“Oh My God!!! This IS weird… My issue TOTALLY disappeared!!!” – Part One (originally published in 2004)

…Or words to that effect are something I hear pretty much every day for a while since I started doing breakthrough sessions over the phone (mostly phobias, but also other issues) using Time Line Therapy®.

During a period of time, before working with the Tad James Co., I have coached close to 500 clients (maybe more) – and the results are amazing, day after day! People LOVE Time Line Therapy®â€¦ because IT WORKS!!!

As a certified trainer of NLP, sure there are other quick “fixes” I could use – however, I find that Time Line Therapy® always gets the lasting results – instantly, and also consistency over time.

When I started doing this kind of phone breakthrough/phobia sessions, I have asked myself how can I explain Time Line Therapy® over the phone in such a way that the client will understand it AND will do it correctly?  After all, I am deprived of a very important representational system – the visual is missing…

I have found that, if I give the client some important frames before doing Time Line Therapy® , and if I put it correctly in the 4-Mat (which is a topic I learned partly in the NLP Master Practitioner, but mostly in the NLP Trainer’s Training)  people who are serious about releasing the problem WILL release it – and it takes between 5-10 minutes per negative emotion/limiting decision to release it… for good! And, by the way, pre-framing the 5-10 minutes per negative emotion makes it so in over 95% of the cases!

So, before doing Time Line Therapy® as an intervention, I explain to the client that Unconscious Mind is in charge of organizing memories in regards to time, so they know the difference between something that happened yesterday and something that happened several years ago, AND something that didn’t happen yet, but it will (like their successful behavior – and what a wonderful opportunity to insert here a powerful set of suggestions).

Spotting secondary gain early in the piece will save the coach countless reframes if the issue isn’t released (because either the Conscious Mind or the Unconscious Mind refuses to cooperate, based on the secondary gain). The 4 questions from the Keys to An Achievable Outcome (What would/wouldn’t happen if/if not…) handles that quite beautifully!

Next step is (for smoking out client’s said or unsaid doubts – “Will I do it correctly?”) explaining that the Unconscious Mind does ANYWAY the process of releasing Negative Emotions and Limiting Decisions and it does it in a various number of ways (and then I demonstrate to them that they’ve done it in the past, without knowing Time Line Therapy®). It ALWAYS works and I sometimes hear sighs of release…

Next is the explanation of the “Root cause, 1^st time event” vs. “1^st event you remember”. This step also lets them off the hook in thinking “What if I don’t remember the event? Or I get the wrong one?”. Basically, it installs the belief that, if they follow instructions, they WILL get it right!

I have had “resistant” clients who, due to excessive control issues or Limiting Decisions, at first have not responded to Time Line Therapy® (usually because of a Limiting Decisions in place that they can’t do it). A quick NLP Submodalities Belief Change will get rid of that, so Time Line Therapy® can kick in and work.

Next step is explaining how the Unconscious Mind will respond to the questioning process, and that they should take the first answer that comes to them, as opposed to thinking about it. I also preframe that, should I have a feeling they’re thinking rather than answering, I will push them – and at that stage, if I do it, they won’t abreact to this. We have a lot of rapport built up, and they understand that I am just trying to help them through their own barriers.

I have also found useful explaining the placement of the Root Cause – something that I don’t do in face-to-face sessions, but I find it very useful in phone sessions. That is, giving the clients the whole range of possibilities, so they don’t limit themselves or think that “it can’t be this way”. This is especially useful for Past Life and/or Genealogical root cause event.

Giving the client a short example of each takes only a few minutes, but displaces conscious resistance, or uncertainly. I started doing this after observing that at times I needed to handle (in the middle of the questioning process) the question “what do you mean, during or before your birth?”…

In the overall success of the coaching, a very strong impact has the explanation of the 3 necessary steps for a change to be permanent: (1) getting rid of the “stuff” from the past (Negative Emotions and Limiting Decisions), integrating parts and creating the future; then (2) focus on what they want and (3) taking action. Especially the step relating to focus – if this isn’t explained properly, clients may start doubting and therefore the negative focus gives negative suggestions to their Unconscious Mind which could lead to the possibility of the problem re-appearing later on.

In this case, it isn’t about Time Line Therapy® not working, but about of the deficient focus re-creating the problem (and, of course, a recovery strategy not being yet installed or mentally practiced).

Doing a test drive of the Time Line before the actual intervention will act as a convincer that the process is easy and the client can then focus solely on releasing the issue, rather than on the technicality of the technique.

Beneficial in not interrupting the process for additional explanations is also explaining to the client what constitutes learnings (i.e. always positive, for themselves only and future oriented). Sometimes telling them what the learnings are NOT (“that nasty man shouldn’t have done that to me”) virtually eliminates this kind of pseudo-learnings.

I remember training with Tad in Australia in 1998 and students getting quite “creative” in terms of the script of the Time Line Therapy®. And also remember Tad repeating to us, over and over again “Stick to the script! There’s a reason the script is this way; the use of language is very important here, so stick to the script!”

It is totally true – the way the script is laid out presupposes success at the technique (there’s quite a lot of usage of temporal language and other linguistic tools that achieves this effect) – so I can only say the same thing, having worked with many clients: stick to the script!

I have also found that using a hypnotic, trance-like voice… (Continued in Part Two)