Nick’s 2 Rooms

Take Control of Your State with Nick’s ‘Two Rooms’

Much of my work is based on helping people to take genuine ‘response’ability’ for their lives and to make better choices. (I love the word ‘responsibility’; it means the ability to consciously respond as opposed to unconsciously react.)

I first developed my ‘Two Rooms’ process several years ago when I was asked to work with a group of teenagers who had been excluded from the mainstream school system.  They were classed as ‘difficult’ and not much was expected of them.  They were bitter, angry and the ‘victims’ of their difficult upbringing and environment.

I worked with them for several weeks, looking to build their trust and to give them tools which would empower them to make different choices.  One of the tools was the ‘Two Rooms’.

It is applicable to all of us and is based on the fact that we associate our memories in predictable ways. We link them together to produce neurological pathways called neural-nets. We skillfully link all our happy /positive memories together and link our unhappy /negative memories together.

I used this with an LPGA professional golfer recently who needed something to help her recover from a bad shot.  She had skillfully got herself stuck in a negative space where one poor shot would lead to several others.  She was getting herself stuck in her Unhappy Room!  All she could see around her were her mistakes, her hooks, slices, three putts, bogeys, double bogeys, triple bogeys, missed cuts!  You get the picture!

A disastrous downward spiral leaving her unresourceful and helpless!

The ‘Two Room’ story gave her a simple strategy to move herself consciously into a more resourceful and constructive place.

Here’s the story.......

Imagine that your brain consists of two rooms.  One is your ‘Happy Room’ and the other is your ‘Unhappy Room’. At any one moment, you are in one room or the other, or maybe even in the corridor in between.

In your unhappy room are all your unhappy, negative memories, experiences, thoughts, feelings etc....all your fears, anger, doubts and anxieties. And what happens is that if something occurs which causes you to feel any of these emotions, it places you in your Unhappy Room.

In your Unhappy Room you find yourself surrounded by all your unhappy ‘stuff’.  Everywhere you look you find this negative stuff! It is therefore logical to assume that if your environment is filled with negativity, you will constantly find yourself in your Unhappy Room.  It is habit forming.  Your Unhappy Room will become your default setting.

You become stuck in your Unhappy Room.

You don’t realise that there is a door leading out of your Unhappy Room!

The first step is to notice that door. Then to open it and to step out into the corridor.

Across the corridor is another door.  That door leads to another room; your Happy Room.

In your Happy Room are all your happy and positive memories, thoughts, feelings etc.  All your hopes and dreams are here too.

Step into this room.

Look around you and notice what you see.  What is the first happy thing that you see?  Observe it closely noticing all the details, the sounds, the feelings associated with this experience.

What else do you see?

In this room is all your creativity and problem-solving ability, all your achievements, your successes.

From this room you can move forward from a position of strength!

With the pro golfer I am working with, I needed something that she could easily use on the golf course so she could access her happy room.  You may already know how powerful our auditory (hearing)  sense is. When you hear a song you haven’t heard for years it can take you back to a particular time instantly. (I recently heard ‘Stand and Deliver’ by Adam Ant on the radio and it took me straight back to a university disco in 1981! I was a 20 year old single guy strutting my stuff on the dance floor with a couple of beers inside me and checking out the ‘lie of the land, if you get my drift! Anyway, enough of that!) I got the pro golfer to pick her most inspiring and uplifting song and have that playing in her Happy Room and I used a little process to install this into her unconscious. Now whenever she thinks of her ‘happy song’, it instantly transports her to her happy room.

What song is playing in your Happy Room?

The next time you find yourself in your Unhappy Room, realise that you can stay stuck there wallowing in self pity and unresourcefulness or you can cross the corridor.....

It’s your choice!