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Just a couple of quick words…
I started writing this book with the intention to add value to those who are on the
same body-image journey I was on, or who are exploring ways to build on the
breakthrough’s they’ve already had, and help any others that they may come who
are on a similar path. Any income I derive from this book is secondary, and most
certainly a latter priority.
If you decided to buy this book from me… Thank you for supporting my work!
When you decide to support my work it helps me to produce more content like
this, so I can go onto help many more people. Every book sold gets me one step
closer to a happier world, where many more people are introduced to the idea
that happiness around your body doesn’t come from changing how you look on
the outside, but from changing how you think about yourself on the inside. This is
the primary message I’m delivering.
If you did not buy this book… I hope that you get a lot of value from it, and that
you really enjoy reading and applying it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If it really
helps you to breakthrough, please consider paying for the book retrospectively by
buying a physical or electronic copy from http://nickritchielive.com and going on
to share it with your friends.
Please feel free to share this book with your friends.
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“When you change the
way you look at your
body, the body you look
at changes.”
~Nick Ritchie
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Table of Contents
How I Started……………………………………………………………………………………………………....4
Body-Image Explained………………………………………………………………………………………….6
Body-Image & NLP……………………………………………………………………………………………….8
About NLP…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..11
How NLP Was Created…………………………………………………………………………………………13
Learning NLP Basics…………………………………………………………………………………………….16
Sensory Acuity…………………………………………………………………………………………………….18
Submodalities…………………………………………………………………………………………………….20
Rapport………………………………………………………………………………………………………………25
Reframing…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..32
Anchoring…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..35
Meta Model………………………………………………………………………………………………………..41
Milton Model……………………………………………………………………………………………………..52
Hypnotic Script…………………………………………………………………………………………………..75
Scale Tipping………………………………………………………………………………………………………79
Modelling…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..81
Empowering Yourself…………………………………………………………………………………………85
Where to Now……………………………………………………………………………………………………89
About The Author………………………………………………………………………………………………90
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How I Started
Growing up for me was really no different from anyone else. I had the ups and
downs of going through the traditional schooling system, battling my own inner
demons and outer nemesis. It always seemed as though life was constantly
throwing me hardballs… From the get-go my father was sentenced to life
imprisonment as my 17 year old teen mother was trying to bring up a two year
old me, while giving birth to my younger brother. I struggled through school with
bullies constantly using me as a bulls eye for their latest amusements, and
teachers constantly telling me I wasn’t good enough and that I needed to work
harder if I wanted to get a good job. But somewhere along the line, I also
developed a range of issues around the way I looked, and at the age of around 10
years old, I found myself screaming hateful thoughts at myself in front of the
mirror. This way of thinking about myself went on to affect the way I thought of
others, and subsequently, the way they treated me. Later on, I was fortunate
enough to attract some mentors into my life who really helped me to
breakthrough a lot of my past baggage and teach me an entirely new way of
thinking and attitude towards life.
When I first heard of NLP I was sitting across from one of my business mentors as
he was sharing his insights with me about personal development and how the
rate in which you grow as a person, was in direct relation to the rate in which
your business grows. He leaned in and said, “Nick, if you want to grow a highly
successful (and profitable) business, you’re going to have to commit to growing
yourself every single day.” Several of my business (and personal) mentors during
this time all felt the same way, and so I thought to myself, “There must be
something to all of this personal growth stuff!” And I’ve never looked back…
NLP just happened to be one of the tools my mentor used to help create change
with the people he worked with, and when I asked him how he came to develop
such an extraordinary ability to help people breakthrough their ‘issues’ he shared
that he had sat an NLP course and that taught him a lot of very useful techniques
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in belief system change, and altering people’s perceptions and subsequently, their
reality – in a way that served them towards a happier more fulfilled life.
Well that sounded really cool to me, and so the seed was planted, that I needed
to grow, and that one of the things I could do along my journey to grow, was to
learn NLP, and that’s just what I did.
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Body-Image Explained
Body-Image refers to how a person feels about their physical body, and this is
broken down into how they feel about the level of aesthetics and sexual
attractiveness they think they possess. Aesthetics encompassing the shape,
weight and proportions of the body, and sexual attractiveness referring to how
‘sexy’ they think they are (or are not) to the opposite sex (or same sex if one is
homosexual).
From the moment we are born as a (mostly) clean slate, there are many factors in
our environment both inside and outside of us that can create poor body-image
from cultural and social ideals, to past personal experiences along with what
some say are biological predispositions. Biological predispositions in my opinion,
are misguided in that we are all predisposed to the elements around us, yet how
we respond to those elements determines the result we get. We know for a fact,
that poor nutrition leads to a lack of function in the brain which can result in
various symptoms such as depression and anxiety, but as with everything we
experience, the power lies within ourselves to create the changes we want.
Poor Body-Image is also not something we are born with, therefore it is
something that is gradually developed over-time. For many people, poor body-
image is perpetuated through a series of frequent comparisons. Comparing their
hips to that person, their arms to that person, their waist and legs to that person,
and their butt and shoulders to that other person – do you notice where this is
going? The more comparisons you make, the worse your body-image becomes.
Some comparisons were made at a very early age, through a child’s impression of
the world, and thus, tend to be much more distorted than a comparison made as
an adult. Sometimes that requires us to dig into our past and turn over a new leaf
with that memory (so to speak), and other times it doesn’t. As with everything,
the approach to therapy varies depending on the individual.
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History shows us that in many cultures there has existed ideals among society of
the way the perfect body should look, which the people have always struggled to
live up to. To show how far reaching these ideals are in our own western culture
we only need to look around to see how prevalent the emphasis on beauty truly
is. In fact, a large study was recently completed by the American Psychological
Association finding that the sexualization of women was contributing to increased
anxiety associated with body-image.
In fact, body-image has become such a problem in our western culture that we
don’t even notice it exists; because almost everyone has the same issues! In one
of the largest international studies on body-image conducted (which spanned
over 10 countries), 3200 women were interviewed and the researchers found that
only 2% considered themselves beautiful, and nearly 50% believed they were too
fat.
There are many factors associated with developing a poor body-image, and so
awareness around what causes it, and how it is perpetuated helps provide us with
a launching pad to breakthrough it.
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Body-Image & NLP
Body-Image in itself, has a lot to do with how we perceive the world around us,
and NLP is an extremely valuable tool in changing our MAP (view of the world)
which subsequently changes our experience (for the better). I found this with my
own experience of learning about NLP, and how my mind works, I was better able
to let go of old negative habits, and replace them with newer more empowering
habits. Habits of thinking, as I call them, are perpetuated by us in our repeated
efforts of thought. Much of body-image is unconscious, meaning we are not
consciously (on the surface level) always aware of the thoughts that are running
through our minds, and as such, NLP is a powerful tool in modifying our
unconscious thinking habits to create a completely different conscious outcome.
Although in some people, negative body-image can lead to mental illnesses such
as eating disorders, depression or anorexia, this is not always the case for
everyone. But do keep in mind that men are not exempt from negative body-
image; Recent research suggests that many men wish to become leaner and more
muscular like they see on the covers of men’s magazine covers, or what they
perceived as children when playing with action figurines or watching cartoons of
muscular heroes. In a recent study, western men, compared to their Asian
counter-parts, wished to gain an additional 30 pounds of muscle mass than they
perceived they currently had. In a survey completed by Psychology Today,
researchers found that 56% of women and 40% of men were dissatisfied with
their overall appearance. To the modern western man, it appears as though a link
between the amount of muscle mass and their level of masculinity has been
created, which is in my opinion, a false expectation. NLP is valuable in making
adjustments to the way in which these men are perceiving masculinity, through a
series of processes that I will explain and (share how to use), throughout this
book.
In a recent survey women were asked, what was the first thing they noticed about
other woman when out with friends, and the majority of the respondents replied,
“How fat she is.” Continuing, the researchers found that women had an average
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of 13 negative things to say about themselves each day such as, “I hate my
stomach”, “I hate my thighs” or “I’m ugly”. In an even larger international survey,
researchers found that 90% of women aged 15 to 64 want to change at least one
thing about their body, most of all their body weight. So we understand that the
majority of people are affected in some way by poor body-image, it’s just that
because this way of thinking about ourselves is so widely accepted amongst
society, it’s difficult for many people to realize they have a problem, or could even
do something about it if they knew they were struggling. Body-Image is so
emphasized throughout our culture that even girls as young as five have strong
ideas about weight, such as “fat is bad” and “skinny is good”. These perceptions
around the body are created so early for most people that we tend to accept
them as truth, and thus, live our lives according to that truth (or world-view).
When in actual reality, those perceptions are completely false because ideals are
subjective, and that means we are living our lives according to a false sense of
reality, in much the same way that a person with depression believes that the
world is an unhappy place to live in, when in actual reality, the world is what we
make of it.
Body-Image can be measured by comparing yourself to images of what you think
the ideal body should look like. When making the comparisons, the difference
between how you perceive your body, and the ‘ideal body’ is what determines
the level of dissatisfaction (if any). Researchers have found a link between body
dissatisfaction and women who smoke cigarettes, along with a discomfort around
engaging in behaviors associated with intimate relationships, such as being able
to express their sexuality fully. What if there were a series of switches we could
flick that would automatically change the way we perceived our bodies and
ourselves, so we could go on to feel completely comfortable with ourselves (and
enjoy intimate relationships in the way we desire)? With NLP there are a variety
of techniques and tools that allow for that to happen, which will be explored in
this book.
As you continue reading I want you to decide to set your intention (on what you
wish to achieve) by absorbing the information contained within this book. The
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clearer you are on what you wish to gain from reading this book, the more value
you will receive as a result of that intention.
Now that you’ve set your intention on what you would most like to gain from
reading this book, let’s continue exploring NLP together…
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About NLP
Later on when people would ask me what NLP was and how it helped me, I found
myself saying things like, “Have you heard of Anthony Robbins? That’s what he
does, he helps people breakthrough stuff, that’s sort of what NLP is.” And I would
get a slightly ambiguous look from people, as if they sort of new what I was
talking about, but were also still confused. Then I tried having them imagine that
their mind was like a computer, and that NLP was the software that allowed you
to reconfigure the way the computer operated. That got me a little further, but I
still had similar confused looks, and that’s because NLP really is such a wide field
of study. There’s so many applications, that it can be tricky to define it in one
single conversation (unless the person has a good half an hour with you).
NLP can also be defined as a tool or skill that allows you to find out the difference
between people who excel in a particular area, and those who don’t. Once you’ve
found what the difference is, NLP can then allow you to take those bread crumbs
of excellence (so to speak), and follow the trail so that you can eventually reach
that same level of excellence quicker and easier than the originator. Almost like
uploading a new piece of software on your computer.
If you wanted to excel in acting, then you would use NLP to study some of the
Oscar award winning actors such as Al Pacino or Robert De Niro. NLP would allow
you to find out what they do in their minds before getting on set and acting that
allowed them to create the type of results on film that you see today – like the
movie Scarface. Maybe you want to feel really good about your body, and so you
seek out someone who feels really good about their body, and you use NLP to
study the way they think about themselves, their body, and how they perceive
the world, and then you apply what you’ve learned to your own experience – by
uploading that program for your own use. Kind of like in the movie, The Matrix,
where Neo gets plugged in and taught a range of martial arts in only a few hours
and in that defining moment he sits up from the chair and looking at Morpheus
says, “I know Kung Fu…”
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This is why NLP is called, “The art and science of personal excellence.”
NLP is broken down into three core parts:
Neuro… This relates to the way we process our experience through the five
senses of touch, sight, smell, hearing, and taste. As the signals get interpreted by
us, they are then converted into signals that are sent through our central nervous
system where they are then converted in the brain as meaning.
Linguistic… This relates to the way in which we perceive our world through verbal
or non-verbal communication. Information enters our central nervous system,
and then gets decoded by our brain so that we can assimilate that information.
This includes pictures, sounds, tastes, smells and words (self-talk).
Programming… This relates to how we go through a particular pattern inside our
head that leads to a specific outcome almost every time.
To sum it up, NLP is the technology of using the already pre-set processes of the
mind to create a specific result quickly and easily.
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How NLP Was Created
In relative terms, NLP is still in its infancy compared to many other behavioral
change technologies, however the basics of NLP began a very long time ago.
A man by the name of Alfred Korzybski studied the behavioral patterns of the
people in society of the 1940’s and later released a book called Science and Sanity
that broke down the key challenges that people had who were suffering from any
number of diagnosed mental issues. He shared a particularly interesting
phenomenon when he said, “Almost all psychological problems are the result of
the inability of a person to traverse logical levels.” What’s interesting is that he
described that in the future there would be a way to describe the processes of a
human being, and that is what we today call Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP).
In the 1970’s Richard Bandler and Frank Pucelik were friends who had a desire to
heal themselves of their unpleasant pasts, and in turn, they came across Gestalt
Therapy (a form of psychotherapy). They studied in great detail what Fritz Perls
(the founder of Gestalt Therapy) was teaching as part of the program, and as a
result, they found they were really good at copying the processes Fritz was
describing (modeling). In fact, Bandler and Pucelik became so good at modeling
Gestalt Therapy, that they began teaching it in classrooms as a form of therapy
for other people who wanted to breakthrough their own past emotional baggage.
Their techniques and teachings became so well known that they caught the
attention of John Grindler, a professor of linguistics.
Grindler just watched them for a few weeks and then after careful consideration,
approached the two men and asked them if they knew how what they were doing
was working. Grindler had a gift of being able to breakdown the specific structure
(linguistically) of what they were doing, and offer that up as a process that could
be duplicated. Before working with him, Bandler and Pucelik did not really know
why their methods worked. They had just become really good at copying what
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worked. They all began working together, and as a result, formulated a
linguistically structured science which was then called “Meta.”
Over the years, they created Neuro-Linguistic-Programming after working
tirelessly with no financial backing and ridicule from people who were apparently
‘well studied’ in psychotherapy and psychology. During this time, Pucelik split
from the group and went his own way due to various disagreements. Bandler and
Grindler then locked arms and began even more rigorous exploration of this new
technology.
In the early days, there was much experimentation and testing from various
people who decided to join them on their quest to advance the understandings of
human internal processes for the benefit of people world-wide. During this time,
many people contributed to the development of Neuro-Linguistic-Programming
and that is where the idea of NLP comes from; having the ability to find someone
who’s reached a particular level of excellence in any given field, and to learn
exactly how that result is produced. That all starts from a simple question of,
“How do I take that behavior and apply it to myself to get the same results?” You
then follow the bread crumbs (clues) to achieve that same level of excellence.
