Kathryn Hodgson

How we think

Homer Simpson: "How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

I decided to give you something really practical today, rather than something to think about. Some of this may sound complicated at first but read on as once you do the exercises it will start to make sense!

When you understand how you think it can be easier to change it and the effect it has on you. We think in 3 main ways – pictures, sounds or feelings. If you close your eyes and think about something you did yesterday it will either appear as a picture, or you will hear the sounds associated or you will get a feeling. We can all think in all 3 ways but you will notice one more than the other.

Each way will then have different characteristics:

Pictures: Is it colour or back and white? How bright is it? Is it all focused? Is it still or moving or a slide show? How big is the picture? Where is the picture? If you could touch it where would it be? Are you there, or can you see yourself?

Sound: How loud is the sound? Where is it coming from? What is the tone/ pitch/ rhythm?  How clear is it? Does it fade, or get louder?

Feelings: Where in the body is it? What temperature is it? If it had a colour, what would it be?  What texture is it? Is it still or moving? Is it heavy or light?

The brain then knows what emotion to attach to a thought according to the combination of characteristics associated with how we think of it, eg. it’s almost like a code that goes:

Life size picture, straight in front, full colour and moving, me actually there = happy;

or loud, upbeat rhythm, high pitched sounds coming from the left = anxiety;

or warm, fuzzy, moving, red feeling in my chest = love.

What is in the picture or being said is less important than how it is presented. So you could be hearing nice things being said but which are said in a way that fills you with dread – just as in life the tone of voice and context will determine what meaning you give to what is said.

Everyone has different codes, and by changing those characteristics you can change the emotion attached, eg. if thinking of a certain situation brings you dread you can change the size of the picture, or the volume of the sound, or the place in the body of the feeling, and the feeling of dread will lessen or go. You are still thinking of the same thing but just having a different emotion attached.

It may take some practise to start noticing how you think and then changing it, but this is the basis of a lot of NLP techniques that can reprogram your thinking, heal past pain, enable you to trigger certain emotions on tap (see my article on anchoring on my website) and much more.

A simple use of this is if you want to change how you feel you can think of a time you were happy and change the characteristics to make the emotion stronger, or if a memory makes you feel sad you can change the characteristics to lessen the sadness. If you do this a few times with the same situation eventually when you think of it the new version will pop up (unless there is a deeper issue that needs healing).

As I have mentioned in previous articles, it’s not what happens to us that causes us to feel a certain way - it’s how we think about what happens to us that causes our emotions. For example if there is someone who you feel intimidated by then you will be thinking about them in a way that causes anxiety, and if you change the code so that you no longer feel intimidated then when you next meet them you will be relaxed (and able to deal with how they behave then rather than reacting to your fears). 

What I suggest you do first is practise thinking of different things and noticing how the characteristics are different, eg think of a time you were happy, and then think of a time you were not and notice how you think of them differently. 

Once you have got good at noticing the differences (and that can take time because it usually is not something we were aware of) then you can start playing at changing the characteristics. Think of a happy memory and see what changes make it stronger or weaker. Once you have worked out which change has the most effect then think of something that makes you anxious and change that characteristic to make the feeling weaker.

Key changes that strengthen emotions are usually:

Make the picture bigger, colour, moving, as if you are actually there

Louder, surround sound

Warmer/ colder, spreading, light/ heavy feelings

(and the reverse will lessen emotions)

As I said this is something that you can practise and put to use to change how you feel in the moment, and how you think about past and future events, and even how you think about yourself.

Using the exercises I have mentioned here will not ‘reprogram’ your personality or stop you from reacting as a human to situations – it will actually help you do so more, and be more of who you really are, as you will no longer be affected by things from the past, fears and negative beliefs.

As ever – have fun with it and contact me if you have any further questions.