NLP and "The Original Belief Process"

by Wolfgang Bernard

When you say "I", to whom is that you refer? You may respond: "me  or "I am the one who sees, hears, feels, etc.  We could call that "I  our identity, that is, the "I" that we think we are: the grand total of all our beliefs, ideas, behaviors, habits and feelings.

We are born with the potential to feel, to think, to believe along with many other mental and emotional faculties. We know that our beliefs change during our lifetime, the way we think changes, and our inner states change as well as our feelings about someone or something else.

Yet, through all of this, there is still a feeling that there is something present within us that has never changed. That feeling of "I am, I exist" makes it seem like something has been there ever since we started thinking. But, all that we call our feelings, our beliefs, our thoughts are always changing, so are they that unchangeable "me"? Can I really define myself by all of this? The answer is: No. None of those could possibly produce a continuity congruent enough to give us the impression of possessing a permanent, never changing "I".

If I want to know who I am, it may be helpful to think of who I am not:
Since I am able to observe my thoughts, I must be something other than thought. ("Who is it that thinks?")

I can experience my feelings, so I must be something other than my feelings. ("Who is it that feels?")

I can forget memories and yet I continue to exist, so I cannot be my memory. ("Who remembers?")

So, How did it happen that this person we call "I  came to be us? How were we tricked into thinking that we possess a genuine, authentic "I"? And if we aren't what we think, feel, believe, who are we?

If we start from the presupposition that beliefs are not innate to the human being but acquired during life, then we can group them in the functional logical level where all forms of learning and acquisition are classed. This is a different level than the presensory* logical level of being.

What is a belief? A belief is a generalization created in response to one or several significant experiences. It can be the source of an opening up, or a limitation. If I'm profoundly convinced of something, for me it is self-evident, a fact that needs no evidence to support it. It becomes a "just-the-way-it-is"-ism. A person does not need to verbalize or consciously validate their beliefs. Depending on the quality of the beliefs entertained, a person will succeed or fail in the areas from which they operate.

Since the greater part of the beliefs that we maintain are outside of our field of conscious perception, NLP has developed tools allowing us to uncover them, in order to be able to re-evaluate them in the event that we want to update and enhance our model of reality.

I'd like to suggest that the reader pause for a moment of reflection about the convictions that he had during childhood, or adolescence. As a child, who didn't believe in Santa Claus? And it's perfectly healthy and even indispensable for a child to create beliefs to be able to assert himself. As a teenager, beliefs become opinions to defend, opinions often opposed to those held by the parents or society. From these opinions stem the judgments and beliefs that we form about events, about others, and also about ourselves.

Why is it that we attach so much importance to beliefs, opinions, and judgments?

Beliefs tend to maintain the feeling of subjective existence. To put it simply, we believe in our beliefs in order to take care of ourselves. What would happen to us if we did not believe in our beliefs anymore?

NLP training assists us in dealing with problems in specific ways that allow us to know ourselves better, to intervene therapeutically, or improve the comfort of our life. NLP also can be used to question the belief that generates all other beliefs - the belief that makes us believe in beliefs - which I have called: Original Belief.

Original Belief is the structure on which we weave what we call our identity.

Establishing an identity is indispensable to become an adult and to learn the rules of society. Through it we learn how to process language, interact socially, and see to it that our needs are met. Thanks to Original Belief, we access language on the level of representations and models where we are able to learn and retain what we have learned.  However, once this has been accomplished, Original Belief becomes an obstacle for those who have the desire to uncover the hidden meaning of life.

I suggest that we continue with the following presupposition:

The acquisition of a (separating) identity automatically results in the alienation of our innermost being, which is situated beyond beliefs and beyond identity. We could call it the no-beliefs realm.

Questioning Original Belief means re-evaluating our identity to the very depths of our innermost being and letting go of the existential reference points which we have become accustomed to since early childhood in order to reconnect with where we come from: the dimension of pre-sensory perception.

We often encounter the disagreeable feeling of Original Belief in our everyday life -- when we're bored, when we feel hurt, when we're in conflict with ourselves or others, when we experience betrayals, disappointments, injustice, and especially when someone we love dies. All these events that we would like to do without in life force us to brutally confront the reality of our solitude, and highlight the roots of our identity. At the same time, they offer the opportunity to truly work upon ourselves, on our Original Belief; not to run away from it or repress it, but to become aware of its mechanisms. In other words, although necessary to become an adult, Original Belief can be considered as the wound of all wounds that we have experienced in life, and at the same time, the carrier of a seed of evolution towards authentic freedom. The very quality of this freedom is liberation from all kinds of "hassles  inherent to our identity; some of the minor side effects may include an abolishment of boredom, disappointment and internal conflict, the healing of all past events and enhanced levels of sensory perception.

