Recently, I saw a lovely demo of an NLP process by Yukari Horiguchi at the NLP Connections Japan meeting in Tokyo. Yukari used to work at Godiva Chocolate and it reminded me of an NLP Process that I occasionally use with clients called The Godiva Chocolate Process. I have found it very useful in helping clients to overcome procrastination. You can find one version of it here.
Like many NLP processes, the Godiva Chocolate process has the client associate into a problem situation, then find a resource in a dissociated situation, and apply the resource to the situation/trigger that used to be a problem until now.
In the process, the client thinks of a task or job that has to be done, but which he or she is procrastinating about, or isn’t really enjoying very much. And if the client has to the job, wouldn’t it be better to enjoy it, to have the same kind of compulsion and enjoyment towards the job as they might have towards something really nice like Godiva Chocolate.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be Godiva (any great chocolate will do, although I recommend European!) or indeed anything else that the client feels compelled towards.
The process is quite similar to the better-known Swish pattern. The client first associates into the problem situation and then opens up a hole in the picture to reveal themselves eating the Godiva chocolate behind. This is carried out enough times that it becomes an automatic response and the good feelings/compulsion attached to the chocolate become attached to the previously unenjoyed task.
Yukari raised a good question. This process is clearly aimed at visual people, but what about people with a strong auditory primary representational system? And indeed, it is not just this process, but many processes in NLP that address the primarily visual person.
In the recent book, Provocative Hypnosis (see review), the author points out that most NLP processes work best with people who have strong V-K synysthesia, and that these type of people are generally spotted by the trainers in workshops and used as workshop demo subjects.
In Part 2 of this article, I will take a look (or listen for!) some ways that we can adapt the Godiva Chocolate process for an auditory PRS and in more general terms, consider how we can make things ‘sound right’ or ‘resonate’ with these people in a way that they can ‘tune into’ the process and really use it to create ‘harmony’.