Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Negative Embedded Commands
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Ever felt like your words were inadvertently setting you up for failure?
In this episode we undergo a compelling exploration of the subconscious mind's impact on behavior, where a personal parenting revelation opened my eyes to the unseen power of language.
I discuss nuances of embedded commands in neurolinguistic programming, uncovering how the slightest linguistic twist can alter our actions and those of the people around us. Learn to harness your speech to boost teaching, personal development, and, very importantly, how you guide your children toward success.
Learn techniques that can reshape your neural pathways, turning dread into confidence and transforming your self-image from that of an under-performer to a champion in your own right.
I invite you to join The Ummi Collective. It is a weekly coaching program for Muslim mothers raising children on the autism spectrum.
Inside, you learn how to support your child’s development in a way that builds independence, confidence, and long-term success... without losing yourself in the process.
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Understanding the Power of Embedded Commands
Speaker 1Welcome to Islamic Life Coach 4 Podcast . Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognisably successful . Now your host , dr Kamal Uthar . Hello , hello , hello everyone . Peace and blessings be upon all of you .
Speaker 1The topic of today's podcast came about in a very self-awakening moment , because I always tell myself that I don't want to be a controlling parent . But then I realized I was trying to control all of the outcomes that my kids were creating . When it came to , let's say , putting their laundry away or keeping their rooms clean or doing their homework . I kept telling myself I don't want to be too strict , but as soon as they forgot their schedule for the next activity , I was too quick to be strict and get upset and I still am at times . But now I'm operating with a slightly better understanding of what's happening , and that's all we're attempting to do living with awareness and choosing the better options about how we actually want to live . So first , let me start out with the concept of embedded commands . When I told myself I don't want to be a strict parent , I don't want to be a controlling parent , the embedded commands are strict and controlling and that's how I show up as a parent , even though that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid , and you might be surprised by how could that be happening , since I'm giving myself clear instructions and being vigilant and being careful about not being a strict parent . That's what I personally thought would be enough and I could get away with these goals for myself of not being strict and not being controlling .
Speaker 1But what we are not told and what I'm going to share with you in this podcast is the most fascinating concept , and that has to do with the powerful subconscious mind . That cannot work with the negative embedded commands . If you tell a child don't drop the glass , her subconscious mind has to create the scenario of visualizing dropping the glass and then it has to reject it . Conscious mind cannot work with negative commands , it cannot work in vacuums , and I've given you this example multiple times before . But if I tell you don't think of a pink elephant , the first thing you have to do is create pink elephant with your imagination and then you have to distract yourself from that image to be able to follow my instructions . For you to not think of the pink elephant , you have to create it and then reject it with your conscious mind . The subconscious mind has to create the negative command , then the conscious mind has to work on rejecting it . For you to fully comply with this instruction , and it doesn't take much to understand the power of embedded commands these commands influence behaviors . Let's quickly review this concept and see how we can use the subconscious mind as a power tool . As you listen to this podcast , you'll find an immediate gift of understanding and then a long term gift of shifting yours and other people's behaviors around you . We do this to enhance our lives , not to control others .
Speaker 1Embedded commands are a technique used in neurolinguistic programming where a suggestion is hidden within a larger sentence or message , aiming to bypass the conscious mind and speak directly to the subconscious . For example , when discussing stress management techniques , I might say as you listen to the soothing sound , allow yourself to relax completely . Here , the embedded command is relaxed completely . The listener's conscious mind is focusing on context of listening to the music , but the subconscious mind is picking up on the command of relaxing in the background . This technique is subtle but extremely powerful and it encourages the desired response without direct instruction , and it requires minimal effort on your part .
