NLP Submodalities: The Little Things That Make the Difference(s)

I worked with a man in whose coaching process the central theme was how he could use NLP submodalities in his everyday life.  So I’m inspired to offer some answers here for the wider world’s benefit.

But wait a minute!  What are submodalities?   Read on.  All will be revealed – in a language that you’ll understand!

Every experience is uniquely coded by your brain in both its structure and its content using your 5 senses. These 5 senses are technically known as modalities.  Within every sensory system there are finer discriminations.  Each picture, sound, feeling, smell, and taste has its own content and structure.  The structure consists of its own qualities.  These finer qualities are known in NLP as submodalities. Some submodalities have qualities which are analogue [such as brightness or loudness] and some have qualities which are digital (=either / or) [such as still / moving].

So how can you use NLP submodalities in your everyday life?  Here’re three examples:

• having trouble getting up and kicking the body into life in the morning?   And is it annoying you to the point where you’d dearly like to change it for the better, but you don’t know how?

What’s the first thing you are aware of when you wake up?  Is it warm or cold?  Light or dark?  Loud or quiet?  Sharp or fuzzy?  Near you or far from you?  Heavy or light?  Black and white or in color?  These are a few questions that will help you get to whatever it is you’re first aware of.  And then you can work with it.  Play with it, question by question, by changing each of the elements for the opposite to see if that would make a difference for the better.  And why stop there?  After all, the opposite may be equally uncomfortable!  So now you can go on scales of 1 to 10 and adjust your submodality to the form that will work for you best!  Once you have found the submodalities that were disrupting your get-up routine the most, you can change them for more comfortable levels.  And you bet that your get-up routine will change for the better!

• do you often suffer from headaches or other aches?

Here you can explore submodalities of your pain beautifully!  Where in your body is the pain?  How intense on a scale of 1 to 10 is it?  Is it continuous or intermittent?  Is it static or does it move?  If it moves, does the movement have a direction?  How does the movement get from the place of origin to the place of destination?  Does the pain have a color?  A sound?  A taste?  A smell?  If a color, how bright is it [on a scale of 1 to 10]?  If a voice, is it loud or quiet?  If a taste or smell, is it heavy or light?  And now, how do you need to adjust any – or all? – of these submodalities in order to get the pain to bother you less or even diminish completely?

• do you have the problem of ringing or buzzing in your ears?

How loud is it?  Where is it located?  In your ear?  Behind it?  Higher up in the head?  Where exactly?  How loud is it?  Now imagine a sound system with round knobs for turning.  Pick one for volume.  Now grab it and listen to the ringing / buzzing in your ears [or where?].  As you listen, imagine turning this volume knob down a fraction.  Did the loudness of the buzzing lessen?  Turn the knob down another fraction.  How is that now?  Better?  Keep turning – a fraction at a time and observe what happens…  Get the idea?

It feels incredibly liberating when you suddenly realize that you can do something other than pumping your body with caffein, nicotine, alcohol, or drugs in response to any such signals from your body.  Of course, every signal your body gives you is a message that I’d sincerely advise you acknowledge instead of suppress, but things like ringing in the ears often becomes nothing but a cohabit.  Well, now you can do something about it – free of charge and at will!