Has anyone ever asked you as a series of questions like, ‘For what purpose?’ ‘And what does that get for you?’ Well, you have been NLP’d. Neuro Lingusitic Programming, if you don’t already know is a communication model that is cognitive and behavioural which focuses on our five senses (visual, listening, hearing, smell and taste). It is a beneficial tool for eliciting emotional states and imagery; past, present or future and varying the submodalities, that is, the attributes of these pictures in our heads. For example, visually eliciting a sunset that is bright, big and powerful or a cloud that is grey, moving and fluffy. The fact is we see pictures in our heads all the time and give meaning to it by our use of words. This is where NLP gets more interesting when we apply it to problems, negotiations and business. One presupposition (assumption) of NLP is that ‘everyone has their own model of the world’. I guess if everyone in the world respected this assumption, allowing themselves to also appreciate that they do not have to agree with everyone else’s beliefs and values all of the time and could show appreciation for the view points of others at the same time, we just might have a bit more of a peaceful world and happier relationships. And that was just one NLP presupposition of at least 20 or more.
"I went on an NLP Practitioner’s course. For what purpose? To understand human communication better. For what purpose? To understand other peoples’ model of the world. For what purpose? To take responsibility of how I communicate with others more sensitively. For what purpose ..... And what does that get for you? Better concentration on how I respond. And what does that get for you? Rapport. And what does that get for you? A relationship .....dah, dah, dah, dah, dah."
This is by no means all there is to NLP and it is a bit of a digression of how I usually work as a psychodynamic counsellor and they are completely different branches of schools of thought even though they are both rooted in psychology. Meanwhile, 'what did it get for me' going on this NLP training? A much more sensitive awareness of our five senses and an acute awareness of the preferred mode or sense that someone else might communicate in with me, so that I can share their mode of communication to create and build rapport. Ahh Hahh. I could go on here ...
There were lots of other exciting things I got out of the course like how to manage my own negative self talk, the internal ‘auditory’ automatic communication that we all experience. By just using the skills mentioned above, I could ask myself 'and what does that get for me' and meta down into eliminating the root of the negative talk. However the beauty is this exercise could be used in the opposite direction to ‘chunk up’ or ask abstract questions to find out what the highest postive intention is of a thought or behaviour. Interestingly even when there is a bad thought or behaviour there can often be found a positive higher intention. This is where responsibility means changing the behaviour.
It was also useful to learn that we control our own minds which made me think more deeply about behaviours and results and whether we are truly at ‘cause’ in our life for what happens and how we can ‘choose’ to move ourselves away from the negative’ effects’ of events and place ourselves back at cause by the decisions we make [C>E].
It was interesting seeing how Milton Erickson and Gestalt Therapy has an underpinning in this communication model. So now that I am an NLP Practitioner what am I going to do with this fantastic mode of communicating? A good place to start is on myself, which I hope is evident and place my diploma in my hall of fame at home. Joking aside, it’s all in action within me as you read this article. It will certainly get even more exciting and fun as time goes by at work and in personal and business relationships.
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