Approaching our Original Belief in the context of a seminar requires rigorous mental training because we confront, question and re-evaluate the meaning that, until now, we have given to our individual existence.

NLP training can fulfill practically all the demands concerning this, as long as it's done by a person who has already uncovered their Original Belief.

One important requirement that NLP can't deliver is an absolute sincerity towards ourselves. In exposing ourselves to the very foundations of what constitutes the identity, we authorize ourselves to be permeable and to be open to the experience of a very special kind of agony. The intensity of the feeling is of quite another quality when compared to all the physical or moral pain that we have known in our lives up until now. At a certain point in this work we risk the realization that we have built an entire life running away from the pain of the rupture that was caused through the birth of the separating identity in childhood. Only great sincerity towards ourselves will allow us to progress and to penetrate ever further into the abyss that has opened in the depths of ourselves.

After a few preparatory exercises, the participant begins by associating himself with an unpleasant event in his life, or a negative belief that he has about herself. Next, he confronts himself with the question, "What does this bring me back to in myself?  He will have answered the question once the response sends him back to a feeling that is even more unpleasant than the one before.

Little by little, each participant goes down in graduated steps and at their own pace, into their own miserable abyss, to encounter more and more conflict in themselves. Through the NLP preparation acquired beforehand, they are able to interrupt the process at any point and rest for awhile, and look for new resources to begin again. Respecting our own ecology is not only desirable, but even indispensable to make it to the end of the process. For most participants, it's the first time in their lives that they have gone towards inner torment rather than avoiding it. This process continues just until a kind of implosion of the structure of identity occurs. The implosion leaves behind nothing. At this point, it is possible to understand "pure perception". An unaltered bliss and/or immense wonderment may also accompany this realization

(Note: The essence of what is proposed cannot be acquired according to the formula, "Do this and you'll get that". The written instructions for unearthing Original Belief take up two pages. Including them here might give the erroneous impression that there's a recipe to follow to obtain a desired outcome, and therefore I have abstained from giving further instructions. Of course, in my seminars I propose a general procedure, but during the exercises there is permanent improvisation, and more specific applications rise from the circumstances of the moment. The exercises take place over a period of two to three days, through the energy of the group's dynamics acting as the catalyst. I synchronize myself spontaneously and intuitively with the individual progress of each participant. At first, I am the only one to visit the subgroups and to accompany the process. Then, when a person 'experiences' the 'breakthrough', the underlying coherence in the progression of the exercises is revealed and he will in turn be able to accompany the others. Since there is no specific procedure, in my book I have included a few testimonies.)

This work on Original Belief is somewhat beyond the "regular"  framework of NLP training. We place ourselves in a situation a little like a flight simulator, which simulates possible events that we might encounter in reality. It's through this "training  that the participant can modify his inner attitude - when he encounters difficult situations in daily life after that, he will not only have the choice of running away from the inner torment that immediately rises up, but also the choice of confronting himself with the ramifications of the separating syndrome of his Original Belief. The nervous system cannot adapt to a life without Original Belief all at once. So it is useful to observe ourselves regularly, particularly during emotionally difficult situations where we habitually have reactions against the other person or against ourselves. Generally speaking, in these situations, we find aspects of our Original Belief that we hadn't yet taken into consideration.

Essential Value emerges when Original Belief loosens it's grip. Each human being is genetically different from another - the same is true of Essential Value. For the person who becomes the living expression of their Essential Value there are multiple implications. Since it brings us back to our profound vocation, it automatically leads to a commitment towards ourselves. Contrary to criteria, which motivate or demotivate, there is no longer a question of stimulants - the person who expresses this value accomplishes their existential duty without asking (themselves) any questions. It isn't a question of whether he wants to or not, whether he is motivated or not. The unearthing of Essential Value is an existential event, that goes straight to the heart of human nature. It's an explosive episode that, temporarily, puts into perspective all the criteria for which we have lived until now, and from which arose what we can call "personal interest". Essential Value refers to a level not only of recognition of self, but simultaneously of recognition of existence, of life, of creation. Personal value is linked with the value of all that exists.

(* Footnote: The pre-sensory level refers to the "unspeakable  of Alfred Korzybsky, page 394, Science and Sanity. Lakeville: The International Non-Aristotelian Library, 1933)