Why use ideomotor signals? Ideomotor response technique. How to use the ideomotor effect? How to setup ideomotor finger signals. How to use a hypnosis pendulum? Are ideomotor signals the same as muscle testing? Phone 07 5562 5718 or send Abby an email to book a free 20 minute telephone or Skype session. NLP, Hypnotherapy and Medtation, Gold Coast, Robina.
Articles in the Reminiscing NLP Series: #1 Meditation, #2 Psychic Skills, #3 Ideomotor Skills. #4 Submodalities, #5
Why Use Ideomotor Signals? | And the use of Questions, Statements & Commands
Reminiscing NLP #3 By Abby Eagle (2019)
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This article is the third in a series of my exploration into NLP, Hypnotherapy and Meditation. In this article the focus is on using ideomotor signals – and questions, statements and commands to get rapid long term change in helping people to quit cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, binge eating, food cravings and gambling.
NLP, Hypnosis and Meditation gives you some powerful tools for healing and personal development but like any tool they are pretty useless unless you understand what the tool is designed for and you take the time to practise.
Let’s take a quick look at our tool analogy. A carpenters workshop is very different to a motor mechanics workshop and to an engineers workshop. You might be able to knock a nail in with a spanner but it has limited use and just because you can buy a hammer and saw does not mean that you have the skill to produce a beautiful piece of furniture. Just because you have a set of spanners does not mean that you can fix your car when it brakes down.
So NLP, Hypnosis and Meditation all give you some powerful tools but you have to know how the tool works – which is the best tool to use – and the correct procedure in order to get the desired outcome.
So when I was introduced to NLP and Hypnosis in a psychic skills class back in 1984 I saw the possibility of what they had to offer. So I immersed myself in the study of NLP, Hypnosis and Meditation.
So let’s start with NLP.
I read Frogs into Princes and all the early books. I still have them. So what I would do is to read the book, then reread the book and write out the procedures by hand – in some cases I would extract the procedures from the text. Then I would memorise the procedure and then find someone to practise on. At that time I had a lot of friends in the Sannyas community who were into personal growth so that was easy. I ended up with a box of A4 notes about 2-3 inches thick. It was only about five years ago that I threw them out.
Ideomotor Signals
So one of the first things I did was to learn how to elicit ideomotor signals. Ideo comes from ideation – mind. Motor refers to muscle activity. So mind affects muscle activity. Every thought that you have is manifest in some way in a physiological response whether that be a head nod, a finger movement, a sense of warmth in the body or increase in heart rate. In working with others it is useful to get a signal that is easy to see like a finger movement.
Back in one of the early books there was a procedure called Six Step Reframing in Trance which required ideomotor signals. God it was a laborious procedure.
Anyway I have my client/friend sitting cross legged on the floor in front of me. I say something to the effect that ideomotor signals are a communication from the unconscious mind – and that the unconscious mind can give a signal to indicate a yes or a no by moving a part of the body in some way or another. And at that time I was very much into Ericksonian Hypnosis which is all about being open ended and allowing the client to decide how they should respond or make the desired change. So I said something to the effect that it could be that the unconscious mind choose to move the head, the legs, the arms, the hands in some way or another – or it could be that the breathing changes in some way – however the unconscious mind should decide to communicate will be fine. Something like that. The question was very open ended – something I would never do today – anyway then I sat there – straining in peripheral vision to take in the entire person’s body – and then the guy's right eyebrow moves up – and then he cracks up laughing because it was all too obvious to him as well.
So then I found a German friend to work with. I had him lay on his back on the floor. I gave the instructions for a ‘yes’ signal and he lifted his entire right leg up in the air. I thought to myself that this could not be a real ideomotor signal – that ideomotor signals were meant to be subtle and hard to detect. Anyway I persevered and asked his unconscious mind for a ‘no’ signal. He responded by lifting a stiff right arm into the air. So I’m thinking that these signals look more like conscious moves than unconscious movements but I persevered with the six step reframing in trance procedure. He wanted to stop smoking so from memory you set up ideomotor signals and then you ask the part that is responsible for the smoking to reach into the unconscious mind and access resources that would enable the smoking behaviour to disappear. Something like that. I haven’t used the procedure in years but anyway the guy stopped smoking. So that was my first smoking client.
