Reallocating resources

Today I thought I would share with you another story that relates to a lot of problems that we have real and imaginary.  Now most people out there perceive their problems as something that is out of their control. When in truth when you just look inside problems we think are far beyond our control are really there only because we allow them to exist. But also consider this, what ever problem one may have, inside that problem exists a tremendous resource that is twisted or being used in a way that hinders us from reaching a goal we strive to achieve.

Again this is a story from the files of Dr. Richard Bandler. If you can find the videos for this particular case I would love to add them to my collection and I would be forever in your debt, as of yet I have only been able to read about it and hear the story told many times.

Once there was a man named Andy, and he was placed in a psychiatric facility by his twin brother who feared for him. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, now most psychiatrists will tell you a paranoid schizophrenic can not be helped by hypnosis and can not be hypnotized. Good thing Dr. Bandler had never hear this or Andy's life may have been destined to remain under heavy sedation and in a facility all of his life. But young Andy was only 25 and had spent the last 7 years undergoing treatment that included shock therapy and various doses, types, and strengths of sedatives and anit-psychotics.  Andy's problem his brother explained was this, every time Andy would watch television a character from the TV show would walk out of the TV show and follow him around for days berating and belittling him. Andy would then of course take to arguing with this imaginary person and sometimes get into loud shouting matches in the most unhelpful public places. Just imagine some guy is buying

groceries and gets into a huge verbal argument that sounds one sided behind you in the grocery store, and you can see how this cold be a problem for him.

Dr. Bandler was under close scrutiny and being tested by every psychiatrist that wanted to discredit and disprove the science called NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) as it was still relatively new on the mental health scene, so he would get called into tough cases like this, with eyes watching hoping that he would fail. But when he heard about Andy's problem he jumped at the chance as he had a solution within 10 minutes.

He asked the staff to take the man off of his scheduled medications for 1 week prior to his arrival, and this order was followed. Also 2 psychiatrists that were treating Andy were to be in the room when Dr. Bandler was to see Andy.

Dr. Bandler arrived in a suit looking very professional and when he walked into the room he simply took his coat off and sat down with Andy. He looked and Told Andy that he was a Dr. that his brother had hired to help him and with his help he could go home in just a few days. Andy smiled and asked "really?" Dr. Bandler smiled and said yes. He asked Andy to describe his problem and he told Dr. Bandler the following; " when I watch TV the people on TV come out and follow me areound and say the most awful things to me and about me. You know the show Little House on the Prairie? Than Bitch Mary god I hate her! I had a televangelist follow me around for 6 months telling me how I was going to hell and how evil I was. He the listed a few other shows and how the people followed him to different places and how they bothered him and how much trouble he got into, including being arrested on at least 3 occasions.

The Psychiatrists in the room listened also smiling thinking that there was no way on earth this mans problem could be solved as easy as Dr. Bandler claimed with just hypnosis, and that for sure he would fail at helping Andy. But Dr. Bandler smiled after Andy finished and said "son, that is a wonderful system you have there. That is a million dollar problem anyone in the world would love to have." Andy looked puzzled, and the Psychiatrists did as well. Then Dr. Bandler followed up by saying "have you ever heard of the Playboy channel?" Andy thought for a second and a smile spread across his face, Dr. Bandler said "if Hugh Heffner could duplicate your problem he would be selling it to millions of people advertising Playboys "new feature."

Andy then watched 2 minutes of Playboy programming and went the next 2 weeks without meds, treatments, or even one argument, but he did have a perma-plast smile on his face nothing could wipe off. With in the next month he was home living a normal life and never again reported having a single problem or argument with any of the visions he had previously had so many problems with.

Inside of every problem we have is the solution, and a drive that keeps it going. Most times we believe that this is a bad thing, when nothing could be further from the truth. The trick to solving  it is locating those patters that drive the problem and reallocating those resources to work for us and not against us.