[trigger] gets conditioned to produce fear – hence the name stimulus process.)

In psychology experiments, researchers sometimes condition people to feel fear

How?

One way is to show you about a dozen neutral photos.

Each photo may have a simple object on it.

One may have a house with a red door.

Another a ball of yarn.

Another a drinking glass.

But one of the photos comes with something extra

What is it?

Zap!

An electric shock.

After one photo, such as the house with a red door, you may get a zap!

They keep showing you a dozen photos.

And each time that house photo shows up … what happens next … zap!

At first, you felt nothing when you saw the photo. You didn't know what was going to come next.

Then … zap!

The second time you see the photo, you also feel nothing. Then … zap!

By the 6th or 7th time, you see the photo … they don't zap you.

Relief right?

Wrong.

Now you feel anxious after seeing the photo … even though there is no zap

This is how conditioning works.

You experience something neutral that gets paired with something threatening or painful. And you associate the two things together.

Now the house with the red door has been conditioned to produce anxiety.

What's the distinction that can stop the fear?

Noticing that the broad trigger and the true cause of the fear are not linked.

This makes more sense if we leave the lab of these masochistic psychologists and get back into the real world.

And let's imagine that you, having been in that experiment, were conditioned to fear the house with the red door.

And we drive away from the lab only to encounter the house that you saw in the photograph earlier.

And when you see it … what do you feel … yikes!

The anxious feeling returns.

This is similar to what happens as children when we are conditioned to fear something like criticism

We experienced criticism under scary circumstances.

Mom and Dad being angry when delivering criticism is scary.

But what really caused the fear? Is it the criticism or the anger?

If you say anger, you get a prize.

And what really caused the fear when you saw those pictures of houses with red doors?

The house with the red door … or … the zap!

It was the zap, of course.

And now that you are away from that terrible lab and faced with a real house, there is nothing to zap you.

But there was still fear.

How to make it go away?

It's simple. You make the distinction that the true cause of the fear was the zap, not the photo of the house or the actual house … then you won't fear the house with the red door anymore.

The fear will vanish.

Here's how we use this with a client

Facilitator: So you feel fear when you see dogs.

Client: Yes

F: When did you first feel fear when you saw dogs?

C: In my neighborhood a lot of the people had big dogs that would bark loudly when you got near their homes.  And I would be scared. A few times, they got out and came after me, and I was terrified.

F: What meaning did you give to those encounters that caused the fear?

C: That I was in danger.

F: Can you see that the real cause of the fear wasn't seeing a dog? It was hearing dogs barking loudly at you and chasing you and the meaning you gave that I'm in danger that really caused the fear?

C: Yes. I can see that.

F: And if you had made that distinction then, that it was those dogs with that behavior and the meaning you gave, that you would not feel fear when you see different dogs that are not behaving threateningly today?

C: Yes.

F: Go ahead and imagine seeing a dog in the future … how does that feel?

C: It feels OK.  I don't have the tension anymore.

Now there are further steps I can take the client through that would make the distinction more clear if the fear was still present.

But this example shows what typically happens … the client makes the distinction, and the fear vanishes.

This is very different than the gold standard approach to eliminating fears in psychology

In psychology, the gold standard for dealing with fears and phobias is something called systematic desensitization.

It is the process of exposing you to something you fear in tiny steps while practicing a behavior to reduce fear, such as relaxation.

Once you learn to relax at the small step, you move to a slightly larger step.

Eventually, you are to be able to face the entire thing you fear while being relaxed.

For example, a person who is afraid to speak in public might just speak to an audience of one while learning to relax.

Once he learns to relax when speaking to an audience of one, he might then practice speaking to two people while trying to relax.

This will continue until he can speak while relaxed to a much bigger audience than he has ever handled before.

This system works … but

You probably realize that it's also a lot of work and takes a lot of time.

Morty had already succeeded in helping people change behavior when nothing else worked simply by eliminating beliefs.

So when he discovered that fears didn't always go away when beliefs were eliminated, he decided there must be a simple way to handle that too.

Something that did not take a lot of work or a lot of time.

And that's the typical way we approach things at the Lefkoe Institute. We assume there is an easier and faster way and go in search of it. Then we share what we've learned with others.

It can often be very hard to believe that there's a faster way of doing something when the only thing we've ever seen is a hard and slow way

Removing 100 books from a bookcase might seem like it has to take a long time. But when you realize you can tip it over, you can see that it can happen in seconds (although that would be messy).

And removing a fear that you or your client has held for a lifetime might seem unlikely until you realize that the fear only continues because a distinction hasn't been made.

For a fear conditioning to go away, we must distinguish between the true cause of the fear and the current trigger for fear.

We must remember that it was the electric shock that made us afraid and not the picture of the house with the red door

This simple distinction can free you from a fear that's conditioned to a trigger.

And …

This is the secret sauce to the Lefkoe Method.

We help you change by helping you make simple distinctions that free you.

This allows us to avoid very lengthy and complicated solutions to our problems and those of our clients. And instead, to offer simple solutions, they will be grateful for.

As you may already know, we teach the Lefkoe Stimulus Process in the Lefkoe Method Training 3

You learn that process and several others in a step-by-step fashion so that you can apply it immediately on yourself and your clients.

For any client that still has something left over after eliminating beliefs … whether it's fear or some other feeling … you'll know what to do in minutes to get them complete freedom.

You'll be able to join the training soon.

If you have questions about this or anything else, please email training@lefkoeinstitute.com. We'd love to hear from you.