- Ask your client to close their eyes and bring to mind something about themselves that they would like to be different.
- Ask them how they feel when they bring this to mind.
- Then ask them how they would feel if this were to go away.
- Ask them to really feel their way into this, the richness, expansiveness, etc. That this is how not having the problem would feel.
- Now point out to them the curious fact that, how they want to feel (i.e. when the thing is no longer here), they already feel!
Commentary: This can be a shock to see this. If it is, stay with that experience for a while. In some mysterious sense, they only need to imagine something going away and they have what they want.
Then we can explain how this can be used in life.
If we want something to happen, we often frame it in terms of what we lack. So we end up doing the “don’t think of an elephant” thing: we think of what we don’t want. Our orientation is towards something bad. In our communication with others in the world, this will show up.
Alternatively, if we soak into how it will feel to have the thing we want, we frame ourselves as if we already have it, and act accordingly, people will see us differently - they will see someone confident and are generally attracted to that.
Note, this can feel like lying. It isn’t. We aren’t changing the truth, we are just changing the emotional story, which is less concerned about conceptual truth or falsehood - it is much more about motivation.
Note: the term “Hootlessness” is derived from the American English expression: “Not giving a hoot”. It was coined by Lester Levenson, and is used extensively in the Sedona Method.