Thou shalt not think of a blue tomato! Chances are you did exactly that, perhaps thinking of a red tomato and coloring it blue in your imagination. This is the problem with language and the mind. You can’t “not think” something mentioned. In order not to think of a blue tomato, you have to think of a tomato. And once you do that, how can you not think of it?

This also poses a challenge that many parents experience. Noisy children are often told not to make noise, or “don’t run on the street” or “don’t leave crumbs on the table.” Their minds can’t process “don’t”: only the action is registered, so they continue to make noise, run on the street or leave crumbs on the table.

Sports players also go through this. While giving themselves a pep talk during a match, they might say to themselves, “don’t net the ball”, or “don’t miss the basket.” The result is they net the ball or miss the basket. Their minds direct their actions toward that outcome.

So what do the Ten Commandments have to do with this? You may believe in their divinity or otherwise, they are something every decent society aspires to. And yet, they are violated frequently. Perhaps it is they way they are worded. “Thou shalt not” is ignored, and the mind registers what one is commanded not to do! And that is what a person ends up doing. Perhaps they need to be worded using NLP to be more effective.

Which begs the question: how do you tell someone not to smoke?