NLP
lucky and have money. On reflection Bev actually thought it was a bit well paid, job but lives at home with her parents, still occupying her
more of a family story of why her father had never worked and spent childhood bedroom with its pastel wallpaper, dolls and soft toys. She feels
most of his time down the betting office. Bev worked hard, deemed that “Real life had never started”.
herself lucky but could never understand why money constantly slipped Once Alice had understood this she rapidly came across many
through her fingers. Going through the belief audit process she updated misinterpreted beliefs and began the process of updating them. These
the belief to, “It is better to be lucky and rich”. misinterpreted beliefs only came to the surface after she had worked
You could spend a lifetime with insidious beliefs and not realise just through her empowering beliefs and her limiting beliefs. In the light of
how much they are controlling your behaviour. this work it became necessary to revisit and in some cases update her
The advice “Be careful what you ask for…” applies particularly to a empowering beliefs. “It’s great that I still look young” had taken on a
group of beliefs that we have named Misinterpreted beliefs. new meaning.
Misinterpretation can cause a belief to be developed in quite a There is a definite and designed process to the belief audit. It is a spiral
different way from the original intention. This can happen when the of identifying beliefs peeling them back, checking them, and aligning
surface structure of a belief is ambiguous belying the intention of the them so that you can be, do and have whatever you want and you might
deep structure. Robert tells the story of his mother passing on her even find a new purpose to your life.
belief that “You can’t beat the Bookie” which he interpreted (or, from
his mother’s point of view misinterpreted) by becoming the Bookie and
www.Treaclenlptraining.co.uk
successfully running a book at school, leaving with no A levels and three
(some might say colourful) years wasted.
The ramification later in life of having no
qualifications he puts down to “Being a
smartass” and to not trying because of the
belief that you can’t beat the system.
This is a rebellious misinterpretation as
is often demonstrated by teenagers. The
other way a belief can be misinterpreted is
unconsciously.
Consider the belief “You’re only young
once”. This advice was given to Alice many
times during her childhood. She remembers
it as ‘a family mantra’ and agrees that it was
probably intended to mean “Enjoy life”.
During a belief audit Alice came to see that
some part of her had interpreted it differently.
As a result she felt that had not been allowing
herself to grow up.
Alice defined her own misinterpretation:
• “You’re only young once”.
• “You’re” meant Alice specifically
• “only” made this is a limiting belief
• “young” implied that time was slipping
away, it is being young that is desirable,
therefore she must remain young
• “once” there wasn’t going to be another
chance, she felt she must ensure that she
never allowed ageing to begin.
This belief, this part in her unconscious, had
been dominating her reality and preventing
her growing into adulthood both physically
and emotionally. Alice, now in her thirties
suffers anorexia. She had been eating only
boiled sweets preventing her body developing
into that of a woman. She has a responsible,
34 | Summer 2009 - rapport
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