Free Free Yourself from Fears by Joseph O'Connor Page B

can act and feel. Intellectually, people put their focus on one as opposed to the others. For example:
    J Some people believe that the past is the most important. The past makes people who they are now and determines what they do in the future.
    J Other people believe that the present is the most important. They say that we live in a system of complex cause and effect and we should seek to understand what is happening now in order to know what to do in the future. The present determines what is possible. The past is not important.
    J Other people say that the future is most important. The past gives us resources to achieve the future we want. Our present desires depend on our future goals.
    All of these views have some truth, but none is the whole truth.
    Perhaps St. Augustine had the best insight in the quote at the FREE YOURSELF FROM FEARS
    beginning of this chapter. The present can change our view of the past and open a new future that we never dreamed was possible. Equally, it can shut off future possibilities.
    We are always in the present, and can choose to make the past or the future alive by thinking about it now.
    The circles test
    There is an interesting exercise developed originally by Thomas Cottle to discover how people approach time. It is known as the
    “circles test.” Try it now. Draw three circles in any way you choose and label them, one representing the past, one representing the present, and one representing the future. Arrange these circles however you want to show the relationship between the three.
    Draw your circles here:
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    Now look at what you have drawn:
    Which is the biggest circle?
    This can give an indication about which of the three you find the most important.
    Where are the circles?
    The usual arrangement is for the past, present, and future circles to go left to right, in the same order as we read.
    Do they all overlap? Is one circle detached from the others? Which circles have the biggest overlap?
    What does this tell you about the way you see the past, present, and future interacting?
    Unreal fear in the past
    Unreal fear can come from the past. For example, a person may think back to something awful that happened and feel frightened again. An extreme case is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), where a person has had a traumatic experience of war or torture, abuse, or extreme fear, and the memory continues to torment them, sometimes for many years afterward. They cannot deal with the trauma; the body replays it to try to master it. PTSD is beyond the scope of this book, but there are NLP patterns that have been used with good results with victims of torture and abuse (see the reference section on page 241).
    Fear of the past usually comes from reviewing an unpleasant experience and feeling anxious about it; for example, giving a very bad speech and wincing every time you remember it. These memories can still intrude in the present and create anxiety. The following NLP pattern can help get rid of this anxiety and stop it spoiling your life in 65

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    the present. You cannot change the past, you can only learn from it.
    This pattern helps you do that.
    Skill for freedom
    Learning from the past
    This pattern helps you to learn from the past instead of being afraid of it. It is not suitable for a bad trauma or phobia.
    1 Think back to the experience that still makes you anxious. As you do so, stay outside the experience. Make sure that you see yourself in that situation as if on a television or movie screen.You are dissociated from the picture.
    2 As you watch this memory unfold from this dissociated point of view, notice what happened at the time, what other people did that contributed to the situation, and how it was impossible for you to control it all.
    3 Come out of the memory and start to analyze what happened. How might you avoid similar circumstances in the future?
    4 What were you trying to achieve? What did you want to happen?
    5 With the