You probably have better things to do than sit around trying to figure out what adjectives and verbs you can turn into a noun…
Huh?
LOL! Yeah exactly! 
But, what we aren’t paying attention often has a subtle affect upon our lives…
Here are some common examples of nominalizations:
|
Verb / Adjective |
Noun |
| discover | discovery |
| careless | carelessness |
| move | movement |
| difficult | difficulty |
| react | reaction |
| different | difference |
| fail | failure |
| applicable | applicability |
| refuse | refusal |
| intense | intensity |
As you read through this list, I wonder if you noticed the severity or the permanency of the word when it becomes a noun. For me, it’s like the word becomes fixed in time.
So, what’s the big deal about this?
Well, its a very subtle big deal. Think about it in the context of a relationship. How much room do we give people with whom we are in a relationship the flexibility they need to change? Often the thought of our significant other changing isn’t a comfortable one for us… Yet, a relationship is a process of relating to another person and this involves change.
The same could be said for depression – its the nominalization of the process of depressing. Most of the clients I have worked with who find themselves “stuck” in depression can easily point to a place on their body where they feel it the most. Typically their chests, solar plexuses, and stomachs. When I ask how they are depressing it, the clients get a confused look on their face. When I ask them how I can learn to begin depressing myself they don’t know. But, when I ask them to tell me about the last time they felt depressed a client will talk him or herself into that state and their physiology will change. They will slump forward, slouch, their voice will become low, quiet, and monotone. So there I’ve got the process – now I just need to learn what the synesthesia is – that is, how they know how to begin the process of depression.
Many things in life are actually processes. We have strategies that allow us to begin a process for most of our behavior. We’re just not aware of them because the processes happen unconsciously. This is the beauty of Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). These modalities provide tools for us to change our behavior and end limiting beliefs.
If something in this post catches your attention and your curious to identify what has been happening in your life so that you can change it, then by all means get in touch with me. There are lots of things that can be changing in your life – changing into exactly what you want them to be…
Be Amazing!
~ MikeE
