NLP Exercise - The Visual Swish

The Visual Swish process can help you eliminate a bad habit by replacing a "cue image" that you directly associate with your bad habit with an "ideal self image" that represents you without that habit. You will need to create both these images in your mind's eye before you use this guided audio. The cue image should be the last thing you see before you know you will engage in your bad habit. For example, if your bad habit is scrolling on social media, your cue image might be seeing your finger about to press a social media app icon. The self image can be any image of yourself that inspires good feelings within you.

Transcript

In this guided audio,

I'm going to be talking you through the visual swish process to help you eliminate an unwanted behavior,

A bad habit of some kind.

And before you listen to this,

Please make sure that you've done the prep work so you have your cue image,

The last thing you see before you engage in your bad habit,

And your self image,

So a nice image of a version of you without this habit,

Some kind of image that you can associate with that version of you.

And so assuming that you have those two images,

Let's go ahead and get started.

So go ahead and find a comfortable position for your body.

And just begin by focusing on your breath.

And now go ahead and put both of your images in your mind's eye.

And the cue image should be big,

Front and center,

Bright.

And then the self image should be kind of small,

Maybe off to the side or down in one corner.

And now as I say swish,

Go ahead and let the cue image go,

Maybe it dissolves or zooms off into the distance,

And immediately your self image replaces it by zooming into the foreground of your mind and becoming big and bright and enticing.

Great.

So go ahead and reset your images.

Now do not swish between them to get back to the cue image.

Don't like do the process backwards.

We only want to do the process one way.

It always goes cue to self.

Let it all go.

Cue to self.

Let it all go.

So again,

Put your cue image up.

It's really big.

It's in the foreground again.

Self image is small,

Off to the side.

And again,

I say swish,

And the cue image is immediately replaced by the self image.

And we're going to do that a few more times with me just saying swish and reset.

So go ahead,

Let everything go.

Go ahead and put your cue image up.

It's big.

The self is small.

And swish.

See if you can make the self image even more inviting,

Like really lean into it.

Let it all go,

Reset,

Swish.

How bright and beautiful can you make your self image in your mind?

Really milk it.

Enjoy it.

Go ahead and let it all go.

Bring up your cue image.

Maybe the cue image is starting to become hard to hold on to.

The self image might be like jumping up like an eager puppy or something,

Which is great.

So swish.

Let it all go.

Reset your cue image,

Swish.

Let it all go.

Reset the cue image and the self image small.

Swish.

Great.

Okay,

So we are done for now.

You can go ahead and let all the images go from your mind.

And you can open your eyes if they were closed.

And that is the visual swish process.

And feel free to repeat this audio if you want to strengthen the process even more and use it for other habits that you want to break.

But that was excellent work and you should be very proud of yourself for doing that.