# Mapping Across — Full 4-MAT Presentation Script **Presenter:** Dustin **Total Time:** ~20 minutes (plus ~30 min exercise) **Has Demo:** Yes (as part of Like to Dislike) --- *Last updated: March 21, 2026 at 12:00 PM MT* ## 1. WHY — Motivation (~3-4 min) *Goal: Short motivational opener. Why should the audience care about mapping across? Pull them in emotionally before teaching anything.* --- How many of you have ever known exactly what was wrong -- known the difference between where you are and where you want to be -- and still couldn't change it? I know you're wondering why that happens, aren't you? Think about that. The gap is right there. It is staring you in the face. And yet, nothing shifts. Everyone has experienced that moment of seeing the problem clearly and still feeling stuck. > [STORY PLACEHOLDER: Tell a personal story about a time you clearly saw the difference between two states — maybe a habit you wanted to break, a food you wished you didn't love, a belief that was holding you back — and knowing the difference wasn't enough. You needed something to actually move the pieces. The story should build tension around that gap between "I can see the problem" and "I still can't change it." Use sensory detail. Make the audience feel the frustration of being stuck with full awareness. Then land on the moment something finally shifted — not by willpower, not by thinking harder, but by changing something at a deeper level. Don't name the technique. Just describe the shift.] That is the difference between diagnosis and change. Knowing what is different is only half the battle. And that means the real power is in being able to take what you know and actually rearrange the pieces. Because when you have the ability to move those pieces -- not just see them -- everything changes, doesn't it? Think about what that means for your clients. They come to you stuck. Maybe they love something they wish they did not. Maybe they believe something that is holding them back. Maybe they are compelled toward a behavior they want to stop. As a coach, if all you can do is identify the problem, you are a very expensive mirror. But if you can actually change the coding -- rearrange how the experience is stored inside their neurology -- now you are doing something. One can begin to notice that this is what separates a good practitioner from a truly transformational one. This is the skill that makes submodalities work go from interesting to transformational. Whether you discover this in the teaching or **feel it click** during the exercise, this is the moment where everything you have learned about submodalities becomes real. It is called **mapping across**. And once you understand how to do it, you hold the key to some of the most powerful interventions in NLP. --- ## 2. WHAT — Information (~15 min) *Goal: The main teaching block. What mapping across IS — definition, mechanics, drivers, universals, speed, command tonality, locking it in. Pull heavily from Gina's transcripts.* --- ### What Mapping Across Actually Is So what is mapping across? At its simplest, mapping across is the process of changing the submodalities of one internal representation to match the submodalities of another. That is it. I take picture A and I change its qualities -- its brightness, its location, its size, its sounds, its feelings -- until it matches picture B. > "Mapping across involves changing one set of drivers into another set of drivers, which essentially changes the meaning by changing the internal representation that you're working with." Here is why this matters. We already know from submodalities theory that submodalities are how we encode and give meaning to our internal representations. So if I change the submodalities, I change the meaning. Mapping across is the mechanism by which I actually execute that change. Now, mapping across does not happen in a vacuum. It comes after contrastive analysis. First, I elicit the submodalities of two internal representations -- the one I want to change and the one I want to change it into. Then I compare them and find the differences. Those differences are the potential drivers. And then I take the submodalities of the first one and I map them into the submodalities of the second one. That is the full sequence: elicit, compare, map across. > "So what I'm going to do is I'm going to change the meaning. We're going to change it from something you like into something you don't like. Change the meaning by changing the submodalities." --- ### Drivers: The Differences That Matter Before I can map across effectively, I need to understand what I am actually changing. Not every submodality carries the same weight. The ones that make the real difference are called drivers. > "The things that make the difference in submodalities interventions are drivers and universals. So drivers are gotten out or hinted at by that contrastive analysis." When I do a contrastive analysis and compare two internal representations, anything that is different is potentially a driver. But I do not really know which one is the driver until I make the change. What I do know is this: > "If you change the driver, everything else generally tends to change." That is a critical insight. When I hit the right driver, the other submodalities tend to shift on their own. It is like finding the load-bearing wall -- move that one thing and the whole structure reorganizes. The two most common drivers are location and association versus dissociation. > "The two most common drivers are location and association dissociated." So when I am doing a contrastive analysis, I am paying close attention to where the picture is located and whether the person is looking through their own eyes or seeing themselves in the picture. If those are different between the two representations, I have strong candidates for drivers. In the demo Gina does with the like to dislike, you can