Bad Habits – Use the Shatter Technique to Eliminate Bad Habits
NOTE: Shatter Technique. When your brain is drawn to a picture, a picture you shatter again and again, it will have the same effect as a fingernail scratching a chalkboard. Your brain will not like it, and will not want to bring that picture back up. If you can’t bring the picture up, you won’t have it to draw you to the old habit. Especially when you put feeling in it.
“Shatter” is a technique you can use for bad habits. Today we will concentrate on the bad habit of biting your fingernails.
Make a picture in your mind of you biting your fingernails.
Make sure it is not a mirror image. (We don’t want your face in the picture, because we don’t want to shatter your face.) It’s a picture of what you see when you are putting your fingernail between your teeth, getting ready to chew on it. You can see your finger coming up, you can feel your mouth open, you know you are going to bite your fingernail, etc.
Now, what you’re going to accomplish here is shatter the feeling, the experience, not the person. So don’t put the person — “you” as you see yourself in a mirror — in the picture. Your hands are OK, or any part of your body that you can see without looking at your reflection, just not the total YOU.
Now, in your mind, feel how you feel when you bite your fingernails. Put everything in that picture that evokes negative feelings. You can feel people staring at you, looking at your weird fingernails, maybe you can feel the insecurity of biting your fingernails, or the shame. Whatever negative feelings you have, “feel” them as you look at the picture that causes them.
Pick out a picture of the worst thing you can think of happening. Like now your fingers look atrocious and you have to be in the receiving line of a wedding or something and everyone is noticing your fingernails. Or you are going to meet your new in-laws and you reach to shake their hand. When you see that picture, do you have thoughts of “I knew this would happen”, self-recrimination, etc.? Are you thinking “I am so dorky, I’ll always have terrible looking fingers.” Or “I wish I could stop biting my fingernails.” Or, “I don’t have any self-control.” Etc.?
Now that you feel really terrible, put that picture on a piece of glass “in your mind,” because that’s what you’re going to put your picture on and shatter. If you don’t feel really terrible, you need to put more feeling, more action, into the picture. Because if you use all of your senses — you hear, feel, smell, taste, see everything that pertains to that picture you have in your mind that says you ALWAYS bite your fingernails, your brain will be drawn to it. And we want your brain drawn to it, with feeling, before we shatter it.
OK, now look at the picture you’ve made and put on the piece of glass. Watch as it evokes all those feelings mentioned above and you are REALLY feeling out of control — in other words, you know you are going to bite your fingernails forever, then . . . SHATTER it!
Now, bring the picture back up, then SHATTER it! Bring it back up again, and shatter it 6 more times.
Now after all those times of shattering it, when you try to bring the picture back up, CAN YOU?
Most people can’t. Or if they do, it shatters automatically! Or if they do, there is no feeling. Like the picture doesn’t mean anything to them.
Believe me, this works. So if the old feelings come back the next day, just SHATTER the picture 6 more times. Pretty soon your brain will get the idea for good.
Thanks for reading,
Jan
About the Author:
Tags: Bad Habits, insecurity, negative feelings, mirror image, fingernail, bad habit, recrimination, fingernails “Shatter” is a technique you can use for bad habits. Today we will concentrate on the bad habit of biting your fingernails.
Make a picture in your mind of you biting your fingernails.
Make sure it is not a mirror image. (We don’t want your face in the picture, because we don’t want to shatter your face.) It’s a picture of what you see when you are putting your fingernail between your teeth, getting ready to chew on it. You can see your finger coming up, you can feel your mouth open, you know you are going to bite your fingernail, etc.
Now, what you’re going to accomplish here is shatter the feeling, the experience, not the person. So don’t put the person — “you” as you see yourself in a mirror — in the picture. Your hands are OK, or any part of your body that you can see without looking at your reflection, just not the total YOU.
Now, in your mind, feel how you feel when you bite your fingernails. Put everything in that picture that evokes negative feelings. You can feel people staring at you, looking at your weird fingernails, maybe you can feel the insecurity of biting your fingernails, or the shame. Whatever negative feelings you have, “feel” them as you look at the picture that causes them.
Pick out a picture of the worst thing you can think of happening. Like now your fingers look atrocious and you have to be in the receiving line of a wedding or something and everyone is noticing your fingernails. Or you are going to meet your new in-laws and you reach to shake their hand. When you see that picture, do you have thoughts of “I knew this would happen”, self-recrimination, etc.? Are you thinking “I am so dorky, I’ll always have terrible looking fingers.” Or “I wish I could stop biting my fingernails.” Or, “I don’t have any self-control.” Etc.?
Now that you feel really terrible, put that picture on a piece of glass “in your mind,” because that’s what you’re going to put your picture on and shatter. If you don’t feel really terrible, you need to put more feeling, more action, into the picture. Because if you use all of your senses — you hear, feel, smell, taste, see everything that pertains to that picture you have in your mind that says you ALWAYS bite your fingernails, your brain will be drawn to it. And we want your brain drawn to it, with feeling, before we shatter it.
OK, now look at the picture you’ve made and put on the piece of glass. Watch as it evokes all those feelings mentioned above and you are REALLY feeling out of control — in other words, you know you are going to bite your fingernails forever, then . . . SHATTER it!
Now, bring the picture back up, then SHATTER it! Bring it back up again, and shatter it 6 more times.
Now after all those times of shattering it, when you try to bring the picture back up, CAN YOU?
Most people can’t. Or if they do, it shatters automatically! Or if they do, there is no feeling. Like the picture doesn’t mean anything to them.
Believe me, this works. So if the old feelings come back the next day, just SHATTER the picture 6 more times. Pretty soon your brain will get the idea for good.
Thanks for reading,
Jan
About the Author:
If you like Jan Tincher’s articles, you’ll love her Success Tips! Cl’ck here to sub’scribe! mailto:successtips1@getresponse.com When you do, you will be sent her new ebook, “Tame Your Brain For Success!” Jan Tincher, Master Neuro-Linguistic Programmer & Hypnotherapist, is a nationally recognized expert in Hypnotherapy & Neuro-Linguistic Programming. She teaches strategies and techniques that help people find success. She is an award winning author, and has written hundreds of articles that show people how to live healthier, happier lives. You can read her articles at Self Help Advice Web Site
