***Crazy Firemen's Dance

How many times have you've heard someone say (not yourself, of course), "I'm angry"? When people identify themselves with an emotional response, this is not only ludicrous, inaccurate, and stupid; it's also extremely crappy hypnosis. When they do that, the deletions are there other than consciously, so the whole construct is reinforced.

WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE is really taking place when a person acts angry? They're sensing something and chances are they're scared. It may be something that they are not even aware of. It may be a trigger from other than conscious or unconscious system that is triggering off and experience that may be outside of their awareness. It's all historical or atavistic and they are scared. How do they respond? They use a dance step they've been taught, called anger.

HE SAYS," I'm angry with you. When you sit there nodding your head like that it just gets me furious." She gets defensive and starts arguing. "I didn't do anything to make you angry. He says, "Yes, you did, and look what you're doing now."

I Call This "The crazy Firemen's Dance." Let's say in a business situation this starts...the dance, the tones, the statement, the other peopling gets this person defensive. There are two well-intentioned firemen who have in common that they don't want any fires. They have this little fire they're pouring gas on and complain because it's hot.

IT'S SAD that many people have spent a lot of money with professionals to be taught how to reinforce the past and how to analyze it so they can blame their mother, father, husband or whatever.

ANYTIME YOU catch yourself doing this,here's a suggestion: Take deep breath and say, "Wait a minute, let's clean this up." You do this by interrupting the patte ---breaking state. Get curious. "I wonder what's scaring me?" Then get away from it.
If You Say it aloud to somebody, say "Excuse me, that's not what I meant to say. There's a part of me that's scared and doesn’t know what's going on. What do you think, are you trying to scare me?" The minute you put it in perspective like that, it breaks the pattern to the past. As long as we keep using the old dance step of anger, we reinforce the pattern.

Learn and do more at Licensed NLP Practitioner® Intensive starting March 22.
© Barbara J. Stepp