Dilts’ Three Tools to Transform Our Inner World With Ideas
“Ideas are like a virus. They possess you”. This phrase was stated by the main character in the movie “Inception”, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Curiously enough, this sentence sounds a lot like Robert Dilts, writer and NLP specialist (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), and it will be the cornerstone to this article. Do you feel dissatisfied with your reality? Do you feel like there is a piece which doesn’t quite fit inside your world? You might overcome these feelings by making a transformation within.
We must remember that once we process ideas, experiences and situations, we interiorize them and make them our own. In that moment, we are representing our own reality. Based on how these processes, representations and interpretations take place, we will build our own definition.
We all have a belief system which defines us and helps us make our own representation of the world. According to this representation, we will feel more or less identified with ideas, events or acts. However, the fact that something we dislike exists in a particular way doesn’t mean it has to be that way. The fact that you don’t hold yourself in good standing doesn’t mean you are not alright. If we believe we can change for the better, we must try to do so. Here is where the neurological levels of Robert Dilts take center stage.
Dilts’ tools to transforming our inner world
Robert Dilts proposes several tools which can be of great use in order to transform our inner world. This writer, consulter and NLP specialist has divulged a set of powerful ideas which can change the way we see reality and the way we understand ourselves. Should we take a look at them?
The widening of our point of view
It’s a natural human tendency to feel like we are absolutely special and unique. We really are, but not everything that happens to us is exclusive. This means that many of the situations we live through have been experienced by other people in the past. If we are able to work on our empathy, we will gain perspective and comprehension of our own world, as well as the one that surrounds us.
That is to say that since we are a part of the world, we must try to understand others and put ourselves in their shoes. Thanks to this exercise in empathy, we will gain a much richer perspective of our own being.
A problem is an opportunity
Do you want to keep rewriting your whole being? Turn every problem into an opportunity. It’s true that it can seem pretty easy to say, but not so easy to put into practice. However, it is not impossible, and each day more and more people achieve it.
In this sense, everything will depend on how we manage failure. We can punish ourselves because of our own incapacity. But we also have the possibility to use the experience in our favor and learn from it. In this last case, it’s good to explore everything that happened and make the best we can out of the lessons received in order to improve.
Widening our temporal vision
A great phrase attributed to diverse writers and authors says “people who don’t know their own history are condemned to repeat it forever”. If we look at the past reality and the present one as unconnected pictures, we will not be able to move forward.
Actually, Dilts recommends looking at reality as if it was a movie, and not a photo album full of disconnected photographs. Everything that happens has a reason why, and its origins come from a particular situation. So, if we learn and increase our learning and skills on an ongoing basis, we will obtain great personal benefits. Look at your world as a whole, not as single experiences with no relation between each other.
Rewriting our whole being in ideas
In the end, Dilts bets for a more optimistic vision of the world. He considers that phrases such as “I am” or “you are” have a lot of power. Depending on what is accompanying these sentences, we will be able to take one personal path or another.
For example, if we say “I am worthless”, we are creating an idea which will end up getting stuck in our heads. This way, there are many chances that we will think we are really useless in the end. However, if we say to ourselves “I am fantastic”, we are establishing an idea. And this idea, when settled into our brains, gives us character, optimism and well-being.
“Every time we use the verb “to be”, we are using very powerful words, because we are defining something as an absolute truth regardless of time and in any circumstances.”
-Robert Dilts-
So, this is how Dilts considers we can rewrite our whole being. The power of our ideas and thoughts is enormous. If we manage to start using it in a more positive way, it’ll have an effect on our well-being. You already have good tools. Now, do you dare to use them in order to feel better?