see this clearly. The liked food -- the picture is right in front of the person's face, near, bright, vivid. The disliked food -- it is way off to the side, far, dim, faded. The location is different. The size is different. The brightness is different. Six visual differences plus kinesthetic differences. Those are all potential drivers. --- ### Universals: Borrowing Powerful Meaning Now, drivers are what I find through contrastive analysis. But there is another element that makes mapping across incredibly powerful, and that is universals. > "When you work with someone and shifting their experience, we want to shift their experience in a profound way." Universals are generalized experiences that carry enormous meaning for virtually everyone. They come with a very powerful set of submodalities built in. > "If you take a universal that's really powerful and you get the submodalities associated with the meaning of that universal and then you learn how to map across to something else, then it's going to be very, very powerful." What are some examples? The belief that the sun will come up tomorrow. That is a very powerful certainty for people, and the submodalities that go with it reflect that -- big, bright, panoramic, right in front of the person, intensity of ten out of ten. Green lights are another one. Everyone knows what a green light means. Go. The submodalities around a green light carry that "go" energy. > "A green light is a universal experience. Very powerful. I very rarely met somebody who didn't know what a green light meant." On the other side, the belief that is no longer true. If I am forty years old and I say "I am twenty," that statement is profoundly not true. It used to be true and it is completely not true now. The submodalities associated with that carry a very clear meaning of "this is done, this is finished, this is not real." > "The statement 'I am 20' used to be so true for me and it is so not true anymore. So it's a very powerful meaning, a very clear and direct meaning. And the internal representation and the submodalities that go with it is going to reflect that." Here is a practical example of how universals and mapping across work together. Say someone is stuck on a project. I elicit the submodalities of how stuck they feel. Then I say, "When you think of what you do when you're sitting in your car at a green light, do you have a picture?" They do, and that picture carries the meaning of go, go, go. > "Then what you do is you take those submodalities and you map them on to the submodalities of the internal representation of being stuck on the project and what you have is somebody jumping into doing the project." That is universals plus mapping across. I borrow the powerful meaning from one experience and install it into another. --- ### Where Mapping Across Gets Used Mapping across is not a standalone technique. It is the engine inside several NLP interventions. **Like to Dislike** is the simplest application. I take something a person likes but wishes they did not -- say ice cream -- and something similar they genuinely dislike -- say yogurt. I elicit both sets of submodalities, do a contrastive analysis, and then map the submodalities of the liked thing into the submodalities of the disliked thing. > "So how we do that is we're going to take the liked food. We're going to bring back up the picture of how you know you like it. And then we're going to map on the qualities of the thing you don't like." **Belief Change** is a double mapping across. I take the limiting belief and map it into the submodalities of a belief that is no longer true. Then I take the desired belief and map it into the submodalities of a belief that is absolutely true. When I am done, the client has a limiting belief that feels completely not true and a desired belief that feels as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow. > "So basically what we're doing is a double mapping across. We're turning the limiting belief into a belief that's no longer true. And then we're going to turn the desired belief into a belief that's 100% true." **Swish Pattern** uses a form of mapping across. **Changing Values** uses it too. Once I understand the mechanics of taking one set of submodalities and installing them into another internal representation, I can see it everywhere. It is the common thread running through most submodalities work. --- ### Speed: The Non-Negotiable Now let me talk about how to actually execute the mapping across, because the mechanics matter enormously. And the first thing to understand is speed. > "The key when we use submodalities is it's got to be quick because it's very difficult to keep in contact with your internal representation." This applies to the entire submodalities process -- the elicitation, the contrastive analysis, and especially the mapping across itself. If I slow down, the client changes the picture. And if they change the picture, I am now mapping across to something that is no longer the original internal representation. The whole intervention falls apart. > "If you go that slowly, the client's changed the picture about 30 times. So you have to move at a speed that causes them to stay in touch with the picture the entire time. So just slightly faster than what they can process." During the mapping across specifically, I am not having a conversation. I am giving a rapid sequence of commands. "Take the picture, move it from here to here, shrink it down, fade the color, defocus it, change the feeling to disgust, make it intensity ten out of ten." Boom, boom, boom. No pauses, no checking in after each step, no "okay, now when you're ready." In the demo, watch how fast it goes. Gina brings back the picture of the liked food and then immediately starts mapping: > "I want you to fade the color of the picture. I want you to move it from here off screen to the table and shrink it down to