An efficient learning strategy will also have a good feedback system to help make corrections. Depending on the task, it might contain an Ae for a music student, Ve for a student painter, or Ve, Kp, Ae for an athlete shooting free-throws (Ve = seeing basket over the ball; Kp = feel of body and arm moving “in the groove;” Ae = sound of ball swishing through the net.)
Appropriate comparisons to other good learners provide important feedback. To compare yourself with your past learnings or to others in a class of students may very well provide you with invaluable material for your learning strategy. Find out how they learn and model their learning strategy. Or, remember a time when you did learn, and elicit your strategy from that experience.
One of the Exit questions looked like this: “How do you know when this particular learning has finished?” This question has important implications. Some people chunk very small and Exit so soon that they do not learn much. Some chunk so large that they never Exit and never feel as though they have learned anything. The first may feel good but not know as much as they think they do. The second may have learned a great deal but never feel competent. Once the good learner decides to Exit, they can immediately think about when, where, with whom, and how they will use what they have learned.
16.34 Thought Questions To Assist Your Learning:
What does “modeling” mean in NLP?
What map-making processes do we need to always take into consideration when working with strategies?
Who invented the TOTE model?
How does NLP enrich the TOTE model?
How do you elicit a strategy? Name the steps in the process.
Describe how you would go about unpacking a strategy.
Which installation process (anchoring, repetition, etc.) do you recognize as something you already do?
Which installation process would you like to develop?
16.34.0.127 Notes – Chapter 15
25This material edited and adapted from E. Gene Rooney, “Level IV” in Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Skills for Communication and Change (Reynoldsburg: L.E.A.D. Consultants, Inc., 1986), pp. 6-19.
26E. Gene Rooney, Ibid., pp. 11-12.
27E. Gene Rooney, Ibid., pp. 18-19.
17
An Introduction To Time-Lining
17.1 What you can expect to learn in this chapter:
How we code “Time” using NLP.
What we mean by “Time-Line.”
How to use a Time-Line to transform experience.
Numerous applications of Time-Lining Processes.
Kinds of “Time.”
The strength of Time-Lining lies in its ability to direct the participant in reframing old and no longer useful thinking patterns.
How much do the frames we set, especiallyin our childhood, affect our adult lives? I (BB) believe that many of the conceptual filters that we utilize as adults, started early in our lives. The problems arise when old thinking patterns no longer serve us. The strength of Time-Lining lies in its ability to direct the participant in reframing old and no longer useful thinking patterns.
Time-Lining and the tools of NLP allow the therapist to help the client heal painful memories using the client’s own resources. Once these painful memories receive healing, the client can now forgive mother and father and anyone else who has harmed them. Our belief is that a total healing results only after forgiveness happens.
Remember that in NLP we concern ourselves primarily with process rather than content. In Time-Lining we ask, “How does our brain code time?” What goes on inside our head that enables us to know the difference between the past, the present and the future? How do we know the order of events from the past? The brain must have some way of coding time, or else we would not be able to distinguish separate events in our lives. There are clues in the sayings and metaphors we have about time: “I see a bright future in front of me,” “I am stuck back in the past, and can’t see my way forward,” “I am looking forward to seeing you.” Such languaging indicates that we see past, present and future events in spatial terms, in directions around us.
In the submodality section we covered this thoroughly. We give it here as a review. Try this experiment. Think of something you do on a regular basis. You may wish to think of driving to work or brushing your teeth. Remember a time about five years ago that you did this. Of course, you probably cannot recall a specific time. However, imagine a time five years ago when you probably performed that activity. Now, remember doing this same thing two years ago. Once you have done that, recall doing this thing last week. OK, good. Imagine doing the same thing in the present. Now, imagine doing it next week, two years hence and then five years from now.
As you recalled and imagined doing this thing, you probably had a series of pictures in your mind. As you look at those pictures again, what differences do you notice in the submodalities? Compare and contrast those several pictures asking yourself the following questions:
Does each picture appear in color or black-and-white?
Does each picture have movement or not?
Does each picture appear as a 3D or flat picture?
Do you see yourself in each picture or do you look through your own eyes?
Does each picture have a frame around it or do they appear as a panoramic image?
How bright do the pictures appear? Does the brightness get brighter or darker the further back in time you go?
How far off do you see each picture?
As you look at each picture, are they in focus or out of focus? Does this differ for “older” and “newer” pictures?
Where do you see each picture in your field of vision? Note how the “older” pictures differ from the “newer” pictures.
This submodality coding allows the brain to distinguish between the past,present and future.
