…On Addictions Engage Your Inner Power to Change

By Gayle North

Positive Change Coach

“I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.”   

George Bernard Shaw

There are principles involved in creating the positive change in your life.  As a Positive Change Coach, I employ techniques used to support medical intervention or the individual who wants to make changes with the assistance of educational coaching. 

 One applicable principle is this: “People are always making the best choices available to them in their personal map or model of the world.” (NLP Presupposition.)  This is true of anyone caught in the habitual loop of a compulsive behavior.   When the behavior was first learned, it may have seemed like a solution and only later  do you begin to see the addictive trap you set for yourself.

Often we see people trying to force themselves into compliance with a new goal by mistakenly giving themselves orders like,”You are not going to smoke anymore”, “Don’t smoke, don’t smoke, don’t smoke”. The more we repeat this kind of an order to ourselves or another person, the more ingrained the unwanted habit will become.

We cannot even interpret the statement unless we think about smoking first.  Once we think about smoking we will want a cigarette.  These types of statements actually hypnotize us and have the effect of intensifying our desire for the habit. To make matters worse, when we weaken and smoke a cigarette, we punish ourselves with defeating words like, “You are so weak,” or “You are so dumb, you know all the reasons you should quit smoking.”

Enlist your imagination.

Unless our imagination has been enlisted in the process so that we now see and define our self as a nonsmoker, there will be a struggle between the willpower and our imagination.  The imagination always wins those battles, so if we see ourselves as weak or dumb, we will create more of the behaviors that support those images of ourselves.

Discover your purpose or mission in life.

Discovering our purpose, mission, and capabilities supports us as we create a new life – a new way of being in the world. As we align our imagination and create new images - a new model of our life – these new images become the picture on the top of the box so we know what the puzzle is supposed to look like when it is finished.  Without this picture, putting the puzzle together is very difficult, if not impossible. In other words, if we are unable to imagine a life without our dependencies, we cannot manifest such a life in the physical world. Once our imagination is fully engaged, the limiting thoughts of our dependencies no longer dominate, and the picture of the new life becomes like a magnet attracting all of the pieces to it.

”Consciousness Changes Physics”  

The truth of this statement is demonstrated everyday as people give up lifelong habits using new empowerment technologies like NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and Hypnosis – habits that some consider addictions.  Using these methods, most people make the changes with ease and comfort in contrast to the “no pain-no gain” philosophy that so perversely pervades our society and is the typical approach to personal change.

Resolve inner conflict

Resolving inner conflicts is another important piece of the personal growth puzzle.  What do we do when one part of us wants to do one thing, while another part of us wants us to do something else?  Using NLP we can reach a satisfying and comfortable resolution to inner conflict without compromising either part.

Discover the positive intention 

Discovering the positive intentions behind the behavior is an important aspect of the conflict resolution process. “Underlying every behavior is a positive intent”, is another NLP Presupposition.  It is usually a life changing discovery to realize the specific positive intent of the part of us that generates a behavior such as substance abuse or other forms of dependency. 

We are, perversely, used to beating up on ourselves and looking for evil intent or negativity within ourselves.  Most people feel a flood of compassion and appreciation for the part of themselves that has been generating these behaviors once they find out that it is really trying to produce, however misdirected, something positive for them.

Creating new supportive behaviors that serve the positive intent of the part that was generating the dependency behavior is another piece of the puzzle for positive change.  The creative part of ourselves, the part that is giving us the desire to make a change and express more of our potential in the world, can give us inspiration and instruction when we open up to the idea of adopting some new ways of satisfying our needs.

Recover from shame and guilt

Recovering from shame and guilt is another piece of the puzzle. “Shame is being recognized as a toxic emotion that binds people to their addictions and co-dependency.  Understanding how to rapidly and gracefully transform these destructive emotions into an empowering sense of self is key to moving into a new way of being.”   Heart of the Mind by Steve and Connirae Andreas

Change can be an elegant and gentle process, one in which the magnet of our highest possibilities is steadily drawn to the magnet inherent in our heart’s desire to become more of who we are …a way of being where things that are bad for us will not tempt us.