like a five by seven. Shrink it down and make it dim. So make it really dim. And then defocus it. And then I want you to take out all the sound. Just take it out completely and then change the feeling into disgust in your mouth. Make it oval, small in your mouth. But make it intensity of 10 out of 10." That is one continuous stream. No waiting. The speed is what keeps the client locked into the internal representation while I rearrange its coding. --- ### Command Tonality: Authority in the Shift The second critical element in execution is tonality. When I am mapping across, I use a command tonality. I am not asking. I am not suggesting. I am directing. > "With mapping across, you have to be a command tonality. You have to be very authoritarian and you have to make sure that they do exactly what you say." This is not the time to be tentative. "Maybe you could try moving the picture?" No. "Move the picture. Now. Shrink it. Make it dim." The client's unconscious mind responds to certainty. If I am hesitant, they are hesitant, and the submodalities do not fully shift. > "When you shift like to dislike, you want to be quick and you want to be authoritative so that you can really make sure that you're changing the right things." Think about it this way. I am literally asking someone to change the coding of their internal experience. That requires trust, and trust comes from confidence. If I sound like I know exactly what I am doing -- because I do -- the client follows the instructions without resistance. --- ### Locking It In After I have mapped all the differences across, there is one more critical step. I lock it in. > "You know that sound Tupperware makes when it seals? Just like that, lock it right in there." This is not optional. The lock-in is what tells the unconscious mind, "This is done. This is the new configuration. Keep it." Without it, the submodalities can drift back. The Tupperware sound is a brilliant auditory anchor -- everyone knows that satisfying snap of a sealed container. It communicates finality. After locking it in, I test. I bring the person back to the original experience and check whether the meaning has actually changed. In the demo, after mapping across and locking it in, the test is simple: "Now do you want to have some of that food right now?" And the person's face tells the whole story -- disgust. The meaning has changed. The submodalities of liking have been replaced with the submodalities of disliking, and the lock holds it there. --- ### The Full Sequence Let me lay out the complete sequence so the whole process is clear. First, I elicit the submodalities of the internal representation I want to change. I ask the right trigger question -- "When you think of how much you like that, do you have a picture?" -- and I go through the checklist quickly. Black and white or color, near or far, brighter dim, location, size, associated or dissociated, focused or defocused, changing or steady, framed or panoramic, movie or still. Any sounds? Any feelings? Location, size, shape, intensity. I write it all down in shorthand. Second, I elicit the submodalities of the target state -- the thing I want the first representation to become. Same process, same speed. Third, I do the contrastive analysis. I compare the two columns and circle every difference. These are my potential drivers. Fourth, I bring back the original picture. "When you think of how much you like that, do you have a picture?" They are back in the first representation. Fifth, I map across. Using command tonality, moving fast, I change every difference. "Fade the color. Move it from here to there. Shrink it. Make it dim. Defocus it. Remove the sounds. Change the feeling. Lock it in." Sixth, I test. "Now how do you feel about that?" If the mapping across worked, the meaning has shifted. > "So let's recap. The key to working with submodalities is speed. That's very important. Finding the drivers, which we hint at with contrastive analysis. And using universals when we're doing mapping across so that when we map across meanings, we map across really powerful meanings." That is mapping across. It is the mechanism that turns submodalities knowledge into actual change. Without it, contrastive analysis is just an interesting comparison. With it, I can change what things mean to people -- and that is where the real power of submodalities lives. --- ## 3. HOW — Exercise (placeholder) *Goal: Brief setup for the demo and exercise. Mapping across has a demo as part of Like to Dislike.* --- Alright, so now you understand what mapping across is, how drivers and universals work, and why speed and command tonality matter. Let me show you what it looks like in action. I am going to demonstrate the full Like to Dislike process with a volunteer. You will see the elicitation, the contrastive analysis, and then the mapping across itself. Pay attention to the speed, the tonality, and how I lock it in at the end. Demo goes here. Now it is your turn. You are going to get into groups of 2. One of you will be the practitioner, one will be the client. The exercise instructions are in your handout -- you will work through the Like to Dislike script. The client picks a food they like but wish they did not, and a similar food they genuinely dislike. You elicit both sets of submodalities, do the contrastive analysis, and then map across. A few reminders as you practice: go fast, use command tonality during the mapping across, and do not forget to lock it in at the end. Test your work -- ask them if they still want that food. Then switch roles. You will have about 30 minutes. Exercise goes here. --- ## 4. WHAT IF — Future Pace (placeholder) *Goal: Self-discovery. Three questions.* --- **1. What questions do you have?** **2. What did you learn?** **3. What do I need to know?** --- **Word Count:** 3,017 words | **Estimated Talk Time:** ~22 minutes (at ~140 words/min medium pace)