The three people they copied (or modelled) were Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir and
Milton Erickson. As these people were considered at the time to be the top
behavioral change experts in the world, creating huge shifts in the people whom
they worked with. NLP all begins with an attitude of curiosity to find out how
someone does something, and when we look at a human being who does
something that appears truly magical and remarkable we only have to ask the
question, “How does this person behave this way, despite their current
circumstances?”
Bandler and Grindler went on to produce their first two books in 1975 and have
gone on to release many more volumes since then. Once they had produced
those books, their material began being picked and read by psychotherapists and
psychologists (and other behavioral change professionals) with many of their
previous nemesis’ (people who ridiculed them) calling them for advice and help
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with many of their own patients (funnily enough). After the huge interest in these
books, and their work, they continued to develop the technology of NLP and
studied Milton Erickson who’s apparently one of the best hypnotherapists of our
time, and from this, published another book called Patterns of the Hypnotic
Techniques of Milton Erickson, Volumes 1 and 2. These books contained the basis
of a new model called the Milton Model, which works by using vague language,
and inserting generalizations, distortions and deletions into people’s language
and thoughts. Fascinatingly enough, the Milton Model is almost the complete
opposite of their original Meta Model, but both somehow managed to get very
consistent results. This new birth in behavioral change technology proved Alfred
Korzybski correct; by traversing logical levels it is possible for problems to just
disappear.
But this all turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg for Bandler and Grindler, as
they began exploring these concepts and information further, taking their original
models and expanding them further. Perceptual positions, representational
systems and reframing submodalities were all new tools they had created
following their initial work, and began to be picked up more and more by people
in the behavioral change professions. This prompted Bandler and Grindler to
produce additional books and seminars as their work became more popular and
sought after. The work that they produced from the 1970’s to today, has created
a large body of information, tools and techniques that have not only improved the
lives of many others, but have gone on to inspire many other people to learn NLP
and create their own versions, books and seminars on the subject.
These days NLP is regarded world-wide as being one of the most influential tools
for producing positive results in the way people perceive themselves, the world
within them, and the world around them. This technology became mega-popular
starting in the 1980’s and 1990’s with huge personalities like Anthony Robbins
using it to improve the lives of millions of people across the globe. As our
awareness as a society increases around the areas of personal empowerment and
responsibility, NLP and the tools that it offers will become more easily available
and accessible every day.
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Learning NLP Basics
Why would you want to learn the basics of NLP? Sometimes one of the most
empowering things someone can do when they suffer from poor body-image and
self-esteem, is to learn how their mind works. Learning how your mind works, will
in-turn allow you to become more aware of what is going on when you feel a
negative emotion (or positive one for that matter), and to make adjustments
accordingly. The first step to any change, is awareness. Once you are aware of
something, you can change it. But if you’re running around looking for a hole in
the ground with a blindfold on, you’re going to trip over it a few times, but you’ll
never find the gold buried deep within until you regain your sight and find the
map. NLP increases your awareness of yourself and the way you think about your
body, thus lifting the blindfold of ignorance, and shining a new light on the way
you perceive yourself and the world around you. In saying that, the beauty of NLP
is that it doesn’t matter what areas of NLP you learn, because every single
technique can be applied to improve any area of your life immediately (not only
body-image). Now there are some basic concepts that we can cover right away to
get you started with boosting your body-image using NLP, so let’s get started with
those, which are:
1. Sensory Acuity
2. Submodalities
3. Rapport
4. Reframing
5. Anchoring
6. Meta Model
7. Milton Model
8. Modelling
The area of sensory acuity is really valuable in becoming an effective
communicator (with others, and yourself), and for becoming good at applying NLP
to your own life. It gives you the ability to notice the most subtle changes in
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yourself and others, so that you can easily sync with them. As you become
familiar with these slight changes in others, you’ll be able to derive clues from
what they might be thinking at the time that have resulted in the changes to the
outside of them. From noticing these changes, it allows us to develop a high level
of rapport, which is highly important in our relations with others, whether that be
in a personal relationship with a friend, family member or lover, or in a business
context like sales or leadership. Submodalities relate to how we process our
internal experience (how we structure our thoughts). Rapport is all about
strengthening our connection with others, quickly and easily. Reframing is the
process of shifting our perception of an experience (usually) after it has occurred.
Have you ever heard a song come on, and then found yourself remembering a
past experience and almost reliving it? Anchoring is the process in which you
respond according to a particular signal. Your response can be programmed to
help you to reach a desirable state at will, rather than be at effect all the time.
The Meta and Milton Models are ways of speaking that allow you to make
powerful behavioral change quickly and easily within conversation (with yourself)
or another person. Modeling is the pattern where all of NLP has been created,
and once you’ve developed this ability, you’ll be able to create any behavior or
attitude as you so wish. During this book, I’ll be sharing the basics of these six
techniques along with specific stories that illustrate how to apply them, along
with things you can do right away to begin using them in your everyday life
starting today.
As you learn and develop these techniques, you’ll already have a vastly higher
amount of knowledge and ability to create change within yourself (and others),
than most other people you know who have not yet read this book.
It’s my intention that by the end of this book, that you’ve not only learned and
developed your understanding of NLP and some of the techniques, but also that
you’re applying them to improve the way you look at yourself, how you feel about
yourself and your body, and your life is ultimately better as a result. Get excited,
interested and curious, and test out this new knowledge at every chance you can
during your day to day life.
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Sensory Acuity
People make tiny little changes moment to moment, that most of us are
completely unaware of. Interestingly enough, these changes reflect the internal
thinking processes of the person at that time. When one of the creators modelled
Milton Erickson, he observed that people make changes in their physiology in a
split second, without knowing they are even doing it! If you stay attentive to
these changes within yourself and others, you’ll gain new understandings of
what’s going on inside.
In NLP, these are some of the basic areas that we focus on with a person’s
physiology:
Breathing speed (are they breathing faster or slower?)
Skin color (is it darker or lighter?)
Pupil dilation (are their pupils bigger or smaller?)
Skin tone (are the muscles tighter or more loose?)
Lower lip size (is it bigger or smaller?)
Breaking location (are they breathing from the chest or stomach?)
Eye focus (are they eyes less or more focused?)
There are many other areas of the body that you can pay attention to that will
allow you to gain further insight into what’s going on inside someone’s mind, but
these are a good starting point. During a speaking event, Anthony Robbins
noticed one of the audience members going into a trance-like state and later he
was asked how he knew, where he replied, “I could tell because her eyes began
dilating the more she went into trance.” As your ability to read people (using
sensory acuity) improves, so will your communication abilities.
As a Personal Trainer (one of my past professions), I remember many occasions
where I would routinely ask my clients whether or not they had stuck to their
exercise program throughout the week, or if they had skipped a few days… I
remember one particular day a client came in and I looked up and said, “Good
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morning! How are you feeling on this wonderful morning?!” And she said, “Really
good!” I replied, “That’s excellent, and how have you been going over the week,
since I last saw you?” And she said, “Yeah, good…” I asked, “Did you follow the
program I laid out for you?” And she answered, “Yeah, kinda…” But I could
already tell from the slight changes in her skin tone, and pupil dilation that she
had skipped at least a day or two, so I said, “You skipped a couple of days, huh?”
And she grinned, “How did you know?!” I replied with a laugh, “Because it’s
written all over your face, ha ha!”
I could have even asked her to purposely lie to me, and I would have been able to
tell when she was lying and when she was not. In fact, I could quiz her and even
before she opened her mouth, I could tell if what she was going to say was a lie,
and what was her truth.
This is an example of how sensory acuity can greatly improve your ability to read
people, and to gain an understanding of how they process thought. Basically, you
can read what they are thinking before they say it, based upon skin color,
tightness, eye, lip and breathing changes. These are all subtle changes that can be
picked up on if you have developed your sensory acuity.
Many people also respond differently, so for one person their pupils dilate and
their breathing becomes chesty when they lie, whereas for another none of those
changes occur and instead their lip swells a little and their cheeks tighten.
Now that you’re aware of sensory acuity, you can begin practicing on friends,
family or anyone whom you come in contact with (just for fun of course)!
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Submodalities
Submodalities refer to the internal representational systems that help us to
experience our environment. These are the smallest distinctions that occur at a
level that most of us are completely unaware of (at least until your attention is
brought upon them). If your submodalities were tiny droplets of water, your
thoughts would be oceans (in a sense). Our submodalities help us to remember
our experiences, whether past, present or imagined, through what we feel, see,
hear, smell and taste. Each droplet of water (or submodality) contributes to the
overall ocean of experience of a thought. When we change the way we
experience that droplet of water, we change the thought (or the way we think).
NLP breaks the submodalities down into the five main senses:
Kinesthetic (Feeling): This relates to texture, temperature, pressure, location,
vibration and frequency.
Auditory (Sound): This relates to volume, tempo, timbre, clarity, location, pitch,
tempo, rhythm, digital, duration and distance.
Auditory (Digital): This relates to calculating, precise, analytics and
understanding.
Visual (Sight): This relates to shape, size, color, brightness, contrast, movement,
speed, clarity, location, three-dimensional/flat, transparency, orientation, density,
framed/panoramic, associated/disassociated.
Olfactory (Smell): This relates to potency, aroma, odor, scent.
Gustatory (Taste): This relates to flavor, bitterness, sour, savory.
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The three main submodalities are Kinesthetic, Auditory and Visual; this is because
most of us rely primarily on these representational systems for experiencing the
world around us and within us - with most people having a primary reliance on
one of the three (either Kinesthetic, Auditory or Visual). You can easily learn
about which primary representational system someone uses by being aware of
the cues they give you through the way they express themselves.
A visual person… Will tend to verbally communicate through using words such as,
“looks”, “appears”, “watched”, “sighted”, “see” etc.
A kinesthetic person… Will communicate through words such as, “feels”, “felt”,
“touched”, “warm”, “rough”, “soft”, “hard”, “gripping” etc.
An auditory person… Will communicate through words like, “listen”, “hear”,
“sounds”, “musical” etc.
Your Primary Representation System
Which representational system do you use most predominantly? As I shared
above, most people have a primary representational system of either visual,
auditory or kinesthetic. You may have already worked out which one you mainly
use, or if you haven’t yet, you can that find out by matching which description
matches you the most below.
Visual: Visual people gravitate towards describing their experience by saying
things like, “I was looking out over the crystal clear blue water, as I stood on the
shoreline watching the children enjoy the bright panoramic views of the ocean.”
When asked about a prior experience, will usually respond by describing their
thoughts as images, pictures or something they saw, and will often see these
thoughts as such.
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Kinesthetic: Kinesthetic people move towards describing their experience by
saying things like, “I could feel the crunch of the sand beneath my toes as the cool
refreshing water washed over my legs, sending shivers down my spine as the icy
wind cut through me, drying the water from my body.” When describing a prior
experience, they will regularly talk about getting a grip on something, or how
much they were touched by an experience, and they will usually feel something
inside as they are recalling it.
Auditory: Auditory people are prone to narrating an experience with language
such as, “Hearing the sound of the waves crash, I turned my head to the side to
listen to the gulls squawking and the children playing, as I muted my mother’s
voice from my mind.” When recalling they will usually comment on how it rings a
bell and sounds to them as they rhythmically process the experience.
By now you may have enough clues to estimate which representational system is
your primary. If you’re not super clear on it yet, that’s okay as you’ll still be able
to continue digesting the information contained in this book, and may perhaps
pick up on it as you read further.
Practical Application
Using submodalities we can quickly and easily make changes to our experience by
using specific techniques that alter the perception of the perceived event. Here, I
will outline a few basic patterns you can use for each representational system in
order to change your experience. In much the same way putting on sunglasses,
headphones or a swimsuit changes your response to sunlight, outer noises or
water temperature, submodality patterns change your response to thought. For
example, I might think of a time when I was last with my wife… “We are at the
beach and I can see [visual] the sun glowing on her face, and I can feel
[kinesthetic] my heart beating lovingly in my chest, as I hear [auditory] her soft
voice whispering in my ear…” And as I see [visual example] that movie playing in
my mind, I turn the brightness up, and I notice I feel stronger about the
experience. This is just one example of how by using NLP adjustment patterns, I
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can subsequently change my experience when I think of that particular time (in
this case, for the better). I’m now going to give you a series of patterns to
complete, and once you’ve done them, I want you to revert back to the original
thought, and continue reading.
For Visual People: Think of a recent experience that was pleasurable for you. It
could be a time when you were out with friends, with someone special, had just
achieved something significant, or maybe you were enjoying time on your own.
Whatever the experience, I want you to clearly focus on it in your mind, and as you
do, I want you to experience what it’s like to…
[1] Change the color: Shift the color from intense bright colors to black and white.
[2] Change the transparency: Make it transparent so you can see through it.
[3] Change the distance: Move it from very close to very far away.
For Kinesthetic People: Think of a recent experience that was pleasurable for you.
It could be a time when you were out with friends, with someone special, had just
achieved something significant, or maybe you were enjoying time on your own.
Whatever the experience, I want you to clearly focus on it in your mind, and as you
do, I want you to experience what it’s like to…
[1] Change the location: Move the location from chest to stomach, high/low.
[2] Change the temperature: Shift the temperature from hot to cold.
[3] Change the pressure: Make it tighter or looser.
For Auditory People: Think of a recent experience that was pleasurable for you. It
could be a time when you were out with friends, with someone special, had just
achieved something significant, or maybe you were enjoying time on your own.
Whatever the experience, I want you to clearly focus on it in your mind, and as you
do, I want you to experience what it’s like to…
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[1] Change the volume: Make it louder and then quieter.
[2] Change the clarity: Alter it from clear to distorted.
[3] Change the tempo: Shift the tempo from fast to slow.
This is an example of how changing your thoughts, changes your response. After
this exercise it should become extremely apparent to you that it is the way you
think about and process your experiences, that is both the source of your
happiness and your frustrations, rather than anything outside of you. When we
experience something outside of ourselves, our representational systems kick in
and give that experience an instant meaning. If we change the way our
representational systems respond, we change our internal response, and thus,
our experience. There are many examples of experiences that have occurred in
our lives that we have perceived completely differently than how they actually
happened, because of the distortions we created through our internal filters.
