IV. Pumping Feelings into Other People Before we examine the structure of female emotion, and therefore how to rapidly induce intense emotional states in women using words alone, we’re first going to cover some basic techniques for ramping up anyone’s feelings. We’re going to look at how you communicate powerfully. Communicating powerfully is about inducing emotional states in other people. Not random emotional states, because everyone induces emotional states in other people all the time—oftentimes, the wrong emotional states--but specific emotional states, the emotional states you want, the emotional states that will produce the results you want and give you real satisfaction. Let’s consider, briefly, some of the tools and principles of powerful communication. A. Verbal Stimulation. First, the principle of stimulation, also known as “The Pink Elephant Principle,” because when I tell you not to think of a pink elephant, not to imagine its pink trunk, not to think of its tail flicking back and forth, not to think of its big floppy pink ears, you inevitably think of a pink elephant anyway. To make sense of what I’m saying, you create in your mind some experience of a pink elephant—what it would look like, or the sounds it would make, or what its skin would feel like under your hand. What you describe, your listener will experience, if only to understand what you are saying. The more vivid your description, the more your listener will respond as if he or she is directly experiencing what you describe, with all the emotions that follow from the experience. B. Don’t Equals Do. This is a corollary of the Pink Elephant Principle. When I tell you not to do X, or that there’s no such thing as X, or that X is impossible, you still imagine X and feel a response to X. “There’s no way you can use words to touch women’s deepest emotions and arouse them fantastically quickly.”“Don’t think about using these techniques over and over again, until they’re as natural as breathing.” “Don’t think about what it would feel like to fall in love right now.” “There’s no way you can fall in love with me.” C. Imagery. Make your description vivid by using specific sensory details—colors, sounds, textures. You can make reference to a lagoon, or you can evoke an experience of a bowl of water nestling, hidden between two high banks, with the light blue water’s surface glittering beneath the sun, one edge churning beneath a small waterfall, the tiny crests created by the falling water glinting again and again, as the water moves in a leisurely flow into the jungle which surrounds it. Words exist to create experiences in those who hear or read them—the listener converts what he or she hears into visual images, tactile feelings, sounds, smells, and tastes. You can make the listener’s experience much, much richer by stating explicitly what to see and hear and feel. When you do this, your listener, instead of needing to interpret your language with her intellect, will respond with her imagination, and therefore her body and her emotions. Abundant imagery can entrance her and lead her into a fantasy world. D. Similarity. Similarity creates emotional connection, agreement, and comfort—the more similar your listener feels, the more thoroughly she will respond physically and emotionally to the imagery you present. Also, the greater the degree of rapport—the greater the degree of comfort and connection--, the more easily and readily will she supply relevant meanings for whatever vague, abstract language you employ. Simply put, the greater the degree of your rapport with your listener, the more persuasive and powerful your words will be. That said, how do you create rapport? Number one, Matching your listener’s outward expressions—that is, her bodily rhythms and physical state. Number two, acknowledging or, better yet, seeming to match your listener’s inner world—that is, her perceptions, beliefs, and assumptions. You can match your listener’s bodily expressions in some of the following ways: Adopt your listener’s posture, so that if she’s standing, you stand also; if her arms are crossed, you cross your arms also; if she’s plowing her hand through her hair, you run your hand through your hair also. For that matter, when she blinks, you can blink also; when she inhales, you can do the same. You can even talk…at the same tempo…that your listener…breathes. This is called hypnotic tempo, and has a very… powerful… impact… on whoever…is listening. Your mirroring should become more and more exact; subtle and partial at first, then more and more complete. Typically, when it comes to rhythmic behavior, like blinking, a feedback loop will be established: she’ll blink, you blink back, and then she’ll blink back faster, etc. Matching someone’s behavior causes them to feel similar to you, and as the feeling of similarity strengthens, they’ll begin to match you in response. You can also match someone’s beliefs, emotions, and ideas. In fact, when you say several things in a row which match someone’s beliefs, they start focusing on what you’re saying to the exclusion of other input. Why? Because you are giving them the truth, as they perceive it, and the unconscious mind, the instincts crave good, accurate feedback. Therefore, when you tell people things that match what they already believe or which match what their senses tell them, they feel close to you, focus on what you’re saying, and respond much more powerfully to whatever you tell them—in fact, if you say many many things in a row which match their beliefs, they will go into the focused, emotionally engaged, emotionally accepting state we call trance. E. Vagueness. How do you know what to say, in order to match your listener’s beliefs? Well, sometimes you don’t know—so just use vague language, language that doesn’t specify how what you are talking about looks like, feels like, sounds like, tastes like, or smells like. Let your listener’s imagination fill in the gaps. Why should you