Source: Steve Andreas

Focus on a potential loss that is difficult to face and preoccupies your mind at times.

Explore your experience of things that you readily accept as temporary. Include your beliefs and values, and your memories of creatively moving on after these acceptable losses.

Map the balancing representations onto the anticipated loss. See yourself creatively moving forward in life after having resolved the loss.

Future pace experiencing and expressing these gifts.

Refine as needed for ecological integrity.

Install via your timeline. Test.

Resolve fears of future losses by eliminating many of them. Become more resilient by better tolerating and recovering from the losses that will occur in the future, even extreme losses such as disability.

Step 1: Pay attention to a possible loss that is hard to face and makes you think about it at times. #

Focus on a future loss or potential future loss that you sometimes become preoccupied with. It may be a person, thing, or situation.

Step 2: Explore your experience of things that you readily accept as temporary. #

Include your beliefs and values, and your memories of creatively moving on after these acceptable losses. Think of some things that you appreciate despite knowing that they are temporary. Focus on the ones that you can best accept as being temporary. Notice the ways you have a balanced or positive experience of these things and how to manage their passing. You may even look forward to replacing some things, as is the case when technology is improving. Notice how your beliefs and values support your balanced relationship with these things and their nature. Notice how you represent the temporary nature of these things through sub-modalities. Add to this the actual experiences you have had of creatively moving on with your life after the losses that you accepted or were at peace with. Notice how you carry with you an appreciation for what the person, situation, or thing meant to you. 3.0 Map the balancing representations onto the anticipated loss. See yourself creatively moving forward in life after having resolved the loss. Map the balancing representations that you explored in the previous step onto an anticipated loss (from step one) that can be more difficult to accept. You can do this, for example, by adjusting the sub-modalities involved in that difficult loss so that they match the most potently balancing sub-modalities that you experienced in the prior step. Now imagine yourself after adjusting to the loss from step one. Picture and sense yourself from the third position (dissociated) as you creatively move forward in life after having adjusted to the loss. Notice how you carry with you an appreciation for the person, situation, or thing that you have lost, thus honoring these memories and gifts.

Step 4: Future Pace experiencing and expressing these gifts. #

Generate an even more resourceful future. Spend some time imagining future situations where you experience and express the gifts of the person, thing, or situation that you have lost. This might take the form of sharing life lessons with another person, or creating a valuable skill from a gift that the person, thing, or experience brought forth in you.

Step 5: Fine-tune as needed to maintain ecological integrity. #

See if any parts of you object to creating this resourceful future. Use these objections to enhance the future that you are creating.

Step 6: Install through your timeline. #

From a meta-state, view your timeline. Install your future representation at the appropriate time.

Step 7: Test #

Short of actually waiting for the projected loss to take place in order to test this pattern, you can apply it to losses that are in your immediate future, even though they may not be as serious as the one you chose this time around. Additional Advice You can repeat this exercise to better cope with the same thing and with additional future losses. You can anchor the resourceful loss state in step two, and then do the exercise beginning in step three after triggering the resourceful state and recalling the most effective sub-modalities for mapping onto the new loss. You can use this exercise to gain a more balanced state when you deal with a potential loss, so that you will remain objective when there is a risk of loss. This kind of objectivity can sometimes prevent a loss, such as when one saves a relationship or a job because of the maturity, caring, and poise that they express. Others may experience you as less self-absorbed and more expansive as a person.