Time Line
Time is relative
I’m sure that you have experienced many times the fascinating and amazing relativity of time. It was always strange for me that a quarter of an hour can pass sometimes as fast as a moment while in a different situation it seems to be interminable.
I’m curious in what kind of situations you experience such phenomenon most often.
When you enjoy yourself how fast the time passes by?
And when you work how fast the time passes by?
And when you wait for something how fast the time passes by?
How you would like it to pass?
And how you want it to flow?
Another matter is the representation of the past and the future. Very often I hear people saying: “I remember it as if it was yesterday”, “the time flies so fast” etc
It has always made me think why people remember events which took place several or a dozen or so years ago as if it happened yesterday morning.
Why do some people let the events from their past influence (or these which will take part in future) influence their present life?
What do masters of planning and implemenation of planned aims do?
As you may guess, the NLP has a model that gives an answer to these questions.
The way your mind represents the time is of key importance.
How do you distinguish between the past and the future?
How? If I ask you how do you know that the event took place in the past and it is not just your imagination you would answer – I just know
But how to distinguish them? The answer is very simple and you surely know it – by submodalities.
Now, think about any simple activity which you do everyday (eating breakfast, taking a shower...).
Recall what this activity looked like yesterday, see this picture.
Where is this picture? Pay attention to its submodalities, brightness, distinctness, size, the distance.
Now, think about the same activity but with a small difference – you will do it tomorrow. What will it look like? Do you see the picture?
Pay attention to the differences between these two pictures. Most often they have completely different location in the space. One location corresponds to yesterday and the other to tomorrow.
Situations which took place in the past or which will occur in the future have in your mind a proper, typical for you, spatial representation.
Find your time line
It’s high time you discovered how your brain codes the future and the past. This may help you to find answers to several burning questions.
Exercise – discovering the time line
Think once more about an activity or a situation which took place repeatedly in your past and which is easy to recall. It should get a nice, distinct picture (i.e. your birthday or New Years Eve etc).
What it looked like a year ago? Recall the picture, pay attention to its location and its submodalities.
What it looked like two years ago? Do the same with the next picture. The following pictures will usually have different location but there may also be other significant differences. Pay attention to them.
Five years ago?
Ten years ago?
Recall many various pictures from your past so as to be sure that they are arranged according to a particular scheme i.e. they are moving away form you or they are placed more and more to the left, right...
Now, let’s proceed to the future.
Think about something that will happen in a week time. Where is this picture? What does it look like?
In a month time?
In a six month time, in a year time?
In two years? You surely have some plans...
In five years?
And now recall both sets of pictures. While keeping them in front of your eyes link them with a line running from the oldest picture to the one that is looking ahead.
This line is your individual time line.
Although everyone has their own line we can distinguish two most frequent cases:
1. through time
2. in time
Playing with the time line.
When you know your time line and its exact course you can check what would happen if you changed the location of one of its branch.
How would your attitude toward the past events change when you moved the past more to the side or to the back?
What would happen if we changed the locations of future and past? (of course you can come back to the initial arrangement)
How dense are the pictures on your line packed? If you have the impression that the past took place yesterday, why don’t you spread it out over an area and increase the gaps?
Do you see your future and your plans clearly? What if they were located in front of you, rising a bit upwards?
And what if you took your line out of yourself and put it near?
Make many experiments as the possibilities are endless