The same applies when we see an image of someone on a billboard with writing
next to it that says, “This means beautiful”, or when your friend comments on
how “gorgeous” the girl walking across the street is. It’s not the writing or your
friend’s comment that causes the problem, it’s your response to it. If you change
the way you look at body-image and beauty, you change your response. This is all
done using NLP to re-program parts of the way you think so you can perceive
other people’s ideals around beauty without feeling as though it’s some kind of
personal attack or contrast against the way you already look.
We change the world around us, by changing the way we perceive it, and
subsequently respond to it. This is a much faster and more effective way to build
a happier world (from within), than trying to change the way the media, society or
our culture portrays beauty.
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Rapport
There’s a great saying out there by Anthony Robbins, and that is, “People like
people who are like them.” Now because everyone is unique in their own way, it’s
virtually impossible to be identical to someone in every waking minute of your
life, but it is possible to notice the way they behave and then to match and mirror
them for the outcome of strengthening your connection and rapport with that
person. Perhaps a good example of being in rapport is when you’ve been with
someone and it’s seemed like the two of you could almost finish each other’s
sentences, as if you’re sharing the one mind, as if time stood still. By developing
your ability to gain rapport with others, you can find yourself sharing in that same
level of connection and of being in sync with people who’ve you’ve only just met.
Perhaps you may be introduced to someone of the opposite sex (or same) who
you’ve heard a lot about, and you’re wanting to make those first impressions
count. Maybe you’re interested in feeling comfortable with just about everyone
whom you come in contact with, regardless of how you think you might look to
them on the outside. You’re ability to build rapport will help with much of this
and so much more.
Rapport was developed during the practice of hypnosis where the person you’re
with feels as though time stands still, as if the only reality is the one the two of
you are inhabiting. You’re in such a state of rapport with the other person that
you’ve fully captivated the attention of their unconscious mind, and they are
following you with ease. With NLP, there’s no need to be engaged in that level of
rapport, however you’ll find that during the process of being in rapport with
another person, that you’ll be constantly be moving through waves of being more
in rapport some times, and less other times, and this constant state of pulling and
pushing will be a constant in most of your interactions with others and is perfectly
normal. It’s just in this case, you’re now aware of your ability to make or break
rapport, and that will dramatically improve your experience (and theirs) during
your time together, however long or short that may be.
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The quicker and easier you move into rapport with another person, the more you
will increase your level of connection and interaction with them. The higher your
level of rapport, the more powerfully and easily you will be able to resolve their
presenting issue or problem. So how do you help someone to like, trust and
connect with you faster and easier?
We understand that communication is both verbal and non-verbal. Meaning, it’s
not just what you say that matters, but how you say it. The how you say it part,
can also be categorized under body language too, or better speaking, what you do
(or don’t do) with your body. Developing your ability to gain rapport, involves
being acutely aware of not only your own body language, but also the body
language of others. Everyone speaks in their own body-language, and as such, if
you speak in someone else’s language, you’re much more likely to be understood
by them than if you are not. Take for example, my wife and me. When we are
together we often notice each other slipping into deep rapport quickly and easily.
Sometimes we will look down and notice our legs and tapping at the same pace,
that our breathing has slowed to the same in-out rhythm, or that we find
ourselves knowing what the other person is going to say before they say it.
Some people may put this down to just knowing someone well by spending
extended amounts of time with them. However, regardless of the amount of time
spent, it’s still obvious that you’re easily able to get into rapport with that person.
So how is that any different from meeting that stranger and hitting it off for the
first time? Perhaps you’ve had an experience like that where you’re meeting
several people at a social gathering, and one particular person you come into
contact with, you just find the conversation and interaction is much easier and
more relaxed than with anyone else you spoke with at the gathering. At the time,
you were probably unaware of that fact you were both in rapport, or how you got
there, but somehow you did it. As we all do it naturally with certain people. It’s
just in the case of being aware of the process of rapport through NLP, you can
consciously create that same level of rapport with just about anyone who you
chose to come in contact with.
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Over time, you’ll be able to develop your ability to consciously and powerfully
create strong rapport with people whom you come in contact with, and this may
start out as taking 5-10 minutes, and come down to as little as a couple of
minutes – if that.
Building rapport is made of up two main components, pacing and leading. Pacing
is where you begin mirroring the person for a certain period of time. You may
begin with moving your body language into the same (or similar) posture they’re
in, such as cross legged, or cross armed, breathing at the same tempo as them, or
even scratching your head when they do (don’t do this for too long, or too
obviously, or it will become obvious). Once you’ve found a sufficient tempo in
pacing, then you can shift over to leading, where you then begin moving in a
different way at a different pace and they will begin following you – you’re
leading them. Here are some things you can look out for when getting in rapport
with pacing them:
Words:
Common experiences and associations
Predicates
Content chunks
Key words
Physiology:
Posture
Breathing
Facial expressions
Blinking
Gestures
Tonality:
Volume (loudness)
Tempo (speed)
Tone (pitch)
Timbre (quality)
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Now that you’re aware of some of the things you can look out for, you can begin
studying how other people use their verbal and non-verbal language (vocal and
body), and using that as a gauge to begin building rapport with others. In fact, I
remember when I was much younger and I was first playing around with some of
these NLP techniques, and I decided to go to a bar to test out how well this would
work with complete strangers who didn’t even know I existed.
Matching
I sat down at a bar-side window and found someone who was sitting alone,
sipping on their drink. I made a note not to look in their direction, and using my
peripheral vision, I began pacing them. When they moved their arm up to their
head, I moved my arm up to my head. When they looked around to their left, I
looked around to my left. When they breathed in heavily, I breathed in heavily.
When they got on their phone and started talking, I put my phone up to my ear
and started talking. When they took a sip of their drink, I took a sip of my drink…
And sure enough, after a few minutes of this, they turned around and looked me
directly in the eye and smiled. So matching is really just the ability to effectively
match what the other person is doing (verbally and non-verbally).
If you’re going to verbally match someone, then you may perhaps use the same
words they use in a differently structured sentence. For example, if you’ve just
met up with someone and they say, “I’ve had a great day, I’ve just been relaxing
down at the beach, enjoying the hot sunny weather while I read my book…” And
you reply, “That’s great, it’s a pretty hot sunny day today, and a great day for the
beach that’s for sure, what sort of book are you reading?”
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Mirroring
Mirroring is almost identical to matching, only if they scratch their head with their
left hand, you would sit across from them and scratch your head with your right
hand, and in this way you would be mirroring part of their body-language.
Needless to say, our ability to gain rapport with others is not only localized to our
immediate environment. We have the ability to project much more of our inner
world, verbal and non-verbal communication out to the world around us that
causes people in the same space and time, to naturally gravity towards us. This is
why I always say that our inner world is reflected through our outer world. The
way we respond to it, and the way others respond to us, is directly interwoven
with our conscious and unconscious thinking processes.
Just a quick note… If you are matching and mirroring without the other person
becoming consciously aware of it, then you are doing it well. If the other person
becomes consciously aware of your matching and mirroring, then that means you
are mimicking them, and this does the complete opposite of what you want. In
saying that, in some cases I have been purposefully obvious with my actions and
the other person hasn’t noticed it. So for the majority of your interactions, it’s
very unlikely that someone will notice what you’re doing, and bring it to your
attention. Only people specifically trained in NLP are more likely to pick up on
what you’re doing, because they are trained to look for the most subtle of cues
already.
How do you know when you’ve been pacing for long enough, and that you’re
finally in deep rapport with the other person? You know you’re in rapport
because you’ll gain a comfortable feeling inside, that may come to you in the
expression of a warm feeling in your chest or stomach, or it may come as a
calmness of mind. As you become more and more trained in using this technique,
you’ll notice this feeling of getting into rapport a lot more profoundly.
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Once you’ve been pacing for long enough and you can tell that you’re in rapport,
it’s time to begin testing out your leading. I’m not saying that you need to turn
into a drill sergeant and drive the troops into battle. What I am saying, is that you
can now start doing things that the other person will be more likely to imitate
(unconsciously).
Back to my story, so after this person at the bar smiled at me, I wandered over
smiling casually at them and asked them if they had noticed how commentator on
the big screen in front of us kept repeating the same word “real” in almost every
sentence. I placed my glass down, and then a moment later I picked it up and took
a sip, and just as I did that, this person picked theirs up and did the same. I was
astonished! So I tried something else, while in conversation, I assumed a similar
standing position to them and began tapping my foot ever so slightly, and much
to my dismay, they started doing the same almost immediately after (they were
copying me!). It didn’t take long before this person began treating me a lot
differently, than what a supposed stranger would typically, and this is a good
example of leading. If you’ve developed enough rapport, you’ll find that the other
person will quickly and easily begin mirroring you and will warm to you in a way
that you may not usually expect from strangers.
When it comes to boosting your body-image and developing your ability to gain
rapport, this is an area that’s often overlooked in the change process. Often times
when people with poor body-image are interacting with others, they are so
caught up with what’s going on inside of them (with what other people think of
them), that they can completely misinterpret the signals they are receiving from
others. This can cause a lot of unnecessary confusion and embarrassment when
all they had to do was focus on the verbal and non-verbal responses they were
receiving from the other person.
And on a side note: There’s no need to be concerned about what other people
are thinking of you. What other people think of you, is none of your business.
Now, that we’ve covered that, you can begin practicing this technique anywhere
you like. With friends, family, the local pet store attendant or even the retail sales
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people at the mall. When I’ve practiced this in those areas, I’ve found that I’ve
often received much better service than perhaps I would have, had I not gone to
the effort to develop rapport with the person serving me. Give the technique of
developing rapport plenty of practice and it will reward you in more ways than
one, with people close to you, people serving you, or even people you’re
coaching.
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Reframing
Reframing refers to the adjustment of a person’s sensory experience. People will
often interpret an experience as negative, and then later change their perception
of that experience to one of a positive nature. Reframing allows the person to
change their perception immediately, as opposed to later on in the future. An
example of a reframe would be when someone complains of how their outdoor
picnic is being ruined by the rain that’s just started pouring, and you say, “Rain or
no rain, it’s still possible to have fun. Let’s cover the food and dance in the rain
until it passes!”
Therefore the meaning of any experience, is dependent upon the frame we place
upon it. A negative orientated frame will lead to a negative perception, whereas a
positive frame will lead to a positive perception and experience. So when we
change the frame of an event, we change the meaning, and subsequently our
response to that event. For example, if someone goes to an event dressed as an
angel, the meaning is different depending on whether it is Halloween or a funeral.
My response to someone being pushed in the ocean, is different as an observer
than as a victim.
Just as we can change our response to a painting or piece of art by placing it in a
different frame, we can change our response to an experience by placing the
experience in a different frame – this is what it means to reframe an experience.
When wanting to reframe an experience, we always come from a place of
wanting a positive outcome for the person whom you are reframing. Of course
there are those out there who run reframes on people all the time, that lead to a
negative outcome for the recipients, however they make up the few, not the
majority. Here are some simple steps to follow when you wish to reframe the
meaning or context of an experience that someone has perceived. Many times
once we learn these steps, we also tend to reframe our own experiences
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(sometimes verbally out loud, or non-verbally in our heads) to create a better
response, thus a better experience in our lives.
[1] Sensory Acuity: Notice how the person you’re with is responding physically to
the experience. They may be recalling an experience or, you may be with them in
the moment.
[2] Assess Submodalities: How is the person primarily interpreting the problem in
their mind? Are they experiencing through the kinesthetic, auditory or visual
submodalities? If you can get clear on how they are processing it, you can speak
to them in that language.
[3] Repeat for time: Ask the person to repeat their experience verbally to you if
you need more time to create a powerful reframe. Your reframe will be the most
polar opposite frame you can possibly create to the original frame they created.
You want the initial reframe that you deliver to have maximum impact on the
person.
[4] Reframe: Deliver your reframe congruently according to the other person’s
submodalities and as you do this, monitor their sensory acuity to assess the
changes. You’re searching for a difference in how the person is responding to the
new frame on the experience.
Examples of what some reframes might look like are as follows…
Original Frame: “She’s slow”
Response: “To slow for what purpose?”
Reframe: “And when you find yourself absorbed in one of her books not only will
you appreciate every single second she poured into it, you’ll also understand
exactly why they fly off the shelves.”
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Another one may be…
Original Frame: “It’s expensive.”
Response: “Expensive compared to what?”
Reframe: “What would be really expensive is deciding to buy the other one which
costs 10% less, but lasts half as long. By now you probably realize that by
comparison, this one is an absolute bargain.”
In NLP we presuppose that all behavior has a positive intent, and so we are always
looking for the positive intention, and finding that positive intention in each
action or non-action is also a form of reframing. Typically, harming people isn’t
something that other people directly intend. Many times where there has been
harm caused to another, there was still a positive intention for the self (person
doing the harming). They may have wanted to feel powerful, in control, safe or
prevent the other person from doing something again, and so for them, the
positive intention lies in the protection of their own self.
Another example of a reframe could be of a parent’s perception of their
rebellious teenager, where they are just rebelling to make the parents life worse.
But perhaps the teenager is rebelling because their positive intention is to
become an independent, capable adult. If the parent and teenager both become
aware of and accept that reframe, it will change the way they perceive the
behavior. Thus, changing their response.
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Anchoring
Anchoring is a term coined in the NLP world, which really just describes the
process that we go through when something triggers a response within us. It’s
almost as if something from our environment (internal or external) triggers a
particular feeling, image, sound or taste within us that we experience in that
moment.
Like the example I gave earlier of when you’ve been driving down the road and
the radio comes on playing a particular song and instantly you’re sent into a
different reality, one where you begin reminiscing of the time when you were
listening to that song in a different space or time. Perhaps the hearing of the song
instantly takes you back to when you were having a pillow fight with an ex-lover
while a storm was crashing outside the house all around you, and you ended up
being cuddled up next to the warm fireplace under a large fluffy rug… Or maybe it
takes you to a time when you were a little child, listening to your mother sing
along to that song, and you remember the feeling inside as you felt that familiar
feeling of love and connection with her. I remember as a child watching my
mother scream as she saw a spider run across the floor, and instantly I found
myself feeling that same way whenever I saw a spider as a young boy. These
triggers from outside ourselves, have caused a specific response within us called
an anchor.
