“My head is pounding, I can’t hardly think straight it’s throbbing so bad.”  Glenn was trying to finish his day’s work but had been hurting since lunchtime.  He had already taken three aspirin to no avail.  Under pressure of the deadlines for his project, he had taken a short break for lunch, thinking that getting some food might make his headache go away.  No such luck.  Now it was 4:30 and it was hurting him more than ever. 

I asked him if he wanted it to go away?

“Of course,” he said, “but I’ve tried aspirin and they didn’t phase it at all.” 

“Well you’ve been working pretty hard under a lot of stress today,” I said, “I have a way that will help if you want to try it, but you have to really want your headache to go away, and you’ll need to take about 5 minutes off.  Are you willing?” 

He wasn’t.  But about 45 minutes later he said, “Okay, what have you got?” 


FREE NLP Sample # 2:  The NLP Sub-Modality Headache Cure

The brain is an amazing organ.  There are billions of neurons in the brain but none of these nerves are of the type of sensory neurons specialized with pain receptors.  So how is it possible that people so often feel pain in the head? 

The following NLP Submodality Headache Cure is an effective method for relieving pain.  Once you learn this pattern, it is faster than EFT tapping and it works even better.  It works extremely well for headaches but can also be used to help remove the feelings of referred pain that often surround actual organic damage.  In these cases, it tends to ease comfort and relieve excess collateral tension.  This speeds healing by relaxing the damaged area allowing increased blood flow. 

Although we don’t normally recognize it, we have no way of experiencing reality directly.  Rather we experience our representations of reality as sensed, perceived, and re-cognized by the complex network we call our senses, neurology, and brain.  By changing the meaning of the pain, we change the way we respond to it both physically and mentally.

Signals of pain don’t just flow in and get displayed on some inner screen.  Rather, they trigger complex networks of associations at all levels of the neurology, feeding forward to cause biochemical changes in our cardiovascular system, muscular system, neurology, and in every cell of the body.  By changing certain key sub-modalities, the client is surprised to find the pain gone or significantly diminished. 

This pattern begins by confirming that the client congruently wants to be rid of the pain.  Be aware that pain is usually a message from parts of the body-mind that something needs to be attended to.  The underlying message may be about organic damage, but more often it is a matter of excess stress.  Attempting to transform the pain without consideration of the underlying cause tends to be temporary since the body and unconscious mind are smart enough to reestablish the "signal" if the underlying cause is not taken care of.

If pain persists, always seek the treatment of a medical doctor to make sure that you are not just treating the symptom and ignoring real organic problems.  The steps are as follows:

Steps:

Step One:  Gain Commitment – Ask if the client really wants the pain to be gone.  Ask something like, “I know your pain is annoying, but do you really want it to go away?” They will generally answer “Yes” but you need to make sure that they are congruent about it.  I often "play polarity" to gain additional commitment.  For instance I might say, “You don’t have to get rid of the pain if you don’t want to.  You can keep it until you are really ready to do something about it.  I can help it to go away in a way that is easy and doesn’t require any medications.  I won’t even touch you, but you have to really want it.  It will only take about 5 minutes.  Do you want to see your pain disappear in a magical way? Or not?”

Step Two:  Subjective Pain Scale – Ask the client to identify the level of pain on a scale from 1 to 10 where one represents no significant pain and 10 is the worst pain the client has ever experienced or could imagine.

Step Three:  Characterize the Client’s Relationship to Pain – Are they adverse to it, see it as part of life, think of it as a signal?  Ask, “Before we start, tell me – what is your relationship to pain?”  Identify how long they have been experiencing the pain, its origin – if known, and the character of the pain such as how constant it is, under what conditions and how often it occurs, etc.

Step Four:  Deal With the Underlying Positive Intention of the Pain – Then say, “Let’s make sure you are taking care of yourself the best way you can.  If this pain were trying to send you a message, what would the meaning of the message be for you?” Figure out what is the likely underlying cause of the pain.   Then ask, “How can you plan to take care of yourself in response to the message that you learned your pain has been sending you?” 

Step Five:  Build an Alternative Representation of the Pain – Move from calling it “pain” to referring to the client’s “sensations” or their “project.”  Have the client take a couple of deep breaths, relax, and then extend their hands in front of them and build an external model of their sensations as a representation out in those hands.

Elicit the location, shape, boundaries and submodalities of the area perceived to be in pain.  Note that this dissociates the representation of those sensations.  Ask, “How big is the area where those sensations are?”  Get them to describe the size and shape.  Ask, “What shape is it?”  Ask, “Are the edges clean or fuzzy?  What is the consistency?  Is it hard, firm, or squishy?  Is it constant or pulsing?  If it had a sound, what sound would it be making?  What is the volume?  What is the pitch of the sound?  Is it a constant sound or does it cycle?  How much would those sensations weigh?  What temperature is it?  How much water would it hold if you could fill it up with liquid?”

If at any time they are unsure about one of these answers, have them guess, or pretend as if they know the answer.  Say, “If you knew the answer, what would it be?”  Ask, “What color is it?  Are their highlights, or is it matte finished?  Is it opaque, transparent, or translucent?”  Finally ask, “Is there any thing else that needs to go into the model to make it complete?”

Write down the answers to each of these questions so that you can later use them to help the client build the representation in detail in their hands.  You can use any of the visual, auditory, or kinesthetic sub-modalities you want, but the ones mentioned are usually enough to work pretty well. 

