When someone has a belief about something they also have an underlying belief about themselves to support that belief. This is what we call identity – a deeply held belief about who the person is who holds such and such beliefs – which is then applied to “me.” To elicit this level of belief, all you have to do is ask for identity – “What kind of person would believe that?” – notice how I use the word “what” in this context. The word “what” in a question tends to elicit identity statements more often than “how” or “why” questions do.
Using a Validity of Cognition (VoC) scale you can start the releasing process – “On a scale of 0-5 with 5 being absolutely true, how true is your evaluation of such a person who believes/acts that way?” Adjust the question to suit your situation. The essence is to elicit how true their judgment of themselves is – a level of judgment – how strong/intense is their judgment?
Then it’s simply a matter of using a stress-reduction process like Rapid Eye Technology (RET) to diminish the level of belief to zero. I especially like the RET Release and Gather technique to deal with identity issues – actually, you are not releasing identity – you are releasing the intensity of judgments (perceptions) you have about your identity. True identity is never in danger of release.
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In a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon, Spongebob gets up one morning and thinks he’ll create a fantastic dessert for himself. Unfortunately, his choice of ingredients cause him to have horrific halitosis (bad breath). Spongebob proceeds to go outside, where he meets several people, all of whom scream and run away from him as soon as he opens his mouth and says, “Hello.”