use vague language? Because if you have rapport—if you are matching the listener’s beliefs, so that your listener begins to instinctively trust what you say—your listener will fill your vague, abstract language with content which is meaningful and appropriate to her. If you say, “I saw a great painting the other day—its colors were rust and purple and yellow and black,” well, she might not think those colors are the basis of a beautiful painting. You might break rapport. If you just say, “I saw a beautiful, beautiful painting the other day,” and look and sound as if you were, at that very moment, seeing a beautiful painting, that would likely be quite sufficient to help her feel as if she was seeing a beautiful painting. An abstract word, a word with no specific sensory information—no indication as to what should be seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted—is like a big net being dragged through the ocean. An empty word, backed by rapport, gathers meaning and substance, just as the net, though empty, catches fish, and gathers weight. The greater your rapport, the more likely your listener will fill the net with meanings that he or she will agree with, which in turn will deepen her rapport and lead her more deeply into a receptive state. This is why many hypnotists, and many politicans, and many preachers, beyond a certain point in their presentations, speak almost entirely in abstractions. They’ve matched your beliefs, secured the trust of your instincts, and built emotional momentum, so now they can be increasingly vague while the vague things they say seem increasingly true and feel increasingly compelling. Be specific, describing things in terms of the senses, to engage the imagination; be similar, to create rapport; and then be vague, to encourage your listener’s imagination and emotions forward in the directions you’ve established. Once you secure rapport, vagueness intensifies rapport. F. Stories. When you present a story, your listener tends to go into a trance state and feel the emotions that the characters in the story feel—and then they will apply these emotions to the present moment and situation. This is why good public speakers so often tell stories—they’re an express lane to the emotions. When you tell lots of stories about people getting excited and being motivated and making lots of money, for example, your listeners will start to get excited and motivated and they’ll start thinking about making money. When you tell someone stories about people falling in love or people having sex, she’ll start to think about what these things feel like, and she’ll become aroused. And because you are talking about other people’s experiences, your listener will tend not to be embarrassed—after all, you aren’t telling her to fall in love, you’re telling her what your friend Karen felt like when she fell in love. When you use stories, you can even insert direct commands to your listener, without taking responsibility for them. “So the guy said to this other guy, ‘I want you to remember this! Use lots and lots of stories! People eat stories up and feel what you describe!’” “My friend Julia said this Italian man suddenly stood up, gripped her chin, looked in her eyes, and said, ‘We are going to make love tonight!’ Strange, huh?” G. Stimulus-Response Emotions are associative; they get linked to particular stimuli, and one of these stimuli can later revive that emotion, even if there’s no logical connection between the stimulus itself and the emotion. If, for example, you had a truly wonderful sexual experience last week with a woman wearing capri pants, you may suddenly find yourself feeling very good the next time you see someone wearing capri pants, even if you don’t remember why. Your lover may use a particular tone of voice when she says your name as you are having sex; the next time she uses that voice, even if she’s telling you to take out the trash, it may mysteriously evoke good feelings inside you. You may use hand-motions, tones of voice, touches, or anything at all which someone’s senses can register in order to create a stimulus-response link (NLPers call these links “anchors”). The stronger the emotion felt at the exact instant the anchor is set, the stronger the emotion evoked when the anchor is “fired” later. The more unusual the anchor, the less likely its force will be diluted in other contexts (a handshake, for example, is not a good choice for an anchor—someone already has lots of associations with handshakes, and is likely to shake hands with many different people and while feeling many different emotions after you set it). Review 1 What you describe, others imagine and feel and experience internally. This is called The Pink Elephant Principle, or stimulation.. 2 When you tell someone not to X, or that X is false, they still momentarily imagine and respond to X. 3 Use imagery and sensory detail in your descriptions—specify what your listener should see and feel and hear and smell and taste. This intensifies the emotional power of what you are saying. It also engages the imagination and tends to induce a trance state, such that the listener stops analyzing and naturally responds powerfully. 4 You create rapport and emotional comfort and connection through similarity. You create similarity through mirroring someone’s bodily movements and rhythms and/or by saying things which match someone’s beliefs and perceptions. When you say many things in a row which match a listener’s beliefs, you tend to induce a trance. 5 Use abstractions and vague words to maintain rapport. 6 Tell stories involving emotions and sensations to rapidly induce those same emotions and sensations in your listener, in ways that allow her to feel safe and comfortable. 7 Emotions get linked to sensory stimuli. You can reintroduce the linked stimuli (the “anchor”) in order to reintroduce the emotion. For more information, read our first book,Gut Impact, available from www.sexualkey.com
|
