NLP Stalking: Deprogramming Behavioral Patterns

To deprogram patterns of unconscious automatic behavior, John Grinder and Carmen Bostic introduced the “Stalking” technique at a New Code NLP seminar in Moscow (2004). The name of the technique accurately reflects its essence, and despite its simplicity, it has proven to be highly effective. One of its most notable effects is that new behavioral options (alternative actions) become apparent right during the process. Most importantly, Stalking helps you become aware of every moment within the pattern you want to deprogram, giving you the ability to make a conscious choice in similar situations at any time in the future.

Stalking works especially well in communication scenarios where interactions can develop along different paths but inevitably cross the line between common sense and emotion. If you have situations where you suddenly want to yell at someone, “I’m going to kill you in such-and-such a way…!” or, conversely, someone wants to yell at you like that, try working through the situation using the Stalking technique—you’ll change the usual course of events.

The Stalking Technique

1. Choose a space that you will call your “safe place.” Enter it and mentally outline its boundaries.
2. Leave the safe place and select a new space. In this space, lay out the process that follows your pattern along a timeline. At the start of the timeline, mark the “trigger” point (the very beginning or what precedes it), and at the end, mark the “exit” point (when the process ends and something else follows).
3. If the process is long, you can also mark key points that divide the process into stages, so you can keep track of where you are at any moment.
4. Return to the safe place and fill yourself with a resourceful state, for example, by playing the Alphabet Game.
5. Now step onto the timeline, just before the trigger point, and fully associate yourself with the situation in all three sensory systems (Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic). Begin to move forward very slowly through the events, paying attention to everything happening around you, noticing all the details, including your own reactions and thoughts as they arise.
6. If at any point you notice you’re losing your resourceful state, immediately jump out of the process and return to your safe place.
7. While in the safe place, restore your high-performance state. If needed, you can use the Square Breathing technique to release unwanted emotions.
8. Then return to the process space and step onto the timeline again, just before the trigger point. Associate with the situation and move at a comfortable pace through the segment where you feel okay, then once again start moving very slowly, noticing everything happening both outside and inside you in all three sensory systems.

Continue this way until you reach the exit point of the process, and then take one more step beyond it. If necessary, don’t hesitate to run back to your safe place to restore your resourceful state. Always enter the timeline just before the trigger point.

I know this technique may seem like a children’s game. But despite that (or maybe because of it), the results are amazing! Perhaps it’s because we really do lack the opportunity in life to move slowly enough to notice everything happening around us.