The same goes for creating anchors around body-image. As a young boy I
remember one day standing in the hallway as my younger brother and I waited
for our mother to get ready so we could go out to the park. I peeked my head
around the door into her room to see her standing in front of a mirror staring at
herself in a way I had never seen before as I heard the word “yuck” leave her
mouth. She had turned around and was looking at the way her behind fitted in a
pair of jeans, and as she become frustrated at what she saw in the mirror she
quickly moved to the cupboard and pulled out a pair of track pants. In that one
single moment, a new anchor was created in me. How? Children ‘model’ both the
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positive and negative traits of their parents (more on modeling later), and as a by-
product of modeling my mother, I found myself a few years later staring in front
of a mirror (triggering an anchor) screaming thoughts of hate at myself.
Anchors are everywhere in our reality, and once we are aware of this fact, we can
begin to take action and build the responses we want, rather than the ones we
don’t. There are anchors everywhere that makes us feel good, and ones that
make us feel bad. If you’re struggling with body-image right now, then perhaps
the mirror is an anchor for you, in that every time you see a mirror you feel the
compulsion to look at yourself and then send negative thoughts at that face
staring back at you. Sometimes we have anchors that are so strong that they
over-ride some of our other senses. Imagine seeing someone who you strongly
don’t like, and then think of them saying something positive towards you.
Chances are you may not even hear what they are saying, because the negative
emotional response you feel totally negates anything they are saying – positive or
negative. Anchors are powerful and can totally remove logic from the entire
thinking process.
The great thing about anchors is that they can also create some very powerful
empowering responses within us, such as when you hear a certain song play, you
feel love, happiness and excitement. Now imagine that there’s a certain person at
work that you aren’t getting along with, and maybe you’re even intimidated by
them. Well, if you were to put that empowering song on and put yourself in that
excited state, and then picture that person in your mind, over time you may even
just find that when you see that person, you no longer experience that same
strong negative emotion. In fact, you may even find that the negative feelings are
completely gone, and have been replaced by positive ones.
What about if whenever you put your clothing on, you found yourself feeling or
picturing yourself in a certain way? Perhaps you heard a voice in your head say
negative things about the way you fit in those clothes, you felt a nauseous feeling
in your stomach, or saw yourself as twice the size that you actually are. Your
logical brain knows the truth, but your emotional brain is warping your
perspective (the way you see, feel and hear yourself), and so next is to change
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those associated anchors. What happens before you feel, hear or see those
negative thoughts?
Now take something that you really love doing that puts you in a really great
state, such as listening to a particular song or looking at a particular image. Create
a really strong feeling inside by turning up the dial on it, visualize a virtual
pressure dial, and as you turn that dial up, you feel that feeling increase more and
more. Push that dial all the way around until you’ve reached the peak of that
strong empowered feeling state, and then begin putting your clothing on, while
holding onto that state. What you’ll find is that when done enough times
repeatedly, the old disempowering anchors will dissolve and be replaced by the
newer empowering anchors - Anytime that you’re in a particularly high state,
where a specific type of stimulus is applied, at the peak of that state, an anchor
will be created.
When creating an anchor, there are key components that will dramatically
improve its effectiveness for future use…
Intensity… How strong is the state that you’re in (or associate feeling, sound,
image etc.)? The higher the intensity, the stronger the anchor.
Uniqueness… How unique is the anchor? Does it involve you touching your thumb
and forefinger together while in a specific state? The more unique the easier it is
to recall.
Replication… How often are you repeating this same anchor in order to
strengthen its effectiveness? If looking in the mirror creates a response, each time
you look in the mirror in that same state of feeling, you strengthen the response.
Number… How many times have you repeated this anchor? The higher the
number, the more effective the anchor.
Timing… When will you trigger the anchor, and in which state will you trigger it
in?
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When creating an anchor in yourself or others, these are the components to make
it happen most effectively.
To create a very powerful anchor, one of the most important components is
timing. You want to use your sensory acuity to gauge when you, or another
person is reaching the peak of their state, and right at that peak moment you
want to trigger the anchor.
For example, you can create a simple anchor that you can use every day just by
touching your shoulder. Early on in my development, I started working with my
Personal Training clients on developing positive anchors during their sessions with
me. In some cases, I would simply ask my client to envision what they most
wanted to achieve, and to think about how good it would feel, look and sound to
them once they had achieved that goal. I told them to hold that feeling, image or
sound in their mind for as long as they could during their session, and if I noticed
them slipping in motivation, I would divert their attention back to what they
wanted to achieve, how they wanted to feel, what they wanted to see, what they
heard… And there would be an instant shift in their physiology that was easily
noticeable from a distance, and not to mention in their performance! When I
wanted to create a very specific response, I would have them put themselves in a
peak state of feeling totally energized and motivated, and at the peak of that
state, I would have them press their thumb and forefinger together. After enough
times of repeating this process, they found that whenever they wanted to feel
totally energized and motivated, all they would have to do is press their thumb
and forefinger together.
Like with all of what I’ve shared with you so far, you’re ability to build a strong
anchor with another person is directly linked to your ability to gain a high level of
rapport with them.
How about we package all of what we’ve learned so far about anchors into one
neat bundle that you can use quickly and easily with yourself or others? Well,
here’s the basic template to follow when you’re wanting to do that:
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[1] Find a Subject: Seek out a suitable test-buddy. This could be a close-friend of
family member.
[2] Pace & Lead: Engage in pacing and leading and build rapport with that person.
[3] Locate Anchor Point: Gain their permission to touch them on the knee during
this process. (You can chose anywhere you like to create the anchor, however the
knee for most people is pretty unobtrusive. You could try that, or the elbow or
something like that.)
[3] Find a Strong Emotion: Allow that person to reach in and find a time in their
past that created a really strong emotion for them, such as feeling totally
confident. (You could use this script to help engage those emotions in them, “Can
you think of a time when you were totally confident? [Wait for the yes] Can you
think of a really specific time that stands out to you? [Wait for yes] As you think of
that time now, think about how that felt, think of how that looked and think of
how it sounded, and really feel those feelings of feeling totally confident…”)
[4] Timing & Anchor: As they remember that time and experience it, use your
sensory acuity to gauge how strong they are engaging in the state of being totally
confident. It may take them longer or they may get to the peak of the state within
a short moment. Simply notice where they are on the scale and as their
experience becomes stronger start to press firmly on their knee. This doesn’t have
to be really hard, just enough pressure for them to feel it.
[5] Remove Touch: As they begin to lower away from their peak state, remove
your touch from their knee.
[6] Break State: Now ask them something totally unrelated to break their state
such as, “Do you smell popcorn?” This will cause them to search within and
quickly pull them out of the previous state. You can use any funny questions you
like such as, “Monkeys eat bananas, right?”
[7] Test Anchor: Next up is you’re going to test the anchor to see whether you’ve
successfully created a new response to that particular trigger (the touching of the
knee). Return them back to a normal balanced state, and then press their knee
without saying anything and use sensory acuity to notice any changes that may
occur. They may even verbally tell you they instantly feel different when you
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press their knee. Congratulations you’ve just created your first NLP anchor with
someone! If they didn’t have a very strong response, repeat steps 1-6 several
times, and then test again. Remember, the more times you repeat the anchor, the
stronger it gets.
So that’s the basics of NLP anchoring, and although there is so much more that
you can do with it, this is a really good place to start. Find yourself a willing and
curious volunteer, and get started with creating anchors! You can even create
some really cool ones, like whenever you press on your knuckles you’re instantly
pulled into a deep state of bliss. If you can imagine it, you can create it.
Over time you’ll become more and more familiar with anchoring, and you’ll find
that you’ll be able to add anchor on top of anchor, and also over-ride anchors
with ease. As always, practice makes perfect.
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Meta Model
Everyone has a different way in which they perceive the world and navigate
through that world using their MAP. The Meta Model was created to distinguish
between the different ways we tend to filter our world through the information
that is introduced to us, and subsequently we end up throwing away (or deleting)
most of the information that comes our way because it doesn’t tend to fit our
beliefs, expectations values and previous experiences. Virginia Satir had
developed a way of having people dig into their distortions and generalizations
(problems) and by doing so, Bandler and Grindler noticed that people’s problems
would mostly just disappear. This is the main key to the Meta Model.
You’ll notice that in NLP you’ll never notice anyone ask the question “Why”
because it forces the person to delve into the content and story behind the
problem, which isn’t necessary when creating change. Although traditional
therapy tends to like getting into all of the whys, NLP generally tends to avoid it
completely. Instead, when using the Meta Model we will begin with words such
as “how”, “who”, “when”, “what”, because these questions tend to engage in the
root of the problem and how it’s put together in the person’s mind, rather than
bringing up unnecessary stories. Once we’ve discovered the root or structure of
someone’s particular problem, it is a lot easier to allow the problem to dissolve.
The Meta Model is based upon listening and asking questions, the appropriate
response is determined based upon the answer you receive from the other
person, and in many cases you can actually predict the response based upon the
type of question you ask. Here is a list of various language patterns, responses
and subsequent predictions when using the Meta Model.
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Distortions: Cause and Effect
Pattern… Many times people will mismatch an effect with a cause. Meaning, the
cause that they think created the effect is not actually the true cause at all, but
something entirely different. People will often use this cause and effect pattern to
place the blame (or cause) onto someone or something other than them, instead
of taking personal responsibility. Some really common phrases you’ve probably
heard before are, “It was all her fault” or “She made me feel upset”.
Response… What we want to do when working with the cause and effect pattern
is to ask a question that will help to uncover the true cause of the person’s
problem, rather than the one they are blaming it on (which is usually on things
outside of themselves). We really want to find out what the root cause for their
thinking this way is, and we can do that by asking questions such as, “How would
it being her fault make any difference to how you responded?” And “How does
she have anything to do with you feeling upset?” Typically a response to a cause
and effect statement will begin with how.
Outcome… Once this person has discovered more clues as to the root of their
problem, they will usually loosen up a little bit on the thought, and gain more of
an understanding of how they actually created the structure of the problem. In
most cases, one question won’t be enough to completely solve the problem and
so additional Meta Model questions will need to be asked.
Mind Reading
Pattern… Mind reading is really where someone shares that they know what’s
going on inside your head, without actually knowing what’s going on. You’ve
probably heard similar statements to this in the past, and so some of those may
have been… “She loves me.” Without ever knowing the person enough to gain
that type of information. In a sales example someone might say, “It’s too
expensive” without them knowing the price.
Response… This is like digging for a golden nugget, and that nugget is only going
to be found by asking the right question. The golden nugget you want, is how they
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actually know that information. A response to the above may be, “How do you
know she loves you?” and “How do you know if it would be out of your budget?”
Outcome… Many times when you ask someone a question, if they are engaged
and have interest enough, they will tend to pause and think about a response and
then share with you what makes them think that way. Very often their answer will
usually be met with another question from the Meta Model, but you will be that
little bit closer to digging up that golden nugget, and clearing away the dirt of
their mind (so to speak) that’s enabling them to have that problem.
Lost Performative
Pattern… Lost Performatives are simply added to a conversation that have left
out where the judgment was being made from. So someone may say something
like, “the beach is good” but they didn’t say who thought the beach was good, or
“being slim is sexy” when they didn’t refer to who said being slim is sexy.
Response… When presented with a Lost Performative you want to ask a question
that that finds out more information about where the particular judgment came
from. So a response to the above could be, “who say’s the beach is good?” and
“how do you know being slim is sexy?” There are so many variations of these
responses you could apply here, such as, “what made you decide the beach is
good?” and “who decided being slim is sexy?” And a very generic question that
you’ve probably heard someone use in response to a Lost Performative in the
past may have been, “according to whom?”
Outcome… The cool thing about asking these types of questions about a Lost
Performative is that many times the listener has no idea where the judgment has
come from, and in digging in and finding that out, is in many cases enough to
dissolve the problem altogether, due to their finding out new information that
they may have not consciously thought of before.
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Complex Equivalence
Pattern… Complex Equivalence is where someone is describing two things that
they think are the same, when they most likely are not. Something you’ve
probably heard before (or similar) may be, “He never tells me how beautiful I am,
so he must not love me.” Or “My clothes don’t fit, that must mean I’m
overweight.”
Response… The response to a Complex Equivalence is to ask a question that is
designed to create a distinction between the two experiences that the person is
referencing, in order to help the person notice that they are indeed, not the
same. Here’s a response for the above examples: “Are there people you love who
you don’t always tell them how attractive they are?” and “have you seen clothes
fit someone who you think is overweight?” The result of the answer will rely to a
large extent on the quality of the question you ask. Did it cause them to assess
their complex equivalent experience deeply enough to reassess whether it was
actually true or not? If they can think of people they feel love for, but don’t
always express how beautiful they are to them directly, then that will serve to
break their negative thinking around love being directly measured by another’s
impressions of their outer beauty.
Outcome… Usually someone will pause for a moment and think about what
you’ve asked them, and open up to the idea that possibly how they thought it
was, wasn’t actually how it really was. In many cases they may have another
response that will require an additional Meta Model question, but they will be
one step closer to clearing away the mental fog of their problem.
Presuppositions
Pattern… A presupposition is an assumption of something that hasn’t yet been
validated as true, and is apparent in our typical language patterns every day. In
order for the sentence to make sense, you must assume that was has been
mentioned is true, when in fact, it may not be at all. This may come in the form of
a sentence such as, “If men knew how much of a great cook I am, they would all
be lining up at the door to marry me.” This statement has a few presuppositions:
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[1] The person is a single, [2] they are heterosexual, [3] they know how to cook,
[4] men would be interested in them if they knew how well they could cook, [5]
they are interested in getting married.
Response… There are so many presuppositions in that sentence that it would be
easy to ask a question to challenge any of those presuppositions to create an
instant shift in their thinking. When challenging presuppositions that are likely to
be true, such as [1], [2] and [3] it is more unlikely that any major shift in their
thinking will come as a result. Instead, you’ll find that questioning the least likely
presuppositions such as [4] and [5] will result in a much stronger shift in thinking.
A response to those could be: [4] “How do you know men would line up at your
door if they knew you could cook?” [5] “How do you know men would want to
marry you?”
Outcome… The great thing about addressing presuppositions that are least likely
to be true, is that when the listener begins to dig deep inside, they usually create
rather large shifts very quickly from their new realizations and understandings.
