not get labelled properly. I just fished it out of the drive and took it upstairs, placed it on my bedside table and then forgot about it until bedtime.
There, I found it again and thoughtlessly put it into the CD player, set the programme to play the last three tracks, put on the headphones, switched off the light and lay back, getting comfortable, in the ususal “I’m going to do a hypnotic meditation before bedtime” well anchored position.
And that’s where a strange thing happened.
For years and years, I’ve been doing NLP hypnosis CDs in that way but never, and I repeat never, any music CDs. They’re for listening to in the daytime.
So as soon as the tracks started playing, I became aware that I was treating these music tracks FROM MY END as though they were an NLP style hypnotic induction – and duely and easily sank into a trance state with lucidity of awareness, and, and this is the central point to this story, WITH THE EXPECTATION OF LEARNING AND CHANGE invested in the entire experience.
So I am lying in the dark. I am listening to three music tracks, one by Jim Morrisson, one by Eddie Vedder, and one by David Bowie. Only this time, I’m hypnotised and I am LEARNING.
It was the most unusual experience. I really don’t know how many times I’ve heard those tracks before, thousands upon thousands of times as they go round on playlists over the years, but the fact is, I’d never really LISTENED.
Not like that. Not with that, “Ok, I’m wide open, teach me something important, help me CHANGE” frame up front that happened entirely by accident and because I got my anchors mixed up on this occasion.
And what DID I learn?
I would say many things that I don’t even know what they are yet.
But some were of great personal value and benefit.
The first was an understanding beginning to emerge that human singing outside of an opera house with its own strange ideas and rituals is not about NOTES but instead, about producing SOUNDS.
That these sounds carry emotional states, and when people really let go and just let it happen, a different experience from listening to “a pretty aria” where all the notes are “pure and sweet” emerges.
I got the amazing understanding that people think with singing that NOTES are “out of their reach” or that they are “tone (note) deaf”.
And yet an exquisite torturer who knows all about the finer points of his many and varied instruments and the human body could produce EVERY RANGE OF OCTAVES up and down the scale and then beyond out of the biggest man, the tiniest woman instantly – and without any practice whatsoever.
In other words, the human voice, EVERY HUMAN VOICE, can produce a HUGE range of sounds, without having to learn this, just as a reflex really, so that is all there and we simply DO NOT TRIGGER IT.
But it’s not just a question of octaves (notes) up and down. Notes and “hitting the right one” are a human idea that is as structurally flawed as that of letters or of numbers. We are not pianos. We can do MUCH, MUCH more than that. There is breadth, width and dimensionality to our voices and when we let go and use that, like these three gentlemen did in their emotive songs they wrote themselves and forget all about “school music” but get with the real human sound programme instead, an EVENT takes place that is simply OTHER THAN in every way.
This has of course to do with singing in public for me, but it goes to far more than that, because speech is ALSO SOUND, not words, not letters.
In NLP style hypnotic language and voice usage, states are being called with sound shifts; Eriksonian hypnosis and its descendants has a hallmark voice shift which takes the voice OUTSIDE usual parameters.
I learned on this occasion that this is just ONE of a VAST range of possibilities to take the sounds produced by our own voice outside ALL of the parameters we are used to, in every dimension, in every direction.
The understanding that a voice does not have to be “trained” to perform these flexible operations across the ranges but will do it IMMEDIATELY and in DIRECT RESPONSE to the state shifts that underlie this, was a near revelation; but it also showed up how intense the “cages of entrainment” are for vocal use.
Don’t raise your voice at me, don’t squeal, you sound like a fog horn, a nice lady speaks softly, a gentleman doesn’t shout, don’t use that tone of voice on me young man, stop whining, speak up, you can’t sing, you can’t hold a note, shut up, shut up, shut UP!
A lifetime’s worth of THAT. It has left its mark and traces on everyone in some shape or form and is precluding access to something incredible, something truly magical – having a voice that other people can fall in love with, a voice that will be heard, a voice that may not shatter glass but instead, misconceptions or pain and fear like a perfect sword.
This is possible, this is obtainable, and it is a simple HUMAN RIGHT to exercise our voices in that way and for whatever purpose we should choose.
So I was very grateful indeed for that set of insights revealed there, but of course, the title of this essay is not just about singing or voice or expression, but rather about setting outcome frames that CREATE outcomes – the expectation of learning in this example CAUSED the learning to take place directly.
Now, I’ve learned that I can use the method of pre-sleep bedtime hypnotic learning for more than just hypnosis tapes. I can use classical music, but also lectures or audio books and with that frame of “learning something extremely important” PLUS the choice of what I’m taking to bed with me there, we have a very powerful conjunction and self study device indeed.
But outcome expectation goes of course much, much further than that.
What would happen if such an outcome frame was placed on a mundane shopping trip?
What if it was placed on a meal, say?
“I eat this meal and this will naturally result in ...”
What if it was placed on a meeting, on reading a book, on re-reading a book, or even on WRITING one?
What if we were actually able to reliably CREATE experiences and learnings, healings and re-alignments out of NOTHING AT ALL AND EVERYTHING AT ALL – just simply by the choice of outcome frame placed upon these events?
It is a most intriguing question and supposition, and all we need to do now is to try it out, experiment with it, and note that even a small success is an indicator that the theory is correct, and not only that this can be done, but much more importantly, can be done BY YOU.
Intriguing? Exciting? A little frightening, even?
Good!
Have a play with this system and just find out how it works for you.
This is an indicator of a whole new way in personal development.
NLP, Hypnosis, Voice & The Magic Of The Expected Outcome - An NLP Story © Dr Silvia Hartmann 2003.
* This is a direct pre-cursor of the Magic Jelly Bean Pattern from EmoTrance Vol. 2
|
