That Was A Big One, Wasn't It?

Back in 2005, I attended Tony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within Firewalk Seminar in Birmingham. That would be the first of 5 UPWs that I would do over the next few years. As usual it was awesome, but a bonus weekend of training that came as part of the bundle deal that I signed up for is what would change my direction…

Skills of Power was presented by Bob Bays [ex-husband of Brandon Bays, author of The Journey, an emotional release method for clearing up issues from your past] and it was mind blowing, but it was what happened at the end that I want to talk about here…

For people who’d done the Robbins events there was a monthly meeting called the Your Excellence Succeeds Group, or YES Group for short. They met in London every month and were growing steadily. A great way to keep up the momentum and revisit the NLP skills you’d learned – a step so often missing from personal growth seminars.

The YES Group was for Tony Robbins fans and people who’d done his seminars. That night they were looking for volunteers to start similar groups all over the UK, and bizarrely I ended up being volunteered to host one in Scotland. Coincidence? Could be…

So I’m now in charge of the YES Group in Scotland, which I launched in 1995 in Glasgow. Our first speaker was Brandon Bays and we had 70 guests in the room. But as the months went by the numbers dwindled and it was starting to falter…

So I decided to travel down to London to model the YES Group there, because they were always full and had over 50 members attending every month.  NLP teaches to model what works, right? So I went to the London Group and carefully noted EVERYTHING they were doing. But here’s where it gets really interesting…

The guest speaker was an NLP Master Trainer, and he did a live demo of a technique that I hadn’t come across yet – called Time Line Therapy®. The idea is that your brain stores memories in spatial locations, so that when someone says “put it behind you” or “one day you’ll look back on this and laugh”, they really mean their past memories are BEHIND them.

Think about that – every day you hear people say “I can’t see past it” or they point in one direction when they talk about the past, and lean in another direction when they talk about the future. Think about your dialogue – where is your past, when you talk about it? And where’s your future? Do you “look forward” to things?

On the course the Trainer did a live demo – a woman from the audience had some past hurts from the past, and it was blocking her from being who she wanted to be. I remember that he used a weird shamanistic music track to help the trance induction, and best of all the woman had a massive shift and came out of it CHANGED! She told him he’d added YEARS to her life right there. And it took minutes! And I thought – I have to learn how to do that!

So in 1997 I was attending my 3rd NLP Practitioner course as a student. This time it was a training that incorporated not only NLP, but also Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy®. And it was run by the same Trainer that I’d experienced at the YES Group in London. I HAD to learn this Time Line stuff!
The Trainer again offered to do a live demo, as all good trainers should be able to do, and asked if anyone suffered from a recurring negative emotion – like anger, sadness, fear or guilt? Anxiety had always been my thing, and so I volunteered. Scared and not that happy to be sitting in the front of the room with all eyes upon me, I wanted the fear gone, so up I went…

He asked me “What is the root cause of anxiety – the very first event – which when disconnected, will cause all of the fear to disappear, easily and effortlessly?”  “Two minutes after birth” I heard myself say. Dunno where that came from, but that’s what I heard myself say.So he started the tinkly music, and I closed my eyes, and I imagined floating all the way back to 2 minutes after my birth. And suddenly I’m visualising a delivery room, my mother with her feet up in stirrups, and I’m looking though my own eyes – watching her through what seems like a crash helmet – green plastic surrounding a clear plastic visor.

The nurses and doctors had just walked out, I’ve been wheeled to the other side of the room from her and the fear is HER’S! As soon as I realised that the emotions were coming from her, I juddered, because that’s how I release emotions. There’s an involuntary spasm almost, and it’s gone. I love that – I can actually tell if I’ve let something go or not. No judder, no release. So I opened my eyes, felt a wave of exhaustion, and the Trainer said to me,

“That was a big one, wasn’t it?” and everybody laughed.

So I walked woozily back to my chair, and the seminar continued. The Fear had gone. And I couldn’t wait to phone home…

Picture the scene – from a telephone box in Edgeware in London I called my mother. What would you say if it was you?  I cautiously broached the subject with “What happened after I was just born – what do you remember?” and she asked “Why do you ask?” “Oh it’s just me doing one of my wacky seminars. You know me.” She then told me that I popped out, the nurse wrapped me in blankets and put me into this small trolley, and wheeled me to the other side of the room. They then proceeded to leave the delivery room, where she was all alone, in a pool of her own juices, and her newborn baby crying from the trolley on the far side of the room.“I was scared, I didn’t know where they’d gone and why you were so far away from me. All I could hear was you crying – and I remember it vividly – you were over there… in that plastic trolley, It was green plastic, with clear plastic walls…“

I shuddered for a second time.

“I’ve never told anyone that before – why do you ask?”

That was it. I was sold.

And that was my first personal experience of Time Line Therapy®… and what inspired me to do NLP Practitioner, Master Practitioner, and NLP Trainers Training with Drs. Tad & Adriana James and NLPCoaching.com.