Generalizations: Universal Qualifiers
Pattern… Universal Qualifiers are responses that tend to generalize just about
everything and use words such as ‘every’, ‘forever’, ‘everyone’, ‘never’. When
someone uses these words, they tend to feel as though there is no other option,
and that is what they are sharing with you when they express themselves in this
way. You may have heard expressions such as, “Everyone wants to be skinny.”
This denies the possibility that someone out of everyone might not want to be
skinny, and may already be happy as they are. Here’s another one, “I never look
good enough.” The speaker is closed to the idea that they can always look good
enough, no matter what (because the word ‘enough’ is subjective, therefore it is
based upon what you or someone else thinks of the way you look – change the
way you look at yourself, and you yourself will change).
Response… These particular statements are best responded in a way that allows
the other person to re-evaluate what they have said. This can easily be done in
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most instances by simply asking a repeating Universal Qualifier question back to
them, such as, “Everyone?” Or you could also ask them to find examples of where
the possibility of the Universal Qualifier may not apply. That may come in the
form of, “have you ever met anyone who doesn’t want to be skinny?” or “have
you ever looked good enough?”
Outcome… Here, you’ll be searching for a response from the client that
invalidates their initial universal qualifier by finding examples in their lives where
this has not been the case. There will be a few cases where a client will give you a
universal qualifier that is true, but in most cases this will help the client to notice
that their problem is not present all the time, and this will help them to loosen
their hold on the problem.
Modal Operator of Necessity
Pattern… Modal Operators of Necessity are referring to words that imply that
there is no choice such as; must, mustn’t, need to, shouldn’t, should, it’s a
necessity. These statements show that the person feels bondaged to a certain set
of actions by a set of clearly defined rules. This show’s up all the time in our lives,
like when someone say’s something like, “I have to lose weight.”
Response… Responses to these questions gives the listener the opportunity to
think more deeply about other alternatives to the way they are currently thinking.
It also opens up the listener to begin thinking about what the reasons might be
for why they feel bound to a particular set of rules that may not be serving them.
To the above example, there would be many different responses to that question
that would equally serve just as well as each other such as, “What would happen
if you didn’t?” This would allow the person to assess the consequences of their
behavior. You could also find out how they came to believe what they believe to
be true, by asking, “Who says you have to lose weight?” This will share the
reasons of why they think they have no other choice but to lose weight.
Outcome… The client will in most cases discover how they came to create this
way of thinking, and will most importantly, allow them to think about the
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consequences of not following what they think is something that they have no
control over. This can help to open them up to be free to express their behavior
more fully in the future, so instead of feeling bound by what they think has to
happen, they can be free to interpret the many variations that could be possible,
which allows them to choose any number of actions and responses at each given
moment.
Modal Operator of Possibility
Pattern… This particular pattern is the complete opposite of Modal Operators of
Necessity, in that instead of the language pointing to what has to be done, this
language refers to what could be done, using words such as, possible, would,
won’t, can’t, can, impossible. Again, we here this in everyday language and a
common example you may hear could be, “It’s impossible.” Here this person
believes that it is not possible to do what the statement implies: it is not possible
to look good naked.
Response… The response you deliver to this type of statement is designed to
open the person up to a new range of possibilities so they have more of an
awareness of choice around a particular problem. You’ll also have the ability
through asking a specifically structured question, to help uncover the reasons
behind the belief that seems to be holding the person back. You may respond
with something such as, “What stops you (from looking good naked)?” or “If you
could (look good naked), how would you go about it?”
Outcome… As the person digs deeper and begins to gain more awareness around
the reasons that may be contributing to the problem, through your effective use
of questions, they will typically find that the strength of the bondage to the
problem will weaken. In many of the Meta Model responses, you will most likely
not get a complete cure for the problem just from asking one question. For
example, the person who thought it was impossible to look good naked will
probably not instantly think that it’s possible to look good naked, but by gaining
new awareness around what is contributing to the problem, they will be much
more open to perceive these thoughts in a way that will allow for future
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breakthrough’s to occur, because they have more ways of breaking it down and
working with it.
Distortions: Unspecified Verbs
Pattern… Unspecified Verbs refer to where someone has shared something
without providing the full information. In this case, it’s missing a verb, and will
usually come across as something such as, “She dislikes me.” When someone
shares something like this, the listener (and speaker) ends up curious as to what is
really meant by ‘disliking’ and how the speaker was disliked.
Response… The response of to an unspecified verb is really designed to get below
the surface response, and to extract additional information on the verb. That may
show up as a question such as, “how exactly?” Which prompts the listener to dig
deeper to find out the meaning behind their statement.
Outcome... By asking a question that causes the listener to dig deep and find
additional information, you are expanding their awareness to perceive the
problem from a different angle. This on its own may not be enough for the
problem to disappear, but it will provide a fresh new angle to look at it from. In
this process, they will most likely come to understand how they perceive the
disliking, and this will pave the way for future potential resolutions with the other
person. Either way, because the person has changed the way they look at this, the
verb they were looking at will change (in meaning to them).
Nominalizations
Pattern… A nominalization refers to most of the words that end in ‘ion’ such as
communication, transition, medication etc. and are considered process words
(verbs) that have been stuck in time, converting them into a nouns. This has no
real change in of itself, however when we convert processes into things, we alter
the forever changing nature of a process. When we decide to take process words
such as transition and convert them into static things, we are very likely to
perceive these ‘things’ as unchangeable. Instead of understanding that wherever
there is process, there is room for change to occur.
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Response… Responses to nominalizations occur by converting the noun back to a
verb, providing the listener with the opportunity to dig deeper into the process
behind the problem. If someone say’s something like, “There’s no room for
transition.” A response could be, “what is not transitioning?” or “who isn’t
transitioning?” This strategy of questioning will provide further awareness around
what it is about the process of transitioning that seems to be the problem, instead
of looking at the static ‘thing’ as something that can’t be changed.
Outcome… The process of asking a question to resolve a problem is deeply rooted
in the way the Meta Model works, and in this case the process of changing the
noun back to a verb brings a new awareness to the listener that they don’t have a
problem with the nominalization, but with the verb. Without the ever-changing
flow of a process, the client will be stuck up against a brick wall with no escape, so
upon changing the frame in which he views the problem through (changing the
noun back to a free-flowing changeable verb), they can begin to assess and find
solutions to the problem.
Simple Deletions
Pattern… Simple Deletions are when someone has said something, but they have
left much of the information out. Again, this occurs all the time in our day to day
lives and we come across it in statements such as, “I am unhappy.” Here, it’s not
really clear what unhappy means, because there’s nothing to compare it to, such
as they might be unhappy because they don’t fit in a pair of jeans, or because
they just found out there’s a party coming up and they think they need to fit into
certain sized clothing.
Response… Your response will dig up the missing information (or at least some of
it) from the statement that the person has just shared. This may come across as
something like, “Why?” Just a simple question will help you to gather additional
information on this deletion, and what is causing the problem. They can’t make
any alterations to a problem if they can’t see the problem (if they only feel
unhappy and are not sure why). Sometimes as they uncover the answers for why
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they feel a certain way to you, they will also be uncovering these newly for
themselves. “Just because I’m unhappy.” Will not be sufficient information to
solve this problem.
Outcome… You’re probably noticing a reoccurring pattern here where once the
person has explored the problem by answering your questions, they’ll find a new
way to look at and solve it. Sometimes this will be enough to collapse the
problem, and other times it will need further information to fully resolve it, but
even the information they’ve gathered so far will help them to perceive the
problem from a different perspective.
Lack of Referential Index
Pattern… This is a pattern where the person doesn’t share what exactly they are
referring to when making a statement such as, “it doesn’t work.” Because there’s
no reference for you to know what’s contributing to the problem, the next step is
to dig a little deeper with your response.
Response… The next step is to help the listener to uncover what or who is
creating the problem (or adding to it). Following the above statement, you could
say something like, “what exactly doesn’t work?” This will allow the listener to dig
a little deeper and find out exactly what’s contributing to the problem.
Outcome… As soon as the listener is able to identify with what exactly may be
creating (or at least contributing) to the problem, they will be able to start to sort
for solutions. This will add another perspective that the listener perhaps once did
not have prior to your response, and will initiate a newer awareness around how
to deal with the problem, or find the source of the issue.
Comparative Deletions
Pattern… Comparative Deletions are where the person is comparing to something
or another, without sharing what they are comparing it to. This pattern tends to
use referencing words such as, less, least, best, more, worse etc. and will come
across in the form of something like, “She looks better.”
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Response… A response to a comparative deletion is as easy as asking about the
thing that is specifically being compared to such as, “She looks better compared
to who?” In most cases with comparative deletions, it’s assumed that the person
knows what they are comparing to. Upon answering the question, you will gain
additional insight into what is important to that person, and will be able to help
assist them in discovering whether there is any validity to their comparison at all.
Outcome… Again, the person will increase their awareness of what is actually
contributing to their problem, and in some cases may be enough to collapse the
problem itself. In other cases, they will need to assess the comparisons more
closely, and gain more information about what is being compared to so they can
find a complete solution.
Because the Meta Model is delivered in a way that relies heavily on questions,
you’ll want to have a high level of awareness on the other person’s
responsiveness as you deliver the processes. Too much emphasis on repeatedly
delivering questions will in most cases cause the person to feel as though they’re
being interrogated and they will become uncomfortable. The Meta Model is most
applicable in therapy, business or specific sales situations where the person is
making statements that contain deletions, distortions and generalizations.
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Milton Model
After modeling Milton Erickson, Richard Bandler and John Grindler created the
Milton Model, which is a way of communicating through verbal language that
creates an almost trance-like state in the person you’re speaking with. In hypnosis
this is used heavily, as a way to help induce trance in a client, and is also very
powerful in marketing (as many companies have found out).
Using the Milton Model to boost your body-image is more about learning how
you speak to yourself internally (self-talk), and also how you make sense of what’s
going on in your head, and subsequently, the world around you. The way you can
sometimes justify things that make no logical sense, will become quite apparent
to you in this elaboration of the Milton Model and throughout the rest of this
book. So as you read these words, just remember to keep an open mind and
absorb as much as you can for your own benefit.
What you will find while employing the Milton Model technique during your
conversations, is that people will become much more agreeable and connect to
what you say quicker and easier…
“As you read these words, you’re probably curious as to when you’re going to be
able to use the Milton Model, and you may also be wondering how long it will take
you to learn how to use the important Milton Model effectively. Just because
there’s been times when you haven’t been completely confident, doesn’t mean
that things didn’t work out, in fact they have worked out regardless, didn’t they?
Let’s face it, just because you’ve decided to read this book and follow these words
and learn about the Milton Model right now, means that you could learn the
Milton Model quickly and easily, isn’t that right?”
Have a read of the above paragraph out loud and notice how it is written, and
how it seems very similar to other literature you may have read in the past. This is
because many world leaders tend to deliver their speeches using this same
technique.
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The paragraph above makes use of the perception of mind reads (you’re probably
curious as to when you’re going to be able to use the Milton Model), missing
performatives (learn how to use the important Milton Model effectively), cause
and effect (completely confident, doesn’t mean that things didn’t work out),
presupposition (I’ve assumed that you’ll start using this technique soon), and tag
questions (didn’t they? isn’t that right?). This will all come together for you as you
learn more on the Milton Model.
What’s next? How do you go from speaking and thinking the way you do now, to
being able to use the Milton Model effortlessly? Simply put, you can start by…
Practicing the Milton Model patterns over and over again.
Notice how you quickly and easily start using it unconsciously.
There are many patterns in the Milton Model, and some say there are about 20
different ones that you can apply in various ways to create a specific result. You
can alter these patterns and also combine them to improve their effectiveness, so
here is a bit of a breakdown of the Milton Model.
Presupposition Presuppositions are an interesting way of using language that presupposes that
someone has already agreed to something, when in fact they may not have even
had the chance to think about it, or even question it. There are so many examples
of presuppositions that we use in our everyday life such as…
“Are you angry at me?” (Wife to husband, presupposing that he was angry in the
first place, when in fact he may not have been angry at all)
“Still trying to lose weight?” (Friend is presupposing that you were already trying
to lose weight, when you may not have been at all – at least not before they said
anything)
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“Do those jeans fit yet?” (This presupposes that your jeans didn’t fit you in the
past)
“Your waist is getting smaller.” (This presupposes that the person’s waist was too
big before)
When influencing people (or yourself) presuppositions are useful to use when
you’re wanting to not only save time, but also to move people towards an
outcome that’s not only desirable for them, but also for you. If your friend was
choosing a dress for a night out, in order to help her feel good about whatever
dress she tries on and choses, you might say, “There are so many dresses out
there these days, and that means all of us have different shaped bodies, which
means you can feel good about finding a dress that is cut for your body.” Cause
and Effect Statement (there are so many dresses out there these days [in your
friends mind, this is probably a fact]), Complex Equivalence (all of us have
different shaped bodies [logically we all know this to be true]), Presupposition
(which means you can feel good about finding a dress that is cut for your body
[presupposing that the journey of finding a dress will provide enough reason in
itself to feel good]).
Cause & Effect You may have heard of Karma, and that for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction. Well, Cause and Effect is basically the same thing, in that it
implies that one thing causes another. The interesting thing about people, and
the way our minds work, is that generally we respond really well when we are
given reasons to believe or think things – even if those reasons make no real
logical sense at all.
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You can easily find when cause and effect is being used by watching out for their
specific linguistically structured patterns:
If A then B
As A you B
“As you close your eyes, you’ll notice how relaxed your eye lids begin to feel.”
“Because you’re reading this, you’re able absorb this information completely.”
Simply put, Cause and Effect is a way of leading someone towards a desirable
outcome by taking things that are supposedly true and implying something of a
completely different context that follows through with the same feeling.
Something true (Because you’re reading this), what I’m implying (you’re able to
absorb this information completely). Reading this won’t necessarily mean you’ll
be able to absorb the information completely, but by my implying it, you’re much
more likely to in fact, absorb the information you read in this book more
completely than if I hadn’t implied it.
Another example of Cause and Effect could be while you’re at the clothing store
trying on dresses, you can’t seem to find any of the ones you like that fit and so
you may say to yourself (or I may say to you)… “Because everyone’s body is
unique, you will find a dress that’s perfect for you soon.”
