Heal Trauma and Rewire the Subconscious: Ram Verma on NLP

Many of us know a habit or pattern we cannot seem to break. The same kind of partner, the same money mistakes, the same low-energy days. Daisy says her conversation with Ram Verma changed some of her strongest beliefs about why we make the choices we do.

Ram Verma is introduced as a pioneer of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) in India, an internationally certified master NLP practitioner, a TEDx speaker, an author and a mind coach. The talk mixes Hindi and English. Below are the main ideas, each attributed to the person who said it.

What NLP is, according to Ram

Ram describes NLP as software for running the mind. The name has three parts: neuro (the brain’s cells and pathways), linguistic (how language, tone and body respond) and programming (habits formed by repetition). He compares it to learning to make chapati. The first attempts are clumsy. After enough repeats, you can talk while rolling a perfect one.

The trouble, he says, is that we also pick up programmes that hurt us. He gives examples such as repeating the same relationship pattern or sliding back to zero at the peak of a career.

Why the same patterns repeat

Ram says that almost all unconscious behaviour is already programmed. In his view, it comes from pain, pleasure and familiarity learned in childhood, where we noticed what earned reward and what earned punishment. He says personality largely forms in the first six years, shaped by parents, teachers and the people a child admires.

He adds that the mind prefers what is familiar. If someone grew up with trauma, he says, the subconscious steers them toward people and events that feel known, even when the conscious mind says no.

He also says we each filter events in three ways: we delete details, we distort facts, and we generalise. That is why two people can read the same event so differently. Ram gives an example of a father’s death in a family of several brothers. One may become depressed, another may develop asthma, and a third may say nothing happened to him.

Perception wins over reality

Ram separates reception from perception. Reception is what your eyes and ears take in. Perception is the personal meaning you build from it. He says the real fight is with perception, both with the world and with yourself.

He also says behaviour and identity are different. A teacher who tells a child “you are stupid” for one wrong answer has turned a behaviour into an identity, he says. He believes that damaged identity sits under many adult blocks.

Old pain, body and illness

Ram says the body responds to thoughts through the hormone-producing glands, and that old painful memories keep triggering stress even if you no longer think about them. He argues that illness is often the body’s message that the mind has carried too much. He links this to books by Gabor Mate and other doctors he names.

This is his view of how mind and body connect, not a medical claim from Daisy. If you take medicine for any condition, keep your doctor in the loop.

The memory technique Ram teaches

Ram says he does not need the story of a painful memory. He works on its structure: the pictures, colours, sounds and movement. His cooking comparison is that the same dish with salt missing, or steps in the wrong order, tastes completely different. Change the structure of a memory, he says, and its meaning changes. He then talks Daisy and the audience through it:

1. Pick a painful memory and rate its intensity out of 10. You do not need to close your eyes.
2. Imagine a glass wall about 15 to 20 feet in front of you. Behind it is an old television with a remote in your hand.
3. Move the memory from your mind onto the television screen. Touching a finger to your thumb can help.
4. Turn the volume down to zero and the picture to black and white.
5. Pause the key scenes as still photos.
6. Imagine rain washing the photos away, or a rubber erasing them, or the signal turning to static.
7. Blow up the television, then look at the memory again and rate it.

Ram says one round typically brings a 10 down to about 5 or 6, and a second round to 3 or 4. He says it needs no daily repeat. He adds that within a week the mind may surface a few other buried memories, which can be cleared the same way.

For heavy trauma, work with a trained therapist rather than trying it alone.

Non-judgmental inside, judgmental outside

Ram says the usual advice to live in the present is incomplete. Outside, in daily life, you must judge. You choose food, drive safely and weigh people. In meditation, he says, you should not judge the thoughts that rise. Watch them as if you were a third person, he suggests, borrowing an idea he links to Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Money, relationships and the “law of vacuum”

Ram says the same process works for relationships, health and finances. He describes a “law of vacuum”: if your mind is full of revenge, heartbreak and old losses, there is no space for new goals. He compares it to running a marathon with a pebble in your shoe. He says people who made bad money decisions often need to clear those memories before good decisions can come.

Willpower and finding your why

Ram says willpower does not truly exist and tends to break within two weeks to two years. He says the mind wants to avoid pain and move toward pleasure, so a habit survives until the pain of keeping it outweighs the pleasure.

He retells a story he read of a man who smoked for 38 years. He quit overnight and without cravings after his 10-year-old daughter said she wanted him at her wedding. Ram’s point is that a strong emotional reason, an intense why, moves people more than good intentions. He also says some people stay stuck because their misery gives a payoff.

What research says

NLP has been studied for health, but the evidence is thin. A 2012 systematic review in the British Journal of General Practice found 10 experimental studies and concluded there is little evidence that NLP improves health outcomes. The authors said this reflects the limited quantity and quality of research, not proof that it does not work (Sturt et al.).

Ram’s view that childhood shapes adult health has some support. The large ACE study found that more adverse childhood experiences went with higher risks of depression, substance use and several diseases in adulthood (Felitti et al.). That study does not test his technique.

Ideas to try, from the conversation

• Ask what you want to change and why it matters to you emotionally (Ram’s “why”).
• Notice whether a reaction belongs to the present or to an old memory.
• Try the television exercise gently, and stop if it feels too heavy.
• Watch your thoughts without judging them when you meditate.

If the memory is serious, get proper support from a trained professional.

Daisy and Ram cover all of this in the full conversation above. It runs about 77 minutes.