Now feed back the description they have provided you of their unwanted sensations and have them build the representation as a model out in their hands held in front of them where they can visualize the model outside of themselves.  Of course this dissociates the representation outside of them, and it is not necessary for them to understand this for the technique to work. 

Step Six:  Set Up the Perspective Change Belief – Once they have the model of their unwanted sensations out in their cupped hands in front of them, explain, “You know that two models can’t occupy the same physical space at the same time, don’t you?”  Watch for understanding and agreement.  Give examples on the physical world, if needed.

Then have the client take the reified representation that they have built out in their hands and move their hands to place that model in the exact position in their body where they had previously felt the unwanted sensations.  I typically say something like, “Now you know that the law of conservation of matter says that no two models can occupy the same place at the same time, right?  So what I want you to do is to take that model you have clearly built there in your hands and move it into the place where you have felt those unwanted sensations.  Just move your hands and place it in the proper place in your head.”

Step Seven:  Calibrate Changes – Ask the client to describe how, if at all, performing this procedure has changed what they are feeling.  Ask, “So what do you notice?”  Then look expectantly at them and wait for their report.  Normally the pain will be completely gone at this point. 

Step Eight:  Ratification Question – Ask the client, “Where did those sensations go?”  Say, “Is that what you were hoping for?  Do you think other people would be happy to know you if you could help them get rid of their unwanted projects?  You can learn to do this pattern on others and on yourself whenever you want.”  They will typically be a bit surprised and delighted to find such a magical result.

If the pain is not completely gone, it will typically have changed in shape and intensity.  In which case, ask them about the new shape, size, and consistency.  It may be helpful to check the subject pain scale again, “On the scale from 1 to 10, what level are we at now?”  Then, repeat the procedure starting at Step Five by having the client build the detailed sub-modality model of the new shape in their hands and after representing that model, place it back into the body at the place where they had been experiencing it.  I have never had to do this more than two or three times before it was completely dissipated. 

On two occasions, after I had had the client put the model in their body in the place where they reported experiencing pain, they reported that nothing had changed – they still felt the pain.  In these cases, I had them bring the model back out into their hands and then systematically changed various submodalities of the model by asking them what color do you want it to be instead?  What temperature?  What weight?  Density?  Sound?  Vibration?  Etc.  Then I had them place the modified model back in their bodies in the place that had felt the unwanted sensations. 

Many times I get into Step Five, the description of the submodality model of the sensations and begin building the model out in their hands and they suddenly report that the pain is already gone.  If this happens, I jump immediately to Step Eight and ask them, “Where did those unwanted sensations go away?”  I may playfully challenge them to “try in vain” to get them back. 

I have never had this procedure fail to relieve a headache.  I have had a couple of people with migraine headaches refuse to complete the process.  They reported that doing the process made their pain worse.  I believe them.  And, I also believe that there may have been significant secondary gain from experiencing migraine headaches for these clients.  I have also had this work many times with other clients who have had migraines.

When working this process with pain associated with specific organic damage, for instance, pain related to recovery from surgery, the pain is usually reduced to a manageable level and maintains at that level so long as the client is careful to take care of the part of their body that is healing. 

In cases where the pain is located in parts of the body that are not easily reachable by the hands, for instance the back or spine, I always have the client imagine that they are reaching in to that location from the front of their body so that they don’t have to strain to put the model into the appropriate place.

Glenn’s headache disappeared even before we finished building the new model in his hands.  For a moment he looked perplexed.  “Hold on, I think it’s gone.”  He searched his head, his eyes scanning wildly.  “Where did it go?” I asked.  “I don’t know, but it’s gone.”  “Pretty amazing, huh?  Try in vain to see if you can get it back,” I prodded him in a jesting manner.  He couldn’t.  He felt more relaxed and better than he had felt all day.  Glenn went on to finish his day, working late.   But the next day was Saturday and rather than come in as he planned, he took the weekend off and did a number of things to take care of himself personally.  When I saw him again on Monday he was refreshed, relaxed, much better focused and his head felt fine.  He took me to lunch to talk me into teaching him the pattern we had used so that he could do it with other people.

This sort of “magic” can be a nice extra for a manager or a project manager to have in his or her personal toolkit for times when team members need them.  Glenn was extremely satisfied and excited to learn a new technique that he knew he would use many times to come. 

This process is another example of the relief that NLP can provide for remedial issues like body pain.  If you learn this process and share it with others, you will find that people naturally think of you as being a helper.  That is why it is an especially good sample of NLP to give away for free.  Almost everyone wants to feel better.  And it is easy enough that I encourage you to learn to use it not only with yourself but also with others. 


As you go forth and heal, remember the oath that Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote that has bound healers for more than 23 centuries, “…to keep the good of the patient as the highest priority; to practice in such a way as to avoid all harm; and to refer circumstances beyond your capability to the specialists best equipped to handle them…”  Pain is almost always an important message that something needs consideration or needs to change.  Feel free to share, but take care to make sure clients get proper medical care and advice.  If there is any doubt, your responsibility is clear. 

Enjoy! 


~ Keith W Fail

Keith Fail is an NLP Trainer, Coach, and Master Modeler in Austin, Texas, and Director of NLP Resources Austin.  He writes and speaks about tools and techniques that help people to communicate better and live their dreams.  He works with teams and individuals to create contexts and communities that support a better world.  He can be reached at +1-512-507-5464.