Something true (Because everyone’s body is unique), what I’m implying (you will
find a dress that’s perfect for you soon). My saying that doesn’t necessarily mean
you’ll find a dress that’s perfect for you soon, but because I suggested it, you’re
once again, much more likely to feel good about some of the dresses not fitting
you, than you would be if I hadn’t said anything.
I’m sure you can think of many instances where women (maybe even yourself),
have thought (out loud or inside), “These dresses don’t fit, so I’m overweight.” As
you know logically this isn’t true, yet somehow by implying it through the way you
think, you perpetuate further feelings of dissatisfaction around your body. This
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doesn’t do anything worthwhile for self-esteem, and so a new awareness around
this will help break the cycle if you decide to make some adjustments.
Lost Performative Value judgments usually come from people around us, but in this case when I
provide a value judgment without sharing with you show actually made that
judgment, you find yourself agreeing with it quickly and easily. This is because
relative words are really easy to agree with.
These are words that judge whether something is good bad, positive negative,
slow fast, better worse, hot cold etc.
Spinning these words into your sentences help to take the other person in the
direction you want them to go, such as…
“It’s fun to go to the beach.”
“The water is really warm.”
“It’s good to improve oneself.”
On their own, these statements can seem like they make sense but when you
logically think about the statement, “The water is really warm.” – You begin
asking, compared to what? Compared to your freezer back home, or Antarctica?
Or, that “it’s fun to go to the beach.” – What’s fun about it, and who said its fun?
Is it more fun than sitting at home staring at a wall, or than having someone poke
you with a blunt object? But because the statement makes sense on its own, the
other person is more likely to accept that thought, and will be more likely to base
their thinking later on in the interaction.
The same goes for various comments that occur in our everyday lives from people
around us. Women may be inclined to hear from their friends comments such as,
“being fat is bad”, “skinny is good”, “wide shoulders aren’t nice”, “narrow hips
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suck”, “larger ankles are bad” and “large breasts are sexy”. None of these
statements make logical sense on their own, yet our emotional brain accepts
them as true (most of the time) without considering the logical side to the
comment.
For example, the comment, “large breasts are sexy” makes no logical sense,
here’s why… First of all, in order to define something as ‘large’ one must compare
to something else. Someone who develops a D cup through puberty may have the
perception that C cups are small. Whereas someone who develops an A cup may
have the perception that C cups are large. But this is only a perception, not a
reality. Our perceptions are not reality, they are our experience of reality by
looking through our own individual ‘looking glasses’ so to speak. So large to one
person, may be small to another and instantly the original comment loses its basis
for logic right there, but what about the word sexy being used? The same goes…
What one person believes is sexy, another believes is ugly. Sexy is another one of
those terms that’s highly individualized. People’s sexual likes and dislikes can vary
greatly, and to define a body-part’s attractiveness based upon one (or many)
people’s sexual interest, is not logical at all.
In most men’s case, they don’t typically hear other men commenting on the level
of attractiveness of other men. Instead, they’ll see and hear comments from the
opposite sex, media and perhaps notice the way other men look and make
comparisons based upon that. A man may walk into a gas station and see a line of
men’s magazines all depicting a ‘model’ with a six pack where headlines read,
“get a sexy six pack today” or he may even overhear a couple of women making
comments such as “muscles are so hot” or “abs are nice”. Again, this is not reality,
this is only the media trying to sell magazines, and the perception of a couple of
women.
Mind Read The mind read is a very clever use of language, presupposing that you already
know what the other person is thinking before they’ve revealed any of that
information to you. You use language in a way that has them begin to think about
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what you want them to think about and then you simply point out what they are
thinking about, such as…
“You may be thinking…”
You begin the language pattern with something like that and end with whatever
you want them to think about. Such as, “You may be thinking about what sort of
examples I’m going to use here…”
“You may be thinking about how you can apply NLP to your own life…”
“You may be wondering what it would be like to taste popcorn right now…”
The funny thing is that even though you may not have been thinking about those
things before you read those words here and now (or were you?), you find
yourself thinking about them anyway, don’t you?
You can use this pattern in any situation, such as when you’re at a clothing store
and the person you’re with is looking for a new outfit, but they haven’t found
anything that fits them yet. You might choose a moment when they are not deep
in thought about anything in particular and say something like, “You may be
thinking about when you’ll find something that fits your lovely self!” It might not
be much, but it might have a positive impact on that person, and that’s reason
enough to say it, isn’t it?
Complex Equivalence This is a pretty funny way of having someone agree to two things at once, when
they may only agree to one of the things you said. Whenever you notice these
words in a sentence…
“…That means…”
“Being lean and fit that means you’re sexy.”
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“When someone looks in the mirror that means they love themselves.”
“Reading this book that means you are breaking through body-image issues.”
This particular pattern is really useful when you’re bringing someone’s awareness
to something that they may previously have been unaware of. Imagine how
motivating it would be for someone learning Math to hear their teacher say,
“You’ve been making it to every class that means you’ll pass this year.” We
actually hear this all the time with teachers, parents and Politian’s generalizing a
particular topic such as, “Vote for me that means voting for more money.” You
could even use it while looking at yourself in the mirror, by saying out loud, “your
body is unique, that means you’re beautiful.”
Lack of Referential Index Referential Indexes are used when referring to nothing in particular. When
someone is as vague as to refer to nothing in particular while making a statement,
they are using a referential index. Easily the most commonly used referential
indexed words are, ‘thing’, ‘it’, ‘stuff’, ‘them’, ‘that’ etc.
Here’s what you may come across…
“I went to visit it and when I got there I couldn’t find that thing.”
“Whenever I talk, I like them.”
“They sure do know a lot of stuff.”
We tend to use these all the time in our communications with others without
every really realizing it (how many other things do we communicate inside or
outside that we’re not aware of yet?). You’ve probably heard something similar to
this in the past (or maybe recently)… “He was over there talking about that, and
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then when he came back he started talking about all of this stuff that just made
no sense, and when that thing arrived he ended up just throwing it…”
Comparative Deletion Comparative Deletions are similar to Lost Performatives where a comparison is
made, but it is not specified to what (or whom) the comparison is being made.
Whereas a Lost Performative relates to the person making the judgment being
left out, instead of a Comparative Deletion which refers to leaving out what is
being compared to.
A few examples of Comparative Deletion are as follows…
“Things aren’t that good.”
“It really didn’t go as well.”
“It might as well be the right thing.”
Your listener will more than likely find themselves agreeing to these types of
statements, because it’s extremely difficult to disagree with it because of the
sheer vagueness of it all (notice the ‘it’ there?). It’s very hard for someone to
disagree with someone when they don’t know what it’s being compared to – in
fact, it’s nearly impossible! You’ll find this technique very useful when trying to
persuade others (or yourself) to do something.
If you’re out at lunch and someone says, “I don’t want to eat that, it’ll make me
put on weight.” You could use a comparative deletion in your sentence by saying,
“Isn’t it interesting how they always tend to say this and that about food, yet we
all know they are lying because it’s all about feeling good inside, and that doesn’t
come from what we eat, but rather, just from enjoying each moment as it
comes.” There’s a lot of comparative deletions in there (and a few other patterns
just for fun), but the key point I’m sharing here, is that when we become aware of
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the deletions we are making, we can start to use them for many more positive
outcomes.
Universal Quantifier This is where we use a bunch of words that contain some rather large universal
generalizations and lack a referential index.
A universal generalization tends to incorporate words such as, “all”, “whole” and
“every” that refer to anything and everything. Universal Generalizations can also
be negative, using words such as “nothing”, “never”, “no-one” etc. The key is that
the word has to refer to everything.
When a phrase lacks referential index, it’s usually not referring to anything in
particular, so you’ll notice words such as, “things”, “it”, “stuff”, “that” being used.
A universal quantifier must contain a universal generalization and lack a
referential index, which can appear in a statement like this…
“No-one ever does that.”
“She is always…”
“All of them are in on it.”
“They take everything.”
For example, you’re at a gym and your friend leans over to you and without any
reference says, “They think everyone should be here.” The statement is so vague
that you may just find yourself quickly agreeing to it.
Modal Operator Modal Operators are words that tend to imply possibility or necessity, and are
often used to create emphasis on certain rules in our lives. They are used to show
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importance over something that the deliverer believes must be done, these are
what we refer to as Necessity Modal Operators (odd numbered examples). These
types of words can be very empowering (or disempowering) depending upon the
context in which they are used. Possibility words are used to describe something
that could be done (even numbered examples).
Examples of Modal Operators such as:
1) Should
2) Could
3) Must
4) Might
5) Need
6) Want
Take for example, these two particular statements:
1) You should feel good about your body
2) You could feel good about your body
Both of them are perceived very differently. The first example uses necessity
(should), where the second example uses possibility (could). If someone is really
upset about something, or constantly finds themselves feeling bad, they will in
almost all cases be using modal operators of necessity. If you come across
someone who’s using necessity words, try repeating back to them exactly what
they said but switching the necessity words for possibility words.
Think about this for a moment… If your internal unconscious reasoning processes
are constantly running in the necessity modal operator, you’ll most probably find
yourself much less happy about your body than if you made a conscious effort to
switch that internal voice (unconscious reasoning process) to a possibility modal
operator. There may be a voice in your head that turns on at certain times (when
an anchor is triggered) that starts necessity conversations with you without your
being consciously aware of it. But as of reading these words you’re now aware,
and this is the first step to any change, conscious or unconscious. This new
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conscious awareness will give you the power to begin making changes to your
unconscious necessity modal operator so you can boost your body-image.
Utilization Utilization works by pointing out to someone something that is already in their
environment, and adding an additional meaning to it. When you point out an
additional meaning, or things that the listener has not yet noticed (or become
aware of), they will tend to deepen their trance, and will also begin to feel more
convinced about whatever you are talking with them about.
Some examples of utilization are…
(Person taps their fingers lightly on the table) and you say, “Tapping the fingers on
the table means that you’re either enjoying the conversation or that your anxious
and need to leave.”
(Person is distracted by a waiter walking by) and you say, “Noticing people
walking by is a sign that you’re really good with focusing on multiple things at
once, and you’ll remember what we say here easier.”
(Person says, “I’m tired”) and you say, “Exactly, and you’re tired because you
haven’t had a chance to re-energize your tiredness.”
This can apply to our everyday lives with the people whom we come in contact
with, but Utilization can also be valuable in business or sales such as when
someone says to you, “That’s expensive.” And you could utilize that reply with
something like, “It seems expensive because you haven’t asked the one question
that will have you want to buy it regardless of the price.”
You notice your friend looking in the mirror (rather judgingly) and you say,
“Looking in the mirror is a good time to tell yourself how much you love you for
you.” This might be enough to shift them from negative judgment to positive
acceptance – for the moment at least.
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Nominalization Simply put a Nominalization is created when you convert a verb or process into a
noun. We see these everywhere in our daily use of language, and you can easily
spot them by looking for words that contain ‘ion’ such as Relationship, Translation
or Medication. Relationship is the process of relating. Translation is the process to
translate. Medication is the process to medicate. In nominalizations we reference
the process in a way that assumes it has been completed.
If you’re speaking with a friend who’s ‘deciding’ on whether she’s finally happy
with the way her body looks, by using the nominalization of ‘decided’, you can
help shift their thinking rather rapidly towards them having already made the
decision. You could even do the same with yourself, by speaking about yourself
(or to yourself internally also), in referencing that you’ve ‘decided’ that you finally
love your body regardless of what shape or size it’s in right now.
Unspecified Verb When using a particular verb without a corresponding adverb, you are using an
unspecified verb. Rather than completing the sentence with an adverb, you use
an unspecified verb and it will sound as though you’re saying only half of the
actual sentence. The listener would expect you to finish the sentence with an
adverb and so leaving that out allows room for their unconscious mind to
complete the sentence.
A few examples of unspecified verbs are as follows:
You know…
And you can…
That can help…
You might discover…
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Tag Question A tag creates a rhetorical question out of a sentence that would usually be a
statement. This allows someone to answer yes (or no) to something that would
have otherwise been said a matter of factly (and indeed, it can still be said in that
way). When using these tag questions in conversation you notice that people will
tend to agree with what you say, don’t they? Sometimes they have no idea what
they are actually agreeing with, but it sounds right, doesn’t it? What’s more, many
people tend to work these tags into their conversations with others without even
realizing it, isn’t that interesting?
Some examples of tag questions are…
…Isn’t that right?
…Wouldn’t you?
…Don’t you?
…Haven’t you?
Tags can also be used when leading up to a big “yes”. Meaning, if you’re helping
someone to come to a positive conclusion about their body-image, you may start
with getting a few “yesses” in before you ask the big question (that you want
them to respond positively to). That may start with little things that you know
they already agree with (pacing current experience), and lead up to something
that they may not have thought was true, but because of the prior acceptance of
other things you’ve said, and more likely to positively comply. For example, the
conversation may look something like this; “it’s such a sunny day today, isn’t it?”
[Yes] “You’re drinking coffee in that cup, aren’t you?” [Yes] “I noticed that the
waitress over there is serving the loud table, you used to wait tables, didn’t you?”
[Yes] “I know you’ve been wanting to start dating, that means you’re probably
ready to start putting yourself first, right?” [Yes] “You know, I think you feel better
about yourself than what you think you do, am I right?” [YES].
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Pace Current Experience This is a very simple process, in where you’re simply stating the obvious. The
obvious being what is going on inside of the person’s current experience. If
someone is sitting on a chair in front of you, you will start pacing their current
experience linguistically by saying something like, “As you sit there in your chair
listening to me now…” What you’ve done is verbally repeat back to them exactly
what is happening right now. You can almost continue on by mentioning more
than just one thing, such as… “And as you listen to me now, you probably notice
your heart beating in your chest and your ears picking up any number of noises in
the background from the (describe ambience) footsteps of people passing by, to
people happily chatting away while eating their dinner…” Interestingly enough,
the more things you verbally describe in someone’s current reality back to them,
the more and more they will become drawn in by what you are saying…
A few examples of Pacing Current Experience are as follows…
“As you read these words, and absorb this information almost effortlessly…”
“Feeling yourself scroll through this book, as you hear any sounds in the
background, noticing the way your clothes rest on your body…”
“You notice your heart beating in your chest, as you take in this information, and
enjoy that feeling of knowing you’re learning something valuable…”
When verbally expressing someone’s current experience back at them, you open
them to the idea that what you are saying is completely true for them, and that
there is no reason to oppose what you’re sharing. Following this process allows
for a series of successive “yes’s” to take place unconsciously (or consciously if
you’re seeking them to validate what you say with a verbal “Yes”), and then
following this you can usually say something that is possible but not definitely
true, and the other person will in most cases readily agree. This allows them to
move in a completely new direction than where they may have been moving prior
to engaging in this process with you.
