NLP Demystified

Finding your purpose and discovering real meaning to your existence is not for everyone. Yet it is a question more and more people who want to live meaningfully and follow their bliss are asking.

In his very famous and moving book ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ Viktor Frankl discussed how he found meaning in life while in a prison camp in World War 2. Finding real meaning and purpose in your life, your relationships and work is really the pathway to bliss. it is not always so easy, it does take work and dedication.

Here is a short message from the Dalai Lama on finding purpose and meaning in your life. Compassion and warm heartedness are key aspects. I also add being true to yourself and acknowledging the most painful and beautiful truths.

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The concept is to balance the internal and external worlds so that neither one dominates so in equal measures a person leads a harmonious and balanced life. Think about this as doing some thinking as well as taking some exercise. Pretty simple right!

It can be …

It is simple, this is Yoga! Yoga IS a spiritual practice. Meditations to exercise the Mind as well as Physical activities to exercise the body.

Remember one of the so called operational Presuppositions of NLP is ‘Mind and Body Are One System’.

The seeming majority of NLP trainings will tend Strongly to works with mental and cognitive Elements of change yet not pay enough attention Towards the physical development aspects of change.

Yet this still is only half the story. This is about much more than learning mental and physical controls and Disciplines. This is about what happens to a persons Psyche as a function of having the ability to run the Brain and Body in unaccustomed and new ways.

Practically all current NLP training tends not to acknowledge let alone develop any aspects of Practitioners honest spiritual exploration and growth.

Clearly this was not always the case. Both Bandler and Grinder were hugely influenced By the work of the Mystic Carlos Castaneda. They Did in my opinion attempt to integrate spiritual Disciplines and practice in the early NLP trainings. Looking at the co-creators now there is to me clearly a very strong bias on the internal worlds from Bandler and a very stron bias from Grinder on the external experiences.

Now like UK schools, many ’spiritual’ concepts have Been forgotten, swept under the carpet or Let go in some attempt to gain credibility, get recognition appease governments, seduce would be practitioners, Create ‘professional’ bodies, tap into management Institutes or educational institutions.

The ongoing and current NLP Evolution, I believe Will see an emphasis on honest spiritual development For NLP Practitioners, and just as much a moving away From the ‘trendy’ tic box, academically accredited Nonsense for NLP Practitioner certification that surely Will do to to real NLP education what the GCSE system and bureaucratic government did to hopes of serious Creativity and independent thinking practice.

NLP, like spiritual practice is not for everyone Yet those who do choose to practice NLP in earnest Will surely benefit from additional spiritual practice Intended to balance the psyche as a result of having The ability to run the Brain and Body in new and unaccustomed ways. NLP Evolution … … …

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What have Anxiety and a delightful future have in common? Well for most people they are both in the future and both have not happened yet.

Anxiety is generally about planning a future that is pretty much crappy and undesired.  Anxiety experts also tend not to have any conscious ending for the unpleasant events they imagine.  This causes some more uncertainty and will tend to promote the anxiety cycle again.  Structurally there is little difference if any between Delight and Anxiety. Clearly the content is evaluated in a kind of either great or terrible way.

NLP is well known for its process orientated approach over content or situational details.  This short video from an NLP Practitioner training in Newcastle upon Tyne illustrates two NLP Operational Presupositions really nicely.

1. People have all the resources they need.

2. Structure ( or process ) is more useful than content and is a higher logical level.

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Our Newcastle upon Tyne and North East NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner training courses both explore Meta Programs in relation to enhanced communications, both at the linguistic and physical levels.

Meta Programs are one way people filter and sort and categorise information.  When we can recognise and detect peoples current Meta Program preferences it is possible to communicate more congruently at deeper and more connecting levels.

Here Harry Knox gives an immediately understandible introduction to the subject in this you tube video.  For the full 15 minute introduction simply subscribe to Communicating Excellence newsletter and access more NLP and Hypnosis resources.

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My good friend and college Kim Bull of Adventurous Minds has uploaded a you-tube video of part of his ‘NLP for Sports excellence’ training about how we as humans process information.

Kim is an excellent NLP Trainer who incorporates fun and relevancy within all the learning and discovery methods he facilitates.

This video describes in very understandable ways the linguistic model concepts of Generalisation, Distortion and Deletion.

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The ability to change perspectives is one of the single most powerful tools there is. And the great news is that each and every one of us has this innate gift. Unfortunately we don’t always choose to use it though as is clearly being demonstrated in Israel and Gaza at the moment.

Children ( and some adults still ) have a wonderful ability to radically shift perspectives from what can appear to be one reality to another.  This ability in children may be because they haven’t yet developed rigid belief structures that prevent change and essentially close down possibilities.

For a moment think about your own thoughts, values and beliefs about the current conflict in Israel and Gaza. Now, if you can, think about it from a Hamas ‘freedom’ fighters perspective, what would you have to believe and value in order to operate this way? Now think about it from say an Israeli soldiers perspective, what would you have to value and believe to be true to act this way? Now come back to being yourself.

OK, now, if you found these two other world views uncomfortable, tricky, wonderful or impossible this is likely because they conflict or disagree with your own beliefs and values.  This is OK, this is not an attempt to begin world piece it is an illustration of beliefs and values in action, at work; yours.

Beliefs if you believe in them are like a glue holding the fabric of your reality together, if you like, the warp and the weft that keep things in place. And for most of the time this works really well.

In a simplistic world view each set of perspectives including your own are perfectly right and valid from the perspective of the individual. You may not agree or condone what is happening from your own perspective and this is about your own beliefs and values.

Loosening and softening limiting beliefs – Gaining new perspectives

The ‘What Do You Want’ question will illuminate some goal or outcome. A great many people that I am work with want to ‘Stop Worrying about xxx’ or ‘Dont want to feel zzz’. This to say the least is a very very reasonable outcome.

In the post H&T Four, you were invited to explore the question ‘What Do You Want’? using the NLP Well Formed Outcome process.

You were also invited to state your goals in a certain way. To state them in terms of not what you don’t want but in terms of what you want. So that is your goals stated in the so called ‘positive’.

Irrespective of how you stated your goals here is a neat process that explores and loosens the underlying beliefs relevant to the goal.  This is a process that will generate different perspectives about your outcome / goal.

For each goal, I invite you to answer  the following questions in the order thy are presented. Of course you will do them in the order you want. My experience is the order does have significance so choose wisely.

pick and write down three goals you want to explore. For each goal answer all of the following questions. Please take the time to really consider all of your answers before moving on to the next question.

1. What will happen if I do achieve this goal?
2. What will happen if I don’t achieve this goal?
3. What won’t happen if I do achieve this goal?
4. What won’t happen if I don’t achieve this goal?

These four ‘Cartesian questions’ especially Q4 tend to open up our own perspectives and encourage views of different yet related possibilities and outcomes.

For all of your goals, well at least the ones you want to work with go ahead and use this reasonably rapid process to generate new perspectives and explore the validity and possible consequences.

The next hint and tip will require you to have used these Cartesian questions and the Well Formed Outcome process on your goals. It will also require that you have refined your list of goals down to only the ones you are really committed to achieving.

I suggest picking just three that are most important to you as having too many goals and doing nothing about them is a potential recipe for procrastination.

The next hint and tip will be about creating and maintaining the right motivation to help you work towards getting what you really want.

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