This submodality coding allows the brain to distinguish between the past, present and future. This activity of the brain allows you to know if you look at a memory from the past and how far in the past. And, this activity allows you to distinguish the past from the present and future. This ability is a process of the unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind codes your memories in such a way that they are located in time. In NLP we call this collection of memories the Time-Line. Indeed, you may find it a useful convention to have all your memories arranged in a line.
Tad James in his Time-Line TherapyTM trainings asks this question: “When you woke up this morning, how did you know to be you?” We know because we have a collection of memories of what we look like, sound like, feel like, etc.
As we usually conceive of time as flowing, or moving, we need to code it using a metaphor, which also has this characteristic/quality.
Time-Lining presupposes that we have the pictures of our memories ordered in a linear fashion. As we usually conceive of time as flowing, or moving, we need to code it using a metaphor, which also has this characteristic/quality. Most people store time as some kind of line, either straight, curved, bent, or folded. When you listed the submodalities of your Time-Line, did you notice the spatial arrangement? Could you join up the individual memories to form a continuous line? We call this line your Time-Line.
Using the “time is a line” metaphor means that we are primarily paying attention to the visual submodalities, such as color, brightness, size, distance or location. The critical factor (submodality) is usually distance.
Using the “time is a line” metaphor mean that we are primarily paying attention to the visual submodalities, such as color, brightness, size, distance or location. The critical factor (submodality) is usually distance. A distant memory is one that happened long ago. The greater the perceived distance, then the farther away in time the memory. Other visual qualities will also indicate age, and whether something is in the past or the future. Some people find that brightness or focus is also significant in knowing how “far away” in time a memory is. Some people have a dark or “murky” past, and often the future is seen as “bright” and it may appear unfo
cused, or very small on the horizon. It is also worth noting whether you see time as moving—“Time is an ever-flowing river,” or whether you are moving in time on your “journey through life.”
Auditory submodalities do not allow us to access memories simultaneously. Kinesthetic submodalities are usually too imprecise. However, some people do have time coded this way and they usually find that it doesn’t work very well! In that case, have them to switch using more visual coding, as the visual metaphor of a line they can see is far more useful when it comes to finding, reviewing, and “changing” memories.
Each person has his own way of storing time. One way does not provide a more correct way and the other an incorrect way to store time. However, the way you store time does have consequences. What would happen if your past were directly in front of you? Would you not drive yourself from your past memories? Bill came to me in a state of depression. One year earlier his girlfriend had dumped him. In working with Bill, I discovered that the picture of her leaving him lay directly in front of his face. I used several interventions with Bill. The depression disappeared when Bill ended up moving the image from in front of his face to behind his head.
If a person’s vision for their future lies behind them, will they have self-motivation in attaining their vision? No, self-motivation will barely exist if at all because their future lies behind them. The most useful orientation is having the future in front of us. It is unlikely that pictures, which we have behind us, are going to be motivating––for the unconscious mind says, “Hey! The past is behind me, so that picture has little relevance for the future.”
On the other hand, what will your chances of attaining your goals be like if your vision for yourself lies in front of you and appears big and bright? If bigness and brightness function as critical submodalities for you, you will be far more motivated to attain your goals. An old proverb says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”28 Time-Lining teaches us how to realize the truth of that verse.
17.2 Anglo-European And Arabic Time
Does your primary interest lie in what happens now or in the future? Does the future even concern you? As a minister, I (BB) used to live in frustration with those people who lived only for the moment. How could they not count the cost? At the same time, I envied them because they appeared to enjoy the present moment more than I did. NLP taught me that people view time differently. The problem concerned neurology and not spirituality.
Tad James in the book Time-Line TherapyTM And The Basis Of Personality speaks of the difference between Anglo-European time and Arabic time.29 Anglo-European time comes to us as a product of the Industrial Revolution. Assembly-line work required that workers arrive on time. The assembly line required time structured as linear. At each successive stage of construction, the worker placed a specific part on the equipment being manufactured. Anglo-European time describes time as one event happening after another. Time is perceived in a linear fashion and the events in time stretch out like as on an assembly-line.
In contrast, in Arabic time everything is happening at once. Whereas a person characterized by the Anglo-European concept of time will arrive on time, for someone operating with the Arabic concept of time, time does not matter. If they don’t show up today, then tomorrow will do just as well! People from the Islamic countries and areas of the world with warm climates seem to function primarily in Arabic time. They live for the moment. Time for them happens now and not at their next appointment. These people can handle several matters simultaneously.