And then his partner wanted to lose weight. So I ran the same six step reframing in trance procedure with her and two days later she told me that her sweet cravings had increased. And at that time I did not know what to do. So there was a big learning in that.
And then I had this American friend – what was his name – Dharma Michael – he came to stay at my place on the beach in Cottesloe, Western Australia, for a couple of months. He wanted to stop smoking so we were standing in my room having a conversation. And remember this is back in the mid eighties – I had no formal training in NLP and Hypnotherapy – I read a lot – I attended lots of personal development workshops and meditated two hours a day – as did a lot of my friends. So I am having this in the moment conversation with Dharma David explaining how the six step reframing in trance procedure could help him to stop smoking. We talk for about ten minutes then he gets irritated with me and walks away. He goes out onto the back veranda for a cigarette – and lo and behold that was his last cigarette.
Over the years I discovered that in working with addictions like cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, gambling, food cravings, etc that NLP by itself was not enough. You have to use hypnosis – and hypnosis may be sufficient sometimes by itself for some people but not for everyone and you really need to combine both NLP and hypnosis to bring about rapid long term change. That is you need to employ both the conscious mind and the unconscious mind.
So the procedure that I developed after decades of experimentation goes something like this:
1. Give the preamble. "You see, in general, people smoke cigarettes, marijuana, drink alcohol, eat chocolate and overeat because they are trying to suppress and medicate a negative emotion like boredom, loneliness, stress and anxiety. On the other hand they are trying to bring in a positive feeling like confidence and relaxation. In some cases they are trying to give themselves something like love or nurturance. So the bad habit has a positive intention, that is it serves them in some way. More often than not they are trying to quieten their internal dialogue – that is quieten their mind."
2. Set a well-formed outcome.
3. Clear negative emotions using the Timeline procedure.
4. Set up ideomotor signals.
5. Demonstrate how to use a pendulum.
6. Run the Banish Procedure.
7. Use the Mind Director to clear the triggers.
8. Ratify changes and future pace.
Questions, Statements and Commands
So back in 1990 I thought it was time that I did a formal NLP Practitioner Training. My best option at that time for me in Perth, Western Australia was Terry McClendon who was based in Cairns Queensland – that is North Eastern Australia. Terry was part of the original group of NLP’ers. So rather than fly to Queensland I invited Terry to come to Perth and I promoted the first NLP Practitioner Training in Perth in 1991. At that time the NLP Practitioner Training was a 21 day course not like the short courses that are offered today.
I promoted and organised the NLP Practitioner Training by myself. I wrote the brochures, got them printed and posted them out to everyone that I could including the Psychology Association. That was in the days of envelopes and stamps. I delivered introductory talks at various venues, showed people extracts from Richard Bandler’s Magic In Action video that was filmed in Brisbane by Terry McClendon. I visited prospects at their office and spent hours on the telephone talking to people. And then I silk screened a large blue satin banner that I hung on the wall at the training. I also recorded the training on audio tape but never got around to marketing them.
Anyway at some time during the training - we had just finished practising a procedure when Terry says, “questions, statements and commands. The sky is blue.” (With a question tonality) “The sky is blue.” (A statement with an even tonality) “The sky is blue.” (With a command tonality) It was years before I really understood the power of questions, statements and commands. When we talk to others we use questions, statements and commands. When we talk to ourselves we use questions, statements and commands.
And then it wasn’t until I came across Michael Hall and Neuro-Semantics did I get an understanding of the power that comes from asking the right question. It takes a lot of skill based upon a lot of experimentation with a lot of trust in the unconscious mind to ask the right question at the right time.
In the next article I talk about the use of submodalities and hypnosis in helping people to beat their addictions to cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, junk food and gambling. Please leave your comments below and if you have not done so you are welcome to join us over at the NLP Hypnotherapy Facebook Group for a discussion.
If you are looking for an NLP Coach then feel free to contact myself – Abby Eagle using the contact form - top right of this page.
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