Your Reticular Activating Systems is not really NLP per se. This is a piece of psychology, and you need to know about as a human. The reticular activating system or you’ll often see the reticular cortex is a guiding system for your thoughts and feelings and ultimately how you live your life and how good you feel and perform. Your reticular activating system will literally allow you to experience you manifesting your life in real time.

The simple fact remains, we can only focus on a few things consciously at any one time. And what we focus on increases. This means we feel and recognise those things in our lives that we put our intention on. And the things we don’t focus on we don’t notice consciously.

Example

As you’re watching or listening or even reading this, start to notice which foot feels different right now all while still focusing on watching this video or listening to the podcast or reading the post. Chances are you’ll begin to recognise that one foot does feel slightly different. One might be warmer it might feel cooler you might have a tingling sensation or even an itch. Now that may not seem that impressive or beneficial. But I bet you weren’t thinking about your feet until I said.

You Get What You Focus On

The reticular activating system is a guiding light to achieving what you want. However, something so simple that should be so easy to implement causes people so many problems. And it’s all because of our language. We understand as adult human beings what “don’t get angry” means. We totally understand the intention when someone says to us “don’t worry about your boss he won’t sack you.” But the language system that we have means that to process that on a neurological level, we have to imagine being sacked, or getting angry and then we have to negate it or delete it. This means we get the exact feelings we are trying to avoid.

Ever wonder why you feel like you’ve lost control because you positively decided not to worry about finances anymore. And that’s all you can think about? Ever wonder why when you go on a diet, or you can think of is food?

How we talk to ourselves is directly related to how we feel. And it’s not just about talking positively because you’re able to positively say “this weekend I’m not going to drink a bottle of wine.” You see what happens; you have to do imagine yourself drinking or buying wine and then negate it or delete it to understand what that means.

So it’s about turning your language around. Our brain is wired to be goal seeking. This means you need to stay all goals or actions positively. So rather than telling a child to “don’t run across the road.” You’d simply change that to “stop at the yellow line.”

As well as being goal seeking, your RAS is also looking to prove you right at all times and answer your questions.

“It Came To Me From Nowhere”

Remember back to a time where you may be talking to a friend about an old film or old book that you both read where that quote came from. Perhaps you are talking about it, but of nowhere you seem to have forgotten the name of the book. It’s disappeared, out of your mind, it feels like it’s on the tip of your tongue you just can’t find the information. But then you say, as we all do. “It will come to me.” As sure as eggs are eggs that name of the book does come to you but 48 hours or so later when you’re not with your friend.

Your RAS is goal seeking and is looking for information to prove you right. So, your questions can guide what you start to notice or experience. So think about the language you use. You also need to be keen to select quality questions. If you ask yourself a question, your RAS or your prover will search for information to prove or answer that question.

Think about questions like: “who will annoy me today?” or “what will I struggle with today?”. Both are valid, but your prover will also find evidence and answers for you. To switch those questions around and ask yourself things like: “what will I do today at work that will let me know I’m achieving?” Or “what small way today will I see that my confidence is growing?”

And in just the same way that the title of the book or name of that actor can spring into your mind days later, you will also find that these questions will be answered too. And the answers will make you feel a certain way. But because you have focused on anticipating a positive outcome with the type of question you are asking. Then when your reticular activating system finds the answer, it will produce a positive feeling to you.

Why Do We Work Like This?

We are deletion machines. There is so much going on around us at any one time, that we need to delete so much of the unnecessary information around us. What’s necessary comes downs to safety, questions and focus. The Reticular Activating System allows you to notice those things you focus on or put importance on. So direct your life from now on and use your RAS.