A few years ago my (BB) wife and I visited a missionary friend of ours in Martinique. Martinique is a French Island in the Southern Caribbean area. It is nothing for a committee meeting to start an hour or so after the scheduled time. And if someone told you that they would arrive at your home at 3:00 pm, they might arrive by 5:00 pm and think nothing of it. I went into a state of cultural shock. A person who thinks this way will rarely plan beyond two weeks. An exception would be when for their work, or for some extremely important matter, they were forced to plan ahead. You will find in the United States both the Anglo-European and the Arabic understandings of time. If, for example, the wife is operating in the Anglo-European mode of time while the husband is operating in the Arabic mode, it would not be suprising if there was conflict in their marriage: the wife is planning to save money for the future, and the husband wants to spend it, now!
17.3 Determining Your Personal Time-Line
How do you know which time frame you function from? Your internal submodality codings of time determine which time frame you operate from. Pause for a moment and do the following experiment: Recall an event that happened to you six months or a year ago. Pay particular attention to which direction that image of the memory comes to you. The image may be inside or outside your head. It may appear up or down, right or left. Take your finger and point in the direction of that image. Get an image of five years ago. Note where you see that. Continue going back in time getting images from ten years ago, fifteen years ago, etc., all the way back to early childhood. Note the location of each image.
Now, do the same thing for the future. Imagine something that will probably happen in the next six months to one year, two years, five years, etc. Pay particular attention to which direction the image comes to you. Take your finger and point in the direction. This image appears in a different place from your past image, doesn’t it? Your future usually appears in the opposite direction from your past, although for some people it may appear in the same direction. I (BB) have found the past and the future appear in a similar direction but at different distances.
You may need to close your eyes for this. Having located your past and future images, now get an image in your mind of the present. Where do you locate the present? Note that your “present” appears in a different location from does your past and future images. For most people this is how your brain distinguishes time. And if you were to join up all the individual memories (and that includes the past and future “memories”) you will have your personal Time-Line. Now, if you could not do that, don’t worry. Just keep reading.
17.4 Difficulty Eliciting The Time-Line
For many people, just asking them to point in the direction of their past and future will be sufficient for eliciting their Time-Line. However, if that does not work for you, you may need to practice seeing visual images of your memories. Earlier we asked you to recall a series of events that you do regularly. You recalled doing this in the past and in the future. Did you find that easy to do? If you were able to do that, then the series of pictures from your past and into your future represents your Time-Line. I have had clients to say, “I can get the pictures but they are not as clear as if I were looking at them.” Most people have this experience, and it is a good thing they do, because it means they can tell when they are in uptime, and when they are remembering. A useful distinction! We do not want the clarity of the recalled image to be the same as actuality. Using this technique of recalling a series of events at various ages provides an effective tool in eliciting the Time-Line. You can ask clients to recall happy events over a period of years. Try it for yourself.
You still don’t know the location of your Time-Line? Don’t worry. Let us pretend. Just suppose you did know the location of your Time-Line. Ask your unconscious mind to take control of your finger. Your unconscious mind knows which finger on which hand to point in the direction of your past. If you knew the location of your past, what direction would you point? Once your unconscious mind points to the past, thank the unconscious mind. Now, unconscious mind, in which direction do I locate future? Allow your unconscious mind to point your finger in the direction of your future.
You still don’t know the location of your Time-Line? Don’t worry. You haven’t joined the odd-ball club. I have elicited many Time-Lines. Numerous clients respond immediately when I asked them to point in the direction of their Time-Lines. I (BB) have had only one failure.
My friend Randy has difficulty making pictur
es in his head. Randy represents primarily kinesthetically. So, I had Randy place his Time-Line on the floor. I asked Randy to imagine his Time-Line on the floor and about ten or fifteen feet long. Randy then placed his memories on the Time-Line. “Randy, with your Time-Line on the floor, which end represents your past and which end represents your future?” He told me which end represented his past and which end represented his future. Next I had Randy walk his Time-Line. I always try to force a visual representation. However, you may very well be one of those who has difficulty doing so. Walking your Time-Line offers an option.
May I give you a warning? Do you remember association and dissociation? A major key to the effectiveness of Time-Line centers in that it dissociates the person from their memories. Walking the Time-Line discourages this. The client easily associates into each memory. However, NLP offers steps in teaching the client to dissociate when walking the Time-Line.30 Dissociation from the memory gives Time-Lining its power in letting go of the emotional hurt through reframing.
In eliciting a Time-Line, pay more attention to the processof remembering.
In eliciting a Time-Line, pay more attention to the process of remembering. Ask for the memory and not the content. When people start describing the content of the memory, you know they have moved into content and not the image of the memory. Lead them to focus on the memory, that is, the location of the recalled image.
The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I Page 43