Speaker 1If you're a teacher , embedded commands will enhance learning and retention in your students . When I teach concepts , I might say , as you review these podcast topics , you'll grasp the details more intuitively . Here , grasping the details intuitively is the command . The direct action of your conscious mind is to listen to the podcast and its topics . This instruction is aimed at boosting your confidence and internalizing of the material . By this suggestion alone , understanding of the material will come intuitively . You , the listeners , or the students of conscious mind is engaged in automatically self-fulfilling this prophecy , making the learning process more natural . This is a much better instruction than me saying you're not going to find this material hard , because when I tell you this , there's a possibility in the back of your mind that this material could possibly be hard . And , believe it or not , I have already given you an embedded command of you finding a gift in this podcast . After hearing this , while you might have been focusing on the words I said , your subconscious mind is working to make the message of this podcast into a gift for you .
Speaker 1Amazing , isn't it ? We are not doing it as a manipulation tactic , but rather understanding how we can create the most impactful change in our life with minimal effort , for our benefit . So we know embedded commands work and they're very effective . But what we don't commonly know is that a negative embedded command creates more work and actually creates exactly what you're trying to avoid . Just like I told you , don't think of a pink elephant , it makes you think of one , so you can reject it as per my instruction . If I want your attention to never go to a pink elephant , then my instruction to you needs to be think of a white bear . If you want to be a better parent , your instruction to yourself needs to be I want to be a more effective parent rather than I don't want to be a controlling parent , which is what I was doing to myself for years .
Speaker 1Negative embedded command to yourself is not so much about causing a negative feeling , but what I mean by negative commands is the lack of something . A non-existence of something doesn't make sense to the subconscious mind . So telling yourself something with the words I don't want to do this , I don't want to be that it doesn't actually avoid it . It creates it into existence so that it can be later avoided . So if you say I don't want to be nervous in the meeting , your subconscious mind will create a scene where you're nervous and then your conscious mind has to work to not appear that way . And all of this might happen within a split second . But a more effective instruction here is I want to appear confident in the meeting , so when we're telling the kid don't drop that glass , you want to tell her hold on to the glass with both hands , look where you're going .
Speaker 1Positive embedded commands All minds are suggestible at different states of suggestibility , some more than others . The same mind more suggestible at one time than other . Children's minds are hyper suggestible , especially around adults that are supposed to be taking care of them . When we as human beings are in a close relationship with somebody , the closer the relationship , the more hyper suggestible we are to their negative embedded commands . Mother , child , husband , wife . In these close , intimate relationships , a lot of our mirror neurons are dedicated to making this relationship the source of our connection Meaning . Biologically , a whole bunch of our nervous system is wired to make more meaning of the words that are coming from these people who we are in these relationships with . So when we are in a close relationship with somebody , our minds are hyper suggestible to their embedded commands .
Speaker 1When you see your child on a screen or a device hours after they were supposed to be off of it , when they're only allowed one hour or screen time a day or whatever , your limit is . Your immediate reaction might be telling them oh , you're addicted to video games , you can't get yourself off of them . We tell them this over and over again , in different ways . We show them how they can't operate without their iPad or gaming console . You show them how they can't sit peacefully for a meal at restaurant . You keep reminding them that they might be withdrawing from screen time when they're irritable , when this happens in their most suggestible state , then they grow up and then there's no surprise that they're addicted to cheating , lying , cutting corners or , even worse , they're addicted to alcohol or porn . May Allah's panna uttara protect us from being tested that way . But it's not a surprise that it happens because they have developed an identity of somebody who becomes easily addicted because of this hyper-suggestibility state of early childhood and our voices becoming their internal dialogue , something that we , as conscientious parents , might not even be aware of .
Speaker 1In this case , the solution is shifting yourself as a mother who finds a positive identity in your child and really exaggerates it . Even if you see it as a trace of a positive trait in the beginning , you enhance it in your conversations with them , your interactions with them . It could sound something like this I know you're trying to wake up on time . That tells me that you can follow a schedule . I see that you're setting an alarm , but you snoozed it and you couldn't wake up . I see that you're becoming more reliable . I see that you respect me when I asked you to bring groceries in from the car and you did that right away .
