What If

There is magic in the question "What if?" Find out how to do the trick in this mini podcast.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

Find the written versions of these podcasts on John's podcasting site: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1628038

"The Grasshopper" is the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

• Mindfulness
• Peace of mind
• Creativity
• How to stay in the present moment
• Spirituality
• Behavior improvement

And stories that transform you to a wider sense of awareness that presents more options. And isn't that what we all want, more options? 

John uploads these podcasts on a regular basis. So check back often to hear these podcasts heard around the world. Who wants to be the next person to change? 

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Transcript

What If

There is an out of print book called The Philosophy of “As if” by Hans Vaihinger written in 1911 that is probably the world’s first introduction to thinking outside the box. In short, he encourages you to postulate an idea that needs no facts to back it up. This way, your thinking isn’t bound by the rules of evidence and you can create concepts that don't need to be defended.

The people helping strategy, NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) uses the “As if” frame as a way to get you to tap resources deeper than show up on the surface. Let’s pretend that we have a frustrated worker who states, “I don’t know anyone who could do this job to my boss’s satisfaction.” Rather than get into the validity of the statement with all the supporting data, a person using the “As if” frame may respond, “But if they could, how do you think they might go about it?” They present the implied position that there is a possible way and are asking you to muster internal resources to explore a new angle of approach.

“What if” is the twin sister of “As if.” There is the great question from the book A Whack On The Side Of The Headthat asks: “What if your knees bent in the other direction, what would chairs look like?” It certainly gets the gears going.

Here’s my “What if” question to ponder:

“What if you really weren’t the thoughts in your head, how different would your life be?”

Consider the question and see what comes up for you. It may be the springboard to a strategy that you’ve never considered because of the sticky nature of conditioned thoughts. It bypasses the conscious filters to reach the part of you where all the potential answers lie. Another version of the question is:

“What if you aren’t who you think you are, what could you accomplish?”

An application of this is in the book Trance-Formations by Bandler and Grinder the founders of NLP. They ask an "As if" type question to a person who has a drinking problem:

“The question isn’t why do you drink. The real question is, what would you do if you didn’t? 

The lady, an alcoholic, contacted the speaker some time later saying I think that is the most beautiful question in the world, later admitting she had in fact been intending suicide beforehand due to her alcoholism but instead now had not been able to stop thinking about this question.

So, I’ll pose the question to you one more time.

“What if you really weren’t the thoughts in your head, what would life be like?”

Take that question to your quiet place today and see “what if” anything you come up with.

All the best,

John