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An example of moving someone towards a trance-like state would be…
“As you’re in this room right now, listening to the sound of my voice as you feel
the familiar feeling of your clothes touching your skin, and your heart beating
inside your chest, you may notice that it’s easier to take deep calm breaths, and
these breaths will only help to relax you further into a deeper state of relaxation
as you continue to listen to my voice sinking deeper and deeper now…”
Or an example of influencing someone to make a decision could be…
“You’ve been shopping around the mall, and you’ve looked at some clothes in the
past, and now you’re standing here in this store, and perhaps you’re wondering if
you’ll find what you’re looking for here, and you may even get the feeling that
you’re finally in the right place at the right time, and you’re ready to decide to buy
a dress here and now…”
This is where rather than receiving the persons “yes” response verbally (like in the
tag question example), they will instead, unconsciously say “yes” as you pace
their experience.
Double Blind This is where you give someone a choice that leads to the exact same outcome,
no matter what choice they decide to choose. I’ve noticed that with some couples
who’re in a romantic relationship, one of them may at times use this process
without even consciously knowing it. Children also respond very well to the
Double Blind however if you use it often, they will catch on and it won’t be nearly
as effective anymore – at least until they’ve forgotten that you use it!
Some examples of a Double Blind are as follows…
“Would you rather hang the clothes out now or in an hour?”
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“Do you want to see this DVD this afternoon or tonight?”
“Would you prefer us to meet on Tuesday or Wednesday?”
The key to a double blind is in the fact that it doesn’t matter what the listener
chooses, they will still end up with almost the same outcome. When a couple is at
the DVD rental store choosing something to hire (I’ve heard this before), one of
them will find something they want to see and hold it up to other and ask a
double blind question such as the one above. If you have children, and having
them do chores like hanging the clothing out seems tricky when they can either
sit around playing games or work, but if you don’t give them another option than
to choose when they would like to complete a chore, in most cases they will take
action without questioning an ulterior activity – at least as long as you don’t
overuse the Double Blind.
Conversational Postulate We use conversational postulates in our ever day communication, and they are
much more apparently used with people in authority positions (at least the ones
who care about the way others feel). A conversational postulate is simply where
you turn a command (something you want someone to do), into a question, thus
softening the command and increasing the listeners responsiveness and
compliance. Basically it allows the listener to avoid feeling as though they are
being told to do something (or at least softens it), which usually occurs when
someone is commanded (told) to do something.
A few examples of conversational postulates are…
Would you pass me the pen?
Can you cook dinner tonight?
Perhaps you could fill the car up with gas on your way home?
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The commands are very obvious when viewing them in this context (such as; pass
the pen, cook dinner tonight, fill the car with gas) and although the person could
potentially refuse, it makes it seem a lot softer by the question-type of frame that
is being used. When the option to refuse is presented to the listener, they are
much less likely to refuse, and much more likely to comply.
Extended Quotes Extended Quotes tend to create confusion in the listener almost immediately, and
is where you essentially begin talking about someone [Person #1], and then share
with the listener that this person [Person #1] said something that she [Person #1]
had heard from someone [Person #2] and that he [Person #2] had heard
something from someone [Person #3] who had said “<insert command here>”.
Because of all this jumping through one person to the next, the mind typically
loses track of who said what, and because the mind has lost track of who’s saying
what, it becomes confused, sends the listener into a trance-like state and ends up
making them much more likely to accept the suggestions given in (insert
command). You can also say whatever you want to the listener, because it isn’t
you saying it, it’s someone who’s in a third party who’s saying it.
Confused? Here’s a quick example of an Extended Quote…
I met John down at the store and while he was down there he ran into Suzy, and
Suzy had heard from over the hill that someone shared with her that when they
last say John he said, “Love yourself regardless of what your body looks like.”
Another example might be…
Not that long ago I was speaking with my good friend Jane down at the lake, and
Jane said that while she was at home baking bread, that she got a phone call from
Julia, and Julia said to her on the phone that Jan had just arrived into town and
was out finding a dress for her friends party and while Jan was searching she said,
“It’s not about the size or shape of your body that matters, it’s about how you
feel about the size or shape of your body.”
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Selectional Restriction Violation A Selectional Restriction Violation is where you give a noun properties that a noun
cannot have. For example, it is possible to suggest that humans and animals have
feelings. But can an object like a spoon have feelings? Truth be told the answer is
no, and when you suggest that a spoon has feelings you are giving a noun
properties that it does not have, and cannot have.
A few easy examples of this are…
“Aww you hurt that poor fluffy teddy bear.”
“These bricks are scared to be laid.”
“These clothes love me.”
Various political leaders are well known among the NLP community for their
common use of Selectional Restrictional Violation, and other hypnotic language
patterns during speeches and public gatherings. Interestingly enough, if you think
about it, the movers for change have long understood the power of purposeful
language and its dramatic effect on the human psyche. Why else would these
leaders have speech writers, for if not to craft a well-orchestrated array of words
designed to send the listener into an easily influence-able hypnotic trance-like
state? Media and marketing companies are certainly not exempt from this; as
they bombard the public with their “sexy, beautiful, look like this” campaigns.
One of the easiest and most obvious uses of Selectional Restriction Violation is in
Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech where he addresses a
large crowd of people with this rather hypnotic language. To quote, “This
sweltering summer of the Negro’s Legitimate Discontent will not pass until there
is an invigorating autumn of “freedom and equality.” – Did you notice how he
described ‘legitimate discontent’ as a ‘sweltering summer’ or how ‘freedom and
equality’ can be described as an ‘invigorating autumn?’ It’s impossible for solid
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objects that are not human to have human characteristics (or feelings) when they
are not human, yet we do it in language all the time.
So even though these Selectional Restriction Violations make no logical sense,
when you add them to a speech or to your speaking patterns, you’ll notice that
the way you speak takes on a type of poetic quality, and frequently sends people
into a trance-like state.
Ambiguity One of the keys to the Milton Model is in the use of ambiguity. The Milton Model
is all about adding distortions, generalizations and deletions into the way you
speak that make it rather difficult for people to understand specifically what you
are actually saying. It forces them to try to make sense of what you are saying at
an unconscious level, and as they do so, this naturally deepens their trance-like
state. There happens to be four types of ambiguity that can be used to deepen
the trance even further, and are explained as follows…
Scope Ambiguity Scope Ambiguity is where your ambiguous language leaves the listener unsure as
to how much of the sentence the descriptors apply to. For example:
“I am a certified Personal Trainer and jogger.” Am I a certified jogger?
“Those lazy men and women.” Are the men and women lazy, or just the men?
“Speaking to you as a child.” Am I a child speaking to you? Or am I speaking to you
like I would speak to a child?
“There’s some butcher dentists and beauticians.” Are the dentist’s butchers, or is
it both the dentists and beauticians?
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Scope Ambiguity can be rather confusing on its own, but when thrown in as part
of an unrelated sentence, the listener will not consciously be able to make sense
of it.
Punctuation Ambiguity This is where you add pauses during your sentence that otherwise shouldn’t be
there, because the sentence is not yet finished. You end up adding pauses…
Where pauses really shouldn’t… Be as people… Would expect. This is really
confusing to the conscious mind, but the unconscious mind still reads the
meaning fine.
A few examples of this are…
“When you look to your right you’ll notice… your head turns… towards me…” This
will be perceived as two sentences, as both, I want you to notice your head turns,
turn your head towards me.
“In life some people… fail… to meet their own expectations.” Another two
sentences here, as both, in life some people fail, some people fail to meet their
own expectations.
Phonological Ambiguity This is when you use words that sound the same, but have a completely different
meaning.
Here are some examples of Phonological Ambiguity…
“Hare” sounds the same as “here” and “hear”
“Buy now” sounds the same as “by now”
“Ear” sounds the same as “air”
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“See” sounds the same as “sea”
This is really easy to use in a sentence and is traditionally found inside of rhymes,
however you can use this in many different areas of life, either just for fun, or for
a specific purpose.
There’s a funny Rhyme that starts off like this; “She spells C with sea shells she
sees on the sea floor.”
Frequently I notice this in marketing and sales; “By now you may decide that
you’re ready to buy now, but before you buy now, consider that by now you’ve
already seen everything you need to make a decision to buy now.” When
Phonological Ambiguity is used in this context, the sentence is also referred to as
having Embedded Commands (for another book).
Syntactic Ambiguity This is when the listener cannot determine exactly what you mean, because the
syntax of the sentence is structured as a Syntactic Ambiguity.
Examples of this are…
“Those farming farmers are confusing.” Are the farmers farming (or training)
other farmers, or are the farmers just farming on the farm?
“Moving movers is slow.” Are the movers slow to move out of your way, or are
the people moving your house furniture slow to act?
“Racing racers is tiring.” Is it racing the racers that is tiring, or is the act of racing
tiring?
“Building builders are hard work.” Are the builders training new apprentice
builders, or is someone having a hard time working with the builders?
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During this chapter I’ve shared the basic patterns that make up the Milton Model.
Next is going from what you do with your language now, to a level where you can
use this model unconsciously. An easy way to do that is to pick one pattern each
day and practice it over and over until you no longer have to think about it, and it
becomes automatic. Just like driving a car.
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Hypnotic Script
Richard Bandler says, “We are all in a trance, all of the time.” What he means by
that, is that as we go about our daily lives we are constantly focusing on our
environment (internal or external). We awake from a sleeping ‘trance’ only to
move into another ‘trance’ as we think about last night’s activities while making
breakfast. On the commute to work, we slip into another ‘trance’ thinking about
what’s happening at work and what we need to get completed. While at work we
find ourselves day dreaming (another ‘trance’) about relaxing down at the beach
with our other half-naked friends, before heading out that night for drinks and
dinner with the besties. As we commute home we find ourselves in another
‘trance’ as we are captivated by the evening news stories on the radio, completely
missing the beautiful sunset occurring just to the left of our horizon. Because we
are so caught up in a trance-like state almost all of the time (in our heads), we
tend to miss some of the most beautiful moments because we are not ‘present’
and living in the moment. What I also wanted to point out was that for most of us,
we are constantly moving in and out of one trance-like state to another.
The reason I wanted to provide a short hypnotic script for you to read daily, is
because since you’re already familiar with moving in and out of trance states, why
not create a trance-like state reading a message that will serve to reinforce a
positive body-image? This is simply another tool you can use to boost your body-
image by reprogramming your unconscious mind. If you would like to use this tool
to improve the way you feel about your body, continue reading on… Otherwise,
simply scroll down past this hypnotic script until you reach the next chapter
called, “Modelling” and continue reading from there.
Sitting comfortably read this daily for 30 days to reprogram your mind:
As you read these words noticing how your eyes move quickly and easily over the
page…
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Feeling your clothing against your skin as your heart beats in your chest allowing
you to continue breathing comfortably…
As you focus on these words notice how your breathing relaxes, even if just a
little…
Allowing yourself to relax even deeper now…
These words only serve as a guide to help you relax further and further…
Noticing your eyes focusing on each word, allowing you to take this message with
ease…
The shape of each word becomes more and more apparent to you the more
words you read now…
You find it so easy to read these words that you could try to look away if you
wanted to, but you really don’t want to because it’s just so comfortable as you
continue reading…
Noticing as your eyes move over these words… These words are speaking directly
to your unconscious mind now…
As you read these words you know that beauty is not something that comes from
adding or changing parts of yourself…
Beauty is something that comes from loving yourself regardless of how you think
you may look on the outside…
Even as your eyes move over these words your unconscious mind is absorbing all
of the message contained here and now as you continue reading…
Your body is an extension of your higher self - your spirit… However, you
understand that your spirit is not inside your body…
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Therefore, as you read these words you realize that your spirit began guiding your
body from the moment you were brought into this existence…
At birth, your mind was clear and ready for new experiences… You began to find
things you liked and didn’t like…
And sometimes you even took things that others liked and didn’t like…
Sitting here reading these words you realize that what other people think of you
and your body is of no concern to you…
Other people’s perception of you only reflects their perception of themselves…
When other people see something they dislike in another person, it only reflects
their dislike in themselves…
Following these words with your eyes, you know you can feel understanding
towards other people’s perception of you, because they are only seeing and
feeling what they dislike in themselves…
This means they are struggling in their own way with this world that has been
imposed upon them since birth…
And by freeing yourself from needing validation from others, you liberate them by
your own actions through showing them what’s possible…
Reading these words now you understand it is possible to love yourself because
you were already born loving yourself…
You’re been shrouded by darkness for too long and now it’s time to burst through
that darkness so you can love yourself once again…
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You can burst through the darkness quickly and easily by making a decision to
push through the darkness and into the light now…
Enter the light now….
As you read these words notice the feeling of love for you and your body now…
You understand you are more than your body…
You are more than your mind…
You are a higher being experiencing life here in this reality…
And this reality is yours to create moment by moment…
Instilling all of these messages inside of you now…
Reading these words now as you feel yourself becoming more and more
conscious of your surroundings…
Noticing the device you are reading this from now… As you begin to completely
focus on everything in your environment…
Remembering everything you have read here, as you’re now completely focused
and energized…
[End]
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Scale Tipping
Scale Tipping is a tool that can be used anytime with any belief that a person may
want to adjust, through a simple process of outweighing the negative belief with
positive reinforcement. Think of an old kitchen scales that has an old bag of wheat
on it. If you want to remove that bag of wheat from the scales, you would need to
either do one of two things; 1) take the bag of wheat off, or 2) put a heavier item
on the other end of the scales. Let’s say you decide on option 2, and put a large
sweet potato (positive reinforcement) on the other end causing the scales to tip
in favor of the sweet potato. What you’ve just done is add enough weight to the
scales that they have no tipped in favor of the sweet potato. Scale Tipping helps
to tip the scales of body-image in your favor. So instead of your living your life on
the negative receiving (effect) end of the spectrum, you begin living on the
positive creation (cause) end.