Speaker 1In these cases , no matter how minimal your evidence is , you are helping your child create an identity of somebody who's respectful and dependable , because what you're doing is , when you see the slightest hint of this reliability , then you exaggerate it with your words . The same mirror neurons that help them internalize negative embedded commands also help them internalize these positive embedded commands until they can expand on these positive personality traits of reliability , dependability , respectfulness . So then , how does it apply to the behavior that you want them to change ? You would then depend on this trait of reliability that you've helped them create for themselves , and you will continue to rely on them to stop electronics on time , and you will tell them proudly that you know that they will be able to follow through . And if they don't , then you have the options of allowing them to make a mistake and not start suggesting to them that they're forgetful and addicted or that they never listen to you .
Speaker 1An other option here is that everyone makes mistakes and they're just learning to become more and more reliable each day . It's understandable that they forget to come off their screen time , and you always have the option of enforcing consequences from a loving place , being the loving authority , keeping their right to be respected as a child intact , continuing with positive embedded commands . And if you're trying to encourage physical activity in your kids , options are I see that you want to be more active . I'll help you get into the pool and I'll watch you while you swim , rather than creating an identity of a lazy teenager embedded command of them being always lazy . Or when you tell your husband why can't you ever pick up after yourself ? What is being suggested here is the person who doesn't pick up after themselves .
Speaker 1You want to state things in a positive embedded command , not because you want to feel better , not that everything's always going to be rainbows and peachy . It's not going to be easy either , but here what I mean about positive isn't about conscious thoughts that make you feel good , but what I'm referring to is a constructive instruction , something that doesn't force your mind to act the opposite way Again , because the only way a subconscious mind can avoid something is by creating it and then avoiding it . So we want to give shortcuts and give it embedded commands that bypass this prolonged process of creating and avoiding altogether , and we say it in a constructive instruction towards what we're trying to achieve . I don't want to be a bad parent , I don't want to be like my mother Very ineffective commands for your own subconscious mind .
Speaker 1Speaking to yourself constructively here will be saying I want to be the best parent . I know how to be . If you tell yourself I don't want to be a parent like my mother , your mind will create an image of you acting like your mother and then maybe your conscious mind will be able to reject it . But you will always be staying in this discombobulated state and you will find yourself parenting like your mother , confused why this keeps happening . Or if you have some news for your friend and you start by saying don't freak out when I tell you this , this has the embedded command of not freaking out highly , highly ineffective . And if nothing else works and you just have to remember a generic instruction for yourself , that could be that I'm getting good at giving positive instructions to myself . This can be a great start for the beginning of your practice .
Speaker 1If you are a project manager or in a leadership position , most effective communication is . I know we've done a project like this before . I know we can come together as a team and deliver once again , but of I don't want any late reports , I don't want anybody missing the meetings . All wasteful commands , all of it will create a possibility of what you don't want . Another example is I don't want to create children that are dependent on me versus I want to create independent children . An even better positive , embedded command and a constructive instruction for yourself here is rather than me creating independent children , I teach them independence , preferably by example . The better thought to practice here is I want them to learn independence and maybe sometimes arm the source of it , or sometimes other people are .
Overcoming Test Anxiety and Negative Self-Perception
Speaker 1If you are a poor test taker or you do good in written tests but fail oral tests , this is rooted in some sort of fear of the two . The mind creates forgetfulness in the setting of fear . It's a very common neuroscience phenomenon of suggestive amnesia . The reason you fail a type of exam that you're actually afraid to fail is because of this fear and worry that you create around it . So suggestive amnesia is through your brain's response of stress and fear . It otherwise does not have the capability on focusing on the knowledge that you've acquired in high pressure settings that you're creating for yourself . When you're under perceived increased stress under an interview or an exam situation , the brain's amygdala activates the stress response , releasing cortisol and adrenaline . This impairs the prefrontal cortex , which is the organ responsible for higher order thinking skills , such as reasoning , problem solving . All of it is crucial in interviews and exams , and this ongoing state of stress associated with interview taking or test taking only strengthens the brain's response to fear , making it a self-reinforcing cycle . So to counteract all of that , we rely on positive embedded commands , which gradually weakens the old pathways associated with fear and anxiety .
