Soul Smile GPS – “Script”

By Ulf Sandström – This article first appeared in the Journal of Healing and Hypnotherapy (Volume 1, March 2017) 

The Soul GPS is a hypnotic tool that I add at the end of almost every session to reinforce the positive transformations we have initiated and because it seems to be an incredibly healing and strengthening tool for any future challenges

If you are familiar with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) or if you want to google some of the components mentioned, you will recognize that this intervention contains elements of the Circle Of Excellence where you create and anchor a state of peak performance, Future Pacing – testing a new emotional state in imagined future situations, Time Line – where the new state is brought back to earlier challenges to see if the outcome is better and Perceptual Positions – where you get to see yourself and your life from different perspectives. It is in part based on research that your body can reverse engineer feel-good hormones if we smile (check the TED-talk on Power Posing by Amy Cuddy) allowing that very smile through an emotional spin to make it as large as possible and then condition it to become an anchor that re-triggers the state. It involves reframing your life into a positive although unknown outcome through this smile and then using this smile to make better decisions and face challenges with a state of resilience from this moment.

By the time I introduce this content there has already been an interview, a hypnotic induction a trance deepener and an intervention of some sort depending on the issues at hand. No two sessions are alike so try to observe the underlying patterns rather than regarding the text as a script. (My comments and reflections are in brackets).

“Now…. Imagine yourself arriving into the future, where you find yourself standing on a beach, looking out over the ocean, and you are over 100 years old, maybe even 117 – according to the Bible 120 years is fully possible for us to become already over 2000 years ago – imagine… if you have kids they are retired already… and you may feel the warm sand under the soles of your feet (kinesthetic), hearing the waves (auditive) and maybe smelling that special characteristic of a beach (olfactory) as the sun shines in a beautiful way, like a sunset or a sunrise (visual) and as in a dream a wonderful spaceship can be coming to take you to the next stage of existence… whatever that can be…

(My sessions are packed with metaphors and humor, and I find that framing our last moment as being picked up by a spaceship takes the edge of dying for most, and 117 years usually widens their perspectives. As an observation very few people have decided on a specific age they would like to reach, except in Sweden, where the song “Happy Birthday” repeats the line “may you live until 100 years of age” which I find depressing in many making all birthdays after 50 a downhill count. At least for me, singing 150 improves the mood of any birthday.)

As you imagine standing there on the beach you may realize what life was truly all about, and that so many things you thought were important at the time are completely irrelevant now, in the future, as you are summing it up…. and the only way you will know for sure that you did the right things, made te right desicions, are content with your long life, is by the smile you can find on your face, as you think of everything, what kind of smile you want to have on your face, summing up a lifetime of good and bad, ups and downs, grief, joy, disease, love, disaster, work, darkness, light and extatic moments… the kind of smile you would like to have when everything is over…

(here, that exact smile usually appears on the clients face) yes, that’s it, your body knows, because if you remember, before you ever knew anything, before you knew your name, as an infant, that looks into the eyes of a friendly person, that is safe and warm and fed, and somebody says “peek a boo” and you may giggle…. and that is the same smile, of pure simple happiness… as a red thread you may wish for throughout your life… into that future… and now spin it and make it stronger, and bigger… warmer – this is your smile, your desicion, how you want to feel about life then, looking back…

(here I put an anchor on their knee if the smile is great, which is usually is)

And now… allow that smile to enter every cell of your body and mind… this is your soul smiling through your face… allow every door to open that has to do with that smile… and let it through… like a surprise birthday party in a great story…

And in this future… back in the past, when you move forward from now… every decision you make, from what sock to put on first, what to eat, when to sleep, who to call, what career to pursue and what relations you will work for… will be led by this smile, it is the GPS of your soul.. . simply think about any decision in the past or future and try this smile, if it fits, it is the right decision, to look back on, when you are on that spaceship, 117 years old…. going back to start over…. now, letting a part of you move forward, and another part moves in the other direction, flying curiously back past 112, 105, 99… celebrating 90 line dancing on the Chinese Wall… 87, 84, 83, 72… flowing back through the future, smiling… (reinforcing with the anchor point) 68, 62… (counting backwards until we are getting close to your current age, that I always check at the interview) and now, as you are floating over the city (where we are during the session) you find that you can recognize the road you took to get here earlier today, This rolex replica watch is the result of in-depth research and development carried out by the Laboratorio di Idee within the hublot in Neuchatel. you see a window (if there is one) and behind it you can see yourself sitting with your eyes closed in a leather chair (if you are with me that’s what you will be sitting in), with that very same smile. Imagine… floating in over you and then landing in yourself in the same way you might step into a pair of well worn shoes that fit so perfectly… and when you are completely in yourself now and here and you can feel that smile, you can 1, take a moment, 2, as I count to five and you will emerge on the other side of this experience, 3, feeling the changes, 4, noticing, and remember some time if you as a child ran down to water and jumped in, or saw somebody do it, that feeling when you take a leap of faith and smile 5, now!”