We can all chose to either be living at cause or effect. People who live at effect
always blame what happens to them on things outside of themselves. People who
live at cause, understand that they are at cause for everything that happens to
them in their lives, and as a result, take personal responsibility for that which is
true. Taking personal responsibility is empowering. Blaming causes on things
outside yourself is giving your power away. I’m not saying that everything that
happens to us in our lives is our doing. What I am saying is that we can’t go
around always blaming what happens to us on things outside ourselves. Instead,
we make a decision to take personal responsibility and keep the power within,
because we are the creators of our own reality – in more ways than one.
Scale Tipping helps to adjust a particular set of values and beliefs through a
process of writing down 100 reasons why… Why you want to replace an old
disempowering belief with a newer empowering one.
Here’s how to use Scale Tipping to change a belief…
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[1] Take out several pieces of paper: Lined or unlined, it doesn’t matter.
[2] Write at the top your question: Your question will be based upon the belief
you want to shift. In this case, the question “loving my body is important to me
because…” will serve to impress a change in the way you view your body-image.
[3] Write 100 reasons why: Start out with getting your first 50 reasons in one
sitting, and then add the other 50 over the rest of that day, or following 2-3 days.
[4] Read daily for 30 days: Pick it up each morning upon waking and each evening
before sleeping.
Following the Scale Tipping process you will notice a substantial difference in the
way you feel about yourself and your body, over the course of one day, one week
and one month – the more you read this list twice daily, the more permanent
change you will create.
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Modelling
If she can do it, I can do it! One of the main components to NLP is modelling,
where you learn how someone does what they do, and then you apply their
processes to your own life. NLP allows us to see the distinctions in what they do,
and to quickly and easily copy (model) them in any way we wish to improve our
results.
This is where our ability to change takes on an entirely new level, because we
have a potentially unlimited reservoir of information and processes to apply to
improve the quality of our lives. You could model someone who has a high level
of body-image, a powerful self-esteem or even excellent health; both mentally
and physically.
Modelling Keys If you can think of a particular result you wish to achieve, find someone who has
reached the highest level of that result.
The person that you are searching for to model, is not someone who has ‘only just
passed’. What you are exploring the canvas for, is someone who’s reached the
pinnacle of excellence in the particular area you’re wanting to improve (or excel
at). Modeling anyone below that level of excellence will not be worth your while,
because you’ll only reach the same level of the person you’re modeling.
In the case of boosting body-image, it would be important to find someone who
represented an excellent example of the results you wish to obtain in your own
life such as, high self-esteem, high self-confidence, high body-image etc. And this
would all reflect in their day to day lives, from their relationships with others
(intimate or other), in the way they treat themselves in front of the mirror, their
outlook towards food and exercise, how stable their mood is on a day to day basis
and how generally happy they are. They will have a particular attitude towards
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life and their body that will be serving them positively, and this is where learning
the following details come into play…
Beliefs and Values: The person’s beliefs and values are what shapes how they
perceive the world around them. How they hear, see and feel (about) their body,
other people, spirituality, their place on the earth, work-life and much more. How
they feel about all of this and more, is the foundation of what you want to
discover. In order to discover these qualities, you must ask questions such as,
“what do you believe is important in gaining results?”, “what do you believe your
body is?” and “what does the mind-body connection mean to you?” From these
questions you will find some of their empowering and disempowering beliefs and
values – from here you can begin building from the ground up.
Strategy (Syntax): In this part of the process of gaining information, you want to
enter into the conversation with a clean slate of mind. Meaning, throw away any
assumptions you have about how they think, or strategize things together in their
mind, and open yourself up to a highly curious child-like state, where all things
are possible. You’re searching for everything to do with their strategy, which
involves their Internal Representation which you can use as a guide to model their
results. They may internally represent strategies in their mind that may include
sounds (they may hear a voice in their head, or hear a family member speaking to
them), images (they see themselves as a perfect form of the human body or a
bright lighted spiritual being) or feeling (they get a charge of energy in their
stomach that moves throughout their entire body).
Physiology: This is based around what is going on with their body, and what
particular movements internally or externally are going on that they are aware of.
This could be everything from breathing tempo and heartbeat, to how they hold
their shoulders back, neck up and back straight.
Adopt these aspects yourself…
The key to this part is to begin using the model and notice how it feels for you. If
you’re not getting the same results as the person you modelled, go back and find
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out what was missing and reinstall it again. There are always many unconscious
processes that can easily be missed or overlooked, so recreating the same
behavior in yourself can take several attempts, but eventually you will get the
results you are looking for. Just keep in mind that this process may take a little
tweaking here and there until you get it working optimally.
So what can you begin to model? Because the purpose of this book is all about
boosting your body-image, find people who genuinely at the core feel really good
about themselves and start asking them questions about exercise, food and how
they perceive their bodies. Ask them what they think of clothes shopping, and
have them define their experience to you. Find out what they see, hear and feel
when they look into a mirror, and watch how they hold themselves in public and
when speaking to others. When they’re at the beach, what is their body language
like? Do they hold their arms and legs close to their sides, and try to keep
themselves compact (and small), or do they stretch out in a relaxed way and
really make an attempt to take up as much space around them as possible? Do
they wear makeup or not, and what is their impression of it, how do they feel
about it?
Those are some great basic places to start to develop a successful model that you
can apply to your own life, and if you don’t know of anyone around you who has
reached the level of excellence in the way they feel about their body (and
themselves), then spread your wings and get out and meet some new people. If
that scares you too much, then perhaps start off by researching people who feel
good about their body and themselves. Read their books, find their YouTube
channels, watch their videos and follow them on Facebook. In fact, in my book
called How To Be Happy While Building The Body You Want I share my own
personal beliefs, values, philosophy and specific strategies I used to go from
having very poor body-image and low self-esteem where I would literally shake
when meeting new people (from being so nervous), to speaking publicly about
health, wellness and how I came to feeling truly happy and powerful about myself
(both inside and out).
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The possibilities are endless, but there’s one thing I do know, and that is… If you
continue staying in the same place you are now and doing the same things,
chances are that nothing will change for you. So take a chance and decide that
there’s no better time than now to have the next big breakthrough of your life!
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Empowering Yourself
Empowering the way you feel about yourself and your body-image, through
increasing your levels of self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth (and altering
your internal processes) all fall under the area of Personal or Self-Development.
Personally, I’ve been involved in the area of self-development for many years,
where I read the first material on the subject as a young teenager, and I really
haven’t stopped growing since then. But the area of Personal Development is
such a wide field of study, that like other wide fields of study, there are lots of
ways to approach this area. If someone wants to learn public speaking, for
example, they have lots of choices. They could go and work for a company that
delivers public speaking training, or requires public speaking in order to be
successful (such as a sales job) to gain practical experience. They could take a
course or go to university and learn presentations skills from a lecturer. They
could read books on the subject, watch DVD’s, or listen to audio programs. They
could do a whole host of different things that would most probably all lead to
them gaining more knowledge about public speaking. None of these particular
examples are what’s ‘best’ for everyone and anyone, because the choice for
developing a public speaking ability is dependent upon the individuals wants,
needs and desires, and how important developing themselves to that level of
communication ability is going to be to them in their future. In many ways, this is
exactly the same as with empowering your body-image.
There’s always a lot of different reasons as to why someone would want to
empower their body-image. Maybe you want to improve your body-image so that
what’s going on with you, doesn’t manifest itself in your children, and instead,
you become a more powerful role-model for them. Perhaps you want to boost
the way you feel about your body because you’re curious as to what it would be
like to live unbounded by any inhibitions you may have around your body. Maybe
you just enjoy exploring areas of yourself that you have not yet empowered,
when you’ve already come so far with many other aspects of yourself. But the
real truth is that you probably want a better life. You want to breakthrough any
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limitations that you think are binding you, and expand yourself up to fresh and
exciting possibilities. Maybe you want to walk down the beach without worrying
what other people are thinking about you. Maybe you want to feel good about
yourself in whatever you wear (including when you’re clothes shopping). Or
maybe you want to meet that exciting new lover that’s just around the corner
(you know? The one you deserve…), just waiting for you to breakthrough your
limiting beliefs and burst through the cocoon that’s held you in bondage for so
long, so you can finally be free to spread your wings and fly as high as you want to
go. Whatever your reason, the sky is the limit, so think big! The higher your
reason is for wanting to boost your body-image, the more powerful the
inspiration and motivation will be.
The most important thing to decide before you start boosting your body-image is:
What is my reason for boosting my body-image?
(What do I want to gain from boosting my body-image?)
And even though the first answer that comes to your mind will get you started,
there is a high chance that reason will transform over time as you grow through
your journey, just like the ocean is always reshaping the shoreline.
When the pinnacle of the answer to this question enters your mind, it is then
appropriate to decide the best path to take on your personal journey of discovery.
Perhaps you could take a moment to STOP, now, and write your answer to the
question below?
My main reason for boosting my body-image is:
And what I will gain from boosting my body-image is:
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You’ve become totally clear on what you’re main reason is currently, and the next
step is to decide how you’re going to achieve that. There are many ways to boost
body-image and the main strategies for boosting body-image are:
By reading books, listening to audios and watching DVD’s. These are an
awesome and inexpensive way to boost body-image. There are a lot of really
good products in this area. The challenge with learning this way is that you can
develop a fairly high standard of knowledge about body-image without really
being able to do anything with it. Coming up against the issue of actually being
able to apply all of that theory you’ve learned, which is what these products are
not so useful for.
By attending courses. Courses can be an excellent way to boost body-image.
Theory is combined with practical examples so you can absorb and internalize the
strategies, models and patterns. Getting along to a course will provide you with a
lot more hands on experience, and you are also much more likely to meet like-
minded people who have either broken through and boosted their own body-
image already (and are there for additional growth and development), or who are
in a similar place that you are at. The hill to overcome for many people with doing
a course is that they usually require you to take time off work, because they
usually run for a few days (or in some cases, over the weekends), and pooling
your finances together to be able to afford to get to one is also another hurdle.
Reading information on the internet. Spending hours scouring over the huge
vault of material online has positive and negative sides. There’s a lot of really
helpful people out there, but there’s also a lot of misguided people too. So the
information that you will find will be all over the place, with a variety of different
opinions with some saying their way is the best, or to keep away from that way.
By hiring a coach. I know a lot of really phenomenal coaches, and having your
own coach is a lot like having a team-mate around who’s already been through a
similar journey as you. Who because of their unique experience with breaking
through their own challenges and boosting their own body-image (and other
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areas of life), can be a very valuable resource. They will have already helped a
range of different people breakthrough, and because they regularly coach people,
they will be able to help you create much faster results than you may otherwise
get on your own. The downside, is that coaches often get booked out quickly
because they only have a set amount of hours allocated each week to helping
people, in order to maintain their high quality of service.
Now all of these areas of development have their own positive attributes,
however in order to fully create mastery over your body-image, you will most
likely need to engage in all of these areas, and more. As time goes on, and you
begin to breakthrough your challenges and boost your body-image, you will find
that the difference between being and living in a state that’s mostly-free or
completely-free, is in your attitude towards self-development. A hungry thirst for
honest self-exploration is what will allow you to boost your body-image as far as
you want while still remaining humble and free from the Ego-driven self.
The most important question, at least in my mind, is in whether boosting your
body-image is important to you. If your reason for boosting your body-image is to
meet that special someone, take control over the way you think (and your
thoughts), improve your relationships with friends, family and acquaintances, feel
confident and sexy wherever you go and whatever you do, whether you’re at the
beach splashing about in the waves, or walking through the local shopping center
searching for a new outfit, then the truth is that boosting your body-image is
essential and invaluable. Right now, there are many options for you to boost your
body-image, and although all of the options shared above have merits, if you
really want to break through, the quickest and easiest way to do that is by
deciding to work with a coach.
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Where to Next
What you’ll find during your journey of boosting your body-image is that there
will be several key factors that will help you to create quicker and easier results,
even if you’re not consciously aware of them yet.
Those key factors are…
[1] the coaching you need to boost your body-image
[2] the feedback to reflect how you’re doing, and
[3] the motivation to keep you moving forward
And this is where I come in.
I’ve been studying self-development for years now, and have put hundreds of
hours into breaking through many of my own issues (which I struggled with for
years; almost from the moment I was born), and I would love to share what I’ve
learned with you, and help YOU to your boost body-image. I don’t mean in the
way you boost your ego by adding things to yourself, or in the way you might
have tried to do in the past by getting people to tell you how good you look
(those way’s don’t work; trust me, I’ve tried them). I want you to truly feel good
about your body (inside and out) – to go far past simply knowing about how your
body and mind works, so that you can actually go on to be in a body you love!
And because of that, I would like to be YOUR COACH and work with you to help
you to feel amazing about yourself. As a special bonus for deciding to take action
and start working with me, I would love to offer you a free gift when you sign up
to one of my programs. To redeem your free gift today simply go to
nickritchielive.com and book in your first coaching session and you will receive a
prompt reply from me where I will arrange for you to receive your free gift ASAP.
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About the Author
Nick is genuinely passionate about making people’s lives better through sharing
his own experience of breaking through poor body-image, and providing tools and
strategies that he has not only used to boost his own body-image, but also many
other people whom he’s worked with world-wide.
Nick began his personal development journey in 2000 as he started teaching
himself about new ways of thinking and behaving through the many online
magazines and websites that were available at the time. By 2004 Nick had
dropped out of high school and had hit an all-time low of self-esteem, but in the
end of that year he was suddenly exposed to a self-development concept that
caused him to think differently; about how he was more than his past, and his
present… And how in rather than just living a life, he could design a future and
create any way of being he wished. Since then, Nick has gone on to speak publicly
in the areas of personal development, health, wellness, and through sharing his
own personal breakthrough story, has become a leader in the body-image
empowerment movement.
He has authored several books and has plans to create additional products that
are designed to increase the quality of people’s lives worldwide and boost the
body-image of many more people.
Upon writing this book I started with the intention to help you breakthrough and
boost your body-image using specific NLP techniques, and I’m happy to say that
upon the completion of this book I believe I have done just that. One of the most
challenging areas of life for many people, is getting started, and then following all
the way through to completion – selecting the right course or coach can progress
to years of freedom around the way you feel about yourself, whereas not
choosing a good coach or resource could mean you don’t gain the level of results
you were originally looking for. I just hope that you’ve enjoyed the value I’ve
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91
provided in this book and the introduction to using NLP to boost your body-
image!
Warmly,
Nick Ritchie
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