Speaker 1You focus on your skills during the test . You focus on the hard work that you put in . You focus on remembering and recalling . You focus on confidence during an interview , remembering things that are believable to you . Like I know all of the answers that an interviewer is going to ask me . I believe in my qualifications when you feel the effects of that serenity or that calmness or that poise that comes from these thoughts , the parts of the brain that you need to access to answer the questions during the interview and the exam will be activated and all of those answers will magically become available to you . Well , not magically , it's all neuroscience .
Speaker 1Students experience test anxiety . It's very well known . But the test is not causing the anxiety . This impaired ability to retrieve information from the memory is happening because of your perception of the test being hard or this being source of your stress . Memory retrieval is also otherwise most effective when your physical or mental state at the time of encoding matches the state at the time of recall and that you can recreate with practicing calmness , by practicing your constructive embedded commands . If you studied hard , but if you can't remember the answers during the exam , it comes from your repeated embedded commands of fear of testing . And then you label yourself as a poor test taker or you label yourself as I don't do well in interviews . It's not a genetic identity that you've created . It's just a pattern of negative embedded commands that you can easily undo .
Speaker 1Thoughts enveloped in strong emotional responses like worry and fear get realized in the subconscious mind by the fear of the exam . As a student , you're requesting your subconscious mind to see to it that you fail Again . The simple antidote to all of this is imagining success , imagining practicing , imagining getting congratulated on passing the exam , imagining getting the job offer and the first paycheck . Imagining a successful business all constructive embedded commands . The most important use of these type of commands is towards yourself . That's what we've explored so far . It will save you so much mental effort and your toughest projects will start to become easy for you .
Speaker 1It is fascinating to me how the subconscious mind needs to create the negative scenario before it can be rejected . This is what creates the bulk of your mental effort . It's not the actual work that's tiring you . Majority of the time , it's the mental work that drains your energy , and the work has to do with getting over the obstacles that your subconscious mind is creating based on your negative embedded commands . You can forego all of this nonsense . You can literally get rid of it , and it will make your life so much easier , so much more peaceful , inshallah . This is how you can understand how some of your behavior is not in line with how you're actually thinking you should act , because all of these embedded commands are influencing your behavior , and we use this technique not to manipulate but to create meaningful change .
Speaker 1Thoughts that start with don't be like this , don't do that , create exactly what you're trying not to create Thoughts based on fear , create exactly the outcome that you're afraid of . To harness this power of embedded commands for positive change , focus on constructive and affirmative language . Subconscious mind tends to materialize the scenarios it focuses on . Emphasize and exaggerate the positive attributes . That can be your knowledge , a beginner skill level , experience , one good thing that you did in your past . Leverage that to create positive embedded commands and by doing so , you're not only avoiding the creation of negative , self-fulfilling prophecies , you're making your life much easier , cutting down on the bulk of the work , and you're actively building a positive and empowering environment for both yourself and your loved ones .
Power of Du'as for Mindful Living
Speaker 1As I end this podcast , I want to bring your attention to the du'as that I frequently repeat , that are loaded with constructive embedded commands .
Speaker 1All for the sake of a mind hack , keeping my life easy and reducing my mental load , I invite you to adopt the du'as that resonate the best with you , or all of them , if possible .
Speaker 1With Allah's grace and bounty , my subconscious knows no bounds in providing me solutions with ease . With my trust in Allah , who has placed just the right form of wisdom in me , I know how to instruct my subconscious mind perfectly With hope and trust in his plan alone , I anticipate the greatest outcomes that my mind has to offer . Under Allah's guidance , I can help my mind bring my intentions to reality . I firmly believe that the workings of my subconscious , nurtured and guided by Allah , encounter no obstacles . I pray that Allah's limitless mercy gives me the clarity and strength to move forward , ensuring that every project that Allah swt has given me the capacity to initiate also reaches its rightful conclusion . It is by Allah's benevolent wisdom that my endeavors are guided , allowing all of my goals and aspirations to be fulfilled in harmony with my vision and with Allah's divine will . Please keep me in your dharaz . I will talk to you guys next time .